Strong Medicine

by Arthur Hailey

  Celia nodded. It was really no more than everyone expected, and confirmed the earlier news given out after Montayne’s launching. But it did reinforce the recent question in her mind: had her resignation been hasty and foolish? Then, determinedly for today—this special day—she pushed such thoughts aside.

  The limousine moved swiftly, using the Lunalilo and Moanalua freeways and passing downtown Honolulu with its modern high-rise buildings. In about twenty minutes they left the freeway near Aloha Stadium, entering, soon after, the U.S. Navy Reservation at Aiea Bay. The smallish CINCPACFLT private dock was in a pleasant landscaped area used by military families.

  A fifty-foot navy utility boat—the so-called admiral’s barge—was waiting at the dock, its diesel motors running. The boat was operated by two naval ratings in dress whites. A half-dozen other passengers were already seated under a main-deck canopy.

  One of the ratings, a young woman with “bowhook” duty, cast off the moorings after the Jordans were aboard. The coxswain, on a control bridge midships, eased the boat from the dock and into the busy stream of Pearl Harbor traffic.

  The breeze felt earlier on land was stronger on the water, and wavelets slapped the utility boat’s hull, sending occasional light spray inboard. The harbor water was a dull gray-green, with little or nothing visible beneath the surface.

  The woman sailor provided a commentary as they circled Ford Island counterclockwise. Andrew, Lisa and Bruce listened attentively, but Celia, preoccupied with private memories, found her thoughts wandering and caught only snatches.

  “Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 … Japanese dive bombers, with torpedo and fighter planes, and midget submarines, attacked without warning … first wave at 7:55 A.M.… at 8:05 explosions rocked Battleship Row … 8:10, Arizona, hit in the forward magazine, exploded and sank … by 8:12 Utah had rolled over … California and West Virginia settled to the bottom … Oklahoma capsized … casualties, 2,403 killed, 1,178 wounded …”

  It was all so long ago, she thought—thirty-six years; better than half a lifetime. Yet never, until this moment, had it seemed so close.

  The navy boat, rolling in a slight chop near the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, altered course as it rounded the southern tip of Ford Island. Suddenly, directly ahead, was the Arizona Memorial, white in bright sunshine.

  Here is where it happened, and I have come at last. Lines from a poem sprang to Celia’s mind. “Give me my scallop-shell of quiet … And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.” As she looked ahead, beyond the bow of the boat, an incongruous thought intruded: The Memorial was unlike what she had expected. Instead, it resembled a long, white railway boxcar, deflated in the middle.

  The commentary again: “The architect’s words: ‘The form, wherein the structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory’ … Had the architect thought of that before or after? But either way, it didn’t matter. The ship was what mattered, and now its shape was becoming visible—incredibly, only a few feet below the surface of the gray-green water.

  “… and the Memorial spans the sunken battleship.”

  My father’s ship. His home when he was away from home, and where he died … when I was ten years old, five thousand miles away in Philadelphia.

  Andrew reached out, took Celia’s hand and held it. Neither spoke. Among all the passengers on the boat there seemed a constraint, a quietness, as if common sensibilities were shared.

  The coxswain laid them neatly alongside a pontoon dock at the Memorial entrance. The woman sailor secured the moorings, and the Jordan family, along with others, disembarked. As they moved inward, there was no longer movement beneath their feet since the Memorial rested on pilings driven into the harbor bottom. No part of it touched the ship.

  Near the Memorial’s center, Celia, Andrew and Lisa stood at an opening in the concrete structure gazing downward at the main deck of the Arizona, now clearly visible, awesome in its closeness.

  Somewhere beneath us are my father’s bones, or what remains of them. I wonder how he died. Was it swift and merciful, or some other, awful way? Oh, how I hope it was the first!

  Bruce, who had moved away, returned to them. He said quietly, “I’ve found grandfather’s name. I’ll show you.” His parents and sister followed until, standing beside many others, all subdued, they faced a marble wall, a sea of names and ranks.

