Three Marys

by Glenn Cooper

  They had established the outlines of each other’s domestic lives early on. Anning was Gottlieb’s senior by twenty years. He had a wife who led the existence of a Houston socialite and country-clubber. She rarely accompanied him to the place on earth he liked best, his horse farm and ranch in west Texas. They had two daughters, one married to a fellow in Texas who owned a bunch of automobile dealerships, the other to a pharmaceutical executive in New Jersey. Neither woman had ever had any serious career aspirations. Anning had a couple of pictures of grandchildren in his wallet but he showed them to his companion in a perfunctory way, without a grandfather’s pride. Gottlieb was married to a girl he had known in high school. They met up again after college and had a prosperous, childless, suburban life in Connecticut. Anning suspected that Gottlieb was a New York liberal and Gottlieb suspected Anning was a Texas conservative. They didn’t talk about politics. Why make a bad situation worse?

  Anning took the pilot’s folding knife from his jacket pocket and weakly held it up.

  He said, ‘You know we’re going to have to get some protein soon. We’re starving to death.’

  Gottlieb shook his drooping head. ‘I’m not with you on this, Randy.’

  ‘You will be.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Hell, Steve, all they are is slabs of meat in a cold locker. They don’t have names any more. Their souls have departed. I knew some of them better than others but I’d say they were all good people. The parts of them that matter now are in Heaven.’

  Gottlieb was too fatigued to laugh. The most he could muster was a sharp exhale. ‘You really believe that?’

  ‘What? That they’re in Heaven? You’re damn right I believe it. You’re Jewish, right?’

  Another sharp exhale. ‘Did my name give it away?’

  ‘I’ve known plenty of religious Jews. I take it you’re not one of them.’

  ‘You take it right.’

  ‘Well, I’m Catholic. I’m a deeply religious man.’

  ‘I haven’t heard you praying.’

  ‘I pray silently. I don’t choose to wear it on my sleeve. Not here. But if you were to find some faith up here on this mountain and you wanted to pray to God, I would join you. Just putting it out there.’

  The sharp wind was splattering snow against the skin of the plane. Gottlieb let his chin fall on to his chest. ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Two nights later, as it fell dark, Gottlieb was sitting in the same seat. Despite more threats, Anning had kept the knife in his pocket, unused, and Gottlieb suspected he wasn’t really all that committed to carving into a frozen arm.

  ‘You go to church?’ Gottlieb asked.

  ‘When I’m in Houston, I do. I like our Cardinal. George Pole. He’s old school. I admire that.’

  ‘What does that mean? Old school?’

  ‘He’s a traditionalist. A theological conservative. As am I.’

  ‘I guess you’re not a fan of Pope Celestine then.’

  ‘If you must know, I can’t stand him.’

  ‘That’s strong.’

  ‘My views are strongly felt. I think this pope has done more to harm the Church than any pope in my lifetime. Cardinals aren’t infallible. They made a mistake in the last conclave. They thought they knew their fellow cardinal, Aspromonte, and they didn’t. Even my friend George Pole fell into the trap. Once Aspromonte was elected, he showed his true colors. He’s a flaming socialist – maybe even a Communist – a liberation theology stooge who’s more interested in his social agenda than maintaining the ancient traditions of Catholicism.’

  ‘Gee, Randy, you’re not too worked up over him, are you?’

  ‘It’s something I take very seriously. You should hear the conversations I have with Cardinal Pole. We share the same fears about where the Church is heading. Gay marriage – check. Birth control – check. Ordination of women – check. If Celestine lives long enough and appoints enough of his people to the College of Cardinals, then you won’t be able to tell a Catholic from a Methodist.’

  ‘Or a Jew,’ Gottlieb said.

  ‘The one good thing about dying on this mountain,’ Anning said, ‘is that I won’t have to bear witness to the wholesale destruction of the institution I love.’

  They entered the third week on the mountain, too drained to spend more than an hour a day outside the fuselage. The meager rations of chocolate and brandy were a distant, fond memory. Everything they did, they did slowly and painfully. Even talking seemed like hard work.

