Chapter 26 Section 24

It was the next night when I discovered "Daile".An amber bottle of lightweight plastic taped to the inside of a bathroom radiator.When the radiator started banging, I opened the hood to investigate what was wrong with the valve - I did it meticulously and methodically, trying to hide the frustration I felt - when I found it. I immediately went to Denise, who was sitting on the bed watching TV.I told her what I had found, and together we quietly went to the bathroom to look at the pill bottle.Through the transparent tape, the word "Dai Leer" can be seen at a glance.We were both very surprised to see such a hidden method of this medicine, so neither of us dared to touch it.We stared at the little pills gravely, then exchanged a meaningful look.

Without saying a word or touching the vial, we put the cover back on and went back to Denise's room.A voice from the other side of the bed said: "Here's a tantalizing side dish with lemon, which is suitable for any seafood food and can be configured on the spot." Denise sat on the edge of the bed, gazing forward, over the top of my head, over the TV, over the posters and memorabilia on display.She narrowed her eyes, frowned, and her face was contemplative. "We don't want to say anything to Babe." "OK." I said. "She'll just say she can't remember how she put it there."

"What is 'Day Leer' is, that's what I want to know. She may only be three or four near the dispensing place. The pharmacist can tell us what this thing is used for. First thing in the morning I will Drive out and ask." "I've done this before," she said. "when?" "Around Christmas. I went to three pharmacies and I talked to Indians behind the counter at the pharmacy." "I thought they were Pakistanis." "Whatever." "What did they tell you about 'Dale'?" "Never heard of this thing."

"Have you asked them to look it up? Surely they have the latest drug list. Supplementary list of the latest drugs." "They checked, and it's not on any drug list." "Not included in the drug list." I said. "We have to call his doctor." "I'll call him right now, to his house." "Surprise him," she said, with something grim in her tone. "If I caught him at his house, he wouldn't be able to hide on the answering machine, with the receptionist, the nurse, and the good-natured young doctor who shared the suite of the clinic with him, and the rest of his life Your role is to treat patients who are rejected by famous doctors. Once you are pushed by old doctors to younger doctors, it means that you are a second-class citizen and your illness is not the top priority."

"Call him home," she said, "wake him up and coax him into telling us what we want to know." The only telephone is in the kitchen.I walked freely down the corridor and glanced over to our bedroom to make sure Babette was still there.She was ironing while listening to an on-demand program on the radio, a pastime she had recently become addicted to.I went to the kitchen, found the doctor's name in the phone book, and dialed his home number. The doctor's name was Hoekstraden, which sounded a little German.I saw him once—a stooped man with a wattled jaw and a deep voice.Denise says to coax him into telling the truth, but the only way to do that is to be sincere and honest.If I pretended to be a stranger and wanted to know about "Dai Leer", he would either hang up the phone or send me to the clinic.

He answered the phone after four or five rings.I told him who I was, that I was anxious about Babette and that I was calling his house because I was so anxious—it must have been very reckless, but I hope he understands.I said I was pretty sure the medicine he was prescribing her was causing problems. "what is the problem?" "Memory error." "You call a doctor's house to talk about a memory error! What if everyone with a memory error called the doctor's house? The chain reaction would be unmanageable." I told him that mistakes are frequent. "Frequently! I know your wife, the kind of wife who comes to me one night with a crying baby. 'My baby keeps crying.' She would find a doctor in a private practice and ask him to treat the baby Crying! Now I pick up the phone, this time it's the husband. You call a doctor's house after ten o'clock at night and tell him 'memory error'. Why don't you tell me she has flatulence? Flatulence Just call my house?"

"Frequent and persistent, Doctor. It must be the drug." "What medicine?" "Dairy." "Never heard of it." "A small white tablet. Comes in an amber bottle." "You would describe a tablet to a doctor coming home from get off work after ten o'clock at night and expect an answer. Why didn't you tell me it was still round? That was our case the key." "This is a drug that is not included in the drug list." "I've never seen it. I certainly didn't prescribe it to your wife. I make the same mistakes that other people make, but as far as my ability to judge things like this is concerned, she's a very healthy woman."

Saying this seems to be a denial of a misdiagnosis.Perhaps he was reading from pre-printed cards the way a police detective reads constitutional rights to a suspect.I thanked him, hung up, and called my own doctor home.He didn't answer the phone until the seventh ring, saying that he believed that "Dai Leer" was an island in the Persian Gulf, which belonged to one of the crucial crude oil transportation terminals on which the Western world depended.There is a woman's voice on the other end of the phone making a weather forecast. I went upstairs and told Denise not to worry.I'm going to take a pill out of the bottle and have it analyzed by the chemistry department of the college.I waited for her to tell me that she had already done this.But she just nodded coldly; I went into the living room and stopped by the door of Heinrich's room to say good night.He had inserted a horizontal bar between the doorframes of the small suite and was doing pull-ups while holding onto it.

"Where did you get this thing?" "It's a Mercator thing." "Who is he?" "He's my high school classmate I'm playing with now. He's almost nineteen years old, and he's still in middle school. Let me tell you something about it." "What's the situation?" "He's huge. He's laying on the bench and lifting a barbell that's intimidating." "Why are you doing pull-ups? What are the benefits of pull-ups?" "What good can anything be? Maybe I'm just trying to build up my physique to make up for what's lacking elsewhere."

"What else?" "For example, my hairline is getting worse." "It's not getting worse. If you don't believe me, ask Babe. She's got a good eye for things like this." "My mother told me to see a dermatologist." "I don't think it's necessary at this stage." "I've been there." "what did he say?" "It was a woman. My mother told me to see a woman." "what did she say?" "She said I had a bushy hair supply." "what does that mean?" "She can take hair from other parts of my head and surgically transplant it where it is needed. It doesn't make a difference. I still lose my hair very quickly and I can easily see myself completely bald. Children my age get cancer too. They lose their hair after chemo. Why am I different?"

He stood in the small suite and stared out at me.I decided to change the subject. "If you really think pull-ups are good, why don't you stand outside the suite and do them face-in? Why stand in a dark musty room?" "If you think that's weird, you should look at what Mercator is doing now." "What is he doing?" "He's training to break a Guinness record - the world record for endurance sitting in a cage full of venomous snakes. He goes to Glass Town three times a week, where there is a shop for this exotic pet. The owner allows him to give animals to African animals. Feed the mamba and the viper and let him get used to it. Forget about your rattlesnake. The viper is the most venomous snake in the world!" "Every time I see someone in a newsreel film sitting in a snake cage for four weeks, I want him to get a bite." "Me too," said Heinrich. "why?" "They're asking for trouble." "By the way, most of us spend our lives avoiding danger. Who do these people think they are?" "They ask for trouble, let them suffer." I paused for a moment, reflecting on this rare moment of agreement. "Does your friend train in other sports?" "He sits in the same place for long periods of time to get his bladder used to it. He only gets up to eat twice a day. He sleeps sitting up for two hours at a time. He wants to train himself to wake up slowly without sudden movements. , so as not to startle a mamba." "It seems like a strange ambition." "Mambas are sensitive." "But if it makes him happy." "He thinks he's happy, but it's just a neuron in his brain being over-stimulated or under-stimulated." I got out of bed in the middle of the night and went to the small room down the hall to watch Steffi and Wilder sleep.I stood motionless and watched like this for almost an hour, feeling indescribably uplifted and elated. When I went into the bedroom, I found Babette standing at the window looking out into the cold night.I was taken aback.She gave no sign of noticing that I wasn't in bed, and didn't seem to hear me crawl back into bed and bury myself under the covers.