  In that fierce few minutes of the Japanese attack, 1,177 had died on the Arizona alone. Later it had proved impossible to raise the ship which became—for more than a thousand of the dead—their final grave.

  An inscription read:

  TO THE MEMORY OF THE GALLANT MEN HERE ENTOMBED

  Bruce pointed. “There, Mom.”

  W F DE GREY CEM

  They stood respectfully, each with individual thoughts; then it was Celia who led the way back to where they had been earlier, looking down on the sunken hull from which the superstructure had long since been removed. The closeness of it fascinated her. While they watched, a bubble of oil rose from somewhere far below. The oil spread itself, like a petal on the water’s surface. A few minutes later, eerily, the process was repeated.

  “Those oil bubbles are from what’s left in fuel tanks,” Bruce explained. “They’ve been coming up like that since the ship went down. No one knows how long the oil will last, but it could be another twenty years.”

  Celia reached out to touch her son.

  This is my son, your grandson. He is explaining to me about your ship.

  “I wish I could have known Grandfather,” Lisa said.

  Celia was about to speak when suddenly, without warning, her emotional defenses wavered and collapsed. It was as if Lisa’s simple, moving remark was the last iota added to a barely balanced scale before it tipped. Grief and sadness overwhelmed Celia—grief for the father she had known so briefly, but had loved and whose memory these poignant moments at Pearl Harbor had brought flooding back; memories of her mother who had died ten years ago this month; and, combining with those older griefs revived, Celia’s nearer sorrow from her own failure, her great misjudgment as it now appeared, the recent ignominious end to her career. The last thought had, for six months or more, been resolutely thrust away. Now, like dues delayed but later to be paid, it added to the emotion and she broke. Oblivious to all else, she wept.

  Seeing what was happening, Andrew moved toward her, but Lisa and Bruce were faster. Both children embraced their mother, comforting her, and unashamedly were crying too.

  Andrew, gently, put his arms around them all.

  The family assembled for dinner that night in the Maile Room of the Kahala Hilton. On sitting down, Celia’s first words were, “Andrew dear, I would like us to have champagne.”

  “Of course.” Beckoning a sommelier, Andrew ordered Taittinger, which he knew to be his wife’s favorite, then told her, “You look radiant tonight.”

  “It’s how I feel,” she responded, beaming at them all.

  Since this morning, little had been said about their excursion to Pearl Harbor. On the Memorial during the few minutes of Celia’s breakdown, other people nearby had considerately looked away, and Andrew sensed that the Arizona setting, which evoked sad, sometimes tragic memories in so many who went there, had seen frequent and similar scenes of grief.

  Through most of the afternoon Celia slept, then later had gone shopping in one of the hotel stores, buying herself a stunning red-and-white long dress, Hawaiian style. She was wearing it now.

  “When you get tired of that dress, Mom,” Lisa said admiringly, “I’ll be glad to take it over.”

  At that moment the champagne arrived. When it was poured, Celia raised her glass and said, “To you all!—I love you dearly, and thank you! I want you to know that I shall never forget what happened today, and your comfort and understanding. But you should also know that now I am over it. In a way, I suppose, it was a cleansing process, a—what’s that word?”

  “Catharsis,” Bruce said. “Ac
tually it’s Greek and means purification. Aristotle used it to …”

  “Oh, cool it!” Lisa, leaning across the table, slapped her brother’s hand. “Sometimes you’re too much!”

  Andrew laughed and the others joined in, including Bruce.

  “Go on, Mom,” Lisa urged.

  “Well,” Celia said, “I’ve decided it’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself, and to put my life back together. It’s been a wonderful holiday, the finest ever, but it will be over in two more days.” She regarded Andrew fondly. “I imagine you’re ready to get back into practice.”

  He nodded. “Ready and keen.”

  “I can understand it,” Celia said, “because I feel the same way. So I won’t stay unemployed. I intend to find work.”

  Bruce asked, “What will you do?”

