In His Image

by James Beauseigneur

  “If it was from the Middle East, or even from Jerusalem itself, it would not necessarily prove anything about the Shroud, of course. A forger who went to all the trouble of placing dirt on the Shroud in such minute amounts that it would take a twentieth-century macroscope to see it might just as well have thought to import the dirt from Jerusalem. It makes about as much sense, which is to say: none at all. I just wanted to get another look at it.”

  Goodman sat down in front of a microscope, turned on its lamp and placed a slide on the scope’s stage. “In the car I told you that Dr. Heller had avoided using too much magnification because of what it was he was looking for.” Goodman paused, looked through the eyepiece lens, and adjusted the scope’s objectives and focus. “In my case,” he continued as he looked up at Decker, “I used between a 600X and a 1000X.” Goodman stood up and motioned for Decker to look through the scope. “This first slide is the sample taken from directly over the left heel.”

  Decker moved the slide around on the stage, refocusing as necessary. “There’s not much there,” he said, still scanning the slide.

  “Exactly,” Goodman said. “At first I was rather disappointed. I checked the grid, but the only other samples from the feet were from the nail wounds in the right foot.” Goodman took the slide from the microscope and carefully placed it back in its designated slot.

  “You remember that the right foot actually had two exit wounds, indicating that the feet had been nailed left over right. The right foot was nailed down first, with the nail exiting through the arch of the foot. The left foot was then nailed on top of the right with the nail passing through both feet, leaving an exit wound in the arch of the left foot and the heel of the right. Neither of these samples seemed very promising, though, because any dirt that had been in the wound areas would likely have been bonded to the cloth by the blood.”

  Goodman took a second slide from the plastic case. “This particular sample is from the blood stain of the right heel. I really didn’t expect to find any dirt there, but I looked anyway.” Goodman paused.

  “That’s when I found it.”

  Goodman reached around Decker, shut off the microscope’s lamp, and handed him the slide. Decker took the slide and placed it on the microscope’s stage. He adjusted the mirror to compensate for the loss of light from the lamp and focused the lens. Goodman rotated the objective to 800X. On the slide before him, Decker could see a group of several strangely familiar disk-shaped objects surrounded by and imbedded into crusty blackish-brown material that he assumed to be blood.

  After a moment, he looked up at Goodman. His eyes had grown wide and his mind raced in disbelief and confusion. “Is that possible?” he asked finally.

  Goodman opened a large medical text book to a well-marked page and pointed to an illustration in the upper left corner. What Decker saw there was an artist’s representation of something very similar to what he had just seen through Goodman’s microscope. The caption below the picture read, “human dermal skin cells.”

  Decker looked back through the microscope to be sure. Inexplicably, despite hundreds or even thousands of years, they appeared to be perfectly preserved. He felt Goodman reach around him again, this time to turn the lamp back on. The brighter light made the small disks appear transparent and Decker could clearly see the nucleus of each cell. Within a few seconds the lamp began to gently warm the slide. Decker looked away to rub his eyes and then looked back.

  In the warmth of the artificial light, the nuclei began to move.

  4

  Mother of God

  Los Angeles, California

  DECKER’S CHEST FELT HEAVY and his head light. He struggled to catch his breath. Silently he watched the nuclei of the cells as they continued to undulate. His mind seemed to float in the sea of warm cytoplasm before him, void of points of reference except for the cells. A thousand questions rose and fell, fighting for his attention, but he was incapable of enough focus on anything outside of what he saw to even realize his confusion. It was only when he ceased his attempt to understand the full impact of what he was seeing that his senses began to reemerge from the ooze. Decker’s ears slowly became aware of Goodman’s voice.

  “Decker … Decker …” Goodman touched him on the shoulder and he finally looked up. “Are you hungry?”

  Decker hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but right now he thought Goodman’s question was insane.

  “Believe me,” said Goodman, “I know just how you feel. The same thing happened to me. I went looking for dirt and found live dermal skin cells. I nearly got religion! That’s when I made the connection to Professor Crick’s theory.” Goodman took the slide from the microscope and carefully placed it back in the plastic case.

  “What is it?” Decker asked finally.

  “I showed you,” said Goodman. “They’re dermal cells—cells from just below the skin’s surface. Oh, and as you’ve obviously noticed, they’re alive.” Goodman hid the excitement he felt in finally being able to share his discovery, and his calm, understated response simply served to accentuate Decker’s confusion.

  “But what? … How?” Decker pleaded.

  “The cells were picked up on the Mylar tape along with some small flecks of blood. Apparently when the Shroud was laid over the crucified man, some of the exposed flesh of the wound was bonded to the cloth by the dried blood. When the man was regenerated and the Shroud was pulled away from his body, a small amount of dermal material was pulled away with it. The same thing can happen when bandages are removed from a large wound. I suspect the weight of the heel resting on the cloth helped some, too. What you have just seen are cells at least six hundred years old with absolutely no sign of degeneration. In short: They’re alive.”

