Great tales about doctor.., p.9
Great Tales About Doctors, page 9
“He told me that he would allow mathematicians to read books on mathematics; the physicists books on physics, the chemists books on chemistry. In that way they will all be such specialists that their science won’t conflict with their religion. Why, do you know what he’s done? He has a chain of sixty-two stores. Each storekeeper thinks he owns his own store, but all of them are so much in debt to him that it will take generations to pay him off. Well, he’s taught all these storekeepers to add and subtract and to write about twenty words, like yams, coconuts, pigs, and so forth. He had the nerve to say that all they needed to know was the three R’s and bookkeeping; that frills in education would unsettle their minds. So there goes our school. He took away all my books. He called them foreign ’isms’—‘not for my people,’ he said.”
Dr. Murdock shook his head. “I still don’t get it,” he said. “If he feels that way about us, why doesn’t he kill us and be done with it?”
“Because he needs your Compound A medicine. It wears off in two weeks, you know that. So he has to depend on you to refill his empty think-tank. And he wants you to develop a few more geniuses he can control. He wants me to teach them to read their scientific books and he wants you to set up their laboratories.’ If they ever catch on to how you make Compound A, we’re through. Now do you understand?”
Dr. Murdock thought his wife had never looked so hateful as at this moment.
“I suppose you’ve blabbed your big mouth to Hargo about Compound A,” she said.
The doctor shook his head slowly. “No,” he replied. “He isn’t ready yet.” He nodded his head slowly again. “Look, all isn’t lost. As long as I have Compound A, they need me, as you say, to refill their think-tanks. And Hargo will never learn how I put it together. I’ll see to that. Meanwhile, we’ll figure out a way to get away from here.” He paused. “We must get out of here. The very existence of mankind depends on us. Society is running a race between destruction and the acquisition of intelligence. We’ll figure out a way to escape. We must.”
“Yes, we’ll figure out a way. Well, you do your figuring and I’ll do mine. And you’d better hurry up with your Compound B and get some brains for yourself or we’ll never escape from this damn island.”
Paytone had made one remark that Mrs. Murdock did not relay to her husband. He had said, “You destroyed my faith, my belief in my religion when you gave me your purple medicine and your books. You changed me. Now I hardly know what to believe. I no longer believe that the spirits of my ancestors are watching me to punish or reward. Spirits do not exist. But what is left for me to believe in? Only myself. Yes, I believe in myself, in my own power to get things done. Personal power, that’s all that remains that is worth anything to me. I can’t enjoy anything else—only power. And power is what I’m going to get, more and more and more power.” He had turned on her with ferocity and added, “But don’t touch the faith of my people. Religion is good for them, it’s good for me to have them steeped in tradition. The more firmly they believe, the better it will be for them—and for me.” Somehow Mrs. Murdock sensed that he had given her a hold over him, but how she could use that hold, she did not know. She must think about it. Meanwhile, she felt it best not to mention this to her husband. She knew that somehow she could turn this knowledge to her advantage; just how would have to wait upon future events. But that she would find a way to escape from her prison, she had no doubt. As for Dr. Murdock, well, she thought, let him look out for himself.
She had to wait five months for her opportunity to talk to Paytone at any length. She continued to teach scientific English to the group of eight young men whom Paytone had selected to receive Compound A, but only occasionally did she see him, and then only briefly, when he came for his bimonthly medication or stopped to talk with her about the progress of her students. Aside from her teaching and the little housework required to maintain their home, she had little to do to occupy her time, and she found it hard to control her impatience and frustration.
At last, however, she had her chance. After avoiding her for five months, Paytone called upon her after receiving his teaspoonful of the purple Compound A. As he dropped into a chair on the veranda, she noted with satisfaction that he seemed to be prepared to talk with her at length. It was at this time that she learned why he wanted power and what he intended to do with it.
Paytone began with his customary bluntness. “I need American dollars.”
“Dollars?”
