Photograph 51 Read online

  GOSLING: And now they’ve moved me along to you. The conveyer belt chugs along. But doctoral students are good people to work with. We’re like liquids—we take the shape of the vessel into which we’re poured.

  ROSALIND: What do you mean by that?

  GOSLING: That you don’t have to worry about a thing: my allegiance will be to you. You’re my advisor now.

  ROSALIND: (Taken aback.) Well, good. I would have expected as much.

  GOSLING: Wilkins is fine. Between you and me he’s a bit of a stiff, but I’m sure you two will get along. He’s easy enough to get along with. And he works hard. You know, no wife to go home to, no children. He devotes himself completely.

  ROSALIND: So do I.

  GOSLING: What does Mr. Franklin have to say about that?

  ROSALIND: There is no Mr. Franklin. Unless, of course, you’re referring to my father.

  (Beat.)

  GOSLING: No. I wasn’t. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to offend. I didn’t mean to—

  (WILKINS enters.)

  ROSALIND: And how was your lunch, Dr. Wilkins?

  WILKINS: Just fine. Thank you for asking.

  ROSALIND: I’m glad that on my first day here you didn’t take a break from your daily routine to accompany me somewhere I was permitted to dine.

  WILKINS: Miss Franklin…Let me be clear about something: I was looking forward to your arrival here.

  GOSLING: He truly was.

  WILKINS: That’s enough, Gosling.

  GOSLING: But you talked about it all the time—how her chemistry and your theory would be a perfect marriage of—

  ROSALIND: My chemistry and your theory? Are you suggesting I don’t have theory, Dr. Wilkins?

  WILKINS: Of course not.

  ROSALIND: Good.

  GOSLING: He was just fantasizing about a life free of all the menial tasks associated with biochemistry—

  WILKINS: Gosling!

  ROSALIND: Menial?

  WILKINS: No! And all I wanted to say was that I don’t like that things have got off to a…rocky start. I’d like to begin again.

  (Beat.)

  ROSALIND: All right.

  WILKINS: All right?

  (WILKINS puts out his hand to shake, and she does grudgingly.)

  ROSALIND: I’m Dr. Rosalind Franklin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

  WILKINS: It’s a pleasure to meet you too.

  ROSALIND: I’ve heard so much about you.

  WILKINS: And I you.

  GOSLING: Hi—I’m Ray Gosling. I’ll be your doctoral student.

  WILKINS: Unnecessary, Gosling.

  ROSALIND: Yes, Gosling, we’ve already met.

  WILKINS: May I ask you, Miss Franklin, what you’re most looking forward to here at King’s?

  ROSALIND: I think, Dr. Wilkins, I’m looking forward to dispensing with these games at which point I can begin taking photographs of crystals of DNA. It wasn’t what I came here to do but if we want to discover the secret of life as you put it, I’ll do it with the cameras I choose from what’s here and the sample from the Signer stock. You can use whatever’s left and come reintroduce yourself to me whenever you’d like.

  (ROSALIND exits.)

  WILKINS: I see.

  CASPAR: Did it really happen that way? Were you quite so…

  WILKINS: I wasn’t anything. I was perfectly fine…

  (To GOSLING.)

  A bit of a stiff perhaps, but otherwise…

  GOSLING: Oh did you hear that bit?

  WILKINS: Yes, I heard “that bit.”

  CRICK: Well, I don’t think you’re at all…You’re not at all… well, all right you can be quite stiff, if you don’t mind my saying.

  WILKINS: (Sarcastic.) Why ever would I mind?

  (ROSALIND enters.)

  ROSALIND: Good morning, Dr. Wilkins.

  WILKINS: Good morning, Miss Franklin.

  ROSALIND: Did you have a nice weekend?

  WILKINS: It was fine, I suppose.

  (Beat.)

  How was yours?

  ROSALIND: Fine.

  WILKINS: Did you do anything interesting?

  ROSALIND: I went to a matinee of The Winter’s Tale at the Phoenix. Peter Brook directed it.

  WILKINS: That’s funny.

  ROSALIND: Why is that funny?

  WILKINS: I almost went to see the very same performance. I was in the vicinity, walking, and I passed the Phoenix and I very nearly went in.

  ROSALIND: It was sold out?

  WILKINS: No. I never got that far.

