The Hormone Factory: A Novel

by Saskia Goldschmidt

  4 …

  Levine was a both realist and an idealist. Idealism is something a businessman can’t afford, but as a man of science, it had helped him go far. He was born in Germany, but being a Jew, he couldn’t find suitable employment in his own country. Germany had given rise to the most brilliant musicians, writers, and scientists, it was our most important foreign market, and yet, instinctively, I had never trusted the Germans, no matter how civilized they might appear to be. The fact that Rafaël was a Jew was a point in his favor, of course, but still, I was on my guard. I’d always had a foreboding, long before the shit hit the fan, that caution was in order when dealing with a people who, like a brainless mob, showed themselves ready to blindly follow the greatest villain history has ever seen.

  Levine seduced me with his intelligence, his sense of responsibility, his indomitable drive, and his business acumen. He had a medical degree and had been teaching at a northern Dutch university since 1912. Yet when the First World War broke out, he had felt obliged to serve his fatherland. A man of honor, he had volunteered as a physician in the Imperial Army and was awarded the Iron Cross, second class, for his loyal service. In the nineteen-twenties he was appointed chairman of the pharmacology department at the University of Amsterdam, where he presided over his own research institute.

  We had dinner together in the spring of 1923, joined by my brother, Aaron, sitting there like a sack of potatoes as usual, in Die Port van Cleve, a restaurant in the center of Amsterdam named after a town in Germany. The very choice of restaurant spoke to Levine’s continued attachment to the land of his birth, even though that land had seen fit to spurn this learned man’s erudition.

  Levine’s command of the Dutch language was so poor that people always begged him to speak in his mother tongue, since he was impossible to understand otherwise. He was an imposing gentleman of near middle age, with a striking, aristocratic bearing. His black hair, showing singularly little gray, was just starting to recede. Behind his round spectacles his dark, probing eyes seemed to pierce right through you. Adorning his upper lip was a fashionable little mustache which ten years later would acquire an unfortunate association with the fiend who was to have such a dire effect on our lives. I approached him with a healthy dose of suspicion at first. And indeed, there was that confounded accent of his, the incomprehensible syntax, Germanisms galore, but also, thank God, a sense of humor. During the first course, a beet and herring salad, he kept throwing his career accomplishments in my face, hitting the first and only raw nerve of my young life. Having only three years of high school under my belt was my sore spot, and he found it.

  “I am in a noble profession,” he declared; “nothing can compare with being chairman of the department of pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam, this beautiful city.”

  His words cut me to the quick. I was a rookie, just starting out, untested and able to call myself the boss only on account of my father’s untimely death. I didn’t yet have any kind of record to boast of, and was sensitive about my youth. I felt it was a strike against me; I was nothing but a green provincial salesman next to this egghead, who was obviously enjoying rubbing my nose in his own stellar achievements. Aaron sipped his wine and gazed at me, sensitive as he was to what riled me.

  When Levine brought up the subject of insulin’s discovery by that dratted pair of Canadians, it was with a tone of envy that I recognized. What he wouldn’t have given to score that breakthrough himself! As the waiter served us platters of blood sausage, rillettes of braised baby back ribs in salsify cream, and a Jerusalem artichoke and giant-leaf tart floating in a “kitchen maid’s tears” salsify broth, Levine proclaimed that he was confident he could be the first to make the newly discovered insulin commercially available on an industrial scale.

  “I have the formula,” he said, unable to suppress a triumphant grin. “I could be the first in the world to succeed in standardizing the product. To isolate the insulin from the pancreas is one thing. But for it to be made into medicine and save lives, it must be standardized. It can only be mass-produced if it’s standardized. If I succeed, I’ll be able to obtain an exclusive license for the manufacture and sale of insulin in the Netherlands; throughout Europe, in fact.”

  Right then and there he had me—this was exactly the man I needed. He droned on, and I greedily drank in every word of his monologue.

