Anna started to ask him what he meant, but before she could get out the words, an inner door opened and a short, bald dumpling of a man came through. “Well, good morning.” he said pleasantly. He wore a business suit and carried a file folder, which he immediately placed on his desk. He pointed to a chair along the wall. “Pull that over and sit down, young man--Rowan, is it?”
“Yes.” Rowan scowled at him but dragged over the chair and sat down.
“I’m Dr. Jelliff,” the man said as he took another chair behind the desk and opened what Anna recognized as her file.
Rowan glanced meaningfully at her, then said, “I think you should know, Dr. Jelliff, that before I came here, I not only left a note for my mother and father, but I left a letter with someone I trust on the mainland. If Anna and I are not back there by tomorrow morning, that person has instructions to open the letter and release it to all the media. I don’t think you’d like that.”
So that was Rowan’s plan, Anna thought. Even if he was lying, and he very likely was, she had to admire his inventiveness.
The man turned his good-humored smile on Rowan. “I presume you’re going to tell me what your letter contained.”
My God, Rowan thought, the last thing this guy looks like is a villain. In fact, with white hair and beard and a red suit, he could double for Santa Claus. He thought of Michaela’s words about God and the devil and people’s inability to tell one from the other. “I’ll be glad to tell you about the letter. I put down everything we know about the Anna Zimmerman clone experiment, complete with your name and the name of this island. I said that you were planning to get rid of all the clones, and that if anything happened to Anna, they should demand a full investigation.”
“I see,” Dr. Jelliff said.
Anna said to him, “You had no right to make all of us, anyhow. How did you think we’d feel when we found out We were just duplicates of somebody who’d lived before? You had no right--no right at all! This whole experiment is monstrous--yes, monstrous--and all you people who are involved in it are monsters. And what’s more, I think because the experiment failed, you’re planning to be murderers.”
“And you’re not going to get away with it!” Rowan said. “If you murder her, you’ll have to murder me or I’ll tell all the newspeople. And don’t forget that letter. If we both disappear you’ll be under a lot of suspicion!”
The smile faded from Dr. Jelliff’s face now. All trace of Santa Claus disappeared. “If you are both quite through and if you’ll keep quiet and listen for a few minutes, I’ll tell you what is going to happen to you.”
He glanced down at the file. “It was most unfortunate, Anna, that you had to learn about yourself as you did. You and the girl you met that day are the only ones who know. As things worked out, you might have been spared ever knowing. “
Anna frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you are quite right. The experiment has failed. You do not have to worry any longer about becoming a duplicate of Anna Zimmerman.”
“But then, what’s happening to me? Am I sick?”
“At first, we thought so. That’s why the need for all the tests you’ve taken. We’ve been very thorough, as you know, and have found nothing physically wrong with you--not in the way of illness, anyhow. The consensus is that you are individuating. I mean by that that you are forming into a distinct individual. We have no explanation for why this is happening, but there it is.”
A distinct individual. Maybe they would call that a failed experiment, Anna thought, but I wouldn’t. I’m becoming a distinct individual! I’ve succeeded in spite of them. And so have all the other girls here. Then Anna wondered about the ones she hadn’t met. “Is that true of all of us?”
“Unfortunately for us, yes. We had hoped to wind up with, at least, a number of Anna Zimmerman likenesses--even one would have meant tremendous success. But that is not the case.” He frowned, obviously bitterly disappointed with the outcome of what must have been an enormously expensive and, to the government, important experiment.
This had to be a miracle, Anna thought. I am not Anna Zimmerman. She felt very stupid now for letting her imagination run away with her so completely.
“Now, our plans for you, Anna,” Dr. Jelliff said.
Rowan and Anna exchanged apprehensive glances.
“You will keep your same last name--Hart, but you will legally change your first and middle names. Use any excuse you can concoct for friends, but do this immediately. Second, you will change schools. With your grades falling, you have the perfect reason. Third, I want both of you to promise that you won’t utter one word about any of this outside your family.”
They both readily promised. Rowan was so relieved for Anna that he would have promised anything. At the same time he realized with a pang of regret that Anna would have been released whether or not he had played the concert. But he was aware too that if he’d had it to do over, he’d have done the same thing. That was his consolation, that and the knowledge that he had tapped resources within himself that he hadn’t even known existed. Like his father, he had always thought of Anna as narrow. If anyone had been narrow, it was he, Rowan Hart, violinist, interested in nothing but music and career.
Dr. Jelliff said, “You will both take the next hydrofoil. I’ve already explained all of this to your mother and father, Rowan. They plan to meet you when you arrive on the mainland. Of course, they understand what’s happening to Anna now. Your father seemed to be delighted with the information. I’m not sure how your mother felt. At any rate, Anna will again take her place in the family.” As an afterthought, he said, “Oh, yes, I’ve had your luggage put aboard, Anna. Now, good luck with your new identity.”
He closed her file and turned his attention to his desk as if he had dismissed them. Anna saw him tinkering with something that she finally realized was a stamp. He brought it down hard on her folder to print in big letters,
DESTROY.
Destroy. There would be no evidence to show that Anna Zimmerman Hart had ever existed. But she had. Anna knew that only too well. For a second she saw herself again as the little girl in the concentration camp. Until that moment she had never known what pain, anguish, compassion felt like. Now she wondered if that had been her first step toward finding a new self. If so, how strange to think that the part of her that was Anna Zimmerman had sent her on the way. Whoever she became, she would never forget that.
At the moment, she couldn’t quite take it all in. Later, she told herself, she would sit down quietly and try to sort it all out, try to understand. “What about the other girls?” she asked Dr. Jelliff. “Are they going home today, too?”
“Of course,” he said. “Later. Now you two had better hurry if you’re going to make the next hydrofoil.”
Rowan needed no further encouragement. He grabbed Anna’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He rushed her out of the building and down toward the dock. “If we hang around, that guy might just change his mind.”
Anna, too breathless to talk, moved along as if in a dream. She had so much to think and wonder about, her new identity, even her new name. Who am I? she asked herself. Then answered, I am Eve
Never underestimate the power of youth.” Dr. Jelliff spoke into the intercom on his desk. “Did you hear all that?”
His colleague answered, “Yes, and I hope we’ve made the right decision.”
“We had no choice. The boy was obviously lying about that letter, but he had left a note telling his mother and father where he was going. We could have managed with only the girl, but with the two of them--well, a lot of curious eyes might have turned in this direction. It wasn’t worth the risk.”
“Let’s hope they keep their mouths shut.”
“I think they will. Even if they don’t, they could never prove anything.”
“I suppose you’re right. We’ve already disposed of the evidence.”
“And the letters--did you get them off?”
“Yes, yes--all taken care of with our deepest sympathy and our regrets that because of the contagion of the disease, it was necessary to cremate.”
“Good,” Dr. Jelliff said, and flicked off the switch on the intercom.