‘Mara!’
He pecked my cheek; I stepped back from the kiss. His breath smelt antiseptic, as if he had recently gargled with something.
He beamed: ‘You haven’t changed. How long has it been — ten years?’
‘More, I think.’
He stood a little closer than I like men to stand, filling my field of view.
‘Everyone is so excited that you’re joining the team — Professor.’
If I was to be flattered, it would need to be more subtle: ‘Nothing is settled yet. So it’s still Doctor.’
He unfurled a brightly striped umbrella as we stepped out on to the concourse. The sun had broken through a high quilt of clouds; rain was falling but without any sort of weight or speed, more a warm, humid mist, almost an aerosol. I walked a pace behind, already perspiring, spurning the shelter.
‘This way — Professor.’
The car was new, but surprisingly compact; I had half-expected something ostentatious, and American. We drove northwards among the tall, gleaming teeth, revealed now as apartment blocks, hotels, casinos. More tomb-like, perhaps, than tooth-like: luxury mass tombs complete with gleaming inscriptions. MIAMI, BIARRITZ, CAPRI, COPACABANA.
Pfitzner attempted the usual pleasantries: the niceness of the trip, the weather I had left behind in Adelaide, how many times I had visited Queensland before, my impressions so far.
‘It reminds me of a giant graveyard.’
He laughed, humouring me.
‘A giant retirement village,’ I added.
‘I’m sure you’ll love the Gold Coast,’ he said. ‘It’s a city for us younger people, too.’
Another flattery, although true in a sense. I wasn’t that old; yet had adopted an older, more middle-aged manner somewhere along the line. And wore the clothes to match. Consenting to middle-age was easier: I didn’t have any time to invest in perpetuating youth.
‘I can’t see a lot of young people,’ I told him.
‘I can’t see a lot of elderly people,’ he countered.
‘They must all be inside, taking their nap.’
Part of me wanted to find fault, to find reasons against. The pro argument for a move to Schultz University put itself, effortlessly; the con needed help. Through the windscreen I tried to confirm my comic-book image of Surfers Paradise: a city peopled by blue-rinse widows buying high-rise esplanade apartments on the strength of their late husbands’ life insurance cheques.
At some point the car turned inland, crossing waterways, moving into greener, more horizontal districts: townhouses, playing fields, bowling greens, tennis courts, suburban bungalows.
Pfitzner was still trying: ‘The climate is wonderful, of course. The Sunshine State.’
‘The Skin Cancer State. Fortunately I spend most of my time indoors.’
He was unfazed: ‘You have a wonderful complexion. That must be your secret.’
He was good. Unerringly he had located my one small vanity: beneath the tough talk, the plain clothes, the spectacles, the mousy hair, there was — I liked to think — a good complexion. The skin was still baby-smooth. As a girl I had always believed that I would one day become … not beautiful, perhaps, but at least stately. Handsome. Complexion and bone structure were the important things in the long-run, my mother occasionally consoled me in my teens. Mine, she told me, were not, well, bad.
‘All work and no play,’ Pfitzner said, teasingly. ‘I do believe you’re trying to be difficult, Professor.’
I stared through the window, trying even harder.
‘Perhaps we can run through your itinerary for the day?’
With a free hand he deftly unzipped a soft chamois portfolio on the dash, extracted a sheet of printed paper and passed it across.
10 a.m. Arrival, Coolangatta Airport. Flight
AN 41 from Adelaide.
11 a.m. Tour of Schultz Medical Centre.
1p.m. Lunch in the Blue Room.
2p.m. Inspection of Staff Housing.
3p.m. Tour of the Bible Museum and Theme Park.
4p.m. Depart for Coolangatta Airport. Flight
AN 331 to Adelaide. I passed it back: ‘I don’t get to meet the Holy Father himself?’
‘Dr Schultz is overseas. In the Holy Land. He spends part of each year in pilgrimage. Otherwise of course he would meet you. He takes a personal interest in all appointments.’
‘He gives the thumbs up?’
