Elefant. Jamie Bulloch
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GA-8, a single-engine Australian aeroplane that seated seven passengers.
The aircraft got caught in a storm high above the rugged fjord and Harris swore he’d never get on a plane again if he survived this horror.
He made good on his promise right after the terrifying landing on the tiny Milford Strand airstrip. Harris refused to get back on board and made the five-hour trip back to Queenstown on the cargo bed of a timber transporter.
Harris took his next flight at the age of thirty-two, soon after separating from Terry. Air New Zealand from Christchurch to Perth via Auckland, and from there to Johannesburg and Cape Town, with South African Airways. His journey took almost thirty hours and not for a second did he fear for his life. He wasn’t so attached to it any more.
Ever since that second occasion he’d actually enjoyed flying. He put his unconditional trust in the aircraft and its pilot like a baby kangaroo would in its mother’s pouch.
And now, because of a spot of turbulence, this pilot was costing him the little sleep remaining to him before landing.
6
Zürich
26 April 2013
The rain had eased up and the sky had turned clearer. Roux could see the Etihad plane approaching. But the traffic hadn’t got any better. He’d be stop–start for another two kilometres till reaching the airport exit.
Roux was angry. Angry at the weather forecast, which was only ever right when you weren’t dependent on it. Angry at Zürich Airport, which was a permanent building site. And angry at himself, who couldn’t even be punctual for this long-awaited appointment.
Of course Harris would call and wait at customs until he arrived with the necessary papers. But Roux was impatient. He was desperate to take possession of the delivery. He’d waited long enough to get it.
The airport exit came into view; just a few hundred metres more until he could peel off from the traffic jam and put his foot down. Adele sang ‘Skyfall’. Roux’s hairy fingers drummed out the rhythm on the steering wheel.
The song was interrupted by a traffic report, warning of the congestion he was stuck in on the A51. ‘Oh really?’ he muttered. ‘Congestion?’
Roux was in his mid-forties. Although wiry and not particularly short, there was something squat about him, for which he had his large head and short neck to thank. He kept his sparse red hair shaved and his bushy eyebrows carefully trimmed, which emphasised the bulges above his eyes and lent a slight bull-like quality to his squatness too.
Finally he reached the place where the hard shoulder on the left opened up into the exit, but the gap between the road marker and the boot of the Volvo in front of him was too narrow for his BMW. If only the arseholes in front of him would move up a bit, he’d be at the airport by now.
Roux honked the horn.
Nothing happened.
He honked again, for longer this time.
The furthest car he could see up ahead moved forward a touch. The one behind closed the gap, and the next one and the next one. Only the Volvo stayed where it was.
Roux angrily pressed his horn, keeping his hand on it. The man behind the wheel of the Volvo responded by shaking his head slowly and deliberately. Then he started his engine and infuriatingly inched his way forward.
As soon as the gap was large enough Roux put his foot down and screeched off the motorway, still honking.
7
The same day
The customs area was a large room with stainless-steel counters. Passengers who’d chosen the green channel – nothing to declare – were streaming past the open exits. Only the odd person followed the red sign and entered clearance.
This is where Jack Harris had been waiting for twenty minutes now beside his wheelie case. He’d put the cool box onto one of the metal tables.
He wasn’t sure if he’d recognise Roux; he didn’t have a good memory for faces and had only met him once, on the fringes of an embryologists’ conference in London on combating infertility. The two of them had attended a lecture on allowing elephant egg cells to mature inside rats. Harris was hanging around the conference because he hoped to make contact with researchers looking for experts in fieldwork. Roux needed someone who could procure some elephant ovaries for him.
They had met after the lecture at Ye Olde Rose and Crown, a pub next to the conference hotel. Harris sensed later that the meeting wasn’t coincidental. Harris was sitting alone at the bar and Roux joined him with two pints of bitter filled to the brim. ‘No sadder sight than a man on his own in a pub,’ he said, in English tinged with a Swiss-German accent. By the second round – it was already Harris’s third – Roux knew that he was a vet specialising in elephants, and when they were on their next drink he asked Harris outright if he knew the best way of getting hold of ovaries from an Asian elephant.
Harris knew.
‘Sorry, Jack, traffic jam!’ said the man approaching him now with an outstretched hand.
Harris had in fact failed to recognise him. He recalled Roux being shorter and fatter.
He took Roux’s hand and shook it. It was clammy. That’s right, he’d noticed this last time: sweaty hands.
Roux was already glancing past Harris at the cool box. Now he took his hand away and placed it on the lid of the container. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘Finally.’
A customs official sauntered up to them. Harris had already informed him that this was an organ transplant and he was waiting for the recipient who had the necessary documents for the import formalities.
Roux showed the official his identification and handed him a slim dossier. The cover bore the red and yellow logo, Gentecsa, and the slogan: Research for the Future.
The customs official slid his finger across the rubric and found the information he needed to complete his form. When he was finished he pointed his chin at the cool box.
‘Is that really necessary?’ Roux asked. ‘It’s vital that the organ stays between 0 and 4 degrees.’
‘I can’t let you through without an inspection.’
Roux sighed and gave Harris a sign to open the box. ‘No more than a second,’ he said.
‘As long as it takes,’ the official corrected, also in English.
Harris snapped open the clasps and flipped open the lid. A sterile box made of milky plastic sat between blue freezer elements. Harris made no move to open it until the official asked him to.
‘You’re endangering a scientific project,’ Roux grumbled.
‘You’re the one dragging this thing out,’ the official responded.
Roux nodded to Harris, who reluctantly took the lid off the container.
What they glimpsed was as small as a child’s fist, with a brain-like structure. It was grey and glistened damply.
‘Don’t touch!’ Roux ordered.
The official slipped a mobile phone from a pouch on his belt and took a photo.
And that was how Sabu arrived in Switzerland.
8
Zürich
28 April 2013
Reflected on the wet asphalt of the car park were a few vehicles and some lit-up windows in an office block that had formerly been a wire factory. The lights still on were coming from the Gentecsa offices on the second floor.
Roux and two assistants were standing