The Same River Twice (46 page)

“Patience, my little horror, patience.” He ran a hand over his scalp as if he still had hair. “The crux of the matter is that Dr. Tregobov has worked out a process for turning on and off the genetic material that has been added to the egg—whose own nucleus has been removed, remember—so that it will infallibly turn into stem cells. This is a first, a great discovery. But. The exact proteins required to make this happen must be adjusted to suit the cytoplasm, the denucleated egg cell. Unfortunately, not all cytoplasm works equally well with this process. So a two-step approach is required for each case. The doctor needs a first set of eggs from the donor, both to see if the cytoplasm is viable and, if so, to adjust his standard protein set for the woman in question. Then he can store the unique protein signature he arrives at, the essential information, on a gene chip—which these days can be nothing more than an ordinary DVD—so that, should he have to leave his lab suddenly, as Dr. Tregobov obviously did, he needn’t bring the actual stem cell line with him. Instead he can re-create it from the DVD and a second set of donated eggs from the same woman. Are you with me?”

“Perfectly,” Odile said. “Now tell me what you
don’t
want to tell me.”

“Kukushkin’s idea was to have his fiancée donate the eggs. For this he promised to get Tregobov out of Belarus, a most disagreeable place, as I’m sure you would concur. Fine. But there’s more: Kukushkin also wanted the doctor to share with this woman the worldwide patent rights to his incredibly promising, not to say staggeringly lucrative, scientific breakthrough. Tregobov agreed immediately, of course, the potential earnings from his discovery being virtually limitless.” Stroking his chin dreamily, Thierry
grew reflective. “It’s very clever, the way Kukushkin works, keeping his own name at a distance from his various projects. One can always learn from him.” He shook his head in what Odile took to be admiration.

She glanced back one last time at the girls. Allegra was braiding a love lock into Dominique’s hair and talking nonstop.

“At any rate,” Thierry went on, “my task, which you somehow deduced, was to drop off the first set of eggs at the Brest station so they could be tested. If their cytoplasm was found viable, their necessary protein signature would be worked out and put on a DVD. The dropoff went very smoothly. One of Tregobov’s assistants met me at the station, where I gave him the refrigeration unit and returned to you. A walk in the park.” Overhead, in the middle of the stone ceiling, an electric candelabra flickered dimly to life. A couple of boys on a stepladder had been working on it for some time, and there was scattered applause as everyone looked up to admire the fixture.

“But then, coming back,” Odile prompted.

“Not so smooth,” agreed Thierry. “I was supposed to provide Tregobov with that EU passport—his Belarussian one having been confiscated—and bring him back to Paris with us. But there was no one—not a soul!—waiting for me in the Brest station. So I had no choice, I had to stay behind and work something out.”

“That’s quite a commitment,” said Odile. “What did Kukushkin give you for this extra initiative? Another thirty thousand francs?”

Thierry looked away, feigning distraction.

“Don’t worry,” Odile told him. “I already know you replaced Kukushkin’s fiancée’s eggs with Gabriella’s.” She tried, but failed, to suppress a triumphant smile. “Turner found out that Gabriella had been taking fertility drugs,” she explained. “It was just a guess on my part that you had her eggs with you, in that container. But that’s right, isn’t it?”

Thierry didn’t dispute the point. “And does Kukushkin know?” he said.

“I’m not sure. At first I think he was just upset when you didn’t bring him the doctor. But then, when his associates discovered that Gabriella was your girlfriend, and
she
disappeared too …”

“Right.”

Odile glanced away. Many of the dancers were chewing on pacifiers to avoid grinding their teeth—a hazard of the drug, she seemed to recall. “It’s possible there are other elements involved,” she said finally, “but I don’t really know. What I do know is that if I were you, I’d plan for the worst.” She watched him carefully, but he didn’t flinch. “I take it Tregobov doesn’t know you switched the eggs.”

“No, but he couldn’t care less. They’re compatible with his process. Now that he’s out of Belarus, his only concern is to get to England, which has laws very supportive of stem cell research. He’s anxious to have the patent approved, so his discovery will be officially credited to him outside the usual professional journals. Money doesn’t seem to matter much to him, except to fund his work, of course. He’s a scientist. Whether he shares the patent with Kukushkin’s fiancée or Gabriella isn’t even on his radar. His only concern is that the cytoplasm be viable.”