‘You give the thumbs up, Mara. The decision is yours. Dr Schultz — Hollis — is keen for you to join the team. All of us are keen.’
He turned off the main road at a large white cross, perhaps forty feet high, mounted on a granite plinth. The words HOLLIS SCHULTZ UNIVERSITY were engraved on its base. The car entered a long avenue of half-grown jacarandas and flame-trees. Above us the clouds had largely vanished, the morning sun, still low in the sky, stroboscoped behind the trees: dazzling, dark, dazzling, dark. Quite suddenly we crested the rim of a shallow valley; below was a large lake, perhaps half a mile across.
Pfitzner pointed, straight-faced: ‘Lake Galilee.’
Buildings in various stages of completion surrounded the water, on the opposite bank a half-dozen construction cranes seemed to dabble in its shallows like giant Meccano wading-birds.
‘The building to the left is the Bible College. Beyond it, the famous Rose Cathedral — you know it, of course. Hollis Schultz Medical Centre is across the lake.’
The Medical Centre — gleaming, white, cubic — dominated the far shore: a vast Lego-block facade overlooking the water, and reflected in it. Smaller bits of Lego surrounded it like parts of an incomplete child’s game, not yet fully assembled. Another large cross roosted on the summit.
Pfitzner steered the car slowly around the rim of the lake — a wide esplanade followed the shore — before turning away to circumnavigate the cathedral, at sightseeing pace.
‘We have time if you’d like to look inside.’
‘No thanks.’
‘You know it from our television programme?’
‘I never watch television.’
A bus-load of Japanese tourists had disgorged on to the cathedral steps; I had no wish to join them. Apart from the colour — pink marble — the building looked like a scaled down, Disney imitation of the cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris. Of course it possessed none of the character of the original. There was something too smooth about it, too new; it had none of the million-fold defects and weatherings and eccentric ornamentations that accumulate like barnacles around great buildings over long periods of time.
It looked like nothing so much as an outsize plastic replica, a souvenir of a type I had once bought myself in a Paris booth.
Beyond the cathedral an estate of white-stucco terrace housing climbed one sloping face of the valley.
‘Many of our staff choose to live here on campus,’ Pfitzner said. ‘Either leasing, or buying. The University offers very competitive loans.’
He braked the car on a long concourse below the hospital. The rain had gone; we stepped out into a spring day: blue skies, birds filling the trees, all the heart-lifting effects, on cue. High-pitched voices — children’s voices, screaming and laughing — carried to us across the water; I glimpsed some sort of amusement park on the opposite shore: a slow-turning Ferris wheel, and what looked like a giant Noah’s Ark, moored offshore.
I paused, astonished by a strange sight: people seemed to be moving about on the surface of the lake, actually walking across water towards the Ark.
Pfitzner’s gaze followed mine: ‘The Bible Museum and Theme Park.’ He took my arm, and gently steered me up into the hospital. ‘What would you like to see first? The obstetrics wing? The laboratories? We have some time before lunch.’
‘I’m in your hands.’
‘The Maternity Suite, then. The heart of your own department.’
I raised a quibbling finger: ‘It’s not mine — yet.’
For an hour or so I followed the Dean in and out of lifts, in and out of o
ffices, one of which — I was now more amused than angered at this presumption — had my name stencilled on the door: PROFESSOR MARA FOX. DEPARTMENT OF REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE. I remember the feeling of space above all: acres of laboratory space; gleaming, empty operating theatres. And everywhere smiling staff-members, thickets of hands thrust forward to be shaken: ‘Pleased to meet you, Professor’; ‘So glad you’re joining us, Professor.’
Professor. Professor. The title drip-dripped at me, eroding my resistance, water on stone.
The tour finished in Pfitzner’s office among chrome and leather furnishings, gleaming executive toys, shelves filled with books whose spines were arranged so neatly and geometrically that they seemed untouched. And perhaps that’s all they were: untouched spines with nothing behind them, hollowed out library facades of the type interior designers sell by the metre.
Especially to the Richard Pfitzners of the world.
