Breed (4 page)

“Look at this,” Leslie says, showing Alex the newspaper’s photo of two stubby-looking men with three-day beards, handcuffed, their balding heads down as they are led away by Russian policemen. “They tried to kidnap an American banker’s child.”

“Idiots,” says Alex.

“You know…” They both say it at the same time.

“Go ahead,” Alex says.

“I was just going to say I sometimes wish we weren’t rich.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. I wonder what our lives would be like. I mean, money is its own kind of ghetto, isn’t it? Everything we do, everyone we know. And it makes us a target too. It’s scary. So what were you going to say?”

“Me? I was going to say I wish we hadn’t flown commercial.”

The flight from Munich to Ljubljana is about forty-five minutes. The airport there, in terms of its size and sense of importance, is what you would expect if you flew into Poughkeepsie. Alex and Leslie disembark, along with a couple of elderly nuns, an Austrian businessman, and a stewardess in a peacock-blue blazer. They are brought to the main building in a minivan, the back door of which remains open to the cold, while not far away a jet begins its takeoff. Inside the shabby white building, there seems to be no passport control, no customs; in a few minutes, the Twisdens are out of the airport and in the back of a taxi reeking of air freshener. The driver, a woman in her thirties whose gelled, spiky hair reminds Leslie of those metal guards some people put on their windowsills to keep pigeons away, drives quickly past the frosted hillocks and icy evergreens lining the road into the city.

A sudden rain; it seems to come out of nowhere and all at once. The driver is reluctant to use the windshield wipers, turning them on for only a moment or two and then turning them off, waiting to turn them on again until the windshield has been pelted so thoroughly with rain that it looks as if it is covered with silver paint.

Alex feels the tension in Leslie’s body, and he takes her hand, pats it reassuringly. “How you doing, baby?”

“Don’t even say that word,” Leslie says.

Soon, they are in the city. The outlying area exudes a kind of postsocialist anonymity, as if every building—every brick—feared being accused of putting on airs. But as they get closer to the city center, the architecture becomes less utilitarian, more decorative, and, after a series of switchbacks caused by various one-way streets and other streets recently closed to automobile traffic, they arrive at their hotel, which, from the outside, presents nothing more inviting than a wooden door such as you would use to enter a small church. Above it is a stone carving of an old man with his forefinger pressed to his lips, presumably asking passersby to keep their voices down.

Leslie has fallen asleep. Alex pats her knee as he pays the driver, and, commandeering both of their suitcases, he leads her into the hotel. Her eyes are half closed; he suspects that mainly she doesn’t want to see
anything
. Check-in is at a charming little desk set to one side of a stone internal courtyard, where they are served by a sallow man in his thirties with thinning black hair and sad brown eyes beneath which hang the crepe of dark circles.
Kidney failure,
Alex thinks, handing over their passports.

There are potted plants everywhere—hundreds of them—and gloomy, age-encrusted paintings on the walls that remind Alex of the portraits of his ancestors back home except that these are of a jowly Madonna; a glowering bishop; a naked Holy Infant with sausage legs and a potbelly, wielding a sword.

Ljubljana is divided by a river. On one side is the Old Town, stony and Gothic, with twisting streets leading to Dr. Kis’s office, and on the other is the newer section, with office buildings and modern apartments and the hotel where Alex and Leslie are staying.

Alex and Leslie will waste no time; they are booked to fly home the very next day. Their suite is spacious, with a large bedroom, a sitting room, and two baths. For efficiency’s sake, they shower together, though Alex is out of his shower, dressed—he wears a blue suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie, as if he is on his way to court—and sitting in an armchair by the time Leslie, wrapped in a towel, pulls a modest dress out of her suitcase; he looks on with pleasure.

“You are such a beautiful woman,” Alex says, shaking his head.

“I feel nervous and sad and I wish we weren’t here,” Leslie says, putting on the dress.

“Well, that’s just the kind of positive energy we look for in a time like this,” Alex says.

“I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.” She looks at herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, straightens her collar, pats her hair, shrugs. “Can you at least promise…”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Alex says, rising. “This is it. The last crusade.”