  Anning had been returning to the subject of the Church in the Celestine era, as if the anger it stirred up inside him gave him energy. Gottlieb was sick of it but he didn’t have the strength to protest.

  ‘If we get rescued, you know what I’d like to do?’ Anning said.

  ‘Get a cheeseburger and fries?’

  Anning ignored him. ‘I’d like to bring him down. Burn Celestine’s Church to the ground.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Sounds violent.’

  ‘I’m not a violent man.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe by giving Catholics an alternative.’

  ‘I’m not sure the Jews will let all of you in.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘The Church needs to be reinvented.’

  ‘How would that happen?’

  Anning closed his eyes. Gottlieb thought he’d drifted off and he decided to take a nap too. But Anning wasn’t sleeping, he was thinking, and suddenly he spoke, startling Gottlieb.

  ‘You’d need to re-create the formative events of Christianity, that’s what,’ he said. ‘You’d need a new Holy Mother, a virgin. You’d need a new infant Jesus born from that virgin. You’d need a new clergy dedicated to the core values that made the Catholic Church powerful and great. You’d need to convert the faithful to a new Catholic Church, stir them up like crazy with new miracles. Hell, why only one Mary and one Jesus? Have more than one. From different parts of the world. Inspire the faithful with a vigorous new religion that makes them leave the old, corrupt one in droves.’

  Gottlieb was watching him get more and more animated. It seemed like the mental exercise was doing him good and he was almost apologetic when he pointed out the obvious.

  ‘It’s a great plan, Randy, except that it’s hard to dial up a miracle. Virgin birth was a big deal because it was a big deal.’

  The talking had made Anning’s mouth dry. They kept a tray of snow inside the fuselage for water and he scooped some into his mouth.

  ‘You could fake it,’ he said.

  ‘Fake what? Virginal conception?’ Gottlieb asked.

  ‘Why not? You could take a virgin, knock her out, and plant an embryo inside her. Hell, I’d even go for girls named Mary. Why not? Mary gets pregnant. Boom. Virgin birth. Names the baby Jesus. The boy is raised to be a prophet. He’s convincing as hell because he thinks he’s the son of God. What’s to say that couldn’t work?’

  Gottlieb tried to straighten himself in his seat. ‘Randy, aside from all the bullshit ideas you’re spouting, do you even know how in vitro fertilization works?’

  ‘No, do you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do. Beth and I tried it. Many times. I don’t know how many embryos we transferred. None of them took. We moved on. But here’s how it’s done. The woman is put up in stirrups. The doctor inserts a speculum to get a good look at the cervix. The embryos get sucked into a catheter and the catheter gets threaded through the speculum into the cervix and guided with ultrasound into the uterus where the embryos get deposited.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, what do you think happens when you insert a speculum into a virgin? It busts the hymen and you can’t prove she’s a virgin anymore.’

  ‘That’s a problem, isn’t it?’

  ‘To your diabolical scheme? Yeah, Randy, it’s a problem.’

  ‘You’re an engineer. Isn’t there a way around it, some way to preserve the virginity and still get the embryo in?’r />
  Gottlieb helped himself to some of the snow. ‘It’s not an engineering problem that’s ever been in need of a solution. No one’s ever had a problem with speculums before.’

  ‘What would you have to do?’

  ‘Well, you’d need to invent a new kind of catheter with exquisite tip control that you could thread in through a gap in the hymen under fiberoptic guidance and deliver an embryo payload into the uterus.’

  ‘I don’t have any idea what you just said. Would it work?’

  ‘Maybe. I mean I don’t think embryo transfer works a hundred per cent of the time. If you wanted one virgin Mary you’d probably need to do two or three procedures. If you wanted three Marys you’d need to do five or six. But it’s stupid, Randy. Why are we even talking about it?’

  ‘Do you know anyone who could design this catheter?’

