Strong Medicine

by Arthur Hailey

  “You mean …”

  “I mean,” Martin said, “we may have stumbled on something for which people have been searching for centuries—a way to metabolize food in the body without producing fat and therefore weight gain.”

  Yvonne regarded him openmouthed. “But that could be terribly important.”

  “Of course—if it’s true.”

  “But it’s something you weren’t looking for.”

  “Lots of discoveries have happened when scientists were seeking something else.”

  “So what do you do next?”

  Martin considered. “I need advice from specialists. Tomorrow I’ll arrange to get them here.”

  “In that case,” Yvonne said hopefully, “can we go back to your house now?”

  He put his arm around her. “I never heard a better idea.”

  “I’ll send you a detailed report, of course,” the visiting veterinarian informed Martin, “and it will include measurement of body fat, blood chemistry, urine and stool analyses done in my own lab. But I can tell you right now that those are some of the healthiest rats I’ve come across, particularly remembering their advanced age.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Martin said. “It’s what I’d hoped for.”

  Today was Tuesday and the veterinarian, Dr. Ingersoll, an elderly specialist in small mammals, had come from London on a morning train. He would return that afternoon.

  Another expert, a nutritionist from Cambridge, was due at the Harlow institute two days later.

  “I suppose,” Dr. Ingersoll said, “you wouldn’t care to tell me precisely what it is you’ve been injecting into those rats of yours?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Martin replied, “I’d prefer not. At least not yet.”

  The veterinarian nodded. “I rather thought you’d say that. Well, whatever it is, my dear fellow, you are obviously onto something interesting.”

  Martin smiled, and left it there.

  On Thursday, the nutritionist, Ian Cavaliero, provided information that was even more intriguing.

  “Possibly what you have done in treating those rats,” he pronounced, “is change the functioning of either their endocrine glands or their central nervous systems, or perhaps both. The result is, the calories they take in with food are converted to heat instead of fat. If not carried to extremes, there’s no harm in that. Their bodies simply get rid of the excess heat through evaporation or some other means.”

  Dr. Cavaliero, a young scientist whom Martin had known at Cambridge, was widely regarded as a leading authority on nutrition.

  “New data are emerging,” he reported, “showing that different individuals—or animals—have differing efficiencies for utilizing calories. Some calories go into fat, but a lot get used for the kind of body work we never see or feel. For example, cells pumping ions, such as sodium, out of themselves and into the blood in a continuous cycling process.”

  The nutritionist continued, “Other calories must go into heat, just to maintain body temperature. It’s been discovered, though, that the proportion going to heat, metabolic work, or fat varies widely. Therefore if you can change and control that proportion—as you appear to be doing with these animals—it represents a major advance.”

  A small group whom Martin had invited to join the discussion with Cavaliero listened intently. It comprised Rao Sastri, two other staff scientists, and Yvonne.

  Sastri interjected, “That fat-work-heat variation is undoubtedly why some fortunate persons can eat large meals, yet never put on weight.”

  “Exactly.” The nutritionist smiled. “We’ve all met, and probably envied, those kind of people. But something else may be affecting your rats also—a satiety factor.”

  Martin said, “Through the CNS?”

  “Yes. The central nervous system is, of course, highly regulated by brain peptides. And since you inform me that the injected material affects the brain, it could be reducing brain signals of hunger … So, one way or another, your compound plainly has a desirable anti-obesity effect.”

  The discussion continued and, next day, Martin used Cavaliero’s words, “desirable antiobesity effect,” in a confidential report sent directly to Sam Hawthorne.

  “While an enhancement of memory through Peptide 7 remains our primary objective,” Martin wrote, “we will experiment additionally with what, at first glimpse, appears as a positive, promising side effect which may have clinical possibilities.”

  While the report was restrained, excitement among Martin and his Harlow colleagues was at fever pitch.

  FOUR

  1977–1985

  1

  Majestically, and with a solid dignity no other form of transportation yet devised could match, the cargo liner SS Santa Isabella edged its way along Fort Armstrong Channel and into Honolulu Harbor.

