The Light that Blinds

Just before where the shore met the sea stood a lighthouse. It stuck out from the cozy port town farther inland, for it was made of crumbling stone, encased by a malicious, rusted fence. Elizabeth King held her skirt at her ankles to ascend the beaten stone path leading to its front door, ducking her head against the wind and the beginning spatterings of a New England rain. Once she reached the entrance, she paused, listening to how the crash of the waves below and the whisper of seagrass mingled with the cry of gulls circling overhead. She wondered if coming here had been a mistake.

The door creaked open to reveal a rotund man nearly an entire head shorter than her, pair of circular spectacles on the edge of his nose and his mustache a fat, furry caterpillar on his upper lip.

“Mr. Beckett? From the law firm?”

“Miss King!” Boisterous and booming, his voice broke the sense of stillness and serenity that seemed to settle around the place- a sense that made you feel as though you needed to mind yourself, to whisper as if in a library or at mass.

“It’s, ah, Dr. King actually,” said the woman, feeling a touch sheepish for saying so. “But please, Lizzie will do fine.”

“Dr. King! But of course! A woman in the sciences, how... charming. I suppose if any one were to find success, it would be Leonard King’s daughter!”

Lizzie swayed on her feet, rubbing her arm, pretending the blow did not sting. To be a woman in academia, having a thick skin was almost as important as having the brains. “I’m not in the sciences. Humanities. I’m a history professor at Oxford.”

“...History. And how did your father feel about that?”

“He... didn’t. Though it matters little now.”

The little man looked up at her, somber now, his mustache drooping. “I am sorry for your loss, my dear. I truly am. I would not claim to know him too well but what I do know is that the world lost a brilliant mind when your father passed. And so close to receiving his award too! The universe is just so cruel sometimes, is it not?”

“I suppose so.”

Mr. Beckett ushered her inside.

The exterior of the lighthouse betrayed an interior fit for royalty. Lizzie stepped into a circular room, bathed in warm light and adorned in rich maroons, golds, browns- contrasting the cool grays of sky, surf, and stone just outside. Wall space not taken up by oil paintings were completely consumed by bookshelves- the books packed so tight that thick tombs practically were spilling off the shelves onto the persian rug. She wandered over to a plush sofa and recliner, a deep groove in the fabric. A bottle of booze- “A man who does not appreciate a good bourbon is not to be trusted, Elizabeth.”- and a book, facedown, rested on the side table. It was as though he had been sitting there but minutes before- hurrying off to his study to capture a flash of genius before it inevitably deserted him. “Inspiration is a fickle bitch, Elizabeth. Best put her in her place when you can.” Lizzie picked up the prone book, ran her fingers over its cracked spine, its dog-eared pages, and then turned it to the cover. Frankenstein. Odd. “Put down those silly story books, Elizabeth. No man ever helped society sitting around indulging himself with fiction.”

“We haven’t touched a thing,” Mr. Beckett said. “Everything is as he left it.” Placing the book back down, Lizzie drifted across the room, letting her hands ghost over the railing of the spiral staircase that winded upward. 

“Father would be the type to buy a lighthouse,” Lizzie said, half to herself, shaking her head. “How ridiculous can you be?”

“May I ask, Miss King, what are your plans for this place?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m not intending to stay any longer than the awards ceremony.”

“Very well,” replied Mr. Beckett. “Do remember to call should you have any questions.” He paused at the door, hand hovering over the knob. “And let me tell you once more dear girl, you have my sincerest condolences.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie said, with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes.

Thoughts and prayers. Sympathies. Condolences. People had offered up all sorts of towards of platitudes toward her but their words might as well have been wind. When she got notice that her father had died, she had been in her office, an entire ocean away, trying to make sense of the babbling nonsense capable of only undergrads trying to reach a word count hours before a deadline. Her teaching assistant lingered in the doorway, crestfallen countenance betraying her purpose. She’d wrung her hands, shuffled her feet, beating so far around the bush it was doubtful they were in Oxford anymore. And then Lizzie heard it:

“We just received a phone call for you, Dr. King. From the States. Your father has died.”

