The Extinction of Snow Read online

  “Remember, once a drug is produced the company hold a patent which means they are the only company that can produce that particular product effectively stifling any generic drug being made. The company will do anything in its power to extend patents and with the money to call on large corporate lawyers usually manage very effectively. When the prize is so great it follows that trial results are manufactured and negative results suppressed.”

  I can’t place Joseph in this story. His scale is both smaller and greater, bound to the earth but possessed of vision. He believed in the idea of cure. If there was a wound he was sure it could be healed. He was driven by a simple creed, that his work was useful. And his rewards were big enough. I’m sure that was the case. He never aspired to first-class trips abroad. In many ways his impulses were the same as ours, John’s and mine, to get close to something and peer at it, constructing meanings, making things. Dominique’s world is too large. “Are you suggesting that Joseph manufactured research?” I ask, knowing that she isn’t, but needing to ask because I’m the mother and I don’t want any misunderstanding.

  “No,” she says, looking mildly startled, which is not a look I’ve seen. “No Mrs Tennant.”

  “No,” I say, “I know. I just wanted to be sure. You said ‘us’. You said Joseph came to us. Do you mean that he came to Médecins Sans Frontières? I know Médecins Sans Frontières have campaigned against restrictive patents.”

  “Yes, Médecins Sans Frontières have campaigned against the practices of the big companies. But no, he didn’t come to Médecin Sans Frontières. I am involved in a group called Reclaim. What we say is: reclaim water, air, seeds and genes; reclaim land and shelter, forest and ocean; reclaim health, education and humanity.”

  I gaze at her for a moment or two, this carefully dressed, affluent looking, exquisite woman and try to place her in the midst of those lofty ideals. At first there is a discrepancy between them, but slowly the things cohere. There is nothing in what she has said that I wouldn’t want to stand for myself. I do wonder what it all means in reality though. For myself I have always known that awareness of things never meant particular political activism of any kind. I wear different ribbons throughout the year, awareness of this, that and the other, but it doesn’t mean I do a single thing. “What sort of a group are you?”

  She eats for a while, finishes her sandwich and then wipes her lips. She drinks her tea, again wiping her lips. Perhaps she is not going to answer me. Perhaps she is weary of saying what kind of a group it is. The majority do not belong to anything but majority groups and are cynical about others. Perhaps she is sick of cynicism and detects it in my question. Or perhaps she doesn’t trust me, my understanding and my sympathy. She doesn’t interpret the fact that I am jealous of anyone who can belong. I think belonging is a fine thing, a difficult thing, a wonderful thing.

  Finally she puts down her napkin, having carefully folded it and pressed its edges between her fingers and says: “It is a group of people who come together, primarily on a website, who share similar aspirations and promote those ideas and whenever possible expose abuse. We have people from all over the globe doing just that, saying what is happening on the ground, bringing attention to the largely unreported issues affecting people every single day of their lives, our lives.”

  “And you?” I ask, wondering about her role, what she offers this group.

  She inhales deeply as if fatigued. “I have been on six missions for Médecin Sans Frontières, but I am not as immediately available as I was, so now I arrange for other people to go on missions.” There is a note of impatience and temper in her voice.

  “Why are you not immediately available?”

  “Because I am pregnant.” She immediately falls silent and gazes at me long and hard, harshly perhaps, tired by my inadequate probing.

  “You are a doctor?”

  “No, I am a nurse,” she replies flatly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, then quickly and passionately correct myself, “not because of your news, being pregnant I mean, sorry that I have to wonder about the people Joseph went to. I am finding out about my son. I have been told that he abused drugs.”

  “No,” she cuts in, “certainly not to my knowledge.”

  “I was told he had levels of drugs in his body. And alcohol.”

  “I have seen him drink wine. That is all.”

  “What happened?”

  She shakes her head. The gesture doesn’t convey lack of knowledge, but rather a suggestion that her knowledge is too difficult to say. “I don’t know what happened,” she says, her voice lowering. “The two of them said they intended to go to Pont-de-Roche. Joseph knew someone there who wanted to talk.”

  “Wait, wait. The two of them? Pont-de-Roche?”

  “Joseph and Joanne. Joanne. You don’t know Joanne?” I shake my head. “Joanne is one of Reclaim. I don’t know how they met, but they came together. I have known Joanne to talk to for many years. Joanne is very good. Joanne brought Joseph to my attention. She said he knew a great deal and wanted to tell others. It is a brave thing.”

  “They came together?”

  “Yes, together.”

  “As a couple, as friends, as colleagues?”

  “I said, they were together, a couple.”

  “Did they love each other?”

  She smiles discreetly. “I am not the person to answer that. They had a flat together. I can tell you. You can try and talk to her.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “I haven’t heard from Joanne. I presume she is keeping out of sight. I don’t know whether she is still here or not. I really don’t know.”

  “But you sound worried.”

  “Of course Mrs Tennant, I am very worried. I have to assume but I do not know. I allow myself to be optimistic but I do not know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They say your son abused drugs and I say I have no such knowledge, so someone is lying. Does that clarify my worry?”

