Elefant. Jamie Bulloch

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СКАЧАТЬ took off his sweat-drenched shirt and replaced it with a green surgeon’s gown. Kasun clapped him on the back and handed him the disinfectant. Its glycerine content made it easier to put on the surgical gloves.

      The vet listened to the little elephant through his stethoscope. After three minutes he nodded to Kasun, who was also now wearing sterile, disposable gloves. Kasun took the large scalpel from the instrument case and passed it to Harris.

      Harris set the blade beside the eighteenth rib below the spinal column and opened up the lumbar region of the dead elephant.

      5

      The same day

      Seat 11A had two advantages: there was no seat beside it and it was the furthest back in business class aboard this Boeing 787-9. Behind was room enough for the cool box carrying the baby elephant’s ovaries.

      Harris had just managed to catch the Etihad 265, which would take him from Colombo to Zürich via Abu Dhabi in a little over fourteen hours. He’d drunk his way through the champagne, claret and liqueurs on the menu and was now on his goodnight beer. Perhaps he’d get a little more sleep in the remaining four hours of the flight.

      Business class was only about half full. Most passengers were asleep, but here and there he could make out the pale flicker of a screen.

      All of a sudden a light went on above one of the seats. A few moments later the curtain of the galley moved and an air hostess emerged, went over to the light, bent down, exchanged a few words with the passenger and left. Shortly afterwards she returned with a tray carrying a glass and a can of beer.

      Someone else who couldn’t sleep.

      Harris was pleased that this mission was coming to an end. He’d had enough of the tropics and was looking forward to Europe, cool nights and talking shop with colleagues. And to the recognition he’d receive – in the short term at least – for the project’s success.

      He put on the headphones and selected the Country channel. ‘Lucille’ by Kenny Rogers was playing, the song that had acted as a soundtrack to the most difficult period of his separation.

      He was awoken by the captain’s composed voice. They were entering an area of turbulence, he explained, and all passengers were requested to fasten their seatbelts.

      In the past Harris used to suffer from a fear of flying. A pathological fear. Until the age of thirty-two he’d only got on a plane once. He was sixteen at the time and had won a round trip in a competition held by a cigarette firm. From Queenstown to Milford Sound in a Gippsland 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 СКАЧАТЬ