  Celia sipped her champagne before answering. “I’ve thought a lot about it, and asked myself questions, and come up each time with the same answer: The pharmaceutical business is what I know best, so it makes sense that I should stay in it.”

  Andrew assured her, “Yes, it does.”

  “Could you go back to Felding-Roth?” It was Lisa’s question.

  Her mother shook her head. “I burned my bridges. I’m sure there’s no way Felding-Roth would have me now, even if I wanted it. No, I’ll try other companies.”

  “If some of them don’t jump and grab you, they need their business acumen examined,” Andrew said. “Have you considered which ones?”

  “Yes.” Celia went on thoughtfully, “There’s one company, above all others, which I’ve admired. It’s Merck. If you were to look for a ‘Rolls-Royce’ of the drug industry, Merck’s the one. So I shall apply there first.”

  “And after that?”

  “I like SmithKline, also Upjohn. Both are companies I’d be proud to work for. After that, if it’s needed, I’ll make a longer list.”

  “I predict you won’t have to.” Andrew raised his glass. “Here’s to the lucky company that gets Celia Jordan!”

  Later, over dinner, Bruce asked, “What do we do tomorrow?”

  “Since it’s our last full day in Hawaii,” Celia suggested, “how about a lazy time on the beach?”

  They agreed that a lazy day was what they wanted most.

  3

  In the bedroom of the Jordans’ suite, a few minutes before 6 A.M., a bedside telephone rang stridently. The ringing stopped, then began again.

  Celia was sleeping soundly. Beside her, Andrew, crossing the boundary from sleep to wakefulness, stirred at the phone’s insistence.

  The night before, on going to bed, they had left the sliding glass doors to a balcony open, admitting a soft breeze and the murmur of the sea. Now, outside in the grayness of pre-dawn, objects were becoming visible—as if a stage director were going slowly from black, lighting a new scene. In another fifteen minutes the sun would begin ascending over the horizon.

  Andrew sat up, awake, the phone having penetrated his consciousness. He reached out to answer it.

  Celia stirred and asked sleepily, “What’s the time?”

  “Too damned early!” Andrew said into the phone, “Yes—what is it?”

  “I have a person-to-person call for Mrs. Celia Jordan.” An operator’s voice.

  “Who’s calling her?”

  A different female voice came on the line. “Mr. Seth Feingold of Felding-Roth, New Jersey.”

  “Does Mr. Feingold know what time it is out here?”

  “Yes, sir. He does.”

  Celia was sitting upright, awake now also. “Is it Seth?” When Andrew nodded, she said, “I’ll take it.”

  He handed her the phone. After another operator exchange, Celia heard the elderly comptroller’s voice. “Is that you, Celia?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’ve just been told we awakened you, and I apologize. But it’s noon here. We simply couldn’t wait any longer.”

  She said, puzzled, “Who is ‘we’? And wait longer for what?”

  “Celia, what I have to tell you is exceedingly important. Please listen carefully.”

  Feingold’s voice sounded strained. She told him, “Go ahead.”

  “I’m calling you on behalf of the board of directors, and at the board’s request. I am instructed, firstly, to inform you that when you resigned—for reasons which we all know—you were right, and everyone else …” The voice faltered, then continued, “All the rest of us were wrong.”

  She wondered, with bewilderment, whether she was hearing correctly, or was truly awake. “Seth, I don’t understand. You can’t be speaking about Montayne.”

  “Unfortunately, I am.”

  “But from what I’ve read and heard, Montayne is a spectacular success.” She remembered the positive report, relayed only yesterday by Andrew, from Tano, the Felding-Roth Hawaii manager.

  “That’s what we all thought, up to just a short time ago. But everything has changed—a sudden change. And now we have a terrible situation here.”

  “Wait a moment, please.”

  Covering the phone mouthpiece, she told Andrew, “Something important has happened. I’m not sure what. But listen on the extension.”

  There was one in the bathroom. Celia waited while Andrew went to it, then said, “Seth, go on.”

  “What I just told you was the first thing, Celia. The second is this: The board wants you to come back.”

