Honk If You Are Jesus

by Peter Goldsworthy

  ‘Perhaps you should have a lie down, dear. You must be tired after the trip. I’m sure you’ll feel better after a sleep. Then we can talk about it.’

  2

  A delaide, mid-winter. The days were dark and wet and cold; never before had I felt so hemmed in, so trapped by the wintry elements. My winters in Adelaide had always been spent inside hospitals with bright lights and central heating, twenty-four hours a day. I hid in bed till noon each morning, sitting out the afternoons in the dark, small-windowed lounge, sealed inside by the rain, huddled by the gas heater, wheezing on and off.

  For much of those long afternoons my mother sat opposite, knitting. Her friend, Bert, seemed to be keeping his distance. The phone tinkled from time to time; she answered it in whispers, her head and shoulders enclosing the receiver, her back turned to me. In the early evening she usually went out, leaving me to my brooding.

  I wanted to separate the various strands of my confusion; to tease them apart, study each separately. In practice this was difficult: the mammal parts of the brain, the emotional parts, interfered too much with the human, rational parts.

  The decision to return came quickly with help from an unexpected source: television. I wandered from my bedroom cell one night to find my mother watching a twenty-fifth anniversary commemoration of the moon landing. Those familiar, blurred, Houston-Control voices drew me down on to the arm of her chair; I perched there for a time, listening, remembering the elation that had filled me twenty-five years before. No — feeling the same elation again. July 1969. I had been studying postgraduate anatomy at the time, slicing human pelvis in the Dissecting Room of the old Medical School. A bank of TV monitors had been mounted on the central pillars for the big day, high above the rows of stainless-steel benches and white, stiff, hacked-open corpses. Those flickering television images, travelling across a quarter of a million miles, were beamed down to us through the reek of formalin and cold, greasy long pork: a small step for a man …

  When I had seen and heard enough I pulled the covering sheet across the remains of my cadaver, threw down my scalpel, peeled off my gloves, and walked out of the room with the rest of my colleagues — not so much with them, but for once, at least, parallel to them. We headed for the nearest bar to celebrate, as much as anything, it seemed, ourselves. Our whole species, H. Sapiens, but especially our own smaller subspecies, H. s. scientificus. And the fact that we — that it — could produce something that was better than ourselves, or itself: something as far and high above our squalid world as those TV images in the Dissecting Room.

  I’m trying to explain why I returned to Queensland. Why certain issues, certain wishes — research funds, my own Chair — should matter so much to me. Why ends mattered more than means. Why even Scanlon’s absurd project — the genetic fingerprinting of Jesus Christ — had the power to excite me, to suppress all reservations. In the end, this was the only world that I trusted: the world of science. This was the only world I finally believed in: the world of data and measurements, of accuracy, of results that could be reproduced, objectively, of facts that could be verified by others — or better still, falsified.

  In this world my shrivelled heart could still be felt, beating. I could feel it beating as I boarded the early-morning flight for Queensland barely a week after I had left. A fog had slipped from the hills down on to the plain; the airbus was delayed on the tarmac for more than an hour until visibility lifted. Nervous murmurs were exchanged among the passengers, but I was breathing freely, easily. The fog was merely the last in a string of last minute difficulties. It amused me to see these as a conspiracy of inanimate objects, an attempt to prevent, or at least delay, my departure: blocked drains requiring an emergency plumber; the misplacing of an air ticket; a taxi that failed to arrive. Parts of my body also seemed party to this conspiracy; an attempted boil on the buttocks the night before, symptoms of early flu which vanished as soon as I boarded the plane. If I had been superstitious I might have taken these for messages of some kind. Warnings.

  But I believed — I believe — in nothing supernatural.

  3

  I left my bag in the empty house and was back in my office that same morning. The desk was cluttered; a week’s quota of paperwork had appeared in various in-trays. I pushed it aside. Queensland had taught me this: left untouched, paperwork has a life of its own. After a certain time delay in-trays mysteriously empty themselves, letters waiting to be signed become appended with the signatures of others.