  ROSALIND: Then where’s the coincidence?

  WILKINS: It’s just that…our paths so nearly crossed.

  (Beat.)

  Was it any good?

  ROSALIND: Oh yes. Very.

  WILKINS: The great difference, you know, between The Winter’s Tale and the story on which it’s based—Pandosto—is that in Shakespeare’s version the heroine survives.

  ROSALIND: John Gielgud played Leontes. He really was very good. Very lifelike. Very good. When Hermione died, even though it was his fault, I felt for him. I truly did.

  WILKINS: And who played Hermione?

  ROSALIND: I don’t remember. She didn’t stand out, I suppose.

  WILKINS: My favorite part, you know, is Antigonus’s dream.

  ROSALIND: Why?

  WILKINS: Because even though Hermione tells him to name her child Perdita, which of course means ‘lost’, she is instructing him to save her. To find her. Naming her lets her live.

  (Beat.)

  Come, poor babe:

  I have heard, but not believed—

  ROSALIND: The spirits o’ the dead

  May walk again.

  WILKINS: Did they do that bit well?

  ROSALIND: Yes.

  WILKINS: It can really take you away with it, don’t you think? When it’s done well. Make you forget yourself a little. Your regrets.

  (Beat.)

  ROSALIND: (Quietly, acceding.) Yes. I suppose it can.

  WILKINS: (Finding his footing again.) My grandfather committed a great number of Shakespeare’s plays to memory.

  ROSALIND: As did my father!

  WILKINS: Really, in their entirety?

  ROSALIND: Well, the good ones.

  WILKINS: It’s so damned impressive. I’ve always wished I could do the same.

  ROSALIND: Then why don’t you do it?

  WILKINS: (With levity.) Oh I don’t know. Laziness?

  ROSALIND: Laziness?

  WILKINS: Haven’t you heard of it?

  ROSALIND: I don’t believe in it.

  WILKINS: (Realizing this is true.)…No. I suppose not.

  (Beat.)

  ROSALIND: I’ll leave you to it then.

  WILKINS: But what are you planning to work on this morning?

  ROSALIND: I’ll be trying to get an image of DNA that isn’t destroyed by the lack of humidity in the camera.

  WILKINS: Hm. I suppose we need to fix that problem, don’t we.

  ROSALIND: (Taking umbrage.) Yes. I suppose we do.

  (Lights shift.)

  CASPAR: Dear Dr. Franklin.

  GOSLING: Don Caspar was a doctoral student in biophysics at Yale. Unlike me, he was actually pretty close to getting his PhD. Not that I was so far off. Or, okay…I was. I don’t know why it took me so incredibly long. My mother has her theories but we won’t get into those.

  CASPAR: My advisor, Simon Dewhurst, recommended I contact you since I’m considering doing the final stage of my doctoral research on the chemical makeup of coal molecules. You are, according to him, the world’s expert on the subject. I gather you combine a theoretical and applied approach and this is precisely what I am hoping to do. So, I would be delighted…no…grateful if you would send me some of your scholarship on coal. X-ray images and published articles would be most appreciated.

  ROSALIND: Dear Mr. Caspar: Thank you for your letter. Published articles are published and therefore you can access them just as well as I can. It might be possible, however,
to send X-ray images so long as you assure me you know how to read them. I would prefer to avoid misinterpretations of my work cropping up all over New Haven. I should like to maintain the reputation your Dr. Dewhurst so kindly attributes to me.

  CASPAR: Dear Dr. Franklin, I never received the images in the mail, even though I assured you I understood how to read them. Could you please re-send? It’s been over a month and I’m anxious to finalize this section of my dissertation.

  (Beat.)

  Dear Dr. Franklin, I’m so sorry to write again, but I still haven’t received the images. I’m afraid I’ve become a pest. Please forgive me. It would kill me to think you might think badly of me, as I’m such an admirer of your work.

  ROSALIND: Dear Mr. Caspar, I trust you have now received the images?

  CASPAR: Dear Dr. Franklin, I have indeed received the images. And I can’t thank you enough. They’ve opened up for me…I mean, you’ve opened up for me a whole new… What I mean is, I’ve never seen anything like them. I could stare at them for hours and they still wouldn’t reveal all of their secrets. Not that that means I can’t read them. I can read them. I just mean that they’re beautiful—these shapes within shapes, shapes overlapping, shapes that mean more than what they seem at first glance but are also beautiful simply for what they are. I think one sees something new each time one looks at truly beautiful things.

