The End of Men(98)

I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry and then, as I’m walking past the living room to get my coat, I hear Iris’s voice wittering, “There’s a reason that the baby boom happened after the Second World War, you know. When death is staring you in the face, you want something permanent to cling on to for dear life.”

I want to throw a glass at Iris’s head but I can’t and I won’t. There are so many things I can’t and won’t do so instead I just have to button up my coat and leave the house, alone. I walk to the station alone. I wait for a train alone. My nose runs in the cold and huge gulping sobs take over, which my body works its way through, alone. Always alone now, it seems.





LISA


Toronto, Canada

Day 1,700

I’m going to win the Nobel Prize. Of course I am. Everybody says so. It’s the first time the Swedes are awarding them since the whole world went to shit, only in three categories—Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry and Peace—and I’m a shoo-in. Margot keeps looking at me warily as I pace the apartment. Her enthusiasm is restrained. She’s the caution to my recklessness. It works in the long term, in life, in a partnership, but in a moment like this I desperately want her to be jumping up and down, as hyped as I am.

“Maybe, just . . . honey. Please. You’re making me nervous.” She puts down the romance novel she’s reading and stares at me imploringly. It must be bad for her to put down her book. I perch on the edge of the sofa and just as I’ve started to think that maybe they should have called by now, my phone buzzes.

I scoop it up, breathless, on edge, who cares? “Hello?”

“Dr. Michael?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“My name is Ingrid Persson. I am the Chair of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute.” Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. This is the coolest phone call of my entire life.

“I’m thrilled to inform you that we have chosen to award you the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.”

“Thank you! This is an honor, truly.” Margot is hugging me so tightly I can’t breathe. Everything, every bit of work, every second I spent in the lab was worth it for this—”

“I have another piece of news you might find less . . . pleasing.”

My heart drops. What is it? Maybe it’s the money, I don’t care about the money. I don’t need prize money. No ceremony maybe? Damn it, I’ve been dreaming about the ceremony my whole life.

“You will share the prize.” Ingrid says more words at this point, but the world goes a little fuzzy and black around the edges and Margot is looking up at me quizzically and did she just say I have to share the Nobel Prize? I’ve never even shared an office.

“Dr. Michael? Dr. Michael, are you still there?”

I clear my throat. “Yes, sorry about that, I dropped my phone. Whom am I sharing my prize with?”

“Dr. Amaya Sharvani, for her discovery of the genetic sequence from which immunity and vulnerability to the Plague arose in men and women, and Dr. George Kitchen, for his work in creating a test for immunity.”

Okay. Sharing among three isn’t too bad. Could be worse, could be worse. Could be . . . sharing among four. Who am I kidding? I’m horrified, but fuck it. I’m a horrified Nobel Prize winner.

“I look forward to meeting you at the ceremony in two months’ time.”

“Dr. Persson, it is truly an honor. I’m so grateful.”

“I am grateful for your work, Dr. Michael. The Nobel Prize is a small token of recognition for the advances you have made in science.”

She hangs up and Margot is hugging herself, looking at me, stricken. “What is it, what’s happening?”

I pick her up and hold her. “So, bad news is I’m sharing the Nobel Prize. Good news is, it’ll probably take me down a peg or two.”

“Sharing with George Kitchen and Amaya?”

“The very ones.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I always said you should have taken my name.”

“Margot!” She’s right, of course.

“What? It could have been Lisa Bird-Michael, George Kitchen and Amaya Sharvani, winners of the Nobel Prize.”

I groan through a grudging laugh. It rankles that my name will come second. “I love you so much and hate you at the same time.”

“That’s marriage.” She grins. “I’m so proud of you. Truly, all those years of work as a penniless grad student and junior in the lab. Can you imagine how you’d have felt back then if I’d told you that you’d win a Nobel Prize?”

Margot nuzzles her head into my neck in a way I’ve always found to be the most comforting thing in the world. “You know I thought this might happen. Sharing the prize.”

Ah, Margot. Always knowing more than she lets on. “Why?”

“Because,” she says, pulling back and looking me square in the eye, “my maddening, wonderful, arrogant, amazing wife, they deserve it too. They didn’t create a vaccine but they helped you. They made stepping-stones you walked over on the way to the ultimate prize.”

“You know how I always said I didn’t understand your instinct for fairness?” She nods, smiling softly. “Well, I still don’t.” She barks out a laugh and we are happy.