  Gottlieb snorted. ‘You’re still talking about it.’ But after a while he said, ‘My mistress probably could.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Don’t look shocked. I’ve been having an affair for years. Her name’s Belinda.’

  ‘Your wife doesn’t know?’

  ‘I’ve been careful. Maybe they’ll meet at my memorial. Belinda and I were at the Yale School of Engineering together. Years later, I looked at licensing some of her patents for one of my companies. The rest is history.’

  ‘She could design my virgin birth machine?’

  ‘Randy, enough already. I’m going to take a nap now.’

  They were both sound asleep when the fuselage began to vibrate. Gottlieb blinked himself awake. Their mountainside abode, so quiet besides the occasional sound of wind and snow whipping against the aluminum skin, was weirdly noisy.

  ‘Randy! Get up. Get up.’

  He pulled Anning to his feet by a padded sleeve and the two men stumbled from the fuselage into a deep drift of pristine snow.

  As they began waving furiously at the Chilean Air Force Huey helicopter hovering overhead, a military photographer looked down on them and snapped their picture.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Sue Gibney was at the kitchen table in her sunny Santa Fe condo, placing a Skype call to a person she had never met and whose name she didn’t know. She was bemused by the anonymity of the process and wasn’t taking it all that seriously. It was a harmless, intriguing lark. The advertisement sought healthy women between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five to donate their eggs to a couple with fertility issues. The successful candidate would be Caucasian or Hispanic, college-educated, and willing to undergo medical, psychological, and genetic screening. The fee for donation would be ‘considerable.’ She liked the word ‘considerable’ and had sent her particulars to a post office box. Then she had promptly forgotten about it until an invitation for an interview popped into her email inbox.

  The Skype contact was MrsT43644. The woman who answered had perfect make-up, red lipstick and black, wavy hair with a glossy shine. The camera was close to her face. Nothing in the room was visible that might have given some clues about her.

  The woman had a distinctly Latin accent. ‘Hello, Susan. Very nice to meet you.’

  ‘Please call me Sue.’

  ‘All right, Sue. How are you today?’

  ‘I’m good. You must be Mrs T.’

  ‘I am. Sorry for being mysterious. My client is quite wealthy and is very careful about privacy.’

  ‘Clients,’ Sue said. ‘Your ad mentioned a couple with fertility issues.’

  ‘Yes! You’re right. I misspoke. So, Sue, your résumé was very impressive and you’ve been advanced to our shortlist.’

  ‘Oh! OK. What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that after I interview you and the other candidates on the shortlist, a smaller number of women will be advanced to the testing phase. Of course, we will pay handsomely for the time and inconvenience, even if you aren’t chosen to be the donor.’

  Sue fidgeted with her beaded necklace. ‘I don’t want to seem mercenary but would you mind telling me how much you’re paying for the eggs?’

  ‘I’d be concerned if you didn’t want to know. It’s seventy-five thousand dollars.’

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say seventy-five?’

  ‘Is this less than you expected? More?’

  Sue flushed with excitement but deflected the question. ‘I had no idea what the going rate was, actually.’

  ‘It’s well above the going rate. We’re paying a premium for discretion and confidentiality. If chosen, you’d be required to sign a highly restrictive, legally binding nondisclosure agreement. Are you OK to proceed with the interview?’

  Sue smiled into the camera. ‘Ask me anything.’

  When the interview was done, Torres told her she would hear back within a week.

  ‘I look forward to it,’ Sue replied.

  ‘One more thing, Sue,’ Torres said. ‘We’re impressed with your professional credentials. My client may require the services of a midwife at a later time. Whether or not you are chosen as our donor, may we keep your résumé on file?’

  THIRTY-SIX

  Maria Aquino wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. She had walked these alleys of Paradise Village so often that she knew every house, every little night market, every hole in the road that filled with rain water. She knew which corners to avoid – the ones where gangs hung out – and which routes were safest. She was thinking about what she was going to do when she got to her friend Lulu’s house on the other side of the slum from her own shanty. Lulu had a new copy of Candy, a teen pop magazine, and the girls would hang out, turn the pages together, and laugh until it hurt.