He takes her in his arms, overcome for a moment by his deep love for her and his regret that he has put them both through so many procedures as he pursues the holy grail of an heir. “If we come up empty here, no more.”

“We can adopt, Alex.”

“Mmm,” he says, burying his face for a moment in her hair.

The man at the front desk calls a taxi for them, and, their bones aching with jet lag and fatigue, they wait, sipping coffee in the courtyard, but no taxi arrives.

“We’re going to be late,” Alex says. He excuses himself for a moment and consults with the desk clerk.

“Castle Trg is just a short walk,” Alex says when he returns, holding an extra-large umbrella the clerk has given him.

“What’s a
trg
?” Leslie asks.

“It means ‘street.’ And it’s just over the Dragon Bridge,” he adds, as if he were somehow familiar with this cold, rainy town.

“I don’t think I want to be in a place where streets are called
trg
and bridges are named after dragons,” Leslie says.

The real stone dragon of Ljubljana sits atop a castle in the hills overlooking the city, but replicas of it are every twenty feet or so on the Dragon Bridge. By the time they get that far, the rain is beating against their umbrella like a drumroll. Suddenly, the wind picks up, tearing their only shelter from Alex’s hands. They watch helplessly as the black umbrella with its upside-down question mark of a handle spins its way down the river with the new city on one side, and the old city on the other.

They run. The storm is so fierce and their chances of staying dry are nonexistent, and somehow the whole thing is so absurdly awful they find themselves holding hands and laughing. Soon they are on Castle Street and facing the gloomy old building in which the doctor works.

A flashing red traffic light beats like a heart in the rain. Alex and Leslie cross the street and are nearly run over by a motorcyclist who, covered against the rain in a long black poncho, looks like Death itself.

The building is from the 1920s, designed in a vaguely Art Deco style. The doorway is curved; the windows are bowed. Two statues of women in robes holding swords guard the second story. Dr. Kis’s office is on the top floor. Alex and Leslie, rain dripping from their clothes, ride one of those birdcage elevators up to the sixth floor and then must walk up two more flights of moist stone steps to the eighth floor.

“Does anyone back home even know we’re here?” Leslie asks nervously as they approach the doctor’s door.

“Your sister knows where you are, doesn’t she?”

Leslie shakes her head. “I told her the doctor was in Switzerland.”

“Why did you say that?”

“She was so worried and disapproving. I thought I should at least say it was in some country she’d heard of.”

The top floor of Dr. Kis’s could use a sweeping. It could also—and more urgently—use a good hosing-down. In front of a mahogany and milk-glass door, there is a scatter of magazines on the floor, as if no one has been here in weeks.

Alex makes a face meant to amuse Leslie, a face that says
Uh-oh, this might be the craziest thing we have ever done.
And with that he opens the door and they find themselves in a waiting room of sorts. There are a couple of flimsy chairs, a vinyl love seat. No other patients, no receptionist.

Silence, except for the sound of the rain spattering on the roof.

“Hello?” Leslie calls out.

“We might be a little early,” Alex says.

“Alex?” Leslie says, her voice shaking. She lifts her arm to point at something, but fear has seized her nervous system so suddenly and so violently, it is all she can do to raise her arm a few inches.

Alex follows the path Leslie’s eyes burn into the air and sees, standing in the corner…
something
. At first he thinks it is a bear. And then he sees it as a wolf. What it actually is is an immense dog, a black and brown rottweiler with vile yellow eyes. Its head juts forward, and a low growl rumbles in its chest.

Compelled by an ancient code of protectiveness, Alex stands in front of Leslie and feels her fingers digging into him. The beast steps closer and closer to them, and still closer. Saliva thick as sour cream hangs from the serrated pink edges of its mouth. Its eyes are imbecilic with avidity, and a smell of meat rises from its flanks and loins.

“Zeus! What are you doing out here?”

Both startled and relieved, they turn and see a dapper fellow in his twenties with a narrow face, a large, reddish mouth. He wears stovepipe trousers and a snug little sport jacket. His inky hair is gelled, and his thick glasses have heavy black frames. Obediently, the dog walks slowly to his side.