“Lucky for you.” She was about to go on when she felt her waist suddenly encircled by youthful arms, sweaty and affectionate.

“I love you, Odile,” said Dominique, “and this is so much fun. But we’re really
hot
, and there’s no more water.”

“Don’t worry. We’re going to leave in a minute, sweetheart. Please, would you and Allegra go find Chantal? And I’ll meet the three of you over there by that swastika sign, all right?”

Dominique looked suddenly anxious. “You won’t tell my father, will you?”

“We can talk about that on the way.” She gave the girl a hug. “Now, get going.” Dominique hurried off.

“So that’s my story,” Thierry said. “What’s your plan?”

“I want the three of you to meet me at midnight at le quai de la Tournelle. There’s a houseboat tied up there called the
Nachtvlinder
. You’ll see it. There’ll be one blue light turned on at the top of the wheelhouse, otherwise nothing. Don’t call out, just come aboard as quietly as you can. I’ll explain the rest then.”

He appeared to think about it. “You wouldn’t set us up, would you, Odile? I mean, a boat is so much like a trap, when you think about it.”

“Set you up?” She laughed in his face. “No, I just want to believe a new life is possible, even if not for me. Surely you can understand that.”

Thierry suppressed a smile but nodded as though admiring an unusually deft bit of handiwork. “All right, then. We’ll see you at midnight.”

“On the dot,” Odile added, though it made no difference if he arrived promptly or not.

“On the dot,” he repeated, eyes sparkling, then he turned and rejoined his group.

Not much later, the girls showed up with Chantal, whom Odile asked to get them to street level. Their exit from the bunker was considerably less taxing than their entrance, but once back in the passages, they had to go down a couple of levels before ascending again, passing countless side tunnels—the real catacombs—piled three or four feet deep with human bones
and receding immeasurably into the distance. At the mouth of one lay a pair of latex gloves. Allegra stopped to stare at them.

“What?” Odile asked.

“This,” Allegra said. “I’ve seen it all before. Those gloves. The four of us standing here. The water dripping down the walls. Dominique twisting her hair and holding it up like that. The bones crisscrossed just like that. Everything.”

No one could think of what to say to this, and in twenty minutes they were on the street. Odile flagged down a cab. As they lurched off, she took out her cell phone to see if Eddie Bouvier was home.

“THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, then. Do I hear three fifty? Will anyone say three fifty? No?” The auctioneer brought down his gavel with a crack. “Sold, to the gentleman in the back row.”

Since first entering the auction hall, Max had been on the lookout for Turner, though he hadn’t settled on an appropriate course of action, if action was even what he wanted. Then he’d been almost immediately distracted by the unforeseen presence of Véronique and the Russian she was with, who was undoubtedly the business partner she’d told him about and most likely her lover. The two of them had moved down a place each, so Max was seated next to her on the aisle, and her gardenia-laced perfume only added to his distraction. He hoped she wouldn’t flirt with him in Kukushkin’s presence, but even as he entertained this thought she leaned one breast into the crook of his arm and whispered, “I never thought I’d see
you
tonight.”

“Likewise,” he replied as quietly as he could.

“Are you here to bid?” she asked.

“No. Actually, I’m looking for a guy who works here, somebody called Turner.”

“Really!” She withdrew for a moment and whispered rapidly in Russian to Kukushkin, who nodded. Then she again put her lips to Max’s ear. “That’s him in the third row, over against the right-hand wall.”

Looking, Max saw that it was.

“Lot sixteen,” said the auctioneer. “Bidding for this item, a particularly fine example from the Brezhnev era, will begin at one hundred fifty thousand francs. Who will open the bidding? Thank you, Madame. One hundred seventy-five, who will say one seventy-five?”

When it came to marital infidelities, Max had observed, the wronged party invariably reacted in one of two ways—equally comic and devoid of logic—by blaming the betrayal either on the loved one or on the interloper. To his utter lack of surprise, Max fell into the latter category. It was the more practical position, he supposed, if reconciliation was your goal, but choice initially played no part; you reacted according to your nature, pure and simple. What to do about the situation, however, was another question entirely, one in which reason might conceivably be brought to bear, if you proceeded with care and discipline.