“Dollars. You Americans know what dollars are. It’s all you live for.”
“You Mantus seem to have a fairly acute sense of property.”
“With us it’s different. With us, property has only spiritual significance. We save and invest to please the spirits who want our children to have it better than they did. We do not dissipate wealth in pleasure and display. I’ve read about you Americans, with your thousand-dollar dinners and the like.”
“But you told me you no longer believe in spirits. They’re a myth.”
“I want dollars because I want power. Once I was powerless, defenseless. Now things are different. I have a few scores to settle with those whites who ground me down. But I need more power and that means more dollars. With enough dollars, I’ll get even with a few white people. I owe it to them.”
He went off to tell her how at the age of fourteen he had shipped on an English pearler.
“Pearler?” she interrupted.
“Diving for pearls,” he explained. He described the wormy food, the vermin-infested sleeping quarters, the brutal treatment he had received. “When I jumped ship in Port Moreseby in New Guinea, it was no better,” he went on. “The English are all alike. And in Australia, no better. They think a black man is someone they are entitled to enslave. Look at South Africa. When I read Cry, the Beloved Country, my blood boiled. And I understand you have a black minority in your country. How are they treated?”
Her mind traveled back to the day when her husband refused to make Compound A available to all Negroes and she kept silent.
“So I’ll show them. I’ll even things up. But first, I need dollars. And you are the only one who can help me. You know the ropes, as we sailors say.”
Mrs. Murdock felt that at last her moment had come. She was not disturbed in the least by Paytone’s revengeful purposes; in fact, with an indifferent kind of understanding she felt somewhat in sympathy with his purpose. But his feelings did not particularly interest her. What was exciting her was the prospect of getting money and the opportunity to use it. Suddenly she found herself having difficulty with her breathing. She wiped her forehead with her handkerchief and then she dried her sweating palms. This was it, the moment she had long waited for. She asked herself how much dare she ask. She pulled herself together with effort and tried to control the tremor in her voice.
“How much is there in it for me?” she asked.
“How much do you want?” Paytone countered.
How much dare she ask? She hesitated a moment and then took confidence from the fact that she was in the driver’s seat. He needed her. Drawing a deep breath, she said, “How about thirty per cent?”
“I was planning on offering you ten per cent,” Paytone replied. “This thing I have in mind will run into millions. Ten millions or thirty millions—what difference can it make to you? You white Americans think of nothing but your comfort, pleasure, and ostentation. Ten million dollars will get you more than you can use. You can’t spend it all. You love money for what you can spend on yourself. For my purposes, every penny counts.”
“And another thing,” Mrs. Murdock added. “Safe-conduct to any part of the world where I may choose to go.”
Paytone nodded his head. “Of course,” he agreed. “A oneway ticket to any port you choose. It’s ten per cent, then, up to but not more than ten million dollars?”
Mrs. Murdock put out her hand. “It’s a deal,” she said. “And not a word about this to Dr. Murdock. He doesn’t understand these things.”
Paytone grinned. He understood Mrs. Murdock.
“Now,” she said briskly, “let’s see the books. What have you been up to?”
Paytone told her what he had done to date. “I’ve settled two thousand Mantus in New Guinea,” he said. “There were Melanesians there, primitive peoples, but we displaced them. No violence. We just resettled them on our own islands.”
He chuckled, “Right under the noses of the English and the Dutch. To them, one Melanesian is the same as another. We’re all black trash. But someday they’ll find out otherwise. I’ll show them who’s trash.”
He went on to tell her how he had imported some modern farm equipment which had greatly increased the productivity of his people. They now had more copra for export. “Another thing,” he added. “It isn’t good for people to live in luxury. So we have lowered the age of marriage to twelve for girls and fourteen for young men. When people marry young, they don’t learn so much and they are happier. It’s better so.” He went on, “So our agriculture now supports a larger population. But farming does not bring in enough dollars. Our population grows with modern agricultural methods, but dollars come in too slowly. What can we do?”
