....Fauci Shrugged...

She felt exhausted at the end of a day she had started at her desk, in her office, at seven A.M.; a day she had broken off, uncompleted, to rush home and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the dinner of the New York Business Council

"They want us to give them a talk about Hydroxychloroquine," he had said. "You can do it so much better than I. It's very important that we present a good case. There's such a controversy about HCQ."

Sitting beside him in his car, she regretted that she had agreed. She looked at the streets of New York and thought of the race between the coronavirus and time, between the streets of Manhattan and the passing days. She felt as if her nerves were being pulled tight by the stillness of the car, by the guilt of wasting an evening when she could not afford to waste an hour.

"With all those attacks on Trump that one hears everywhere, " Jim said, "he might need a few friends."

She glanced at him incredulously. "You mean you want to stand by Trump?"

He did not answer at once; he asked, his voice bleak, "That report of the special committee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — what do you think of it?"

"You know what I think of it."

"They said hydroxychloroquine is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly, without warning . . ."

He stopped, as if begging for an answer. She did not answer. He asked anxiously, "You haven't changed your mind about it, have you?"

"About what?"

"About that drug - "

"No, Jim, I have not changed my mind."

"They're experts, though . . . the men on that committee. . . . Top experts . . . Chief biologists and biochemists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities all over the country . . . ."  He said it unhappily, as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and their verdict.

She watched him, puzzled; this was not like him.

The car jerked forward. It moved slowly through a gap in a plank barrier, past the hole of a broken water main by new construction. She saw the new manufacturing facility by the excavation; the sign bore a trademark: Stockton Pharmaceuticals, Colorado. She looked away; she wished she were not reminded of Colorado.

"I can't understand it . . ." said Jim miserably. "The top experts of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. . ."

"Who's the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jim? Anthony Fauci, isn't it?"

Jim did not turn to her, but his jaw snapped open. "If that slob thinks he can—" he started, but stopped and did not finish.

She looked up at a street lamp on the corner. It was a globe of glass filled with light. It hung, secure from storm, lighting boarded windows and cracked sidewalks, as their only guardian. At the end of the street, across the river, against the glow of a factory, she saw the thin tracing of a power station. A truck went by, hiding her view. It was the kind of truck that fed the power station— a tank truck, its bright new paint impervious to sleet, green with white letters.

"Dana, have you heard about that discussion at the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Union Workers meeting in Detroit?"

"No. What discussion?"

"It was in all the newspapers. They debated whether their members should or should not be permitted to work with the production of HCQ in this country using a toll manufacturer.

They didn't reach a decision, but that was enough for the contractor who was going to take a chance on HCQ. He cancelled his order, but fast! . . . What if . . . what if everybody decides against it?"

“Let them."