He was working late in his study when the brain aneurysm took him. For all his renown and years of study on the human body, it did him little help. By the time the symptoms arose, it was too late. Once he had missed a staff meeting at the labs, his colleagues went to his home and found him, face down in his notes, long since burnt out cigarette between his fingers, several days dead.

Her teaching assistant looked at her, biting her lip, as if bracing herself to witness her superior fling herself on the floor, wailing. Lizzie let the news sit and settle, much like how someone would sample a fine wine before downing the entire glass. Dead, dead, dead. Father was dead. No tears sprang to her eyes. Her voice remained level and clear. No coldness settled in her gut. She might as well have been told the tube was running behind or they ran out of coffee in the lounge. 

“Sentiment is the killer of advancement, Elizabeth.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” she had said, only catching a glimpse of her teaching assistant’s gaping face before turning back to her grading.

Regardless of her feelings, she was his sole heir. Her mother died when she was little more than an infant- nothing other than a hazy, disembodied figure in her memories. If her father had extended family, he never mentioned them. Despite this, she was still surprised when she got a phone call from Mr. Beckett who said that her father left her nearly two million dollars in combined assets and a lighthouse in New England. It would not have been a stretch for him to pour all the money into the virus molecular structure research he had been conducting, to leave it to the various scholarships established in his name. But if there was one thing about Father, it was that he was a man that defied expectation.

So even though her name was on all the documents, she felt every bit an interloper standing in middle of Father’s study in the uppermost level of the lighthouse. She moved carefully across the room, as if in fear of being discovered and removed, surveying her surroundings. There was a twin sized bed in the corner, sheets rumpled and twisted and probably not changed as often as they should have been. One entire wall was encompassed by a window but the curtains were drawn low, the other walls, like downstairs, composing of bookshelves. She found herself drawn to them, marveling at the various nicknacks placed there- statues, figurines, and even commemorative snow globes.

Picking up a snow globe labeled Sweden, she gave it a shake and watched as glittering snow swirled around the tiny depiction of Stockholm’s Old Town. It was then she realized all of the trinkets were reminiscent in some way of his travels- a bust of Julius Caesar from Italy, beer steins from Germany, a figurine cat holding up a single paw from China. Lizzie never thought him the sentimental, settled type. Moving so often from place to place that he seldom brought more than the bare essentials (pack of cigarettes, three piece wool suit- “Appearances are everything, Elizabeth.”- and his leather bound journal). She would know. She accompanied him on his every voyage until age 14 when he thrust her off to a boarding school in Boston. 

The girls in her school marveled at her travels, believing she lived a life of grandeur and glamour. They wished they had a father as clever and interesting as hers. She’d just smile and nod. Rather, when Father left to go speak at Universities or meet with other scientists to discuss new research methods, she’d usually be left in dingy hotel rooms for hours at a time. She’d lay on the creaking, rock hard beds, doodling on hotel notepads and listening to the warbling of the radio. On the off chance that Father brought her along, she remembered cowering behind his leg, her hand slick in his. She would stare at her shoes as to not meet the leering eyes of foreign, older men dressed in suit and tie, while they attempted to coax a smile, a sentence, anything out of her. Only after they left would Father grab her by the arm and jerk her close, words like daggers. “You are my daughter, Elizabeth. The way you conduct yourself is a reflection of me.”

Lizzie sighed, settling down at the big, mahogany desk in the center of the room. The desk’s surface was so cluttered by papers, charts, tables, journals that it was as though the mess would rise up, take shape, and consume her completely. Amid the documents, a newspaper caught her eye. There on the cover was Father, bright and beaming. Beneath him were the words, “Dr. Leonard King to Receive Albert Einstein World Award of Science for Critical Work in Disease Outbreaks” That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? Eight or twenty eight- it mattered little. One could never properly reflect a man who already shone so brightly on his own. 

Moving the newspaper aside, something fell out from beneath it onto the floor. As Lizzie bent down to pick it up, her breath caught in her throat. 

It was the journal, brown and leather-bound, the pages beginning to crumble and yellow from use. The one that Father always had on his person, the one he regarded as highly as the Bible itself. Ever the historian, her hands trembled in eagerness as she began to leaf through it. 