He stood too close again, blocking my field of view: ‘So what do you think of our little empire? Nothing like this in the public sector.’
I was carefully ambiguous: ‘Nothing.’
His smile lost intensity, his repertoire of pleasantries for the moment exhausted. He moved away and busied himself at a small side-bar; I let my eye roam about the room. The walls were crowded: framed degrees, portraits of himself and (presumably) family, photographs of sleek thoroughbreds in which he apparently had some kind of interest. High up, in one corner, I found a familiar mass-portrait: UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE MEDICAL SCHOOL, CLASS OF 69.
‘What’s your poison, Mara?’
‘Soda water.’
He chuckled, apparently deciding that heartiness was the easiest mode: ‘That’s not the Mara I remember.’
He mixed something discoloured in a glass — only partly soda water — and passed it over.
‘Never eat on an empty stomach,’ he said, comfortable again, finding his rhythm, conversationally.
His eyes followed mine to that graduation photo, our graduation photo, a hundred-odd faces, many of them strange to me now, their clothes and hair-styles rendered quaint by time, the women’s hair more carefully bobbed or coiffed, the men’s longer than current fashions. I had never bothered to collect my own copy; it held no nostalgic interest for me; those years at Medical School had been too painful. I had never felt part of the class.
‘The old gang, eh?’
Once again he was standing too close. He tossed down his drink, and stepped away to pour himself another.
‘No, you haven’t changed at all,’ he repeated, from the bar.
I sought out my own face, inevitably, in the photograph. Perhaps I hadn’t changed: the glinting spectacles, the pinched mouth. The adequate complexion.
‘You didn’t make it to the twenty-year reunion, Mara.’
‘Too busy.’
The past meant more to him than to me; his tone was suddenly tender, nostalgic. Or perhaps it was the drink, on an empty stomach.
‘Everyone looked the same. The old team.’ He paused, and patted his paunch: ‘Of course some of us have grown a bit — horizontally. You haven’t touched your drink.’
‘I asked for soda water.’
He chose not to hear: ‘You should have been there. It was terrific to see the old gang. I’d lost track of so many. But then I suppose you see them every week.’
‘One or two. Professionally. I don’t socialise much.’
He peered at the photo one more time: ‘Those were great years, Mara. The best years of our lives.’
For him, perhaps — plenty of money, no responsibilities, three shifts of nurses to harass each day. I half expected a tear to crawl down his coarse, red cheek; instead he turned away, and linked his arm through mine.
‘But let’s eat. We can talk over lunch. Chew the fat.’
He talked; I ate. And even drank a little wine. The Blue Room was some sort of boardroom: an immense table, upholstered in blue leather, twelve or fourteen matching chairs. We sat together at one end, attended by a white-suited waiter.
‘So, what have you been working on?’ he asked at length.
‘This and that.’
‘Infertility is the growth industry, Mara. Declining birth-rates all through the Western world. But of course you know that. We want to put Schultz in the front rank of research. Which is why we’ve come to you.’
I inclined my head, the wine had softened my resistance.
‘We’re a new college, we haven’t got the track record of a Johns Hopkins. Or even an Adelaide. We’re getting together some Big Names — I include you among them. We need some Big Results.’
‘Then you need big money.’
‘I can guarantee the money.’
He didn’t need to add the sequel: can you guarantee the results?
‘I’d need an embryologist,’ I said. ‘Technicians.’
‘Hire them.’
‘I’d want equipment. Ultrasound probes. The new generation fibre-optics. A carbon laser.’
‘Write out a shopping list.’
‘Perhaps I will.’
I paused, and in that pause a deeper, more cautious self reasserted itself: ‘One other thing …’
‘Name it.’
‘I would want a research budget in black and white. Guaranteed. Before I sign.’
Pfitzner had a notepad before him, jotting details. He was in his element again, the earth-element of logistics and cold cash, relieved to have left the rarefied air of scientific speculation: ‘The lawyers will draw up a contract. I’ll fax a draft to your secretary in Adelaide tomorrow.’ He paused, and smiled: ‘Your half-secretary.’