  “Six hundred years?” Decker asked, surprised that Professor Goodman had not said two thousand.

  “Well, if the Carbon 14 dating is correct, yes. On the other hand, I think it is rather unlikely that anyone would have been crucified in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. I have no real evidence to dispute the Carbon 14 results, but my guess is that, in all likelihood, the Shroud does date to the first century and was, in fact, the burial cloth of Jesus. The historical evidence is rather conclusive that Jesus did exist. I’ve never doubted that any more than I’ve doubted the historical evidence of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Actually, it all fits perfectly into my hypothesis.”

  “Professor, why weren’t the blood cells alive?” Decker asked.

  “That’s an interesting question. I assume it’s because the blood is from the body that died. The skin cells, on the other hand, are from the body after it was regenerated.”

  Goodman put his hand on Decker’s shoulder and gently nudged him in the direction of the door. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved and my housekeeper was expecting us half an hour ago for lunch. My wife is visiting her mother in Kansas City.”

  Goodman’s house was an English Tudor with brown trim and stone on a quiet dead-end street about twenty minutes from the campus. The two men were greeted at the door by Goodman’s housekeeper, a young Hispanic woman. “Maria, this is my guest, Mr. Hawthorne.” Goodman spoke very slowly, enunciating every word. “We’ll have our lunch now.”

  Decker looked around the house. Just about every wall had shelves full of books. A few shelves had additional books neatly stacked beside them. Decker had never met Goodman’s wife, Martha, but she was obviously very tolerant of her husband’s profession.

  “Professor, we need to talk,” Decker said as they sat down at the dining room table.

  “Yes, I know,” Goodman answered.

  Decker’s eyes glanced to the housekeeper and then back to Goodman.

  “Oh, don’t worry about her,” Goodman said. “She hardly speaks any English. She’s only been in this country about six months.”

  “We can’t keep this to ourselves,” Decker started.

  “I have no intention of keeping it secret forever, but if we let the story out now there will be no end to
the reporters. Not to mention the thousands of mindless religious kooks. You remember the crowds in Turin lined up to see the Shroud? What do you think would happen if word leaked out that live cells from the body of Jesus were in a laboratory in Los Angeles? Every sick or dying person in America would be here overnight hoping to touch the cells and be healed. I’ve touched the cells and they haven’t done a thing for me. You may have touched them yourself, when you were handling the Shroud in Turin and I notice it hasn’t stopped your hairline from receding,” Goodman added in characteristic deadpan humor. “All that would result from releasing the story now is that a lot of people would be hurt. But if we wait until I’ve finished my research we may be able to offer some real healing power.”

  “What do you mean ‘real healing power’?”

  “Decker, are you blind? You saw those cells. What do you think we’ve been talking about?”

  “I’m not sure I know anymore.”

  “Those cells are hundreds or even thousands of years old. They have survived intense heat and freezing cold. As far as we can tell, they’re immortal. Yet in most respects they’re human. With time, we may be able to discover what makes them immortal. We may discover things that can lead to new vaccines, create powerful new life-saving drugs, extend life, perhaps even bring about our own immortality!”

  Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I hadn’t even considered anything like that,” he said.

  “Actually, I’m already deeply involved in research on the cells. I began by inducing cell mitosis in the laboratory. The cells are extremely resilient and multiply rapidly. I’ve been able to grow a substantial culture. However, there is another area of research worthy of pursuit as well.” Goodman paused to consider his words. “Decker, what do you know about cloning?”

  It took Decker only an instant to guess what Goodman was getting at. Decker was not a religious person, but this idea rubbed him entirely the wrong way. “Hold it! You don’t mean … You’re talking about cloning Jesus?!” Decker’s loud outburst startled Maria, who dropped a plate in the kitchen.

  Goodman apparently had not anticipated Decker’s opposition. “Just wait a minute!” he replied at a slightly lower and more controlled decibel level. “To begin with, we can’t be certain that these are the cells of Jesus.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty good guess!” Decker shot back, incredulously.

  “But even if they are,” Goodman continued, “I still find my hypothesis about his origin more reasonable than any silly religious notions you may have.”

  It was then that Decker put it all together. “That’s what you were talking about before! That’s how you plan to test your hypothesis that Jesus was from an advanced alien race! You’re going to try to clone him!”

  “Look, Decker, there’s no need for a shouting match. And anyway, you’re jumping to ridiculous conclusions based on insufficient data. All I meant was that you might someday be able to test my hypothesis of the man’s origin in that manner.” Goodman’s clarification wasn’t very convincing.

  “Look, Professor,” Decker said, “it’s one thing to do lab research or grow cells in a petri dish, but you just can’t go around cloning people, especially if the guy you want to clone might just be the son of God!”

  “Decker, use your brain. If the image on the Shroud was from the son of God, then tell me this: Why would an all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful creator allow the cells to get stuck to the Shroud in the first place?”

  “Who knows? Maybe as a sign or something.”

