Honk If You Are Jesus

by Peter Goldsworthy

  I picked up a phone and dialled the sixth floor Cell Lab extension: ‘Tad?’

  ‘Frau Professor?’

  ‘Tad, something’s come up. I need you down in the Ultrasound suite.’

  ‘Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something myself.’

  ‘It’s urgent. Now, Tad. Please.’

  I waited, fidgeting; when he hadn’t appeared in a few minutes I stuck my head into the corridor. He emerged from the lift, taking his time: walking slowly, leaning back into his fat.

  I gestured impatiently, he quickened his pace.

  He waddled into the room, wheezing slightly: ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Schultz’s gut cell — it was the female half of the sex pair we used? The X chromosome?’

  He nodded: ‘You were there.’

  ‘I was late, remember?’

  ‘What’s all this about? Is there a problem?’

  I tapped the wall screen: ‘What do you make of this?’

  He pulled a stool over, eased his bulky backside on to its much smaller surface area, and stroked his goatee thoughtfully.

  ‘Another ultrasound scan?’ He peered closer. ‘I’m no expert, the head, of course. I suppose this is body.’

  I tapped a smaller sub-shadow: ‘And this?’

  ‘No idea. What’s the problem? Some kind of defect?’

  I nodded: ‘You might say that. An extra limb.’

  ‘A bit small for a limb.’

  ‘About the size of a penis.’

  The significance dawned slowly. He made a hissing sound with his teeth: ‘It’s a boy?’

  We stared at the film together, in silence.

  ‘Could it be an artifact? A bit of umbilical cord?’

  I shook my head: ‘I’ve seen hundreds of these. I need to know: could there have been a mix-up at fertilisation?’

  ‘Mara, I watched Scanlon extract the genes from that gut cell. He was brilliant. Showing off his laser tweezers, showing how to move such tiny things around with his magic beams of light. I’m certain it was the female half.’

  ‘Any way of checking? Where’s the male half, the half you didn’t use?’

  ‘In the fridge upstairs.’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘I wouldn’t make such a simple mistake.’

  Still protesting innocence, he followed me upstairs to the Cell Lab; falling behind, wheezing, as I took the fire stairs two steps at a time.

  I was in the Lab, waiting, not knowing where to look, when he arrived, breathless. He reached into one of the storage fridges, flipped through various boxes of wet preparations, finally selecting a single slide. He held it briefly to the light, nodded to himself, and slipped it beneath the microscope. We peered into the eyepieces together, foreheads touching. Tad twiddled the coarse-focus knob; two distorted gut cells swam into clarity; one denucleated. He zoomed in on the other; we began counting filaments.

  ‘Y chromosome,’ he announced, finally. ‘No doubt about it. The boy half is still here.’

  ‘Then what is going on?’

  ‘The ultrasound must be wrong.’

  I shook my head: ‘I’ve a knack with those things. I’ve never been wrong at this stage.’

  ‘What are you suggesting? Bill deliberately made a switch during the fertilisation of the egg?’

  The thought hadn’t occurred to me; it was a Tad thought, not one of mine. He was much given to conspiracy theories, theories that would never cross my mind, at least during daylight hours.

  ‘You were there,’ I reminded him. ‘It happened under your nose.’

  ‘But what happened afterwards? Between fertilisation and implantation? Maybe eggs were switched on us in the incubator.’

  I laughed out loud: ‘Be sensible.’

  ‘Just a suggestion. I wasn’t serious. Although where else could a change have been made?’

  He was rubbing his goatee again, undeterred, warming to the idea of conspiracy. I put it down to Polish ancestry; paranoia was in the blood.

  ‘You did admit, chérie, that Hollis Schultz wasn’t too keen on a daughter. That he wanted a son and heir.’

  ‘You’re in cloud-cuckoo land. You think Scanlon and Schultz are in it together? You think Scanlon switched eggs on the orders of Schultz?’

  He shrugged, smiling at these delicious possibilities. ‘If not, it comes down to two possibilities. One: the ultrasound is wrong. Or two: we’ve got a freak. Some sort of hermaphrodite. A laser mutation, maybe.’

