Recessional: A Novel (33 page)

“What are you doing now, Maxim?”

“I’m a born scientist. Science is all I ever did. Once you’ve been bitten by the bug you never quit. I have a small laboratory upstairs.”

“What are you working on?” Armitage asked, wondering if his college might make some use of Maxim’s investigations.

“The Human Genome Project.”

“What’s that?”

“Maybe the most ambitious project under way in the world today. Comparable, I think, to a trip of humans to Mars.”

“But what is it?”

“The scientists of the world have decided to draw up an atlas of the human chromosomes, all forty-six.”

“A big task?” Jiménez asked.

“So big it stupefies. The forty-six contain millions of genes. A map has to be drawn of every chromosome, showing where and how its strings of genes operate.”

“To what purpose?”

Solemnly Lewandowski said: “To restructure the human race. To rectify God’s mistakes.”

Recognizing the gravity of what the scientist had said, and the depth of his commitment to whatever role he was playing in this enormous undertaking, they peppered him with questions, at the conclusion of which he stated his creed: “When we have solved the secrets of the genome, if we ever do, we’ll be able to specify which genes in which chromosomes produce which anomalies in human life and perhaps correct them by adjusting the genes. Don’t laugh. We already know which genes in one chromosome are responsible for Tay-Sachs disease, which afflicts Jews with a fatal disorder. That already permits us to do genetic counseling of young couples with the gene who may want to marry: ‘Since you both carry a defective chromosome, better not have children.’ And we are certain that a defect in Chromosome ten produces the sickle-cell anemia that plagues blacks. If we correct the gene deficiency in ten we protect the black man or woman from the disease, which is so destructive.”

On and on he went, identifying those errant chromosomes whose flawed genes had been proved to be progenitors or at least warning signals of this or that specific disease. For example, a defective gene in Chromosome 7 was suspected as an agent in cystic fibrosis and Chromosome 13 was related to eye cancer. The tertulia was astounded at how much information had already been collected. At the conclusion of his summary he dropped a bombshell: “And through the most painstaking work plus accidental good luck, we’ve learned that a gene in Chromosome twenty-one is definitely related to the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.”

His listeners leaned forward, for they had witnessed the ravages of this mysterious disease, and they were mesmerized by what Maxim said next: “Yes, we’ve found a large family in Sweden, many of whose members contract what is known as early-onset Alzheimer’s. Very unusual, death comes in the forties. When we reconstructed the life history of each member, some brilliant researcher, an Englishman, I believe, detected that the troublemaker was Number fourteen.”

The tertulia discussed this avidly as waitresses cleared the nearby tables, and Lewandowski said: “Faint clues, not nailed down yet, also
incriminate Chromosome nineteen. I’m a member of the team, scientists in various nations, who’re working to map the genetic structure and history of Number nineteen. Maybe three hundred million genes in that system, but with a mix of luck and insight we may be able to spot the part of the chain that causes the trouble, maybe not.”

“What do you actually do, Maxim? Study a hundred thousand slides? Here in our building?”

“No,” he chuckled. “Nothing so dramatic. I receive reports from many sources. One researcher explores one segment of the gene chain, another works on a different part. And if we’re lucky, a third, maybe in Bombay, works on a fragment that overlaps the end of the first segment and the beginning of the second. He or she builds a bridge that I can report on to all other workers on Number nineteen. Parallel with our team, others are working on Chromosome fourteen, and refining what’s already been accomplished on twenty-one.”

In the silence that followed, Lewandowski took a long drink of iced tea and said gravely: “In time we shall discover this dreadful secret, and maybe we’ll find some treatment that will enable us to help Mr. Duggan’s wife on the second floor and restore her to him.”

No one spoke, for each member of the tertulia, deeply moved, had a lump in his throat. Finally St. Près spoke for the group: “Keep at it, Maxim. Lots of stricken people await your findings.”

Most human beings, thanks to the benevolence of God, are spared the more excruciating agonies of death, which cause the sufferer to scream desperately for relief. Berta Umlauf, a widow of seventy-nine who once lived in the most attractive red-roofed house on Island 5 across the channel from the Palms, had known death in its most horrible forms.