  I had cleared myself a space in which to think, or at least to read, when Alison poked her head through the door.

  ‘You’ve got visitors.’

  ‘Can they wait?’

  ‘Important visitors, Mara.’

  ‘The child-bride?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The divine Mary-Beth.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes. And her husband.’

  ‘How did they know I was back?’

  I rose and peeked through the door. The Schultzes were standing in the anteroom, ignoring the seats, certain that I would not keep them waiting. Mary-Beth looked dressed more for cocktails than outpatients: high-heels, a shimmering outfit of granite crushed silk.

  She smiled her high-wattage smile: ‘I hope your mother is feeling better, Mara.’

  Schultz said nothing; I wondered how much he knew.

  ‘Much better, thank you.’

  ‘Was it serious?’

  ‘Not in the end, no.’

  I stood back to allow them into the office. Mary-Beth slid gracefully into a chair, I drew up another for Hollis.

  ‘This isn’t a social call,’ he began.

  I pulled the door shut: ‘I presume it’s to do with the matter we discussed some time back.’

  His eyes met mine: ‘I referred then to “our” problem. Mrs Schultz and myself. In fact the problem is mine. And mine alone. The Lord has seen fit to render my seed barren.’

  He paused; a smile stretched between his taut cheeks. The biblical turn of phrase was a joke: he wanted to let me know that he didn’t take those things seriously.

  ‘The Lord — and a case of mumps some years back.’

  ‘Of course, there’s no problem with sex,’ Mary-Beth put in, eager to make some important point about their age difference. ‘We have a wonderful sex life.’

  She smiled at her husband; he glanced away, embarrassed. I sensed he had heard her on this before.

  ‘I’d want to check everything again,’ I said. ‘For myself.’

  ‘Fine by me. But I can’t see the need.’ He slid a blue manila folder across the desk. ‘I’m sure you’ll find everything you need here. We’ve been there, done that as far as tests go. Both of us.’

  I opened the folder to find a thick wedge of pathology reports: sperm counts, hormone assays, a needle biopsy of the testis. A curious thing: the name Schultz was nowhere in sight; the label affixed to each report read Richard Brown.

  ‘An alias?’

  He nodded: ‘It might seem a little, ah, over the top, but in my business you can’t be too careful.’

  Mary-Beth agreed: ‘Hollis can’t blow his nose without making the papers.’

  I browsed through the figures: ‘You’ve got a few sperm.’

  ‘Wrong shape and size, I was told in L.A.’

  ‘Immature forms.’ I glanced up: ‘This looks comprehensive. Of course, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Mrs Schultz also has some sort of problem.’

  He passed over another blue folder: ‘The wise men have been over her with a fine-tooth comb. But you’re welcome to cover the same territory again.’

  I flipped slowly through this second folder.

  ‘Of course I want to be treated as just another patient,’ he said. ‘Which is why I came to see you here.’

  I didn’t believe him. Not for a moment. He was letting me know, subtly, that he could have demanded a housecall, could have summoned me to an audience in the White House. He was accumulating credit, establishing some sort of bargaining po
sition.

  I decided to press my advantage before it vanished: draw some chalk lines.

  ‘In that case I would rather talk to you separately.’

  He turned to his wife: ‘Have we got any secrets from each other, sweet thing?’

  She smiled and shook her head; but uncoiled from the chair all the same: ‘If that’s what Mara wants; I’ll wait outside.’

  ‘Alison will get you a coffee,’ I said.

  The door closed after her; Schultz immediately got to the point: ‘I know you are still in the early stages of research, Mara. But I understand that your assistant is close to some sort of breakthrough.’

  I glanced up sharply. Had he been talking to Tad too?

  ‘You seem to know more about it than me.’

  He chuckled: ‘I keep my ear to the ground.’

  ‘You want to be considered for the programme?’

  ‘If I’m suitable.’

  No ‘if’ was apparent in his manner: complacent, selfassured. He knew he was suitable.

  ‘I don’t want to jump any queues.’

  This, also, was so much noise: words without meaning, a kind of music. I had a sudden urge to suggest another needle biopsy of the testis. Both testes.

