Frameshift (20 page)

Molly nodded again.

“Well, as a baby begins to grow up, things change. The larynx migrates down the throat — and with it, the hyoid bone moves down, too. The path between the lips and the voice box becomes a right angle instead of a gentle curve. The downside of this is that a space opens up above the larynx where food can get caught, making it possible to choke to death.

The upside, though, is that the repositioning of the larynx allows for a much greater vocal range.”

Pierre and Molly looked briefly at each other, but said nothing.

“Well,” continued Gainsley, “the migration of the larynx is normally well under way by the first birthday and completed by the time the baby is eighteen months old. But Amanda’s larynx isn’t migrating at all; it’s still up high in her throat. Although she can make some sounds, a lot of other sounds will elude her, especially the vowels
aw, ee
, and
oo
 — like in ‘hot,’

‘heat,’ and ‘hoot.’ She’s also going to have trouble with the
guh
and
kuh
sounds of G and K.”

“But her larynx will eventually descend, right?” asked Pierre. He had one testicle that hadn’t descended until he was five or six — no big deal, supposedly.

Gainsley shook his head. “I doubt it. In most other ways, Amanda is developing like a normal child. In fact, she’s even a bit on the large size for her age. But in this particular area, she seems completely arrested.”

“Can it be corrected surgically?” asked Pierre.

Gainsley pulled at his mustache. “You’re talking about massive restructuring of the throat. It would be extremely risky, and have only minimal chances of success. I would not advise it.”

Pierre reached over and took his wife’s hand. “What about — what about the other things?”

Gainsley nodded. “Well, lots of children are hairy — there’s more than one reason why we sometimes call our kids little monkeys. At puberty, her hormones will change, and she may lose most of it.”

“And — and her face?” said Pierre.

“I did the genetic test for Down’s syndrome. I didn’t think that was her problem, but the test is easy enough to do. She doesn’t have that. And her pituitary hormones and thyroid gland seem normal for a child her age.”

Gainsley looked at the space between the two of them. “Is there, ah, anything I should know?”

Pierre stole a glance at Molly, then made a tight little nod at the doctor.

“I’m not Amanda’s biological father; we used donated sperm.”

Gainsley nodded. “I’d thought as much. Do you know the ethnicity of the father?”

“Ukrainian,” said Pierre.

The doctor nodded again. “Lots of Eastern Europeans have stockier builds, heavier faces, and more body hair than do Western Europeans. So, as far as her appearance is concerned, you’re probably worrying about nothing. She clearly just takes after her biological father.”

Pierre drove over to San Francisco, made his way to the dilapidated apartment building, and touched the button labeled super. A few moments later, a familiar female voice said, “Yes?”

“Mrs. Proctor? It’s Pierre Tardivel again. I’ve just got one more quick question, if you don’t mind.”

“You must get
Columbo
reruns up in Canada.”

Pierre winced, getting the joke. “I’m sorry, but if I could just—”

He was cut off by the sound of the door mechanism buzzing. He grabbed the handle and headed through the drab lobby to suite 101. An elderly Asian man was just getting off the small elevator next to the apartment. He eyed Pierre suspiciously, but went upon his way. Mrs. Proctor opened the door just as Pierre was about to knock.

“Thank you for seeing me again,” said Pierre.

“I was just teasing,” said the plump woman with the golf-ball chin.

She’d had her hair cut since the last time Pierre had been here. “Come in, come in.” She stepped aside and motioned Pierre into the living room. The old TV set was on, showing
The Price Is Right
.

“I just wanted to ask you a question about your husband,” Pierre said, taking a seat on the couch. “If you—”

“Jesus, man. Are you drunk?”

Pierre felt his face growing flush. “No. I have a neurological disorder, and—”

“Oh. Sorry.” She shrugged. “We get a lot of drunks around here. Bad neighborhood.”

Pierre took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “I just have a quick question. This may sound funny, but did your husband have any sort of genetic disorder? You know — anything that his doctor ever said was inherited? High blood pressure, diabetes, anything like that?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Pierre pursed his lips, disappointed. Still… “Do you know what his parents died of? If either of them had died of heart disease, for instance, Bryan could have inherited those bad genes.”

She looked at Pierre. “That’s a thoughtless remark, young man.”

Pierre blinked, confused. “Sorry?”

“Bryan’s parents are both still alive. They live in Florida.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry they’re alive?”

“No, no, no. Sorry for my mistake.” Still — still — “Are they in good health? Either of them have Alzheimer’s?”

Mrs. Proctor laughed. “Bryan’s dad plays eighteen holes a day down there, and his mother is sharp as a tack. No, there’s nothing wrong with them.”

“How old are they?”

“Let’s see. Ted is… eighty-three or eighty-four. And Paula is two years younger.”

Pierre nodded. “Thank you. One final question: did you ever know a man named Burian Klimus?”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Ukrainian. He’s an old man, in his eighties, bald, built like a wrestler.”

“No, nobody like that.”

