Chapter 28 Section 26

I sat on the bed with my German grammar notebook in my hand.Babette was lying on her side, her eyes fixed on the radio clock, and her ears listening to a program on demand.I heard a woman's voice say: "In 1977 I looked in this mirror and saw what I was becoming. I couldn't and didn't want to get up. Some shadows moved on the edge of my vision, like hurried footsteps. I got a call from the missile base. I need to talk to other people who are going through these same experiences. I need a support program, something to join or be involved in." I reclined on top of my wife and turned off the radio.She continued to stare.I kissed her lightly on the head.

"Murray says your hair is amazing." She smiled feebly.I put down the notebook in my hand and gently rolled over her so that her eyes met mine when I spoke. "Now it's time for a serious talk. You understand, I understand. You should tell me all about 'Daile', if not for me, then for your little girl. She's been worrying, sick of it. Besides, you have no more room to evade. We—Denise and I—have cornered you. I found the hidden bottle, took a pill, and had it analyzed by an expert. Those little white discs are really ingeniously made. Laser technology, high-grade plastics. 'Daile' is almost as ingenious as the microorganisms that devour billowing smoke. Who would believe that there is also a small white pill that acts like a pressure pump in the human body Delivering medicines as safe and effective and then destroying them yourself? I'm in awe of the beauty of it. We know something else that is very harmful to your condition. We know that the general public can't buy 'Dale' - Just this one incident, we have reason to ask you to explain. You really don't have much to say. Just tell us the nature of this medicine. You know, according to my character, I will not give others Chase. But Denise is a different kind of person. I've been doing everything I can to stop her. If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to let go of your little girl. She'll come up with She's got her hands on you. She won't waste time making you feel guilty. Denise believes in frontal assaults. She'll drive you into the ground with one blow. You know I mean it, Babette."

About five minutes passed.She lay there, staring at the ceiling. "Just let me say it in my own way," she whispered. "Would you like some dessert?" "No, thank you." "No hurry," I said. "We have one night. If there's anything you want or need, just ask. You can think of it. I'll stay here for as long as you want." Time passed for a while. "I can't remember exactly when it started, maybe a year and a half ago. I think I'm going through a period, a certain 'water mark' period in my life." "'Milestone,'" I said, "or 'watershed.'"

"A period of adjustment, I think. One gets to middle age, things like that. The symptoms can go away, and then I forget about it completely. But it doesn't go away. I'm starting to think it's never going to go away." "What symptoms?" "Leave that alone for now." "You've been depressed lately. I've never seen you like this. That's all Babette is good about. She's a cheerful person who doesn't give in to sorrow and self-pity." "Let me speak out, Jack." "OK." "You know what's wrong with me. I think everything can be corrected. With the right attitude and proper effort, a person can break down a harmful symptom to its simplest components. You can make a list , sorting, designing diagrams and making pictures. That's how I can teach my students to stand, sit and walk, even though I know you think these topics are too bland, too vague, too general to be broken down into their component parts Parts. I'm not a very clever person, but I know how to decompose, how to separate and classify. We can analyze posture, analyze eating, drinking and even breathing. How else do you understand the world in other ways? I approach this question The way."

"I'm right here," I said, "if there's anything you want or need, just ask." "When I realized the symptom wasn't going away right away, I started to understand it better by breaking it down into its components. First I had to figure out if it could be broken down. I went to libraries and bookstores, read magazines and Tech publications, watching cable TV, charting lists, making color charts, calling tech writers and scientists, consulting a Sikh sage who lived in Iron City, and even researching the paranormal. In the process of doing so much, I hid the relevant books in the attic, lest you and Denise should wonder what happened if they found out."

"I'm kept in the dark about all this. The whole thing about Babette is that she tells me things, and she confesses and confides." "This isn't a story about your disappointment with my silence. It's about my pain and my attempts to undo it." "I'll get you some hot chocolate. Would you like it?" "Stay here, now for the crucial part. I've spent all this energy, researched, researched, and held back, but nowhere. The symptom won't go away. Its shadow hangs over my life, and I can't help it. Peace. Then one day, while I was reading the National Inspector to Mr. Treadwell, an advertisement came into view. Never mind what it said, volunteers for a secret study were being recruited. These That's all you need to know."

