Kaung stood in the director’s caravan, his head bowed. Pellegrini and Reber were sitting down, while a scarlet-faced Roux was standing right beside Kaung, bellowing at him.
‘Fool! You’ve ruined a scientific experiment that cost many times more than you’ll earn in your entire life! What a bloody idiot!’
Reber made use of the pause to draw breath. ‘For goodness’ sake please stop! This isn’t going to bring the foetus back.’
Roux ignored him. ‘What the hell were you thinking of, you imbecile?’
Kaung said something so softly that Roux couldn’t understand.
‘What?’ he yelled.
Slightly louder, Kaung said, ‘Baby was dead.’
‘Not for science it wasn’t! For science it wasn’t dead until it was burned like rubbish!’
‘Sorry,’ Kaung muttered for the umpteenth time.
‘Your apology is of no bloody use to me! I can’t put it under the microscope! I can’t give it a chemical analysis. I can’t even wipe my sodding arse with your apology!’
Reber stood up. ‘Come on, Kaung. Let’s go and see the elephants.’
The oozie looked at his boss uncertainly. Pellegrini nodded.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Roux snorted, following the two of them.
When they entered the stalls, the cows started moving and rattling their chains. Trisha’s calf, untethered, was standing next to his mother. Now more than a year old, he no longer fitted underneath her. Fahdi, the bull, was in a separate pen.
‘You can stay here if you promise to keep calm and not drive the animals crazy,’ Reber said curtly to Roux. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
‘No worries,’ Roux snapped. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve been close up with elephants.’
First they went over to Rupashi, the elephant cow who was in her nineteenth month. She’d been artificially inseminated by Dr Horàk’s team and so far had enjoyed a problem-free pregnancy.
Due dates for elephant cows are difficult to predict. They barely exhibit any pregnancy symptoms and are fully fit until just before the birth. Kaung thought she’d be giving birth in less than three months and Reber was inclined to believe him because he’d predicted the birth of Trisha’s baby almost to the day.
Reber wanted to carry out an ultrasound scan nonetheless, and Kaung helped him.
Everything about Rupashi looked normal. Kaung was probably correct with his prognosis.
All was fine with Sadaf too, an artificially inseminated breeding elephant in her seventeenth month.
Reber started packing up the ultrasound device.
‘What about Asha?’ said Roux, who’d kept quiet as ordered until now.
‘What about her?’
‘I want you to give her an ultrasound too.’
‘Why?’
Roux gave no answer, he just raised his eyebrows scornfully.
Reber understood. ‘I see, you don’t trust me.’ He exchanged glances with Kaung.
‘Let’s just say I don’t trust that one over there,’ Roux said, pointing at Kaung.
Reber thought about it briefly, then waved the oozie over and they carried the device to Asha. Roux followed them and bent over the monitor.
Reber smeared gel over the elephant’s wrinkly grey skin and applied the sensor.
There was movement on the monitor. Shapes and contours, areas with changing tones of grey, outlines and structures appeared and disappeared.
For several minutes Reber scanned Asha’s flank, while Roux peered over his shoulder at the screen. Kaung watched with bated breath.
‘Tell me when you’ve seen enough,’ Reber said coolly.
Roux let him scan for another couple of minutes then left the stalls without saying a word.
When he was sure that the man was out of earshot, Kaung asked, ‘How you do that?’
Reber started packing the device away. ‘Something so little,’ he explained, ‘is hard to find.’ He smiled. ‘And easy not to find.’
Only now did Kaung see that there was sweat on Reber’s brow.
This was the first time that Kaung felt conflicted in his loyalty to the Pellegrinis. He owed them a debt of gratitude, especially Paolo Pellegrini, the father.
Although the old director hadn’t understood much about elephants, he knew a bit about people. And Kaung soon learned that to run a circus it was more important to understand people than animals. For this was how you identified those who did know a bit about animals.
He wasn’t bound to Carlo by the same feelings. Kaung’s loyalty was to the father, the circus and the elephants. Which is why he didn’t feel particularly conscience-stricken about the fact that he’d gone behind Carlo Pellegrini’s back and defrauded him of some of the money that Roux owed him.
Kaung worked every day with the animals as usual. He taught them new tricks, helped look after Trisha’s baby, a bull calf by the name of Nilay, kept a close eye on the two pregnant cows, Sadaf and Rupashi, and an even closer one on the officially not-pregnant Asha.
But it wasn’t long before the secret was in danger of being exposed. In spring, Pellegrini received a request for another surrogate pregnancy.
This request came right on cue, for Circus Pellegrini had just experienced a slow season and they were missing the contributions for Asha’s sustenance and care that had stopped when the foetus was miscarried.
Of the four cows, one was nursing and two were pregnant. But in theory Asha was a possibility.
More than two months had now passed since she’d lost her foetus. For elephants in the wild it could take up to two years for the cycle to begin again. But for an elephant cow in captivity it was possible for this to happen only two months after a miscarriage.
Once again the request came through Dr Horàk. He wanted to measure Asha’s progesterone levels every week to check for her receptivity.
When Kaung was instructed by Pellegrini to take a weekly urine sample from Asha he rang Dr Reber in horror.
Reber was horrified too. If Horàk got hold of a urine sample from Asha he’d know by the following day that she was pregnant.
‘Kaung, can you spot when an elephant cow is ready for the bulls?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Trisha ready?’
‘No.’
They hung up.
Shortly afterwards Kaung was able to take some urine from Trisha.
After the evening performance Pellegrini wanted to take another look at Rupashi. He never usually did this, but Kaung had hinted that he didn’t think Rupashi would be able to perform the following day.
He entered the animal tent and put his wet umbrella in a bucket by the elephant stalls. An inspection lamp shaded by cardboard, which hung in the bars of the stalls, cast some light on the elephants. They were all lying down. Kaung had arranged a place to sleep in the corner with a horse blanket and he leaped to his feet to give the director an appropriate welcome.
‘Have you started the night watch?’ he asked.
‘Baby come tomorrow or next day,’ Kaung said.
‘How can you tell?’
‘The eyes.’
Pellegrini peered long and hard though the bars at the elephant’s visible eye, but saw nothing. He turned to the neighbouring pen, where Asha was sleeping, and moved his head to the thick, widely spaced bars that were set in the upper third of the wooden construction until they touched the brim of his top hat.
He stood there, silently watching the sleeping elephants, then said, ‘It would be good for the circus if Asha were ready for the bulls again.’
‘Yes, I know. But is not. Is not for long time.’
Pellegrini tore himself away from Asha. ‘There’s no reason why Dr Horàk needs to know that though, is there?’
‘No.’
Pellegrini stood there in his tailcoat, tall and troubled. Then he nodded, turned around, grabbed his umbrella and left.
The following day Rupashi became unsettled and jumpy. She urinated at short intervals and kept dropping small balls of dung. The unease spread to the other elephants. Kaung decided to leave her in her pen during the performance. Too risky, he thought.
The next day the unease and jumpiness escalated. Rupashi stopped eating and tossed sawdust beneath her and on her back.
In the night Kaung noticed that she’d lost some mucus. When morning came he went to his boss and said, ‘Doctor must come in evening.’
Before Dr Reber arrived Rupashi lost the mucus plug that surrounds the cervix during pregnancy. Two circus workers put up a partition wall to separate off an area where Rupashi wouldn’t be disturbed by the other elephants. When Reber got there she was having her first contractions, which were pushing the baby into the birthing position.
She lay on the floor, rolled around, stood up again, hit herself between her legs with her tail, all the while appeased and comforted by Kaung.
At dawn Rupashi broke off the birth.
Dr Reber stayed for another two hours, but the elephant cow gave no more signs apart from losing a little more mucus and blood.
Reber had been amazed by this phenomenon at other elephant births. To avoid being disturbed mothers gave birth at night. But because a single night often wasn’t sufficient to complete the process they would pause in the morning and not resume until the following evening.
He drove off to his clinic and came back later.
Rupashi was in the litter stall, picking up sawdust from the ground and throwing it onto her back. Kaung was crouching and talking to her softly in Burmese. Otherwise nobody was around. The show was about to begin.
The other elephants were already decorated for their performance. They wore leather headdresses covered with glittering studs and colourful coats that hung down to their knees on either side.
When Kaung saw Reber he got up. ‘Must change,’ he said and hurried out. Rupashi swung her head from side to side, as if in disapproval at Kaung’s departure. Then she lay down. Trisha, who was right next to Rupashi’s pen, came as close as the chain tied to her foot would allow and stretched her trunk through the bars.
Kaung returned. He was now wearing a red turban, a white collarless shirt and yellow Indian trousers. He crouched down to Rupashi and spoke to her again.
The circus orchestra struck up. It consisted of three men and a lot of electronics. What they played was anything but a suitable accompaniment to the thrilling spectacle the audience witnessed.
Rupashi moved her trunk as if she were looking for Kaung. He held out his hand and she grabbed hold of it tight. She lay peacefully like this for a while until Pellegrini came with two circus workers. He was wearing his tailcoat, top hat and red riding trousers.
‘Where are you?’ he called out into the stall.
Kaung got up and Rupashi copied him. He whispered something, stroked her trunk and called the elephants, who followed him reluctantly. Fahdi, the bull, went first, then Asha and Sadaf, while Trisha and her baby brought up the rear.
Now Reber was alone with Rupashi. He heard a plodding elephant tune coming from the orchestra.
The elephant cow started playing with hay and scattering sawdust around. From time to time she struck her belly with her trunk or bit its tip.
Reber grew nervous and hoped that Kaung would be back soon. Although he’d been present at many elephant births, he had never been alone before. If something went wrong he’d need help. And much could go wrong with an elephant birth.
Rupashi turned around 180 degrees as if in the circus ring. She thrashed about with her trunk and Reber saw a small bulge beneath the tail root.
The ponderous elephant march was still playing.
Rupashi sank to her knees, stayed there for a while, then stood up again.
Reber took a carrot from a bucket that Kaung had prepared and offered it to Rupashi. She took the carrot, toyed with it briefly, then tossed it across her back. She lay on her stomach and stretched out her hind legs.
By the time Rupashi was back on her feet the edge of the amniotic sac was sticking out of her like a ball. Reber tied the rubber apron around his waist and put on surgical gloves.
Finally the music stopped and he heard a thin applause. Soon afterwards Kaung was back beside him.
Rupashi made a noise that sounded like a scream. Kaung went up to her and laid his hand on the top of her trunk.
Now the circus workers led the elephants in and back to their pens. But Kaung instructed them to leave them outside Rupashi’s stall. The animals crowded around the bars and watched.
The final contractions had started. In the cramped space Rupashi was going around in circles, from right to left and back again. Once more she made the noise that sounded like a scream and the other elephant cows answered her.
She hunched her back then stretched it out again.
All of a sudden the baby’s hind legs slid out.
In the distance a drumroll from the orchestra announced another act.
