The Cloning

  “Do you think we'll ever get to spend a night together?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he assured her. “After this hullabaloo is over, we'll go on with our lives. But meanwhile, it would only make matters worse if we flaunted our feelings for each other. Nani would accuse me of trying to avoid the charges by insinuating myself with you and Alpha.”

  “You still don’t think he’s told the Pope about us?”

  “No.”

  “But why? It seems like he’d want to tattle.”

  “I guess that’s his ace in the hole. And he may be betting that he’ll manage to catch us in a truly compromising situation. He’d really love that!”

  The following days were like an unending bad dream. Marc suffered alternating periods of intense anger and deep chagrin, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing—he could do to protect his reputation. The Pope graciously gave him veto power over any of the twelve members of D'Annunzio's commission, but after seeing their names Marc requested no changes because the credentials of the members were impeccable; it was an equitably selected group of top scientists, representing an acceptable cross section of races, nations, and religions. Oddly, this only increased Marc's sense of helplessness because he knew that he'd be hard put to disagree with the commission's findings, should they not be in his favor.

  “How could they not be in your favor?” Maria asked when he discussed his thoughts with her.

  “I wouldn’t put anything past Nani. He might find some way to juggle the data in his favor.”

  As the days dragged on, Marc and Maria tried to make the best of a maddening situation. Her routine was less affected than his because she was involved with every aspect of Alpha's recuperation. Marc tried to occupy himself by spending more time at his reading and research, and often in the evenings he'd stay late in the Vatican library.

  Speculation about the commission's activities occupied most of their conversations. Maria asked various nuns if they'd heard anything, but they were unanimous in their refusal to gossip. Finally she quizzed Monsignor Lissaro about what was happening, but he demurred, informing her that it would be impolitic of him to discuss it with anyone. She urged Marc to go directly to the Pope and ask when the commission’s findings would be announced, but Marc was loathe to use his privileged access to the Pontiff unless absolutely necessary.

  “We'll be among the first to hear,” he told her, “don't worry.”

  Finally, Monsignor Lissaro came to Maria's apartment one evening while she and Marc were having dinner.

  “I'm sorry to interrupt your meal,” he said, “but I thought you'd want to hear right away. I'm afraid the news isn't good.”

  “What is it? Tell us,” Maria urged him.

  “The commission has concluded that there's a very strong possibility that you sired the baby,” he informed Marc.

  Marc's face flushed with anger. “What the hell are they talking about? How could they come to that conclusion? That’s impossible. I know what I did and what I didn't do!”

  “I'm sorry,” Lissaro said quietly.

  “Sorry doesn't do it! My credibility is going down the drain. And I haven't even had a chance to defend myself against the charges.”

  “I know this is painful for you,” Lissaro acknowledged. “But they feel that the facts strongly suggest your paternity.”

  “If they'd agree to hear you, isn't there some way you could prove that it’s not true?” Maria asked Marc.

  “Sure, I could,” he replied. “I could take another fragment of the hair and make another baby just like Alpha . . . under their supervision this time.”

  That train of thought understandably upset Maria. “There could never been another baby like Alpha,” she insisted.

  “I'm afraid there could be,” Marc said soberly. “Exactly like him.” He turned to Lissaro. “Maybe they'd like that idea. Then they could set up a second Vatican Viewing Room in New York and make twice the money.”

  “This is no facetious matter,” Lissaro said sternly. “But the commission would like to study your DNA.”

  “You mean it's taken them all this time to come to that conclusion? Great!”

  “They're moving with extreme caution because of the delicacy of the problem. You wouldn't object to providing specimens from your body, would you?”

  “You bet I wouldn't. I've got plenty of specimens I'd like to give them,” Marc muttered.

  And so, under the careful supervision of Doctor D'Annunzio, he gave samples of his semen, his blood, his hair, his nails, his skin. Likewise, after being convinced that it was in Marc’s best interest, Maria agreed to specimens being taken from Alpha as well.

