Next: A Novel (23 page)

As the infant grew, it appeared less normal. The face, which was originally flat, did not bulge outward with age. The facial features remained rather infantile. Still, nobody thought to question the baby’s appearance—until they discovered on a routine blood exam that the infant tested negative for the Gc sialic acid enzyme. Since all apes carry this enzyme, the test was obviously wrong, and repeated. It again came back negative. The infant chimp did not have the enzyme.

“Absence of that enzyme is a human trait,” Henry said. “Sialic acid is a kind of sugar. No humans have the Gc form of sialic acid. All apes have it.”

“But this infant didn’t.”

“Right. So they did a DNA panel, and quickly realized that the infant didn’t have the usual 1.5

percent difference in genes from a human being. It had many fewer differences. And they started to put it all together.”

“And tested the chimp’s DNA against everybody who had worked in the lab.”

“Yes.”

“And found he matched your DNA.”

“Yes. Bellarmino’s office sent me a sample a few weeks ago. I guess to give me a heads-up.”

“What’d you do?”

“Took it to a friend for analysis.”

“Your friend in Long Beach?”

“Yes.”

“And Bellarmino?”

“He just doesn’t want to be responsible, when word gets out.” He shook his head. “I was driving home, and I was just west of Chicago when I got a call from this guy Rovak, at the animal lab.

And he says, you’re on your own with this one, pal. That’s their attitude. My problem, not theirs.”

Lynn frowned.“Why isn’t this a major discovery? Shouldn’t this make you famous around the world? You’ve created the first transgenic ape.”

“The problem,” Henry said, “is that I can be censured for it, or even put in jail. Because I didn’t have permission from the committees that oversee primate research. Because the NIH now forbids transgenic work on any animal other than rats. Because all the anti-GM whackos and Frankenfood nuts will be up in arms over this. Because the NIH doesn’t want any involvement in this and will deny any knowledge of it.”

“So you can’t tell anyone where Dave came from? That’s a problem, Henry, because you’ll never keep him a secret.”

“I know,” he said miserably.

“Tracy’s on the phone right now, telling all her friends about the cute little ape in her backyard.”

“Yes…”

“Her girlfriends will be over here in a few minutes. How are you going to explain Dave to them?

Because after the girls will come the reporters.” Lynn glanced at her watch. “In one, two hours, max. What’ll you say?”

“I don’t know. Maybe…I’ll say the work was done in another country. In China. Or in South Korea. And they sent him here.”

“And what will Dave say, when the reporters talk to him?”

“I’ll ask him not to talk to them.”

“Reporters won’t leave this alone, Henry. They’ll be camped outside the house with long lenses; they’ll be circling in helicopters overhead. They’ll be on the next plane to China or Korea to talk to the person who did this. And when they don’t find that person…then what?”

She stared at him, then walked to the door. She looked into the backyard, where Dave was playing with Jamie. The two of them yelling and swinging through the trees. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “You know, his skin really is quite pale.”

“I know.”

“His face is flat, almost human. What would he look like with a haircut?”

And so was born Gandler-Kreukheim syndrome, a rare genetic mutation causing short stature, excessive body hair, and facial deformities that yielded a rather ape-like appearance. The syndrome was so rare, it had only been documented four times in the last century. First, in an aristocratic Hungarian family in Budapest in 1923. Two children were born with the syndrome, described in the medical literature by an Austrian physician, Dr. Emil Kreukheim. The second appearance occurred in an Inuit child born in northern Alaska in 1944. A third child, a girl, was born in São Paulo in 1957, but she died of infection a few weeks after birth. A fourth child, in Bruges, Belgium, in 1988, was briefly seen by media but subsequently vanished. His whereabouts were now unknown.

“I like this,” Lynn said. She was typing on her portable. “What’s the name of that hairy syndrome? Excessive familial hairiness?”

“Hypertrichosis,” Henry said.

“Right.” She kept typing. “So Gandler-Kreukheim is related…to hypertrichosis.

Actually…congenital hypertrichosis langinosa. And there’ve only been fifty cases reported in the last four hundred years.”

“Are you writing that, or reading that?”

“Both.” She sat back. “Okay,” she said, “that’s all I need for now. You better go tell Dave.”

“Tell him what?”

“That he’s human. He probably thinks he is, anyway.”

