The office was slightly larger than a closet, cluttered with articles and journals stacked on the desk and into various piles on the floor, two to three feet deep. Venetian blinds against the glass-windowed walls filtered some light in from the hallway. A computer monitor blinked on a separate table top, churning out three-dimensional models of mathematical calculations. The back wall displayed a chart of the known particles of the quantum universe: mesons, bosons, muons, pions. A dirty eraserboard mounted next to it depicted an asymptotic curve scribbled hastily, spreading along the x- and y-axes. A wood placard sat on the front edge of the desk engraved with the name, Dr. Cunningham. Outwardly, no one would have guessed that this humble office, buried in the basement wing of the research building, actually stood on the cutting edge of discovery. The hallway broiled with heat radiating from the exposed water pipes running overhead in the uncovered ceiling, wires and pipes snaking into the labs housed upstairs. The linoleum floor in the hallway was stained with the remains of rusty puddle rings long dried from old leaks.
His advisor sat behind his desk, fortified behind the stacks of papers, reclining in his seat, stroking his beard. He didn't look Jin Li in the face. Jin sat across from him, hands in his lap, hunched small in his seat, looking at his feet. Ordinarily, he wore an honest grin on his rotund, hairless face. His accent being thick, he usually spoke with his hands. Today was different. He felt resigned. His sacrifices, his dreams were slipping from him.
“An accident?” he offered weakly, speaking first.
“I'm beginning to think that taking you into this lab has been an accident,” Dr. Cunningham said gruffly.
“I got dizzy—I reached out and . …”
“I know what you've done! It was our only prototype.” His voice was stern.
“I'll build another!” Jin replied in desperation. “Please . …”
His advisor looked at him in disbelief, deliberately masking his remaining pity. There was nothing more that could be done, he reminded himself. He was a young man himself, only in his mid-forties. His self-assured knack of not mincing words in the universal search for precision had grown steadily with the years—it was an allowance that society afforded only to geniuses. He cared solely for immediate results. He sat there, frowning, wearing the bowtie and tweed jacket that marked academic royalty in Cambridge. With brown wavy hair and light blue eyes, he looked like he belonged to a black and white snapshot of the past, inquisitively leaning over the shoulder of Niels Bohr or Rutherford.
“My funding on the project has been revoked. I don't have anything left for your stipend.”
“I'll work for free,” Jin insisted.
“It's not that simple. Last week you skipped journal club. And you've been missing days.”
“I was not feeling good. I was …” he hesitated, “in bed all day.”
“I don't know what to say … where has your mind been these past two months?”
He sat forward and the chair tipped him toward his desk. He shuffled some papers, looking for a name on one of them. Finding a sheet, he looked squarely at Jin, blank and emotionless. “I've made some phone calls on your behalf. Balfour's lab has a small opening. It's still in the MIT system. Small work, more manageable for you; when the fall semester begins, you can look for another advisor.”
He was sending him across town. They may as well deport me back to China, he panicked. Jin had come to the United States four years earlier as a transfer student from Beijing University on a government scholarship. In the span of two years, he had completed two related masters in advanced mathematics and astrophysics. He had garnered the Boyce Prize in computational modeling. Attending a lecture given by Dr. Cunningham one day at a college-wide symposium, he became fascinated and inspired to study quantum mechanics and chaos theory. The Chinese government, ever practical, refused to allow the switch to such a conjectural branch of science. The boy risked his reputation by declining further funding. The government sought extradition.
“But my thesis?!” he cried, incredulous. Two years of his life—his youth—were spent here, slaving away. These two years flashed before him—conjuring only a single image of the white-washed lab upstairs. His days and nights were enclosed in the four walls of that small room. Jin's face flushed red, half in embarrassment, half in anger at this betrayal.
“I'm afraid this means I won't be sponsoring your F-1 visa next month,” the older man continued in clipped tones.
The student gasped, bewildered. The room spun. He sank further in his chair, feeling cursed, both arms gripping the armrest, elbows locked and bracing him up.
“I wouldn't take this too hard, Jin. You're still young—only twenty-four. You'll bounce back, but … in a different field.” He paused. “I'm sorry. I can only afford to take the very best.”
It was too much. Words failed him miserably. I was the best, Jin re-thought bitterly. The verdict handed down to him, so coldly, injured his very core, even though the suggestion had nagged at him repeatedly over the past few months. He had refused to give in to it. The thin, warm air in the room stifled him. He needed circulation, quickly.
“Thank you,” he uttered meekly, crushed. He rose with his remaining dignity, turning to the door.
His advisor stood up courteously and stretched out his hand across the desk. “I'm sorry it came to this . …”
But his words were cut off. Without warning, Jin crumpled to the floor.
Jin lay in bed with a dressing over his forehead. The hospital shades were drawn, the lighting dim. He awoke to another headache. The throbbing moved in sync with his pulse. Thankfully, the pain was less intense. His neck felt stiff and the flat pillow did little to cushion him. The previous day was more or less a blur of events and emotions. He remembered seeing the stolid face of his advisor from behind the desk. A few steps to the door . …
His nerves had finally failed him. I'm going insane, he realized. The past three months had been very difficult. Better a burnout than a washout, he had told his few friends. Endless work without results. Just homesick, they thought. Abject failure washed over him.