Mrs. Murdock thought for a moment. “We must manufacture,” she said. “Look. The Western world uses pearl buttons.
You people are all sailors; you swim like fish. Can’t you get mother-of-pearl?”
“Too slow!” Paytone replied. “We are mining mother-of-pearl and I’ve wanted to build two factories, one in British and one in Dutch New Guinea. But it will be years before these operations pay off in the kind of money I’m thinking about.”
“But all business enterprises have to start on a small scale.”
“Not mine. I don’t think in terms of nickels and dimes.” He looked at her searchingly. “Are you sure you can’t think of anything that will be faster and bigger?”
She shook her head.
“There are fifteen million Negroes in the United States,” he said musingly. “Couldn’t we find something they would buy?”
Light dawned on Mrs. Murdock. It was Compound A that he wanted.
“There’s that purple medicine you take,” she said.
“Yes,” Paytone replied. “That might do. We could mix it with alcohol and export it as wine. At a profit, say, of one dollar a pint, to begin with. Later, we’ll double the price. Fifteen million customers, fifty dollars apiece—yes, four hundred and fifty million dollars a year would be a good start. Do you have the formula?”
Mrs. Murdock never did know where Paytone built the factories in which he made Compound A. All she knew was that the dollars came rolling in, and rolling in fast.
The first pearl-button factory was incorporated in British New Guinea and the second one was incorporated in Dutch New Guinea. Then came a lumber mill which exported fine hardwoods. Then came a shipping company, and the Mantus had a merchant marine.
Concrete, steel, machinery of all kinds were imported for the big dam in the Owen Stanley Mountains. “It won’t be long now,” Paytone informed her, “and we’ll be generating electricity. With electricity, we’ll really be in business. You’ve done your share. Don’t you want to go back to the United States?”
This question had often occurred to Mrs. Murdock. She could go back, but from where she viewed the situation, the prospect did not look good. Compound A had revolutionized the social situation there.
It had turned out just as Dr. Murdock had predicted. One-third of the Congress of the United States was composed of colored men. They were crowding whites out of the professions, arts, sciences, and high places in business. Racial tensions were creating an explosive situation.
She knew that if people found out that she was responsible for the distribution of Compound A to the colored people, her life would not be worth a nickel. Even Dr. Murdock did not know that she had sold his formula. If they returned to the United States, he would be quick to discover the truth and for her, the results would be disastrous. She had burned her bridges and she knew that Paytone knew it.
“I suppose I could go back to America,” she said, “but I’m happy here, working with you.”
The dam was constructed and the electric generators were installed. Cattle ranches, meatpacking plants, tanneries were added to the rapidly expanding economy. All were owned by Paytone and Mrs. Murdock.
They worked well together. Paytone gave his time to supervising and improving management; Mrs. Murdock attended to financing their many enterprises. Her husband she saw hardly at all.
Eight years had passed since they had come to the South Pacific. Three of them had been spent on their obscure island; during the last five they lived in New Guinea.
Dr. Murdock now had a large, well-equipped laboratory, but he still made up his Compound A in his home. Paytone had kept his promise to Mrs. Murdock not to tell the doctor of their agreement, so the doctor never suspected that Pay-tone was exporting his formula.
Nevertheless, events in the United States worried him. “Something is happening back home,” he told his wife. “Someone has made a formula something like mine and is distributing it to the colored people. Otherwise, how do you account for their sudden rise to power?”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Murdock exclaimed. “You inventors are all paranoid. The Negro is just being given a fair chance and of course some of them are coming to the top.”
“I hope you’re right,” Dr. Murdock replied. “If Compound A or anything like it ever got into South Africa, it would blow the lid right off the world. By comparison, earlier revolutions would look like church socials.”
When Mrs. Murdock reported this conversation to Paytone, he grunted. “Compound A will be distributed in South Africa,” he said. “The British will find out that the black man is not to be trifled with.”
