Darling. It is a word, an utterance, that sounds as if it has been many times rehearsed. N___ feels a trickle of icy sweat run into the small of his back.
A waitress arrives with sticky plastic menus. A Chinese-American girl of about twenty, child-sized, straight-cut black bangs, beautiful thick-lashed eyes, quizzical half-smile taking in N___ with the plain stocky white girl who appears to be in an emotional state, tears on her flushed cheeks.
N___ looks away, can’t meet the waitress’s skeptical eyes.
Can’t acknowledge the waitress’s mute query—Why, you and her?
3.
Each week reporting to the Professor: “Not yet.”
Assiduously the chief technician will record in his (encrypted) notes for Project Galahad: eleven acts of sexual intercourse followed (within seconds) by injections of chimpanzee semen, intermittently through the month of November; each injection successfully executed without the suspicion of the experimental subject who’d been administered a powerful tranquilizer to render her lethargic, unaware of surroundings.
Prudently, N___ lessens the dosage of flunitrazepam dissolved into the subject’s drink. The first dose left the female comatose for nearly ten hours.
And then, following the eleventh episode in early December, insemination.
That is, impregnation.
In the New Year, what a shock! But also relief. N____’s first thought is that he will no longer have to go through the motions of lovemaking with the experimental subject …
Shyly, hiding her face against his neck, on a sofa in the apartment on Edgar Street, on a cold windless evening in late January Mary Frances tells her lover that she is going to have his baby. N____’s thudding heart muffles his hearing but he does hear the emphatic—your baby.
Stammering apologetically, “I—I thought maybe—I might be p-pregnant—a while ago—but I wanted to be sure before I told you … I didn’t want you to worry for no reason, Nath’iel.”
This is touchingly considerate of Mary Frances, N___ would think, if N___ had the capacity to think at the moment.
N___ has been waiting for such a revelation for weeks—since the first heroic effort of sexual intercourse in November—yet is now not prepared. Oh, what is the experimental subject saying!
(He is thinking that he must get to a phone—he must contact the Professor. Or—maybe he should make sure that the experimental subject is really pregnant, and not imagining it? He does not dare misinform the Professor about something so crucial …)
Awkwardly N___ embraces and comforts Mary Frances who is wetting his shirt with her tears. Is the distraught young woman weeping out of joy, or fear? Apprehension, or excitement?
She’d taken a drugstore test, Mary Frances says. Twice. So far as she can calculate, she is about five weeks pregnant.
She’d thought she might be pregnant, at least two weeks before. No period for eight-nine weeks, and her breasts “sort of achy, sensitive.” And a “real, queasy feeling in my tummy” in the mornings.
Period—awful term. Achy, sensitive—awful. N___ tries not to visibly recoil in revulsion.
Mary Frances is saying she hopes N___ isn’t upset! She hopes …
“D’you still love me, Nath’iel? I love you—more than ever.”
But N___ has not told her he loved her, at all!
Pleading with N___ as if the pregnancy were her fault alone: “Are you angry with me, Nath’iel? Please tell me you are not …”
N___ stammers: “Of course—not. I just can’t understand how it happened, Mary Frances. I thought I was very careful, but …” Feebly his voice falters. He is perspiring, shivering.
This is such a private matter. So intimate. Physical.
Shameful! (And N____’s role in it, unspeakable.)
Innocent, trusting Mary Frances is pregnant. Mary Frances’s womb has been inseminated. The numerous injections of chimpanzee semen have had the intended effect, a human female has been impregnated by a chimpanzee. It is no longer a theoretical experiment with a clueless experimental subject but is rapidly becoming—“real.”
Yet it does not seem real to N_____, just yet. He wonders if all “fathers” feel this way, having been told that a female with whom they have had sex is pregnant.
But it is only an experiment, N___ reminds himself. The fetus, the infant, the creature-to-be-born, is not his; does not bear his DNA. The experiment will be known in the history of science as Project Galahad.
Mary Frances’s face is mottled with happiness like measles. Her usually coarse skin glows. She is mistaking N____’s silence for male dismay, perhaps.
