said.
“Yes, there is a lot of misinformation about what we do. When I first began here, it seemed like a science fiction story. But I assure you, it is very real.”
“I thought we were still many years away from … doing what you do.”
“Governments have an interest in disseminating false information,” he said.
“I’m really not a conspiracy theorist,” Elm said. “What possible reason would the government have for suppressing science?”
“You think the government doesn’t keep science from the public? What about the dangers of Vioxx? What about the syphilis experiment with the Negroes of the South? What about how cigarettes aren’t addictive? Even now, they are claiming that the lung problems the people of 9/11 are having are not the result of breathing that air. Ha!” he scoffed. “You should feel surprised your government ever tells you the truth.”
Elm sat silent, chastised. This was stupid, she thought. This was a joke that had gone on too long. This was crazy. This was abnormal.
“The next step, Madame, is for you to come to Paris to tour our facility and to submit to medical examination, if you want to be the host.”
It took Elm a moment to parse this information. If she wanted to carry the baby. “I’m told, my doctor said, I don’t really have any eggs. Follicles. Active ones.” Elm could barely get the words out.
“It’s very easy to get donated ova.” Elm was astonished. He didn’t seem remotely worried about her infertility. A donor egg, of course. If they were removing the nucleus, all the genetic information, what did it matter where the raw materials came from?
“Madame?” the man asked into the silent phone.
“I don’t know if I can come to Paris, fly three thousand miles to meet—”
“With all due respect, Madame, the process is not inexpensive. Consider the trip a holiday, a deposit on the ultimate benefit.”
Elm supposed he was right. The process must be tens of thousands of dollars. In comparison, a long weekend to the City of Light was pocket change.
“Perhaps it could be coupled with a business venture?” he asked. “I see you travel to the Continent not infrequently.”
Elm nodded, alone in the bedroom, until she realized that he was obviously looking at a record of her transatlantic travels, which made her shiver.
“Shall we say in two weeks?” he asked. “We can arrange flights and a nearby hotel, transportation from the airport to our facility.”
“I’d feel better if I could be on my own,” Elm said, imagining an international kidnapping scandal.
“As you wish,” the man said graciously. “You may e-mail to let us know when you’ll be arriving, and we will send a car for you. Our location is within an hour of Paris.”
Elm hung up the phone, and tried to stop imagining herself getting off the plane, being whisked away in a limousine to some estate with voluptuous nurses and sterile Swiss hospital beds. Maybe she should look at it the way she used to encourage herself to look at dating: as a social experiment, with an anthropologist’s permanent interest and detachment. Then she could laugh about it, about going to a secret medical facility in France. She wandered back out into the living room. Colin was sipping from a scotch.
“I have to go to Paris,” she said. “For work,” she added, realizing the detail was more suspicious than its omission. Tell him, her conscience urged. Tell him you went to the doctor and you have poor follicle reserve and then there was this website … Don’t, it said. Check it out first. If it’s real, then you can discuss it. She made a bargain with herself. If he remembered her doctor’s appointment, if he asked her about it, about her day, about anything at all, she would tell him. She waited anxiously for him to respond.
“Hmmm,” he said. The light from the television fell unflatteringly across the stubble on his chin, giving him a pallor that puttied his soft features.
Gabriel
Gabriel’s roommates, curiously, were all out. He lived with a gaggle of Scandinavian students who were completing degrees, or avoiding the completion of degrees, in various subjects. Two in particular were studious, often sitting at their communal desk until early in the morning. The walls were so thin in the flat that he could hear the computer keys clacking at night.
The apartment had once been a garment factory, and the landlord got a tax incentive for renting to students. It was one room cordoned off by makeshift walls. The kitchen/living room was furnished with