Rupashi squeezed the baby out. It hung there briefly before falling to the ground in a gush of amniotic fluid and blood.
The elephants outside the stall trumpeted.
Rupashi turned around and, swiftly but carefully, freed the baby from its sac.
It lay there for a second without moving or breathing.
Rupashi knocked the baby with her feet and trunk, as if trying to shake it awake.
The baby raised its head and looked around.
At that very moment the circus orchestra played a fanfare.
Kaung said something in Burmese to the new arrival.
The elephants greeted the baby noisily.
Reber started crying, as he did at every elephant birth, whether it went well or not.
Less than twenty minutes later the little elephant was on its feet.
It was already getting dark when Kaung accompanied Dr Reber back to his car. This was the only opportunity they’d had that evening to speak in private.
‘I’m worried about Asha’s baby,’ Reber began.
‘No worry,’ Kaung said. ‘All good.’
‘With elephants the babies trigger the birth. Asha’s is too small for that.’
Kaung smiled. ‘Asha do it herself. All good. No worry.’
Some two months later Pellegrini received a short message from Dr Horàk saying that he didn’t need any more urine samples from Asha. The progesterone curve wasn’t showing any change and he’d decided he needed another surrogate mother.
Alena – Pellegrini’s stepmother who was young enough to be his sister – had returned from Ibiza bloated by lovesickness, and she proceeded to tyrannise him and the entire circus from her luxury caravan.
The next setback was the birth of Sadaf’s baby. Everything went fine until Sadaf tried to remove the amniotic membrane with her trunk and front legs. It was her first birth and, whether out of inexperience or aggression, she kicked the little one so hard that – as Dr Reber later diagnosed – it suffered multiple skull fractures and died.
Pellegrini was saved by the fact that Trisha, the mother with the two-year-old calf, finally showed symptoms of being on heat. He was able to offer her as a surrogate mother. This was also a stroke of luck for Kaung and Dr Reber. Monitoring Trisha’s pregnancy gave the doctor an excuse to keep a discreet eye on Asha’s too.
Which in truth was progressing most peculiarly. Now in its sixteenth month, the foetus was fully formed, but hardly growing. Reber estimated its shoulder height at less than twenty centimetres. He’d have loved to examine the baby with special transrectal ultrasound equipment like Dr Horàk had. But he had to make do with his conventional device and remain patient each time until the mini foetus manoeuvred into a position where it was visible.
The tiny heart kept beating and all Asha’s blood values fell within the normal range.
Dr Reber didn’t feel comfortable with the situation. His decision to get involved had been a spontaneous one, even though spontaneity wasn’t one of Hansjörg Reber’s most obvious qualities. He was more of a systematic, organised and focused individual. ‘A cold fish’, as his ex had sometimes called him. But that wasn’t true. He could be emotional too. ‘Sentimental’ was what his ex had said.
‘If one of your bloody animals snuffs it,’ she said once, ‘you’re inconsolable. But you don’t give a shit about the fate of your fellow beings.’
‘Which fellow beings?’ he asked.
‘Me, for example,’ came her reply.
And he had to admit that she hadn’t been entirely wrong in this. He’d already become indifferent to her in the first year of their marriage. It wasn’t something that just happened; he consciously engineered it. The persistent dissatisfaction she expressed about him, herself, her life, their fellow human beings – in short, about everything – got so badly on his nerves that one day he resolved not to care less what she said, felt or thought. In line with his systematic and focused approach to life he consistently maintained this detachment, and soon felt liberated. He realised that the logical outcome of his stance must be a growing indifference to her as a person too, and accepted that their marriage was ultimately doomed.
The loss of his marital status was balanced by a gain in freedom. The freedom to abandon a career in the large animal clinic where he worked. The freedom to become a small country vet. The freedom to undertake voluntary work and traineeships so as to develop an expertise in elephants. The freedom to not become a rich man.
No doubt his ex would have added to this list: the freedom to let himself go. Another example of her not being entirely wrong either.
Since their separation he’d put on eight kilos, one for each year. And even before that he hadn’t been a slim man. His gait had become somewhat ponderous. His wardrobe consisted of comfortable, practical clothes that he bought large enough and kept wearing until even the farmers noticed how shabby he looked.
Dr Reber lived in a secluded farmhouse that he’d bought cheaply in the second year of his practice. He’d been the first person to discover that it was for sale.
Brudermatte Farm was a small, half-timbered house with four rooms and a spacious kitchen from which you could heat the sitting room stove.
Attached to the house was a large barn which consisted of a stable for twelve cows and a few calves, a shed he used as a garage and a hayloft still containing some leftover hay from the previous owners.
One day he intended to renovate the barn, he just didn’t know what for.
The house came with eight hectares of pasture, arable land and some woodland, all of which he’d leased to a neighbour.
Outside, beneath the windows of the sitting room, stood a bench where he could sit in the evenings and gaze at the rolling hills, the black stands of fir trees and the three farmhouses where his neighbours lived.
When he bought the property he’d pictured himself sitting on this bench watching dusk slowly envelop the surrounding countryside. But he can’t have sat there more than about twice; Reber didn’t have time to enjoy the sunset.
He didn’t mind living alone at Brudermatte Farm. Three times a week Frau Huber came to tidy and clean – which was permanently necessary – and to replenish his supplies. He either ate in the pubs of nearby villages or he put frozen pizzas, tartes flambées and cheesecakes in the oven, or cooked tomato spaghetti, his signature dish.
Reber spent the evenings watching the television news and reading specialist literature on the internet. Recently he’d been looking at dwarfism in humans and animals, and he was especially fascinated by microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type 11, where the foetus barely grows in the womb, but otherwise develops normally. Like Asha’s foetus.
Judging by Roux’s surprise at the fact that his embryo had stopped growing, dwarfism couldn’t have been the goal of his experiment. But Reber doubted his aim was to breed herpes-resistant elephants. He’d done some background research on Roux and learned that he used to work for Gebstein, who experimented with glowing animals. He wouldn’t be surprised if Roux was involved in a similar commercial project.
At any rate it was significant how suddenly his interest was aroused once he spotted the possibility that the foetus might survive to become a mini elephant.
Kaung was right when he said Roux wasn’t a good man. Which was why Reber didn’t feel any guilt. Although hiding from Roux the fact that the embryo was still alive wasn’t strictly ethical, Reber was certain that Roux’s intentions weren’t either.
Any qualms that Reber may have felt were short-lived, for surely it would only be a few more days before Kaung rang to tell him that Asha had lost the baby. They were agreed that the most important thing to do when it happened was to get rid of the dead foetus and afterbirth as quickly as possible so that Roux didn’t get his hands on a single cell.
Reber wasn’t a particularly outspoken opponent of genetic engineering. He just didn’t like it. He found he had nothing in common with the people who were interested in it. At university these had generally been the technocratic researchers and scientists.
Although it was principally the student number quotas rather than a pure love of animals that drove him into veterinary medicine, he did like animals. And people who liked animals.
But since he’d given up his work in the large animal clinic and been working as a country vet, his relationship to the job had changed. He had – how should he put it? – become more idealistic. The farmers he dealt with, most of them at any rate, had a natural affinity with their animals. Not sentimental, but it wasn’t value-free either. The animals might be livestock, but they weren’t mere commodities. And certainly not organisms or clusters of cells to be experimented on willy-nilly.
The more he read about the subject of genetic engineering the more dubious it seemed. But it was only when he learned of the discovery of a system that allowed simple, cheap and efficient interventions into the genome, that he became a convinced opponent.
The system was called CRISPR/Cas and it allowed targeted genes to be destroyed, repaired or modified. You could use it to modify specific gametes. And changes in the genome of a living being affected all its descendants too.
Reber had enough professional experience to know how quickly mistakes could occur and he was concerned by the idea that each of these would be passed down to future generations.
He gradually became anxious that the tiny embryo might be one such mistake.
The due date came ever closer and the mini foetus was still alive. Reber and Kaung had to brace themselves for the prospect that the elephant might be born alive. Kaung was sure of it, and Reber himself slowly started to accept this possibility.
If it did happen, he’d agreed with Kaung that they’d try to keep the birth secret and Reber would hide the creature on his farm. For the duration of what was likely to be a short life.
Just for once Reber was sitting on his after-work bench outside the house. Throughout the entire rainy summer he’d been able to blame the weather for not doing it. But that evening the atmosphere before the next looming storm was so wonderful that he simply had to sit out there, enjoying a bottle of wine and the paper.
The grass was tall and dark green; no farmer had dared make hay. Like a wound, a red-rimmed gash on the horizon gaped in the ash-grey blanket of cloud.
The bottle was already half empty when he noticed that the light had changed into an unreal yellow. Shortly afterwards stormy gusts started tugging at his paper. He made for the shelter of the house.
Before he’d got to the front door his mobile rang. On the display it said ‘Kaung’.
‘Must come,’ Kaung said. ‘Taxi not find house. GPS not find house either.’
That was true. His house didn’t have a GPS locatable address. ‘Where are you?’
‘Graufeld. Must come. Quick.’
‘Has Asha lost her baby?’
‘Not lost. Alive. Quick!’
As Reber was reversing his SUV out of the shed the first lightning flashed in the sky. Halfway to the village the deluge almost defeated the windscreen wipers. Streams flowed from farm tracks onto the narrow road.
Alive? If that was the case then the baby had arrived before the earliest date. And without any signs from the mother.
It stopped raining abruptly. The road led through a little wood. Reber accelerated.
A few seconds later the car hit another wall of rain. Reber braked, the SUV skidded, but he regained control. The wine, Reber thought. He hadn’t expected he’d have to drive.
Shimmering through the downpour by the side of the road were the lights of Waldhof, the last farm before the edge of the village. Soon afterwards Reber saw the Graufeld sign and the speed limit.
They hadn’t arranged where to meet, but it was a small village. Even from a distance Reber could see the taxi sign shining and reflecting on the wet roof of the vehicle.
He flashed his lights and saw a door open and Kaung get out. He turned around, picked up a bag and waited for Reber in the pouring rain.
Reber stopped, Kaung opened the back door, put the bag on the seat, pushed it to the middle and said, ‘Must pay please. Kaung not enough money.’
The taxi driver made no move to get out, but just put the window down, said, ‘One hundred and fifteen thirty,’ and held out his hand.
Reber gave him 120 and hurried back to his own car.
The taxi drove off, but Reber didn’t start his engine. Kneeling on the seat he peered behind at the bag.
The zip was open. Kaung was holding the two sides apart.
At that moment the courtesy light inside the car automatically went off.
Inside the bag he saw something that was pink and glowing.
Kaung had been certain that it was imminent; he could read the little signs. Asha had started making the same steps forward and backward for hours on end. Although it was common for elephants living in captivity to display such mechanical behaviour, for Asha this was new. Nor was it like her to throw food and objects around. She also had diarrhoea, another indication that she was nervous.
