Chapter 42

Spotlight on the villain

Chapter 42

When Nathan came to, his eyes focused on a glass shelf hanging from the wall without brackets, as if it didn’t need human carpentry or to follow the laws of static dynamics. Two titles lay one on top of the other. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, and a volume of Plutarch’s Lives. His eyes drifted slowly down from the shelf like a grain of fish food settling on a tank floor to the glass desk in front of him. He was seeing it from an odd angle. At first he didn’t understand, his head waking slowly from its involuntary sleep, but then he realized he was viewing it from behind. He was seated in the doctor’s chair, arms resting on the icy chrome arms of the chair. Across the sterile expanse of the desk in front of him, the doctor sat in the small armchair, now the consulting patient, and Nathan his medical sage. The lights were even brighter than he remembered. The walls, whiter than before. The glass desk, more reflective than he’d ever noticed. Nathan wanted to shake his head, to go back in time and back to normal. But he remained still.

Across from him the doctor, who had been reading, now looked up and smiled at Nathan as if he’d been waiting for his consultation to begin. He closed the book, but held a finger in his spot, turning it around and raising it up so Nathan could see the cover. 

“Faust,” the doctor read out for him. “You might not know it–” he said arrogantly, as if insulting his guests education. “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ever the sage.” 

Nathan stared at the man, unwilling to indicate whether or not the doctors assumptions about his classical education were correct. He would not indulge the man with a response. 

“I will read you a passage I quite respect–” he raised the book to reading level, as if he were preparing to present to an auditorium of listeners, and began only barely glancing at the page as he read, the sheet only a reminder to words he clearly had memorized. 

I am the spirit that negates.

And rightly so, for all that comes to be

Deserves to perish wretchedly;

'Twere better nothing would begin.

Thus everything that that your terms, sin,

Destruction, evil represent—

That is my proper element.

Dr. Wollstonecraft brought the book back down to his lap and snapped it closed. He stood, placing it with the other two on the floating shelf, then sat back down, his face now absent of joke and spirit.  

“Please forgive my boldness,” he said in the serious voice of a physician. “I took the liberty of reversing my usual setup. These chairs,” he leaned forward and indicated the back of the guest chair, “have only a short back. No head rest. And in your current condition—“ he shrugged slightly, “well, it’s rather obvious that under the circumstances, you needed the headrest more than I.”

Everything was wrong. It had been wrong when Nathan arrived. He’d sensed it, the way the unconscious brain sends a hand out to catch a falling glass before the conscious brain has registered that something is in midair. But his conscious brain hadn’t caught up fast enough. He knew the doctor wasn’t to be trusted, but he’d brazenly ignored the impulse to turn and leave, his false confidence overestimating his ability to defend himself. He’d come straight into the doctor’s lair, and— 

All of a sudden, Nathan was blank. Trying to remember the chain of events that led to his being seated in the doctor’s office made him feel like the memories were being wiped just as he was trying to access them. He wanted his memories to roll in reverse, his mind trying to make traction but spinning out, like an old two-wheel drive on soggy snow, helpless in a deepening rut of its own creation. Then, as if someone had given a heavy push from the trunk, he remembered with a jolt the arm grabbing him from behind, his windpipe being crushed, the sterile smell of a disinfected cotton lab coat in his nose as something pinched at the side of his neck. Nathan stood up from the chair to leave. 

But he couldn’t stand. He’d sent the message to his legs, telling them to stiffen and straighten, simultaneously telling his arms to push up off the armrests. He’d mindlessly mandated the routine, movements one learns as a toddler and promptly stores away to the unconscious realm of full automation. But his body hadn’t moved. He sat there, still, exactly as when he’d woken. Not even a toe twitched.

A slight smile broke on one side of the doctor's face, “You see why I gave you the chair with the neckrest–” he said, as if he read in Nathan’s eyes that his visitor was now fully aware of his incapacitation. “It’s a temporary paralytic. No permanent damage. Nothing to worry about. But I’m sure you understand why I took rather obtrusive measures.”