“Awfully sorry about that, folks,” the man says in a British accent and in a tone that seems cringing and sarcastic at the same time. He hooks one of his bony fingers through the dog’s collar and leads him into a room off to one side of the waiting area.

Alex and Leslie exchange glances. They are thinking the same thing.
What fresh hell?
But they have come too far and gone to too much trouble to turn back now.

A few moments later, the young Englishman returns. “Put a bit of a fright in you. He’s actually pretty well behaved, old Zeus, but I know how it is; the first time I saw him I just about muddied my knickers. Reggie Woodward at your service. I am Dr. Kis’s assistant, a position I would fill free of charge but for which, thank God, I am well paid.” He smiles, exposing the jagged archaeology of his teeth, some brown, others, presumably new to his mouth, bright white. “Now, if you would be so kind as to follow me, we’ll get the paperwork out of the way. And sorry for the state of this place—chalk it up to the disorganization of genius.”

Dr. Kis’s clinic is a warren of small examining rooms. Alex and Leslie follow Reggie into one of them that he has turned into an office, with a desk, three chairs, and a very serious-looking file cabinet with a lock on it. There is a dog-food bowl and a water bowl in the corner, and the remains of an immense bone, a giraffe femur, by the looks of it. On the wall is a poster showing some epic soccer match played in the snow, a line of stiff German flags in the background.

“Let us dispense with the monetary side,” Reggie says. “I trust you have brought payment with you.”

Alex hands him the envelope and they wait while Reggie counts it, all of it, right in front of them.

“That’s more cash than we were legally allowed to bring into the country,” Alex reminds him.

“Silly law, don’t you think? I thought we had agreed upon euros,” Reggie says. Noticing Leslie’s alarm, he quickly adds, “Not to worry. Dollars will do.”

“I notice we’re the only patients here,” Alex says to Reggie.

“Did you come here to meet people and make new friends?” he asks, putting the money back into the envelope. Seeing the look on Alex’s face, he changes tack and says Dr. Kis makes only two appointments per week, spending the rest of his time on research, and telling him how fertility specialists the world over come to Slovenia to sit at the feet of Dr. Kis, and how he has the highest success rate of anyone in the field. Reggie speaks rapidly, in the kind of rote singsong that puts them in mind of a tour guide who has long since lost interest in the scenery.

“And now, one minute of science,” Reggie says. “You’ll be glad to know that the doctor’s injections are all one hundred percent organic.”

“I don’t really see how you can use the words
glad
and
injection
in the same sentence,” Leslie says. And though her little jest fills Alex’s heart with love, he does wish she would be quiet and let matters proceed.

“Obviously I would lose my job if I were to tell you what materials the doctor uses, but he does want you to know that he has had great success—great, great success—using tissue from some of the most vigorous and fertile beings on earth.”

“Beings?” Alex asks.

“Yes,” says Reggie. “Living things.”

“What kind of
being
are we talking about?”

“It’s the results that matter,” Reggie says. “Lions, tigers, bears—do you really care?”

“Yes, of course we do,” Leslie says. “Alex?” Whatever exhaustion she was feeling has been dispelled, and her blood surges through her, and her eyes open wider with alarm.

“I should tell you,” Reggie says, clearing his throat, “that often he uses just a small amount—a trace amount, really, undetectable, I should think—of…” The last word is uttered so softly that neither Alex nor Leslie can make it out.

“Of what?” Alex asks.

“Goby,” Reggie says, with studied nonchalance.

“What’s a goby?” Alex asks.

“A fish,” Leslie says. She sees the look of wonder on Alex’s face. “When you work in publishing, you learn all sorts of weird stuff.”

“A fish?” Alex exclaims. “A fucking fish?”

“Oh, and by the way,” Reggie interjects quickly, “here’s a plus to our service that we’ve recently added. We connect you with a first-rate obstetrics practice right in Los Angeles.”

“We live in New York,” Alex says.

“Oh, yes. Sorry. No problem. We work with a terrific bunch of obstetricians there as well. We strongly advise you to stay within network. These doctors are very sensitive to the whole process. And, by the way, there’s no charge for this service.”

“The doctors see us free of charge?” Alex asks, rather skeptically.