There were many sides to her father. The man who positively glowed in a lecture hall, working his listeners as if performing on stage. The man who worked late into the hours of the night, surly and stinking of liquor, circles under his eyes like bruises and hair gone wild from his anxious hands.The man, who when she looked up at him at his side, seemed to stretch on for miles- untouchable, unreal. 

From her studies, she determined the thing about primary source documents was that they could not ever truly clarify an issue, never prove someone right or wrong. Perspective colored everything humans did and it was a common theme of history that this could make people see an event in a multitude of ways. It was why some people still called the American Civil War, The War of Northern Aggression. Still, Lizzie would be lying if she wasn’t tremendously curious to see what side of her father revealed himself in his own hand.

A great deal of pages were nothing more than prattles of scientific jargon with the occasional sketch of molecular structures. To Lizzie, she might as well have been reading Ancient Greek. Thumbing further, she paused. 

October 27, 1940

I am to head to South Africa. I hesitate about bringing Elizabeth there. It is no place for a ten year old girl. It is still an uncivilized region, home to an uncivilized people. Mark tried to convince me not to go. He said it will make things more difficult. But I have made a promise to our benefactors. Their support and funding will prove to be invaluable to future projects. Regardless of the nature of this work, I shall do it well. There will be no half measures.

November 1, 1940

I have arrived in South Africa. It is uncomfortably hot. There is a great presence of mosquitoes. Very promising. I shall try and take Elizabeth sightseeing. Her sulking wears on me as much as the heat.

She did not like Africa.

Sweat and dirt clung to her like a second skin, humidity a heavy blanket she could not shrug off. But more so, she could not rid herself of the eyes and the murmurs in an unknown tongue that followed her everywhere she went as she flanked Father, ever his obedient shadow. The locals just did not seem to know what to make of the strange, pale little girl with the hair that fluffed out two times larger than her head.

But one day, while Father and his associates talked with the locals, a boy, probably not far from her own age, approached her. He was small, body all skinny limbs and harsh, wiry angles. But his eyes were kind and when the sun caught them, they looked like the whiskey Father so favored. Along with him, he had a tattered soccer ball. 

“Lesedi,” the boy had said, his accent thick, placing a hand over his heart to indicate himself.

“Lizzie,” she had replied, mimicking the gesture. 

That was the extent of their conversation but he had nudged the ball toward her with a smile, an offering that transcended language or culture. She was never one for sport- “Athletics are for those who lack a civilized mind, Elizabeth, and have no choice but to resort to their brawn.”- but for what seemed like the first time since the plane touched down, a smile graced her face as Lesedi laughed at her wobbly, far reaching passes, glad just to have been noticed.

November 4, 1940

I went to the mines today. They allowed me to go into the tunnels. It was horrible and hot and claustrophobic. I could not imagine doing it for my livelihood. The amount of gold is nearly overwhelming. I understand why my benefactors so desperately seek to attain this land. Once my work is complete, it shall be theirs soon enough.

November 6, 1940

I have seen all I needed to see. I have gathered all the data I needed to gather. Tomorrow, we fly back to America. Elizabeth seems to be relieved. Now the real work begins. No half measures.

November 28, 1940

Development is going well. I believe the disease will thrive once introduced to the target environment. Mark continues to think that this is unethical. I tell him the funding we will get from this project will more than make up for things. If he continues to dissent, I think I have no choice but to let him go. It is a shame- he is an intelligent man with great potential. He must realize- should we not do whatever it takes for the betterment of humanity?

Dr. Mark Fisher was a slender, slip of a man, brown hair always neatly slicked back, gentle eyes set in an intelligent face. He was ever a soft voice and cool head, the counter to Father’s tenacity and fire. All the other men that worked with Father acted as though she did not exist, looked through her like she was another piece of lab equipment. But Mark was different. 

Foremost, he insisted on her calling him by his first name. This went against everything Father ever taught her about conducting herself with his colleagues- it was always “Yes, Doctor” and “Thank you, Doctor”- or better yet not speaking to them at all. As awkward as his name felt tumbling from her lips, there was a thrill of rebellion that shot through her each time she used it. 