  Andrew and Celia were on deck, standing with other passengers, below the bridge and forward.

  Andrew, with binoculars, was already scanning the dockside and port buildings coming into view. His scrutiny had a purpose.

  As the Aloha Tower loomed ahead, made golden by Hawaiian sunshine from an azure sky, the ship swung smoothly to starboard, tugs fussing beside it. Ships’ whistles sounded. Among the Santa Isabella’s crew, landing preparations intensified.

  Lowering the binoculars, Andrew stole a sideways glance at Celia. Like himself, she was bronzed and healthy, a consequence of almost six months of leisure, spent largely in the open air. She was relaxed too, he could see, as he thought of the accumulated tensions that had preceded their departure. No doubt about it: their tour, the comparative isolation and a total absence of pressures had been good for them both.

  He raised the binoculars again.

  “You seem to be looking for something,” Celia said.

  Without turning his head, he answered, “If I see it, I’ll tell you.”

  “All right.” She sighed. “I can hardly believe it’s almost over.”

  And it was. Their long journey, which had taken them through fifteen countries, essentially would finish here. After a brief stopover they would fly directly home from Honolulu, ready to resume their lives amid whatever changes awaited them, though such changes would be mainly those affecting Celia.

  She wondered what they might be.

  Deliberately, since leaving home in early March, she had excluded thoughts of the future from her mind. Now it was mid-August and the future must be faced.

  Touching Andrew’s arm, she said, “For the rest of my life I’ll remember this time; all the places we’ve been, everything we’ve done and seen …”

  Celia thought: There was so much to remember. In her mind, scenes flooded back: Yes, truly magic moonlight on the Nile, and sand and searing heat in the Valley of the Kings … walking the labyrinthine cobbled streets of Lisbon’s Alfama, nine centuries old, and flowers everywhere … Jerusalem—“The hill nearest heaven, where a man can cup his hand to the wind and hear the voice of God.”… Rome’s paradoxical mingling of the earthy and ethereal … Greek islands, diamonds in the Aegean, a montage memory of dazzling light, white terraced villages, mountains, olive groves … Oil-rich, thriving Abu Dhabi and a happy reunion with Celia’s younger sister, Janet, her husband and young family … India, subcontinent of savage contrasts, its pleasures weighed against appalling filth and degradation. One picture-postcard scene: Jaipur, the pink city … Then the Great Barrier Reef, Australian coral kingdom, a snorkeler’s Fantasia … and near Kyoto, Japan: the fragile, dreamlike beauty of the Shugakuin Imperial Villa, an emperor’s hideaway and a place of poetry, still guarded from the tourist mainstream … Hong Kong’s frenetic pace, as if time were running out, and so it was! … In Singapore—amid enormous wealth—the humble hawker food stalls, a gourmet’s paradise, with nasi beryani served at Glutton’s Corner, aptly named …

  In Singapore, too, Andrew and Celia had boarded the Santa Isabella for an unhurried journey through the South China Sea and into the Pacific, a journey which was ending in Hawaii, here and now.
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  There had been twenty or so other passengers aboard, most of them savoring the leisurely shipboard pace and comfortable accommodations without the hectic, organized jollity of a conventional cruise ship.

  As the cargo liner continued moving slowly, Celia’s musing drifted on …

  Despite her conscious efforts at the exclusion, until now, of thoughts about the future, inevitably there had been some about the past. In recent days especially she had asked herself: was she wrong in quitting Felding-Roth so abruptly? Her resignation had been impetuous and instinctual. Had it also been unwise? Celia wasn’t sure, and that thought made her wonder whether sometime soon she would experience regrets and anguish even greater than her present doubts.

  Clearly her departure had not affected the company or the drug Montayne in any serious way. In February, as scheduled, Montayne was launched, apparently with great success. According to trade-press reports which Celia read before leaving with Andrew on their tour, Montayne was at once widely prescribed and popular, especially with women who continued to be employed during pregnancy and to whom relief from morning sickness was critically important. It seemed obvious that the new drug was a bonanza for Felding-Roth.