  ‘There’s no queue — yet. The work is still experimental. Of course I can’t see why we shouldn’t experiment with your cells as much as with anyone’s. Although I wouldn’t hold my breath. My assistant is prone to … exaggerate.’

  ‘Nothing to lose,’ he said. ‘I understand that some part of the stomach lining is needed?’

  ‘Colon. Large intestine. It’s easier to get at than the stomach. I’ll arrange a biopsy if you like.’

  ‘What do you mean — easier to get at?’

  ‘Through the anus.’

  His selfassurance vanished; he shifted in his chair, discomfited: ‘Am I reading you correctly, Mara: what used to be called a ride on the iron stallion?’

  I let him squirm. He had been playing games with me for months; it was my turn.

  ‘It’s all flexible fibre-optics these days,’ I told him, eventually. ‘Painless.’

  He seemed to have risen several inches in his seat, sitting on tight-clenched muscles.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Mary-Beth now,’ I said. ‘Could you ask her to step in on your way out?’

  No doubt there would be further bargaining in the coming months, but I was happy with my position. Miss Tennessee was a different proposition. She sat elegantly poised on the edge of her seat, smiling. I decided to blind her with science.

  ‘I want to take you through a tracking cycle. Hormone levels, ultrasound morphology of the ovary.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Something about her quest winner perfection made me want to shake it around a bit, even damage it. I turned up the jargon: ‘We need to demonstrate normal ovulation and normal luteal phase.’

  ‘I do keep a temperature chart, Mara. Every morning, first thing.’ She paused, and smiled in a manner I can only describe as girl-to-girl. ‘Perhaps not always first thing. Hollis is such a red-blooded man. He often wakes up pretty much … um, in the mood.’

  I said nothing. She sat across the desk, smiling proudly, wanting me to understand again that they shared a wonderful sex life; that the gulf between their ages was insignificant.

  ‘Have you brought the chart?’

  She slid a neatly folded sheet of graph paper from her handbag: a regular monthly sawtooth. She was ovulating — no doubt about it.

  ‘You can forget this,’ I said. ‘Daily blood samples give a better indication. But be prepared to be admitted to hospital at twelve hours’ notice, the moment the hormones rise. I want to collect fresh eggs.’

  I dismissed her; she rose, a swish of silk and nylon, and held out her hand.

  ‘I’m so glad I’m in your hands, Mara. And not some insensitive man. I had several terrible experiences in the States.’

  4

  Tad wasn’t in the Embryology Lab. I dialled the Genetics Department — no answer. I dialled the Cell Lab extension — engaged. I left my office, pushed through the fire door and climbed the steps to the sixth floor.

  Someone was in: a soprano was singing somewhere, a shiver of voice above a shimmer of strings. Der Rosenkavalier again; Tad’s listening habits moved through repetitive cycles. I followed the notes like breadcrumbs through a maze to find him sitting in the empty Cell Lab, sound system as always at his elbow. He was fiddling with something on the tray of a binocular microscope. A nearby wall phone was off the hook.

  ‘Mara!’ he shouted. ‘You’re back!’

  He rose and hugged me, warmly: ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Fine,’ I shouted back. ‘Where is everyone?’

  He turned down the volume, minimally: ‘You mean where is Bill?’

  ‘I mean where is everybody?’

  ‘Bill is up in the mountains. Can’t speak for the rest of them.’

  We were still shouting; I reached across him and twisted the volume control to zero.

  ‘The mountains? What is he doing? Bushwalking?’

  ‘Walking the dog, more likely.’

  It took me a moment to catch his meaning: ‘Truganini?’

  He nodded: ‘She’s out of the pouch. Needs a bit of space to run around in. The Department has a few acres up there. Rainforest. Waterfalls. All very nice.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Once or twice. Bill often spends his weekends there.’

  ‘Something else you never told me.’

  ‘You’ve been busy, my dear. And now this little … excursion to Adelaide. How is your mother by the way?’

  ‘She’s fine.’