  “And why would he allow me, a man who doesn’t even believe in him, to find the cells? If it was some kind of sign, wouldn’t God at least have chosen someone who believed in him?”

  Decker didn’t have an answer.

  “But more important,” continued Goodman, “even if you examine it from a religious point of view, you must ask how could a mere mortal manage to clone the son of God? Would the ‘soul’ of Jesus be in the clone?” Goodman struggled to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Would God really allow himself to be so easily manipulated by men?”

  Decker listened. As uncomfortable as it made him feel, what Goodman was saying made sense.

  “Decker, I really expected you to be more open-minded about this. Where’s your scientific curiosity? Surely you can see that if I did manage to clone the man on the Shroud, it would be proof positive that he was not the son of God. If, I repeat, if it was possible to clone the man, we still might never know his origin because he would not have the memory of the original. But we’d know one thing without a doubt, and it’s that he was not the son of God, because if he was, I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty safe assumption that God wouldn’t allow us to clone his son.”

  Decker couldn’t argue with Goodman’s logic. An all-knowing, all-powerful God was not likely to just leave a bunch of his son’s cells lying around. Besides, it was obvious that as far as Goodman was concerned, the discussion was over.

  During their conversation the two men had taken only a few bites of their dinners. Goodman now focused his attention on the plate before him. Decker felt it wise to do the same. After the meal the conversation grew a little more amiable, but Goodman was clearly angered and avoided the subject of the Shroud entirely, except to say that he would call Decker when the next step in his research on the cells was under way.

  As they stood to leave for the airport, Maria cleared the dishes and silver, stretching across the large table to reach Professor Goodman’s saucer and cup. She carried them back to the kitchen, tugging lightly at her apron and adjusting her maternity dress.

  5

  Christopher

  Twelve years later

  Los Angeles, California

  “IS IT VERY MUCH FARTHER?” Hope Hawthorne asked her father as they drove down the exit ramp of I-605 in Northern Los Angeles. “No, babe, just a few more miles,” Decker answered.

  Hope turned on the radio just in time to hear an announcer report the current temperature, “It’s seventy-eight degrees— another beautiful day in Southern California.”

  “Seventy-eight degrees! Is this heaven or what? It was thirty-seven and raining when we left D.C.,” Decker commented as Hope tried to find some music. They had flown in that morning from Washington, D.C., to visit Professor Harry Goodman, who was about to announce a major breakthrough that could prove to be a cure for several types of cancer. The discovery was a result of research with the C-cells (as Goodman had come to call the cells from the Shroud) and, in accordance with the agreement they had made twelve years earlier, Decker was to be given an exclusive report on any C-cell research two weeks prior to any formal announcement and press conference. To this point the research had not been nearly as successful as Goodman had hoped.

  Decker had seen Goodman only once since their initial discussions about the origin of the cells. It had been in the summer four years ago, when Goodman believed he was close to developing an AIDS vaccine. What he found was a dead end. Most humiliating was that Goodman had discovered the error in his research two days after Decker’s article reached the newsstands. The article had generated national attention for Goodman’s work and Decker’s newspaper, only to be followed the same week by embarrassment.

  Decker turned the rented car down the narrow street and stopped in front of Goodman’s house. They were greeted at the front door by Mrs. Goodman. Decker politely reintroduced himself from four years earlier to the woman who smiled warmly at her two guests. “Oh, I remember you,” she said brightly. “And this must be Hope.” She reached over to give Hope a grandmotherly hug. “Harry said you were bringing your daughter with you. Such a pretty girl! How old are you, dear?”

  “Thirteen,” Hope answered.

  “We decided to mix pleasure with business,” Decker said. “We’re going to drive up to San Francisco this afternoon and visit my wife’s sister for a few days. Elizabeth and our other daughter, Louisa, flew out there three days ago.”

  “Yeah, but I had to stay in Washington and take a
math test,” Hope interjected.

  “In the news business things are very mercurial. It seems that our vacations have never worked out as we planned, so we just try to take a few days whenever we can. Sometimes that means the kids have to miss a few days of school,” Decker explained.

  Mrs. Goodman looked at Decker with disapproving puzzlement on her face. “Your daughter is in school in Washington? I thought you lived in Tennessee. Do you really think that a boarding school is appropriate for a girl Hope’s age? Especially so far from—”

  “Hope’s not in a boarding school,” Decker interrupted. “We moved to Washington two years ago after I sold my newspaper in Knoxville and went to work for NewsWorld magazine.”

  “Oh, forgive me. I didn’t realize. It’s just that, well, my parents sent me to a boarding school when I was twelve and I hated it. Anyway,” she said, changing the subject and turning her attention again to Hope. “I’m glad you were able to come along, dear. Harry is out in the backyard playing with Christopher. They probably didn’t hear you drive up. I’m afraid the professor’s hearing is not what it used to be. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  Decker and Hope waited as Mrs. Goodman went to call her husband. “He’ll be right in, Mr. Hawthorne,” she said as she returned and then excused herself to the kitchen.