in the pool

Goltz then recounted everything he had been enduring for the last six months, since his daughter Karen slipped on the diving board and hit her spine on the marble edge of the pool, nearly drowning afterward, as all the bathers were distracted by the fanfare of a folk group he had specially hired to celebrate his princess’s 18th birthday. Had it not been for the attentive gaze of Sorel — a young man Karen was dating who rescued her from the water, livid, coughing heavily, and already showing a perfect and sinister immobility from the neck down — the girl might have left the Sea Lion Nautical Club straight to the morgue.

The impact of the fall, amplified by the considerable height and the hardness of the marble, caused serious damage to the young woman’s spine, but the asphyxiation from drowning was the catalyst that dragged her into a tetraplegic state. The young woman did not need a medical report to realize the extent of her misfortune. Intuition did its work, and it would be useless and perverse to try to hide the obvious. Karen lost all body movement, except for the facial muscles and neck. Cognitive functions were unaffected: the girl continues to think, feel, and desire like any healthy young woman. But without the ability to move on her own or have effective autonomy and privacy in performing simple daily tasks, Karen is visibly wasting away. Her depression worsens. She refuses to swallow the tranquilizers prescribed by the doctors. She prefers death to living doped up. In the last three months, Karen’s mood alternates between deep apathy, irrational fury, mournful resignation, and ironic lucidity full of macabre remarks.

“Macabre remarks?” Dr. Anoka seemed to be waking from a long dream. The detailed account of Miss Goltz’s ordeals had fascinated the assistant.

With this unique history of trauma — all related to the fact of not being able to dispose of her own body for an indefinite time equivalent to eternity, and at an age when hormones are at their peak — Karen would be the perfect test subject, the ideal informant!

“Yes, Dr. Anoka,” self-deprecating or sarcastic comments such as ‘even carnivorous plants move more than I do’ and ‘the current score is 10% human and 90% vegetable, it’s obvious who is winning, but still the brain says: technical draw.’”

Anoka’s laughter echoed and grew shrill as it was amplified by the octagonal booth’s sound system. Goltz was shocked by the young scientist’s attitude. What was so funny? Dr. Anoka, however, was not laughing at any dark joke. She had allowed herself to daydream for a brief, joyful moment about the prospect of using Karen’s case to boost her scientific and academic career. Although far from making groundbreaking discoveries, Anoka excelled at describing variants and analyzing isolated cases. Her genius was oriented less toward proposing solutions or making great discoveries than toward organizing the collected data and stating the problem in the clearest possible way — a skill highly appreciated by her professors and decisive in her promotion to chief assistant.

Anoka quickly composed herself and, faced with the perplexity on the flushed and unshaven face of a weary Peter Goltz, adopted a more professional tone, as if to say “very well, you’ve done enough, now I’ll take it from here.”

“Mr. Goltz, your daughter’s mental health and quality of life have been profoundly and permanently shaken. I cannot guarantee that she will return to normalcy — if by normal we mean the status quo ante, the life before the fall — but I am certain that she will have a far more meaningful and rewarding existence if she can swap bodies. I will be happy to have Karen Goltz as a volunteer here at the North Dome. I imagine the girl’s morbid condition is reason to expedite the process, correct?”

Goltz nodded, relieved by the smooth course of the interview. “It was easier than I expected,” he thought. He had no trouble answering Dr. Anoka’s questions. Height, weight, medical history: no detail about Karen escaped that devoted father, who had spent months desperately searching for a cure — medicinal or miraculous — for his daughter. Of course, with TRANSCEND it was different. It wasn’t exactly a cure. “The solution will be simple, because it will no longer be a solution, but a total conversion.” Marcel Gauchet’s words returned to Peter’s mind with disconcerting clarity.

“And what kind of body will she be transferred to? A healthy body, a young body, the same age as hers, I imagine,” a trace of involuntary sharpness tinged the senator’s voice.

“Our research follows scientific parameters. The chance of success of the experiment is directly related to the degree of physiological affinity of those involved. We don’t collect personal data such as height and weight for nothing. All of this goes into the calculation. Although feelings of strangeness and confusion are inevitable in the first hours after the swap, the general rule is to avoid as much as possible transfers that result in intense dysphoria. I can assure you that Karen will be placed in a suitable body. The type, or rather, the body biotype depends on which ones will be available at the time of the experiment. Don’t worry, everything will go well.”