  “However,” Levine went on, “as an academic, I don’t possess the means to undertake this research on an independent basis. I do have my own institute, but it is sadly lacking in every way. My laboratory is poorly equipped, the apparatus is outdated, and I don’t have enough chemists or pharmacologists on my team of the caliber required to get a head start on this. We are up against the foremost scientists in the world; it’s a race against time, which will only be won with a team of first-rate people and a state-of-the-art research institute.”

  Levine regarded me gravely, while Aaron blankly watched the waiter filling up his glass. Aaron doesn’t much care for people who are very sure of themselves. I do. It was time to put my offer on the table.

  “Professor Levine,” I said, “I am your inferior both in years and in experience, and yet, as I listen to you, it’s as if you are putting my own thoughts into words. It’s fate: we are destined to work together on this grand undertaking. I am in a position to give you that research institute. A laboratory, a budget for personnel and research, and all the organ meat you’ll ever want. I will give you carte blanche, as long as you give me your word you’ll make the insulin ready for mass production as soon as possible. Insulin produced and marketed on a commercial scale, as a joint venture of business and science—it’s never been done before. And once that’s done, we can move on to the next project. I’ll want you to work on isolating as many new substances from these organs as you can, anything that will result in commercially viable medicinal products.”

  By the time dessert was served, the general outline of our future partnership was already jotted down on the back of Levine’s cigar box: a new company joining together our respective strengths. And by the time we’d enjoyed our coffees, an exceptional brandy, and one of Levine’s exquisite Cuban cigars, parting with the promise to meet again in a few days to finalize the deal, the fellow had already come up with the perfect name for our new institute: Farmacom. A name that said it all: a pharma-commercial partnership to produce medicines that hadn’t yet been invented.

  The fledgling concern that was to expand into one of the world’s first multinational companies was conceived in an Amsterdam dining establishment with a German name, born of the union of an intellectual giant and a cutthroat businessman.

  5 …

  Just as I was preparing to go to the partnership agreement meeting with Levine a few days later, Aaron walked into my office. He was chewing on his pencil, as usual: a nervous habit he never managed to kick and had probably acquired back when his stuttering was so bad that it ruled out normal conversation. That was one of the reasons my father had named me his successor in his will, dooming Aaron to live forever in my shadow. Strangely enough, it hadn’t seemed to bother him at the time.

  “Motke,” Aaron said, lowering himself lethargically onto the armrest of the chair facing my desk, “you know, don’t you, that with all the promises you’ve made to the guy, you have seriously undermined your negotiating position?”

  That was Aaron to a T. Never so much as opened his mouth, sat through every meeting like a slab of beef on a meat hook; but he was always prepared to come up with a laundry list of objections afterward, pointing out where I’d slipped up. The annoying thing was that he was often right. I was used to his silent, watchful presence, and I have to admit that in some ways I relied on it. He was my disapproving conscience, always reminding me of my weaknesses.

  It was true, I had promised Levine the moon, intoxicated as this mere sausage maker had been by the grand possibilities the fellow had rattled off. Naturally, I wouldn’t give my brother the satisfaction of being right.

&n
bsp; “Fools are always the first to judge,” I said, fixing him with a withering stare. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. We are at the start of something radically new; you’ve got to have the courage of your convictions, you have to go big, and put all your cards on the table. Collaborating with Levine is going to make us huge, I feel it in my bones, we’re on the cusp of doing something truly groundbreaking, and you’re whining about the chump change that’s needed to make it come true?”

  Aaron shrugged his shoulders, heaved himself off the armrest, and shuffled to the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and said, “You’re quite right, you have dug up an excellent candidate, and it’s more than likely he’ll make good on his promises. You’re the one with the business instinct around here. I’d nevertheless like to give you a piece of advice, something I’m not often in the habit of doing: please make sure the De Paauw factories retain their autonomy, that we don’t wind up shackled hand and foot to some professor who, aside from what’s good for the company, has his own reputation and his future in academe to think about.” Then he shut the door behind him.