  I nodded. On this, at least, we agreed: ‘Whatever the truth, we’ll need something more concrete. I’ll need a villous sample from Mary-Beth. It’s too early for amniocentesis.’

  I walked reluctantly down the fire stairs to the fifth floor, to the waiting parents, wondering how to broach the subject. At the door of my office I halted, prepared my face — smiling reassurance, or the nearest simulacrum I could manage — and pushed in: ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’

  Mary-Beth was sitting on chair’s edge, agitated, an untouched cup of coffee at her elbow. Schultz was standing, staring through the window. I sensed that I was interrupting some sort of discussion, or argument, that had ceased the moment the door opened.

  Schultz turned towards me: ‘Professor Fox, Mara, you know we would never agree to an abortion. If there’s anything wrong with the baby, I can’t see that there is any point in knowing. It won’t change a thing.’

  ‘I want to know,’ Mary-Beth insisted. ‘If it’s a monster, I want to know.’

  What could I tell her: it’s not a monster, it’s a boy? It’s that particular species of monster called Boy?

  ‘It’s not a monster,’ I said, firmly. ‘It’s got a head. And four limbs.’

  I slapped the films against my own small viewing screen. There was no risk; untrained eyes would never detect that tiny appendage.

  ‘I do need to run some more tests,’ I said.

  Mary-Beth turned her head away: ‘There is something wrong.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong. The embryo — the baby — is a little bigger than I thought. I need to check some hormones. Growth hormones.’

  ‘Blood test?’ from Schultz.

  ‘I’m afraid not. A bit more complicated. I need a tiny bit of placental tissue.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘It’s very simple. A small … ah, biopsy through the cervix.’

  ‘A needle? Couldn’t that hurt the baby? I don’t think we should.’

  ‘There is a risk. Very slight. I wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t think it necessary.’

  Schultz remained stubborn: ‘Sweet thing — I can’t see that it’s necessary.’

  I shrugged, unwilling to insist, knowing that Mary-Beth would misinterpret anything I said. I was desperate to get a clump of placental cells under the microscope, but softly, softly.

  ‘I want it done, honey,’ she said. ‘For peace of mind.’

  ‘What difference will it make?’ Schultz turned from her to me, stonefaced: ‘Professor Fox, could we have a second opinion? I’d like to bring Professor Scanlon in on this.’

  ‘Scanlon? What’s he got to do with it? This is obstetrics, not genetics.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. But I must insist. I cannot allow this test to be done.’

  This was a third Schultz, a version I had not seen before. The short hair on his head was bristling: a fighting dog, about to attack. The surgically-tightened skin of that face, normally fixed in a smile, somehow contorted itself into anger. His reaction seemed out of all proportion.

  ‘If you can find Scanlon,’ I said. ‘I’m happy for you to talk to him. Of course he’ll defer to me on this. It’s not his field.’

  He moved towards the phone; could he locate Scanlon so easily? I hadn’t heard from the man for weeks.

  His wife, self-assured beyond her years, ignored him: ‘When can you do it, Mara?’

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘We may as well put your mind at rest as soon as possible.’

  ‘Now would b
e fine.’

  She rose, keeping her eyes averted from her husband who was left holding the phone, watching her, astonished, and followed me into the examination cubicle.

  I shut and locked the door.

  15

  For the second time that day I sat with my forehead touching Tad’s, peering down an accessory eyepiece on to a brightly-lit microscope field.

  ‘Good news and bad news,’ he murmured.

  ‘Give me the good first.’

  ‘It’s not a monster. Nothing missing. No trisomies. No weird sexual mosaics.’

  ‘The bad?’

  ‘It is a boy. No doubt about it.’

  I had spotted this myself: paired XY shapes that he had stained and teased out from the tangle of unsexed genes.

  He slipped in a back-up slide. For a time we said nothing, checking carefully. There had been no mistake.

  ‘What is going on, Tad? And what do I tell Miss Tennessee?’

  ‘The lady in question is waiting downstairs?’

