Red Clocks(23)

Wouldn’t that be human biology, in which all physicians are trained, and not anthropology?

“When you come in on—” He glances at the nurse.

“Wednesday,” she says.

“—I’ll take a closer look at your ovaries, and we’ll include a testosterone check with your bloodwork.”

“If I have PCOS, what does that mean?”

“That the odds of your conceiving via intrauterine insemination are exceedingly low.”

To justify being late to work, sometimes as often as twice a week, she scatters crumbs of mortal illness. Principal Fivey is annoyed—has broached the subject of unpaid leave. But he hasn’t been around much since his wife went into the hospital.

Taking fresh blue books from the supply closet, the biographer asks the office manager how Mrs. Fivey is doing.

“Poor thing’s still in very critical condition.”

Is “critical” an adjective that can take an intensifying premodifier? “What happened, exactly?”

“Took a nasty tumble down the stairs.”

“What stairs?”—picturing the Exorcist steps, the biographer’s favorite ten minutes of a family trip to Washington, DC.

“At home, I think? We’re circulating a card.”

Mrs. Fivey always looks good in her Christmas costumes. Garish, true, but good. Also: why garish? Probably only because the biographer grew up in suburban Minnesota. A saying of her mother’s was “Don’t take your clothes off before they do.” The muddy grammar always bothered the biographer. Should she not take her clothes off before the men removed their own clothes? Or should she keep her clothes on until the men took them off for her?

“Here’s the card,” says the manager. “And can you write something personal? Most people have only been signing their names.”

“I don’t—”

“Sheesh, I’ll tell you what to say: ‘Heartfelt hopes for a speedy recovery.’ Is that so hard?”

“Hard? No. But my hopes are not heartfelt.”

The two long jowls on the manager’s face shake a little, as though in a breeze. “You don’t want her to get better?”

“I do in my mind. Not in my heart.”

In her mind she wants Mrs. Fivey to walk out of the hospital. In her heart she wants her brother to be alive again. In a place that is neither mind nor heart, or both at once, she wants an ashy line down the center of a round belly; she wants nausea. Susan’s marks of motherhood: spider veins at the knee backs, loose stomach skin, lowered breasts. Affronts to vanity worn as badges of the ultimate accomplishment.

But why does she want them, really? Because Susan has them? Because the Salem bookstore manager has them? Because she always vaguely assumed she would have them herself? Or does the desire come from some creaturely place, pre-civilized, some biological throb that floods her bloodways with the message Make more of yourself! To repeat, not to improve. It doesn’t matter to the ancient throb if she does good works in this short life—if she publishes, for instance, a magnificent book on Eiv?r Mínervudottír that would give people pleasure and knowledge. The throb simply wants another human machine that can, in turn, make another.

Sperm, in Faroese: sá?.

Three donors walk into a bar.

“What can I get you?” says the bartender.

Donor 5546, dumb and cocky and hot, says: “Whiskey.”

Donor 3811, looking up the weather on his phone, says: “Hold on.”

Donor 9072, who notices the bartender has his own glass going, says: “Whatever you’re drinking.”

Bartender points to 5546 and says: “You’re a little too hot.”

And to 3811: “You’re a little too cold.”

And to 9072: “But you’re just right.”

True to 9072’s humble nature, he blushes, only deepening the bartender’s sense that this man would make a first-class provider of genetic material. Throughout the evening, 9072 is sociable and composed, at ease with self and others. Meanwhile, 5546 hits on four different women before last call, and 3811 stays on a stool, swiping through his phone, aloof and alone.

The least confident of the four women takes 5546 to her house, where they have unprotected sex, and she happens to be ovulating, but because his sperm are too weak to puncture her egg, she doesn’t get pregnant.

Donor 3811 leaves after two beers, without talking to any humans.

Donor 9072 strikes up a conversation with the most confident of the four women hit on by 5546. She is drawn to 9072’s good health and good brain. They discuss his rock-climbing skills and his beautiful sister. He walks the woman to her car, where she tells him she wants to have sex, but he shakes his head politely.

“I’m a sperm donor,” he explains, “and my sperm are exceptionally vigorous, which means I’m likely to impregnate whatever body receives them, whether through intercourse or intrauterine insemination. So I can’t go around having a lot of sex. If too many children are conceived from my loin butter, especially in the same geographical area, some of them might meet each other and fall in love. Which would be bad.”

The woman understands, and they part as friends.

But how can you raise a child alone when you can’t resist twelve ounces of coffee?

When you’ve been known to eat peanut butter on a spoon for dinner?