The Virus by Stanley Johnson Page A

as it occurred.
    “What are you doing here?” Paula asked, disentangling herself from Kaplan’s arms.
    “Didn’t your father tell you?”
    Franz Schmidtt interrupted. “I didn’t see her this morning. Paula was in Berlin for the week-end and she went straight to work when she got back.”
    “In Berlin? What were you doing there?” Kaplan asked with interest.
    “Oh, just staying with friends,” the girl replied vaguely.
    She sat down and had a drink with them. Later, when she had left for a “meeting” in the town, Kaplan said: “I hope I’ll have a chance to talk to Paula properly. I have always thought there’s a lot to her.”
    “There certainly is.” Frau Schmidtt spoke with feeling, indicating that she had tangled with her strong-willed daughter more than once in the past and had come off second-best.
    She went off to prepare the supper.
    Over the meal, Kaplan came to the point. “Franz, you were here throughout the late ’sixties, weren’t you? I’m right in thinking that you came straight back to Marburg after Yale?”
    “Yeah.” Franz dug deep into the large pile of boiled potatoes which took up half his plate.
    “And you were at the University Clinic, weren’t you?”
    “Sure, all the time. I’d just begun in toxicology. I was working out the first protocols for the animal-testing of new drugs. Bonn took it over later, and now they’ve written it into the rules. Why do you ask?”
    Kaplan looked at his hosts, two earnest, kindly Germans, the one a respected pillar of his profession, the other his house-proud wife.
    “Franz, Heidi,” he said. “Not long ago, I was desperately ill. In fact, I almost died. If I am here today, it’s thanks to the grace of God together with a little bit of the devil’s own luck.”
    “But what happened to you?” There was real concern in Franz Schmidtt’s voice.
    “Yes, tell us,” echoed Heidi. “This is bad news. Are you still ill?”
    “No, I’m fully recovered. But it was a close thing.”
    Kaplan began at the beginning with Diane Verusio’s death in New York, followed rapidly by Reuben’s sickness and the other fatalities. He described the symptoms in some detail.
    Professor Schmidtt and his wife listened to him with obvious fascination.
    “And did you discover the cause?” the Professor asked when Kaplan stopped speaking. “Do you think it was an outbreak of Lassa fever in New York? Some of the symptoms seem similar.”
    Kaplan lowered his voice. “No, it wasn’t Lassa. It wasn’t Embola. We’re sure of that. We ran an E.M. on serum and tissue culture from the first case and from all subsequent cases. They all pointed to the same thing. An outbreak of . . .” he paused “. . . Marburg virus. We kept it as quiet as possible. We didn’t want to start a panic. But it was Marburg all right.”
    He watched his old friends closely as he spoke and was quick to catch the cautionary look which Heidi flashed her husband. Franz, who was about to speak, pulled himself up. After an awkward pause, he said in a deadpan, give-nothing-away voice:
    “Marburg virus? I’m not sure what you mean, Lowell. This Marburg? Marburg on the Lahn? We have no virus here.”
    His wife pushed her chair back in such haste that it almost fell over. “Coffee, gentlemen,” she interrupted. “I think we’ll take it into the sitting-room.”
    For the time being, Kaplan decided not to press the point. Somehow, he would get Schmidtt on his own later. He followed his hosts into the hot, overfurnished sitting-room, where they sat together over coffee and liqueurs. Their talk was strained. An awkwardness had descended on them, as though the mere mention of the Marburg disease could itself create a blight on the surroundings. At last, Franz Schmidtt suggested that they might take a walk round the old town.
    “The Schloss looks superb when it’s floodlit, and there’s nothing like a walk to clear the head. It’s too hot in here anyway.” He laughed heartily and