  I lifted my eyes from the instrument and found myself looking onto his bald, shining dome, bent over his eyepiece.

  ‘I sent her home. Told her the tests might take time. Tomorrow, perhaps.’

  ‘You told a pork pie, Frau Professor.’

  ‘A little one. A fib. I needed to give myself some time.’

  ‘And Schultz?’

  ‘He vanished in a huff. I may be out of a job.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem. Tell her she’s expecting a healthy boy. Schultz certainly won’t mind. Perhaps he’s even expecting it.’

  He was still trying to inflame those absurd suspicions, build some sort of case for conspiracy, but his words had a different effect on me. Things connected, the jigsaw pieces fell into place; I felt a sudden relief — and a mild anger, at myself, for not having seen the obvious.

  ‘There is one solution I didn’t consider,’ I said.

  Tad was still head down over the microscope, counting chromosomes: ‘Mmm?’

  ‘She got pregnant … elsewhere. It had nothing to do with our implant.’

  He glanced up quickly, eyes glinting, interested: ‘What are you saying? The divine Mary-Beth has taken a lover?’

  ‘It has to be the answer, doesn’t it? It was too obvious to see.’

  He reapplied his face to the instrument: ‘Still — while we’re here. Better run a careful check. Whoever the sire.’

  I walked to the window, and glanced out. Night had fallen; the skyline of Surfers Paradise could be seen to the east: a dark knife-edge serration, spangled with lights, against a paler indigo sky. I felt flat: disappointed that the day’s mysteries had ended like this — in an obvious, even trite, explanation. Human failing. I was disappointed, also, that our experiment had not been a success.

  ‘Of course this only makes it worse. What do I tell them?’

  He was watching me again: ‘Better you than me. Although I’ll want a full report of everything. Every word. Where will you start?’

  ‘The plain facts. Leave the interpretations to the Schultzes.’

  I was still staring out into the night. He rose from his stool and wrapped his podgy arms about me from behind: ‘Why not leave it till tomorrow? She’s not expecting to hear from you tonight. Mañana, my dear. Mañana.’

  These were the words I needed to hear. I felt drained of energy, I wanted to be nowhere except home in bed. Safe behind the ramparts of my quilt, of late a favourite refuge. The day had been long: a roller coaster of questions and tentative solutions and then more questions. On top of which, this betrayal, the fact that the pregnancy wasn’t ‘ours’, after all: mine and Tad’s. Mary-Beth had cheated on her husband, and cheated on us. She had cheated on Embryology.

  Tad squeezed more tightly: ‘Disappointed?’

  ‘A little. I’ll live.’

  ‘The theory was right, chérie,’ he said. ‘We were there. Mary-Beth beat us to it, that’s all. Next time, okay?’

  I leant my head on his shoulder; there was a comforting warmth in his square, turtle body, a fat man’s radiant warmth.

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed, and disentangled myself. ‘Early night. I need to think it through a bit anyway. Coming home?’

  He shook his head: ‘Don’t wait up. I’ve a few things to do. And you need a bit of space.’ He paused, and laughed: ‘You need to write The Speech.’

  16

  The phone woke me in the smallest hours. Tad’s voice was high-pitched, urgent: ‘You’d better get up here again.’

  ‘Tad? Aren’t you home yet? What is it?’

  ‘I’d rather not say on the phone. The walls have ears.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘The Cell Lab.’

  ‘Tad — it’s 2 a.m. Put the champagne back in the fridge and go home to bed.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the adulteress yet?’

  ‘I took your advice — left it till tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. Don’t say a word. Because you’re wrong. You’re so wrong.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He chortled: ‘Just come, Mara. Now. This is the biggest thing you’ve ever dreamt of!’

