My umbrella flips inside-out in the violent wind just before I reach the biology building, and in the seconds it takes me to force the spokes back down, my hair is soaked.
I peel off my winter coat as I enter the lab, trailing water drops and angst. I hate these Monday afternoon labs—the three hours are torturous, and it will be absolutely dark by 5:30, when I have to trek home across campus to Place Vanier. I plop down at my workstation and drop my wet coat and umbrella on the floor.
Aiko raises her eyebrows in greeting. She is slender, ebony hair gliding down her back, shampoo-commercial sleek. Her skin glows like melting caramel. I feel washed out beside her with my fair hair and grey eyes. She is intense and meticulous. Slightly intimidating.
John smiles and says hello. I’ve liked him since our first lab when, for a reason I can’t remember, he called himself a banana (“yellow on the outside, white on the inside,” he explained when I said, “Huh?”) without a hint of irony.
There are two tubs on our station, one holding a big brown rat, the other a plucked chicken, its pimpled skin blue. Oh, God, we must be dissecting today. “Yep,” says John, when he sees my face. “We get to cut these up.”
The lab instructor speaks: “Today, we will be dissecting a rat, which has just been euthanized, and a chicken. Every work bench has one of each, and you will work in pairs to dissect them. You will then compare the rat—which is a mammal, as is a human—and the chicken, which is, of course, an avian.”
He has an accent that I haven’t been able to decipher all semester. German? South African? And speaks in precise clipped sentences, like we’re in the army and he’s the captain. I sit up straight and take notes. “Keep in mind that dissecting does not mean to cut up. It means to expose to view. Contrary to popular belief, a scalpel is not the best tool for dissection. Scissors serve better because their sharp point can be turned upwards to prevent damaging organs underneath. Always raise structures to be cut with your forceps so that you can see exactly where the incision should be made. Never cut more than is necessary to expose a part.”
Students are beginning to shift in their seats. Impatient. The lab instructor appears not to notice. No matter how much chatter or yawning or rustling of papers occurs, he is impervious.
“Please, as you work, consider how the rat’s body structure and organs are relatively similar to those of a human. And as for the chicken, notice how its organs are different. Also, please, the rat has not been treated or preserved. There will be blood. Follow the instruction sheets exactly. Don’t make a mess. You may begin.”
Aiko, John and I share a station meant for four, which means extra work when we conduct procedures like this. “OK, how should we do this?” John asks. “Who wants to do the rat, and who wants to cut up the chicken? And who is going to work alone?”
I already feel a little clammy.
“Not cut, dissect!” says Aiko, mimicking the lab instructor’s accent. “I don’t mind working alone.” She looks at me. “And I’ll do the rat,” she says, trying not to smirk.
“OK, well, I guess that means I get the chicken,” says John. I notice that his hands tremble as he puts on his gloves. It makes me feel a bit better. I pick up the instruction sheet so I can guide John on the dissection process, but his eyes are firmly on Aiko. She ties the limbs of the rat to the corners of the tub with string, exposing the front of its body. “It’s still warm,” she says.
I am fascinated by her composure. Maybe she wants to be a doctor. I’ve never asked. I’m taking biology as my required science elective for my BA.
Aiko confidently cuts a straight line down the rat’s belly, and a bit of blood bubbles out, staining the fur. The metallic smell shocks me; I can almost taste it. I breathe through my mouth, deep, slow breaths.
“You OK?” Aiko asks without looking up as she makes another incision across the bottom of the ribs, peels back the flap of skin from the muscle and pins it to the dissecting board.
“Mm-hmm,” I manage.
Aiko deftly lifts the abdominal wall to reveal the digestive organs.
“How are you so good at this?” John asks. He has made no progress with his chicken.
“We did this in grade 12 biology,” Aiko says. “I went to an advanced school.”
“Look, here’s the liver,” she says, pointing at a dark-coloured organ suspended just under the diaphragm. “And these are fatty deposits.” She gently nudges cream-coloured globules with her forceps.
Aiko continues, “Here’s the stomach and the spleen. Rats don’t have a gallbladder.”
The lab instructor comes by. “Very good,” he says, and looks at me, even though I am the only one not holding scissors. “Tell me, what is unusual in a rat’s digestive system as compared to a human or other mammal?”