I still wasn’t satisfied. ‘What about this Hollis Schultz character?’ I said. ‘I don’t know the first thing about him. I don’t feel all that comfortable working for a preacher.’
Pfitzner began another well-practised spiel: ‘The University is a separately constituted body. Total independence from the Church is guaranteed.’
His eyes met mine; he ended his solemn speech with a laugh.
‘I’m sorry, Mara — I’m sounding like a preacher myself. I don’t want to snow you. Fact is, Hollis does like to poke around in the Labs from time to time, and see what’s going on. But he keeps out of your hair. He’s quite sophisticated. Not at all what you see on TV.’
‘I don’t watch TV.’
He shrugged, and popped the question: ‘So — when do you start?’
Tomorrow! I wanted to say, I very nearly said. Instead I reached for my wine. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Fine.’
More wine was a mistake. I don’t normally drink; I despise those who drink too much. Perhaps there is a balance to be found somewhere, a golden mean — if so, I’ve never been able to find it. One glass goes to my head. And after two …
But I had decided to take risks, to step out of my xeroxed life.
The next stage of the Royal Tour remains a blur, partly due to the wine, partly due to self-absorption: I was still replaying the various conversations that had taken place over lunch. Somewhere in there I was shown through the campus housing estate: ‘fully serviced terrace-apartments’. Somewhere in there also I was shown through the Bible Museum, ushered past endless display cabinets filled with pottery shards from the Holy Land, fragments of cloth and trinkets from The Time Of Christ. One gallery was a waxworks, filled with Biblical Figures frozen in the act of parting the Red Sea, or pulling down the temple of the Philistines, or slaying Goliath with a pebble.
The day was almost over as we entered the Bible Theme Park; the queues waiting to leave the Park were longer than the queues waiting to get in. Weary parents, clutching rugs and picnic baskets, jostled arguing, weeping children out through the turnstiles.
Pfitzner bought two ice-creams, and we strolled, licking, down through the side-show booths and novelty rides and Bible Dioramas to the lake’s edge. Screams and squeals of laughter still carried from the roller-coaster and Ferris wheel but there was a feeling of late-afternoon tristesse in the air:
the exhaustion of too much pleasure crammed into too short a time.
I felt a similar exhaustion: the effects of the wine were wearing off, I had spent too much of the day on my feet.
‘I want to show you something special,’ Pfitzner said. ‘One last treat before we leave for the airport.’
He slipped off his shoes and socks, and stepped down on to the surface of the lake. I slipped off my own sensible shoes and stepped uncertainly after him. The water held firm; I splashed in his wake towards the Noah’s Ark, carrying my shoes.
‘You wanted to show me how to walk on water?’
He smiled, and shook his head: ‘Something else.’
The miracle was all-too-easily explained: a path of clear perspex lay an inch or so below the surface. A familiar satisfaction: I-Know-How-That’s-Done. Yet some sense of magic remained: I paused halfway to watch a school of piebald fish glide lazily beneath my feet.
We clambered off the water on to a small pier, replaced our shoes, and boarded the ark up a wooden ramp. The deck was an open zoo: pairs of tame animals — sheep, goats, Shetland ponies, extravagantly-plumed fowls — wandered freely, jostling each other as they competed for food or attention, nudging gently at the hands of thrilled children.
Pfitzner beckoned me to a separate enclosure. Two large flightless birds were plodding awkwardly through the leaves and twigs that carpeted their cage, raking food-scraps from time to time with absurdly shaped beaks.
A nearby hoarding identified the species, but I had no need of it.
Raphus cucullatus. Previously extinct. Original habitat:
Mauritius and adjacent islands. This pair donated to Schultz University by Dr William Scanlon, Stanford University.
Below, on a smaller plate, two names were printed:
PHILIPPE AND ELOISE.
In fact, I knew them both to be female. All the dodos that had been brought back into the world were female.
For a time I stood watching, pleased, and grateful. To me the resurrection of the dodo from a few genetic fragments bottled in spirits was the miracle of our time.
Honk If You Are Jesus Page 3