  His feline eyes glittered; he knew why I had fled. He was playing with me, batting me between his paws.

  ‘I would have told you,’ he said. ‘But I never see you.’

  ‘I seem to have heard that excuse before.’

  ‘Feel free to xerox all previous excuses, and use them whenever required.’

  It was difficult to stay angry with Tad. He never apologised; he somehow absorbed criticism and returned it, transformed, into jokes.

  ‘I’m not sure your excuses will work this time.’

  ‘Try me.’

  I inhaled, deeply: ‘A lot of people seem to know a lot more about what’s happening in my own department than me. It’s starting to irritate me. Enormously.’

  ‘Names, dates and places?’

  ‘I’ve just been visited by our esteemed spiritual leader. Even he seems to know more than me. What’s been going on while I’ve been away? Have you been talking to Scanlon again?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Don’t play games. Your work. Our work. The sperm project. What else?’

  ‘Bill glances over my shoulder from time to time.’

  ‘Well hide what you’re doing. Hollis Schultz has got the idea — and I’ve a good idea from whom — that you’re going to have sperm cells jumping off his skin at any moment, ready to impregnate his child-bride.’

  He looked amused: ‘Isn’t that what we were hired for? You realise this whole enterprise,’ he paused, and waved a dainty turtle paw around him, ‘is about nothing more than his own balls. Producing a son and heir.’

  I was still fighting this knowledge, refusing to admit it: ‘You don’t really believe that?’

  His head nestled snugly amid rolls of fat: ‘It’s not easy to disprove. Why so much funding for male infertility? Most infertiles are women. Why did they offer the Chair to you? Because of all your years of work with women? Or on the strength of one crazy paper?’

  Helped along, I began to articulate my own worst fears, although putting them into Tad’s mouth: ‘You’re saying that Schultz built this entire College just to process his own sperm cells?’

  He laughed, and shook his head: ‘Not the whole College.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  He grinned, teasingly: ‘Just the whole Medical Centre. Especially the Department of Reproductiv
e Medicine. You and me. He hired us to massage his dead balls.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish.’

  He sat on his stool, highly amused; his small black eyes fixed on me: ‘Methinks the lady protesteth too much.’

  ‘The lady thinketh you talketh too much.’

  He raised two paws in protest: ‘It’s not my theory.’

  ‘Let me guess: Scanlon?’

  He nodded, eyes glittering. Gimlets, such eyes were called in the kind of books I read as a girl. The word still seemed a good fit.

  We sat there, watching each other.

  ‘I need some fresh air,’ I finally said. ‘Do you feel like a drive in the country?’

  ‘Don’t tell me? The mountains?’

  ‘I’ve a few bones to pick with your friend Scanlon.’

  I could sense him mentally lick his lips: ‘I’d better come,’ he said. ‘You’ll need a navigator.’

  Nothing would keep Tad from a chance to eavesdrop on a dispute. Especially when he had managed to shift the focus of the dispute from himself on to someone else.

  A university car went with my Chair — the Bucket Seat in Obstetrics, Tad had dubbed it. I seldom used the vehicle, leaving it garaged at the end of phone extension 555: the hospital car pool, wherever that was. I rang the number; in a few minutes the vehicle was waiting at the main entrance of the Medical Centre: a small Japanese sedan, roomy enough for me, but a little tight in the front passenger seat for Sumosized Tad.

  ‘This is a lecturer’s car, surely,’ he complained. ‘Or a tutor’s. Not a tenured Professor’s.’

  I followed his directions towards the mountains. The road accompanied a river valley at first; climbing slowly past small dams, then larger dams; through cleared pasture and geometric fruit plantations: hillsides that seemed tessellated with small blocks of banana, avocado, pineapple. It was the first time I’d ventured inland from the coast; the country was the nearest thing I’ve seen to heaven on earth: thick forest, lush pasture, rich orchards, a greenness flooded with light. And yet the effect was somehow unnatural: it was exactly the mixture of greenness and light that jarred. This was subtropical hippie country: the greens much brighter and richer than any in the south; greens that hurt the eye.