Aiko begins to answer, but he interrupts, “No, no, I’d like to hear from her.”
“The rat doesn’t have a gallbladder?” I say guiltily. I don’t look at Aiko.
“Correct!” He smiles at me, his pale blue eyes glinting behind his glasses.
He turns to John and frowns. John hurriedly clips away at the chicken’s chest, leaving jagged strips of skin. “Why are you so far behind?” he asks coldly.
“I was watching Aiko,” John replies.
“Well, not a good strategy because you are meant to be comparing the organs, and how can you do that when you haven’t exposed any?”
He turns to me again, “Though it has, unfortunately, not yet been exposed, do you know what organ a bird has that a human does not?”
“A gizzard,” I say. It’s too easy. I remember my dad telling me that chickens don’t have teeth, and food is ground up in their gizzard.
“Well done!” he says, and smiles at me again, brushes his hand, which is missing several fingers, through his thin grey-blond hair and moves away.
“Man, he favours you.” John says, but without rancour. I feel a hot sting of shame. Aiko keeps her narrowed eyes on her rat.
Later, as I plod home in the rain, I think of how a second-year student in my dorm told me the lab instructor’s nickname is The Ghost. “He doesn’t say much, just hovers over you, looking grim as you make mistakes. It sucks that you got him instead of one of the regular TAs. Your lab marks will be low.”
But they haven’t been. I collaborated with friends, as recommended by our biology prof, on a genetics project—a breeding program that produced several generations of mice. We had to determine how traits are passed on via dominant and recessive genes for eye colour, fur colour and pigmentation using Punnett squares. As per the assignment, we applied the laws of segregation and independent assortment and discussed the results.
We handed in identical reports to our three different lab instructors, and I was certain I’d get the lowest mark. Derrick got a 95, my roommate Meg got a 92. I was surprised when I pulled my report out of the envelope and saw a big red 100 percent.
“Huh,” Meg said. “Who knew biology could be so subjective?”
Now I just need to get through the Christmas lab exam, and I’ll be free of science for the rest of my undergrad.
Meg is still in the café when I finally arrive for dinner. “Orange chicken tonight,” she jokes and points at the big pallid breast on her plate. It’s always the same chicken, no matter what description is creatively inscribed on the café menu board.
I head to the salad bar.
***
A couple of years later, I will open a magazine and see a photograph of the lab instructor slamming a door in a photographer’s face. I can tell this is what he is doing because the photo is blurry.
The story, though, is clear. The lab director was a Dutch collaborator during World War II. He was arrested in 1945 immediately after Holland was liberated from the Nazis. But he managed to escape detention, flee Europe and—for almost 40 years—be free.
A year or so after this, I will run into John on Memorial Road. Is he an artsy too? After four months spending every Monday afternoon together, I have no idea.
“Oh, hey, it’s you,” he says. And then, as if we had just seen each other yesterday, “Do you know, that lab tech of ours, the one who taught our bio lab, he was a Nazi!”
I nod.
“So creepy. So bizarre. I always thought his missing fingers were a birth defect. But maybe they were shot off in the war.”
I will think of the photo, the harsh motion of a slamming door captured and turned into one soft, shadowy moment. The Christmas lab exam: the way he hurried over to open the top of the cage with the mice, pointed to the pink-eyed one, wordlessly helping me figure out the trick question, which was worth extra marks. I ended up with a First Class in biology because of him.
“I always thought he favoured you,” says John. I can’t tell if he’s joking. Then he smiles. I’m still not sure.
“I think they’ll deport him, to face a new trial in Holland,” I say.
“I hope so,” he says. “I still can’t wrap my mind around it.”
A bell rings in Buchanan Tower. “Oh, hey, I’ve got to go. It was good to see you,” John says.
For the first time in my life, I will feel my whiteness as a mark. Not a pass or fail. But maybe the most crucial evaluation of all.
I will put up my umbrella. It will have started to rain.
The alumni UBC Short Fiction Contest
“Bio 101” is the winning entry in alumni UBC’s third annual Short Fiction Contest for alumni. The Short Fiction Contest is presented in partnership with UBC’s School of Creative Writing and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.