“It was you—” Nathan managed through slurring lips and a thick tongue. 

The doctor’s mouth pinched together and his shoulders raised in a shrug of acknowledgment. 

“I’m glad to see you’re able to speak. I don’t mean to hold you absolutely captive—I want only to preserve both of our safety. The drug is intended to keep your core paralyzed. Your mind is clear enough, and probably in a moment, your speech will improve. The paralytic quality will wear off in about half an hour, if I calculate correctly.”

“Why now?” Nathan asked, choosing as few words as necessary. Every syllable was a struggle, despite Wollstonecraft’s claim that his speech should not be impaired. Nathan noticed dark circles under the doctor’s eyes. His skin looked thin, like it was stretched tight over the bones of his face. When Nathan had first met the man, he’d been struck by his good looks. He was the sort of person that everyone would notice, irrespective of personal beauty preferences. He had the square jaw of a Calvin Klein model, the wavy dark hair of an Italian prince, the deep twinkling eyes of a lead singer, and the well-kept sportive frame of an alpinist.  

But whatever Nathan had first seen of his good looks, now seemed weathered, like he’d spent the last few weeks on an Antarctic expedition in search of the South Pole without sunscreen and subsisting on starvation rations. His eyes had wrinkles at their corners, his previously clean-shaven cheeks were hollow and shadowed with days of stubble. His eyelids drooped a little, as if they’d been squinting too long at a glaring polar sun. 

“Our meeting was inevitable,” the doctor said. “At first, I hoped it could be delayed. Then I realized I could use you as a tool to an end. But I knew we would eventually have to close accounts.” He smiled again, “What’s that great line in your Westerns?” he looked off to the corner of the room, then, in a chillingly accurate American accent, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us!” He laughed the self-satisfied laugh of a man who has been dealt a royal flush. 

Nathan hadn’t figured out how to play his own meager hand. The doctor had carefully positioned him in the chair so that his core muscles didn’t have to engage to stay upright. He was slouching a bit, à la Stephen Hawking, but settled enough to be stable. Badass rebel was a hard act to pull off when you were completely paralyzed from the neck down. Silent resistor seemed his current best choice.

“Why now?” Nathan repeated.

“It was a risk to allow you to roam the streets free. Perhaps you hadn’t figured out the answer to your own riddle, despite all the clues you had, or you weren’t yet sure who to trust with your revelation. Either way, you are a ticking time bomb. You threaten to ruin all I’ve been working so hard these last years to develop. I was lucky—I risked waiting until I could use your death to sew up questions about the Krampus, and pin him on you. But it was a risk I’ve pulled off. Before tonight is over, the police will have no more open questions about the Devil of Geneva. I will be able to bring forth my life’s work in peace, and you will be revealed as the evil hand behind the needless deaths of innocent souls.”

Nathan’s eyes floated up from the doctor to the portrait behind him. The woman gazed down, as though lovingly presiding over her own children. Given the nature of its size, even the tiny pores of her skin and the faintest peach fuzz around the curve of her chin were crisply clear. Not a single flaw, not even a hairline fissure at the corner of her eyes revealed her to be anything but ideal, those same pores and peach frizz emphasizing that the print hadn’t been overexposed or photoshopped. The woman was the female personification of perfect symmetry. Nathan remembered her image on the front page of the French papers. He’d seen her here on Dr. Wollstonecraft’s office wall first, but hadn’t immediately linked the two images. It didn’t surprise Nathan in the least that a man so taken with order and symmetry would have a fiancé who so perfectly represented his obsession.

“You should have—“ Nathan struggled to finish the sentence. Saying three words was already so much harder than just two. The drugs still held him, making him feel like he was trying to speak from underwater, a dead man struggling to voice his last words. Perhaps not an untrue analogy, he realized with a pang.

The doctor raised his eyebrows, the perfect image of patient anticipation, all the curiosity in the world displayed on his face as he waited for Nathan to critique his weeks of strategizing. 