  *

  And then another interminable wait commenced. By late March, flowers were starting to bloom in the Vatican garden. The fragrance of hyacinths permeated the air. Marc and Maria began spending more time there, absorbing the warmth of the Italian sun. Almost every afternoon, she’d take Alpha outside in his carriage, and Marc would bring along a book to read.

  They had agreed—in the interest of their own sanity—not to mention the commission any more unless there was some news. But one day while they were sitting together in the garden near the Grotto of Lourdes, Maria suddenly blurted out, “How much longer can this go on, Marc?”

  He looked at her quizzically, wondering what had prompted this sudden breach of their agreement. “Who knows? But this is nicer than the Viewing Room, isn’t it?” he asked with forced optimism, indicating the verdant setting around them.

  “But we’re practically like prisoners,” she said.

  “They’re still feeding us well,” he quipped, trying to downplay her unexpected emotional outburst.

  “Isn’t there some place in the world where we could go, some place we wouldn’t be recognized, where we could lead a regular life?”

  Marc mused for a moment. “Probably, but how’d we get there? I don’t think the Vatican would help us, and if we left here on our own, we’d be mobbed before we got to the airport.”

  “Maybe my father could do something,” she speculated.

  Marc gave a sardonic laugh, then stopped short in surprise when he saw Stephen Reilly approaching across the garden with Cardinal Dugan.

  “Hello, Marc. And Maria,” Stephen offered.

  They returned his greeting, and Marc asked what brought them to the Holy City, noting to himself that Dugan had aged considerably; he had a strange, almost dazed look about the eyes.

  “His Eminence wanted to see the baby,” Stephen explained, indicating the Cardinal who had remained curiously quiet during this exchange, focusing fixedly on Alpha. “He hasn’t felt like traveling until now.”

  The Cardinal moved to the pram and crossed himself, obviously stirred by the experience. Then he dropped to his knees as tears began to stream down his cheeks, and he sobbed, “Thank you, my Lord, for allowing me to live to see this holy face.”

  Marc gave a quizzical glance to Stephen who returned a helpless sort of shrug, obviously unable to speak freely. Dugan turned to Stephen and motioned him to kneel too. Seeing how deeply moved the Cardinal was, Maria picked up Alpha and offered him to the Cardinal.

  “Would you like to hold him?” she asked.

  Dugan was speechless but managed to pull himself together enough to take the baby in his arms. “Blessed child,” he murmured.

  Marc could no longer contain his curiosity. “Excuse me, but I don’t get it. The last time I saw you, you weren’t exactly a fan,” he challenged Dugan. “But now that everybody else is asking questions, you’ve turned into a groupie?”

  With deep remorse, Dugan looked up to Marc. “Forgive me, Doctor. I’m no longer the man I was then. I’ve given up my sinful ways. The night of the star . . . I knew it was a sign from God. In one blinding moment, I realized that my objections were wrong. And I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to atone for that.”

  “Now, that is a miracle,” Marc conceded.

  A Swiss Guard approached and informed Mar
c that the commission wanted to see him immediately.

  “Have they come to a conclusion?”

  “I believe they have,” the man replied. “Follow me please.”

  Marc took Maria’s hand, gave her a hopeful look, then went with the guard as instructed.

  *

  The council room was an imposing, stark chamber of stone with a shining floor of black marble. Clerestory windows high above provided indirect but adequate illumination. D'Annunzio and the twelve members of his tribunal were seated behind a long table at one end of the room, flanked on either side by Cardinal Nani and Bishop Bottero. Marc was given a straight chair, facing the group. After Nani called the meeting to order in the name of the Holy See, he turned it over to Doctor D'Annunzio.

  “You are to be commended,” D'Annunzio intoned to Marc, “on your clever scheme, but fortunately this commission saw through it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marc demanded.

