There was an announcement. Wee are car rent lee ex peer ee en sing turb
you lence. Please re mane see ted an far sin your seat bell.
Just then, Satsuki had been lost in
thought, and so it took her some time to make out what the Thai steward’s questionable
Japanese had meant.
“We
are currently experiencing turbulence. Please remain seated and fasten your
seatbelts.”
Satsuki was sweating. It was terribly hot.
She felt like she was being boiled alive. She was burning up all over and her
nylon stockings and bra were excruciatingly uncomfortable. She wanted to free
herself of all her clothes. She craned her neck up and looked around, but it
seemed like she was the only one feeling hot. The other passengers in business
class avoided the air-con and were curled up asleep with blankets pulled up over
their shoulders. Maybe she was having a hot flash. She bit her lip. She tried
to concentrate on something else and forget about the heat. She opened up her
book and started to read. But inevitably, she couldn’t forget about it. It
wasn’t a normal heat. And it would still be quite a while before they arrived
at Bangkok. She asked for some water from the stewardess passing by. Then she
took her pill case out of her bag and swallowed the hormone pill she’d forgotten
to take.
Menopause, thought Satsuki once again, has
to be a cynical warning (or harassment, perhaps) from the gods to those humans
who dare to aimlessly live too long. Only a hundred years ago, the average life
expectancy was no more than fifty, and women living twenty or thirty years
after their periods had stopped were the exception, not the rule. The burden of
having a body whose thyroid and ovaries don’t secrete hormones regularly, and
the possible correlation between post-menstrual oestrogen reduction and
Alzheimer’s disease, weren’t issues that she was especially troubled over. For
the majority of people, simply getting one’s daily meals is a much more pressing
issue. Thinking as such, in the end, doesn’t the growth of medicine just make
more problems rise to the surface, and then fragment and complicate them?
Shortly afterwards, there was another
announcement. This time it was in English.
“If there is a doctor on the plane, could
they please make themselves known to a member of the cabin crew?”
Someone on the plane must have fallen ill.
Satsuki wondered if she should come forward, but after a brief consideration,
she decided against it. She had twice before come forward as a doctor in such
circumstances, but both times, she had ended up coming to head to head with a GP
who also happened to be on the plane. GPs have the composure of a long serving
officer on the front line, but are also able to observe from a glance
specialist pathology which Satsuki had no experience in dealing with.
“Don’t worry, I can handle this on my own.
Why don’t you go back and relax?” they would say breezily with a smile. She
mumbled out a disjointed excuse and withdrew back to her seat. Then she carried
on watching some pointless film.
But what if there was no one but her on the
plane who was qualified as a doctor? Or what if this person had a serious
problem with their thyroid immune system? If so – though it’s hardly probable –
then even she could be of some use. She took a deep breath and pressed the
button to call over one of the crew.
The International Thyroid Conference was
held over four days in the Bangkok Marriott Hotel. Though really, it was more
like an international family reunion than a conference. Everyone there was a
thyroid specialist, almost everyone knew almost everyone else, and when they
didn’t, they got introduced. Theirs was a small world. In the daytime, they
would read out their research papers and have panel discussions; in the
evenings they would go to private parties around town. Close friends gathered
and old friendships were rekindled. Everyone would drink Australian wine, talk
about thyroids, gossip, share news about their work positions, tell lewd
medical jokes, and sing the Beach Boys’ Surfer
Girl in karaoke bars.
Whilst staying in Bangkok, Satsuki mainly
went around with her friends from when she was living in Detroit. She was most
carefree when she was with them. She had
worked in the Detroit University Hospital for nearly ten years, and it was
there that she had continued to study the thyroid immune system. But while she
was working there, things went downhill between her and her American husband, a
security analyst. His dependence on alcohol deepened over the years, and, to
make matters worse, he had another woman. Satsuki knew her well. They separated
and had heated exchanges through their lawyers for the next year. “The final
straw was that you didn’t want children,” her husband had argued.
Their divorce mediation was finally
concluded three years ago. But then a few months later, when her Honda Accord
was parked in the hospital car park, someone had smashed the windows and
headlights and written “JAP CAR” in white paint on the front bonnet. She called
the police. The policeman, a large black man, filled out the damage report and
then said to her,
“Doctor, this is Detroit. Next time buy a
Ford Transit.”
After all this, Satsuki no longer wanted to
stay in America, and started to think about returning home to Japan. She found
a position in Tokyo University Hospital. Her Indian colleague and research
collaborator tried to stop her, reminding her of how long she’d been honing her
research. “If it all goes well, we could get the Nobel Prize. Isn’t that your
dream?” But Satsuki’s resolve to go home was not shaken. It was as though
something had snapped inside her.