"I thought it was my previous wives up to something. Sweet cheater, nervous, breathy, high cheekbones, bilingual." "I applied for an ad, and I was interviewed by a small company doing psychobiological research. Do you know what this is?" "have no idea." "Do you understand how complex the human brain is?" "Know a little bit." "No, you won't understand. Let's call the company the Gray Institute, of course that's not the real name. Let's call my interviewer Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray is a complex of many people. I ended up reaching out to three or four or more people in the company."

"A low gray and white brick house surrounded by grids and stunted bushes." "I've never seen their headquarters. Never mind why. The reality is, I've been subjected to test after test. Emotional and psychological motor responses, brain activity. Mr. Gray said there were only a few candidates left in the end, and I was one of them." "What are the last few candidates doing?" "We will be the test subjects for the development of a special experimental and absolutely confidential drug, the drug code name is 'Dai Leer', for which he has been working for many years. He found the 'Dai Leer' in the human brain 'receptors, and is putting the final touches on the pill itself. However, he also told me that continuous testing on humans is dangerous and that I could die. I could live, but my brain could die. The left side of my brain One half can die, but the right half can live. That is, the left half of my body can live, but the right half can die. There are indeed many nasty, inescapable fears. I can walk sideways, but I cannot Moving on. I may not be able to tell words from things, so if someone says 'missile', I'll throw myself on the ground and hide. Mr. Gray wants me to understand the risks. There are waivers and other documents that I need to sign. The company has lawyers ,priest."

"They let you go on and be an artificial experimental animal." "No, they didn't. They said it was too risky legally, ethically, etc. They set out to design computer molecules and computer brains. I refuse to accept that. I've come so far, so close Yes. I want you to try to understand what happened next. If I were to tell you the whole story, I would have to include this aspect, a dirty little corner of the human heart. You say Babette is confessing and telling the truth." "That's Babette's strength." "Okay, let me confess and tell the truth. Mr. Gray and I have made private arrangements. Forget the priests, lawyers and psychobiologists. We will conduct our own experiments. My symptoms will be cured, and he will be medically brilliant. breakthrough and became famous in one fell swoop."

"Why is this so dirty?" "It involved an act of imprudence. It was the only way I could get Mr. Gray to let me take the drug. It was my last resort, my last hope. I offered him my mind at first, Now I offer my body." I feel a heat run up my back and out through my shoulders.Babette looked straight ahead.Propping myself on my elbows, I turned to her, watching her face carefully.When I finally spoke, it was in the tone of a reasonable inquiry—the tone of a man really seeking to understand some eternal human mystery. "How do you dedicate your body to a composite of three or more people? It's a composite person, like a portrait of a police station, one's eyebrows, another's nose. Let's just focus on the genitals, How many copies are we talking about?"