Then Kaung saw that she’d lost some mucus. By now at the latest he ought to have informed Dr Reber. But a visit outside his scheduled calls would have raised eyebrows in the circus. Kaung could still ring him if it were absolutely necessary and he could be here pretty quickly because their current venue in the Oberland was only about half an hour away from Dr Reber’s village.
But Kaung didn’t think it was necessary. He was almost sure that it would be an easy birth. Yes, the doctor was afraid that such a tiny baby might get stuck and suffocate in the long birthing canal, but he had never believed it would survive anyway. The doctor was a good man, but he didn’t believe in miracles.
Kaung was now sleeping beside Asha, which didn’t arouse any suspicion as it wasn’t unusual for him to spend the night with a poorly animal, talking to it and feeding it little treats. And Asha was poorly. She had a gastrointestinal infection, or at least that’s the excuse Kaung had given Pellegrini for her not being able to take part in the performance.
Kaung sat in Asha’s stall in the lotus position, meditating. The rain made a dull thud as it drummed onto the roof of the animal tent. The smell of the elephant dung mingled with that of the wet grass that drifted in through the half-open entrance.
A noise from far beyond his consciousness alerted Kaung. Opening his eyes he saw that Asha was thrusting her trunk high in the air and hunching her back.
The noise was coming from Trisha, who had stood up and was blurting out the sounds. Kaung immediately knew what they meant: Asha’s contractions had begun.
He stood up, went to the entrance to the tent and closed the tarpaulins. Then he hurried back to Asha, laid his hand on the root of her trunk and spoke some words of comfort.
As a young boy he’d learned how to read the eyes of elephants. He could spot their fears, their anger, their happiness and their pain.
Asha wasn’t in pain. Although her body tightened once more she didn’t seem to feel any resistance.
She pushed again. Kaung leaped behind her – just in time to catch a little bundle in a jet of amniotic fluid.
Asha turned around.
Normally she’d now free the baby from the sac, but Kaung didn’t dare put this tiny creature at the feet of the mighty animal. He hurriedly ripped open the slippery membrane with his bare hands. And got a fright.
It was as if he were peeling an exotic fruit from its plain exterior.
The skin that appeared was a deep, schid, shining pink.
Kaung took the animal completely out of the sac and nudged it to get it moving.
Yes, it was breathing!
Asha gave the small creature a fleeting examination with her trunk and turned away. Kaung fancied he’d seen something in her eyes that told him it was advisable to leave.
He carried the newborn out of the stall. No sooner had he secured the heavy bolt than Asha gave the partition wall a thundering kick and trumpeted briefly but angrily.
Kaung went past the stalls with the sleeping horses to the tack room, where he dried the baby with a towel and bedded it down on a blanket.
In front of him lay a perfectly formed elephant. Not twenty centimetres tall.
It was pink.
And it radiated a holy aura.
Kaung knelt and prayed.
The creature moved its trunk and tried to lift its head.
Kaung covered the body with the loose end of the blanket and left the tack room.
A few planks formed a slippery path across the soaked meadow to the caravans. Only in one of them was there a light still on, while a television flickered in another.
He opened the door to his small caravan and went in. Without turning on the light he pulled out a bag from under the bed and returned to the tack room in the pouring rain.
The small elephant appeared to have moved; the blanket had slightly slid to the side. Kaung covered it up again, took a Thermos flask from the bag and went to the elephant stalls.
All the elephants were on their feet. Asha still looked as if she ought to be given a wide berth. He went into the others’ shared pen and approached Rupashi, who gave him a brief hug with her trunk.
Kaung patted Rupashi, led her calf to the udder and waited until it started drinking. An elephant cow can only be milked when a calf is suckling on the other teat.
He stroked Rupashi’s udder and she let him milk her.
Kaung filled the Thermos with a litre of her milk.
When he returned to the saddle room the small elephant was standing on wobbly legs. Kaung filled a baby bottle with some milk and offered it to the elephant.
It hesitated, examined the teat with its trunk then eventually lifted it, opened its mouth, put its head slightly to one side and started to suck.
Kaung watched the tiny fairytale creature, which wasn’t even twice as big as the baby bottle, as it drank almost 100 millilitres of Rupashi’s milk.
The rain kept thundering on the tent roof.
‘Barisha,’ Kaung muttered, the Hindi word for rain.
And from that moment on, this would be the little elephant’s name.
Barisha’s entry into the life of Hansjörg Reber challenged almost everything that he’d hitherto thought incontrovertible, and cast a shadow of doubt over what he’d always imagined to be cast-iron certainties.
His scientific understanding was shattered, he doubted his powers of medical judgement and he was doing things for which he needed reserves of dishonesty he never knew he possessed.
He kept telling himself, of course, that his motives were nothing but ethical. In this case someone had intervened in nature not for the sake of scientific progress that would cure illnesses or save lives. He’d done it to produce a sensation and possibly earn a fortune too. Was his intention to produce a living toy? Was that what Roux was trying to do?
Reber didn’t spend long pondering the question of how unethical one could be to prevent something unethical.
That he’d appropriated something that didn’t belong to him wasn’t in doubt. Something that was the result of years of expensive research activity. However contemptible Roux might be, Reber was guilty of cheating him out of the fruits of his labour and of withholding a scientific sensation.
But he didn’t feel the slightest pangs of conscience. The only worry plaguing him was the fear of being caught.
Although Reber had taken precautions to ensure that this didn’t happen, he’d been obliged to widen the circle of those (partially) in the know. Frau Huber knew that for research purposes he was keeping an animal in quarantine in the stables, which were now permanently locked.
And every day Hans, her unemployed son, drove in his tuned and lowered Opel Astra to wherever Circus Pellegrini happened to be performing. He brought with him an empty Thermos sterilised by his mother and came back with a full flask that Kaung would hand over in a place specified by text message.
Hans wasn’t interested in the content of the Thermos flasks, only in the money per kilometre that Reber paid him, which was higher than usual: one franc. For greater distances, Hans also received an expenses allowance, which given his huge bulk was not inconsiderable.
In the end Reber knew exactly why none of these ethical questions bothered him: he was completely in love with Barisha.
Not as a vet, not as an elephant specialist, not as a scientist. Ever since his first encounter with the tiny creature he’d been entranced by its – charm.
Yes. He was overwhelmed by a feeling that he’d only experienced once before, and very briefly at that, in the first few weeks after meeting his ex. When he was in love with her freshness, her naïvety, her chubbiness.
Now he felt a similar affection for Barisha, a comparable urge to protect.
No doubt anyone else would have felt the same. Barisha was captivating. She – Reber had identified her sex – possessed the charm, curiosity, awkwardness and attachment common to all baby elephants. Only she was much, much smaller. And pink. And she glowed in the dark like an alien.
His feelings towards Barisha were different from Kaung’s. Reber felt affection, whereas Kaung felt reverence. Kaung prayed to her and venerated her like a deity. On the visits he made on his days off he placed small flower garlands around her neck.
Barisha was doing well with Rupashi’s milk. She’d weighed 2.45 kilograms at birth and now was putting on about twenty-five grams per day. And she was thriving in Reber’s care. After her birth he’d disinfected her navel, as he would with any normal baby elephant. Later he’d immunised and vaccinated her with a fraction of the usual doses.
Barisha was an adventurous baby and Reber noticed that she was getting bored in the pen of the old cowshed – she kept running against its confines.
When the air was pure and the weather decent, Reber took Barisha outside. She loved vanishing into the unmown grass between the trellis and the vegetable garden, only to appear again by the edge of the gravel path that led to the house. Sometimes she’d roll around, leaving marks in the grass that must have looked like little corn circles to Frau Huber.
Reber’s veterinary work suffered as a result of his new housemate. He couldn’t leave Barisha for longer than three hours, because that was how often she needed her milk. On several occasions he’d had to call on an astonished colleague and competitor when he’d been summoned to attend a calving cow at an awkward time of day.
But Reber didn’t care; he had more important priorities than his reputation as a vet. He wanted to spend as much time with Barisha as possible, because he didn’t think she’d live long. From what he’d found out, brain haemorrhages and vasoconstriction were common in humans with microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism. Why should it be any different with elephants?
Barisha was kept in the stables only on those days when Frau Huber was in the house or when Reber was in his practice or out on a call. Otherwise she kept him company in the kitchen or sitting room. She also spent the nights on a blanket beside his bed. He’d rolled up the rugs, put them in the hayloft and was always armed with a roll of absorbent paper and dog waste bags. This was more out of consideration for Frau Huber than any need for cleanliness. He liked the smell of elephant stalls.
His evenings were spent reading in the sitting room beneath the standard lamp on the threadbare sofa, both items his predecessor had left behind. Or he’d watch Barisha, who slept either on the sofa or at his feet. And glowed silently.
He couldn’t remember ever having felt so happy.
Kaung’s daily routine was less tranquil. He still spent every day training the elephants on his own, for Pellegrini claimed he was far too busy with the preparations for next season. And there was plenty of time to integrate him into the act in a way that made him look like the trainer.
Kaung was pleased as it meant every day he could milk Rupashi unobserved and hand over the Thermoses to Hans at the waste disposal point at the entrance to the village.
On every second Monday, when there was no performance, he’d get into the car and Hans, a silent, daredevil driver, would whisk him off to Barisha in record time.
Each time Kaung brought an offering: a few flowers in a basket or woven into a garland; a small, decorative offering of fruit – bananas, apples, oranges – and always plenty of incense sticks. He would offer these things to the sacred elephant in a little ceremony. Although the vet never let it show, Kaung knew that he was secretly amused by these rituals. For Reber, Barisha was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. Kaung forgave him for this; he didn’t know any better.
Kaung spent a lot of time with Barisha, praying and meditating until Reber dragged him into the kitchen for the inevitable spaghetti with tomato sauce.
Afterwards he’d spend the night in Reber’s guest room, which otherwise remained unused, and drove back with Hans to the circus on Tuesday morning. He’d milk Rupashi again and take the bag with the Thermos back to Hans, waiting for him in one of the village pubs.
But on this particular Monday Kaung was greeted by a peculiar situation when he arrived. Dr Reber opened the front door and took him without further ado into the kitchen. There, beside the wood-burning stove, stood Barisha. She was as still as a statue, and held in her trunk a small bundle of pine chips that Reber used as kindling. The other bundles of kindling that Reber kept in a nickel-plated bin were strewn across the kitchen floor.
When she noticed Kaung she lifted her head slightly, as if wanting to show him her trophies.
Kaung unpacked his basket of offerings, lit some candles and incense sticks, knelt, put his palms together in front of his face and muttered a prayer.
Reber left the kitchen.
It wasn’t until dusk fell that Kaung came into the sitting room, followed at a slight distance by Barisha, still aloof.
Reber glanced at Kaung uncertainly and was about to go up to Barisha.
‘Leave in peace, please,’ Kaung said.
Reber paused. ‘Why? What’s wrong with her?’
‘Sit, please.’
