Where to begin?
Everywhere!
Which path to follow?
All of them!
The civil servant in him was in abeyance. Fired by Tessa's impatience, Justin ceased to be accountable to anyone but her. If she was scattershot, so would he be. Where she was methodical, he would submit to her method. Where she made an intuitive leap, he would take her hand and they would leap together. Was he hungry? If Tessa wasn't, neither was he. Was he tired? If Tessa could sit up half the night in her housecoat, huddled at her desk, then Justin could sit up the whole night, and all next day as well, and the next night too!
Once, prizing himself from his labors, he made a raid on the villa's kitchens, returning with salami, olives, crispbread, reggiano and bottled water. Another time — was it dusk or daybreak? — he had an impression of gray light — he was in the middle of her hospital diary, logging the attendances of Lorbeer and his acolytes at Wanza's bedside, when he woke to discover himself drifting round the walled garden. It was here, under Tessa's doting eye, that he had planted wedding lupins, wedding roses and, inevitably, wedding freesias for love of her. The weeds came up to his knees, drenching his trousers. A single rose was in bloom. Remembering he had left the oil room door open, he fled back across the flagstoned courtyard, only to find it safely locked and the key inside his jacket pocket.
* * *
Press cutting from the Financial Times:
ThreeBees Buzzing
Rumors are flying that whiz-kid playboy Kenneth K. Curtiss of the House of ThreeBees, Third World venturers, is planning a runaway marriage of convenience with Swiss-Canadian pharma-giant Karel Vita Hudson. Will KVH show up at the altar? Can ThreeBees come up with the dowry? Answer yes and yes so long as Kenneth K's typically daring pharmagamble pays off. In a deal believed unprecedented in the secretive and immensely profitable world of pharmaceuticals, ThreeBees Nairobi will reportedly take up one quarter of the estimated 500 million pounds research and development costs of KVH's innovative anti-Tb wonder drug DYPRAXA in exchange for all-Africa sale and distribution rights and an unnamed piece of the drug's worldwide profits…
ThreeBees' Nairobi-based spokesperson Vivian Eber is cautiously jubilant: "This is brilliant, typical, totally Kenny K. It's a humanitarian act, good for the company, good for shareholders, good for Africa. DYPRAXA is as easy to administer as a Smartie. ThreeBees will be at the forefront of the fight against the terrifying worldwide rise in new strains of TB."
KVH chairman Dieter Korn, speaking in Basel last night, was quick to echo Eber's optimism: "DYPRAXA converts six or eight months of laborious treatment into a twelve-hit swallow. We believe ThreeBees are the right people to be pioneering DYPRAXA in Africa."
Handwritten note, Tessa to Bluhm, presumably recovered from Arnold's flat:
Arnold heart:
You didn't believe me when I told you KVH were bad. I've checked. They're bad. Two years ago they were charged with polluting half Florida, where they have a huge facility, and got off with a caution. Undisputed evidence presented by plaintiffs showed that KVH had exceeded their permitted quota of toxic effluents by nine hundred percent, poisoning conservation areas, wetlands, rivers and beaches and probably the milk. KVH performed a similar public service in India, where two hundred children in the region of Madras allegedly died of related causes. The Indian court case will be heard in about fifteen years, or longer if KVH continue to pay off the right people. They're also famous as frontrunners in the pharma industry's humanitarian campaign to prolong the life of their patents in the interest of suffering white billionaires. Good night, darling. Never again doubt a word I say. I'm immaculate. So are you. T.
Press cutting from the financial pages of the Guardian, London:
Happy Bees
The dramatic rise (40 per cent in twelve weeks) in the value of ThreeBees Nairobi reflects growing market confidence in the company's recently acquired all-African franchise in the cheap and innovative cure for multi-resistant TB, Dypraxa. Speaking from his home in Monaco, ThreeBees CEO Kenneth K. Curtiss said: "What's good for ThreeBees is good for Africa. And what's good for Africa is good for Europe and America and the rest of the world."
Separate folder marked HIPPO in Tessa's hand containing some forty exchanges, first by letter, then by printed-out e-mail, between Tessa and a woman named Birgit, who works for an independently funded pharma-watch outfit called Hippo based in a small town called Bielefeld in north Germany. The logo at the top of her letter paper explains that her organization owes its name to Greek physician Hippocrates, born can. 460 B.C., whose oath all doctors swear. The correspondence begins formally but once the e-mails take over it softens. Key players quickly acquire nicknames. KVH becomes Giant, Dypraxa becomes Pill, Lorbeer becomes Goldmaker. Birgit's source on the activities of Karel Vita Hudson becomes "Our Friend" and Our Friend must be protected at all times, since "what she is telling us is completely against Swiss law."
E-mail printout Birgit to Tessa:
… for his two doctors Emrich and Kovacs, Goldmaker opened a company on Isle of Man, maybe two companies, because this was still Communist times. Our Friend says L put the companies in his own name so that the women wouldn't get bad trouble with the authorities. Since then there has been bad argument between the women. It is scientific, also personal. Nobody in Giant is allowed to know details. Emrich emigrated to Canada one year ago. Kovacs stays in Europe, mostly Basel. The elephant mobile you sent Carl drives him completely crazy with happiness and now he trumpets like an elephant every morning to tell me he is awake.
E-mail printout Birgit to Tessa:
Here is some more history regarding Pill. Five years ago when Goldmaker was looking for financial backing for the women's molecule not everything went easy for him. He tried to persuade some big German pharmas to sponsor but they are resisting strongly because they don't see big profits. The problem with the poor is always the same: they are not rich enough to buy expensive medicines! Giant came in late and only after big market researches. Also Our Friend says they were very clever in their deal with BBB. This was a masterstroke, to sell off poor Africa and keep the rich world for themselves! The plan is very simple, the timing perfect. It is to test Pill in Africa for two or three years, by which time KVH calculate that TB will have become a BIG PROBLEM in the West. Also in three years BBB will be so compromised financially that Giant will be able to buy them out for pennies! Therefore according to Our Friend, BBB have bought the wrong end of the horse and Giant have the whip. Carl is asleep beside me. Dear Tessa, I hope very much your baby will be as beautiful as Carl. He will be a great fighter like his mother, I am sure! Ciao, B.
Final entry in the Birgit/tessa file of correspondence:
Our Friend is reporting very secretive activities at Giant regarding BBB and Africa. Maybe you have stirred a wasps' nest? Kovacs will be flown in great secrecy to Nairobi where Goldmaker is waiting to receive her. Everyone speaks bad things about die schone Lara. She is a traitor, a bitch, etc. How does such a boring corporation become suddenly so passionate?! Take care of yourself, Tessa. I think you are a little bit waghalsig but it is late and my English does not translate this word so maybe you ask your good kind husband to translate it for you! B.