  We both stop speaking. Suddenly I am aware of the music. It is mainly at the back of the café, where a large group of young people are gathered, spread around a number of tables. We are sitting to the other side, a table in the window. The street outside flows on in its repetitive way, people and vehicles, everyone making a living in the usual ways. It has never seemed more unreal. Everything seems unreal, and no longer to be trusted. I have been admitted to something that puts everything at risk. I could if I choose reject it all. Dominique knows that, knows the precarious nature of the existence of Reclaim, knows the ways its ideals can be swept away as facile and fantasy. Do I believe, sitting in this pleasant, boisterous café, that the safe comfortable world I occupy is capable of corruption and conspiracy? I would be crazy to think otherwise.

  That admission brings Dominique and me into sharp focus, brings us together in the flesh, away from mirrors and reflections. For a while everything goes still which feels dangerous. A sound, a voice, a piece of music, a shout from the street breaks through and sends my pulse racing. The easiest thing would be to put some money on the table, thank Dominique for her company, and rejoin the life outside. But that is impossible. “And Pont-de-Roche?” I ask.

  “There is a research centre there. The work was transferred from London. Joseph knew someone, someone who was concerned by the research that Joseph had already done and wanted to discuss it. Joseph thought he could get his work back.”

  “What do you mean, get it back?”

  “When he left the company they confiscated all of his data, claimed it was their intellectual property.”

  “But it was his research, Joseph’s. He had done all of the work. How could they confiscate it?”

  “It was done in their laboratories, with their money. They can always claim that the information is sensitive and of use to their competitors. This person also had information that trials had been conducted in the Ivory Coast. Drug trials conducted in the third world – the majority world – are cheap, easily set u
p and, more importantly in this case, have lax regulation. This is what brought Joseph to us initially. He thought it was the trials that would get our interest. Of course he was right. But we care about all of it. Of course, all of it.”

  “And now Joseph is dead.”

  Dominique doesn’t respond. She looks uneasy. She obviously thinks that I am implicating her, her and the organization she is involved with, an organization of people sharing their experiences, exposing the smallness, bigness, grandeur and malaise of this poor suffering planet. Do I mean to implicate her? Of course I do, her and countless others too numerous to list. I blame everyone. I also blame me, and John. We have all failed, fallen short of the mark. I repeat it, to hear it for myself, not merely to create an effect. “And now Joseph is dead.”

  “Yes,” Dominique confirms quietly, “Joseph is dead and I don’t know what has happened to Joanne.”

  “You say they went together.”

  “They said they were going to consult with the Big Pharma.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Pharmaceuticals. The big pharmaceutical. They were going to challenge it. They were going to talk to the person inside, retrieve Joseph’s data and build up their case. When they had the facts they would be able to use the Reclaim website. It might not shake the world, but that depended on the case.”

  “A joke, a pun, like a game.”

  “Yes, I suppose so, if that’s how you would want to call it.”

  “No, it isn’t how I would call it.”

  Dominique purses her lips and shakes her head. It is a mild gesture, yet charged with meaning. She doesn’t minimize my loss. She recognizes it very well and multiplies it with the loss of the case Joseph was building, the wrong he wanted to right. She sees his loss for himself. She recreates someone with meaning and purpose, something the others – I don’t know how else to describe them, enemy seems too dramatic – have tried to annul. I owe Dominique Dufour. She has returned my son to me, albeit a new one, one with terrible imperfections, but nevertheless him. I say the words: “Thank you.” I utter them quietly, but with force. She doesn’t know what to make of my gratitude or what to do with it. She simply shrugs, a throw-away gesture that wonders what good she has done at all. I ask: “Rennstadt, where is it from, who owns it?”

  She smiles: “Rennstadt and companies like Rennstadt don’t have nations, they are altogether bigger, that is why they are so powerful. They can pick up and go wherever they want. They bring billions into the economies of the minority – the developed – world. Who dares challenge that? Who dares put the case that they do not and cannot serve the real need of humanity? It is one of the great tragedies of the modern age.”

  “Can I have the address of where he was living?”

  “Will you go there?”

  “Unless you say I shouldn’t.”

  “I think a grieving mother can go places that others might shy away from.”

  “I intend to go to the village.”

  “I will not tell you not to.”

  “I owe you.”

  “If you find Joanne, please, let me know. It is very easy to be scared but then they will have everything their own way. I would like to be less scared.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Who gave you my name, Mrs Tennant?” she asks, though it is not a question rather an illustration of hidden things.

  “I am grateful to them.”

  “That is something at any rate. I really must return. I am interviewing candidates this afternoon. We have a number of missions that need volunteers.”

  “I’m sure your mission is very good.”

  “The cause?”

  “Yes, the cause.”

