Goldengirl

Serafin gripped the sides of the chair, plainly in some kind of mental turmoil. ‘Until this moment I fully intended to make this public only through the scientific press. I gave certain assurances... but now that you raise the matter so directly...’ He raised his face suddenly, so that his spectacles flashed in the arc lights. ‘Goldine is the living answer to my critics, the people who said the human frame had somehow ossified into an immutable size. She is taller by ten centimetres — a full four inches — than conventional growth would have achieved.’ He spread his hands dramatically. ‘She is, in stature, a woman of the future, a century from now. There is no degeneration. She is not brittle-boned or misshapen.’ His voice had settled on a shrill monotone. ‘She has proved herself the fastest woman sprinter in the world. You may ask how this was achieved—’

‘Okay,’ chipped in the interviewer. ‘How was it achieved?’

Serafin stopped and looked around the studio in a strange way, as if suddenly reminded that he was speaking not to one man, but millions. He had been on the point of admitting he had injected Goldine with the growth hormone. Now he drew back. ‘It is too technical to go into here, but I shall publish.’

The interviewer shrugged. ‘For the present, let’s admit Goldine is just one brilliant runner coached to perfection.’

‘No! That is a misrepresentation!’ protested Serafin. ‘She is physiologically unique, a prototype of a generation as yet unborn. The mesomorphic characteristics—’

‘You’re so right, Doctor, it is a little technical,’ broke in the interviewer. ‘Maybe if we turned to the Cleveland kidnap incident—’

‘So that’s it!’ Serafin said hysterically. ‘You won’t give up until you have got me to admit Goldine is running for profit. If it isn’t to increase my bank balance, it must be to pay back the ransom. Money is all you people are interested in. I tell you the kidnaping was of no importance. I’ve forgotten Cleveland, Goldine has forgotten it, and I suggest you do the same.’

‘I guess the gentlemen who put up the ransom haven’t forgotten,’ commented the interviewer. ‘How much was it — a million? There must be a lot of pressure on Goldine to accept commercial offers after the Games are over.’

‘What happens after the Games is of no interest to me,’ said Serafin loftily. ‘As a scientist, my concern is with truth, not profit.’

‘Truth? Perhaps in that case you could verify something, Doctor. There’s a story that a leading American merchandising agent is ready to launch your daughter on a commercial career as soon as she has finished running here in Moscow.’

Serafin said in a spasm of viciousness, ‘I don’t give a damn what happens to Goldine after the Games. Do you understand that?’

‘I think so,’ the interviewer coolly answered. ‘You put it clearly.’

An expression of pure fright crept over Serafin’s features. He began to blurt cut words. ‘Don’t get the wrong impression. I was speaking of the girl’s — of Goldine’s — right to decide things for herself. I shan’t interfere. That’s all.’ It was unconvincing.

The interviewer levelly asked, ‘You would deny that you had conversations yourself with this agent?’

‘Conversations?’ repeated Serafin, stumbling over the word. In the last few minutes his dignity had been ripped away, leaving him old and incoherent. ‘A man can have conversations with anyone, can’t he? As her father, I have a responsibility...’ He took off his glasses and wiped them, as if that would produce more clarity in his responses. ‘What... what is this? Are you questioning my integrity? I’m a scientist. I live by facts, the truth.’ He replaced the glasses clumsily. ‘Goldine has proved my theory of growth. You can’t shake that. That’s what I stand by.’ He seemed to draw strength from his fixation. ‘You can say what you like about me. She can say what she likes, but the truth is secure.’ He was abstractedly examining the back of one of his hands. ‘I called her Goldine when she was a child, but she is Goldengirl now.’

The interviewer made another try for a rational response. ‘You mean if she wins her other events she could become a legend, Doctor?’

‘Fact,’ answered Serafin in a preoccupied way. ‘Not legend. A truth, secure for the rest of time.’

What had shaped up as riveting television was becoming diffuse. The second camera caught the interviewer signaling to the control room.

‘The truth is greater than Goldengirl,’ Serafin maundered on. ‘Science is greater than any individual. What are athletes but freaks and monsters? Give them a chance, and they will deform themselves to achieve success...’ His words faded, but his lips still moved.