The Angel Maker (24 page)

She took him to the room where Sister Marthe was engaged in private Bible study. On the way, he asked her about his son.

‘No improvement,’ said Sister Milgitha, ‘alas.’

She heard him sigh.

‘Do you think he’s happy?’ he asked.

‘I am sure that he is, Doctor.’

‘I hope so, Sister. I do hope so, for his sake.’

When the abbess and the doctor entered the room, Sister Marthe, looking up from the Bible on the table before her, immediately pushed her chair back, rose to her feet and nodded politely.

Sister Milgitha had expected that the novice would refuse to be examined, or at least that she would first ask questions, but to her surprise the girl said nothing. In fact she lay down on the bed when Dr Hoppe invited her to do so with a gallant flourish. Even when he asked her to pull up her habit, she did so without hesitation. The abbess, standing in a corner of the room, took a furtive peek at the novice’s bare stomach. It was unmistakably swollen.

The doctor placed his right hand on the stomach. ‘Tell me where it hurts,’ he said.

He moved his hands all over her stomach, pressing the tips of his fingers into her flesh. ‘Does that hurt?’ he asked several times.

She shook her head.

Now he began palpating the pelvic area. From time to time he would press his thumb deep into her flesh. It did not escape the abbess’s notice that he frowned as he did so.

‘May I please have the stethoscope?’ he said.

She handed him the stethoscope.

‘Could you hold your breath for a few seconds?’ the doctor asked the young nun.

The abbess couldn’t help holding her breath too. We’ll know soon enough, she thought.

The doctor listened intently, frowned again, moved the stethoscope and listened. Now and then his gaze would travel to the novice’s face, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Finally, exhaling deeply, he lifted the stethoscope off her belly. He asked the abbess, his face betraying nothing, ‘Would you be so kind as to let us have a moment in private?’

She caught his eye, saw that he meant it, and left the room.

 

Sister Marthe, relieved, pulled her habit back down and perched on the edge of the bed.

The doctor had taken a seat at the table. He picked up the Bible and started turning it round and round in his hands nervously. ‘I want you to know, before I tell the abbess,’ he began. ‘You may need a little time to digest this. I myself don’t quite understand how—’

‘I already know, Doctor,’ she broke in. She didn’t want to make it difficult for him. ‘The stomach aches were a fabrication of Sister Milgitha’s. If I felt anything, it was the baby kicking. He’s rather . . . lively.’

The doctor moved his head up and down and pursed his lips, causing the scar over the right side of his mouth to pucker. ‘How long has it been? Do you know approximately?’ he asked.

‘Four months.’

‘Yes, just as I thought. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to feel the baby kicking.’ He glanced at the Bible and looked at her again. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty.’

He nodded.

‘And a half,’ she added.

‘And you wish to keep the child?’

This time it was she who nodded. ‘Yes, very much, Doctor.’

‘You understand that you will in all likelihood have to leave the convent? I expect that Sister Milgitha will not allow you to stay.’

‘I do know that. Could I ask you to stick around for a short while after informing her? I’m not sure how she’ll . . .’

He nodded sympathetically.

‘I’ll give her the news in your presence. Is that what you want?’

‘Yes, please, Doctor. Thank you.’

He placed the Bible back on the table, ran his fingers over the cover and then stood up.

‘Dr Hoppe?’

He turned towards her.

‘You’re Victor’s father, aren’t you? Victor Hoppe? You . . . I’ve seen you sitting with him a few times.’

‘That’s right. Victor’s father - yes, I am.’ Avoiding her gaze, he fixed his eyes on a spot somewhere above her head.

‘Doctor . . .’ She had a moment’s hesitation. ‘Doctor, Victor is not feeble-minded. He really isn’t at all.’

 

The abbess asked him if he would help get rid of the child, if that was what Sister Marthe’s parents wished. Her request did not register straight away, because he was busy struggling with some questions of his own. Was it true, what Sister Marthe had told him? - that Victor could speak? that Victor knew how to read?