“Thank you. Two twenty-five? May I hear two hundred twenty-five thousand? Yes? The bid is now with the gentleman in the back.”

Again Max felt Véronique’s breast against his arm, her breath in his ear. “Turner,” she whispered. “Wasn’t he the one who hired your wife to bring these flags back from Moscow in the first place?”

He looked at her without responding. Maybe, he thought, there was a shape to the evening’s events and accident didn’t figure into it.

“Fair warning, then … Anybody? So, sold at two hundred twenty-five thousand francs.”

Kukushkin leaned past Véronique to speak to Max. “In Russia, we have joke. We say, everything Soviet leaders told us about socialism was total lie. But at same time, everything they told us about capitalism was completely correct. This is the world we inherit, no?”

Max laughed politely. “You won’t get any argument from me.”

The porters were removing the sold lot from the stage.

“Véronique tells me you are filmmaker. I think this must be very expensive occupation.”

“It can be. But I don’t make Hollywood films. All I need is enough money to make the next film, although even that much can be hard enough to scrape together, believe me.”

“Yes. I think Hollywood films must be like making war. Moving many people and much heavy equipment around for months and months—even years—with timing impossible, long supply lines, unpredictable results. Very costly. If you succeed, everyone is hero. If not, then you, the general, will be hanged in the streets like a dog.”

Max thought this an odd thing to say to a new acquaintance, but since it was also perfectly true both he and Véronique laughed.

“Now Kolya’s the king of capitalists,” she explained. “But his background is a little different from yours and mine. So he brings a unique perspective to business affairs.”

“I can imagine.”

The porters brought the next lot in and placed it on the display easel. This was another of the prize pieces, featuring head-and-shoulder images of Lenin and Khrushchev, shown side by side at daringly equal size, shortly before the latter’s fall from grace. The bidding began at a hundred fifty thousand and continued briskly until it reached three seventy-five. There was a lull, then a man who sounded unmistakably Swiss put in a preemptive bid of five hundred thousand. At the same moment, Max, caught up in the drama of the sale, felt Véronique’s hand squeeze his thigh hard. She lifted her chin brusquely in the direction of the exit, where Turner, already halfway through the door, was making a hasty departure. The hammer came down on the lot. With a glance at Kukushkin, Max excused himself and, still lacking a clear plan, hastened after the man he believed to be his wife’s lover. It had never occurred to him that Turner might actually flee.

The area immediately outside the auction hall was deserted except for security and another of the auction-house girls in black, her superior status indicated by a second pearl choker immediately above the first. There was no one on the marble staircase, and Max heard no footsteps on the lower flights.

“Excuse me,” he asked the girl, “is there an elevator?”

“Certainly. Right over there.” She pointed down the corridor.

But when he reached the elevator, the ornate needle above it indicated that it was already descending. He debated trying to outrun it using the stairs, but immediately saw that by escalating the level of physical exertion he’d be committing himself to an outcome that could only be more physical still. It would embarrass everyone and almost certainly prove counterproductive. As a compromise measure, and to regain some degree of dignity, he recalled the elevator, took it to ground level, and had a look around the street outside. Once convinced that Turner had eluded him, he went back inside, relieved that he’d avoided what surely would’ve been a fiasco. He reached the fourth floor just as the auction was letting out.
Reason, care, and discipline
, he reminded himself.

Kukushkin and Véronique emerged from the sale arm in arm, their expressions growing concerned when they spotted him. They made a handsome couple, expensive looking and substantial. “Apparently Mr. Turner was in unusual hurry tonight,” Kukushkin said. “Perhaps because he made so much money.”

“Yes, I lost him,” Max admitted. “Is he a friend of yours?”

The crowd flowed around the three of them and down the staircase, talking excitedly. It had been a very successful sale—over ten million francs, twice the expected gross.

“Oh, I have small business with him from time to time. Besides, he is fixture in art world, well known in certain circles. And you, you know him well?”