The Immortalists(85)

‘Oh!’ said Gertie, holding the screen close to her face. ‘Look at that.’

The video is two years old. Varya has taken to recycling old material during these visits, for Frida looks very different now. She smiles, remembering Frida at this age, but Gertie’s face is darkening. In the three years since her stroke, these moments have become more frequent. Varya knows what will happen before the transformation has finished: a vacancy in the eyes, a slackness of the mouth, as Gertie’s new disorientation asserts itself.

Now she looks from the phone to Varya with accusation. ‘But why do you keep her in a cage?’





30.


‘There are two major theories about how to stop aging,’ Varya says. ‘The first is that you should suppress the reproductive system.’

‘The reproductive system,’ repeats Luke. His head is bowed over a small black notebook, which he brought today in addition to the tape recorder.

Varya nods. She met Luke in the atrium this morning, and now he follows her down the dirt trail to the primate lab. ‘A biologist named Thomas Kirkwood suggested that we sacrifice ourselves in order to pass genes along to our offspring, and that tissues with no role in reproduction – the brain, for example; the heart – endure damage in order to protect the reproductive organs. This has been proven in the lab: there are two cells in worms that give rise to its entire reproductive system, and when you use a laser to destroy them, the worm lives sixty percent longer.’

A pause before she hears Luke’s voice behind her. ‘And the second theory?’

‘The second theory is that you should suppress caloric intake.’ She punches a new key code – Annie changed it last night – into the pad beside the door with the knuckle of her right pointer finger. ‘Which is what I’m doing.’

The light turns green, and Varya opens the door as it beeps. Inside, she nods hello to Clyde and glances at the marmosets – today, all nine of them lie in the same hammock, indistinguishable except for their small metal tags – while using her elbow to press the elevator button for the second floor.

‘And that works how?’ asks Luke.

‘We think it has to do with a gene called DAF-16, which is involved in the molecular signaling pathway initiated by the insulin receptor.’ The door opens, and out walks an animal technician in blue scrubs; Varya and Luke take her place. ‘When you block this pathway in C. elegans, for instance, you can more than double its life span.’

Luke looks at her. ‘In English?’

Rarely does Varya discuss her work with non-scientists. All the more reason to take this interview, said Annie: to bring their work to the Chronicle’s wide audience.

‘I’ll give you an example,’ she says as the elevator door opens. ‘The people of Okinawa have the highest life expectancy in the world. I studied the Okinawan diet in graduate school and what’s clear is that while it’s very nutritious, it’s also very low in calories.’ She turns left, into a long hallway. ‘We eat food to produce energy. But energy production also creates chemicals that harm the body, because they cause cells to become stressed. Now, here’s the interesting part: when you’re on a restricted diet, like the Okinawans, you’re actually causing the system more stress. But this is what allows the body to live longer: it’s continuously dealing with a low level of stress, and this teaches it how to deal with stress in the long-term.’

‘It doesn’t sound very enjoyable.’ Luke wears a pair of technical pants with a zip-up hoodie. A pair of sunglasses is stuck in his hair, held in place by the curls.

Varya fits her key in the office door and pushes it open with her hip. ‘Hedonists don’t tend to live very long.’

‘But they have fun while they’re doing it.’ Luke follows her into the office. Her side is immaculate, while Annie’s is littered with PowerBar wrappers and water bottles and disheveled stacks of academic journals. ‘It sounds like you’re saying we can choose to live. Or we can choose to survive.’

Varya hands him a stack of facility clothing. ‘Protective gear.’

He takes the bundle in his arms and sets his backpack down. The pants are almost too short; Luke’s legs are long and thin, and without warning Varya sees Daniel’s legs, Daniel’s face. She turns away from him to steady herself. For years after his death, she had no episodes at all. But one Monday, four months ago, her coffeemaker broke, so she went to Peet’s and stood in a long line of customers. The music was hideous – a jazzy Christmas compilation, though it was barely Thanksgiving – and something about this and the crowds and the dense, suppressive smell of coffee grinding and the accompanying screech made Varya feel as though she were choking. By the time she reached the cashier, she could see that the employee’s mouth was moving but she could not hear what it said. She stared, watching the mouth as if from one end of a telescope, until it spoke more sharply – ‘Ma’am? Are you all right?’ – and the telescope clattered to the ground.

When she turns around, Luke is already suited up, and he is staring at her.

‘How long have you been working here?’ he asks, which is different than what she thought he would say – Are you all right? – and for this she is grateful.

‘Ten years.’

‘And before that?’