  Similarly, she had learned while in France that the same was proving true for the French originators of Montayne, Laboratoires Gironde-Chimie.

  The France-Soir news stories out of Nouzonville and Spain, it seemed, had not harmed the reputation of Montayne. Nor, in the United States, had Dr. Maud Stavely’s anti-Montayne arguments been given much credence or impeded sales.

  Celia’s thoughts turned back to the ship, which was close to the dockside now, approaching Pier 10 where they would disembark and clear Customs.

  Suddenly, beside her, Andrew exclaimed, “There!”

  “There, what?”

  He handed over the binoculars and pointed. “Focus on that second big window—above the dock and left of the clock tower.”

  Puzzled, she did as instructed. “What am I looking for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The group around them had thinned out. In addition to Andrew and Celia, only two or three passengers remained, the rest having returned to their cabins to prepare for going ashore.

  Celia adjusted the binoculars and moved them, exploring. Almost at once she cried, “I do see! And I don’t believe it …”

  “You can believe it,” Andrew said. “They’re real.”

  “Lisa and Bruce!” Joyously, Celia shouted her children’s names. Then, holding the binoculars with one hand, she began waving frantically with the other. Andrew joined in. Behind the plate glass, in the spot where Andrew had observed them, Lisa and Bruce, laughing and excited, waved back.

  Celia was incredulous. “I don’t understand. We weren’t expecting the children. How did they get here?”

  “I was expecting them,” Andrew told her calmly. “In fact, I arranged it. It took several phone calls from Singapore when you weren’t around, but …”

  Celia, still overwhelmed, seemed hardly to hear. “Of course, I’m happy to see them. But Lisa and Bruce have summer jobs. How could they get away?”

  “That was easy too—when I explained why it was I wanted them here.” He retrieved the binoculars and put them in a case.

  “I still don’t understand,” Celia said. “You wanted the children?”

  “That’s right,” Andrew assured her. “It was so that I could keep a promise. One made many years ago.”

  “A promise to whom?”

  “To you.”

  She looked at him, perplexed.

  Andrew said gently, prompting, “It was on our honeymoon. We were talking, and you told me why you’d preferred a honeymoon in the Bahamas, rather than Hawaii. You said Hawaii would have made you sad. Then you explained about your father, and his dying at Pearl Harbor, going down with the Arizona.”

  “Wait!” Celia’s voice was barely a whisper. Yes, now she did remember … remembered after all these years.

  On that honeymoon day on a Bahamas beach, she had described her father to Andrew, described the little she remembered of Chief Petty Officer Willis de Grey … “When he was home the house was always noisy, full of fun. He was big, and with a booming voice, and he made people laugh, and loved children, and was strong …”

  And Andrew, who had been understanding then and ever since, had asked, “Have you been to Pearl Harbor?”

  She had answered, “Though I’m not sure why, I’m not ready yet. You’ll think this strange, but one day I’d like to go to where my father died, though not alone. I’d like to take my children.”

  It was then that Andrew promised, “One day, when we have our children and they can understand, then I’ll arrange it.”

  A promise … twenty years ago.

  As the Santa Isabella eased alongside Pier 10 and mooring lines snaked out, Andrew informed Celia quietly, “We’re going tomorrow; it’s all arranged. Going to the Arizona Memorial, to your father’s ship and where he died. And just as you wanted, your children will be with you.”

  Celia’s lips trembled. Speech seemed beyond her as she reached out and grasped both Andrew’s hands. Her eyes rose to his, and in them was a look of adoration such as few men in their lifetimes ever see.

  When she could manage it, her voice heavy with emotion, she declared, “Oh, you beautiful, beautiful man!”