  She didn’t notice the white van idling by the vacant lot where a house had burned down and no one had rebuilt yet. She didn’t notice the door of the van opening and closing.

  The light!

  The light was so bright it hurt.

  She was grabbed from behind. A hand covered her mouth and a needle was expertly thrust into her neck. A thumb pushed on a plunger and a dose of the immediate-onset anesthetic propofol coursed into her jugular vein. She would have crumpled to the ground had another set of hands, a woman’s, not caught her and lifted her into the van.

  ‘Go,’ the man said.

  The driver took off and soon they were outside the slum, parked on a residential side street in Malabon City.

  Maria was laid out on a padded examination table. The anesthetist started an IV and began a milky propofol drip to keep her asleep. He stuck EKG electrodes on her chest and clamped a pulsimeter on a finger to check her oxygenation. He bent her head back to keep her airways open and kept a mask and bag at the ready in case he needed to breathe for her.

  ‘She’s good,’ he declared.

  A female gynecologist undressed the girl from the waist down and splayed her legs open.

  ‘She’s perfect. Intact hymen and she’s not having her period.’

  The catheter was set to go, the embryo payload she’d carried in a warming pack in her hand luggage on the flight to the Philippines was inside its fluid-filled delivery chamber. She had practiced the technique exhaustively in Houston for speed and accuracy. Now she inserted the catheter through the small opening in her hymen near her urethra and guided it through the vagina toward the cervix using the fiberoptic camera on its tip. At the cervical opening she moved the tip, just so, with joystick controls and gave the catheter a firm push until it was inside the uterus. From there, she used the camera to lay the catheter tip up against the uterine wall.

  ‘Her endometrium is perfect, her menstrual phase is fine,’ she declared. ‘We’re good to go.’ Then she squeezed the trigger and deposited the embryo on to the lining of the uterus.

  After she withdrew the catheter she inserted a rectal suppository of progesterone to improve the chance of embryo implantation, dressed the girl, and told the anesthetist that she was done.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’m going to slow the drip down until she’s almost conscious. Then it’ll be time for my line.’
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br />   Maria groaned lightly.

  The anesthetist had his note card handy. ‘Ikaw ay napili,’ he said loudly and theatrically. It was Filipino. ‘You have been chosen.’ Just to be sure, he said it again.

  They took her back to Paradise Village to a spot near where they had snatched her and left her sitting against a wall as her stupor lightened.

  Back in the van the anesthetist said to the gynecologist, ‘Now what?’

  She was cleaning and coiling the catheter for transport. ‘Now we go to Peru.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘Steve, you sound upset. I can hear it in your voice. Look, I’m with some people. No, I’m not blowing you off. On the contrary, I’m going to ask them to leave. Just hang on.’

  Anning was in his Houston office with a small group of employees discussing the geological survey of a new natural gas field. He cleared the room and got back on the line.

  ‘There, you’ve got my full attention.’

  ‘Look, Randy,’ Gottlieb said, ‘I didn’t sleep last night. You know the last time I missed a night’s sleep?’

  ‘That was a terrible night,’ Anning said after a memory-laden pause. ‘Tell me what’s troubling you.’

  ‘I’ve been reading about this shit in Ireland.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You see? Is that all you can say?’

  ‘I’m aware of the situation.’

  ‘It’s more than a situation, Randy. This girl’s mother is dead. The American priest was kidnapped.’

  ‘Now, Steve, my understanding is that her death was from a medical condition she’d been hospitalized for. As to the priest, that was unfortunate. The people over there decided to do some freelancing.’

  Gottlieb was clearly agitated. ‘Freelancing? I’m not comfortable where this is headed. It’s gone too far.’

  ‘You did your part, Steve. You helped me. And I helped you. I ponied up in a major way as a limited partner in your new fund. And your lady friend, Hartman, got paid damned well for signing over the rights to her catheter and for not asking questions.’