Chapter 7
Palo Alto, California, 1977.
It was home to Stanford and would soon become the heart of Silicon Valley.
I looked at the champagne glass at my place setting.
Today's event was a charity affair hosted by the Weisman Foundation: an upper-class party with a hefty admission fee that counted as a donation.
Why was I here?
The Weisman Foundation had asked me to attend.
Most of the money for my full scholarship had come from the Weisman Foundation. Six years of tuition at Stanford had cost $30,000.
In 2020s money...
About 300 million won?
It was enough money that even if the Weisman Foundation had told me to go work at a construction site, I would have gone running. They'd asked me to come to the banquet hall and give a short speech...
The foundation's centerpiece.
That was me.
-A good opportunity to show our donors how the Foundation's philanthropy is changing the world. We'd be grateful if you could attend.
I glanced at my notebook.
Living proof of the Foundation's humanitarianism and the American Dream, having sworn to serve humanity.
That's how it was.
A little while later, the banquet began.
At the front of the banquet hall, the Weisman Foundation's host took the microphone and began to speak.
“The Weisman Foundation has worked hard to give opportunities to talented people who can put our ideals into practice. Today, we have an achievement we're especially proud of.”
The host looked toward me.
“A doctor from Stanford. A Weisman scholarship recipient whose name appeared in a prestigious journal before even graduating. Please welcome Jisoo Parks.”
I walked to the side of the podium. Everyone's eyes turned toward me.
“I was an adopted child who grew up in the California countryside. But my new family and community gave someone as unremarkable as me an opportunity beyond my wildest dreams.”
America in the 1970s was an era when the American Dream was still alive and well.
I wasn't saying society was fair or free of discrimination, but it was still a world where talent could earn you an opportunity.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”
Just thinking about the 300 million won in tuition the Foundation had covered...
I could give a filibuster, too.
“With the opportunity the Weisman Foundation gave me, I'll do as I was taught at Stanford: conduct research at the forefront of medicine and serve humanity.”
I bowed to the audience.
***
As I sat in a corner of the banquet hall watching everyone, I heard the click of shoes beside me.
I turned to look.
“You look bored.”
“Pardon?”
Her appearance immediately made me think of a young noblewoman.
More than anything else...
Two people who looked like attendants and bodyguards stood behind her. They watched me from a discreet distance.
At Ivy League universities, there were plenty of children of the powerful from all over the world.
But even people of considerable rank rarely brought attendants with them.
Who could she be?
Palo Alto had plenty of powerful people, but there weren't many whose entire family could bring attendants along.
“May I sit beside you?”
I studied her for a moment.
A modest dress.
Soft-looking light brown hair and striking blue eyes. Her movements had a peculiar elegance rarely seen in ordinary people.
As if she'd been trained in how to present herself to the public.
If anything, she seemed to be acting. Was that just how high society was, or was it her personality?
Probably the latter.
She must have arrived after my speech, since she didn't seem to know who I was yet.
I didn't know who the young lady in front of me was, either.
I had a few guesses, but she seemed to be deliberately putting off introducing herself.
She smiled.
“When I come to events like this, I'm usually alone. I didn't expect to find someone my age, so it's nice to meet you.”
What would be a good response?
“You seem in good spirits. Is the food to your liking? I think it's quite good.”
She tilted her head.
“I've heard that way of speaking before... You sound like someone who's had special training.”
I blinked.
It was exactly as I'd been trained. When interviewing a psychiatric patient, the things to check are as follows.
Affect, appetite, sleep, hallucinations, self-harm.
For reference, affect is a term for an observable emotional state.
It's also a technique for understanding people effectively: a systematic way to figure out what kind of person they are and how they're doing.
Though really, it was more of a trained habit.
“Does it seem that way?”
“Your first comment was an observation about my visible emotional state. The second was about food. It's a safe way of understanding another person!”
I had nothing to say.
“It's a habit. My apologies.”