“I hope this is not a terrible shock to you, Nath’iel. I know that you—you tried—to prevent what has happened. I’ve been praying for both of us, Nath’iel. I want us to do the right thing. It’s like God found a way for us, without our knowing. It was meant to be.”
Meant to be! But it was not meant to be. If Mary Frances knew what was beginning to germinate in her womb, she would be appalled, terrified …
“I have to pinch myself, to believe it’s ‘real.’ Oh God—me. My parents would be so ashamed.”
It is typical of Mary Frances to think aloud, in a sort of rambling exclamatory monologue. N___ has heard certain of his (white) colleagues in Life Sciences thinking aloud in this way, moving their lips, even grimacing and gesturing. He would never behave so riskily. His thoughts are meant for N___ alone.
N___ doesn’t know what to do with his hands, shyly caresses Mary Frances’s back as she presses against him, quivering with emotion. In the agitation of the moment N___ cannot think clearly. It is a profound fact—the experimental subject has become the impregnated subject.
The impregnated subject is likely to become one of the most famous/notorious female specimens in the history of science.
In a lowered voice Mary Frances tells N___ that she doesn’t believe in abortion. Hesitating to speak the word, that sounds harsh and blunt in her breathy voice: abor-tion.
N___ stammers that he doesn’t either. Does not believe in abortion.
Hears himself uttering such asinine words! Why would one believe, or not believe, in abortion?
“Oh Nath’iel darling! You don’t? Really?”
“I—I don’t. No …”
“Then—you want us to have the baby? Our baby?”
“Y-Yes …”
Our baby. N____’s head is swimming. He wonders if the agitation he feels is the agitation he would be feeling if indeed the inseminating sperm had been his.
Now Mary Frances is weeping in earnest. Her warm, fleshy body smells of perspiration and great joy. Already she seems motherly to him, matronly. Her sizable breasts, wide hips … Daringly she takes N____’s loose, limp hand and presses it against her soft belly, that bulges beneath the waistband of her slacks.
It seems that Mary Frances has been anguished about telling him. Worried that he wouldn’t want her to have the baby—“It’s, like, what most guys would want. Lots of girls I know. ‘Get an abortion, I’ll pay for it.’ Like a baby is some kind of accident, and not God’s plan.”
“Yes. That—is so …”
“Lots of guys, they’d drop a girl cold. Maybe try to get out of paying for the abortion, even. Bastards!” Mary Frances shakes her head in disgust. How fortunate it is, N___ isn’t one of them.
N___ hears himself say with numbed lips that of course he wants her to have the baby. Mary Frances is so naive, she doesn’t question how she has come to be pregnant when, so far as she knows, N___ took precautions each time they’d grappled together on the bed; he supposes that to one who believes that God ordains all things, an improbable pregnancy has to be a part of a plan.
Ironic that, though indeed this pregnancy is a part of a plan, it is the Professor’s plan, and not God’s.
How thrilled the Professor will be! How pleased with his chief technician, another time.
N___ assures Mary Frances that she is so precious to him, their baby is so precious, he will oversee her m
edical care—entirely. She will not have to see any young, barely trained doctor provided by University Health Care—she will have a private doctor, the most distinguished obstetrician in the vicinity. Through his contacts in Life Sciences N___ will arrange for her prenatal care beginning with an examination within a day or two.
Seeing the wondering expression in Mary Frances’s face N___ is inspired to tell her what the Professor has planned: “There’s an excellent obstetrics clinic in Life Sciences Hall, on one of the high, ‘restricted’ floors. Not just a clinic for prenatal care but where you will have the baby. What isn’t covered by my contract with the University, I will pay.”
N___ is speaking extravagantly. Why is he saying such things? His heart beats rapidly and his face is flushed with the excitement of fatherhood. Almost N____ is thinking that indeed he would want to pay for the baby, for he is responsible.
How suddenly it has happened that Mary Frances Bowes, a plain-faced female to whom N____ would not have given a second glance under normal circumstances, has become a unique and priceless specimen. A female human successfully impregnated with the sperm of Pan troglodytes verus, possibly for the first time in history. Without her knowledge the female’s fleshy/slatternly body has been transformed.