Reber sat in his padded armchair. ‘What’s up with her?’
‘Barisha is elephant. Small, but elephant. Doctor think Barisha is toy.’
Reber looked shocked. ‘No, no, I don’t think that at all.’
‘But Barisha think doctor think that.’
Reber frowned.
‘Barisha sacred creature,’ Kaung declared solemnly. And when he sensed Reber’s scepticism he added, ‘Doctor need not believe. But must believe that is elephant. Must take seriously. Must respect.’
Reber nodded.
‘Barisha do with wood what elephants do. Wants to show that is elephant.’
From now on Reber tried to pay the glowing pink mini elephant some respect. Which he didn’t always succeed in doing.
It was now February. Barisha was six months old, but had scarcely grown any bigger. She wasn’t just living on Rupashi’s milk any more; Reber gave her vegetables, fruit, leaves and twigs too. He was also able to leave her for longer than three hours at a time and without food. But this almost never happened. He didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of her being unsupervised and unprotected. And he missed her, probably more than she did him.
The winter break was at an end and the circus was appearing at Dondikon Common, a place that had become stuck in the transition from village to agglomeration and which, if one was being kind, could be counted as part of the Zürich commuter belt.
Audiences for the shows were poor, which wasn’t just down to the programme, but also the cold, wet May and the persistent technical problems of the heating system.
To compound the misfortune, it had also snowed overnight. The big top, the caravans and the mobile stables all lay beneath a heavy, wet covering of snow that had begun to melt before it started getting light.
It smelled of the slurry that the farmer deposited in brown lines on the neighbouring field.
Kaung had spent the night with Barisha and driven back with Hans, who was now waiting in one of the village pubs for Rupashi’s fresh milk.
On this Tuesday he had to leave him waiting for ages, because as Kaung approached the animal tent he could hear Pellegrini’s voice coming from inside.
He was standing in Asha’s stall, talking to someone that Kaung only recognised when he got closer: Roux. And another man Kaung didn’t know, partially obstructed by the elephant cow. He was holding a stick, attached to the end of which was a bucket, as if he were waiting for the opportunity to collect some of Asha’s urine.
Asha was agitated, and Kaung could immediately see why: all four of her legs were chained up.
Only now did Kaung spot the fourth man: Ben, the unpleasant circus worker who sometimes helped out with the elephants. He was wielding an elephant hook, a tool that Kaung never used. It was a stick with a barbed metal hook for leading animals by pressing on their most sensitive spot behind the ears. Ben must have been the one who’d chained Asha up.
Roux noticed Kaung at once. He broke off mid-sentence, looked at Pellegrini and indicated Kaung with his chin.
Turning around, the director gave the oozie a nod. ‘This is Dr Hess; Dr Roux you know already. The gentlemen would like to repeat the experiment with Asha.’
‘Asha not ready,’ Kaung replied.
‘Dr Hess would like to verify this personally. He believes that sixteen months after the miscarriage should be sufficient.’
‘Dr Reber says—’
‘Don’t give me Dr Reber!’ Roux interrupted.
‘Trisha better. Trisha soon ready,’ Kaung said.
Pellegrini shook his head. ‘But Dr Roux would like to work with Asha.’
‘Why?’
The director was going to answer, but Roux got in there first. ‘Because he does.’
At that moment Asha urinated, and Dr Hess caught some in the bucket. He filled the sample bottles.
Kaung watched him and noticed that in the case from which the doctor had taken the bottles were six full blood sample tubes. They’d taken blood from Asha.
Kaung knew it was possible that Asha was ready for a new implant. You might almost think she hadn’t had a baby. The afterbirth had only weighed two kilos – compared to twenty-five for a normal baby elephant – and Asha hadn’t produced any milk either.
The doctor packed away his things and the three men left the stall. Kaung started unfastening Asha’s chains. She spread her ears and swung her head back and forth.
‘Better get out before chains off,’ Kaung said. ‘Otherwise dead.’
Ben gave a scornful smile and left the stall.
Kaung spoke words of comfort to Asha as he undid the chains. As soon as she was free he fetched carrots and fed her. Only then did he milk Rupashi and bring the bag with the milk to the pub, where Hans had just polished off his second breakfast.
Dr Reber was worried. Barisha was standing beside the kitchen door, playing with her bundle of kindling. Kaung had called him to say what was happening at the circus. Reber was not at all happy to hear that Roux was visiting Pellegrini again, but what was worse was that he’d brought along his own vet: Joachim Hess! Reber knew him too well for comfort. They’d called him Joa, or maybe that’s what he’d called himself – Reber couldn’t really remember. The two of them had studied together and he’d always been puzzled by how Hess had come to veterinary medicine. He had no connection with animals; he merely regarded them as objects of study, which he observed with interest but absolutely no compassion.
It was only later, when Hess specialised, that Reber understood why he’d become a vet. He acquired a qualification in equestrian medicine, became a vet for riding, showjumping and race horses, and now moved in those circles he’d always felt attracted to.
The last he’d heard of Hess was in connection with a doping scandal a few years back involving a legendary showjumping horse. But it was news to Reber that he was now working with elephants.
Reber understood why Roux had turned up with his own vet: he didn’t trust him. Reber could hardly blame Roux.
But why was he insisting on Asha as the surrogate mother?
Reber could only come up with a single explanation, which did nothing to lessen his concerns: Roux didn’t just want to repeat the experiment; he wanted it to fail again. And in exactly the same way as the last time. Roux probably thought that the foetus’s growth deficiency was down to the surrogate mother.
Another proof that the dwarfism was coincidental rather than having been planned in advance as part of the experiment.
Roux had intended to create a normal, large, pink elephant. To begin with he’d probably thought that it was a fault in the CRISPR/Cas technology that was responsible for Barisha’s size. But perhaps he hadn’t succeeded in repeating this and was now attributing the result to Asha.
Barisha dropped the bundle, lay down and rolled on her back. Her mouth was visible beneath her trunk. It looked as if she were laughing.
During those many days and nights with Barisha, Reber had undertaken detailed research into the status and especially the dangers of genetic engineering. The more he found out, the more convinced he became that what he and Kaung had done and were doing was not only defensible, it was their duty and obligation, to use a favourite phrase of his former professor of biomedical ethics.
When Reber first came into contact with the topic, decoding the genome was still one of the biggest problems of genetic engineering. Nowadays it was routine.
The genetic databases were growing daily, allowing those with access to them to produce genetic maps from which they could establish someone’s provenance. And obviously this would be a recipe for a new, more nuanced and more targeted form of discrimination than the one humanity was already familiar with. It would also allow, for example, the development of new weapons that were only effective against certain genetic make-ups. It would be possible, therefore, to attack a country with chemical weapons that were harmless for certain ethnic groups, but deadly for others.
As a medical man, of course Reber could see the benefits of decoding and modifying the genome too. You could, for example, switch off the genetic functions that triggered Alzheimer’s, cancer or the ageing process, or other scourges of humanity.
But it also meant that you could reconfigure the genomes of plants, animals and humans. You could design them.
Barisha was the most spectacular proof of this technological feasibility. And not only that. She was also a delightful advertisement for its desirability and harmlessness.
Reber went to his computer and searched for Hess’s telephone number. He couldn’t locate one. But he did come across a website called Ask a Vet. In a long list of specialists he found Dr Joachim Hess, zoological veterinary medicine. A wording Reber had never come across before.
If you clicked on Dr Hess, it opened a window in which you could type your question.
‘Hello, Joa,’ Dr Reber wrote. ‘Do you remember me? Hansjörg Reber. I hope you’re well. There’s something I’d like to ask you, but not so publicly. Can I reach you by phone? Till then – Hajö.’
Less than two hours later Reber heard the ping announcing the arrival of a new email. It was from Hess and consisted merely of a telephone number and the three letters JOA. He dialled the number and Hess picked up straight away.
‘Hajö, old chap, how are you? Good, I imagine, seeing as you’re a bachelor again.’
‘I’ve been worse,’ Reber replied.
‘I’ve been expecting to hear from you. About the elephant thing, no? All I can say was that I didn’t go looking for it, it was thrust on me.’
‘Whatever – that’s not what concerns me. I still look after the other elephants. If Roux had asked me I would have declined.’
‘Oh really? Why?’
‘Because Roux’s an arsehole.’
Hess laughed. ‘I can’t be so picky.’ And after a pause, ‘So what does concern you?’
‘Why’s he insisting on Asha? After the bad experience last time? The miscarriage. Trisha is ready.’
‘He says the foetus didn’t grow. And that’s what he’s after.’ Reber could picture him grinning. ‘A cute mini elephant. That’s what he’s hoping for.’
‘I thought he was involved with experiments in Austria.’
‘He was. Two. Both failed.’
‘Also dwarf foetuses?’
Hess didn’t reply.
‘Anything else particular about them?’
Silence.
‘Colour? Glowing?’
‘Sorry, Hajö, I’ve said too much already. Bye.’ He hung up.
May snow lay on the ground outside and Reber was freezing. He’d heated up the stove and went into the kitchen to put more wood in. He cut up an apple and carrot into small pieces. When he returned to the warm sitting room Barisha was waiting for him by the door and raised her trunk in greeting.
Reber squatted and stroked the tiny creature. ‘Don’t worry,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll look after you.’
Ben’s real name was Tarub. Tarub Ben Bassir. But everyone called him Ben. He came from Morocco and had joined the circus shortly after the death of Pellegrini’s father.
His job at the circus consisted of helping put up and take down the big top, and setting up the props in the dark between acts and putting them away again. Apart from that he had to clean the stalls and perform all manner of other menial tasks.
But Ben had no intention of spending his whole life as one of the lowly circus workers. He was good with animals and one day hoped to have a career as an attendant, then to become a trainer and finally to perform with them in the ring.
Kaung was in his way.
Kaung, the ‘elephant-whisperer’! ‘Better get out … otherwise dead’! They’d see who was ‘otherwise dead’ first, now that Ben had discovered Kaung was dealing in elephant milk.
It had struck him some time ago that Kaung was behaving strangely, as if he had something to hide. He always waited till he was alone, then he did something nobody was allowed to know about. Ben hadn’t cared what it was until now. He wasn’t one to interfere in other people’s business. But now, after this insult, it was no longer just someone else’s business.
Kaung was milking Rupashi! Every day! Ben had secretly watched him. Kaung would take the milk to a fat young man who waited for him in a car in various locations. He’d noted the registration number.
‘Better get out … otherwise dead!’
To begin with Carlo Pellegrini didn’t know what to do with this information. Kaung was milking Rupashi? And taking the milk to a car with a Zürich number plate? For what purpose? What could anybody do with a litre of elephant milk?
Was Ben telling the truth, or did he just want to get one over on Kaung? The two of them couldn’t stand each other, something Pellegrini had realised early on. Ben’s treatment of the elephants was a thorn in Kaung’s side. And vice versa.
Ben stood keenly facing Pellegrini, expecting praise.