But more than that, he got down on one knee to let those kind eyes meet her own. He’d talk to her, ask about her interests, slip her chocolates from his lab coat pocket, buy Christmas and birthday presents. She’d ask him of his own family- didn’t he have a wife, children, that he could be giving presents to? No- he’d reply, with a sad smile and faraway eyes. He had his job. He had her father. They both gave him purpose. That was enough. So when he left, it stung that much more. 

Lizzie had been back from Africa for a few months, grateful to be rid of suffocating humidity and a sun that had rendered her ivory skin red and raw. Those following weeks, Father had seldom left his laboratory- working like a man possessed. With the hours he put in, he could not leave her alone so she was left to sit in the lobby of the lab facility, accompanied by a legal pad, some pens, and peanut butter crackers.

Mark had come up to her with a colorful bag topped off with tissue paper. “For you, Lizzie,” he said.

Lizzie looked up from her work, scribbles of lions and zebras, like the ones Father had promised her, but didn’t get the chance to see. “But it’s not my birthday.” 

Mark sat down next to her. “I know. It’s March 4th. But the thing is… I don’t know if I’ll be around that long.”

Lizzie startled as if struck. “You’re dying?” she yelped.

“No, no,” Mark had replied, laughing. He stopped after a moment and sighed, focusing on his hands fidgeting in his lap. “I’m fine. I just don’t think I’ll be working here for much longer.”

In a way that seemed even worse.

“But you can’t leave! Who else will keep Father from fighting with the money people? Or remind him to eat? Or-”

“Your father is the reason I have to go, Lizzie. I’m sorry. I wish things could be different.”

“You have to talk to him, Mark. Please!”

“I tried. But someone would have better results arguing with a brick wall.” Lizzie slouched in her seat, defeated. Feeling the prick of oncoming tears- “Do not cry where others can see, Elizabeth.”- she dragged her knuckles quickly across her eyes. But not quick enough it seemed.

“Open it,” said Mark, nudging the gift bag toward her. “I think it might make you feel a little better.” 

Poking around in the tissue paper, Lizzie withdrew a book, large and thick, with a plain black cover. Perusing the pages, she was faced with maps, with sketches of places and people and objects. “Where are the data tables?” she asked “The figures? The equations?”

“There aren’t any. This isn’t that kind of book. Look at the title page.” Lizzie did as instructed- The Historians' History of the World. 

“This… isn’t about science.”

“No. It’s about what you like. I took the dust cover off, probably best if your father doesn’t see.” 

When tears rushed to Lizzie’s eyes a second time, she did not move to wipe them away, instead, flinging herself into the elder man’s arms. 

December 11, 1940

It’s happening. You already can hear it in the news. “Mysterious Virus Devastates African Mining Towns.” The symptoms manifest quickly. The afflicted seldom last more than few days after exposure. My benefactors say that I exceeded expectations but they must wait some time before moving in to claim the territory, as to not appear like opportunists. The limitless power of science never fails to awe me. Is it so terrible that I am proud at what I have achieved?

She was probably no more than six when a virus had swept through town. 

When the red bumps appeared, stark against her white skin, to her childish eyes they were beautiful- like spots on an African leopard. But then came the cough, then the fever, and the next thing Lizzie knew, she was shivering beneath three layers of blankets, phasing in and out of consciousness as the days melted together, wishing for something like death, but not yet knowing the words for it.

When most parents are faced with the fallibility of their child, faced with the knowledge there are something things they are powerless to protect them from, they fret and fluster, visceral emotion shaping them into creatures without trace of logic or sense. With Father, it proved to be much of the opposite. For him, disease was something to be conquered, a game of the mind similar to that of chess in which he saw himself emerging as nothing other than the victor. 

And so, with unlimited access to medical equipment, he had transformed Lizzie’s bedroom into small scale medical operation, checking and documenting her vitals, medicine intake, and progress around the clock.

Eventually, the rashes began to fade, her temperature dropped, and all signs pointed towards assured recovery. Triumph achieved, Father was ready to gather his belongings and go back to work. But in a weak voice, body still wracked with fatigue, Lizzie had called out to him, begged him to stay, as he stood in the doorway. 

After a moment of hesitation, he lowered himself in a chair beside her bed and  read to her from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. And so she drifted off to sleep to the warm timbre of his voice, dreaming of distant shores and little birds.