"It only belongs to one person, Jack. A key person is the project manager." "So, we're not referring to the Mr. Gray of that complex anymore." "He's alone now. We went to a dirty little motel room. Don't care where or when. There was a TV hanging from the ceiling near the ceiling. That's all I remember. Dirty, shabby It's unbearable. I feel depressed, but very, very hopeless." "You're calling it imprudent, as if we haven't had a revolution in frank and bold language. Call it what it is, describe it honestly, and say what's good about it. You get into the car A room in a hotel, excited by its lack of character, the furniture functional but tasteless. You walk barefoot on the fire-retardant carpet. Mr. Gray turns around, opening all the doors, looking for full-length mirrors. He sees You undress. You lie on the bed and put your arms around him. Then, he enters you." "Don't use that word. You know how I feel about it." "He's achieved what's called 'entry', which is to say, he's inserted himself. One minute he's well-dressed, throwing the rental car keys on the dresser, and the next minute he's inside you." "Nobody's inside anybody. That's a stupid term. I did what had to be done. I was detached. I was operating outside of myself at the time. It was a capitalist transaction. Your precious It’s about telling your wife everything. I’m doing everything I can to be that.” "Okay, I'm just trying to understand. How many times have you been to this motel?" "Roughly a few months in a row. That was a pre-agreement." I feel heat rising up the back of my neck.I watch her closely.A trace of sadness appeared in her eyes.I lay back and looked at the ceiling.The radio rang.She began to cry softly. "Here's some jelly with sliced ​​bananas," I said. "Steffy made it." "She's a nice girl." "I can get you some by the way." "No, thank you." "Why is the radio ringing?" "The automatic timer is broken. I'll have it fixed tomorrow." "I'll take it." "It's okay." She said, "It's not troublesome, it's convenient for me to take it." "Did you have fun having sex with him?" "I just remember the TV up there near the ceiling with the screen facing us." "Does he have a sense of humor? I know women appreciate a man who can joke about sex. Unfortunately I don't; and after what happened, I don't think I'll have much chance to learn it." "You'd better just know his name is Mr. Gray. That's all. He's not tall, he's not short, he's not young, he's not old. He doesn't laugh, he doesn't cry. It's for your own good." "I have a question. Why doesn't the Gray Institute do experiments on animals? Animals must be better than computers in some ways." "That's exactly the problem. No animal has these symptoms. It's a human symptom. Animals are afraid of many things, Mr. Gray said. But their brains are not sophisticated enough to produce this particular state of mind." I talked to her for most of the day, and for the first time I had a general understanding.My body is cold.I feel empty inside.I sat up from my supine position, propped myself up on one elbow again, and looked down at her.She started crying again. "You've got to tell me, Babette. You've taken me so far and put me through so much. I have to know. What are the symptoms?" The longer she cries, the more certain I know what she's going to say.I felt an urge to get dressed and leave, to get a room somewhere, and to stay until the whole thing blows away.Babette looked up to me, her face was pale and sad, and her eyes showed helpless desolation.We faced each other, our chins resting on our elbows, reclining like a sculpture of two philosophers from the Classical Academy.The radio turned itself off again. "I'm afraid to die," she said. "I think about it all the time. It won't go away." "Don't tell me about it. It's horrible." "I can't help it. What can I do?" "I don't want to know. Let's save it for our old age. You're young and you do a lot of physical activity. It's not a legitimate fear." "It's stuck with me, Jack. I can't get it out of my head. I know I shouldn't be feeling this fear so consciously and lingeringly. What can I do? It's there. Then That's why I noticed Mr. Gray's ad so quickly. I was reading the tabloid that advertised it. The headline hit home. It read: 'The Fear of Death.' I kept thinking about it. You disappointed Yes, I can see that." "disappointment?" "You think the symptoms are more specific. I hope so. But one doesn't spend years and years trying to figure out a solution to an everyday ailment." I tried to talk her out of it. "How can you be sure that it is death that you fear? Death is so nebulous. No one knows what it is, what it feels like or looks like. Maybe you just have a personal problem that manifests itself as a huge and a wide range of subject forms.” "what is the problem?" "Something you're hiding from yourself. Maybe it's your weight." "I lost weight, how is my height?" "I know you've lost weight. That's exactly what I said. You exuded health, you exuded health. Your own doctor Hoekstraden confirmed that. There must be something else , a fundamental problem." "What could be more fundamental than death?" I tried to convince her that it wasn't as serious as she thought. "Babe, everybody's afraid of death. Why should you be any different? You've said it yourself before, it's a human symptom. There's no one past the age of seven who hasn't feared death." "At some level, everyone is afraid of death. I'm afraid it's right in front of me. I don't understand how or why it happened. But, I can't be the only one, otherwise why would the Gray Institute be on a pill How many millions of dollars did it cost?" "That's what I said. You're not the only one. Thousands of people are. Don't you feel relieved to know that? You're like the woman on the radio who got