“Okay.” As Henry walked to the door, he said, “You really think this will work?”

“I know it will,” Lynn said. “California has laws against invading the privacy of special children.

Many of these kids have serious deformities. They’ve got enough challenges growing up and going to school without the added burden of media exposure. Big fines if the media do it. They won’t.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“It’s the best we can do for now,” she said. She was typing again.

He paused at the door. “If Dave is a human being,” he said, “we can’t very well send him to a circus.”

“Oh no,” Lynn said. “No, no. Dave lives with us. He’s part of our family now—thanks to you.

We have no choice.”

Henry went outside. Tracy and her friends were standing beneath the tree, pointing into the branches. “Look at the monkey! Look at him!”

“No,” Henry said to them. “He’s not a monkey. And please don’t embarrass him. Dave suffers from a rare genetic syndrome…” And he explained it to them, as they listened wide-eyed.

Jamie had a trundle bed that he used when friends slept over. Lynn pulled it out, and Dave slept on it, alongside Jamie. His last words were “It’s very soft,” and almost immediately he was asleep, while Lynn ran her hands soothingly through his hair. Jamie said, “This is so neat, Mom.

It’s like having a brother.”

“It is, isn’t it,” she said.

She turned out the light and closed the door. When she looked back in on them later, she found that Dave had twisted his sheets into a circle around him, making a kind of nest in the middle of the bed.

“No,” Tracy said, standing in the kitchen, hands on hips. “No, he cannot live in our house. How could you do this to me, Dad?”

“Do what?”

“You know what the other kids are going to say. He’s a monkey that looks like a person, Dad.

And he sounds like you with a stuffy nose.” She was near tears. “He’s related to you, isn’t he?

He has your genes.”

“Now, Tracy…”

“I amso embarrassed.” She started to sob. “I had a chance to be a freshman cheerleader.”

“Tracy,” he said, “I’m sure you will—”

“This was my year, Dad!”

“It’s still your year.”

“Not if I have a monkey in my house!”

She went to the refrigerator for a Coke, came back, still sobbing. That was when her mother walked in. “He’s not a monkey,” Lynn said firmly. “He is an unfortunate young boy who suffers from a serious disease.”

“Oh, sure, Mom.”

“Go look it up yourself. Google it.”

“I will!” Still sobbing, she walked over to the computer. Henry glanced at Lynn, then moved to look over his daughter’s shoulder.

Hypertrichosis Variant Disorder Reported 1923 (Hungary) Gandler-Kreukheim Syndromeon Monday 01/Jan/[email protected]:05pm Doubtless the hirsuitism is secondary to QT/TD. The Hungarian cases showed no induration, according to 1923…

Dot.gks.org/9872767/9877676/490056 – 22K –Cached –Similar pages Gandler-Kreukheim Syndrome – Inuit Lawsuit (1944)

In the hectic days of World War II, the young Inuit boy suffering fromGandler-Kreukheim in the northern Alaska town of Sanduk was treated by a local…

dot.gks.org/FAQ_G-K_S/7844908Inuit 41K –Cached –Similar pages Prostitute Gives Birth to Ape Child in Beijing

New China Post reports an infant with chimp-like hair and large hands and feet, born to a Mongolian prostitute who claims to have mated with a Russian ape for money. Question whether this is Gandler-Kreukheim syndrome, extremely rare condition…

Dot.gks.org/4577878/9877676/490056 – 66K –Cached –Similar pages The Delhi “Monkey Man” – A New Case of Gandler-Kreukheim?

Hindustan Times reports a man with the appearance and agility of a monkey, able to leap from rooftop to rooftop, frightening local residents. 3,000 police called out to…

Dot.gks.org/4577878/9877676/490056 – 66K –Cached –Similar pages Gandler-Kreukheim Syndrome – From Belgium

Looking like a monkey, the young boy’s picture appeared widely in the Brussels press as well as publications in Paris and Bonn. After 1989 the child, whose name was Gilles, disappeared from public view…(Translated)

Dot.gks.org/4577878/9877676/490056 – 52K –Cached –Similar pages Syndrome Gandler-Kreukheim – De la Belgique

Ressemblant à un singe, l’image du jeune garçon est apparue partout dans la presse de Bruxelles comme les publications dispersées à Paris et à Bonn. Après 1989, l’enfant dont le nom était Gilles, est disparu de la vue publique…

Dot.gks.fr/4577878/77676/0056/9923.shmtl – 36K –Cached –Similar pages

“I had no idea,” Tracy said, staring at the screen. “There have only been four or five cases in all of history. That poor kid!”