  2

  At 10 A.M. a driver and a rented limousine ordered by Andrew were waiting for the family outside the Kahala Hilton Hotel. The late August day was warm, though not oppressive, with a light breeze from the south—Kona weather, Hawaiians called it. A few scattered tufts of cumulus dotted an otherwise clear sky.

  Earlier, Lisa and Bruce had joined their parents for breakfast in a pleasant suite that overlooked Waialae golf course and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Today and yesterday there had been a steady, happy stream of talk as the four of them filled in, with descriptions, experiences, and animated questioning, the six-month gap during which they had been apart. Lisa had completed, with happy enthusiasm, her freshman year at Stanford. Bruce, soon to enter his final year at the Hill, had applied for entry to Williams College in Massachusetts—itself historic, in keeping with what continued to be his main academic interest.

  As part of that interest, and in anticipation of today, Bruce announced he had recently completed a study of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He informed the others matter-of-factly, “If you have any questions, I think I can answer them.”

  “You’re insufferable!” Lisa had told him. “But since your service is free, I may condescend to use it.”

  Celia, while managing to keep up with family banter over the breakfast table, felt within herself an unusual sense of detachment. It was a feeling difficult to define but somehow, on this day, it seemed as if a part of her past had returned—or shortly would—to join the present. On waking this morning she had been conscious of a sense of occasion that had persisted, and she had dressed accordingly, carefully selecting a crisp white pleated skirt and a tailored blouse of navy blue and white. She wore white sandals and would carry a white straw handbag. The effect, which she intended, was neither casual nor unduly formal, but smart and … the words came to her: caring and respectful. Inspecting herself before joining the others, a thought about her father sprang to mind, a thought she tried to resist at first, then allowed to take shape: If only he had lived to see me now—his daughter, with my family!

  As if sensing something of Celia’s feelings in advance, the others had dressed less casually than usual. Lisa, who the day before had worn jeans, today had on a simple but attractive flowered voile dress; it brought out her young and glowing beauty, and for a moment Celia saw herself at Lisa’s age—nineteen—twenty-seven years ago.

  Andrew had chosen a lightweight suit and, for the first time in many days, was wearing a tie. Her husband, Celia thought, who would be fifty soon and whose hair was now entirely gray, looked increasingly distinguished as years went by. Bruce, still boyish t
hough with serious ways, was handsome in a Hill School blazer with an open shirt.

  As the Jordan family approached the limousine, the driver touched his uniform cap politely and held a rear door open. He addressed Andrew. “Dr. Jordan? You’re going to the Arizona, I believe.”

  “That’s right.” Andrew consulted a paper. “But I was told to tell you not to go to the Visitor Center first, but to the private dock of CINCPACFLT.”

  The driver raised his eyebrows. “You must be a V.I.P.”

  “Not me.” Andrew smiled and looked toward Celia. “My wife.”

  Inside the limousine, as they moved away, Lisa asked, “What’s CINC—whatever you said?”

  It was Bruce who answered. “Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet. Hey, Dad, you pulled wires!”

  Celia gazed at Andrew curiously. “How did you arrange all this?”

  “I used your name,” he told her. “In case you don’t know, my dear, it still cuts ice, and you have a lot of people who admire you.”

  When the others pressed him, he admitted, “If you must know, I telephoned the Felding-Roth regional manager in Hawaii.”

  Celia injected, “Tano Akamura?”

  “That’s right. And he asked me to tell you that you’re greatly missed. Anyway, it happens that Akamura’s wife has a sister married to an admiral. The rest was easy. So we’re going to the Arizona in an admiral’s barge.”

  “Dad,” Bruce said, “that’s great staff work!”

  His father smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Celia said. Then she asked, “When you were talking to Tano, did you by any chance ask him how things were?”

  Andrew hesitated. “You mean at Felding-Roth … and about Montayne?”

  “Yes.”

  He had hoped she wouldn’t ask, but answered, “Apparently very well.”

  “That’s not all you found out,” Celia insisted. “Tell me the rest.”

  Reluctantly Andrew added, “He said Montayne is a big success and, in his words, ‘selling like crazy.’”