Mrs. Murdock said nothing. She was beginning to find that out for herself. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the power and prestige given her through her partnership with Paytone.
Dr. Murdock worked longer and harder to create the formula for Compound B. “I must even things up between the races,” he told Hargo. “Otherwise it’s disaster for all of us.” His face had become thin and lined with anxiety; his nerves were so on edge that he was controlling himself only by strenuous effort.
One day after work he came home and called to his wife. He found her in her sitting room which she had converted into an office.
“I’m moving right along,” he told her. “Hargo has discovered the secret of skin pigmentation.”
Mrs. Murdock was waiting in her study at home for a report from her representative at the United Nations. Now almost entirely Melanesian, the natives of New Guinea had petitioned for an end to British and Dutch colonialism, and it seemed probable that the Melanesians would be given complete control of this large area of the earth’s land surface. It would be the beginning of a larger expansion. There were Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia, to be settled, overrun, and taken over. Dreaming of these possibilities, waiting for news from New York, she hardly heard her husband.
“You mean he’s learned how to make Compound A?” she asked.
“No, don’t you ever listen? He’s discovered the secret of skin pigmentation. It’s a great step forward.”
He went on to explain that skin pigmentation depends upon the deposition of a dark pigment, melanin, in the skin. Why does melanin settle in the skin of Melanesians and other black races but not in the skin of the white race? “It’s due to an hereditary difference in function of the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland of the dark races secretes a chromatophototropic hormone, melaninine. Hargo isolated it. Then he discovered its chemical formula. Together we synthesized it. We make it artificially, in quantity. After twenty-three years of work, we are now on the edge of success.”
“What the hell does all this mean?” Mrs. Murdock asked irritably. “Melaninine! What good is it?” She picked up her telephone and dialed her operator.
The doctor took a corked test tube from his coat pocket. He produced a syringe, filled it from the test tube and, before Mrs. Murdock knew what he was up to, he had injected the solution into her arm. “I’ll show you what it’s good for,” he said.
As the telephone fell from her hand, he shouted, “Now you’ll find out what melaninine is good for. It will turn you black.”
“How dare you stick me with a needle!”
“That’s melaninine,” the doctor shouted. “The pituitary chromatophototropic hormone. You always hated the black race. Now you’re going to find out what it’s like to be black. You’ll turn black.”
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “You’ve gone crazy. Why in hell did you stick me with a needle, you lunatic? Are you trying to poison me?”
“You’ll see. Tomorrow you’ll start turning black. Of course, the pigmentation will fade. Like suntan. But you’ll find out what it’s good for, this great scientific discovery. Perhaps you’ll learn not to ask silly questions.”
Mrs. Murdock replaced the telephone in its cradle and thought quickly. He had said that the pigmentation would fade, like suntan. Then no irreparable harm had been done. And what would Paytone say? She could imagine the expression on his face when he would see her a black woman. Would he despise her as he despised the women of his own race? “Stupid,” he called them. Suddenly an idea occurred to Mrs. Murdock. “Would Compound A work on me?” she asked. “Or (s that another silly question?”
Immediately Dr. Murdock’s manner changed. Without answering, he rushed to the kitchen and brought back a glass containing his purple Compound A. His hand shook as he handed it to her. “This may be it,” he said. “Drink it. If it works, we may have the missing ingredient in Compound B. I still may be in time to save the world from its own stupidity.” She drained the glass. “If it works it will be the first good thing you’ve ever done for me. Even so, I don’t know whether I want to become a black genius. Why can’t you invent something to help white people? Physician, heal thyself.”
Dr. Murdock ignored this last thrust.
“If this works on you, I have the problem solved,” he said. “Don’t you see? It will prove that melaninine contains two fractions—one which causes melanin to be deposited in the skin and another which acts with Compound A to increase intelligence. We can separate these two fractions, add the intelligence factor to Compound A, and the world will be saved. Man will at last have the brains he needs to manage his own society.”