What is Mary Frances now worth? In terms of the scientific research the birth will spawn, many millions of dollars.
In terms of the scientific careers the Humanzee will enrich, yet more millions of dollars.
A Nobel Prize for the Professor. If all goes well.
Of course, the exact details of Project Galahad can never be revealed. The identity of the experimental subject/birth mother, the identity of the chief technician/surrogate father. The (unorthodox) means by which the impregnation was administered. Somehow, utilizing the genius for which he is known in the scientific research community, the Professor will find a way to present the lab’s astonishing findings to the world that will protect the researchers from charges of ethics violations, and worse.
He will receive acknowledgment, if not the sort of fame that will accrue to the Professor.
Seeing how the experimental subject is gazing at him, with what adoration, awe, neediness, N____ wonders: will Mary Frances expect him to marry her? Once the euphoria of the hour wanes, marriage will certainly be an issue.
This too has been scripted beforehand. N____ is prepared.
Informing Mary Frances in a voice of regret that since he is in the United States on a special science-research visa he is not allowed to enter into any legal, contractual arrangement with any US citizen under penalty of expulsion—“It’s a State Department regulation. So, Mary Frances, we could not be married, at least for the foreseeable future, until I become a US citizen.”
“Oh! I—I guess so …”
Mary Frances absorbs the information with a glazed smile. Perhaps she is not quite hearing N_____. Perhaps her brain is cranking out its elemental plan of childlike cunning—best to bide her time, not to appear upset, not to make demands on N_____. God will work out things for the best.
N____ says, relenting: “We could become engaged. Would you like that? It would have to be a secret, though—like the pregnancy—for as long as you can keep it secret. And my identity, you would have to keep secret.”
“Engaged! Do you mean it, Nath’iel?”
“My schedule can’t be changed, unfortunately. I couldn’t see you any more than I have been seeing you …”
“Oh no, I mean—I wouldn’t expect it. ‘Engaged’—that would be—wonderful …”
Mary Frances throws her arms around N____’s neck like a drowning person. She could not be more dazed than if N____ had given her flunitrazepam to dampen her cognitive abilities.
“As long as you understand, the engagement would have to be a secret from your family. The identity of the father of the baby would have to be a secret. Otherwise I could be deported. And then we would never marry.”
Marry as a collective verb, in an utterance of N____’s. He is somewhat dazed himself, as if he has been drinking.
Mary Frances hugs him tight, tight. Confessing to him in a rush of words, that she is very ashamed—“Darling, I don’t think that I can take you to meet my family anyway. They are—they are good Christians—but—they don’t like people they call ‘Japs’ or ‘Chinese’—‘Orientals.’ Or Mexicans. They don’t like—well, anybody who doesn’t look like them. (They are very biased about Negroes!) Even if I explained who you are, an ‘Asian person’ with an advanced science degree, a professor at the University, and nothing like what they might think—(they would probably think ‘Communist’)—they would not forgive me. I don’t know that I could ever return home to them with our baby, or you. Please forgive me, Nath’iel—in this happy time, I am so ashamed.”
N____ is stunned by this revelation. He has so naturally assumed his superiority to the low-browed white girl, it’s a shock to him that she might not share that conviction. In defying her racist parents Mary Frances is being bravely magnanimous in loving him.
N____ assures Mary Frances that he understands. Of course there are people who can’t help their prejudices against other races. He doesn’t doubt, he tells her—(though in fact N____ does doubt, vehemently)—that her relatives are “good Christians.”
Thinking how fortunate he is, for the sake of Project Galahad, that Mary Frances doesn’t want to introduce him to her family, and will keep her pregnancy a secret from them.
To celebrate the happy occasion (as an expectant father might plausibly wish to do) N____ opens a bottle of red wine with shaky fingers. Requires several tries to extricate the damned cork. Pours wine into two glasses but Mary Frances declines hers, eyes glowing and glazed with joy—“Oh Nathi’el, gosh! Now I’m ‘expecting,’ I can’t drink.”