December 15, 1940

"…often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, Whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion." -pg 41

They had sat, as they did every Christmas Eve, at opposite ends of the dining room table, the sparsely adorned hardwood feeling longer than any continent or ocean. Times like this, she wished she had a mother. A living, flesh and blood mother. Not the tight-smiled, empty-eyed woman in the photograph she found in Father’s desk. Someone who would have cared to set up a tree, or string up lights in the window, or at least attempt to fill the slitted silences with good-natured chatter. Someone who would not have to resort to KFC for Christmas dinner. 

“So… Your hair.” said Father, after what seemed like a lifetime of nothing more than soft clinking of silverware on plastic plates. 

Elizabeth poked at her chicken. “What about it?”

“You cut it.”

“Is that an issue?”

“It’s… Just different.”

“Keeps it out of the way.”

“Do women wear their hair like that in England?”

“Some do. Some don’t. But I’m sure you don’t want to talk about my hair, Father. Say what you must.”

“Must you always be so belligerent?”

“Belligerent?” 

“Yes, Elizabeth. Belligerent.”

“And whatever do you mean?” 

“Do not be coy with me. I could have gotten you into any University. You could be published in journals by now. Working on cutting edge research. But instead you rather throw that all away to study the achievements of dead men. To waste your time on the past when you could help create a better future.”

Whenever Father raised his voice, something in Lizzie would always shiver and shift, slinking away like a puppy with its tail between its legs. Still, she managed to school her face into a mask of indifference.

“Must we do this again?” Lizzie sighed. “I only see you twice a year. You’re ruining it.”

“And I don’t want you to ruin your life! I only want what’s best for you.”

A retort came to her tongue, pressing against pursed lips- “What’s best for you. And your fucking legacy.” 

Instead she lowered her head, picking at the bones left on her plate, words unsaid burning in the back of her throat like acid.

February 23, 1941

I have begun to receive payments from my benefactors. If this is just the beginning of what they offer then we will never have to put restrictions on our work. With endless resources, who knows the things we will discover! I am excited and optimistic in what feels like the first time in a long time. But it would be selfish of me to place all this aside for my interests alone. I plan to set aside at least 60% of what I receive for Elizabeth. I hope that she will use it to pursue her education, but women can be stubborn creatures. I haven’t given her the easiest life. Where I have succeeded as a scientist, I have faltered as a father. I only hope in time she will accept this as an apology and make herself a life worth living.

The journal entries ended, easing back into scientific facts and figures. Lizzie placed the book down, stomach lurching and bile threatening to rise in her throat at the thought of the money now under her name, the thought of Lesidi, the skinny little boy with the whisky eyes, and children like him. Had their parents flustered and fretted when they writhed in pain, skin hotter than any African sun? Had their parents sat at their bedsides reading from storybooks- a distraction from assured death?  

She pictured the man in the lecture hall, the man in his study, the man who held her hand and imparted witticisms as if granting her a tremendous gift. But then, when she imagined her father’s face, all she saw was a reaper.

Several days later, Lizzie found herself teetering on high heels a touch too tall, waiting offstage at the awards ceremony. For hours a smile ached on her face, as strangers from all disciplines and countries shook her hand and told her again and again and again what a great man her father was, how dearly he would be missed. All the while, the truth thrashed within her, as if threatening to tear apart her chest just to be free. 

“Unfortunately as we know,” an Indian man began on the stage, “Dr. King recently passed from a brain aneurysm. This is a tremendous loss for our community but the work he has produced lives on and we hope we can do his legacy justice. In the meantime, receiving the award on behalf of her father, please let me introduce Dr. Elizabeth King.”

Respectful applause ushered her outward. Beneath the lights, she felt beads of sweat begin to slide down her back. Staring out at the audience, her gaze was only met by an all encompassing light that left her squinting. The Indian man smiled and pushed the medal into her hands. 

And so Lizzie stepped up to the microphone. 

“If there was one thing about my father, it was that he was a man that defied expectation…”

About the Author

Jess Derr is a senior English major, Gender and Sexuality Studies minor from Willow Grove, PA. When not writing, she enjoys dogs, lifting, and dissecting conceptions of Scottish Highland masculinity