“He might have used a different name. Did you ever know an Ivan Marchenko?”

She shook her head.

“Or someone named Grozny? Ivan Grozny?”

“Sorry.”

Pierre nodded and got up off the couch. Maybe Bryan Proctor was a red herring — maybe Chuck Hanratty had just been after his tools or his money. After all, it sounded like the guy had had a fine genetic profile, and—

“Umm, could I use your bathroom before I go?”

She pointed down a short corridor, illuminated by a single bulb inside a frosted white sphere attached to the ceiling.

Pierre nodded and made his way slowly into the room, which had pale blue walls and dark green fixtures. He closed the door behind him, having to push a bit to get it to fit the frame; it had apparently warped from years of exposure to steaming showers. Feeling like an absolute heel, he opened the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet and looked inside. There! A man’s Gillette razor. He slipped it into his pocket, made a show of flushing the toilet and running the sink for a few moments, then headed out.

“Thank you very much,” said Pierre, wondering if he looked as embarrassed as he felt.

“Why were you asking all this?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Just a crazy idea. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t be bothering you again.”

“No problem. I’ve been sleeping a lot easier since you — since that Hanratty guy died. You’re welcome here anytime.” She smiled. “ ‘Sides, I like
Columbo
.”

Pierre made his way out of the apartment building and headed for San Francisco police headquarters.

Molly had taken a two-year maternity leave from classroom teaching (the maximum the faculty-association agreement allowed without loss of seniority), but still went into the campus for a half day once a week to meet with the students for whom she was thesis adviser and to attend departmental meetings. Since Pierre was off in San Francisco, Mrs. Bailey was looking after Amanda.

After her last student appointment, Molly took advantage of the PC in her office to do some on-line research using Magazine Database Plus, the joys of which Pierre had introduced her to. She was about to log off when a thought occurred to her. She had tried to digest everything Dr. Gainsley had said, but she still didn’t understand it all. She typed in a query on the topic of “speech disorders,” but saw that there were over three hundred articles. She cleared that query, and thought. What was it that Gainsley had said? Something about the hyoid bone? Molly wasn’t even sure how to spell that word. Still, it was worth a try. She selected “Search for words in article text,” then tapped out HYOID. The screen immediately filled with citations for fourteen articles. She stared at the screen, reading and rereading three of the citations:

“Quoth the cavemen: nevermore” (laryngeal structures in human ancestors),
Speech Dynamics
, January-February 1997, v6 n2 p24(3).

Reference #A19429340. Text: Yes (1551 words); Abstract: Yes.

“Neanderthal neck bone sparks cross talk” (hyoid fossil may indicate capacity for speech),
Science News
, April 24, 1993, vl43 nl7 p262(l).

Reference #A13805017. Text: Yes (557 words); Abstract: Yes.

“Neanderthal language debate: tongues wag anew” (new reconstruction of La Chapelle Neanderthal skull),
Science
, April 3, 1992, v256 n5O53 p33(2). Reference #A12180871. Text: Yes (1273 words); Abstract: No.

She selected each of the articles in turn, and read them through.

There’d long been a debate among anthropologists over whether Neanderthals could speak, but it was difficult to resolve the issue since no soft tissues had been preserved. In the 1960s, linguist Philip Lieberman and anatomist Edmund Crelin had made a study of the most famous Neanderthal of all, the La Chapelle-aux-Saints specimen found in 1908.

Based on that specimen, they concluded that Neanderthals had a larynx high in their throats, with the air path curving gently down from the back of the mouth, meaning they would have lacked the vocal range of modern humans.

This view was challenged in 1989, when a Neanderthal skeleton dubbed Moshe was discovered near Israel’s Mount Carmel. For the first time ever, a Neanderthal hyoid bone had been found. Although somewhat larger than a modern human’s hyoid, the proportions were the same.

Unfortunately, Moshe’s skull was missing, making a complete reconstruction of his vocal tract — including the all-important positioning of the hyoid — impossible.

The
Science
article contained a quote from the University of Pennsylvania’s Alan Mann, who said that given the current contradictory evidence, he didn’t see “how a dispassionate observer could make a choice” between the pro-Neanderthal-speech and anti-Neanderthal-speech positions. Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History agreed, saying most anthropologists were in “bystander mode,” awaiting some new evidence.

Molly’s whole body was shaking by the time she’d finished reading it all.

It looked horribly, incredibly, unthinkably as though Burian Klimus had found a way to bring just such new evidence to light.

“Hello, Helen.”

Helen Kawabata looked up. “Jesus, Pierre, we should really get you your own parking space.”

Pierre smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, but—”

“But you’ve got one more favor to ask.”

“One of these days I’m going to stop by just to say hello.”

“Yeah, right. What is it this time?”

Pierre fished the razor out of his jacket pocket. “I got this from Mrs. Proctor. It’s Bryan Proctor’s razor, and I thought maybe you could see if a DNA sample could be lifted from it. I’m no expert at getting samples from dried blood specks or things like that.”

