The Hormone Factory: A Novel

by Saskia Goldschmidt

  But that was nothing compared with the way Levine treated us. He was never happy with our efforts; he was always criticizing our research methods, which he considered too slapdash or sloppy, or else he was unhappy with the promotion campaigns, or with our global marketing strategies, or our domestic or foreign outreach. We kept hearing that we weren’t running enough by him, that we weren’t heeding his directives, and that we were doing it all wrong. He wanted to be consulted on every trivial decision. He expected to receive an extensive account, or “business report,” as he called it, several times a week from us, to keep him abreast of everything, every single little detail, under consideration. His obnoxious meddling was starting to turn my initial gratitude into a growing sense of irritation. It wasn’t only me; everyone at Farmacom, all the workers putting their heart and soul into making our firm succeed, felt that way. I went through several very capable directors in those years, people I’d have liked to keep on, who quit because they did not like being constantly second-guessed and treated like schoolchildren by the slave driver in Amsterdam. Never in my life have I known anyone who was as much of a control freak as Levine. Besides, it galled me that he had so little faith in me or my people, and that he hardly ever showed any appreciation of my success in getting his inventions sold as far afield as Indonesia, China, and South America.

  And yet I just couldn’t let the enormous potential of the pituitary gland slip through our fingers. Levine always knew how to whet my hunger, and time and time again, dependent as I was on his expertise, I ended up acceding to his demands.

  16 …

  My talks with the priest turned into a tradition that I consciously kept going. The clergyman never brought up Rivka’s activities, probably because the casual, nonsectarian gatherings she organized were not conducted in the strict Catholic spirit he’d originally had in mind.

  And yet we did reach a certain measure of trust in our relationship. We met several times a year in the privacy of my office to discuss any problems with the workers, as well as any items of concern to his flock. Our conversations thus provided me with some useful insight into how our products were perceived by the Church. The insulin and the vitamins we manufactured could reasonably be expected to bring a certain amount of goodwill, but Preparation 288, which had recently come on the market, was being greeted with a great deal of mistrust. After all, the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and it was felt that deciding whether someone is fertile or not ought to be left up to our Maker; interfering in that domain was tantamount to blasphemy.

  One day the prelate told me he was sometimes called upon to counsel young brides or wives who were having trouble conceiving. If his advice did not result in a pregnancy, he would recommend that they resign themselves to their fate. Another group suffered from the opposite affliction (and here the padre gave a rather sour smile): an overabundance of offspring. In that case he always tried to convince them that having a large brood was a blessing.

  As I listened to the priest’s hokum, it occurred to me that I did not have to rely solely on Levine—who was growing more demanding and arrogant by the minute—for experimentation. My own factory was teeming with human guinea pigs! Saartje in export, Milly and Rosie and all the others doing their stinking best down there for nine hours a day, could be more than just a docile herd of meatpackers. I had never before viewed the frumpy wenches working on the shop floor as real people, women with typical female problems. My workforce and Farmacom’s innovations had been two quite separate entities to me until then, but the black-frocked priest’s lisped confidences suddenly brought them together, opening up a world of possibilities. Just as my factory’s generous supply of pancreas had been a bonanza to Levine, so my female employees could be used as test subjects in my own experimental Garden of Eden. A fertile paradise to which Levine would have no access, and where I could garden to my heart’s content.

  • • •

  You might say that my experiment was a hobby that got a little out of control. My intention was to conduct a small, private research project. I now explain it as the weakness of a young man coping with many stressful responsibilities on a daily basis. Just as my youngest, my Ezra, hasn’t seemed able to control himself at the pinnacle of his career, so you might characterize my actions in the early years of the rutting hormone as my own personal Waterloo. They set off a string of events that brought me to the edge of the abyss, and left my reputation dangling by a thin thread. But it was Aaron who stepped over the edge and tumbled into the void—no, leaped of his own volition. And I got out of the experimentation business before anyone could kick me out. Knowing how to hang on, that’s what’s important.

  My own experimentation with that fascinating rutting hormone, the one that seemed to have the ability to cure the poor girls and women in my factory of their ills, began as a sincere attempt to alleviate their suffering. At the same time, the opportunity to make my own observations and draw my own conclusions without being subjected to Levine’s constant carping was too tempting to resist. It was a clumsy effort to clear at least a small space for myself where I might operate independently from Levine and gain some insights of my own into an area where otherwise I was utterly dependent on the Prussian prof.

