Study in Perfect Read Free Page B

olives, fruit, herring—a lavish picnic lunch. They meander into a nearby forest, the Nørreskov, and make love one last time. Sparre draws his service revolver, shoots Elvira, and then himself.
    It’s tragic, but not unheard of—even the most transcendent romance can double as a kind of poison, leading us to abandon our senses, families, careers, health, and sometimes, our lives.

    We recognize two types of mushroom washers: those who scrub (with water), those who wipe (with towels). The first care not for the mushroom’s integrity, only that it is clean, absolutely clean. A cotton dishtowel is spread next to the sink, the cold-water tap runs full blast. In her hand the scrubber holds a wooden mushroom brush with soft bristles, but as she plucks the mushrooms one by one from their blue cardboard box, she is not gentle. Every spot, every flake of peat is obliterated, till the mushroom, which absorbs water like a sponge, is exhausted and lies sodden on the towel. Sauté them and diners will be safe, but the mushroom turns soupy, is no longer firm to the bite.
    The second have seen the mushroom videos. A hangar-like cool space, or a cave. Tables layered with humus, stretching far as the eye can see. The “wiper” is less fearful of bacteria, convinced by these documentarylike images. No one has studied the long-term health effects of mushroom washing. Has anyone died, by either method? Suffered nausea or parasites? Holding the mushroom by the stem, she brushes off the soil with a chamois or paper towel, careful to preserve the cap’s virgin condition. A wiper relishes the spring of its flesh againsther knife. The mushroom is composed almost entirely of water, quite a trick, so why swamp its accomplishment?
    In matters of love and dining, we are adventurous. Or not.

    Once there was a naturalist named L. John Trott, who taught eighth grade at a small private school in Virginia. The L stood for “Little,” to distinguish him from his father, John Trott. An unfortunate coincidence, as in fact he stopped growing at only five foot two. His science curriculum consisted of ornithology and botany, with a little textbook chemistry thrown in to please the parents. Students were deeply engaged in bird banding, plant identification, and the natural histories of a dozen species.
    In April one year, he led his class down a woodsy trail, pausing to identify rue anemone, bloodwort, and the demure spring beauty clustered at the base of an oak. “Ah,” he said, “here’s something interesting, destroying angel, or
Amanita phalloides
—from the Latin
phallus
; the immature mushroom is shaped like an erect penis.” (Sudden interest in shoe tips. Relief when he went on.)
    â€œVery dangerous,” he said, pulling a pair of leather gloves from his jacket, stretching them over his hands, waving his circle of fourteen-year-olds back, back, back, before he knelt. Next to the leaves, he laid a finger on each section of the mushroom, beginning with the pileus—”like an umbrella,” he explained, “designed to protect the scissor-blade gills, which in turn protect the spores, microscopic ‘seeds,’ rather like our sperm”—(sideways glances)—”which you’ll never see with the naked eyeunless you make a spore print, but that’s another lesson. Here then is the stipe and, ringing it, a partial veil or annulus. Most significant of all, the volva—consider the female anatomy—a semidetached cup at the base of the stem. By this you’ll know amanita. But be aware, the cup is often buried beneath soil or a rock.”
    Sometime later, he brushed a lash from the crook of his left eye. A wayward spore burned halfway through his cornea before he arrived at the hospital.
    From that point on, Little John was a changed man. His students forever associated mushrooms with cantankerous pirates, thanks to the eye patch he wore.

    Amanita