Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

Hibbard took eight SampLpaks of Asian from his console, actually troubled to lock the console and pocket the key, and stepped into the vestibule. Enid heard his murmur and the husky voice of an older man replying, “Twenty-five,” “Monday,” and “Newport.” In less than two minutes the doctor returned, carrying some traveler’s checks.

“Is this really all right, what you’re doing?” Enid asked. “I mean, legally?”

“Good Q, Enid, but guess what: it’s wonderfully legal.” He examined one of the checks somewhat absently and then tucked them all into his shirt pocket. “Excellent question, though. Really ace Q. Professional ethics prevent me from selling the drugs I prescribe, so I’m confined to dispensing free samples, which luckily conforms to Pleasurelines ‘own tutto è incluso policy. Regrettably, since Asian has yet to receive full American regulatory approval, and since most of our cruisers are American, and since Aslan’s designer and maker, Farmacopea S.A., therefore has no incentive to provide me with complimentary samples sufficient to the extraordinary demand, I do find it necessary to purchase the complimentary samples in bulk. Hence my consulting fee, which might otherwise strike some as inflated.”

“What’s the actual cash value of the eight sample packs?” Enid asked.

“Being complimentary and strictly not for resale, they have no actual cash value, Eartha. If you’re asking what it costs me to provide this service to you free of charge, the answer is about eighty-eight dollars, U.S.”

“Four dollars a pill!”

“Correct. Full dosage for patients of ordinary sensitivity is thirty milligrams per day. In other words, one caplet. Four dollars a day to feel great: most cruisers consider it a bargain.”

“And tell me, though, what it is? Ashram?”

“Aslan. Named, I’m told, for a mythical creature in ancient mythology. Mithraism, sun-worshippers, and so forth. I’d be making it up if I told you any more. But my understanding is Asian was a great benign Lion.”

Enid’s heart leaped in its cage. She took a SampLpak from the desk and examined the pills through the bubbles of hard plastic. Each tawny-gold caplet was scored twice for ease of splitting and emblazoned with a many-rayed sun — or was it the silhouetted head of a richly maned lion? ASLAN® Cruiser™ was the label.

“What’s it do?” she said.

“Absolutely nothing,” Hibbard replied, “if you are in perfect mental health. However, let’s face it, who is?”

“Oh, and if you’re not?”

“Aslan provides state-of-the-art factor regulation. The best medications now approved for American use are like two Marlboros and a rum-and-Coke, by comparison.”

“It’s an antidepressant?”

“Crude term. ‘Personality optimizer’ is the phrase I prefer.”

“And ‘Cruiser’?”

“Aslan optimizes in sixteen chemical dimensions,” Hibbard said patiently. “But guess what. Optimal for a person enjoying a luxury cruise isn’t optimal for a person functioning in the workplace. The chemical differences are pretty subtle, but if you’re capable of fine control, why not offer it? Besides Asian ‘Basic,’ Farmacopea sells eight custom blends. Asian ‘Ski,’ Asian ‘Hacker,’ Asian ‘Performance Ultra,’ Asian ‘Teen,’ Asian ‘Club Med,’ Asian ‘Golden Years,’ and I’m forgetting what? Asian ‘California.’ Very popular in Europe. The plan is to bring the number of blends up to twenty within two years. Asian ‘Exam Buster,’ Asian ‘Courtship,’ Asian ‘White Nights,’ Asian ‘Reader’s Challenge,’ Asian ‘Connoisseur Class,’ yada yada yada. American regulatory approval would accelerate the process, but I’m not holding my breath. If you’re asking what’s specific to ‘Cruiser’? Mainly that it switches your anxiety to the Off position. Turns that little dial right down to zero. Asian ‘Basic’ won’t do that, because to function day to day a moderate anxiety level is desirable. I’m on ‘Basic’ right now, for example, because I’m working.”

“How—”

“Less than one hour. That’s the glory of it. The action is effectively instantaneous. That’s compared with up to four weeks for some of the dinosaurs they’re still using Stateside. Go on Zoloft today and you’re lucky to feel better a week from Friday.”

“No, but how do I refill the prescription at home?”

Hibbard looked at his watch. “What part of the country are you from, Andie?”

“The Midwest. St. Jude.”

“OK. Your best bet’s going to be Mexican Aslan. Or, if you have friends vacationing in Argentina or Uruguay, you might work something out with them. Obviously, if you like the medication and you want total ease of access, Pleasurelines hopes you’ll take another cruise.”

Enid pulled a scowl. Dr. Hibbard was very handsome and charismatic, and she liked the idea of a pill that would help her enjoy the cruise and take better care of Alfred, but the doctor seemed to her a trifle glib. Also, her name was Enid. E-N-I-D.

“You’re really, really, really sure this will help me?” she said. “You’re really super certain this is the best thing for me?”

“I ‘guarantee’ it,” Hibbard said with a wink.

“What does ‘optimize’ mean, though?” Enid said.

“You’ll feel emotionally more resilient,” Hibbard said. “More flexible, more confident, happier with yourself. Your anxiety and oversensitivity will disappear, as will any morbid concern about the opinion of others. Anything you’re ashamed of now—”

“Yes,” Enid said. “Yes.”

“‘If it comes up, I’ll talk about it; if not, why mention it?’ That will be your attitude. The vicious bipolarity of shame, that rapid cycling between confession and concealment — this is a complaint of yours?”

“I think you understand me.”

“Chemicals in your brain, Elaine. A strong urge to confess, a strong urge to conceal: What’s a strong urge? What else can it be but chemicals? What’s memory? A chemical change! Or maybe a structural change, but guess what. Structures are made of proteins! And what are proteins made of? Amines!”

Enid had the dim worry that her church taught otherwise — something about Christ being both a hunk of flesh hanging from a cross and also the Son of God — but questions of doctrine had always seemed to her forbiddingly complex, and Reverend Anderson at their church had such a kindly face and often in his sermons told jokes or quoted New Yorker cartoons or secular writers such as John Updike, and he never did anything disturbing like telling the congregation that it was damned, which would have been absurd since everyone at the church was so friendly and nice, and then, too, Alfred had always pooh-poohed her faith and it was easier just to stop believing (if in fact she ever had believed) than to try to beat Alfred in a philosophical argument. Now Enid believed that when you were dead you were really dead, and Dr. Hibbard’s account of things was making sense to her.

Nevertheless, being a tough shopper, she said: “I’m just a dumb old midwesterner, so, but changing your personality doesn’t sound right to me.” She made her face long and sour to be sure her disapproval wasn’t overlooked.

“What’s wrong with change?” Hibbard said. “Are you happy with the way you feel right now?”

“Well, no, but if I’m a different person after I take this pill, if I’m different , that can’t be right, and—”

“Edwina, I’m completely sympathetic. We all have irrational attachments to the particular chemical coordinates of our character and temperament. It’s a version of the fear of death, right? I don’t know what it will be like not to be me anymore. But guess what. If ’I’m’ not around to tell the difference, then what do ‘I’ really care? Being dead’s only a problem if you know you’re dead, which you never do because you’re dead!”