The Universe versus Alex Woods

by Extence, Gavin

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘It said on the news that they’ve been in touch with the Swiss authorities.’

  ‘Who have? The police?’

  ‘The police, the Home Office – whoever it is who deals with this kind of shit.’

  I thought about this for a few moments. ‘I don’t think they can do anything while I’m here. Under Swiss law, what we’re doing is perfectly legal. That’s the point.’

  ‘You’re seventeen. That’s the point the police are making. They’re saying it’s a special case and the Swiss authorities should intervene.’

  ‘The Swiss aren’t big on intervention,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Oh, stop being so fucking cool about this! There might be people looking for you – you need to understand that.’

  ‘I do understand that. But I only have to make it through the next twenty-four hours. After that—’

  ‘Stop!’ Ellie interjected. ‘I don’t want to know. I really don’t want to know. Just be careful: that’s all I’m asking.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  Ellie let fly a final expletive and hung up.

  I turned the television on to BBC News. I only had to wait about ten minutes before my photo flashed up. It was not a good photo. I turned off the TV and sat on the bed for five minutes, focussing on my breathing.

  I reasoned that there was little I could do about this new turn of events. To my knowledge, Mr Peterson hadn’t once switched on his television since we’d arrived in Switzerland. He’d be quite oblivious to what was going on back home, and I knew I had to keep it that way. The unknown quantity was Herr Schäfer. I had no idea if he had any ‘protocols’ covering this kind of situation. My guess was that he did not.

  It took us about fifteen minutes to reach the address, which was in the quiet eastern suburbs at the far end of District Twelve. Herr Schäfer’s residence was modest and functional – another of those blocky, low-roofed, no-nonsense houses that the Swiss seemed to like. A security light illuminated a small patch of plain lawn, so well trimmed it might have been Astroturf, and inside everything was similarly tidy and low maintenance.

  Although I was observing him with a hidden hyper-vigilance, upon our arrival, Herr Schäfer gave no indication that anything was amiss. He had the same demeanour as before – a strange mixture of seriousness and nonchalance that at times made his utterances sound like those of a deadpan comedian. It wasn’t that he lacked the appropriate gravitas for a man in his line of work; it was more that this gravitas seeped inappropriately into other areas. He discussed death with the same solemnity that he brought to bear on the meat-to-mushroom-to-wine ratio in his boeuf bourguignon. And these were both subjects he talked about at length.

  It turned out that Herr Schäfer had not always been in the ‘death business’. He’d worked for over twenty years as a human rights lawyer, and it was his passionate belief in what he termed the ‘final human right’ – the right to die – that had eventually led to him giving up the law to open his private clinic, which was almost unique in its willingness to offer its services to non-residents as well as to Swiss nationals. But human rights, Herr Schäfer believed, should not be contingent on national borders.

  It wasn’t a particularly ‘normal’ dinner, needless to say, but after a few minutes, I felt strangely relaxed. Herr Schäfer seemed very comfortable in his role as host, and having a three-way discussion with Mr Peterson was, in some ways, easier than having a one-to-one. It was slightly more involved in that he had to pass me his notes to read before I handed them on to Herr Schäfer, but it also granted him more time to write and more time to rest. And having accepted this practice the day before, Herr Schäfer no longer seemed to give it a second thought. He acted as if this were a perfectly unremarkable way to conduct a conversation. He also had a lot of patience when it came to me practising my German, which I tried to do whenever I could. With a little prompting, I’d soon moved on from simple pleasantries – es schmeckt sehr gut – to more complex, stop-start sentences: Keinen Wein für mich, Herr Schäfer. Ich trinke keinen Alkohol. Aber ich habe eine grosse Lust auf Coca-Cola. Keine Angst – ich habe einige Dosen im Auto.

  But while he had a high tolerance for these halting exchanges, Herr Schäfer was less keen on the way in which I addressed him, which apparently was much too formal.

  ‘Now that we know each other better, you should call me Rudolf,’ he insisted.