Another mistake, this Ben, the circus director thought. Clearly not all Moroccans were born circus workers. And this one wasn’t even popular with his fellow countrymen, the ones who had been hired by Carlo’s father.
‘Thanks, you can go now,’ was all he said.
Ben looked as if he wanted to add something, but changed his mind and left the director’s caravan.
Carlo sat there at a loss, holding the piece of paper on which Ben had noted the registration number in rather crude writing. Then he turned his chair to the monitor, opened the Swiss vehicle index website and typed in the number. The owner was ‘Huber, Hans’, resident in Graufeld.
Graufeld?
Pellegrini put ‘Graufeld’ into his contact database and, indeed, Dr Hansjörg Reber appeared on the screen. Veterinary practice in 8323 Graufeld.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. Was Kaung sending a litre of elephant milk every day to Reber’s practice?
Pellegrini typed ‘Dr Hansjörg Reber, vet’ into the online telephone directory and got two results. One was the practice in Graufeld. The other address was Brudermatte Farm, 8323 Graufeld.
Pellegrini checked the time. Just after six o’clock. He could be there within the hour.
He hadn’t expected so much snow in June. The area where Reber lived was at a slightly higher altitude than Dondikon. The wet snow that had already melted there in the morning still covered the fields and pasture here by the road. And with the snow now falling again it settled immediately. He had to cut his speed and it took him an hour before he finally saw the Graufeld sign.
Putting ‘Brudermatte Farm’ into his GPS had brought no results, so he had to ask the way in the village pub.
A sign on the front of the half-timbered building announced the pub’s name as Löwen. The chit-chat died down as he entered. This is where, it seemed, all the farmers in the village came to enjoy a beer after work. He went up to the bored young woman pulling beers at the bar.
‘Could you tell me how to get to Brudermatte Farm, please?’
‘Tell you? Yes, I could tell you.’
‘But?’
‘But would you understand?’
As a circus director he wasn’t used to a huge amount of respect, but some, at least.
‘It’s all rather complicated, you see.’
‘Try me,’ he replied, somewhat resigned.
‘Fancy one too?’ she said, pointing with her chin at the glasses of beer she was pulling.
‘No thanks, I’ve got to drive.’
‘Oh, but it would help. It’s even more difficult to find sober.’
Pellegrini took one, paid immediately and gave her a tip. She took a beermat and drew him a sort of map.
When he opened the door to the porch he heard one of the farmers call out, ‘That was the guy from Circus Pellegrini, the director in person!’
He found the first two turnoffs without difficulty. But he had to spend a long time looking for the third. Now there were a few centimetres of snow on the ground and the road he was meant to take had no tracks on it.
He drove slowly and with dipped headlights over the virgin snow, which was falling ever more thickly. He didn’t see the lit-up window until he was almost right in front of the building. Pellegrini turned off his engine, got out and went over to the light. All that now marked the path to the house was a gentle depression in the white. He passed through an open gate on which hung a weather-beaten sign. He was able to make out the name ‘Brudermatte’.
On an impulse he left the path, walked up to the bench that stood beneath the lit-up window and climbed on it. By stretching he could peer into the room.
Reber was crouched on the floor, feeding a – tiny pink elephant!
Pellegrini had to get back down on his heels.
Had he seen correctly? A pink dwarf elephant?
He went on tiptoes again. There was no doubt about it: that was a tiny elephant! Reber was holding out a little piece of something to the creature, who grasped it with its trunk and put it in its mouth like a big elephant.
Asha’s foetus that refused to grow! She hadn’t lost it; she’d given birth to her baby and Reber had stolen it! And Kaung was in on the act – he was helping rear the baby elephant with Rupashi’s milk.
Pellegrini pondered the situation as he stood on the bench. Should he ring the bell and confront Reber?
He had a better idea. He took his mobile from his breast pocket, held it up to the window and filmed for a good minute. Then he viewed the result. He couldn’t use the footage; his hand had been too shaky. Pellegrini made a second attempt, this time pressing the mobile against the window to stabilise it.
Now the picture was sharp. You could see Reber feeding the animal. All of a sudden Reber glanced up and looked as if he were staring straight into the camera. But the mini elephant wound its trunk expectantly around Reber’s thumb and he turned back to his charge.
What Reber had here wasn’t just a scientific sensation; it was a walking fortune!
Pellegrini put his mobile away and got down from the bench. But rather than go to the door, he went the way he’d come, back to his car. He’d decided not to take any risks. He would show the video to Roux, who could make up his own mind whether or not to go to the police.
It was snowing so heavily that he could only see faint outlines of the footprints he’d made a few minutes ago.
Roux could feel the blood rushing to his face.
He was sitting – Pellegrini had insisted that he sit – on the visitors’ chair by the huge desk in the director’s wagon. The director had turned the screen 180 degrees and stood beside the chair.
He realised at once that the sly bastard had screwed him like no one had ever screwed him before! That crook had diddled him out of the fruits of his many years of work!
Thoughts wildly assailed his mind. Victim! Deprivation! Debts! Silent partner! Failed experiments in Austria! Six months without driving licence! Miscarriage? Rubbish! Bright and cheery! The Burmese attendant! Dishonest swine!
‘Again!’ he commanded.
Roux put on his glasses and Pellegrini played the video through once more. It was perfect, his creature! Moving and behaving just like a young elephant! But it would fit onto a sheet of A4 paper! And it was pink! Perfect! He wouldn’t be surprised if it glowed in the dark too! Sensational! His creature!
‘Where is it?’
‘Before I tell you that we need to agree on a few conditions – I’m sure you understand.’
‘Conditions?’ The blood surged to Roux’s cheeks again.
‘Well, the circumstances have changed. We’re no longer dealing with a failed experiment. Now there are different financial arrangements. Quite different ones.’
Roux gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘When I get hold of the result, money will no longer be an issue.’
‘So let’s discuss it briefly.’
‘Briefly.’
‘You owe me for Asha’s care and upkeep according to the terms we negotiated for a successful procedure.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Plus the bonus we agreed if it was successful.’
Roux nodded.
‘And a reward for finding the creature.’
This was too much for Roux. ‘Your people nick the result of the research project and you want me to pay you a reward for finding it again? You know what? I’ll find out myself where Reber’s shacked up.’
‘No you won’t. You see, if you leave here without us having reached an agreement, I’ll warn Reber. Then you can go hunting for your pink miracle.’
Roux thought about it. Finally he asked, ‘What sort of reward did you have in mind?’
‘When the time comes for you to present the animal to the public, Circus Pellegrini will have exclusive rights. For thirty performances my circus will be the only place on earth where the miraculous creature can be seen. I will determine the entrance prices and other conditions.’
Roux looked at him in disbelief. ‘We’re not talking about a circus act here. This is a highly important research project!’
Pellegrini laughed. ‘In a few years’ time there’ll be dozens of research results like this. Patented and on the market at outrageous prices. What do you bet?’
They eventually agreed on fifteen performances, with Roux getting a small share of the takings.
Roux’s feelings were still swinging between anger and euphoria, hatred and bliss. He’d done it! Although it hadn’t gone smoothly, it had worked. Wow! He, Paul Roux, had made a scientific breakthrough; those other glowing animals were nothing next to this! And those had won their creators the Nobel Prize. Yes, he’d achieved a chance outcome, but wasn’t St Chance the patron saint of researchers? Obviously he wouldn’t be able to publish his findings until he’d found out how the dwarfism had come about, but he had the cell material. The clonable cell material! And he had the partner who possessed the technical knowhow and expertise to manufacture the product – in significant quantities – as well as the power to establish it on the market. He didn’t need a Nobel Prize. The esteem and commercial success he would obtain would be more than sufficient to put Professor Gebstein deeply in the shade, where he belonged.
Roux knew that right now he mustn’t let himself be steered by feelings of jealousy. There would be plenty of time for that later. Now he had to keep his cool; he needed a plan and he needed his silent partner.
CGC was in an industrial area of Beijing, two hours from the centre in normal traffic. But those who worked there rarely travelled into the centre. Most lived in one of the large nearby housing complexes that all looked exactly the same.
Such sameness didn’t bother them; they were used to it from their work. One of the most important interests of the Chinese Genetic Company was cloning.
An even more important mainstay of its activity was sequencing, the decryption of genetic codes. CGC carried out this work so rapidly and economically that for western laboratories it was often more efficient and cheaper to send their cells to China.
CGC wasn’t the largest genetic factory in China, but it was one of the largest. It employed around 2,000 laboratory workers, technicians, chemists, doctors and other specialists.
Right now a few of them were sitting in one of the many conference rooms, watching for the umpteenth time the video being beamed onto the screen at the end of the table by a powerful, hi-res projector.
The men and women were all talking at once. Excitedly, someone familiar with such company might say. They were debating whether the tiny pink elephant on the screen being fed by a slightly overweight man was mechanical or alive, real or a special effect. And they weren’t in agreement. But those who believed the elephant was real were in the majority. It was nonetheless decided to send the material to the IT department and let the specialists check whether the creature had been morphed. The employees arranged to reconvene in an hour and the meeting broke up.
Exactly one hour later the specialist confirmed that the material hadn’t been manipulated. At that point the circle of those present was reduced to the higher management. After a brief consultation, they decided to delegate the matter to the very top.
Following a lengthy discussion, the directors called in the head of security, who immediately briefed Tseng Tian and provided him with the necessary papers and equipment.
Just before seven o’clock the following morning, Tseng Tian was in economy class on board Air China CA5621 to Zürich.
Brudermatte Farm on that early morning was like a picture from an Advent calendar. The thick layer of new snow on the roof and garden stood out against a blackish-blue sky where a thin sickle of moon and a few stars lingered. Two lit-up windows cast their light onto the glittering white. A bright column of smoke rose from the chimney into the daybreak.
Reber was kneeling in front of the stove to light it. Barisha stood beside him, swinging her trunk impatiently. On the cooker was a pan heating her bottle in warm water. On the other hotplate stood Reber’s old aluminium coffee pot with its glazed lid. He loved the smell of hot coffee in a cold farmhouse kitchen.
The fire burned. Reber hauled himself to his feet. Seriously out of shape, he thought, especially for someone who had equalled the Swiss 400-metre medley record back in his student swimming days.
He filled a large cup of warmed-up coffee, added some sugar, took the baby bottle from the water bath, checked the temperature of the milk on the inside of his wrist, sat on the end of the corner bench beside the kitchen table with both coffee and milk, and started feeding Barisha.
For almost ten months Reber had been doing this five times a day – and occasionally at night too, if she demanded – but he’d never tired of it. On the contrary, he enjoyed it each time. His longest love story to date.
He fried two eggs and ate them with the farmhouse bread that Frau Huber brought him from the village bakery. This bread was partially responsible for his excess weight. He devoured it like cake. And between mouthfuls he gave Barisha bite-size pieces of apple and carrot.
