"And KVH has offices in Vancouver."
"Big offices. Their third-biggest facility in the world after Basel and Seattle. So they could watch me. Which was the object. To put a muzzle on me and to control me. I signed the stupid contract and went to work with a good heart. Last year I completed my study. It was extremely negative. I felt it necessary to inform my patients of my opinion concerning the potential side effects of Dypraxa. As a doctor, I have a sacred duty. I also concluded that the world medical community must be informed by means of publication in an important journal. Such journals do not like to print negative opinions. I knew this. I knew also that the journal would invite three distinguished scientists to comment on my findings. What the journal did not know was that the distinguished scientists had just signed rich contracts with KVH Seattle to research biotechnical cures for other diseases. They immediately informed Seattle of my intentions, who informed Basel and Vancouver."
She hands him a folded sheet of white paper. He opens it and has a chilling sense of recognition.
COMMUNIST WHORE. GET YOUR SHITCOVERED HANDS OFF OUR UNIVERSITY. GO BACK TO YOUR BOLSHEVIK PIGSTY. STOP POISONING DECENT PEOPLE'S LIVES WITH YOUR CORRUPT THEORIES.
Large electronic capitals. No spelling mistakes. The familiar use of compounds. Join the club, he thinks.
"It is arranged that Dawes University will participate in the worldwide profits of Dypraxa," she continues, carelessly snatching the letter back from him. "Staff who are loyal to the hospital will receive preferential shares. Those who are not loyal receive such anonymous letters. It is more important to be loyal to the hospital than loyal to the patients. It is most important to be loyal to KVH."
"Halliday wrote it," Amy says, sweeping into the room with a tray of coffee and biscuits. "Halliday's the preeminent bull dyke of the Dawes medical mafia. Everybody in the faculty has to kiss her ass or die. Except me and Lara and a couple of other idiots."
"How d'you know she wrote it?" Justin asks.
"DNA'd the cow. Picked the stamp off the envelope, DNA'd her spit. She likes to work out in the hospital gym. Me and Lara stole a hair from her pink Bambi hairbrush and made the match."
"Did anyone confront her?"
"Sure. The whole board. Cow confessed. Excess of zeal in execution of her duties, which consist solely of protecting the university's best interests. Humbly apologized, pleaded emotional stress, which is her word for salivating sexual envy. Case dismissed, cow congratulated. Meanwhile they trashed Lara. I'm next."
"Emrich is a Communist," Lara explains, relishing the irony. "She is Russian, she grew up in Petersburg when it was Leningrad, she attended Soviet colleges, therefore she is a Communist and anticorporate. It is convenient."
"Emrich didn't invent Dypraxa either, did you, honey?" Amy reminds her.
"It was Kovacs," Lara agrees bitterly. "Kovacs was the complete genius. I was her promiscuous laboratory assistant. Lorbeer was my lover, therefore he claimed the glory for me."
"Which is why they're not paying you any more money, OK, honey?"
"No. It is a different reason. I have broken the confidentiality clause, therefore I have broken my contract. It is logical."
"Lara's a prostitute too, aren't you, honey? Screwed the pretty boys they sent her from Vancouver, except she didn't. Nobody at Dawes fucks. And we're all Christians except the Jews."
"Since the drug is killing patients I would wish very much that I had not invented it," says Lara softly, choosing not to hear Amy's parting sally.
"When did you last see Lorbeer?" Justin asks when they are alone again.
* * *
Her tone still guarded, but softer.
"He was in Africa," she said.
"When?"
"One year ago."
"Less than a year," Justin corrected her. "My wife spoke to him in the Uhuru Hospital six months ago. His apologia, or whatever he calls it, was sent from Nairobi several days ago. Where is he now?"
Being corrected was not what Lara Emrich liked. "You asked me when I last saw him," she retorted, bridling. "It was one year ago. In Africa."
"Where in Africa?"
"In Kenya. He sent for me. The accumulation of evidence had become unbearable to him. "Lara, I need you. It is essential and very urgent. Tell nobody. I will pay. Come." I was affected by his appeal. I told Dawes my mother was ill and flew to Nairobi. I arrived on a Friday. Markus met me at Nairobi airport. Already in the car he asked me: "Lara, is it possible that our drug is increasing pressure on the brain, crushing the optic nerve?"' I reminded him that anything was possible since basic scientific data had not been assembled, although we were attempting to remedy this. He drove me to a village and showed me a woman who could not stand up. Her headaches were terrible. She was dying. He drove me to another village where a woman could not focus her eyes. When she went out of her hut the world went dark. He related other cases to me. The health workers were reluctant to speak frankly to us. They too were afraid. ThreeBees punishes all criticism, Markus says. He also was afraid. Afraid of ThreeBees, afraid of KVH, afraid for the sick women, afraid of God. "What shall I do, Lara, what shall I do?"' He has spoken to Kovacs, who is in Basel. She says he is a fool to panic. These are not the side effects of Dypraxa, she says, they are the effects of a bad combination with another drug. This is typical Kovacs, who has married a rich Serbian crook and spends more time at the opera than in the laboratory."
"So what should he do?"
"I told him what was the truth. What he is observing in Africa is what I am observing in the Dawes Hospital in Saskatchewan. "Markus, these are the same side effects that I am documenting in my report to Vancouver, based on objective clinical trials of six hundred cases." Still he cries to me, "What must I do, Lara, what must I do?"' "Markus," I tell him. "You must be courageous, you must do unilaterally what the corporations refuse to do collectively, you must withdraw the drug from the market until it has been exhaustively tested." He wept. It was our last night together as lovers. I also wept."
* * *
Some savage instinct now took hold of Justin, a root resentment he could not define. Did he grudge this woman her survival? Did he resent it that she had slept with Tessa's self-confessed betrayer and even now spoke tenderly about him? Was he offended that she could sit before him, beautiful and alive and self-obsessed, while Tessa lay dead beside their son? Was he insulted that Lara displayed so little concern for Tessa, and so much for herself?
"Did Lorbeer ever mention Tessa to you?"
"Not at the time of my visit."
"So when?"
"He wrote to me that there was a woman, the wife of a British official, who was putting pressure on ThreeBees regarding Dypraxa, writing letters and making unwelcome visits. This woman was supported by a doctor from one of the aid agencies. He did not mention the doctor's name."