  Still, she could scarcely believe what she was hearing. After a pause she said, “I think you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “All right. I will.”

  She sensed Seth organizing his thoughts and, while she waited, wondered why he was calling, and not Sam Hawthorne.

  “You remember the reports of damaged babies. Vegetable babies—that awful word. The reports from Australia, France and Spain?”

  “Of course.”

  “There have been many more—from those countries and others. So many more, there can’t be any doubt Montayne has been the cause.”

  “Oh, my God!” Celia’s free hand went to her face. Her shocked first thought was: Don’t let it be true! This is a bad dream and isn’t happening. I don’t want to be proved right, not this awful way. Then she saw Andrew through the open bathroom door, his face set grimly, and noticed the increasing light of dawn outside, and she knew that what was happening was no dream, but real.

  Seth continued, reciting details. “… began two and a half months ago with some scattered reports … cases similar to those earlier ones … then the numbers increased … more recently, a flood … all the mothers had taken Montayne during pregnancy … nearly three hundred defective births worldwide, so far … obviously more to come, especially in the United States where Montayne has been on sale only seven months …”

  Celia closed her eyes as the tale of horror grew. Hundreds of babies who could have been normal, but now would never think, or walk, or sit up unaided or, through their lifetimes, behave in any normal way … And still more to come.

  She wanted to weep bitter tears, to cry aloud in anger and frustration. But whom to cry to? No one. And weeping and anger were useless and too late.

  Could she, herself, have done more to prevent this grisly tragedy?

  Yes!

  She could have raised her voice after resigning, gone public with her doubts about Montayne, instead of keeping silent. But would it have made any difference? Would people have listened? Probably not, though someone might have, and if one baby had been saved, her effort would have been worthwhile.

  As if reading her mind from five thousand miles away, Seth said, “All of us here have asked ourselves questions, Celia. We’ve had sleepless, conscience-ridden nights, and there isn’t one of us who won’t carry some guilt to his grave. But your conscience can be clear. You did everything you could. It wasn’t your fault your warning was ignored.”

  Celia thought: It would be so easy and comfortable to accept that view. But she knew that to the end of her days she would always have doubts.

 
Abruptly, a new and troubling thought occurred to her.

  “Is everything you’ve told me, Seth, being made widely known? Is there urgent publicity going out? Have there been warnings to women that they should stop taking Montayne?”

  “Well … not exactly in that form. There’s been some scattered publicity, though—surprisingly—not much.”

  That would account, Celia thought, for the fact that she and Andrew had heard nothing adverse about Montayne while on their tour.

  Seth went on, “Apparently no one among the news people has pieced the whole story together yet. But we’re afraid it will happen soon.”

  “You’re afraid …”

  Obviously, she realized, there had been no attempt to create massive publicity, which meant that Montayne was still being sold and used. Again Celia remembered Andrew’s report yesterday; in quoting Tano he had spoken of Montayne “selling like crazy.” A shiver ran through her as she asked, “What has been done about withdrawing the drug and recalling all supplies?”

  Seth said carefully, “Gironde-Chimie have told us they’ll withdraw Montayne in France this week. I understand the British are preparing an announcement. And the Australian government has already stopped sales there.”

  Her voice rose to a shout. “I’m talking about the United States.”

  “I assure you, Celia, we’ve done everything the law requires. Every bit of information coming into Felding-Roth has been passed on promptly to the FDA in Washington. Everything. Vince Lord attended to that personally. Now, we’re waiting for a decision from FDA.”

  “Waiting for a decision! In the name of God, why wait? What other decision can there be but to withdraw Montayne?”

  Seth said defensively, “Our lawyers advise us strongly that at this stage it will be better to have the ruling from FDA first.”

  Celia was close to screaming. Holding herself in, she replied, “The FDA is slow. Their machinery could take weeks.”

  “I suppose that’s possible. But the lawyers insist—if we make the withdrawal on our own, it could be an admission of error and therefore of liability. Even now, the financial consequences …”