It felt good to lie still in bed. Most days, he remained in bed as long as he could, tossing and turning feverishly. Nights of paranoia had driven him to headaches that increasingly woke him up from sleep, always worse in the morning. Weekends were spent in his living room with the curtains closed, depressed. The volume on the television would be turned down to nearly inaudible and the ambient light bothered him. He would lie on the sofa, covered with a comforter, refusing to move. He lost hunger; he'd lost some weight.
His roommate, a German postdoc, had tried unsuccessfully to intervene by recommending a psychiatrist. Do I look like someone who would even think about killing myself? snapped Jin angrily at him. The very suggestion petrified Jin. One miserable night, he had sat languishing in front of the television with an open bottle of Tylenol. He had taken two pills for a headache, resulting in very little relief. Before stuffing the cotton wad back in, he roughly counted pills. At least fifty. Should I? He would need alcohol to wash them down. He rose and rummaged through the kitchen. Vodka in the cabinet above the fridge. The phone rang then, jangling him to his senses. No—he calmed himself down—he just needed more time. To prove himself to the world. Make his parents proud. All these doubts—thoughts he had kept to himself—he now allowed to pass through him . …My mind has tricked me. The greatest betrayal yet.
“That's some bruise you sustained yesterday,” said a kind voice. Jin opened his eyes slowly. A tall, gray-haired doctor sat at the foot of the bed. “Good morning.”
“What day?”
“Tuesday. You had a small accident yesterday in the lab, I understand.”
Even he knew? Jin started in his bed. The nightmare was spreading.
“Your advisor came in this morning to look in on you. You were still asleep,” the doctor explained.
“Professor Cunningham?” he asked stiffly.
“Yes. That was his name. How are you feeling?”
“Better now, I think. I'm hungry, actually.”
“That's a good sign! Don't worry. We've saved some breakfast for you.” He smiled. “My name is Dr. Adams.”
Jin continued staring away from the doctor at a muted television set mounted on the far wall. It flashed an advertisement for sharper knives. There was a special bonus offer for the first fifty callers. “When can I go home?”
“Not yet. When you're a little stronger. There are a few more tests we need to do.” Jin then noticed that he had an IV running from his left wrist to a saline bag hanging above his head. What were they giving him? “Can you do something for me?” continued Dr. Adams from the foot of the bed.
“Yes?”
“I want you to count backwards from one hundred, each time subtracting seven's.”
“From one hundred? One hundred … ninety-three … aaa, eighty-s-six, then … seventy-eight, no I mean seventy-nine.” Jin's pulse quickened.
“No, no, that's just fine,” said the physician, raising a hand, waving to stop. He sensed anxiety. “Why don't I let you rest some more . …”
“Okay,” Jin breathed in resignation.
The nurse knocked at the door. “Dr. Adams, we need you for bed three.”
Jin's spirit roused at hearing another voice. “No, please,” he insisted, motioning the doctor back to his seat. “I need to know—what happened?” he pleaded. How much worse could it get, he wondered. He was already at the end of his rope.
“Well … we think you blacked out yesterday, lost consciousness for a few minutes. You may have had a seizure . …”
Jin stared at the ceiling, satisfied with the explanation. A minute later, he became acutely aware that something greater was wrong. “What, again? Why?”
“I think I should wait for another time. For the whole medical team to come in and discuss this carefully.”
Jin sat up sharply in bed. The covers tumbled from his shoulders onto his lap. He searched the doctor's eyes for a hint. The two men had never met before, but in that moment, the void between them was filled by a look of commanding trust. Jin nodded with encouragement. The latter turned aside, uncomfortable.
The doctor finally took a deep breath in. “I'm afraid you have a tumor,” he blurted.
Jin blinked. His face betrayed no expression.
“Cancer. In your brain.” The doctor tapped his own skull at the left temple, gently. He regretted having spoken.
“It hurt my memory?” Jin whispered cautiously.
“Given its location, that is very probable.”
“Wait—how long has it been growing there?” A glimmer of hope grew inside of him.
“I don't know. They can grow fast sometimes.”
“Three months?”
“Possibly.”
“Yes! I knew it!” he exclaimed. Jin relaxed, his body crashing softly to the mattress. “I knew it,” he declared triumphantly, completely spent. He sighed with relief.
The doctor sat transfixed for a long while, entirely puzzled by the outburst. Should I leave the matter at that? There was a wide grin across his patient's face. “Maybe I wasn't being clear … I don't think you understand … the gravity of the situation. …”
“But don't you? Don't you see! It's not ME. Not my fault—none of this is my fault—it explains everything! You've saved me. …”
The doctor had seen this kind of thing before, once. Reactionary psychosis. Denial.
“I'm still the best,” Jin mumbled over and over. “I'm not a failure,” he laughed. The doctor shook his head in dismay, in disbelief.
“Oh! You have to tell Dr. Cunningham. Thank God! It's just a tumor … it's not me.” Feeling pity for himself, Jin Li smiled with relief. “I'm not stupid. No! I'm not crazy. …”