the call from the ballistic base. She wants to find others someone with a history of mental illness, and make herself feel less isolated." "But Mr. Gray says I'm particularly sensitive to the horrors of death. He's had a series of experiments on me. That's why he's so eager to use me." "That's what I find weird. You hide the fear you feel for so long. If you can hide something like that from your husband and kids, then maybe it's not too serious." "This isn't a story about a wife cheating on her husband. You can't get around the real thing, Jack. It's too problematic." I keep a calm tone.I spoke to her like a reclining philosopher to a younger member of the academy, promising and sometimes brilliant, but perhaps too dependent on the old fellow's learning. "Babe, I'm the one in this family who can't get rid of death in his head. I've always been that way." "You never said that." "To keep you from worrying. To keep you alive and alive and happy. You're a happy man and I'm a doomed fool. That's what I can't forgive you for. Saying you're not what I think That woman. My feelings were hurt, I was devastated." "I've always thought of you as someone who might be brooding over death. You'd go for a walk and you'd be brooding. But you never said you were scared when we talked about who died first." "You too. 'Wait until the kids are grown.' You make it sound like a trip to Spain." "I really wanted to die first," she said, "but that didn't mean I wasn't scared. I was terribly scared, and I was always scared." "I've been scared longer than half my life." "What do you want me to say? Your fears are longer and wiser than mine?" "I woke up in a cold sweat. I broke out in a night sweat like hell." "I chew gum because my throat constricts." "I don't have a body. I'm just a mind or an ego, wandering alone in the vast space." "I stopped abruptly," she said. "I was so weak I couldn't move. I lost all sense of grit, determination." "I thought about my mother dying and then she died." "I thought about all people dying, not just myself. I was in a horrific reverie." "I feel so guilty. I think her death has something to do with me thinking about it. I feel the same way about my own death. The more I think about it, the faster it will come." "How strange it is. We have such a deep, terrible, haunting fear of ourselves and our loved ones. Yet we walk, talk to people, eat and drink. We do everything As usual. These feelings are deep and real. How come they don't paralyze us? How do we get through it, at least for a little while—what's going on? We drive, we teach. No one sees, How scared we were last night, this morning—what is it? Is it something we have agreed to keep from each other? Or are we harboring the same secret without knowing it? Wearing the same disguise." "What if death were nothing but sound?" "Electrical noise." "You could hear it all the time. It was all around. It was horrible." "Always white." "Sometimes it passes me by," she said. "Sometimes it seeps into my head. I try to talk to it: 'Not now, Death.'" "I lay in the dark watching the clock. Always odd numbers. 1:37 in the morning, 3:59 in the morning." "Deaths are odd numbers, that's what the Sikhs told me—the saint who lived in the Iron City." "You are my strength, my life force. How can I convince you that this is a terrible mistake? I have seen you bathe Wilder and iron my robe. Now these deep and simple I've lost all the fun. Can't you see the heinousness of what you're doing?" "Sometimes, it's like punching me hard," she said. "I almost literally pass out." "Is this the reason why I married Babette? So, she hides the truth from me, hides things, sacrifices me and joins forces with others to carry out a sexual conspiracy? All the plots are going in one direction." I sternly say to her. We held each other tightly for a long time, our bodies wrapped in mutual embraces.Such an embrace contains love, grief, tenderness, sex and struggle.We rely on the tiniest movement of the arms and waist, the tiniest inhalation, how subtly our emotions shift, and we spot differences in order to come to a consensus about our fears, to increase our competitiveness, to hold on to the basic desires of our soul against chaos. Leaded, unleaded, premium unleaded. We lay naked after sex, wet and gleaming.I pulled the coverlet up over us.We talked sleepily for a while in low tones.The radio rang again. "I'm right here," I said, "whatever you want or need, no matter how difficult, just tell me and I'll make it happen." "A cup of water." "certainly." "I'll go with you," she said. "Don't move, rest." "I don't want to be alone." We put on our nightgowns and went to the bathroom to get water.She drinks water when I pee.I put my arm around her as we walked back to the bedroom, and we fell halfway toward each other, like those boys and girls on the beach.She quickly rearranged the sheets and put the pillows back in place while I waited by the bed.She immediately curled up to sleep, but there was still something I wanted to know, something I had to say. "To be precise, what kind of achievements have the people of the Gray Institute achieved?" "They isolated the 'death fear' part of the brain. 