After breakfast he took her outside. It wasn’t Barisha’s first experience of snow, but she still found it mysterious. She plodded around circumspectly and with stiff legs, stopping every few steps and lifting one foot, then another to warm them a little.
Reber watched Barisha for a while before taking pity on her and lifting her up.
As he was going back inside he noticed on his bench beneath the window something resembling old footprints. Faint, barely apparent dents in the new snow.
When he took a closer look Reber also saw some that led from the bench to the path, then became lost among his own, fresh footprints.
Just the hint of some tracks. Perhaps a fox seeking some warmth.
This time Roux arrived punctually at the airport. He was in the arrivals hall, holding a sign that read ‘Mr Tseng’. He felt like a chauffeur.
The video hadn’t failed to make an impact. He had barely sent the file link to his contact when his mobile rang. Roux had briefly outlined the circumstances and situation, and had been made to promise that he would do nothing until they called again.
It was almost three hours before the second call came. ‘Play it safe’ was the watchword. Act perfectly normally. Everything as usual. Do nothing that might offer any clue that something extraordinary had happened. Don’t let anyone in on it who didn’t know already. Did anyone else know? Yes? Then make sure they behaved in exactly the same way. ‘Don’t make a move. No police. Until our man comes. Play it safe.’
Tseng was taller than Roux had imagined; he towered above him. His shoulder-length hair was tied into a ponytail and he must have been around thirty years of age.
He travelled with a small piece of hand luggage and a large suitcase. Both were on wheels but he carried them as if they weighed nothing. He’d spotted Roux’s sign and now was coming towards him with large strides. Roux put on a smile, but Tseng didn’t return it. He was on a serious mission.
Tseng greeted him with an iron handshake and a formal ‘How do you do, Mr Roux?’ that sounded like ‘Ro-uggs’.
‘Ru,’ Roux corrected him.
On their way to the car park Roux plied his guest with small talk, asking about the flight and whether this was his first visit to Switzerland. Tseng’s answers were monosyllabic.
Before they got into the car the Chinese man went on his hands and knees and checked the undercarriage with a small LED lamp. Then he searched the boot with rapid, professional hand movements. He opened the bonnet and gave that a thorough inspection, and finally he undertook a meticulous examination of the BMW’s interior.
Only then did he take his place in the passenger seat.
Roux watched Tseng in silence, considering his security measures over the top. Now he sat behind the wheel.
‘Play it safe,’ the Chinese man said.
On the drive to the hotel Roux was given his instructions. He felt just like a chauffeur again.
Strange, Reber thought when he hung up. Everything had been fine with Trisha on his last visit and the next one wasn’t due for a fortnight.
Pellegrini had called and asked him to come by specially. He wasn’t happy with Trisha.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘I’d like to get your opinion on that. She’s behaving funnily somehow.’
‘What does Kaung think?’
Pellegrini sounded irritated. ‘Can you come or should I ask Dr Hess?’
Reber promised to be there in a couple of hours.
Couldn’t he come sooner? Pellegrini asked.
He was on his way to a patient, Reber lied. He could hardly tell Pellegrini that Barisha was due her next feed in an hour.
‘You do house visits on Saturdays too?’
‘I’m afraid animals don’t stick to working hours,’ came Reber’s reply. As soon as he was off the phone he sent Kaung a text with their agreed message. ‘Call,’ it said.
It was twenty minutes before Kaung was able to phone in private. Reber told him about Pellegrini’s call and asked what was wrong with Trisha.
‘Trisha okay,’ Kaung replied.
‘Pellegrini says he’s worried. That she’s behaving funnily.’
‘Trisha okay. But director funny.’
Reber laughed. ‘Isn’t he always?’
‘Now nervous too. Perhaps because of China man.’
‘What sort of China man?’
‘Is here.’
‘An artiste?’
‘Too tall for artiste.’
An hour later Reber fed Barisha, took her to the stable, left some twigs, locked the door and drove off.
It had turned a little warmer, but there were still patches of snow by the side of the road.
During the drive to Dondikon he mulled over what might be behind this. Not once since he’d started looking after the circus elephants had Pellegrini ever called himself. If there was something out of the ordinary Kaung would have taken the initiative. Kaung knew when an elephant needed a vet.
The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. It was as if Pellegrini were looking for an excuse to meet him. Did he suspect?
He briefly considered turning around, but then he put his concern down to the paranoia that had gripped him since Barisha’s birth. Reber drove on.
Dondikon Common was a gloomy place even in the sunshine. Nearby were a few industrial buildings, pig sheds, farmhouses with enormous silos, a community hall, a petrol station and an exhibition space for agricultural equipment and vehicles. In the near distance was a wood, and where it met a narrow road stood a sign that read: ‘Shooting Range’. There was a field with a few sad cows, and in front of it the common where Circus Pellegrini was set up.
Reber parked his SUV in the car park, took his case from the boot and went to the director’s caravan.
Having seen him approach through the window, Pellegrini opened the door before Reber could ring the bell. ‘Thanks for coming so quickly,’ he said. ‘Shall we go and see her straight away?’
On the way to the animal tent Pellegrini remarked, ‘I may be mistaken, I mean I’m not exactly an elephant expert.’ He followed this with a nervous laugh.
‘Better to have rung the doctor one too many times,’ Reber said, in direct contradiction to what he believed.
Trisha was in the pen beside Rupashi. Kaung was there, mucking out the stalls. He nodded to the two men and wheeled out the barrow full of dung.
Reber looked at the elephant cow. ‘What struck you about her?’
‘She’s just different from usual. Unsettled. Nervous. Jumpy.’
Reber walked around Trisha, patted her trunk, looked into her eyes and lifted her tail.
‘Any external indications? Discharge, diarrhoea, mucus?’
Pellegrini thought about this. ‘No, I didn’t notice anything concrete. It’s more of a feeling. Quite possibly I’m mistaken. But I just don’t want to lose another calf.’
‘What does Kaung think?’
‘He thinks she’s okay. But Kaung’s been wrong in the past too. That time with Sadaf, for example. He didn’t anticipate that she’d be capable of killing her baby.’
Kaung returned with a bucketful of carrots and apples. If he’d heard Pellegrini’s last comment he wasn’t letting on.
‘At any rate I’d be most grateful if you could take the time to give her a thorough examination. I’ll be in the office if you need anything.’
Reber followed him to the exit.
‘Where are you going?’ Pellegrini asked, slightly shocked.
‘I can’t perform a thorough examination without an ultrasound scan. I need to fetch the kit from my car.’
The director looked as if he was going to demur, but all he said was, ‘In that case we’re heading in the same direction,’ and went in front. Particularly slowly, Reber thought, as if he were carrying a heavy load.
At the door to the office he remarked again that he may have been wrong about Trisha, but he just wanted to make sure that he hadn’t missed something. Only then did he enter his caravan.
Reber continued on his way to the car park. From a distance he saw a tall man with long hair, who looked briefly in his direction before getting into the passenger seat of a black car.
Reber couldn’t be sure, but the man may well have had East Asian features.
Everything was fine with Trisha; Reber could tell this even without an hour-long examination. Now he drove a little faster than normal to make sure that he was back in time for Barisha’s next feed.
Kaung was right: Pellegrini, not Trisha, was behaving strangely. Everything the director claimed to have observed about the elephant actually applied to himself: unsettled, nervous, jumpy.
Was Kaung also right in his suspicion that this might be connected to the Chinese man? And was this the person he’d seen in the car park? He was certainly tall, possibly Chinese too.
In any event, his fear that Pellegrini might have suspected the truth had proved unfounded. He’d surely have confronted Reber otherwise. Despite everything else you could say about Pellegrini, he was pretty straightforward.
But why had he made Reber come to the circus?
Whatever the truth, it couldn’t hurt to be a little wary.
Once home he went straight to the stables. When he unlocked the door and was greeted by Barisha he felt relief. Even more than usual.
‘We’d have had enough time to drive to his house and just take it.’
‘Better play it safe,’ the man from Beijing replied as expected.
Roux had picked up Tseng early that morning from his hotel, a faceless new construction near Gentecsa. The Chinese man had insisted on this choice because of its location. Since his arrival he’d spent hours replacing the locks in the laboratories with hi-tech locking devices he’d brought with him, and installing all manner of surveillance and alarm gimmickry. The plan was to bring the dwarf elephant directly to the laboratory, take tissue samples and keep it there until Beijing reported success that could be built on. Only then would the sensation be introduced to the public.
Tseng’s fussiness and nit-picking was royally getting on Roux’s nerves. If it had been down to Roux, the man could have already been on the plane back home with the cell material.
But no. For Tseng everything had to be meticulously prepared and made failsafe twice, three times. No room for improvisation.
Roux had thought it a great idea for Pellegrini to summon Reber to the circus. Until he learned that Tseng was going to exploit the opportunity merely to attach a gizmo to Reber’s car, allowing him to pinpoint his location at any time.
And then Reber had almost caught him red-handed! It had been Roux’s turn to say, ‘Play it safe,’ but the Chinese man had dismissed his concerns, saying, ‘No problem.’ Another of his stock phrases.
Now they were sitting in an ordinary-looking Renault hire car with forged Chinese papers – as a precaution – beside a toolshed somewhere in the Oberland, staring at the display on Tseng’s large smartphone. The flashing red dot near Graufeld, not ten minutes from where they were, hadn’t moved for hours. Eventually even Tseng was satisfied that they would be ready to make their move as soon as Reber was far away enough from his house.
Roux was freezing, but Tseng wouldn’t allow him to start the car to warm it up a little. ‘Too conspicuous,’ he said.
He found the Chinese man’s taciturnity especially wearing. Roux was too on edge to keep quiet; it would be a welcome distraction if he could chat to someone. Like Pellegrini, who was also a bundle of nerves, but didn’t express it in silence. Pellegrini and Roux had talked in a state of high excitement together and for the duration of their conversation had been able to forget how tense they were about the miraculous creature.
The dot moved. Roux’s heart missed a beat.
Reber was at home alone with Barisha. He put on his baggy tracksuit – why on earth he possessed a tracksuit was a mystery to him – and carried Barisha downstairs into the kitchen. He lit the stove and realised that he was out of bread. A Sunday morning without bread was unimaginable.
Reber put the elephant in the sitting room and gave her a few pieces of apple as a first breakfast. Then he locked the door and drove to the village bakery.
At the entrance he bumped into Rita, the waitress at Löwen, carrying a bagful of rolls. ‘Did the circus director find you?’ she asked.
‘Which circus director?’
‘From Circus Pellegrini. How many circus directors do you get coming to visit you?’
‘Oh, him. When was that?’
She thought about it. ‘Thursday, I think. He didn’t find you then. And I did him such a lovely map. Sepp says he’s a friend of Dorothy.’
Reber didn’t understand.
‘Gay. Sepp says he’s gay.’
‘Could be.’
‘Shame.’
Reber bought two rolls and drove back home.
Pellegrini had come looking for him? So why hadn’t he found him?