  • • •

  My brother was right, of course. Rafaël—who proposed that we call each other by our first names, lulling me into thinking the negotiation was going to be a piece of cake (as I’ve already told you, I was just starting out in my career, and still somewhat wet behind the ears)—turned out to be a master negotiator, not at all inclined to be flexible. He knew he had stoked my greed with his vow to make my dream come true. I found myself unable to heed Aaron’s warning. Never again in my life have I groveled the way I did when drawing up that contract. Rafaël Levine and I became partners in the newly formed Farmacom. The De Paauw Slaughterhouse and Meatpacking factories were to supply Levine with everything he needed to turn his shabby University of Amsterdam lab into a world-class institute. Funds would be put at his disposal to hire scientific personnel and to furnish his laboratory with the most up-to-date equipment, to put him in a position to win the global race to be first. He was given free rein on how he chose to run the institute and his research program. Moreover, at our own site a new installation annexed to the De Paauw Slaughterhouse and Meatpacking Co. would be built as an additional research and manufacturing facility for the new hormones. In return, Levine would advise us on the best extraction and production methods, and would market his inventions only with our explicit permission. It seemed only fair to make him a shareholder and member of the new company’s board of directors. Altogether a win-win situation, as they call it these days. I was reasonably satisfied with the way things had gone so far. But just as I was starting to lean back in my chair, thinking we had come to the end of our negotiation, Levine leaned forward in his.

  “Just a few minor points,” he said, taking a big pull on his Cuban cigar. “I assume you are aware that the generally accepted standard of scientific inquiry is that it should always steer clear of anything that isn’t strictly pure, impartial research. The fact that I am prepared to stake my name and reputation on Farmacom and your meatpacking business is due to my sincere desire to make the new cures commercially available. That is why I have agreed to enter into a partnership for which I am bound to be heavily criticized. I am taking a big risk here. In return, I want you to give me the final say over the staff we take on at Farmacom, as well as over any new hires at De Paauw involved with pharmaceutical production. Furthermore,” he went on, “I insist on having a veto over any new drug that as a scientist I am unable in good conscience to endorse. And finally, I propose that we plow ten percent of Farmacom’s net profits back into some scientific inquiry of my choosing.” He gazed at me amiably. I could just see Aaron’s triumphant grin, and opened my mouth to object, to protect the family firm’s autonomy.

  “As far as I’m concerned, my dear Motke,” Levine went on before I could get a word in, “this is not up for negotiation. My honor and good name are of supreme importance to me. They mean more to me than my wife and five children put together. I have worked all my life to preserve them, and I shall never give anyone else the power to ruin them. So either you agree to my proposal, or we end this here and now and go our separate ways.”

  I gulped. Over the past few days I’d already been envisioning a factory floor humming with insulin production and an office buzzing with orders coming in from all over the world. Then I remembered Aaron’s face just before he’d shut my office door behind him. Yes, I was taking a big risk in agreeing to these terms, but wanting to win means grabbing the bull by the horns. Isn’t there always some risk associated with progress; don’t you have to be prepared to play for high stakes if you want to succeed?

  Rafaël sat back in his chair, puffed out a ring of smoke, and gazed at it thoughtfully as if it held the future. There wasn’t a trace of anxiety on his face. I was offering him an entire research institute, a potential goldmine, but he looked as if he’d be just as happy to walk out the door—and, indeed, straight into the arms of another meatpacker. Would Bartelsma or Van der Vlis make him the same kind of offer? I couldn’t imagine those dimwits having the imagination, the vision to take this on. Which was exactly why I had to act right away.

  I could deal with Aaron’s scorn.