  From Rivka, whom I didn’t tell of my plans, I found out which of the women at the plant had fertility or menopausal problems. I decided to focus on the young married gals who longed for motherhood but were still childless after several years. Can you blame a young man for zeroing in on that particular group instead of tired, flabby old hags complaining of hot flashes or insomnia? Besides, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I was, after all, an amateur researcher, working on my own, and there was only so much I could do.

  Even though Aaron was in charge of personnel—just one of the many responsibilities we had divvied up between us back then—I did sometimes have occasion to summon an employee up to my office myself, usually only in the case of some serious misdemeanor. I was top man at the firm, after all; I knew how to deal with the miscreants. I usually sent them packing with a thundering sermon, telling them I would make it my personal business to make sure no other firm in the area would hire them either.

  I approached my embryonic project with proper caution. First I informed Aaron I wanted to get a better picture of our factory workers’ circumstances. We were in the throes of the most serious economic recession the world had ever seen, and since in those uncertain times a reorganization might become necessary, I wanted to be in a position to make the right decisions when the time came. I would therefore be asking individual workers to come up to my office for an interview from time to time. As I was explaining this, Aaron stopped chewing on his pencil and gave me an icy stare.

  “What are you up to?” he asked coldly.

  “Just what I said,” I replied, and stared back at him poker-faced. “We live in uncertain times, and I’m the one in charge here. I feel responsible for each and every employee of ours, therefore I want to know a little more about them before making any decision about their fate. At this difficult time, if you lose your job in these parts, you’re cooked; you know that as well as I.”

  “Indeed,” said Aaron. “I am only too aware that these are rotten times for our people. What bothers me is your sudden concern. The present crisis isn’t something new to them, you know, as it is for our directors. Our people down in the slaughterhouse, the ones slicing and packing bacon nine hours a day, the ones manning the ovens and carting off the waste, they’ve never known anything except trouble, misery, and want. They’ve been down and out all their lives. People living in these parts have always had the wolf at their door—nothing new under the sun, really. I’ve never seen you getting all softhearted about them before. So, Motke, what the hell has gotten into you?”

  For a moment I toyed with the idea of taking him into my confidence. Aaron couldn’t stand Levine, and he could probably relate to my fantasy of getting rid of him. But we weren’t there yet, not by a long shot, and I wasn’t sure Aaron
would condone my idea of experimenting on our employees. Also, I was a little embarrassed about wanting to start my own project, since the secrecy required and my lack of scientific know-how couldn’t help but make it amateurish. I decided I’d rather not have my brother’s scrutiny. And Aaron? He didn’t trust me one bit, grumbled and pouted, but in the end let me do as I wanted, as usual. He always let me have my way, no matter what the price.

  • • •

  Annie Bakels from packing was the first shiksa I called up to my office: married two years ago at age seventeen to Klaus Bakels, a butcher likewise employed in our slaughterhouse, and still childless. She entered looking pale and nervous, ushered in by Agnes, who had been asked to fetch the girl from the factory floor. Annie stopped just inside the door, where she took off her white cap and bowed her head. I walked up to her, led her to the chair across from my desk, then went to sit down in my own armchair, with its elaborately carved wooden backrest crowned with a peacock, and nodded at my loyal secretary to leave us. Agnes took her time moseying out of there, obviously dying to know what this was about; something told her it wasn’t going to be the usual scolding.

  Annie sat hunched up like a frail little bird, her eyes on the floor, waiting, a sight not all that different from that of a quivering laboratory rat cowering in a corner of its cage after an injection, as if trying to make itself invisible. I attempted to put her at ease with some friendly small talk, which only seemed to alarm her even more. It wasn’t easy to bring up the subject with that little heap of misery, who’d apparently been driven into a panic by the mere fact of having been called to my office. I cursed the fact that my only interaction with my workers heretofore had been to play the bad cop.

  “Don’t be scared,” I said, smiling my most charming smile. “You haven’t done anything wrong, that’s not the reason I sent for you.”

  “But Mr. De Paauw,” she whispered, “then why am I here? I’m always on time, never out sick.”

  “I am aware of that,” I quickly reassured her; “no, I sent for you in order to discuss something of a very personal nature. It’s about the problems you and your husband are having. I realize it might seem a bit alarming, the boss wanting to speak with you about this, and of course I don’t wish to be disrespectful, but I believe I may be able to help you.”

  She raised her head for the first time, tears glinting in her eyes, the panic now full-blown.

  “Problems? Me and my Klaus? But we ain’t got no problems, us!” Her eyes darted wildly around the room, as if she might have missed something she ought to have noticed. She went on uncertainly. “He’s a good man, he is, ain’t he? He don’t beat me, he don’t drink, we’re good together.”