  I told Herr Schäfer that this didn’t sit too comfortably with me. ‘It’s a little bit too . . .’ I tried to think of a word that wasn’t ‘reindeerish’, failed and said: ‘Perhaps I could call you Rudi – if that’s okay?’

  ‘Yes, this is acceptable for me,’ Herr Schäfer agreed. ‘Actually, this is what both my grown-up daughters call me.’

  I found this fact a little odd, but said nothing.

  Herr Schäfer went on to tell us about his daughters, both of whom still lived in Zurich, as did his ex-wife, whom he’d amicably divorced ten years earlier, and it was during this seemingly innocuous line of conversation that matters took their sudden, dangerous turn.

  ‘My wife was never very happy with my change of career,’ Herr Schäfer was telling us. ‘Or perhaps I should say that she was not happy with the media attention that my work unfortunately has brought. I’d like to say that this has become easier with the passing of the years, but as you must realize, there are still these cases that remain controversial.’

  One look was enough to tell me that Herr Schäfer was no longer talking in generalities. I shot him a panicked warning glance, which I hoped Mr Peterson wouldn’t notice, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t. The problems with his eyes made it difficult for him to pick up on these quick, non-verbal exchanges.

  Herr Schäfer sipped his wine without breaking eye contact or changing his expression. ‘Er weiss es nicht?’ he asked, keeping his tone neutral.

  ‘Nein,’ I confirmed. ‘Ich denke, dass es so besser ist.’

  Herr Schäfer nodded thoughtfully.

  If you two are going to speak German again, Mr Peterson wrote, I think I’d like to go for a smoke.

  I passed the note on to Herr Schäfer and, while he was distracted, tried to shoot a second warning glance, this time aimed at Mr Peterson. Given the circumstances, I didn’t think this was a good moment for a ‘smoke’, but my glance either missed its target or was ignored.

  ‘I would suggest that the small patio at the back would suit your purpose,’ Herr Schäfer said. ‘And perhaps at the same time Alex would be willing to help with the dishes?’

  ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea,’ I told Mr Peterson after I’d parked him outside the French windows. ‘Or you should at least try to be circumspect. We don’t know how Herr Schäfer might feel about this.’

  He’s in the death business, Mr Peterson pointed out. I don’t think he’s going to be offended by a bit of pot.

  ‘He might if he thinks your judgement’s impaired.’

  I got the impression that had Mr Peterson been capable of rolling his eyes, he would have. Relax, he scribbled. It’s pot, not acid.

  I took thirty seconds, then went back into the kitchen, where Herr Schäfer had already filled the sink with soapy water and was gesturing to a tea towel that hung above the radiator.

  ‘So, Alex,’ he began, ‘it appears that we have a small situation here.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  ‘Of course, I knew already that these circumstances were unusual. On some rare occasions we will have people younger than you – children or grandchildren – who wish to be there at the end, to say their goodbyes. But this is in a context where the whole family is present. Your situation is unique in my experience.’

  ‘Mr Peterson doesn’t have a family,’ I said. ‘I’m all he has.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that, I think. But let me get to the point. How old are you, Alex?’

  ‘Does that make a difference?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘I’m seventeen,’ I admitted.
‘I’m old enough to drive and procreate, but I’m not old enough to vote or drink alcohol.’

  Herr Schäfer nodded gravely. ‘Some would say that the driving and procreation require more responsibility than the voting or drinking. But we will leave this to one side for now.’ He paused and looked at me for a few moments. ‘Your age has been difficult for me to guess,’ he said. ‘In many ways you seem to me older than your seventeen years, but in others much younger. I hope you won’t mind me saying this?’

  ‘I don’t mind. I’ve been told the same thing before. I don’t know how to be any different.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be any different,’ Herr Schäfer said. ‘You should be just as you are. In German, we would describe you as ein Arglose, but this does not translate very well into English. “An innocent” is a close approximation, but really this is not quite right. Ein Arglose has more the meaning of “one who is without cunning”. It means that you are just as you appear to be – you have no thoughts of deception.’

