The Angel Maker

by Brijs, Stefan

  The priest was momentarily thrown off balance, but he quickly recovered.

  ‘The Church won’t allow it!’ he declared categorically. ‘Life is a gift from God. We are not permitted to take it into our own hands. It is not up to us to make decisions about life or death. He is the one who decides! God giveth and God taketh away, none else but He.’

  ‘Who gives Him that right?’ Victor raised his voice. ‘Why should we deliver ourselves to his will? He is evil, and evil must be striven against.’

  He truly has the devil in him, thought Father Kaisergruber; I always knew it. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing! Didn’t they teach you anything at that school? Your father took you out much too soon! Sister Milgitha was right: the evil was never driven out of you!’ Then he brusquely stood up and began to walk away. He had gone only two steps when he halted and turned back. Victor was sitting there as if the hand of God itself had smitten him.

  ‘Your father’s funeral is on Saturday, at half past nine. A quiet and understated Mass. And then he’ll be laid to rest in your mother’s grave. The way he wanted.’

  Victor did not attend his father’s funeral. He had returned to his room at the university campus some days earlier. He seemed to have lost his footing and his direction. He was completely adrift, his head all abuzz with voices and words.

  Your father took you out much too soon.

  You can do as much good as it is in your power to do, yet in the end you’ll still have to atone for the evil that you have done.

  Evil must striven against.

  The evil in you is never vanquished.

  God giveth and God taketh away, none else but He.

  He was in such a state that he hardly dared leave his room.

  The vice chancellor and the dean of the College of Biomedical Sciences came looking for him. It was the middle of August. The dog days were making a last effort to push up the temperature above thirty degrees and everything was blistering in the sun.

  The vice chancellor knocked, but nobody came to answer the door, although both he and Dr Bergmann could hear a voice inside. It sounded as if a tape was being played at slow speed.

  ‘Victor!’ the vice chancellor shouted.

  The sound stopped, but still no one came to open the door.

  The vice chancellor went to fetch the spare key from the concierge, hoping that Victor had not succumbed to despair the way his father had.

  When he opened the door, a blast of heat hit him in the face, immediately followed by a stench - the stench of rotting flesh. His mind had made the association with rotting flesh even before he noticed the flies, which came swarming out of the room. Dozens of them. Green and glinting. Buzzing loudly.

  The vice chancellor took a step back in alarm, and bumped into the dean. In an unconscious reflex both men pinched their noses with one hand. They were thinking the same thing. Both were hesitant to go any further.

  But what about the voice? Where had the voice come from?

  The vice chancellor, arm outstretched, pushed the door all the way open and glanced inside the sweltering room.

  The young man was seated at a desk, hunched over a book, his elbows propped on the desk top, hands cupped over his ears. The desk was in a corner of the room, to the right of the window, and the windowsill was littered with empty food tins. To the left of the window was a small counter with a gas burner and saucepan, also cluttered with tins. There were flies crawling in and around the pan.

  The vice chancellor, gasping for air, said, ‘Victor? Victor Hoppe?’

  The boy did not look up. There were flies dancing above his head and crawling over his freckled forearms.

  The dean had also sidled closer and was staring over the vice chancellor’s shoulder into the room. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside and made straight for the window, which he threw wide open. The tins on the windowsill clattered to the floor and Victor looked round, startled. Dr Bergmann could barely recognise him. The pale face was even paler than usual, the eyes bloodshot, and little tufts of red hair sprouted from his chin, too sparse yet to amount to a beard.

  ‘We thought there might be something wrong with you,’ said the dean quickly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m searching for answers,’ Victor said in a hoarse voice, gazing at the open window.

  The dean pursed his lips and exchanged looks with the vice chancellor. ‘All of us, Victor, are searching for answers,’ he said.

  ‘How long have you been in here?’ the vice chancellor asked.

  Victor turned his face towards the door. His eyes landed for a moment on the vice chancellor’s tie. Then he looked down and shook his head.

  The vice chancellor spoke again. ‘You may want to freshen up a bit, Victor. Dr Bergmann and I would like to have a word with you - about your future, and so on. Shall we say, half an hour from now in my office?’

  The young man nodded without meeting their eyes. He is embarrassed, the vice chancellor thought, and, trying to put him at ease, said, ‘We quite understand that you are having a hard time. That’s normal. Anyone would, in your situation. We’re going to see what we can do to help you. You mustn’t worry.’

  The vice chancellor gestured at Dr Bergmann, who said, ‘See you later, Victor.’

  ‘He’s desperate,’ said the vice chancellor a little later, when they were out of earshot. ‘He doesn’t know how to handle his father’s death.’

  ‘Yes, I’d say so. Did you see what he was reading?’

  The vice chancellor shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘The Bible.’

  ‘The Bible,’ the vice chancellor repeated. ‘In that case he definitely is desperate.’

  Dr Bergmann laid out for Victor the different directions he might follow in his doctoral research, or, as the dean put it, which department might be the best fit for his particular skills.

  He might choose oncology, and specialise in cancer research. Or geriatrics, where he could work on the prevention of infectious diseases in the elderly. But Dr Bergmann could also see him doing excellent work in the embryology department, where they were just starting an experimental project on in vitro fertilisation, spearheaded by the dean himself.

