The Virus by Stanley Johnson

earlier. He could smell the stench of closely packed humanity, the halt and the blind populating the streets, the insanitary conditions and, above all else, the fear of disease. The mediaeval towns of Europe were no strangers to the cry “Bring out your dead”. They had been ravaged by the Black Death, and they had been ravaged again by the Plague. Marburg, unlike other cities of similar antiquity, had had a third visitation. Looking at the passers-by in the street — some clearly visitors like himself, but others equally clearly locals — Kaplan wondered how many of them recalled the 1967 incident or realized what a close call it had been.
    Where the road began to skirt the ramparts of the castle, he saw a sign saying Alte Universitet , and realized that he was nearing his destination.
    Professor Franz Schmidtt’s residence was a solid affair, suitably professorial in character, set in a large, leafy garden just outside the edge of the campus. From the stag’s antlers mounted, Bavarian fashion, above the front door to the heavy shutters which guarded the Schmidtt family privacy, the house bore all the marks of bourgeois success. The manicured lawns with their picturesque gnomes, the neatly gravelled drive, the sweeping view over the roofs of the old town to the river meandering in the distance, all testified to Professor Schmidtt’s status.
    In fact, Franz Schmidtt was a heavyweight in more senses than one. When Kaplan first met him, they had been students together at Yale Medical School. Schmidtt, Kaplan recalled, had had a reputation as an athlete and as a dab hand with the sabre. Kaplan doubted that the Professor would be lithe enough to perform such feats now. He had thickened considerably about the waist and his complexion was markedly florid. But there was no mistaking the genuine warmth in his welcome.
    He came out onto the doorstep followed by his wife, a tall, rather beautiful but strained-looking woman with straight grey hair swept back from her forehead.
    “Lowell! Wonderful to see you. Come on in. Such a surprise! I couldn’t believe it when I got your cable.”
    “Franz, Heidi! It’s fantastic to see you both. How marvellous you look! You haven’t changed in years!”
    Kaplan shook the Professor’s hand warmly and gave Frau Schmidtt a kiss on both cheeks before following them inside.
    They sat with drinks in the living-room. Kaplan realized that the Schmidtt family was incomplete.
    “Isn’t Paula joining us?” Lowell asked.
    “So you remember my little Paula?” Schmidtt sounded pleased.
    “How could I forget her? Remember, you brought her with you last time you came to Washington on an N.I.H. Conference. We had a great time. I guess she was around sixteen then.”
    “I guess she was. Well she’s Head of Medical Records at the Clinic now. She takes her work seriously.”
    “But I imagine she has time for some fun?”
    It was Frau Schmidtt’s turn to answer. She looked faintly disapproving.
    “Marburg’s a difficult place to be young in. There are so many . . .” — she searched for the right word — “so many different influences. A girl can be swept this way and that. Remember, Paula grew up during the great radical movement of the late ’sixties. That was when the young people thought they were going to change the world. I’m not sure she’s ever recovered.”
    Heidi Schmidtt had no time to say more. The front door banged shut and a slim, dark-haired girl in her early thirties entered the room somewhat breathlessly.
    “I got held up,” she said in German. Then she noticed Kaplan, and her face lit up with pleasure. She rushed over and threw herself into his arms.
    “Lowell!” she cried, switching to English. “How tremendous to see you!”
    Kaplan blushed. It was a long time since an attractive young girl had given him such a welcome. Fleetingly, he wondered whether Paula’s gesture was not just a little over-exuberant, a little false, but the thought passed almost as soon