  I shrugged. ‘I do have thoughts of deception. It’s just that I’m incredibly bad at it, so there’s not much point bothering.’

  Herr Schäfer nodded. ‘I think this is merely another way of saying that it is not in your nature.’

  I thought about this for a while. ‘Perhaps,’ I concluded, ‘but not always. I mean, I’m not being completely honest with Mr Peterson right now. Is that what you’re getting at?’

  ‘No. I think we both know that this is a different thing entirely. Have you lied to him?’

  ‘No. I just haven’t told him certain things.’

  ‘And this is because you want to protect him? Am I right in thinking that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘I think if he knew what’s happening back home, it might force him into a bad decision. And he’d be doing it to try to protect me, except he wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be good for anyone.’

  Herr Schäfer nodded again. ‘You understand, I’m sure, the possible consequences of your actions? Now that the British police are involved, you may face prosecution when you go home. You will no longer be protected under Swiss law.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I don’t mind facing those consequences. I just don’t want to put that burden on Mr Peterson. He shouldn’t have to think about those things. Not now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Herr Schäfer said, ‘so let me ask you another question. You know that there may be consequences, but you still wish to be here? Is that correct? You are not having thoughts about leaving now?’

  ‘No. I want to be here.’

  ‘Is that because you feel obligated to be here?’

  ‘No. It’s because I think what I’m doing is right.’

  I dried the last plate and Herr Schäfer gestured to the kitchen table. We both sat.

  ‘You know, Alex,’ he said, ‘my opinion is that if you’re old enough to want to be here, then you’re old enough to be here. I’m what most people would call a libertarian. Do you understand what that means?’

  I considered the term. ‘I think it has something to do with believing in the virtue of the free market,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’

  Herr Schäfer smiled. ‘Not so much in my case, no. It means that I think every individual should be free to make their own decisions – without other people telling them what they must or must not do. The only restriction is that people are not free to hurt or exploit other people – and this is where it is quite different from the free market.’

  Herr Schäfer poured himself a glass of wine before continuing. ‘In this instance, what I’m trying to say is that you must be free to make your own choices, just as your friend Isaac must be free to make his. No one should interfere with that.’

  I let this sink in. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to send us home?’

  ‘That would be against everything I have stood for over the last twelve years. The only reason I ever send people away at this late stage is if I or Dr Reinhardt think they are not here by their own free will or they don’t understand the choice they are making. But in this case we have no doubts.’

  ‘What about all the stuff that’s been on the news? You’re not going to tell Mr Peterson?’

  ‘No. I think my duty lies in the other direction. It is not my place to influence him one way or the other. His decision should be free from outside pressure. My mind is very clear on this. I will not tell him anything.’ Herr Schäfer paused and sipped from his wineglass. ‘However, you must understand that your circumstances are not the same as mine. You are carrying a different burden.’

  ‘Do you mean that I should tell him?’

  ‘No. This is your decision, not mine. All I’m saying is that you should give these matters some extra thought. Tomorrow will be difficult for you. You need to be prepared. You need to be sure in your own mind that you are doing the right thing.’

  I looked out across the open-plan living room through the patio doors. ‘I’m doing the right thing,’ I said.

  And I knew that this thought and this thought alone had the power to carry me through the next twenty-four hours. Without it, I would have broken down.

  THE HOUSE WITH NO NAME

  The house had no name and no number. Since no one lived there, and no one ever stayed there for more than a few hours, a name would have been superfluous. For the purpose of deliveries, if deliveries were ever made, I suppose they probably got by just referring to it as ‘the house’. There were no other houses in the area with which to confuse it.

  It was located on a small industrial estate about twenty minutes’ drive east of Zurich, and the industrial location was required by law. While the majority of the Swiss believed that such a place should, in principle, be allowed to exist, there were few who thought it should be allowed to exist in their backyard.