She had lived originally in Marquette, a town in the northern segment of Michigan, the part that is separated from the more important southern portion by the Straits of Mackinac. As a pretty, petite girl in high school she fell in love with a six-foot-one football star named Ludwig Umlauf, whose father, Otto, owned a profitable lumber business and whose socially inclined mother, Ingrid, had great hopes for her son, maybe winning a football scholarship to go to Notre Dame or at least to Michigan. Mrs. Umlauf was distressed when Ludwig informed his parents that he was not going to college; he would marry his neighbor Berta Krause and start work immediately
in his father’s lumber operations. To escape interference from his mother, Ludwig eloped with Berta and Mrs. Umlauf angrily felt that the marriage had damaged her son’s promising future.

Ludwig did not think so, for with Berta’s eager assistance and his father’s stern tutelage, he helped the Umlauf lumber concern to thrive. But as Berta watched her husband closely she had the suspicion that he did not go away to college because he had been afraid to do so. He wanted to stay at home, in his familiar house and employed in the business his grandfather had started and his father had extended. With old Otto and young Ludwig growing timber in their extensive woodlands and selling it in a variety of outlets, the Umlaufs became more than prosperous; they were rich. When each year the ever-increasing earnings were made known to Mrs. Umlauf, Ludwig hoped that she would relax her hostility toward Berta.

But the wealthier the Umlaufs became, the more convinced Mrs. Umlauf became that Berta had damaged her son’s prospects: “A boy as wonderful as him, who can make money so easy, he ought to be farther along than he is. You’re holding him back, Berta, and it’s a crying shame.” Not even the birth of a grandson reconciled the contentious old lady to her daughter-in-law, and the older Mrs. Umlauf began to pressure her husband to leave the bitter winters of northern Michigan and find a pleasant home in Florida, a plea he obstinately rejected, sometimes with profanity: “This is where we earned our money, this is where we’ll spend it. Goddammit, this house will be our home as long as I live,” and he would remind his wife that he found his only pleasure in life when hunting in the Umlauf game-rich woods or sailing his boat on the waters of Lake Superior. Like the stubborn Lutheran he was, he refused to consider flight to an easier life in Florida.

When blizzards howled through Marquette, piling snow on driveways, Otto and Ludwig reveled in the challenge and frequently told each other in their wives’ hearing: “Real men like this weather, Florida is for sissies.”

So as the men battled through the winters, amassing greater and greater wealth from their lumber business, Grandmother Umlauf grew increasingly embittered, and while the men were absent much of the time either in the woodlands they controlled or in Detroit and Chicago selling their lumber, the two women stayed close to their tension-filled house, living together in a kind of hateful truce. It was ironic that old Mrs. Umlauf should have despised her daughter-in-law,
because Berta too wanted to leave the bitter winters of Marquette and find refuge in Florida or Arizona, but regardless of how often she told Mrs. Umlauf about this the older woman could not believe that they were allies.

Berta often wondered why, with Ludwig’s wealth, she could not have a home of her own, but he squelched any such suggestions by citing two good reasons: “Umlaufs have always stayed together. That’s where we get our strength. And besides, Father controls all the money. I don’t think he’d let me have a house of my own. He always lived with his parents. Didn’t get ownership of this house till my grandfather died.” If Berta reopened the question he would snap: “It would be sinful to waste money on two houses when one of them is all we need.” He seemed unaware that few families in the region were so rich at the bank or so impoverished at home.

Berta believed that Ludwig’s fear of moving to a new home was a continuation of his fear about going away to college and his fear of striking out on his own to escape the tyranny of his father: My husband is a big man, just as he was a big football player when I adored him in high school, but he’s hollow—he really has no backbone. Yet despite the tensions that poisoned this hate-filled house, on Sundays the Umlauf family presented a portrait of unity as they marched together to the nearby Lutheran church: short, round Otto and tall, acidulous Ingrid in front, bulky Ludwig towering behind, with lively little Berta and their son beside him. They were referred to collectively in the community as the Umlaufs and to imagine one separated from the others would have been impossible, but when they returned home, each adult went his or her own way.