“—strangled one more.” Nathan managed. “A random.” Nathan’s eyes went again to the portrait. 

“The game isn’t over yet,” the doctor smiled. He shifted in his chair, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell Nathan something. It seemed like he decided against it, and changed tact ever so slightly. “Actually, I was tempted to eliminate someone more directly related to you. Be careful what you wish for. Walton got cold feet. It’s one thing to pose as a murderer, but he couldn’t be convinced to play an assassin in the full sense of the word.” The doctor shrugged, “You should have thanked him. Shall I tell you who I had designs on?” The doctor’s eyes narrowed with the satisfaction of a man who sits behind a chessboard, fully aware that his opponent is check-mated, no matter what move he makes. “You don’t have so many friends here in Geneva. If you spend only a moment, you could divine which of your acquaintances is still alive because I ran out of time to script their murder.”

Nathan was immediately grateful that Helene was far, far away. For the first time since she’d left he felt she was infinitely more safe in Timbuktu than in the civilized Swiss hamlet on the shores of Lake Geneva. He would have trembled, if he’d had full motor function. He realized there were only two other connections he had in Geneva. One, a frail old man who would be no match to the doctor’s proven strength, and the other, a mother of three innocent children.

“Tant pis,” the doctor said with a sigh. “Such is life. One doesn’t get to act on all one’s whims.” He straightened in his chair, as if the time for reminiscing had passed.

Nathan knew his only hope of somehow getting out of this nightmare was if the drug wore off faster than had been calculated. But even then, he wouldn’t be able to test the return of his motor control without tipping off the doctor. If he tried to move a hand or foot, Wollstonecraft would immediately know. He would need to think of a way to get the doctor close enough that he could act in short range. He had to think of a move that even a child would be able to execute—something that didn’t demand strength but, ideally, would incapacitate the man long enough for Nathan to get control of himself and get out of the office to safety, even if he had to resort to crawling.

“Nothing—” Nathan whispered, “—No work…is worth,” he let the words hang as he took a shallow breath, “sacrificing others.” With or without the drug’s effects, he would draw out his words for as long as possible.

The doctor had waited for Nathan’s full sentence. When the American finished, he rolled his eyes. 

“Are you a Christian?” Dr. Wollstonecraft asked. “You’re American so it’s likelier for you than for a typical citizen here in Geneva. Despite this city’s sordid history as a bastion of religious liberty, we’ve finally moved on from religious superstition. But I hear it’s still quite strong on your home soil.” 

The doctor readjusted his leg, resting a calf squarely across one knee. Nathan took advantage of the doctors momentary shift in attention to try to flex the toes of his feet. He realized that Wollstonecraft had removed his shoes. Perhaps to soften a kick if his patient regained control. Or to hamper his escape if he woke too quickly. 

But the move worked to Nathan’s advantage. 

Slowly, he flexed the wakening muscles in his legs, trying to gauge if he could trust them. What he needed to do required them to function while appearing responseless.

 “Abraham sacrificed Isaac,” the doctor continued, “That same god later sacrificed his own son. Surely if your heroes and the gods above can sacrifice one of their own, we mortals are permitted to sometimes offer up innocents to attain some higher goal.” The doctor’s lips twisted into a dark smirk, “Sometimes you must kill your own flesh and blood for the redemption of humanity.”

“Why William?” Nathan asked. The glass table hid nothing of his body, and evolution had trained even a non-hunter to notice movement in his peripheral vision. But he would need the doctor to stay caught up in his own narrative as his reflexes came back online.

At the mention of the boy’s name, a shadow passed over Victor. “William was an unfortunate case. His mother was quite ambitious — she understood my vision. Like every mother, she wanted the best for her children — the highest probability of success. She was also acutely aware of the limitations William in particular was going to suffer, given his defect.”

“Defect?” Nathan asked.