  ROSALIND: Thank you, Mr. Caspar. I’m pleased you received the images.

  WILKINS: (Unimpressed.) One sees something new each time one looks at truly beautiful things?

  CASPAR: Yes. I think so. And so did she.

  GOSLING: (To the audience.) Sometimes she would get away from the lab. I’d arrive in the morning and no one would be there—

  WILKINS: (Hurt/indignant at being overlooked.) Well, I was there.

  GOSLING: And then the telephone would ring.

  ROSALIND: (On the telephone with GOSLING.) I’m in Switzerland. Switzerland I said.

  GOSLING: What? I can’t hear you.

  ROSALIND: I told you I was going hiking this week-end. I’m just going to stay an extra day.

  GOSLING: Fine.

  ROSALIND: Can you hear me?

  GOSLING: She would just disappear sometimes. One day here and then gone—

  WILKINS: Like a restless ghost.

  ROSALIND: It’s beautiful here, Gosling. You should have smelled the air at the summit; it was—

  GOSLING: You have to speak up. I just can’t—

  ROSALIND: My head feels clear for the first time in ages and I’ve been doing some really wonderful thinking. I believe I’ve worked out how to fix the camera. And the Alps seem larger and yet somehow less overwhelming than they have in the past, as though their vastness was made for me, as though the more of something there is to climb, the further I’ll get to go. It seems so obvious now. The mountains mean more than what they seem at first glance but are also beautiful simply for what they are…You know, I think one sees something new each time one looks at truly beautiful things.

  GOSLING: Miss Franklin? Rosalind? Are you there?

  WATSON: (Unimpressed.) But she wasn’t there, was she. She was too busy snow-shoeing and…enjoying things like…nature and small woodland creatures.

  CRICK: I mean, didn’t she feel that something was at her back, a force greater than she was…

  WATSON: You mean us?

  CRICK: No. I mean fate.

  WATSON: What’s the difference?

  WILKINS: And then she’d come back.

  ROSALIND: Gosling, more to the left. I said the left.

  GOSLING: I am moving it to the left.

  ROSALIND: More, you have to move it more. We’re simply not aligned.

  (ROSALIND moves into a beam of light.)

  GOSLING: Don’t step there, Miss Franklin, please!

  ROSALIND: Dammit.

  GOSLING: You can’t move through the beam like that.

  ROSALIND: If I have to do everything myself, I will. I mean, don’t you understand I will literally go mad if we don’t get a better image soon. So let’s get it done, Gosling. It’s as simple as that.

  GOSLING: (Quietly.) It doesn’t have to be.

  ROSALIND: What was that?

  GOSLING: I said I’m here to help you. I just don’t want to…

  ROSALIND: What, Gosling? Don’t want to what?

  GOSLING: (To the audience.) I was going to say “endanger myself” but I didn’t. I could have said, “put myself in harm’s way,” could have said that even though we didn’t know it for sure yet, I could feel the way that beam cut through my flesh. Instead I said:

  Yesterday’s photographs were better, the best yet—did you see them?

  ROSALIND: Of course I did.

  GOSLING: There was a little crowd around them this morning, marveling at them, at the detail you captured.

  ROSALIND: (Feigning disinterest.) Was there?

  GOSLING: Absolutely. They were enthralled.

  (Beat.)

  It’s quite gratifying, really. You should feel…

  ROSALIND: But they need to be so much clearer, Gosling…If we’re ever to find the structure.

  GOSLING: I know.

  ROSALIND: It’s going to get to the heart of everything, Ray.

  GOSLING: But you still need to sleep, occasionally. Don’t you? Or don’t you need any?

  ROSALIND: We can call it a night, if you like.

  GOSLING: You mean, why don’t I call it a night?

  ROSALIND: (Smiling to herself.) They were really enthralled, were they?

  GOSLING: Like chickens clucking around a new bit of food.

  ROSALIND: Go home, Ray.

  GOSLING: So long as you promise not to…

  ROSALIND: What?

  GOSLING: (Not brave enough to say what he wants to say.)…Stay too late.