The snow on the path to the front door had melted, all that remained was the trampled wet snow from the first flurry, which was now a layer of ice. Reber saw his own footprints coming and going.
Close to the front door a trail broke off from the path and led to his bench. Although he couldn’t make out the pattern on the sole, it was a different shape. He followed the prints to the bench and saw that the person who’d left them had climbed up.
Reber got up himself. He only reached as far as the window sill and wasn’t able to look inside. But it wouldn’t have been a problem for a taller man.
Pellegrini was taller.
Reber leaped down from the bench and ran into the house.
If the pulsating red dot passed Graufeld they would get moving too. Roux started his motor when the dot reached the centre of the village. But it stopped. Roux turned off the engine.
A few minutes later the dot started moving again quickly in the opposite direction, then stopped at Reber’s house.
‘Shit!’ Roux exclaimed.
Tseng showed no emotion; he just sat there and waited.
He didn’t need to wait long. The digital clock on the display showed eight minutes before the red dot got moving once more.
This time it drove past Graufeld. And fast.
Roux started the engine and was about to pull away. But Tseng laid a hand on his forearm. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Two more minutes.’
These two minutes seemed to Roux like an eternity.
When the Chinese man finally said, ‘Go!’ he put his foot down so hard that he left two black tyre marks outside the shed.
‘Too conspicuous,’ Tseng muttered, before falling silent until they reached Brudermatte Farm. ‘Wait here!’ he ordered.
This was too much for Roux. Pointing to his chest, he said, ‘My elephant!’ and followed Tseng.
They rang the bell like bona fide visitors, hoping that nobody would answer.
After a while they rang again, and then Tseng took a bunch of skeleton keys from his bag and opened the door as if he were holding the genuine key.
The front door led straight into the warm kitchen. In the sink was a small pot full of milky water. The door to a sitting room stood ajar. The heat from a green tiled stove filled the room.
On the floor Roux discovered a slice of apple and a colourful rubber ring. And something else: tiny balls, perhaps a little larger than goat poo. He lifted one up; it was crumbly like elephant dung.
‘Tseng!’ he called out.
No reply.
He went into the kitchen. The third door, which had been shut when they came in, was now open to the barn. There Tseng stood by another door, picking its lock.
They entered an empty stall, which was set up like a miniature elephant pen. There were small logs, stones and hollows, some filled with water, and bare branches fixed vertically into the ground like small trees, with balls hanging from them.
And everywhere the tiny droppings, one of which Roux was still holding and now tossed to the ground with the others.
No pink mini elephant anywhere to be seen.
Roux was certain that Reber had smelled a rat and done a runner with the animal. But Tseng searched the entire house before he gave in to Roux’s urging and followed him to the car.
On the screen the red dot was already near the city.
‘Shit!’ Roux shouted again.
Reber didn’t have a plan. He’d often worried that something might go wrong and he’d have his cover blown, and each time he’d concluded that he’d have to flee with Barisha and hide somewhere. But where? It was a question he’d never been able to answer.
To begin with he’d thought that the only ethical way out of the situation was to put the result of the experiment to sleep and ensure that not a single cell remained. But that was a theoretical scenario, a scientific one, so to speak. At the time he hadn’t been quite so fond of Barisha as he was now.
He realised that by running away he was putting everything on the line – his existence and his future. But Reber didn’t care. Some things were more important.
There was hardly any traffic on that dismal Sunday morning and he made good progress. Or at least as good progress as you could make if you had no destination in mind. But he didn’t need a destination. Instinctively he drove towards the city. Where else? He knew his way around Zürich better than anywhere else. And if you had to hide, you’d be best off doing it somewhere familiar. Zürich was where he’d been born, gone to school, studied, fallen in love and got divorced. The city was so full of memories that once upon a time he’d had to escape it. Now he was on the run again, however, he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.
He drove through the woods of the recreation area. In the car parks on the fringe of the woods stood vehicles belonging to a few indefatigable joggers and hikers. Soon he was passing the first properties on the Villenhügel; in better visibility he would have had a view of the city and the lake from here.
Barisha was standing in an open shoulder bag in the footwell of the passenger seat. She’d stood the entire way, as if frozen. She froze each time something unusual happened. When she heard unfamiliar voices. Or when he left her alone in an unfamiliar place. The first time she’d had to wait for him in the sitting room, he found her three hours later in the same position as when he’d left. Judging by the heaps of dung behind her she hadn’t moved from the spot.
Now, too, she only moved to maintain her balance, when Reber braked or took a bend. This was the second car journey of her life, the first having been the taxi ride with Kaung on the day she was born.
Kaung! He’d forgotten Kaung!
He stopped so abruptly by the side of the road that he was only just able to prevent Barisha from falling over. Reber took his mobile from the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms and typed, ‘Call!’ Reber waited for a while, but there was no response.
He kept driving through the 30 kph zone, where the properties now became smaller and the villas were more densely built.
At the junction where the road led down steeply into the city centre, he paused briefly, then turned right to the north, heading for the suburbs and the river.
It started to rain.
‘Big mistake!’ Roux said again furiously.
Tseng didn’t respond. The first time he’d pointed out that if he hadn’t taken the precaution of attaching the tracker to Reber’s car they wouldn’t now have a clue where Reber and the tiny elephant were. After that he ignored Roux.
Roux knew that Tseng was right. He just needed someone to blame. And he was too nervous to say nothing.
Reber was heading straight for the city. They were roughly twenty minutes behind him and, as Reber seemed to be observing the speed limit, Roux could make up some ground. Not as much as he would have liked, because Tseng kept slowing him down with his ‘too conspicuous’.
It was asking a little much of Roux to stay patient, so close to their goal. But of course Tseng was right. It was crucial they kept their nerve and avoided doing anything rash. And now it had started raining too. Shit!
For a while it looked as if Reber was going to drive right into the city centre. Or perhaps straight through and then onto the motorway heading south. Italy!
‘I hope he’s not aiming for Italy!’ Roux couldn’t help but say it out loud. ‘If we have to follow a pink elephant through Italy then it’s game over!’ He burst into hysterical laughter. Tseng looked at him in astonishment and pointed at the display.
The red dot had turned off and was now heading north. Was he making for Basel? France? Germany?
Tseng gave him another tap on the forearm; in his fervour Roux had been driving too quickly again. He took his foot slightly off the accelerator.
They were approaching the industrial district by the river when Tseng pointed to the display. ‘Slow,’ he ordered.
Reber had turned off the main road and was driving slowly through the district by the river.
Now he stopped.
Tseng switched the map to satellite view.
On the screen was an aerial shot of the area where Reber had stopped.
Tseng zoomed in on the spot. ‘Recognise?’
Of course Roux recognised it. Those were the allotments beside the river path. Did Reber have an allotment? Was he planning on hiding there?
Ten minutes later they found Reber’s SUV in a parking space for the allotments at the end of a cul-de-sac. ‘Stop!’ Tseng ordered.
Roux stopped at the side of the narrow street. Another car wouldn’t be able to pass coming the other way.
Tseng took out his small binoculars from the bag and gazed at the vehicle for what seemed like an eternity.
‘Well?’ Roux asked for the third time, when the Chinese man put down his binoculars and stated, ‘Car empty.’
‘Shit!’
‘Go!’ Tseng ordered, pointing at Reber’s car.
Roux drove the Renault up to the SUV and stopped three parking spaces away. Apart from them there were two estate cars. A sign said, ‘Plot-holders only!!’ Beneath that was a clumsy drawing of a tow truck.
They got out and strolled up to the SUV. In the boot they could see the pilot bag that Roux could remember Reber using for his veterinary equipment, and the black cloth bags he transported his ultrasound gear in.
On the back seat lay a wheelie suitcase.
While Roux was still peering through the windows, Tseng had already opened the driver’s door and unlocked the rear doors. He opened the suitcase, which consisted of hastily packed clothes, washing, some fruit and vegetables, a Thermos flask and an empty baby bottle.
Tseng closed the car door and pointed to the narrow footpath that led between the allotments to the river.
The allotments had been an inspiration.
As a student Reber had had a girlfriend whose parents were allotmenteers. Allotmenteers, that’s what they’d called themselves. They’d leased a plot here by the river and grown their vegetables. Record-breaking specimens, not biodynamic or organic, but cultivated with highly potent artificial fertilisers they secretly mixed into their home-made compost, and with fungicides and pesticides that they stirred discreetly into the infusions of nettle and horsetail.
Nora had hated them for this. Not because it was dishonest, but because they used the only smidgen of deviousness in their bones for something as petty as screwing other petty individuals in a competition for the largest pumpkin or the most abundant head of lettuce.
But the allotment had its good side too. Outside the growing season the garden hut was an ideal love nest for a student couple who still lived with prudish parents and didn’t have the money for a hotel room.
This hut was a perfect hideaway for a few days. Although they were in the middle of the growing season there wasn’t much gardening to be done in this washout June.
Reber felt confident he’d find the plot again even after all these years. He certainly hadn’t forgotten the name of the hut: Blue Bayou. Nora hadn’t stopped apologising for this either.
All of a sudden there he was, outside it. It was now called дома, rather than Blue Bayou, and the Macedonian flag flew from the roof, whipped in the wind that was building up to a storm. The vegetable beds were a little smaller than he remembered, but now there was a built-in barbecue, its chimney inset with painted ceramic plates.
The plot-holders must have changed, so Reber didn’t even bother to check whether the key was still in its old place, resting on the diagonal beam that supported the right-hand side of the gable over the door.
He glanced in the shoulder bag. Barisha had lain down, but she wasn’t asleep. Her eyes peered up anxiously at him.
Reber turned around and walked along the narrow path back to the car.
In the distance he saw two figures coming his way. He crouched beneath a blooming lilac tree bending heavy and wet over a fence, and spied through the leaves. A tall man and a shorter one. The taller one had East Asian features. The other was Dr Roux.
He crouched down and hurried from his hiding place.
He didn’t know whether they’d seen him and were now following.
Reber’s excess weight was a hindrance, while the bag with Barisha further impeded his progress. If they were after him, he’d have no chance of shaking them off. His only hope was to remain undetected.
He reached the river path. Reber knew his way around, because he’d often come swimming here as a youngster. He crossed the path and climbed down the overgrown embankment. Stumbling and slipping, he headed towards the river, using each bush and willow as cover.
Behind a group of shrubs he got his breath back and noticed that here the earth beneath the river path had been eroded, creating a cave. He climbed in and tried to stifle his panting.
Footsteps approached quickly then went away again. Soon afterwards came more laboured footsteps and a man’s voice, out of breath, exclaimed, ‘Shit!’ His pursuers had passed him.
But they’d soon realise that he couldn’t be so far ahead of them and they’d come back to search the embankment. It wouldn’t be long before they discovered him. Before Barisha fell into their hands.
He opened the bag, took out the tiny elephant and whispered, ‘Wait here. I’ll be back soon.’