In this world of bitterness, Berta found solace in her son, Noel, a tall, handsome boy like his father. Endowed with a benign attitude toward life, he liked school, did well in his classes and had a host of friends with varied backgrounds. He never behaved with the arrogance characteristic of many sons of millionaires and he was a lad of whom any mother could be proud. Berta reveled in his companionship.

In the warm summers spent on the shores of Lake Superior Berta had a marvelous time with her son and his friends, but when January came to lock the four older Umlaufs indoors while Noel was away at boarding school, life again became hateful.

One wintry day she had her first taste of what death was going to be like among the battling Umlaufs. She was not afraid of the phenomenon;
the deaths of her own parents had been a calm passage from existence to nonexistence, and she was proud of the courageous manner in which they had said farewell. She had suffered pain in losing them but not wrenching anguish. On this day, when she was alone in the house with Mrs. Umlauf, the old lady said: “Today we settle it. I’m going to Florida, and if he doesn’t like it he can go to hell.” Since she had never before spoken like this, Berta realized that a change of some magnitude had occurred, so she was not surprised when Mrs. Umlauf tore into her husband the moment he arrived home for lunch: “Otto, I’m going to Florida.”

“Not with me. Florida is for sissies.”

“Then I’m a sissy and I’m going.”

“What are you going to use for money?” In the furious discussion that followed, Berta heard confirmation that Old Man Umlauf controlled not only his wife’s money but also most of his son’s. He had promised them that he would be generous at death, but until then he would remain in charge. Mrs. Umlauf stormed at his unfeeling dismissal of her wishes, and when her rage achieved nothing she tried tears, and these he dismissed with contempt.

When he returned to his office, she watched him go, accompanied by his subservient son, then told Berta in a harsh, rasping voice: “If he wants to control everything till he dies, I hope he drops dead before nightfall.”

This was such a horrid statement that Berta had to remonstrate: “Mrs. Umlauf! Don’t say a thing like that. You’ll bring a curse on this family.”

“Shut up. Our bad luck started the day you came into this house.” Berta wanted to point out that she had tried many times to leave and had not been allowed, but she realized that such a comment would accomplish nothing. Sitting silently in the cold, dark living room, she stared out the window at the stormy lake, feeling frail and overpowered by her mother-in-law. She remained in low spirits for some weeks, contemplating the dismal present and an even bleaker future.

She was forced to rouse herself from her lassitude when Old Man Umlauf fell ill as if in obedience to his wife’s curse. He was put in a downstairs room, which was converted into a kind of family hospital, and there he lay for three weeks, growing steadily weaker in body but more violent in spirit. He spoke abusively to his two doctors, made it clear that he despised his wife, voiced suspicions about his son’s ability to continue the business, and ordered Berta around as if
she were his slave. Expecting no consideration from his wife, he turned to Berta for his needs. One night after supper she suggested to Ludwig: “We could get nurses, maybe,” but he gave a stolid German answer: “We take care of our own,” and to his credit he did, watching over his father through the night and helping Berta with her arduous duties during the day.

She was in charge late one afternoon when the older Mrs. Umlauf came into the front room, studied her husband’s inert form and asked almost hopefully: “He isn’t dead, is he?” When Berta said “No” she seemed almost to accuse her daughter-in-law of intervening to prevent his death. There were ugly scenes with her son, too, until the entire house seemed to be contaminated by what should have been the simple and natural act of dying. When it became apparent that death was approaching, Berta begged her husband and mother-in-law for permission to move him to the hospital, but Ludwig said something she would hear frequently in the years ahead: “We take care of our family. What would the people in this town say if we shunted him off and let him die in a strange place?”

Three days later Otto did die, at home, vilifying his wife, his son and his thoughtless daughter-in-law. It was a death as tormented and ugly, Berta thought, as her parents’ had been serene and almost lovely. And at the burial, on a stormy day when the minister hurried through the ceremony to the relief of all, she did not join the group prayers, for she was intoning aloud, but softly enough so that those nearby could not hear: “I shall not die like this. It is lacking in grace, and God could not have meant His children to go this way.”