“Still, I think it's wonderful. It means you've trained so thoroughly that you can do it unconsciously. What do you do?”
I laid my business card in front of her.
“So you're today's guest of honor? I'm Lieselotte Weisman, the youngest daughter of the Weisman family.”
After introducing herself, she relaxed a little and sat back down, looking interested.
Now that she'd relaxed, she seemed much younger than before.
As if she'd been deliberately pretending to be older.
“You seem like you have plenty of interesting stories, too. Still, I imagine it can't be easy for a foreigner to attend Stanford.”
I stared at Lieselotte.
“Why am I an outsider?”
“You're an immigrant. Still, I imagine you faced some hardships getting this far.”
I chuckled.
My family went to church on Sundays, roasted terrible turkey for Thanksgiving, watched fireworks on Independence Day, and kept a dog in the yard.
“What could be more American than an adopted child who crossed an ocean to get into an Ivy League university and was given the chance to make the world a better place?”
“You should be a poet, not a doctor.”
“I was invited here to give a speech today. That's a thirty-thousand-dollar sentence.”
She nodded.
Anyway, let's move on to something more interesting.
“And... half the doctors at Ivy League schools are Jewish anyway. They don't exactly discriminate against you just because you're not white.”
“Oh. I see.”
***
We looked around the banquet hall.
I'd had a thought for a while.
It was why I'd asked whether the food was any good.
“Speaking of which, there's Thai food on the buffet menu tonight.”
“Why's that?”
“Allergies. White people can't eat peanuts and Jews can't eat shrimp, but Thai food is cooked for ages with both.”
And everyone in the banquet hall was Jewish or white. Except me.
“Wouldn't everyone know and avoid it?”
That was one of the common misconceptions about allergies.
An allergy is a condition that can suddenly develop one day after repeated exposure to a particular antigen.
Most people aren't born with them.
Since we're on the subject...
There was something I'd been working on during my sixth year as an undergraduate. An important technology that wasn't yet widely available, one that could save countless lives.
A subcutaneous epinephrine injector.
A device designed to immediately treat an allergy-induced airway blockage, delivering an injection at the push of a button.
This was a prototype.
I pulled an epinephrine injector from my pocket and showed it to her. The syringe was encased in a plastic device, ready to be used at once.
You didn't need to find a vein with this.
Lieselotte tilted her head.
“Is that heroin?”
I frowned and looked at her. Well, heroin was injected too.
“What? It's allergy medicine.”
“Do you carry it with you all the time?”
“It'd be a problem if someone collapsed today.”
They're rare in Korea, but in America, people with allergies often carry these around.
Because this could be the difference between life and death. Given the nature of today's event, it seemed like someone might collapse...
“You've got a bad case of occupational disease.”
“I suppose I do.”
As if the universe were watching us, a commotion suddenly erupted across the banquet hall.
“Is there a doctor here!?”
I hurriedly stood up.
***
“Please make way.”
The onlookers made room for me.
Treatment for acute allergic anaphylaxis in the 1970s was quite different from what it is today.
All you could do was wait for an ambulance.
Emergency epinephrine injections weren't commonplace like they are now. These days, patients carry them, and they're generally stocked in public places like buffets.
Someone was attempting CPR, but the compressions weren't effective.
Good thing they weren't doing it properly.
If they'd been compressing the chest hard enough to actually compress the heart, they would have strained it and broken all the ribs.
“You can stop the compressions.”
I moved the people attempting CPR aside and examined the patient.
The patient wasn't breathing, but still had a pulse. I immediately injected epinephrine into their thigh.
It wouldn't take long.
“Can you hear me? Wake up!”
I grabbed a spoon from beside me, put the back of it into the patient's mouth, and tilted the larynx back.
In those few seconds between life and death, breath became wind, and wind became breath again.
It took only a few seconds for the epinephrine to work. The patient immediately gasped and opened their eyes, and I set the spoon down.
Fortunately, it was over without any major complications.
“What happened...?”
Everyone's gaze turned to me.