  So the house had been purpose-built out of town and rose incongruously among the warehouses and small factories that buttressed the intersection of two noisy highways. But despite the setting, efforts had been made to ensure that the house appeared as normal as possible. Outside there was a little driveway and hedges and a front porch. Inside there was a kitchenette and a bathroom and most of the domestic comforts you’d expect to find in any house, anywhere: a couple of long sofas, a couple of beds, a round table with four chairs, cushions, lamps. There was landscape art on the walls and large windows and patio doors admitting lots of natural light. There was a stereo for those who wished to listen to music and even a small back garden with shrubs and a trickling fountain. It was fenced off from the surroundings, but you could still hear the traffic along the main road, which hissed rhythmically, like the sea.

  After we’d pulled up in the front driveway, Mr Peterson told me that he wanted to leave the wheelchair in the boot. It’s important for me to walk, he wrote.

  I nodded.

  He used a single crutch in his right hand and wrapped his left arm around my shoulder, and in this fashion, we made a slow, shuffling progress up the drive. Mr Peterson had done very little walking over the past week. It took a long time.

  My mind was extremely alert – as alert as it had been on the night we’d escaped Yeovil Hospital, although once again I’d had no sleep. Once we’d got back to the hotel, I’d sat up thinking about what Herr Schäfer had said until about two in the morning, and after that, I simply hadn’t felt tired. I drank about five cans of Diet Coke and stayed up reading a fifty-year history of CERN, which I’d bought from the centre’s gift shop. By 6 a.m., I’d reached the creation of antihydrogen in the mid-1990s and still wasn’t tired. I went for my morning meditation down by the lake, just as the sun was coming up. There was hardly anybody else about – just a couple of joggers and a family of swans and cygnets bobbing on the water. The promenade on the lakeside had been planted with lilacs, which were just coming into bloom and fragrancing the air with a cool vanilla scent.

  Several doses of marijuana had helped Mr Peterson sleep peacefully until around seven. By that time, I was back at the hotel, where I helped him wash and dress. He wro
te that he wanted to look presentable. It was another of those things that felt important to him.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  Calm, he wrote. Calm and resolved. How about you?

  ‘The same,’ I said.

  Are you sure?

  ‘Yes.’ I managed a thin smile. ‘I’m resolved too.’

  And as I walked him those final few steps towards the front door of the house with no name, my resolve had only strengthened. I had a task to do, and I’d hold out for as long as it took. If there’d been any doubts about whether I should tell Mr Peterson about what was going on back home, these had now evaporated. The crux of the matter was clear as oxygen: if I told him, then, one way or another, whatever decision he made, he was going to suffer. We were both going to suffer, much more than was necessary. Avoiding such needless cruelty didn’t strike me as the kind of thing that required a complex moral justification. It was just common sense.

  After she’d made cups of coffee for herself and Mr Peterson, Petra – one of the two escorts who had met us at the house – sat with us at the small round table. Linus, the other escort, did not. The only time I really saw him was when he greeted us at the door. He spent the rest of the time ‘backstage’, preparing paperwork and taking care of other practicalities. Later on, it would be Linus who dealt with the Swiss authorities, registering the death and arranging for the transportation of Mr Peterson’s body to the crematorium. Petra’s role was to be available to us at all times – to talk us through every stage, answer any questions and generally look after us throughout the appointment. When the time came, she would also be the one who prepared and handed over the sodium pentobarbital, but this could only be done at Mr Peterson’s explicit request. No one else was allowed to initiate this action.

  My first impression of Petra was that there was nothing to her. She couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall, and she was as skinny as Mr Peterson, but with no trace of the wiry strength he’d once possessed. Her hair was ash blonde and tied back in an efficient ponytail, and her skin would have looked pale in an English winter. Her voice was light and soft, and she was wearing very little make-up, just a tiny hint of eyeliner, and this had the effect of making her appear even paler, smaller and younger than she probably was. But despite her diminutive stature, she carried herself with a brisk self-confidence that put me at ease. It was strange, but except for the calm, reassuring quality she had about her, she reminded me of my mother.