'Dairy' quickly sent antidotes to this part." "incredible." "It's not just a strong sedative. The drug is designed to suppress the neurotransmitters in the brain that are associated with the fear of death. Every emotion or feeling has its own neurotransmitter. Mr. Gray discovered the fear of death , and set out to find chemicals that would trick the brain into producing its own inhibitors." "Astonishing and scary." "Everything that happens in your life is the result of a rush of molecules going on somewhere in your brain." "Heinrich's theories of the brain. They're all true. We're the sum of chemical nerve impulses. Don't tell me about that. It's overwhelming to think about." "They boil down everything you say, do, and feel to the number of molecules in a certain part." "What happened to good and evil in this system? Passion, jealousy, and hatred? Have they all turned into a mess of neurons? Are you telling me that the whole tradition of human failure is now over? Cowardice, sadism , harassment, all nonsense? Are we being asked to look at these things with nostalgia? What happened to the rampage of murder? The murderer has some kind of scary reputation in the past. And what happens after the molecule? My son played chess with a murderer. He told me all this. I didn't want to hear it." "Can I sleep now?" "Wait. If 'Dai Leer' quickly sent the antidote, then why have you been so sad and dazed in the past these days?" "That's easy, that medicine doesn't work." Her voice changed as she spoke.She pulled the quilt over her head.I could only stare at the undulating landscape in front of me.A man on a talk show on the radio said, "I'm getting mixed messages about my sexuality." I stroked her head and body under the floral bedspread. "Could you go into more detail, Babe? I'll be right here, and I'd like to help." "Mr. Gray gave me sixty pills in two vials. These are just as many, he said. Take one every seventy-two hours. The release is gradual and precise, so that the difference between the two pills The times don’t overlap. I finished my first bottle sometime in late November, early December.” "Denise found it." "She found out?" "She's been following you ever since." "Where did I put it?" "In the kitchen trash." "Why did I do that? It was so careless." "Where's the second vial?" I said. "You found the second vial." "I know. What I'm asking is how many pills did you take?" "I've taken twenty-five from that bottle so far. Fifty-five in total, five left." "Four tablets left. I asked someone to take one for laboratory analysis." "Have you told me about this?" "Told. So, have your symptoms changed in any way?" She left the top of her head exposed. "In the beginning, I wanted to. The initial period was the most promising period. It hasn't improved since then. I've become more and more discouraged. Let me sleep now, Jack." "Remember the night we had dinner at Murray's? We talked about your memory lapses on the way home. You said you weren't sure if you were taking your meds. You said you couldn't remember. That was a lie, of course." "I guess so," she said. "But you're not lying in general about your memory lapses. Denise and I thought your amnesia was a side effect of your medication." The whole head popped out. "Totally wrong," she said. "It's not a side effect of the medicine, it's a side effect of the symptoms. Mr. Gray said my memory loss was the result of a struggle against the fear of death, like a war between neurons. I can forget many things, but not when it comes to death. And now, Mr Gray has failed." "Does he know that?" "I left a message on his answering machine." "What did he say when he called back?" "He mailed me a tape, and I took it to Stover's to listen to. He said he did regret it—whatever that meant. He said I wasn't a good test subject after all, and he was sure it would work— Someday, soon, on someone, somewhere. He said he made a mistake on me. It was so casual. He was too hasty." It was midnight.We are both exhausted.But we've come to this point, and we've said so much, that I understand we can't stop.I took a deep breath.Then I lay down again and stared at the ceiling.Babette went over me to turn off the light.Then she pressed a button on the radio and the sound went silent.A thousand nights end roughly like this one.I felt her sinking into the mattress. "There's one more thing I promised myself not to tell you." "Can we wait until morning?" she said. "I've been given a tentative death date. It won't be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but it's getting closer." Next, I told her how I was exposed to the Neodin derivatives, and I told her in short declarative sentences, matter-of-fact, in a flat, dull tone.I talked about the computer technician and how he keyed into my historical files and found a depressingly long record.We are nothing but the sum of our personal data, I told her, just as we are nothing but the sum of our individual chemical nerve impulses.I tried to explain how I was trying so hard to keep the news from her.But after she reveals everything about herself, it seems like it's the wrong secret to keep. "So we're not talking about fear and unresolved horrors anymore," I said. "It's about the hard and the real thing, the fact itself." Slowly she emerged from under the covers, and she climbed onto me, sobbing.I felt her fingers grab my shoulders and neck.Hot tears rolled down my lips.She pounded on my chest, took my left hand and bit the flesh between thumb and forefinger.Her sobbing became a muffled sound, full of terrible and desperate struggle.She took my head in her hands, tenderly but feverishly, and rocked it back and forth on the pillow—a move I couldn't relate to anything she'd ever done before, or anyone she seemed to be. Later, when she fell off me and fell into a restless sleep, I still stared into the darkness.The radio rang again.I threw off the covers and went into the bathroom.Denise's paperweight of landscapes sits on a dusty bookshelf by the door.I let the water wash over my hands and wrists.I splash cold water on my face.The only towel nearby was a small pink handkerchief with a child's game on it.I dried myself slowly and carefully.Then, I moved the radiator over the wall and out, and put my hand down to the bottom.The bottle of "Dai Leer" is gone.

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