The Immortalists

Raj and Ruby leave early the next morning, and the attitude is strained. While Mira is at work, Eddie calls to say that Bruna has been cleared of all charges. This enrages Daniel, and he decides, “on the very day that Bruna Costello prophesied his death, he can find her and force her to confess how she took advantage of them. And then he’ll make sure she never does it again” (245).

He does research on Milton, OH and decides to drive there to find Bruna’s mobile home. Before he does so, Varya calls, remembering this is the day prophesied by Bruna. Daniel says he is going to find Bruna, and Varya is strongly against this.

Daniel still decides to go. He takes a handgun from the shed before beginning his 10-hour drive. 

Daniel arrives in Milton, and scouts various locations for trailers. He goes down to Ludlow Falls and eventually finds a motor home. He enters without knocking and goes into the bedroom. There, he finds Bruna and forces her to get up.

They talk in the living room, and Daniel threatens her with a gun. Bruna says, “I know you […] I remember you. You came to see me in New York. You had your siblings, they were there. Two girls and a little boy” (253). He begins interrogating her and fires shots into the ceiling when she does not give him the information he wants.

Bruna explains that she has “Drabarimos, it’s a gift from God” (254). She does not associate with her family because they misuse the gift. She always wanted to go to college and become a nurse, so she ran away from home as a teenager. She told fortunes to make enough money to survive. She claims that people always came to her, determined to get answers.

Bruna realizes that this is Daniel’s day. Daniel senses that someone is outside—Eddie must have come after Mira discovered his card and looked at Daniel’s search history.

Daniel begins trashing Bruna’s home and holds a gun to her head. Eddie enters, and the chapter stops right when Daniel is about to pull the trigger. We later learn that Eddie shoots Daniel.  

Varya has been working at the Drake Institute for Research on Aging for the past 10 years. She works in a primate lab. The chapter begins with her giving a group of apes “a puzzle feeder that forces them to work for their food as they would in the wild” (263).

She goes to meet the journalist Luke Van Galder, who is writing a story on the lab for the San Francisco Chronicle. During their interview, Varya walks him around the Drake and gives information on their various research projects focusing on longevity. Though Varya is uncomfortable doing the interview, she feels she must do it. The exposure will gain public approval, which will in turn help with grant funding.

Luke pushes her with questions, suggesting she might be better off spending her time doing conservation. However, Varya counters with “We aim to reduce human suffering” (272). 

After work, Varya goes to Helping Hands, the assisted living facility where Gertie has resided for the past two years. Gertie had a stroke after Daniel’s death. She moves in with Varya, but, after suffering a few falls, it becomes apparent that she needs more care.

At first, Gertie does not like the facility, but “Now she attends continuing education classes on subjects like Battles of the Second World War and the popular Presidential Affairs (Not of State). She plays mah-jongg with a group of boisterous widows” (275).

During the visit, Varya refuses to go to the dining hall to socialize and instead stays with Gertie in her room. Varya shows a video of Frida the ape to Gertie, who is always delighted to see them. 

Varya meets with Luke again. This time she takes him into the primate lab. She explains that there are two theories about how to stop aging: stopping the reproductive system and restricting calories. At Drake, Varya is pursuing the latter as a hypothesis after studying the Okinawans, who live a very long time. While restricting calories, the body is “continuously dealing with a low level of stress, and this teaches it how to deal with stress in the long-term” (280).

Varya started her research in anti-aging by studying yeast, but transitioned into studying rhesus monkeys since they share 90 percent of the same DNA as humans. Drake’s mission is to create a drug that mimics the anti-aging effect achieved by calorie restriction.

As Varya walks through the lab with Luke, she tries to justify the primate research by saying, without it, “Countless vaccines would not have been developed, and countless therapies would not have been proven safe for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and AIDS” (285).

After Luke leaves, Varya goes to see Frida, “her favorite monkey,” who has been kept in isolation during Luke’s visit because of her bad behavior (286). Shortly after arriving to Drake 10 years ago, Varya was the one to receive Frida as a baby monkey. She got out of her cage and threw her arms around Varya’s neck, crying as Varya rocked her.