  “You knew that your experiment could never succeed, so you surreptitiously substituted an ovum fertilized by your own sperm.”

  “Why in God’s name would I do that?”

  “So that in the eventuality of any comparison of DNA from the child and the so-called Hair of Turin there would be a match. Your mistake was trusting that no one would ever compare your DNA tracks with those of the hair.”

  Marc was astonished at the charge. “Run that past me again.”

  “The spurious Hair of Turin is your hair, Doctor, as you know all too well.”

  “That's a lie.”

  “I'm speaking on behalf of this entire panel of highly regarded scientists, Doctor . . . men and woman who have your own seal of approval. There is no doubt whatsoever that you have perpetrated a monstrous hoax. The hair which you claim to have found on the Shroud of Turin matches your own DNA in every aspect.”

  Marc could hardly believe what he was hearing. He could have laughed, had the situation not been so dire. “That's a crock!”

  “You may, of course, examine all the data,” D'Annunzio said.

  “I still won't believe it,” Marc replied, almost shouting.

  “You’re not behaving like a scientist, Doctor. The tests speak for themselves.”

  “Your tests must have been rigged!”

  “To what end, pray tell?”

  “I can’t answer for every agenda in this place, but I won’t accept your findings until I do the tests myself.”

  “That’s out of the question. Our conclusion is final.”

  “Not to me!”

  Cardinal Nani rose abruptly from his chair, his eyes flashing with anger. “Enough of the nonsense. This commission is hereby dismissed with the profound thanks of the Holy See. I shall personally report its findings to the Holy Father.” Without further ado, he marched out of the room, followed by Bishop Bottero and then the members of the commission. Not one of them made any move to speak personally to Marc, to indicate in any manner that there was less than unanimity in their decision. Doctor D'Annunzio approached and thrust a thick folder of papers into Marc’s hands.

  “You will see that this dossier confirms the commission's findings,” he stated coldly, then left the room also.

  Marc sank back into the chair, and, still dazed, began looking through the documents in the folder.

  *

  One of the hardest things he'd ever had to do was to face Maria an hour later and tell her that the commission's findings were right . . . as far as they went. There was no point in re-doing the tests.

  “I don't believe it,” she said.

  “Nevertheless,” he snapped, “it happens to be true.”

  “What I mean,” she replied calmly, “is that I don't believe you cheated.”

  “Of course I didn't cheat. The experiment worked. I have the honor of having created the first cloned human being from my own body.”

  “What? How could that happen?”

  He couldn't bring himself to answer at first. He rose, and walked around the room instead, trying to find some way to lessen his excruciating admission.

  “What do you mean, Marc? Tell me,” she pressed, totally perplexed.

  Finally, he forced himself to speak. “There's only one way it could have happened, and it makes me feel like such a fool . . . a total and complete nincompoop. You see, I had a barber come to my hotel room the morning I began my work in Turin. Obviously, a fragment of my hair somehow got onto the shroud while I was examining it.”

  She broke out laughing, spontaneous and uncontrollable giggles that grew into guffaws. Marc looked at her grimly until he was unable to stand it longer.

  “Will you just shut up and keep your ridicule to yourself, goddamn it!”

  It took a moment before she could stop, but seeing the pain on his face, she realized how much she was hurting him. “You're serious?” she gasped, unable to conceal her astonishment.

  “I’m afraid I’m very serious. I remember how groggy I was the morning I found the hair. I’d only had a few hours sleep . . . I guess I just wasn’t thinking straight, and once the idea had taken hold . . .” He stopped helplessly.

  She took a few moments to let this news penetrate, to deal with its full implications. Then she asked, “So I carried your baby? Right?”

  “No, not my baby . . . my clone.”

  “I like that,” she said brightly.

  “It's more complicated that you realize, Maria.”

  “I don't see what's so complicated. Alpha's going to be exactly like you, right? But he was made with my egg, and I carried him in my womb. And I've been nursing him since he was born. Sounds to me like he's ours.”

