day. Eric had decided to pass the hours until the search committee meeting working in the lab with Dave Subarsky. The prospect was bittersweet. From all indications, Subarsky would be closing shop soon.
Over the few months since he and Eric had successfully introduced their pericardial laser, the biochemist's lab, like many others at the hospital, had fallen on hard times. Two government grants he had been counting on- grants that would have been automatic in the past-had been refused. A reordering of priorities coupled with a decrease in available funds was the, explanation the N.I.H and National Science Foundation people kept giving. But everyone in science knew what they really meant.
Finding a cure for AIDS had become politicized, both within the scientific community and without.
Pressure on the federal government had been passed on to the bin government research installations, which, in Turn, had responded with a demand for more authority to direct investigations, and of course for more funding. The reductions in university-centered programs such as Subarsky's had gone from cuts to hatchet jobs. A whole community of scientists were suddenly 'outsiders,' and for them the situation was desperate.
The professor with whom Dave originally worked had given up basic research altogether and returned to full- time clinical practice.
Subarsky had begun searching for jobs in industry. But even using the laser as bait, he had been unable to attract any decent offers.
Today, unless some miracle had intervened over the few days since they had last spoken, Eric knew that he and his friend would begin dismantling and packing their work. Their laser project was, for both of them, a sideline- They had proven its applicability in one rather unusual medical situation. Unfortunately, 'sideline' and 'unusual medical situation' were not what the current Washington funding sources wanted to hear.
In a month or two, Dave Subarsky, perhaps the brightest man Eric had ever known, would be unemployed.
Eric sat on the edge of his bed and flipped through the classified ads in the back of the New England Journal of Medicine. There were a dozen or so from various hospitals for emergency physicians, but none for genius biochemists. If the committee chose Marshall, Eric would have no problem finding a job somewhere-probably a damn good one, too.
Such options were a luxury Dave Subarsky did not have. Yet not once had Eric seen even a small crack in the man's quietly positive outlook.
Why, he wondered, couldn't he get his own situation into perspective?
Why, for weeks, had there been a persistent knot of anxiety in his chest?
The answer to both questions, Eric knew, was the same. He would admit it to no one, and could barely admit it to himself, but he wanted this position more than he had ever wanted anything in his life: more than acceptance to college or medical school, more than the appointment to white Memorial, more than the chief residency. To his parents and much of the Armenian community in Watertown, his accomplishments and degree already made him something of a hero. But to the university people-the Ivy Leaguers who dominated most of the departments and residency slots-he was still a state school grad, good at what he did but lacking the scope, the sophistication, to make it big in their academic world.
He wandered to the window. The narrow street, three stories below, was deserted. To the north, over the tops of buildings, Cambridge was bathed in the sterile gray light of dawn. Thinking about what this day held in store was at once exciting and frightening.
Of all the cities in the world, Boston was still the one most looked to in medicine. And at the epicenter of the Boston medical community was White Memorial.
Is it wrong to want to be acknowledged as the best of the best?
Armenians had always been special, had always risen to the top, to positions of influence in their societies. The Turks had known and feared that uniqueness, and over a million Arnenians had been massacred on the altar of that fear. Now, seventy years later, the descendants of those victims were again being persecuted, this time by the Soviets.
Is it wrong to dream?
The phone had rung three rings before the sound intruded on Eric's thoughts. He glanced at the clock radio. Six-fifteen. The call could only be trouble. His father had retired from his maintenance job after his second heart attack. His younger brother George, a dropout from high school, had already served two brief jail terms.
'Hello?'
'Please listen, and listen carefully, Dr. Najarian.' The voice, probably a man's, was monotonal and distorted. A vibration machine, Eric thought-4he sort held against the neck by a patient whose larynx had been removed. On one level, he felt certain the call was a prank.
On another, much more primal level, he found the bizarre, emotionless tone chilling.
'Who is this?'
'we are Caduceus, your brothers and sisters in medicine. We care about the things you care about.
We care about you.'
'Dammit, who are you?' The chill grew more intense. This was no prank.
'In the days soon to come, we may call on you for help.'
'What kind of help?'
'Do as we ask, and the rewards will be great-for you and for the patients you care for so well.'
'Rewards? Would you please-'
'Our work is of the utmost importance, and we need you. We can also help you. There is a position in your emergency service. That position can be yours.'
For the first time since the phone had rung, Eric felt some lessening of his tension.
'You're full of shit,' he said. 'The committee has already made its choice. They're announcing it this afternoon.'
'When we contact you,' the voice went on, as if he had not spoken, 'you may be asked to administer a certain treatment to a patient in a manner that is unfamiliar to you. Trust us, do as we ask, speak of this conversation to no one, and you will have what you wish.'
'That's nonsense. I told you, the committee has already made its-' The dial tone cut him short.
The Proctor Building, a thirty-year-old, ten-story monument to the monolithic architecture of the late fifties, held most of the research labs at White memorial. The biochemistry unit filled the eighth and ninth floors.
At one time, laboratory space especially at WMH had been at a premium.
Now, Eric noted as he wandered off the elevator and down the dimly lit corridor, several of the labs were deserted.
It was nearly nine-thirty. Following the bizarre phone call earlier that morning, he had gone for a prolonged walk along the Charles, over the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, and then back by the Museum of Science.
Part of him still clung to the hope that the eerie call was part of some elaborate spoof. But he knew otherwise.
Caduceus. The staff and twin serpents symbolizing medicine. He had looked up the word, hoping that some aspect of its definition might give him insight.
All he had learned was that in mythology, the staff was borne by Hermes, the wing-footed messenger of the gods, patron of travelers and rogues, conductor of the dead to Hades, known for his invention and cunning- How it had come to signify the healing arts, he had not yet learned.
Throughout the walk, just over four miles, he had played and replayed the brief conversation in his mind. it, simply made no sense. Administer a treatment in a manner unfamiliar … What sort of treatment? To what end? How could Caduceus promise him the E.R. appointment when that decision had already been made?
He had entered the hospital through a side entrance and stopped by the speech pathology lab. The speech therapist, a bright, enthusiastic woman, was pleased to demonstrate for him the voice device, known as an artificial electrolarynx. Pressed tightly against a 'sweet spot' beneath the jaw, it transmitted impulses from the-mouth and worked whether its user had a functioning larynx or not. The voice it produced when Eric tried it was virtually indistinguishable from that made by the therapist. On a whim he had asked her if anyone at the hospital had borrowed such a device or shown a special interest in it.
Her response had been a predictable negative.
His size-thirteen sneakers propped on his desk, Dave Subarsky was sipping coffee as he pecked with one finger at his computer keyboard.