“William’s growth was abnormally stunted. You never met him, but he was quite small, as if his body had turned off somehow at about four and a half. He simply stopped growing. No other health issues. No apparent mental abnormalities or deficiencies. Classic idiopathic growth retardation.” The doctor spoke the diagnosis as if it were one word, but paused to make sure Nathan was following. He needn’t have bothered. His audience was captive. “He was the ideal case, really, for my work. Growth hormone treatment is nothing particularly new. But the application of my solution would be perfect in a case such as his.”

“The perfect—” Nathan sighed, “—guinea pig.”

“With his mother’s permission, of course! She was more than willing to continue treatment beyond the minimum necessary course. She was eager to see William, not just grow in physical stature, but—” the doctor crossed his legs in the opposite direction, “—well, to become a super specimen.” 

The doctor nearly glowed as he recalled the first days of his work with the boy. But his face visibly darkened, reliving what Nathan suspected to be a serious disappointment. “The treatment was brilliant,” he said, defensively. “William wasn’t the first, and he’s not been the last. However, there was something wrong with him. At first he didn’t respond at all. His mother and I agreed to increase the dosage. But the boy became sick. At the beginning, he seemed to just have some unfortunate side effects. A bit of nausea, weakness. He became quite lethargic. According to his nanny, there were whole days he would hardly leave his bed. He was weak.” Nathan noted the phrase. The boy was not weak because of mismanaged treatment, but because he, as a specimen, was weak. 

“He could not handle the regimen.” Dr. Wollstonecraft continued, “I suggested we lengthen the treatment or reduce the dosing, but his mother was quite insistent. She was such a brave woman. William would come through stronger, she was certain. I was inspired by her confidence. Her daring. So we continued.” Nathan watched his face turn from base-level disgust to respect for the mother’s reckless behavior. The corner of his nostril twitched, pulling up the corner of his mouth. “But he was simply too fragile. His body was not capable of adjustment—of improvement.”

“He must—“ Nathan let the exhaustion in his voice have its full play. “He must….” He repeated, “…have been...discouraged.”

“Not at all!” The doctor spat out. “The boy’s mind was quite resilient. Despite being completely overridden by the drugs, his spirit seemed only to bloom. As though it defied my efforts on his physical body.” Nathan would have expected the doctor to be impressed by the strength of character brought out by the boy’s circumstances, but there was nothing to indicate any sort of respect for his mental resilience. “He became—” the doctor paused, as if incapable of finding the word to describe the boy’s spirit. “—angelic. A saint, thriving on the weakening of his body.”

“You weren’t impressed?” As the doctor monologued, Nathan tried to grip his fingers against the armrests and managed a twitch.

“I dislike asymmetry,” he replied curtly. “The body should reflect the mind. The mind the body. The boy was feeble. Every week he arrived for his treatment in a visibly worsened state. As I said, we expected him to rally after the first couple doses, but it never happened. His body seemed to crumble. But his spirit refused to follow.”

“The nanny—“ Nathan sighed. 

“He had his good days. Quite inexplicably, some days he’d be almost completely fine. But near the end, those became fewer and fewer. Usually, he could barely walk. He wasn’t fated to survive.”

“You… poisoned… him.” Nathan whispered. 

“I would have healed him had it been possible.”

“You poisoned… and… strangled him.”

The doctor changed position in his chair. “Nature is a cold mother. She has no mercy and shows no empathy. The boy would never have survived. He was a weakling. If it had not been at my hand, it would have been at another.” The doctor shrugged with ennui, dusting off the spotless knee of his trousers as if bored with the case. “He might have lived to his twenties, but it would have been a sickly life. A study of pain and insufficiency. A thousand years ago he wouldn’t have made it to adulthood. Five hundred years before that, he surely wouldn’t have survived infancy. But no matter the era, the resources of the tribe shouldn’t be depleted on cases like his.”