  She writes something on a piece of paper, stands, says farewell and wishes me well, once again asking for any news regarding Joanne. I tell her that I will keep in touch. She pushes the paper across the table. As she steps away I pick it up. It is obviously the address I asked for. Shortly after, I see her in the street, hurriedly going on her way, not looking back once. The waitress comes to clear the table. I offer to pay but she tells me that the other lady has already done so. I am so grateful to Dominique Dufour.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The brittle, bright light of the afternoon is gone, replaced by a murky gathering of evening. There is a rush to vacate the city. I feel like an obstacle in their way. I have no direction, no destination, I am just here, caught in stasis. I have no choice but to be buffeted. At least the dry wind has cleaned the pavements. I will not return to the hotel feeling soiled. I am sick of being soiled. I am back in Trinité. How quickly it has become home. How quickly I have come to rely on its familiarity. It is pleasing to look into shop windows knowing that I recognize them. I like particularly the patisserie and chocolate shop on the corner of Rue St Lazare and Rue de la Roche Foucauld, though I do not have a particularly sweet tooth. Its display is so luxurious, indulgent and yet innocent. Or at least, I assume it innocent. But I suppose it wouldn’t take a great deal of digging to reveal that chocolate and sweets are tainted. It is a world of spoiled pleasures.

  I should have paid more mind to the familiar and the pleasurable. I always wanted Joseph to take on, be angry, stand up and be one of those counted. I wanted to be proud, my son the campaigner, the activist. I wanted him to argue and be concerned. I wanted him made in a certain fashion, fit for the challenge. And I never knew it, but he was. He was everything I wished for. Maybe it came late, I don’t know, don’t know anything really. I know I risked his death. I am at fault, guilty. My proxy parenting is disgraced. Why didn’t I see that everything was well? He should have been in a laboratory producing improved washing powders, better whiteners, detergents called snowflakes in a world that was snow white and fairytale. He should never have taken on. He should never have listened to my abysmal schooling. I had something special and wished it away. He deserved parents with proper ambitions, wealth, goods and grandchildren, not some godforsaken idealistic dream. John and I are found wanting, our values, our spirit and our hope. I am a two times murderer fit for nothing. I am a two times murderer fit only for the rack.

  Bill is waiting, eager for news. He has obviously been sitting watching the television with the owner. They have been drinking beer. He is at home, comfortable. For some reason I resent it, but find that a difficult feeling to comprehend. He wants to know what I have discovered. I tell him I have learnt nothing, nothing new, nothing worth knowing. He frowns at me, his expression doubtful and perplexed. But who was the girl, he wants to know. I tell him it was just a friend, not even a friend, an acquaintance, someone my son met on his strange wanderings, during his exile. Bill queries my last word. Whatever do I mean? I shrug and explain that my son was exiled from himself for a while, exiled from those things that he knew best, those things he cared about. He suggests that I seem to be saying that there is less mystery surrounding events than before. I ponder this, but can’t commit either way. I gesture with my hand, implying a scales, balancing. He scowls good-naturedly and questions the fact that I have said I have learnt nothing. I don’t reply.

  I move away from him, heading for the lift, in my mind leaving him to his beer and whatever talk they were having. He calls after me, asking me what time I want to eat. He isn’t asking me whether I want to eat, whether I desire his company, or even anyone’s company, simply what time. He is making an assumption, taking a liberty. My instinct is to say that I am not hungry, but then what will I do all night? I can’t stay in my room, it’s too dreary, too oppressive. Besides, I am hungry. I scarcely ate anything at lunch. I turn, put out my empty hands and tell him to decide. He says he’ll knock at seven and returns to the television. As I enter the lift I can hear his laughter. He sounds like a man pleased with himself, and why not, he has made himself at home.

  Once again we eat in Chartier. It is his choice. He thinks he is pleasing me. In fact he is condemning me. I am a betrayer, a cheat. My crimes are multiplying. I am a liar, a fornicator, an adulteress, a
two times murderer. There is no hope for me. This was our restaurant, John’s and mine, and I am destroying its memory. I will never be able to expunge Bill from it. I have failed entirely to preserve it. It is now just a place to eat. If I carry on like this I will flatten the known world, wipe away its landmarks. Part of me hates Bill. It grows with each passing moment, each word of concern and each offer of help. He is growing vulgar and lumpy in front of my very eyes. But it isn’t his fault. He is not at fault. I am looking to make him the scapegoat for my wrong-doing. He is just being himself. I really do find his messages of concern and desire to help increasingly burdensome, though. I don’t know where that stems from. I think I am maybe beyond help. There is something so obviously self-pitying in that thought that I refuse it. All I know is that I have made dinner a trial. I have crushed my own appetite and once again only manage to nibble at my food.

  “You’re not yourself tonight,” he says, watching me lay down my fork and knife with a weary sigh.

  “I’m just not hungry.”

  “Is that because of what you heard today?”

  “I told you I didn’t hear anything today.”

  “I don’t actually believe you.”

  I glare at him, suddenly infuriated: “And what gives you the right to think anything of it.”

  “Because I care,” he says, unabashed. “I find I care about you a lot. I also find that you seem more troubled with each passing day and that bothers me because at the same time I’m with you and I’d like the opportunity to help.”

  I look at him coldly, which seems something I can’t control, and without undue force say: “But I don’t want any help.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you shutting me out like this?”

  “Because I can’t cope with it.” I am tempted to add that I don’t feel I deserve any help, but that would open the demand for even more explanation. I just know that I have to confront this alone.