The Hormone Factory (6 page)

“For your age, you are remarkably clever and quick on the uptake,” he said, “and I do appreciate your concern, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. We are about to make this drug available, and we are going to ask physicians to administer it to their patients. Those patients, by volunteering for this trial, will help us to tweak and improve our product. Then does it not behoove me, as the drug’s developer, to assume some of the same risk myself?”

Levine was a man with a strict nineteenth-century Prussian military sense of ethics. His good name, as he had told me that first evening in the restaurant, was more important to him than his life. Fortunately, the injections didn’t wind up sending him into hypoglycemic shock after all. Later I did ask myself if he had always known he was going to be fine. Was he really the hero I thought him to be, or had he been pulling my leg? I was never quite sure of his true motives. I never knew whether he was playing me for a fool or not. An unpleasant thought. A shadow over what had started off as such an exhilarating collaboration.

Maybe it would all have turned out differently if there hadn’t been the interruption of the war—the great cataclysm that was, even in the best of all possible cases, a problematic disruption in the lives of the Chosen People of Europe. It set us back at least five years, an eternity in our murderously competitive field, where every second counts. But in actual fact our hands were already tied by 1933, the year those blind, benighted Germans elected the odious goon, which meant that besides dealing with a financial crisis, we faced the danger of losing our biggest export customer. Of course, the fact that the bastard next door was clamping down so hard on our neighbors did bring us an influx of very capable people: all those Silbersteins and Rosenbergs fleeing to the Netherlands from the east. Poor sods,
thinking they’d be safe here with us. With such enthusiasm they devoted themselves to the work here in our lab, hoping to get their disrupted careers back on track! Farmacom took in the very top echelon of Europe’s scientific establishment. Highly experienced people we could never have recruited before threw themselves into our hormonal experiments with great gusto, content with just a pittance, so eager were they to leave the humiliations of their fatherland behind. Of course, they were still blissfully unaware that the storm of abuse, accusation, and stigmatization would soon sweep across these chicken-livered lowlands as well, forcing them to their knees once more. And this time for good.

• • •

I can get all nostalgic thinking about the early days of my partnership with Levine. Lying here in my metal cage, I can sometimes feel the admiration I had for him then running up my decrepit spine like a shudder, a tremor delivering a stab of pain. Our collaboration had let me hone my inexperienced brain on that formidable intellect, and he in turn seemed to enjoy satisfying my curiosity.

In business too, we were an unrivaled team. Levine wasn’t merely the instigator and motivator of the scientific research; even though his clinician’s soul was devoted to making the life-saving insulin available as quickly as possible, he was never blind to the commercial aspects of the business.

Before the ink was dry on the contract that was to bind us so intricately together, he had already started working on a number of articles on the Canadian discovery of insulin for domestic and international medical journals. He didn’t fail to mention, naturally, that his lab, in a joint venture with Farmacom, was the first to make the drug commercially viable. He also started a medical
journal of his own, published simultaneously in French, German, and English. A platform to publicize his discoveries around the globe, it attracted a wide readership from the very first issue.

The extraction of insulin was indeed a masterful achievement, considering that insulin is a protein that’s mixed in with other proteins, and therefore very difficult to isolate. Insulin is as well camouflaged as a cloud in an overcast sky. And as if that weren’t complicated enough, the stuff turned out to be extremely sensitive to physical and chemical contaminants, which often damaged it and rendered it useless.

The Canadian eggheads had come up with a biochemical test to identify and isolate the insulin. They had further devised a method that allowed them to measure the blood-sugar level of the dog without a pancreas after injecting it with the stuff. Levine and his team took this a step further; by experimenting with various methods they were able to do some fine-tuning and come up with a preparation of consistent strength from batch to batch. This was a crucial step, for until then the insulin could be either too weak, and fail to prevent a diabetic coma, or else too strong, resulting in death by hypoglycemia. Hundreds of rabbits with the dubious distinction of being the designated guinea pigs in these experiments came to a sad end after being injected with either too weak or too strong a dose. Nor did all of the human patients in the various medical trials survive the experimental insulin. Scientific breakthroughs happen only by trial and, more often than not, error. In those days there were no rules or guidelines governing medical experimentation; drugs didn’t even require a doctor’s prescription. At the time we were introducing the insulin drugs to the market, it was left up to the scientist, in consultation with the physician, to decide when to move the inquiry from lab-animal experimentation to human trials. This
did provide a great measure of freedom, unthinkable nowadays; you could experiment to your heart’s content, far more than is permitted today.

• • •

As I said before, we were a terrific team at first. Once we had the licenses in hand, we decided to approach Bayer, already a huge pharma concern. And, impressed by Levine’s reputation, despite the fact that Farmacom consisted of just one laboratory in Amsterdam and a space on the top floor of the De Paauw Slaughterhouse and Meatpacking Co. plant, they did give us a hearing. Genius as he was at manipulating protein, Levine likewise knew how to play our opponents by giving them just enough information to whet their appetites. Their arrogance, however, won out over their greed. They were convinced they didn’t need our piddling little company to market the coveted drug in Germany; they thought they could do it without us. A serious mistake, which they soon came to regret. For the Bayer directors were to discover to their dismay that Levine and I had already set up a German subsidiary, which held the exclusive rights to insulin in Germany.

Levine’s way of exciting interest for his products was no different from the way he had worked his spell on me in Die Port van Cleve. He knew how to arouse people’s greed to such an extent that they felt they just had to take their chances with him, come what may. Once he’d reeled them in, it was my turn to strike with hard-nosed negotiating tactics, and to hammer out a lucrative deal for bulk sales of the insulin. This team effort was the commercial foundation upon which we built our empire.