On the way to the abbess’s office, striding through the convent’s hollow corridors, he tried to decide whether the girl had spoken the truth. The conclusion he came to was that she had no reason to lie, especially now that she was about to be expelled. He had asked her how it was that he had never noticed any of this, and she’d explained that it was difficult to get through to Victor - that it was a matter of trust. That had felt like a dagger to his heart.

When the abbess repeated the request, and her words finally sank in, he objected immediately. ‘She wants to keep the child. Whatever the consequences.’

‘She is too young to make that decision herself.’

‘She is twenty years old!’ he shouted, louder than he’d intended.

‘She is still a novice, Doctor. Her parents aspire to her becoming a fully fledged nun. That is why I am asking you again: can you help us?’

He shook his head, slowly at first, then more and more vehemently. At the same time he decided that he would not mention what Sister Marthe had told him about his son.

Trust. The word came into his head again. The abbess had never managed to win Victor’s trust; nor had he. That was the conclusion he arrived at as he stared at her. And listened to her. That was why Victor had never spoken. And because he hadn’t spoken, he had been classified as feeble-minded. Just because of that.

He pushed his chair back and stood up, still shaking his head. He wanted to rail at the abbess, to vent his intensifying anger, but he couldn’t, because his rage was aimed, above all, at himself. How in God’s name could he have committed such a great wrong, and done this to his son?

 

The grey woman and her helper were from Aachen. They were instructed not to ask any questions and just get on with the job. That was the arrangement Sister Milgitha had made with them. They were paid more money for their silence than for the task they had been assigned.

Lotte Guelen, quite unaware, was sitting in her cell in her underwear. A few minutes earlier, the abbess had ordered her to take off her habit and hand it over. It had felt as if she were taking off a heavy yoke. It’s finally over, she’d thought to herself. Sister Marthe was dead and Lotte Guelen had been resurrected in her place. Sister Milgitha had left the room without saying a word. Lotte expected the abbess had gone to fetch her street clothes and asked herself if they’d still fit.

When the abbess returned, she wasn’t alone. She was with two other women, one of whom was grey from top to toe. The apron. The eyes. The hair. And the face. As if she had smeared her skin with ashes beforehand.

Lotte caught sight of the grey woman, and she knew. She screamed. But Sister Milgitha immediately clamped a hand over her mouth. With the other hand she gave Lotte’s chest a push, so that she landed flat on her back. The two women then tied her to the bed with a leather strap. She tried to resist, but it was three against one. Her wrists were tied down too. The grey woman yanked her legs apart and the other woman tied her ankles to the sides of the bed. Then they propped a pile of plump pillows under her bottom, so that her pelvis was pushed upwards. Her knickers were cut away with a pair of scissors. She shut her eyes. She didn’t see the long needle the grey woman took out of her bag.

‘Do it quickly,’ Sister Milgitha had instructed the grey woman at the outset.

As the needle was inserted, Lotte bit into the towel covering her mouth to take the edge off the pain. The abbess’s fingernails dug deep into her right cheek.

The grey woman held apart the novice’s labia with one hand, and with her other hand she prodded the needle about. Luck was on her side. It took only a couple of pokes to hit the mark. She nodded at her assistant, who held out the towel to receive the bundle.

Sister Milgitha caught a fleeting glimpse of the foetus, which was much larger than she’d expected. But what startled her even more was that it already looked so human.

When she saw the grey woman gazing at her, she quickly looked away. ‘Take it and bury it somewhere,’ she said.

 

At the end of that day Lotte came to see Victor. She was wearing her habit again and whispered something in his ear. Then she pressed her lips to the top of his head and said a few more words. She left without looking back.

 

‘It’s gone, Victor. The baby’s gone. I’m sorry.’

That was the first thing she’d said. And then, after the kiss, she’d said, ‘God giveth and God taketh away, Victor. But not always. There are times when it’s up to us. Remember that always.’