Helen walked over to a cupboard, pulled out a plastic specimen bag, came over to Pierre, and held it out with its mouth open. “Drop it in.”

Pierre did so.

“It’ll be a few days before I get a chance to look at it.”

“Thank you, Helen. You’re a peach.”

She laughed. “A peach? You need a more recent edition of
Berlitz
, Pierre. Nobody talks like that anymore.”

Molly, furious at what Klimus had possibly done, was on her way out of the campus, walking by North Gate Hall, when she first heard the argument. She looked around to see where the sounds were coming from.

About twenty yards away, she saw a couple of students, one male and one female, both twenty or so. The male had long brown hair gathered into a ponytail. His face was round and full and, just now, rather flushed. He was yelling at a petite woman with frosted blond hair. The woman was wearing stonewashed jeans and a yellow
Simpsons
sweatshirt. The man was wearing black jeans and a corduroy jacket, which was unzipped, showing a white T-shirt beneath. He was shouting at the woman in a language that Molly didn’t recognize. As he spoke, he drove home each point by thrusting a finger toward the woman’s face.

Molly slowed her walking a little. There was a never-ending problem with female students being harassed, and Molly wanted to ascertain if she should intervene.

But the woman seemed to be holding her own. She shouted back at the man in the same language. The woman’s body language was different from the man’s, but equally hostile: she held both hands out in front of her, fingers splayed, as if wanting to wrap them around his throat.

Molly only intended to watch long enough to satisfy herself that it wasn’t going to become violent, and that the woman was a willing participant in the exchange. A few other passersby had stopped to watch as well, although many more were continuing on after gawking for only a moment or two. The woman pulled a ring off her hand. It wasn’t a wedding or engagement ring; it came off the wrong finger. Still, it clearly had been a gift from the man. She threw it at him and stormed away. It bounced off his chest and went flying into the grass.

Molly turned to go, but as the man went to his knees, trying to find the ring, he shouted “
Blyat!”
at the departing woman. Molly froze. Her mind flashed back to that long-ago day in San Francisco: the old geezer tormenting the dying cat. The word she’d just heard was precisely what that horrible man had yelled at Molly then.

Molly took off after the woman, who was marching purposefully toward the doors of the nearest building, her head held defiantly high, ignoring the stares of onlookers. The man was still rooting in the grass for the ring.

Molly caught up with the woman just as she was pulling on one of the vertical tubular door handles, polished smooth by the hands of a thousand students each day.

“Are you okay?” asked Molly.

The woman looked at her, face still red with anger, but said nothing.

“I’m Molly Bond. I’m a professor in the psych department. I’m just wondering if you’re okay.”

The woman looked at her for a moment longer, then gestured rith her head toward the man. “Never better,” she said in an iccented voice.

“That your boyfriend?” asked Molly. As she looked, the man rose to his feet, holding the ring high. He glared across the distance at the two of them.

“Was,” said the student. “But I caught him cheating.”

“Are you an international student?”

“From Lithuania. Here to study computers.”

Molly nodded. That was the natural place for their conversation to end.

She knew she should just say, “Well, as long as you’re okay…” and head on her way. But she couldn’t resist; she had to know. She tried to make her tone light, offhand. “He called you ‘
blyat
,’ ”said Molly. “Is that—” and she realized she was about to look like an ignoramus. Was there such a language as Lithuanian? Her Midwestern upbringing had left a few things to be desired. She finished her question, though: “Is that Lithuanian?”

“Nyet. It’s Russian.”

“What’s it mean?”

The woman looked at her. “It’s not a nice thing to say.”

“I’m sorry, but—” What the hell, why not just tell the truth? “Somebody called me that once. I’ve always wondered what it meant.”

“I don’t know the English,” said the student. “It has to do with the female sex part, you know?” She looked bitterly at the receding figure of the man she’d been arguing with. “Not that he’s ever going to see mine again.”

Molly looked back at the receding figure. “The jerk,” she said.

“
Da,”
said the student. She nodded curtly at Molly and continued on into the building.

Pierre accompanied Molly as she carried Amanda upstairs and put her in the crib at the foot of the king-size bed. They each leaned over in turn and kissed their daughter on the top of the head. Molly had been strangely subdued all evening — something was clearly on her mind.

Amanda looked at her father expectantly. Pierre smiled; he knew he wasn’t going to get off that easily. He picked up a copy of
Put Me in the Zoo
from the top of the dresser. Amanda shook her head. Pierre raised his eyebrows, but put the book back down. It had been her favorite five nights in a row. He’d yet to figure out what prompted his daughter to want a change, but since he now knew every word of that book by heart, he was quite ready to comply. He picked up a small square book called
Little Miss Contrary
, but Amanda shook her head again. Pierre tried a third time, picking up a
Sesame Street
book called
Grover’s Big Day
. Amanda smiled broadly. Pierre came over, sat on the foot of the bed, and began to read.