Jon Timu was smoking a cigarillo, drinking a cappuccino, and eating a croissant on Vincente’s terrace when a woman sat down at his table. She was wearing a thick shirt and carrying a package, which she placed on the chair next to hers. She was a Maori like him, or rather mixed-race, very brown, with short hair, and jade eyes that looked through him.
“I have to talk to you,” she said.
She was a very attractive woman. But his professional instinct quickly gained the upper hand—he didn’t like the way she was staring at him.
“Who are you?”
“Never mind about that,” she replied. “Have you heard from your son?”
Timu took the damp cigarillo from his mouth. He immediately forgot Vincente, the cappuccino, her jade eyes. “What do you want with him?”
The woman placed a blue scarf on the table. Helena’s scarf. The one Mark never let out of his sight. He had still had it this morning. Timu’s heart skipped a beat.
“Where did you get this?” he said, turning crimson. “Has something happened to him?” He made a threatening gesture, but the woman didn’t bat an eyelid.
“Calm down, Captain,” she said. “Mark is fine, at least for the moment. The tutor who was with him, though, is a bit tired.” She pouted, in a way that was more cruel than ironic. “But don’t worry, nothing will happen to them if you cooperate.”
“What have you done to him?” Timu roared. The policeman was gone, he was just a father now. “Answer me!”
“Lower your voice,” she said softly. “I have a deal to propose.”
Kidnapped. Mark had been kidnapped. Timu grabbed her wrist and squeezed it until it cracked.
“Where is he?” he hissed.
“Don’t play the fool. I think you understand the situation.”
“Where is he?”
“Let go of me,” she ordered. “Now.”
Her jade eyes were unsettlingly calm. He was seething.
“I have a deal to propose,” she said again. “Let go of me.”
He loosened his grip on her but his teeth remained clenched. They’d pay for this.
She grabbed the package from the next chair and placed it on the table. “This is what we’re going to do.”
8.
Tom Culhane was chewing gum, his third piece since this morning. Today was the day they were going to attempt the in vitro fertilization. Love in a test tube. It made Culhane feel sick. The child they couldn’t have naturally had driven a wall between them that nothing now seemed able to breach. He had thought their libido would continue past “the night of the barbecue,” as he called it. It had seemed plausible at the time—they had taken the first step, which the sexologists said was the hardest—and he had hoped that by resuming physical relations the rest would follow, but he had been wrong. Rosemary had gone back to her place on the couch, watching her stupid TV shows, stories of hospitals and love affairs and murders, other people’s stories, not theirs.
The previous evening, he had awkwardly raised the subject of adoption. His remarks about all the unwanted children in the world hadn’t cut much ice with her, and she had scornfully exiled him, him and his fine humanitarian ideas, to the other end of the bed.
Rosemary was turning nasty. The mother had chased away the woman, she had chewed her up, and all that remained of their love was the bone.
Culhane risked a glance through the bedroom door. Rosemary had only just gotten out of bed—she spent most of her time there now, as if she was sick—and was getting ready for the appointment at the clinic. She had put on her dress but was having trouble with the zipper.
“Do you want me to help you?”
“It’s such a nuisance, this dress!”
He approached. The dress suited her, but there was no point in telling her that.
“No, leave it, I can manage.” She strained at the zipper. “Are we late?”
“No, no, take your time.”
The zipper wouldn’t yield, and it was driving her crazy. He would have liked to help, but the tension emanating from his wife provoked an almost physical revulsion in him. Not to mention the fact that they would end up being late.
Toby was waiting in the middle of the lawn when they left the house. He too must have sensed the tension because, instead of barking at the top of his voice and beating their calves with his tail, he watched them come down the path and didn’t even try to climb in the back seat of the car. Instead, he ran toward the kennel, where he never went, his tail between his legs. Strange animal.
Culhane took his place behind the wheel. “I think I forgot to lock up,” he said.
“Too bad. Let’s go.”
They arrived late at the clinic—only ten minutes, though that was enough to exasperate Rosemary. She walked ahead of him, and her little steps echoed in the sterilized corridors. Culhane felt nervous, hurt, and also a little ashamed—as if his virility was at stake. Fertilization in a lab. It didn’t have much to do with love.
Second floor, on the right. Dr. Boorman was just leaving his office when he saw the couple coming toward him, looking, with their ravaged faces, like beasts condemned to the slaughterhouse. Usually so sure of himself, he, too, seemed perturbed.
“Listen,” he said immediately, “I don’t know what’s happening, but come into my office, it’ll be easier to talk in there.”
Culhane looked warily at Rosemary, who already had tears in her eyes. He squeezed her hand. Whatever happened, they would face it together.
* * *