  The line went dead. I dialled the Cell Lab extension; the phone was off the hook. He was giving me no chance to argue. I pulled on the same crumpled skirt and blouse I had discarded a few hours before, and walked out into the balmy night. I walked past Scanlon’s empty, darkened house, and down to the lake. A blanket of cloud had slipped across the sky, sealing in the day’s heat. The night was dark and warm, the air humid, and somehow resistant, almost viscid, as I tried to hurry through it, to force my way through it. I was covered in perspiration by the time I reached the hospital; a security guard watched suspiciously as I crossed the foyer. I stepped out of the lift on the sixth floor to find Tad waiting in the corridor; perhaps he had been watching from the window. He hustled me into the Lab.

  ‘You like mysteries, chérie? I’ve got the king of them all right here.’

  The wall screens were on, various photographic films were jammed at odd angles against them.

  ‘I’ve been running some genetic fingerprints,’ he said.

  ‘At this hour? Why?’

  ‘Curiosity. Something didn’t smell right. Mary-Beth playing around, for one. I doubt she has the imagination for it.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  He tapped a narrow electrophoretic ribbon: ‘This,’ he said, ‘is from Hollis Schultz’s gut cells. The original biopsy.’

  ‘You ran a genetic print on Schultz? Why?’

  ‘Purposes of comparison.’ He tapped another string of ribbons: ‘These are from the villous sample that you took yesterday. Our darling baby boy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You were right. Schultz is not the father.’

  ‘You got me out of bed to tell me what I already know?’

  He shook his head: ‘Listen. Something was still whispering inside me. I dug some other specimens out of the fridge. Mary-Beth’s spare eggs.’

  ‘Let me guess: one was missing?’

  ‘Of course. But there’s more.’

  ‘You ran a fingerprint on her?’

  He nodded: ‘You ready for this? Perhaps you’d better sit down.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Brace yourself. Mary-Beth is not — I repeat not — the mother.’

  ‘I don’t follow. What are you saying?’

  He tapped the foetal film again: ‘My first hunch was right. This is some kind of cuckoo protein. Except it’s not only the father who has been cuckolded — it’s the mother!’

  ‘You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘Mara, wake up! The whole thing is a switch. They cleaned out one of her eggs, stuffed some foreign genes inside, and handed it to you. That’s the embryo you implanted.’

  I stood there, dumbstruck. He watched me, fidgeting, restless, high on the wings of his own ingenuity.

  ‘But why? How?’

  ‘There’s only one way it could have got i
n there.’

  ‘Scanlon?’

  He shifted from foot to foot, thrilled: ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think.’

  I peered at the shining, banded ribbons, without properly seeing them. The world was preposterously out of focus; I wanted not to think, I was trying to do anything but think.

  A few words somehow clumped together, and found their way into my mouth: ‘So what did he put into the egg, Sherlock? Whose DNA? His own?’

  And then I remembered: remembered looking at similar films some months back, in Scanlon’s office, with Scanlon tapping his finger proudly along the rows of banded fingerprints. The holy relics. The Nail of Monza, the Armenian bone fragment, the shred of bloodstained cloth from Turkey.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  ‘I’m ahead of you, chérie. Who else could it be?’

  For the second time that day things fell into place, a different arrangement of the same set of jigsaw pieces. It was all too obvious. Hidden in full view, at least in hindsight.

  ‘No, it’s too ridiculous. Too … lunatic.’

  Tad was on his feet, moving restlessly about, laughing, waving his dainty, turtle paws. ‘Any more loony than resurrecting the dodo? Think, Mara. You know it’s the only answer. It makes sense. A lot of things begin to make sense. Your precious toy boy has switched chromosomes on us. He’s in another league altogether.’

  PART

  FOUR

  1

  I left Tad in the laboratory, uncorking yet another bottle of the pink fizz he kept in the storage fridge. I had never seen him in such a state. Exultant, in a word. Manic. The immensity, the sheer hubris of Scanlon’s project had struck a chord in him. Or perhaps he was more impressed by the blasphemy of it: the possibilites for scandal, global scandal.

  ‘This is your actual Second Coming,’ he purred, raising his foaming flute. ‘Your actual resurrection. You realise that? You realise what that makes us? We are the archangels, my dear, hi-tech archangels. We planted the Holy Ghost in the virgin.’

  I managed to get three words in edgeways: ‘Hardly a virgin.’