“There are… enough resources—”

“No! There are not!” The doctor was angry, his voice immediately engaging with Nathan’s obvious foolishness. He leaned forward and pounded a finger into the top of his glass desk, the tip bending backward until it was white. “We are on the verge of a new era. An evolutionary leap you cannot even imagine. Technology is poised to open a door equal to when humans started cooking their food. Greater, even. The whole species is going to change. Cases like the boy have to be let go. We must focus our eyes on the persons who will bring us to the next evolutionary strata.”

“Oh God,” Nathan whispered, the madness of the doctor shining through his story. 

“There is no god!” the doctor smirked. “That is truth. Truth so obvious it doesn’t require proof or debate. We must become the gods of our own creation.” The doctor sat back in his chair. He seemed relieved to finally express his deepest moral convictions. “But who then is in control?” the doctor continued, “Each man himself? Obviously not. Most men can’t even get themselves out of bed without hitting the snooze five times.” He straightened the seam of his trouser leg. “Even if you’re one of those freaks who never falls victim to vice or passion — and you do what you say you will and never waste time. You’re efficient and in control of your life. Then you get hit by a drunk driver who plows up on the sidewalk.

“You die…?” Nathan asked.

“Who was in control then? Fate? Chance?” Wollstonecraft leaned forward, uncrossing his legs and putting both feet flat on the floor, hands gripping his knees. “See, since there is no god, and since we obviously don’t control our own lives, the only conclusion is that blind random chance is the lord of the system.”

He raised his free hand to the sky, to the god that was not there. “But that is no universe at all worth living in and those who are cursed by bad chance should be freed from their prison. It is bad enough to be born in such a universe. Surely you would have mercy on those who are born to this chaos along with defects and imperfections that keep them from even participating on an entry level.”

“William wasn’t in a prison.”

The look of disgust returned to the doctor’s face. “What is the point in living in a world that has born you out an invalid — a burden to yourself and society? William suffered. And those around him suffered from his ailment. Why should anyone suffer who didn’t have the basic luck to enter the world whole? We was not whole, and he would not be healed. Doesn’t even Christ famously sort out and reject the goats from the sheep?”

“But none of us are whole.” Nathan was struggling to hide his lessening paralysis. Wollstonecraft’s darkness demanded a response. 

“No,” the doctor replied, sitting back in his chair. “None of us are whole. But I will change that. My work, and the work of those who see the coming changes are ensuring that. We will fix humanity. We will herald the next evolutionary leap. So, I experiment on children? Imperfect children that would grow into crippled adults. If you understood how important my work was, you would realize that the price I pay in a few failed cases is small. I am releasing these poor souls from their misery and allowing others to benefit from their sacrifice.”

“We can’t… sacrifice… some for the ideal.”

“I’m sacrificing everyone,” Wollstonecraft whispered threateningly. “Myself included.”

---

Authors Noter:

My son sent me a mothers day short, perhaps you’ve seen it. Essentially,

“We see a sharp, one-day decline, in violent crime over Mothers day. From this we can draw the obvious conclusion that mothers are a significant population in the demographic of violent crime perpetrators, but that on this one day they’re busy at brunch with their families.”

The fun part about statistics is if you don’t like the outcome, give me a minute and I can invent a better story to understand the data.

I hope you took a moment to be grateful for your mother, and every mother before you in the chain of domestic struggle to help our species grow and thrive.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that it was an odd chapter to be editing over this weekend — the one where our villain praises the mother of the victim for her ruthless desire to force her son into greatness, despite his will, and eventually to his final demise. Yay moms!

But parenting is hard! And for this, I’ll take a quick moment to say how grateful I am that my own mother weathered the thankless years of motherhood and gave me and my brother and sister so much, not least of which being a dark imagination and this weird need to create. Also, for my sister, who daily helps me weather the struggles and savor the blessings of being neighbor-mothers. I feel deeply blessed to have both of these wonderful women in my life, and the boys who allow me the experience myself.

I’ve been thinking also of my mother-in-law, who shows great grace and strength, especially when the journey of motherhood can be so deeply painful and tragic, but continues to share her love with my sons.

*raises coupé of champagne, to all our mothers who did their imperfect and loving best!