Thailand by Haruki Murakami (Part 1)

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.