12 …

It took some time for Rivka to feel at home in these godforsaken boonies. It was quite a change for her, from her life as a schoolgirl growing up among the intellectual and cultural elite of the big city to the unrefined rusticity of our depressing backwater, with its dirt roads and the stench of poverty seeping out of every hovel, the hardened face of the woman on the street corner with her meager array of fruits and vegetables displayed on a ragged mat, the slurred voice of the man who’d spent his miserable weekly wages on drink and was stumbling home to his slum without any food to offer his starving brood, or the gangs of delinquents staging raids on local farmers not much better off than they were.

My blithe coed appeared to have no problem saying goodbye to her carefree school days and soon cheerfully slipped into the role of young mother and wife of one of this hick town’s leading citizens. She energetically took charge of our home next to the factory, an elegant villa equipped with all modern conveniences, and took obvious pleasure in overseeing the small army of maids and other servants who had been running the household. After my father’s and mother’s passing, I had remained in my parental home, leaving the decor exactly as it was, and had
also kept on the servants, headed by Marieke, the trusty housekeeper. Marieke, who had started out in service as a shy young thing, had grown into the sturdy, energetic commander in chief of my bachelor household. The moment my young bride stepped over the threshold, Marieke took to her hook, line, and sinker, and did her very best to answer her every whim. Rivka’s arrival on the scene brought with it considerable changes to our plodding daily routine. When she first walked into the house, she’d exclaimed, “How vulgar! What tasteless schlock!”

I’d stared at her, taken aback. I had never met anyone who wasn’t suitably impressed by these elegant interiors, and her blunt criticism hurt me more than I liked to admit. At the same time I admired her candor. Rivka was a girl who didn’t mince words.

“If you want me to be happy here,” she said, running her hand over her slightly swollen belly, “you’ll have to let me do a little remodeling.”

And so it came to pass. My parents’ pride, their castle, proud embodiment of their newly acquired wealth, their victory over poverty, was completely dismantled. The murals disappeared under stark geometrical wallpaper patterns, the ceilings were replastered after being stripped of their ornamental medallions and cornices, and almost all of the neoclassical furniture was replaced, so that for the first several months after the renovations I felt like a stranger in my own home. My indefatigable wife introduced our backwater to the latest in modernist style. With tables, sofas, lamps, chairs, and coatracks by artisans and famous designers like Piet Kramer and H. J. Winkelman, our entire house was turned into a model interior of the Amsterdam School. It led to quite a bit of eyebrow raising, which bothered Rivka not a bit.

The birth of our first child, Ruth, affected me more than I had expected. Children had never much interested me, but to my
surprise, I was fascinated to see Rivka’s body swell and to feel the life kicking inside her belly. It was with anxious anticipation that I awaited the baby’s birth, and watching my daughter grow, and in quick succession a second and then a third little girl, gave me more pleasure than I had ever thought possible. That fatherhood could produce such strong feelings of connection, that it would awaken the protective instinct in me, was something I’d never expected.

Rivka did sometimes miss the excitement of the city. The solution she found to her homesickness was to invite lots of guests to come and stay. She made sure our spacious, comfortable home was always ready to accommodate her university friends from Amsterdam, who were only too happy to be invited to spend time in such modern, elegant surroundings out in the countryside (to them an exotic locale), next to the ever-bustling factory.

Rivka organized musical performances, readings, and theatrical soirees, and with the help of our cook prepared exquisite spreads for her dinner parties. Aaron was often one of the guests. He tended to stay in the background, slumped in his chair with an alcoholic beverage in one hand, observing the proceedings. I never caught him showing even the slightest interest in any of Rivka’s many girlfriends.

Hard to understand; I often had trouble controlling myself. What an effort it took to keep my hands off all those smart, well-spoken, shapely girls! But I restrained myself, because there’s a limit; I knew seducing my wife’s girlfriends was wrong. If only because it was just asking for trouble.

13 …

In addition to the complex problems we dealt with daily involving the insulin production and further hormonal research and production, it was important to drum up public support for our endeavors. The employment opportunities our meatpacking plant provided had made us well liked by the locals. But the growing range of drugs Farmacom was beginning to market had to be handled with caution in this Roman Catholic hinterland. For that reason, I actively sought to improve our relations with the local notables, and one of the most important players among these was, of course, the new parish priest.

I invited the man to my office for a meeting. The curate was a reedy, brittle-looking person. He was young, but his face was ageless; he had sparse, limp, and already receding ash-blond hair, a fuzzy little beard that hardly deserved to be called such, and an oily voice so soft that it was hard to believe that in church his sermons could be heard by the whole congregation. He spoke carefully, as if his every word might arouse the wrath of God. He had been sent to our town straight from the seminary, and he told me how much he enjoyed being the shepherd of his flock. When I asked him which aspect of his wide-ranging job he found most interesting, he replied, “The contact I have with the people
in my parish, both young and old; that is a great blessing to me. They have so many problems, and it gives me great satisfaction to lend them a sympathetic ear, and to help them accept their heavy lot.”

That’s exactly the sort of platitude you’d expect from a priest, and it’s why I can’t stand the Church. If there’s one thing I’ve refused to do all my life, it’s to accept things as they are. I am not some lame believer who meekly bows his head and accepts the fate allotted to him from on high; far from it. I like to grab fate by the horns the way a butcher reaches for a slaughtered steer, and turn it to work in my favor. But it was important to have a good relationship with a cleric venerated by the majority of my workforce, in light of the fact that our company was planning to produce increasing numbers of drugs that might appear to fly in the face of Our Lord’s commandments. Besides, I’m never averse to buttering people up if I have nothing to lose by it.

“Father, would you mind describing to me the nature of their struggle? I suspect that a great many folks around here find themselves in straitened circumstances on account of having too many mouths to feed and insufficient means to take care of them; isn’t that the main problem?”