Reber slid on his knees deep into the cave and put Barisha down where the roof and floor met.
He crept back to the entrance and peered out. Far ahead he saw the Chinese man. He’d stopped and was waiting for Roux, who’d stopped running and was now sauntering to his companion, hands on hips and head bowed.
Reber put the empty bag on his shoulder, crept out of the cave and, as soon as he was certain that the two men weren’t looking in his direction, slid down the embankment.
Upstream stood willows, their low-hanging boughs tugged by the brown mass of water. Reber hid behind their trunks and spied on his pursuers.
Roux had now caught up with the Chinese man and they were in conversation. The Chinese man pointed in the direction they’d been running in, while he himself started heading in the other direction. Loose-limbed, he sped towards Reber.
Reber crouched as low as he could behind his cover and waited till the man had gone past.
The two had divided up their hunting ground. Reber couldn’t stay where he was; he was too close to where Barisha was hiding. Faced with the choice between the bloodhounds, he chose the slower one and headed in the direction Roux was going.
As far as the weir the vegetation on the embankment was so dense that he could move undetected. But after that it grew more sparse. Reber could see Roux just before the railway bridge and waited until he’d entered the pedestrian underpass by the bridge pier. Then he made a run for it.
Before he could reach his next cover, however, Roux came back out of the narrow tunnel entrance and spotted him.
Reber froze.
Grinning, Roux took his mobile out of his pocket and calmly dialled a number. While he spoke a few words into the phone he moved towards Reber. He put the mobile away and kept walking until he was standing directly above him.
Reber began heading down to the river again.
Roux didn’t follow him. ‘Go ahead!’ he called out. ‘My friend will be here any minute! He was with the Chinese Snow Leopards, the best commando unit in the world!’
Reber stopped again. He’d seen the Chinese man run. He didn’t stand a chance. He started clambering up the embankment; Barisha was safe for the time being.
When he saw the Chinese man trotting towards him in the distance he stopped. It wouldn’t take him five minutes to get whatever information he wanted out of Reber.
At that very moment his mobile rang and, after a brief hesitation, he took it out of his pocket.
The screen said ‘Kaung’. He answered and said softly, ‘In a cave by the river where the allotments are,’ switched off the phone and put it back.
Now he carefully lifted the shoulder bag, as if it contained something valuable, opened the zip and pretended to whisper a few words into it. Then he went down to the riverbank, took off his trainers, tied them together, held them by the laces and entered the water. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d crossed this river, even with the water like this.
‘Hey! Are you off your head?’ Roux called out.
The water was freezing. Reber held the bag by the shoulder strap and let it swim on the surface as he used to do with his clothes when he was going for a long swim in the river.
‘Hey!’ Roux shouted. ‘Heeeey!’
Reber looked back. The Chinese man was running along the river path downstream. Roux followed at a considerable distance.
The river was taking him quickly. He put the shoulder strap around his neck to free up both his arms for swimming.
He had to reach the other side before the weir.
He ought to have slid down the embankment and apprehended Reber before Tseng arrived. Now all he could do was watch him swim away. With the mini elephant and all his hopes and dreams.
That fucking Chinaman and his over-cautiousness!
Exhausted, Roux ran along the river in the pouring rain. Far ahead was Tseng, the only hope of salvaging the fruit of his research.
Half a kilometre below the weir was a pedestrian bridge. Roux crossed it and took the path upstream.
A soaked cyclist came towards him.
‘Did you pass a tall Chinese man?’
The cyclist shrugged.
Roux hurried on, but he couldn’t run any more.
The path led into a small wood, where all of a sudden he heard someone calling his name: ‘Ru!’
He stopped and looked around. Again: ‘Ru! Here!’
The voice was coming from the embankment. ‘Come!’ it called.
Spying Tseng between the trees, Roux climbed down to him.
For more than an hour they searched the riverbank as far as the hydraulic power station, where they stood for a while, staring at the flotsam in the grille. Neither Reber nor Roux’s dwarf elephant were there.
They gave up and went back upstream to the allotments.
The rental car and Reber’s SUV were the only vehicles in the car park. Notes were tucked behind the windscreen wipers of both cars, which read: ‘Next time you’ll be towed away!!!’
The only option left now was to drive off and keep monitoring the SUV via the tracker.
They were about a kilometre away from Reber’s car, watching for movement on the screen. Tseng thought that Reber would wait until the coast was clear and then return to his vehicle. Roux doubted this. Unlike the man from Beijing he didn’t believe that Reber would worry about abandoning his car with all the equipment. For what were a few ultrasound devices when you had a mini elephant?
Tseng also thought it possible that Reber had drowned. But Roux didn’t believe this either; the man was a strong swimmer. Pellegrini had told him that in his youth Reber had been a member of the national squad. You don’t forget how to swim.
But that didn’t mean the mini elephant had survived.
If it hadn’t, it was vital they recovered the corpse as quickly as possible so that the cells were still usable, i.e. clonable.
Nothing was moving on the screen.
From time to time Roux got out to smoke a cigarette. At one point he went to a nearby petrol station and bought sandwiches and mineral water.
It was getting dark. Perhaps Reber was waiting for nightfall to return to his car unobserved.
But when night came the dot on the screen was still motionless.
Around one o’clock Roux suggested they took turns to keep watch. Tseng went first and was going to wake him in two hours. But when he shook Roux awake it was daylight and commuter traffic was on the road. It was seven o’clock.
Tseng pointed at the screen. The dot was moving!
They waited until they were at a safe distance before setting off.
The dot moved slowly out of the city. Past the former industrial district to the current one, where it crossed the railway tracks and came to a stop on the other side.
Roux stopped too.
They waited five, ten, fifteen minutes before driving to the car’s location.
It was full of parked cars and the entrance was blocked by a gate, above which a sign read: ‘Toptow Towing Service’.
The allotmenteers had made good on their threat.
When he was at his second highest level of frustration, Roux was talkative. At his highest, he was silent. He drove the car grimly and without a word through the early morning traffic back to the river, and left it in a car park from which it wouldn’t be towed away.
Grey rain fell from the overcast sky. They shared the yellow umbrella with the car rental firm’s logo and walked past the allotments to the riverbank. The two men wandered slowly along the path, scouring the embankment with their eyes.
An old man in a poncho was standing by his mini greenhouse, pinching out the side shoots of a tomato plant. ‘Lost something?’ he called out to the two men.
Before Tseng could stop him, Roux said, ‘Yesterday a friend of ours went swimming in the river and hasn’t been seen since.’
‘Have you informed the police?’
‘He’s an excellent swimmer.’
‘Upstream or downstream?’ the elderly man asked.
Roux pointed upstream. ‘Up there,’ he said. ‘By the bridge.’
‘Upstream from the whirlpool of death, then,’ the allotmenteer said.
Roux and Tseng didn’t understand.
The man came out of the gate. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
He walked slightly ahead until they reached a point not far from his allotment, where bushes and willows blocked the view of the river. The man walked on until through the vegetation they could see a small platform and a long rescue pole. A sign carried the warning: ‘Only to be used in an emergency!’
‘If he didn’t manage to get ashore before this point then he’s fish food, I don’t care how good a swimmer he is. When the river rises to this level an eddy forms here that refuses to let anything or anyone go. Many a poor soul has drowned in the past. They spin around and around until they’re propelled here. And then this is where you fish them out.’
Roux and Tseng stared at the brown spume from which a piece of driftwood, a car tyre and a mangled shopping trolley kept bobbing up then disappearing again.
‘If I were you, I’d notify the police,’ the old man advised them, before returning to his tomatoes.
The two men kept staring at the eddy. ‘Shit!’ Roux cursed.
Tseng took the rescue pole from the hooks and plunged it into the whirlpool.
The car tyre almost knocked the pole from his hand, then vanished again.
Tseng kept prodding about. The hook at the end of the pole got caught in the shopping trolley. He almost lost his balance and Roux hurried to his assistance. Combining forces they managed to haul their catch ashore.
A knot of twigs and rubbish had got caught round the shaft. Tseng freed it and unravelled it on the platform. The tangle had formed around a pair of worn-out trainers tied together by the laces.
Roux cursed again. ‘His shoes. He took them off before getting into the water.’ He lifted the pole, submerged it as deeply as he could in the eddy and pulled it back up.
‘Hey! Hello!’ a voice called out. ‘Has someone fallen in?’
Roux turned around. On the river path stood a bearded man wearing a yellow raincoat like a roadworker.
‘My dog!’ Roux cried.
The man raised his shoulders and shook his head. ‘Whirlpool of death,’ he shouted. ‘Nothing gets out of there alive. It’s swallowed plenty already. Forget the dog and concentrate on not falling in yourselves!’
Roux ignored the tramp and turned back to the river fall. ‘Thanks!’ he heard Tseng call out in English.
Always polite, this loser.
The more he thought about it, the stranger the whole thing seemed. A friend tried to swim across the river yesterday? In this weather? With the water this high? And hasn’t been seen since? And they’re not telling the police, but searching the riverbank themselves?
Albert Hadorn stood up with a groan. Your back’s going to put you in a wheelchair, his wife had always said. She’d been dead for more than ten years now, while he was still picking snails out of the beds on rainy days.
He carried the brown earthenware dish in which he usually let his potato salad marinate – he was famous for his potato salad – into the hut, filled the kettle and switched it on. The kettle immediately started singing.
Maybe those men had something to do with the two unfamiliar cars in the car park yesterday. One of them bore the logo of a rental company – that would fit the Chinese man. He’d given them a chance, warned them in writing! The rental car had availed itself of this chance and vanished before the tow truck came. The light-grey Land Cruiser, on the other hand, had been nabbed.
Albert counted eighteen snails, a few of which were trying to escape. No doubt word had got around the snail community of the fate awaiting them. He pushed them back with his finger. As ever he’d forgotten to put on his gardening gloves for this task. It was almost impossible to get the slime off your fingers afterwards.
Maybe he ought to call the police.
The kettle beeped. He took it from its base and poured the boiling water over the snails in the bowl. Not especially nice, but better than the methods employed by a few others on the allotments: cutting them with clippers or using salt, sugar or pellets.
He took the bowl outside and tipped the dead snails into the compost. Then he called the police and noted the time.
It took twenty-eight minutes for a patrol car to arrive, its lights flashing and sirens howling! He showed the two officers to the weir, but if the men hadn’t already left before then the sirens would have sent them packing. Unless they had nothing to hide, an assumption he found more unlikely the longer he thought about it.
On the platform by the whirlpool of death lay a broken shopping trolley beside a pair of trainers, tied together by the laces.
He gave the policemen the two car registration numbers, having noted them yesterday for the tow-away service.
One of the officers moved away and spoke into his radio. Albert Hadorn looked at his watch.
It was almost two hours before a river police recovery boat was put out onto the water.
And almost three before they hauled aboard the heavy body of a man in a tracksuit.
A shoulder bag hung around his neck.