  “But the idea struck you as funny at first, didn’t it? And not only you. The whole world’s going to be laughing.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I still respect you just the same,” she assured him.

  “How can you possibly respect me when I've proved myself such an incompetent ass?”

  “I love you just the same, even if you did make a mistake. More, I guess. Alpha's our baby! And he was sent into the world for a very important reason. Your mistake is just a part of it all.”

  “A part of what?” he asked incredulously.

  Maria shrugged and confessed, “I just know it's all a part of something God has planned.”

  Rather than add to the stress of the moment with another argument, Marc replied, “Whatever you say, Maria,” and tried to hide his condescension.

  Alpha's voice came from the nursery, talking baby gibberish, almost as if he wanted to be part of their conversation. Maria brought him and placed him in Marc's arms.

  “I don’t care about all the complications. I think you're his father,” she said simply.

  Marc looked closely at the tiny boy who in turn looked up at Marc and smiled a wet, toothless grin. Marc tried to recall some of his own baby pictures to compare his appearance as an infant to Alpha's, but no image came to mind. Marc was certain that there must be some photos of himself among his mother's belongings, in storage in Boston. He'd ask Nora to see if she could find them. Meanwhile, Alpha looked like any other healthy baby . . . but he was in fact an exact recreation of the man who was holding him, only thirty-four years younger.

  Marc remembered talking to Nora once about the emotional by-play between the clone and the cloned. But, strangely, he didn't feel threatened by this little duplicate of himself; he felt no differently toward Alpha now than he'd felt all along: he had a deep sense of responsibility for the child and a profound amazement at the miracle of human life, no matter how it was conceived. True, Alpha would mature in due time, and as he approached adulthood, his appearance would become more like Marc’s. Maybe Marc would feel threatened then, but how could he project his feelings that far into the future? For now, all he felt was love for the little one he held in his arms.

  At that moment, Marc and Maria both became aware of a rumble that had been slowly growing outside from the square.

  “Sounds like a crowd,” he
commented, then went to the window and cautiously opened the shutter a crack. Maria looked over his shoulder. Below them, the square in front of Saint Peter’s was packed with people, but this was a far different crowd from those who had gathered there previously. The tone of this crowd was dark, restless, and ugly. This was an angry mob.

  A voice briefly rose above the others, “Get the American charlatan! Get the heretic!”

  Another demonstrator yelled, “Kill the anti-Christ! Crucify him!”

  From another section of the mob, a group chanted, “Kill them all! Kill them all!”

  Maria and Marc reflexively recoiled from the onslaught of hatred, from the angry fists being shaken in their direction. He held her and Alpha close, trying to be reassuring, but in fact he'd never been more terrified in his life.

  He decided to call Monsignor Lissaro, to explain about the fragment of his own hair, and to request a press conference so that the public could hear the explanation from his own lips. Lissaro was in an extremely difficult position, torn between the panel’s findings and his instinctive trust in Marc, and Marc felt sorry for him because the man had been a good friend since the day Marc arrived in Rome. But Lissaro’s prime allegiance was to the Pope, and he reluctantly denied the request out of fear that it might compromise the position of the Vatican and could further incite the wrath of the demonstrators who felt such a bitter sense of betrayal already. Instead, Lissaro offered to prepare a press release with any explanation or comments Marc wanted to make. Marc wrote a three-page document in little more than an hour, and it was disseminated immediately.

  “I deeply regret,” the release concluded, “that I have inadvertently misled and disillusioned so many people by a careless error. I want to assure each of them that there was no intent on my part to deceive, nor any desire to profit from the mistake. Never in my wildest dreams did I realize the scope of my lapse, and I shall regret it for the rest of my life. I will do anything within my power to mitigate the results of my stupidity. I most humbly ask that a sense of forgiveness replace the anger that is so pervasive at the moment.”