Those were the last words he ever heard her say. The next morning, his father took him home.

The date was 23 January 1950.

He had two options: either give two lives, or take two lives away. That was the dilemma Victor Hoppe was wrestling with during the month of April 1979, as congratulations from his fellow researchers, who had read his article in Science, came pouring in by post and telegram.

Either he could allow the foetuses to develop, or he could abort the pregnancy. That was something he had never done before. He had never taken a life. That was why he was so desperately torn. From the moment he had started on his doctoral research, his mission had always been to create life. That had always been the challenge. That he might make the ultimate decision about life. Not about death.

 

The envelope with the University of Aachen logo caught his notice. The card inside was from a professor he did not know, a certain Rex Cremer, dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Studies. The message was also one of congratulations, but it was different from the others. There was one line that had caught his eye:

Rex Cremer had meant it as a joke. The divine comparison was supposed to be a way of snagging Dr Hoppe’s attention. He’d assumed that his colleague would understand he was being ironic. Not for a minute did he think that he might take it any other way.

The telephone conversation he had with him on 15 April 1979, caused him to rethink that assumption.

‘Dr Hoppe, this is Rex Cremer from the University of Aachen.’ Here he paused deliberately, to give the doctor time to recognise the name.

His reaction, however, was instantaneous. ‘Dr Cremer, thank you for your card.’

He was pleasantly surprised. ‘You’re welcome. You deserve it.’

‘But it isn’t really true,’ he heard the doctor say, almost as a reproach.

‘What isn’t really true?’

‘What you wrote. That I’ve beaten God at his own game.’

‘Oh, that? It was only—’

‘God would never have done it.’

Rex was confused. It was as if he had dialled the wrong number, but the person on the other end of the line wasn’t aware of it.

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Just that your comparison does not apply here. You have arrived at the wrong conclusion.’ The doctor was speaking in a rather patronising tone, which made the dean feel as if he were a student again. A mediocre student, at that. Victor was often to make him feel that way.

‘God would never have attempted such a thing,’ Dr Hoppe continued in the same tone of voice, ‘He would never have tried to create offspring from two female or two male animals. Therefore I have not beaten Him at his own game.’

There wasn’t a shred of irony in his voice, and that, too, irritated Cremer. ‘I hadn’t really thought of it that way,’ he said, careful not to betray his annoyance. ‘But the reason I was calling—’

‘Of course, we should not overestimate Him, either,’ Dr Hoppe brusquely interrupted.

‘No, of course not,’ Cremer responded diplomatically, wondering if the doctor was drunk.

‘Because if we overestimated Him, we’d be underestimating ourselves, ’ Dr Hoppe went on, imperturbable. ‘That is the mistake a great many researchers tend to make. They impose limits on themselves. They decide before they even start what can and what can’t be done. And if something is deemed impossible, they simply accept it as such. But sometimes that which appears to be impossible is merely difficult. It’s just a matter of persevering, isn’t it?’

‘And that, happily, is what you have done.’ The dean had finally found an opening that let him get to the point he had wanted to make from the outset. ‘That, among other things, is why I would like to invite you to come and talk to us. The university would like to offer you a research chair, for an indefinite period. We would very much like you to continue your research under our roof, in the Embryology Department, where you earned your doctorate.’

There was silence at other end of the line.

‘Your former professors still sing your praises. They would very much like to see you return. We also have several excellent new biologists on our staff, and I’m sure you will find some splendid collaborators among them.’

‘I prefer to work alone,’ was the curt answer.

Cremer thought for a moment. ‘That could certainly be taken into consideration. The most important thing is that you agree to come and work for us. Could we make a date to meet?’

‘Now is not a good time. Please give me a while to think it over. I’ll give you a ring later in the week. Is that acceptable?’

‘That’s fine. Let me give you my direct line.’ Rex repeated his phone number twice, and ended the conversation by assuring Victor that he would look forward to his call, even though he wasn’t entirely certain of that.