  • • •

  A few days later—it was the summer of 1923—Rafaël Levine and I, in the presence of Aaron and a number of attorneys, signed the contract detailing the most stringent partnership I have ever entered into, a partnership that was to bring us spectacular success. And one which, thanks to the vagaries of history, I was able to wriggle out of some twenty years later.

  Horace said it best: “Make money, my son, honestly if you can, but make money!” That is what I have done, without worrying too much about getting my hands dirty if necessary. It may not be altogether a fluke that I did not find the courage to terminate this groundbreaking partnership until Aaron’s silent, reproachful presence had been snuffed out in a cloud of Zyklon B.

  6 …

  Pain, paralysis, and the cussed helplessness that goes with it all. That’s the worst. I, the guy who couldn’t be pinned down, am finally forced to lie helpless, age ninety-seven, in Mizie’s clutches. Her moment of revenge has come at last. She’s had to wait a long time, but every loathsome, slow-moving second that I’m confined here on my stinking cot, not the conjugal four-poster but an adjustable hospital bed with metal rails, is balm to her wounded soul. Here I lie, imprisoned in a body that no longer works, in a bed that looks a lot like the cages that once housed our lab animals. She subjects me to my many daily treatments with barely concealed glee. My once pearly-white teeth are now yellowed and stained; every night I have to surrender the dentures stopping up the gaps in my formerly seductive smile. She holds out her hand with that haughty, condescending little smile of hers, which betrays both triumph and a glint of martyrdom as a widow-in-waiting. It must be a pleasure for her to see me lying here like this, with my fallen cheeks, my old man’s chops. I can read her sense of victory in the twinkle in her eyes; her pretense at sadness doesn’t fool me. I’m finally no longer in any condition to be unfaithful to her, at least not physically. Ah, these revolting diapers, they’ve turned me into an overgrown baby. That’s why I am now obliged to allow the cute young thing, whom in my younger days I’d have hoist on my own petard, if you know what I mean, to soap my flaccid genitals with a pink washcloth under the watchful eye of my lawful wife. Next, once Mizie has turned me on my side, she’ll get to work lathering my buttocks, and then towel off the whole shebang before slapping a clean giant diaper on my ass again. It is utter humiliation; it can’t get any worse than this.

  I’ve tried in my own way to live my life as a mensch, and I now realize that I’ve completely failed.

  I console myself with the thought that even Mizie, still in the prime of her life, with her saintly airs that make me want to vomit, with her façade of decency and virtue, is driven by self-interest, by the need to dominate and gloat.

  Oh death, where is thy sting, so that I won’t have
to go on seeing snatches of my deplorable life flash before my eyes—they come looming up out of nowhere, only to disappear again into this fog of gloom.

  I do have the odd moment of solace when I recall something I can be proud of. The satisfaction of having lived at a time when there were still new things to be discovered, and my good fortune to have been in a position to facilitate those discoveries. I find myself returning to the days when the technology was evolving by leaps and bounds, and I was buoyed with the knowledge that my entrepreneurial spirit was making a difference, and leading to cures for fatal diseases. Those consoling memories make me smile and, just for an instant, resign me to my fate.

  But far more often it’s memories of the women that come and disturb my peace of mind—always the women. They were both my greatest joy and my life’s most terrible curse. It was that blasted libido of mine that kept me endlessly chasing skirts. I was addicted to the thrill of the chase, which would sometimes propel both my conquest and me to the brink of disaster.

  Now that my decrepit body’s testosterone motor has finally sputtered its last, they loom up before me, always in my weakest moments, the Furies of my past. They take on, as ever, the face and form of Rivka, Rosie, and Bertha, the three great mothers of vengeance. They pound on the inside of my skull, screeching, giving me a tongue-lashing for the many times it seems I made the wrong choice.

  I stretch out my arms toward Death, who’s just sitting there smirking on the metal rail of my bed, and am forced to watch him turn around and slowly back away, calling to me from a distance, “Not now, not yet, your time has not yet come.” I hear his cold laugh, and there is no place for me to hide.