  The vice chancellor watched Victor Hoppe closely while Dr Bergmann was talking. The young man showed no enthusiasm, asked no questions, but simply nodded now and then - almost, it seemed, out of politeness.

  ‘It’s quite simple really, Victor,’ the vice chancellor interjected. ‘If you would like to go for your PhD - and of course we hope that you will - you have a choice of oncology, geriatrics or embryology; or, put another way, of saving lives, extending lives or creating lives.’

  He tapped his forefinger on the names of the three departments Dr Bergmann had written down. Then he repeated both the gesture and the words once more: ‘Saving life. Extending life. Creating life.’

  ‘Creating life,’ said Victor, but it wasn’t clear if he meant it as a question.

  ‘Making new lives,’ the vice chancellor explained, happy that at least he’d managed to capture Victor’s attention. And then he said, remembering the Bible Victor had been reading, ‘Bestowing life. Just like God.’

  Bestowing life. Just like God.

  Victor saw it as a gauntlet thrown down at his feet. A challenge.

  God giveth and God taketh away, Victor. But not always. Sometimes we have to do it ourselves. Remember that.

  All of a sudden he understood. And suddenly he had a goal in life once more.

  Rex Cremer drove to Bonn on 15 June 1984. Victor Hoppe had had a phone call the day before from the vice chancellor, requesting that he return to the university because the commission’s report was in, but Victor had refused. ‘Just send it to me,’ he’d said, without even bothering to ask what it said.

  This had put the vice chancellor in a fix, but then Cremer had volunteered to pay Dr Hoppe a visit and deliver the findings in person. It gave him an excuse to talk to Victor again, finally, after two months.
r />   He parked his car in front of the terraced house that still sported a sign proclaiming that Victor Hoppe was a fertility specialist. He had not told him he was coming, and hoped Victor was at home. Whether Victor would let him come in was another matter.

  As he rang the doorbell, he noticed that his hand was shaking. He heard noises on the other side of the door and when he caught sight of the doctor, he saw that he had let his beard grow.

  Victor glanced at Cremer, then peered down the street, as if to see if he had brought anyone else with him.

  ‘I have the commission’s report with me,’ said Rex. ‘The vice chancellor has asked me to go over it with you.’

  The doctor did not respond.

  ‘Perhaps we should go inside,’ the dean tried. ‘I don’t think we ought to discuss it out here.’

  ‘Do you still believe me, Dr Cremer?’ Victor asked abruptly.

  Rex was caught off guard, not only by the question but also by the formality. They had been on a first-name basis almost from the start, but now he had become ‘Dr Cremer’ again, as if to underscore the fact that there was a new distance between them.

  ‘The commission’s report doesn’t state that they don’t believe you,’ he answered with some hesitation. ‘It’s just the standards you have set for your research that are in question.’

  ‘I am not talking about the commission. I’m talking about you. Do you still believe me?’

  The directness of the question left him no option. ‘I must confess that I have my doubts.’

  ‘Do you want to see her? Will you believe me then? When you see it?’

  It almost sounded as if he were reciting a poem. He spoke in a kind of stiff, monotone cadence, but devoid of any emotion. Then the doctor turned and went back inside.

  Rex stood there nonplussed. Do you want to see her? Did he? he wondered. Of course he wanted to see her, but he was afraid of becoming involved in something he really should keep clear of. But he did want some clarity. That was what he had come here for. So he decided to follow Victor inside.

  The doctor had gone upstairs and was waiting outside a door. When Cremer joined him he knocked, but there was no answer.

  ‘She may be asleep,’ said Victor, turning the handle. ‘The pregnancy is wearing her out. And there have already been some complications.’

  The chamber was in semi-darkness. In the middle of the room stood an old-fashioned metal hospital bed surrounded by all sorts of equipment. Rex recognised an ultrasound machine and a heart monitor, its screen lit up. There was an intravenous drip hung on a stand, its tube connected to the arm of the woman in the bed. Under the sheets her stomach already showed a distinct bulge. Cremer had worked out beforehand that she must be about five months pregnant by now.

  Victor waved him over to the head of the bed. Cremer shuffled forward cautiously and caught sight of her short black hair. Then he looked at her face. It was rather plump. Her eyes were closed, her mouth half-open. She was breathing peacefully, in and out.

  Victor gestured that they should leave the room. Rex took one last look at her face. At her stomach. Did she know what was growing in there? He bumped into the bed, on purpose, making it move a few inches. The woman woke up, startled. Her eyes were large and dark. Physically, Victor and she were as different as day and night.

  Victor immediately turned back to reassure her.

  ‘This is Dr Cremer,’ he said. ‘He is dean of the University of Aachen.’

  Rex had seen her hands fly instinctively to her stomach, as if to protect what was inside.

  ‘How do you do?’ he asked automatically.

  ‘It’s very tiring,’ she said in faintly accented German. ‘But the doctor says it will be fine.’

  Her response sounded rehearsed, but perhaps she’d been telling herself that for all these months in order to sustain herself. Rex couldn’t help feeling that she barely knew what was happening to her. There was something naive about her, something childish, even though she looked to be well into her late twenties.

  He stared at her stomach again and wondered if he should ask about it. But he didn’t. He did not want to provoke Victor. Not yet.

  ‘If the doctor says it will be fine,’ he said, ‘then it probably will be fine.’

  Then they left the room and went to Victor’s office.

  ‘Does she know?’ he asked straight out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she’s having four babies. Four boys. Clones.’ Your clones, he meant.

  ‘There’s just three of them now,’ Victor replied. ‘One died in the womb. It’s still in there, but the heart has stopped.’

  ‘Does she know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She still thinks she’s having a girl?’

  Victor nodded and Rex thought, He’s mad. It was the first time that he actually believed it, too.

  But still he didn’t say anything. I have to remain detached, he thought, and began telling Victor about the report.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ Victor said quickly. ‘Anyway I’m not coming back.’

  That was precisely the solution suggested by the vice chancellor. The academic year was over, and so he had asked Cremer to convince the doctor not to come back to work. Then there would be no need to fire him.

  As there was no need to convince him, Rex got up again almost immediately. He left the report on the desk.

  Victor walked him to the front door. Rex wanted to know one more thing. ‘When are they due? Approximately?’

  ‘The twenty-ninth of September,’ Victor had answered without faltering.

  III

  1

  Rex Cremer crossed the summit of Mount Vaalserberg at a snail’s pace. His car drove slowly past the crowds of tourists who were visiting the three borders. As a child he too had come here, and he vividly remembered having climbed the Boudewijn Tower, which now rose up before him. He leaned forward so that his chest almost touched the steering wheel and gazed up. On the platform at the very top he saw a group of children, some of them pointing at something in the distance, others waving at their family or friends down below.

  Thirty-four metres. That was how high the tower was. That was another thing Rex remembered. He’d always had a good mind for numbers.

  The former dean crossed over from the Netherlands into Belgium without noticing. He was on his way from Cologne to Wolfheim. After passing through Aachen and Vaals, he had followed the signs for the three borders.

  ‘After the three borders you head down the Route des Trois Bornes,’ Victor had explained. ‘At the bottom of that road, you go under an arched bridge, and then you’ll see the house straight ahead of you. A villa, behind a gate. Just past the church. Number 1 Napoleonstrasse. ’

  The Route des Trois Bornes with its hairpin bends required all of Cremer’s concentration. This gave him a few minutes’ relief from the jittery feeling that had accompanied him the entire trip. But as soon as he caught sight of the bridge, he started feeling on edge again, even worse than before.

  He had bumped into Victor at a medical-equipment fair in Frankfurt the week before. It had been over four years since they had last seen each other or spoken. He had deliberately not stayed in touch with Victor, even though there were still so many questions left unanswered.

  For the first few months after seeing him in Bonn, Rex had kept a careful eye on the medical journals and newspapers, and to his relief had never found an article by or about Dr Victor Hoppe. So he had come to assume that the cloning experiment had failed - presuming it hadn’t been a downright fabrication to start with. More and more scientists were beginning to come to the conclusion that it just couldn’t be done; in all this time no one else had succeeded in cloning a mammal. To Cremer, however, it was still a mystery: had Victor actually made the whole thing up? and had he, as dean, been made a fool of by Victor Hoppe? As far as his colleagues at the University of Aachen were concerned, there was nothing to be done over the matter, which had made it difficult for him to continue
working with them. He had stayed on as department head after the hullabaloo had died down, but he had found that he no longer had his colleagues’ respect. A year later he had accepted an offer from a bio-tech company in Cologne, where he had taken over as chief of the new stem-cell research and DNA technology department.

  It was in that capacity that Rex Cremer had travelled to the fair in Frankfurt on Saturday, 29 October 1988, to view and order new equipment. He had only just walked in when he’d spotted Victor. Right away, from afar. He felt a shock go through him.

  He did not go over to Victor, at least not at first. He wandered through the fair for two hours, and kept catching sight of him, but their eyes had not met. Then he started following Victor. What sort of apparatus caught his eye? What kind of questions was he asking?

  His voice! When Rex got close enough to hear that unmistakable voice, he suddenly remembered the things Victor used to say.

  That’s the mistake they make. They set themselves limits.

  God created man in his image.

  There are times when one should simply accept the facts.

  There’s four of them. It’s too many.

  He walked past Victor deliberately, in the hope that Victor would be the one to recognise and hail him, as if he wanted to provide himself with an excuse in case anyone should spot them together. But Victor did not approach him. His former colleague didn’t even seem to recognise him when he gave a quick nod as they passed each other.

  In the end his curiosity won out. He turned round and said something to him. Victor looked as if he’d just been woken from a trance.

  ‘Hi! It’s me. Rex Cremer. From the University of Aachen.’

  ‘You have changed,’ Victor answered dryly.

  He hadn’t thought about that. He’d assumed that he was easy to recognise, but in the intervening years he had taken to wearing glasses and had grown his hair.

  ‘Good observation,’ he answered, instinctively straightening his glasses. ‘But tell me, how are you?’