“He’s very special,” Henry said. “I hope you will treat him better now.” He put his hand on Tracy’s shoulder and glanced back at his wife. “All this in a couple of hours?”

“I’ve been busy,” she said.

CH037

There were fifty reporters in the conference room of Shanghai’s Hua Ting Hotel, sitting at row after row of green felt–covered tables. The TV cameras were all at the back of the room, and sitting on the floor up front were the cameramen, with their bulky telephoto lenses.

Strobes flashed as Professor Shen Zhihong, head of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, in Shanghai, stepped up to the microphones. Wearing a black suit, Shen was a distinguished-looking man, and his English was excellent. Before becoming the head of IBCB, he had spent ten years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a professor of cell biology at MIT.

“I do not know whether I am telling you good news or bad news,” he said. “But I suspect it may be disappointing news. Nevertheless, I will set certain rumors finally to rest.”

For some reason, he explained, rumors of unethical research in China began to circulate after the 12th East Asia Joint Symposium on Biomedical Research at Shaoxing City, in Zhejiang Province. “I have no idea why,” Shen said. “The conference was quite ordinary, and technical in nature.” However, at the next conference, in Seoul, reporters from Taiwan and Tokyo were asking pointed questions.

“I was therefore advised by Byeong Jae Lee, the head of molecular biology at Seoul National University, to address this matter directly. He has some experience with the power of rumors.”

There were knowing chuckles in the audience. Shen was referring, of course, to the worldwide scandal that had erupted around the eminent Korean geneticist Hwang Woo-Suk.

“Therefore, I shall come directly to the point,” he said. “For many years there have been rumors that Chinese scientists were attempting to create a hybrid of human and chimpanzee. According to the story, back in 1967, a surgeon named Ji Yongxiang fertilized a female chimpanzee with human sperm. The chimp was in the third month of pregnancy when outraged citizens stormed his lab and ended the experiment. The chimpanzee later died, but researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science supposedly said they would continue the research.”

Shen paused. “That is the first story. It is entirely untrue. No chimpanzee was ever impregnated by Dr. Yongxiang or anyone else in China. Nor has a chimpanzee been impregnated anywhere in the world. If it had happened, you would know about it.

“Then, in 1980, a new story circulated that Italian researchers had seen human-chimp embryos in a Beijing laboratory. I heard this story when I was a professor at MIT. I asked to meet the Italian researchers in question. They could never be found. They were always the friend of a friend.”

Shen waited while strobes flashed again. The cameramen crawling around at his feet were annoying. After a moment, he continued. “Next, a few years ago, was the story that a Mongolian prostitute gave birth to a baby with the features of a chimpanzee. This chimp-man was said to look like a human being, but was very hairy, with large hands and feet. The chimp-man drank whiskey and spoke in sentences. According to the story, this chimp is now at the Chinese Space Agency headquarters in Chao Yang District. He can sometimes be seen at the windows, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar. Supposedly he will be sent to the moon because it is too dangerous to send a human.

“This story, too, is false. All the stories are false. I know these stories are tantalizing, or amusing.

But they are not true. Why they should be located in China, I am not sure. Especially since the country with the least regulation of genetic experiments is the United States. You can do almost anything there. It was there that a gibbon was successfully mated with a siamang—primates that are genetically more distant than a human and chimp. Several live births resulted. This happened at Georgia State University. Almost thirty years ago.”

He then opened the floor to questions. According to the transcript: QUESTION: Dr. Shen, is the U.S. working on a chimp hybrid?

DR. SHEN:I have no reason to think so. I am merely observing that the U.S. has the fewest rules.

QUESTION: Is it possible to fertilize a chimpanzee with human sperm?

DR. SHEN:I would say no. That has been tried for nearly a century. Going back to the 1920s, when Stalin ordered the most famous animal breeder in Russia to do it, to make a new race of soldiers for him. His name was Ivanov, and he failed, and was thrown in jail. A few years later, Hitler’s scientists tried it, and also failed. Today we know that the genomes of humans and chimps are very close, but the uterine conditions are considerably different. So, I would say no.