But Mary Frances will sit close beside N____ on the sofa as he drinks from his glass, snuggling against him like a fevered, furry creature. Not drinking with him but it’s as if the sweet red wine has gone to her head, or into the damp netherworld between her fleshy thighs. Her eyelids droop and her lips part, her head heavy upon his shoulder, stubby fingers tight-clasped through his, pulling his hand to rest on her soft stomach. A little sleepy-happy moan deep in her throat, of utter euphoria. N____ sits very still, neither yielding nor resisting.
He has not (yet) contacted the Professor with the good news. His thoughts swirl like a hive of aroused wasps even as the experimental subject sinks into a light doze.
Is the news good? For whom, good? N____ swallows a mouthful of wine. Thoughts continue to swirl, unresolved.
Soon then, N____ is instructed by the Professor to bring Mary Frances to the hastily constituted “Obstetrics Care Clinic” on the tenth floor of Rockefeller Life Sciences Hall where she is examined by an individual introduced to her as “Dr. Ellis”—gynecologist/obstetrician—middle-aged, male, Caucasian; in fact, N____ recognizes the man as an experimental embryologist and one of the Professor’s collaborators.
After a thorough examination including highly detailed blood work kindly “Dr. Ellis” informs Mary Frances that, as she has suspected, she is approximately five weeks pregnant—“Which makes your due date approximately two hundred sixty days from now, my dear, in mid-September.”
“Ellis” has been briefed on the unorthodox nature of the young woman’s pregnancy; he has signed a confidentiality contract with the Professor, with whom he has worked on several projects in the past, of a sensitive nature involving the effects of experimental pharmaceuticals upon unborn fetuses (of black and Hispanic pregnant women patients at a city clinic). In calculating the expectant mother’s due date he has shrewdly averaged the gestation periods—two hundred thirty-seven days for Pan troglodytes verus, two hundred eighty days for Homo sapiens.
Telling the young woman that the estimate is only approximate of course. “Some babies insist upon coming into the world earlier than they are expected, and some babies come later.”
Mary Frances bursts into tears. Stammering to the doctor
that she is so happy, God has blessed her at a younger age than she’d have imagined.
N____ has accompanied Mary Frances to the Obstetrics Care Clinic where he waits for her, for some time. N____ is the only person who waits in the small lounge. Fascinating to him, to see how an area of the tenth floor that was formerly office space for junior staff has been refashioned by the Professor’s directive, virtually overnight, with the addition of stark white floor-to-ceiling partitions that give the space a clinical atmosphere. There is even a receptionist’s desk, and a receptionist. There is a nurse named “Betty”—a mature woman in a white nylon pants suit, pale stockings and rubber-soled white shoes who has greeted the experimental subject warmly and will be an essential contact for Mary Frances through the months of the pregnancy. On the white walls are posters relating to women’s health—diagrams of the female body with reproductive organs luridly highlighted, posters advertising essential foods for girls and women, photographs of Olympic women athletes bursting with health and strength. The receptionist, a younger woman, smiles at N____ as one might smile at an uneasy young father-to-be.
Against a floor-to-ceiling plate glass window, a large potted plant with shiny spear-leaves which N____ thinks he has seen before. In the Professor’s outer office?
Fortunately N____ has brought along his laptop to the Clinic—the lightweight little computer is attached to N____ like a colonoscopy bag.
Mary Frances is with the doctor for more than an hour. Each of the experimental subject’s appointments in the Clinic will be thorough. Every aspect of the unorthodox pregnancy will be recorded. Unknown to the subject the examinations will be videotaped and studied by the members of the primate lab; these will include weekly pelvic exams, and an amniocentesis in the early second trimester of the pregnancy, for the progress of the hybrid embryo must be carefully monitored. Members of the primate lab are concerned that the hybrid fertilization will not “hold”—the Professor himself has cautioned against excessive optimism and not to be disappointed if Project Galahad ends in a miscarriage, for that is usually nature’s way of correcting a genetic anomaly. But even a miscarriage will prove scientifically valuable, for the remains of the fetus, however rudimentary in development, will be eagerly and exhaustively studied.
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense Page 14