  ROSALIND: I promise.

  GOSLING: You’re lying.

  ROSALIND: Yes.

  CASPAR: (To GOSLING.) Did she really do that?

  GOSLING: All the time.

  CASPAR: And you didn’t…

  GOSLING: I couldn’t…It was like speaking bad French to a French person who insists then on speaking in English just to show you you’re not good enough to speak to her in her own language, that she can walk all over you in any language, anywhere.

  CASPAR: She did know a lot of languages.

  GOSLING: That’s not what I meant—

  CASPAR: I know.

  WILKINS: (Interrupting.) Then there was the conference in Naples, spring 1951. And it was typical enough. Everyone pretended to be terribly interested in everyone else’s work. My lecture was on the last day and the room was nearly empty. I showed a few slides, explained why we felt DNA was worth studying as opposed to protein, and then packed up my things. I was about to leave but then a young man with really very odd hair blocked my path.

  WATSON: I’m Dr. Watson.

  WILKINS: Hello, Watson. Can I help you?

  WATSON: It’s Dr. Watson, but no matter…The thing is, I was fascinated by your presentation.

  WILKINS: Well good, thank you.

  WATSON: It makes me think—more than ever—that the gene’s the thing. I mean, we have to get to the bottom of it—discover how it replicates itself. And so we need its structure. Your slides convinced me that this can and should be done. That the shape is regular enough that it can be studied.

  WILKINS: Yes. I believe it is.

  WATSON: It’s just incredibly exciting.

  WILKINS: What is?

  WATSON: To be born at the right time. There’s an element of fate to it, don’t you think? And I don’t believe in fate.

  WILKINS: You said your name is?

  WATSON: Watson. And I was wondering if maybe I could work with you on nucleic acid? At King’s? I don’t mean to be presumptuous…

  WILKINS: That is a bit…presumptuous. Have we even met before?

  WATSON: I’m 22. I already have my doctorate. From Indiana University. I’m currently doing research in Copenhagen
on the biochemistry of virus reproduction.

  WILKINS: And?

  WATSON: What I’m trying to say is: the photographs from your lab are brilliant. I’d like to learn crystallography.

  WILKINS: I’m not even positive that I know what we’re talking about.

  WATSON: (Matter-of-factly.) When I was five, my father told me religion was the enemy of progress, a tool used by the rich to give purpose to the lives of the poor.

  WILKINS: A rather bold assertion to make to a five year old.

  WATSON: He said the worst thing is that it eradicates curiosity, because it solves everything. So in my house there was no God. Which meant I needed to go looking for my own set of instructions for life.

  WILKINS: (Not sure where this is going.) Okay…

  WATSON: Which I happened to find in birds.

  WILKINS: In birds, did you say?

  WATSON: My father would take me bird watching. In time, I learned to distinguish two different birds by the tiniest detail. I saw how the males would court the females, singing the most elaborate songs. Sometimes the female joins in and it’s a duet. Sometimes he sings only for her.

  WILKINS: I’m sorry, but I don’t really see the relevance of—

  WATSON: (A little annoyed.) I saw that the natural world is full of secrets—and no one, least of all me, likes knowing there’s a secret without knowing what it is. So I decided I would crack them. Work them all out. The secrets, Maurice—I can call you Maurice, can’t I?

  WILKINS: Well, no—

  WATSON: And the biggest one out there now? The biggest secret? The gene, of course. It’s all I can think of. All I see. And I want in on it.

  WILKINS: You do, do you.

  WATSON: I’ve gotta get in the race, Wilkins.

  WILKINS: What race are you referring to, Watson?

  WATSON: For the structure of DNA, obviously.

  WILKINS: There is no race.

  WATSON: Linus Pauling’s on it, out at Caltech.

  WILKINS: Well, he doesn’t have the sample I have. Or the photographs.

  WATSON: Or the photographer.

  WILKINS: That’s right.

  (WILKINS shuts his briefcase and walks away.)

  WATSON: Was it the biggest mistake of his life?

  (Beat, then with glee.)

  Without question.

  WILKINS: People assume I must feel it was—not taking him on, and becoming partners. After all, maybe the two of us would have…Maybe later my name would have…rolled off the tongue. Been the answer to questions in the occasional pub quiz. I don’t know. What happened happened: