The Angel Maker

by Brijs, Stefan

  ‘Dyou-know-whey-frow-mai-wood-is?’

  One of the boys had spoken up. Rex had been about to leave the classroom after Victor had suggested they continue their discussion in the office. The three boys, who had patiently submitted to the doctor’s humiliating prodding and probing, stayed behind. Were left behind. Victor had left the room without another glance, not even a word. Cremer was hanging back for one last look at the boys, as if to convince himself that what he was seeing was real. Then one of the boys said something, but Rex was so taken by surprise at first that he didn’t quite catch what he had said.

  ‘Dyou-know-whey-frow-mai-wood-is?’ The boy’s voice was as nasal as Victor’s but his articulation was better.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Dyou-know-whey-frow-mai-wood-is?’ the boy said again, staring straight ahead as if he were speaking to someone else.

  Did he know where Frau Maiwood was. He didn’t know any Frau Maiwood.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ he had replied.

  ‘Shees-wiv-God-in-eav-ven,’ he heard, but this time it wasn’t the first boy who spoke up. One of the others had answered, although the voice was identical.

  Rex did not understand what they meant. It wasn’t until the third boy spoke that it became clear to him.

  ‘Shees-dead-fad-der-did-it.’

  This all took place within the space of a few seconds, but at the time it seemed much longer, and he was surprised that Victor hadn’t rushed back to tell the children to shut up. When the doctor did come back, he didn’t even act surprised or angry. He simply ignored the children, and again asked Rex to follow him to the office.

  As Victor went on jabbering, the boys’ words went round and round inside Rex’s head.

  Shees-dead-fad-der-did-it.

  It wasn’t until he was sitting in his car that the significance of the words really hit him. He felt so nauseated that he had to get out again. Leaning against the open door, he gasped for air. A woman walked up to him and asked him what was the matter, and then she began talking about the children. ‘They aren’t doing well, are they?’ she said. He couldn’t deny it; perhaps he didn’t want to deny it. He asked her if she knew who Frau Maiwood was, and what had happened to her. Frau Maenhout, she said, Frau Maenhout, the doctor’s housekeeper. She fell down the stairs. An accident.

  That did reassure him somewhat. Yet the boys’ words stayed with him all the way back to Cologne. He tried to recall everything that had happened, from start to finish, and the more he tried to piece it all together in his head, the more far-fetched it all seemed. As if he’d been watching a film. Characters on a screen. In the end he wondered if he might not just have imagined the whole thing.

  4

  Lothar Weber had phoned Dr Hoppe behind his wife’s back. She wasn’t in agreement with him.

  ‘Why? I’m not sick,’ she had answered when he had suggested going to see the doctor.

  But she was sick - sick with grief. Lothar saw it day after day. It was the little things he noticed. The way she dragged herself out of bed and trailed around, the way she ate her food more slowly than usual, the laundry and ironing piling up, his shoes never getting polished, the drawn-out silences.

  Lothar was suffering too, as never before, but he was still able to concentrate on his work at the foundry. Vera was at home by herself all day long.

  He had been hoping that the pain would level off at a certain point, but it seemed to him that her sorrow was growing more intense, week by week. When one morning she decided not to get out of bed at all, he rang the doctor. It was the run-up to Christmas, and he thought that the holidays would only make her grief even worse. He had heard from someone at work that there were pills to make life a little easier to bear, and he wanted to ask the doctor if his wife might have some. He hadn’t mentioned it over the phone, because he thought it wouldn’t be proper; he’d just asked the doctor to stop by the house.

  ‘It’s Vera,’ he said. ‘She’s ill.’

  The doctor promised to stop by that very day. That had given Lothar hope, because Dr Hoppe seldom made house calls these days.

  If ever I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. He had not forgotten that, and the doctor was evidently true to his word.

  He arrived at 3.30. Vera was still in bed. She hadn’t eaten a thing all day. Nor had she spoken. When Dr Hoppe appeared in her bedroom, she sat up a bit, tugged at her nightie and glared at her husband. He made a helpless gesture, but was secretly relieved at her reaction; apparently her inertia had not quite gained the upper hand.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ the doctor asked.

  Vera shook her head. Lothar saw that she was about to burst into tears. He also felt a lump in his throat.

  ‘Are you sad?’ the doctor asked next.

  Vera promptly began to sob, so intensely that her shoulders heaved. ‘I miss him so!’ she cried. ‘And it isn’t getting any better! It won’t go away! Gunther, my poor, poor Gunther!’ She bowed her head and buried her face in her hands.

  Lothar tiptoed closer. He looked at Dr Hoppe, who betrayed not the slightest emotion. As it should be, of course. That was why he had asked the doctor to come: because he would be able to judge things soberly, from a distance.

  ‘You loved him very much,’ said Dr Hoppe, and you couldn’t tell from his voice whether it was a question or a statement.

  Lothar frowned, but his wife did not seem surprised at the doctor’s words.

  ‘He was my only child, Doctor,’ she sobbed. ‘He was all I had. And now he is gone.’

  Lothar looked at his wife, who had buried her head in her hands once more. He perched on the edge of the bed and awkwardly began rubbing his hands on his thighs. It made him feel guilty sometimes, that his wife seemed so much more grief-stricken than he. But then again her bond with Gunther had always been stronger, and she’d been far better at dealing with his congenital deafness. She had even taken a sign-language course. He, on the other hand, had seen Gunther’s disability more as a burden, so he had always kept their exchanges short and businesslike. He regretted that now.

  ‘Why don’t you just have another child?’ Dr Hoppe asked.

  Lothar gulped. He saw his wife taking her hands away from her face.

  ‘I’ll be forty next month, Doctor.’

  Her husband was thinking the same thing. Besides, she had been closed to him for years - from the moment she had heard that Gunther was hearing-impaired, in fact, even though the specialist had stressed that it was not in any way a certainty that the next child would be born deaf as well. And now she was too old to get pregnant. Dr Hoppe had probably thought she was younger.

  ‘Your age is no problem,’ the doctor said, shaking his head, ‘these days, that is. It’s just a question of technique.’ He said it with such conviction that that seemed to settle it.

  Vera shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Doctor. I’ve never considered it. It is—’

  ‘If you like, you could have another son.’

  ‘A son?’ asked Vera, swallowing.

  ‘A son who would be the spitting image of Gunther. It can be done. Nothing’s impossible these days.’

  ‘But Doctor,’ Lothar began hesitantly, ‘will he then . . . will he . . .’ He glanced at his wife, but she was staring straight ahead, bewildered. ‘Would he be . . .’ he said again, discreetly tapping his right ear.

  ‘No, he won’t be deaf,’ answered Dr Hoppe firmly, whereupon Vera burst into tears.

  Lothar gave a sigh, and considered for a moment. ‘We don’t have to decide this minute, do we?’ he said, somewhat anxiously. ‘Isn’t that so?’

  ‘No, I am just giving you the option,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘Take your time. Think it over. You too, Frau Weber. You really need not abide by God’s will.’ Then he turned round.

  Lothar got up, but the doctor gestured to him. ‘Stay with your wife, Herr Weber, I’ll find my own way.’

  Lothar nodded and sank back down on the bed. He watched as the docto
r left the room, his back and shoulders squared. There was a self-assuredness in his posture that Lothar envied, but at the same time it filled him with awe. He heard his wife sobbing, and remembered that he had not even asked about the pills that were supposed to make life easier.

  He sighed and turned to his wife. ‘Vera . . .’ he began.

  His wife lifted her head. Her eyes were damp and red. She raised her right hand and then let it fall back into her lap. ‘We didn’t even ask how his own children are doing,’ she sobbed.

  The holidays ended up rubbing quite a bit of salt into Lothar and Vera Weber’s wounds, and after Mass on the first day of the new year, seeking solace, they went to speak with Father Kaisergruber.

  ‘Must we abide by God’s will?’ Vera asked him.

  The priest then told them the story of Job, who was tested by God after the devil had challenged Him.

  ‘God deprived Job of all his worldly goods, and his children also. And still the poor man did not curse God. God giveth and God taketh away, he said. And then God smote Job with sore boils from his head to his feet. And Job said, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, but shall we not receive evil?” ’ The story was accompanied with much gesticulation, as was the priest’s wont.

  ‘Now, do you understand what Job means?’ he said, turning to Vera. ‘You have a roof over your heads, you drive a nice car, Lothar has a good job . . . surely you don’t reproach God for granting you those things?’

  ‘I’d trade all of it in just to have Gunther back,’ Vera sighed.

  ‘The story doesn’t end there,’ Father Kaisergruber continued. ‘Because Job abided by God’s will, he was rewarded by Him once more, in the end. Listen . . .’

  The priest opened the Bible and read aloud, ‘He received fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. He also received twice seven sons and three daughters.’

  ‘What on earth would we do with all those animals?’ Lothar demanded.

  ‘You have to . . .’ the priest began, but the smile on Lothar’s face made him realise it was meant as a joke.

  ‘Don’t worry, I get it,’ Lothar told him, and his wife nodded silently.

  That night he reached for her, and for the first time in years he found his wife open to him. She was as unresponsive as a board, however, and after not even two minutes she pushed him off her.

  ‘It’s too risky,’ she said. ‘What if . . .’

  ‘We must abide,’ said Lothar.

  ‘It’s too risky. We mustn’t provoke God, either.’

  Lothar let out a sigh. He felt his penis shrivel up.

  ‘What do you want, then?’ he asked, even though he thought he knew the answer.

  ‘We could at least talk to him.’

  ‘To the doctor, you mean?’

  The slight stirring he felt beside him told him that she was nodding her head.

  ‘If it would make you feel more certain,’ he said, turning on his side, his back to her.

  ‘I think it would.’

  Gunther Weber’s parents came to see him, and the wife asked how likely it was that they would have a disabled child if they tried to conceive naturally.

  ‘The normal way, she means,’ her husband added.

  He had replied that it was quite a big risk that way, but that there were other methods to mitigate such a risk. A question of technique, he assured them again.

  ‘But if there’s such a big risk,’ she said, ‘surely it means that God does not want us to do it? So then we do have to abide by his will.’

  That gave him pause. But then he said, ‘Well, and what about Sarah?’

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Abraham’s wife. In the Bible, the Book of Genesis.’ He proceeded to recite the pertinent verses by heart: ‘Then He said, “When I return to you about this time next year, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Sarah stood behind him, listening at the entrance to the tent. Now Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.’ He was able to recall the words effortlessly, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the wife listening to him breathlessly, which was reason enough for him to continue. ‘And Jahweh visited Sarah as he had said, and Jahweh did unto Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.’

  The doctor paused, feeling himself break into a sweat. The wife and husband were both staring at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to go on, and then he said, even though he knew he was cutting it very close, ‘If you want, you can have a son by this time next year.’

  That was on 20 January 1989.

  It was cutting it very close, because most of the cells that Victor had harvested - that was the word he used - had already died. So he would first have to culture the few remaining live cells until they multiplied by cell division, although that would involve a further loss of telomeres. It couldn’t be helped, but at least there were many more telomeres left this time, compared to four years ago when he had cloned himself. He had again starved the newly formed cells and left them hovering between life and death, until they reached the G0 stage. It was like saving someone from drowning over and over again, only to throw them back into the water each time.

  At the same time he had to decipher the genetic code stored in each nucleus. That was more difficult than he had anticipated, because it turned out that the DNA in many of the cells wasn’t intact, so it was like having to decipher fragments of text scattered on little snippets of paper.

  When he had promised Gunther’s parents that he would help them, a little over two months after their son’s death, he had not yet deciphered the code. And once he had, he wouldn’t even be halfway there. The next step was to find the error in the code that had caused the boy’s deafness, and then try to erase that error. It wasn’t until he’d completed that stage that he’d be able to start culturing the embryos. And only then would he be able to make Vera Weber pregnant. If, that is, she was able to produce enough viable eggs in the interim, for that was another question mark.

  To complete all of this, he had given himself four months, with the assumption that the pregnancy would last just eight months. That was cutting it very close. He was aware of that. But it was part of the challenge. He thought it was still doable, in any case. More than ever, he was sure that he had everything under control.

  5

  On Saturday, 1 April 1989, Rex Cremer’s telephone rang.

  ‘Are you Dr Cremer? Of the University of Aachen?’

  ‘I am no longer employed there, madam. It’s been quite a few years.’

  ‘Do you happen to know where Dr Hoppe might be? At the university, I was told . . .’

  ‘I don’t know that name, madam.’

  ‘But you came to see me, in Bonn. It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘At Dr Hoppe’s. You came to see me there, when I was pregnant.’

  ‘You must be thinking of someone else.’

  ‘I’m trying to find the children, sir! I want to see them. I want to know how they are. You have to help me.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is, madam. In Bonn, perhaps.’

  ‘He hasn’t lived there for a long time. I’ve been there. I went there a month ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’

  ‘If you do see or hear from him, please tell him I am looking for him. Tell him I wish to see the children. That I have the right.’

  ‘You have the right?’

  ‘I’m their mother! Surely that gives me the right to see them!’

  ‘You are their mother?’

  ‘Of course I’m their mother!’

  ‘Please calm down, madam. You’ve caught me off guard. The children, you say. What do you know about the children?’

  ‘Nothing. On
ly that they were boys. Three boys! But I’ve never seen them.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘On the ultrasound, sir, only on the ultrasound. I was asleep when he took them out.’

  ‘And then? What did he . . .’3

  ‘He’d promised me a girl! One girl! And then all of a sudden he informs me it’s boys. Three boys! Actually, four . . . because one . . . one was . . .’

  ‘When did he tell you that?’

  ‘The day before their birth. He showed it to me! On the ultrasound. I was - I was in shock! I didn’t want them! Not back then. Do you understand? Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘I understand, madam, I do understand.’

  ‘But now I want to see them. I want to know how they are doing and tell them I’m sorry. I want to explain to them why I wasn’t there for them - why their mother wasn’t there for them. They must have been asking themselves that question, don’t you think? Maybe they don’t even know I’m alive. My God, imagine if—’

  ‘Madam, I don’t know. I have had very little to do with Dr Hoppe.’

  ‘But have you seen him? Have you ever heard from him?’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I heard that he had moved to Belgium.’

  ‘Belgium?’

  ‘Just across the border. A village called Wolfheim, something like that.’

  ‘Wolfheim, did you say?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  As if he’d simply passed the ball on to someone else. It was that simple, really. For five long months Rex had been carrying around a terrible sense of guilt, and suddenly it was gone. In those first days after his visit to Wolfheim, the guilt had haunted him constantly. He had tried to sort it all out in his mind, first from a rational scientist’s point of view, just as Victor Hoppe had done, and then from an outsider’s moral perspective. And so his sense of guilt had kept on growing.

  If you looked at it pragmatically, Victor had succeeded in cloning himself; and even if something had gone wrong with the experiment, it was an extraordinary feat. He had shown that it was possible to clone humans, and from a scientific standpoint the resulting mutation of the telomeres was merely a side effect, one that did have dreadful consequences, to be sure, but in the end, just a side effect.