15

The experiment involving the antidepressant drug forced me into new routines. Three times a day—morning, afternoon, and evening—I took the elevator down to lab 3 on K1 to swallow a little yellow pill. It upset my schedule, especially in the mornings when I had to interrupt my writing, or to put it more accurately: because I was always aware that at some point between eight and nine o’clock I would have to break away to get dressed and take the elevator and swallow that pill, I found it difficult to achieve the peace and concentration I needed to be able to write at all. So instead I would usually spend the time sitting and reading through what I’d already written, making the kind of notes and corrections I would have preferred to leave until I had the whole thing printed out.

This was irritating enough, but what upset me considerably more was the feeling of not being trusted, of being treated like a difficult child, a cheat, a rebel. I found it offensive to have to stand there and open my mouth in front of Nurse Karl or the brisk, naive Nurse Lis or one of the other nurses who handed out the yellow pills then looked in your mouth as if you were a horse at a horse fair back in the olden days, before carefully ticking it off from a list and chirruping smugly: “Well done, Dorrit. We’ll see you between two and three.”

My dignity shrank by several inches every time I had to go through this procedure.

On the other hand, I had more time to write, more time generally during this medical experiment than during the exercise experiment, because my only obligation was to make sure I was in the right place three times a day. That took up about half an hour per day in total, and it should have outweighed the disadvantages, but it didn’t.

During one of my many conversations with Arnold I took up this question of my dwindling dignity, and the fact that I found it difficult to settle down to work because of having to break away. I had hoped that he might manage to say the right thing and give me some idea how I should handle the problem, but he just nodded and listened, made notes, and asked questions like: “What kind of feelings do you get when you can’t write?” and “How would you define the term ‘offensive’?”

So I started to talk about my concerns regarding the side effects instead.

“Have you experienced any?” asked Arnold.

“No, but I haven’t felt any positive effects either. If anything I’m more anxious than I was before. These pills are supposed to have a direct effect.”

“Direct doesn’t always have to mean immediate,” said Arnold.

“Oh really?” I said. “And what does it mean when it doesn’t mean that?”

He didn’t reply. Just sat there opposite me in his armchair with one leg loosely crossed over the other, his elbows resting on the upholstered arms, pressing the tips of his fingers together as he contemplated me with a thoughtful expression. I changed the topic of conversation again, started talking about Siv: about how I had almost fallen apart when what I already knew about her was confirmed.

This clearly interested him, because his expression came alive, he placed his hands on his knees and began to ask questions about Siv and my family and the relationships when I was growing up. I answered dutifully and almost mechanically, rattling off my thoughts and theories on why Siv and I were the only two out of the five of us who hadn’t succeeded in establishing a family of our own, and had chosen professions with an uncertain income.

It would definitely have been more useful to talk about my recurring dreams involving Jock, or about what was happening between Johannes and me, because these were new phenomena and new feelings that I didn’t really understand, while my relationship with my family was old and already made sense. But I couldn’t bring myself to change the topic of conversation yet again, and when I left Arnold’s office it was with the feeling that I had wasted a whole hour of my life.