  Even that statement came out sounding like a question. I quickly went on. “I am delighted to hear it, that’s fortunate. Still, I think there’s something in your marriage that isn’t all it should be, am I right?”

  I’d expected the tête-à-tête with my employee to be a little less work. I’m just not cut out for tiptoeing tactfully around a subject. Seducing a woman was one thing, but getting one to agree to take part in a scientific experiment required quite a different approach, one at which I’d had no prior experience. I was used to practicing my arts of seduction on a more sophisticated type of woman. This timid, vulnerable little thing was quite another kettle of fish. I cleared my throat.

  “As you may know, at Farmacom we’ve been working on developing new kinds of drugs.”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly, as if the slightest movement on her part might set off some terrifying cataclysm. I felt a surge of impatience. Goddamn it, I was in a position to supply this little minx with the brat she so longed for—as long as that bastard Bakels didn’t put the kibosh on it. But for that to happen, she would have to be just a little more cooperative. I didn’t have all day, I had a board of directors meeting scheduled in half an hour. This little bundle of misery had to be gone by then. I decided to push on and get to the heart of the matter.

  “We have come up with a drug that may overcome barrenness, and if you’d like, I could provide you with some. For free.”

  She raised her head and stared at me like a deer caught in the headlights. I could tell from her dazed look that what I’d said had gone completely over her head.

  “A home without children is like a church without an organ,” I went on, hoping that the analogy would lead to greater comprehension. She did now seem to get it, because a tear was beginning to trickle down her pale cheek. The subject was out in the open. I staunchly continued. “Tell me, are your periods regular?”

  She looked down again and, with the barest of shrugs, shook her head no. My heart leaped.

  “Fine,” I said; “in that case I can help you. I’ll give you a package of tablets to take back with you; swallow one of these three times a day for two months. Then come back here in eight weeks and tell me if you’ve started menstruating. If so, there’s a good chance that if you keep taking the pills you’ll soon be pregnant. Understood?”

  She nodded slowly. You could practically hear her brain creaking as she tried to take it all in, which took quite some effort.

  “One other important thing,” I continued. “I don’t want you to mention this to anyone. Not to the girls in your department, not to your parents, and not even to your husband. Just think how surprised he’ll be when you tell him there’s finally one on the way. So that’s the deal. Break the deal, and—no more pills for you. Not only that, but both you and your man get the sack, is that understood?”

  I slid the carefully prepared packet of tablets across the desk and gestured for her to take it. She turned it around warily, opened it, and sniffed at the pills. She pulled a face, since the horse urine tablets definitely had a bad odor. We hadn’t yet come up with a solution for that.

  “It ain’t dangerous, is it, sir?” she asked.

  I reassured her it wasn’t and told her the stuff had been tested on thousands of lab animals, and that a famous Amsterdam professor had been giving this remedy to some big-city doctors to treat their rich lady patients. And that she was the only girl in our town right now lucky enough to have her female problem cured for free. Then I asked her to do something for me in return: keep track of whether there were any physical changes in her body and note these every day. Any discharge, bleeding, dizziness, stomach cramps, excess or lack of energy, appetite—any little thing could be of interest. I gave her a little notebook and a pencil with which to jot these things down.

  “Because,” I said in conclusion, “rabbits can’t give us that sort of information, but smart girls like you can.”

  Her wan little face was flushed bright red as she left my office with the packet of pills, the notebook and pencil tucked into the pocket of her smock.

  It’s gone now, the feeling of excitement I got from seeing the little wench leave my office with those tablets, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back. The triumph I felt then has been completely crushed by the events that were the eventual outcome of that afternoon.

  17 …

  My condition worsens by the day. Not all at once; on the contrary, the deterioration seems to be progressing in near-imperceptible increments, gradually weakening me like the doddering white mouse in its metal cage in a corner of the lab, the researchers’ canary in the coal mine. When the poor animal, with a gasp, breathes its last and collapses onto its back, its legs sticking up in the air stiff and cold, the researchers know it’s time to air the place out because there’s been a lethal buildup of fumes in the lab. Since I haven’t yet kicked the bucket, Mizie can tell that her ploy to postpone the bitter end is working.

  Here I lie in my jailhouse bed, my mind as clear as the alcohol in our demijohns. My mind seems determined to remain sharp, so that I’ll have all my marbles as I’m forced to watch every physical part of me break down bit by bit. My stomach no longer tolerates solid food, and my beast has given up the ghost.

  Once I thought it would be different. I’d have preferred
to die in the saddle, so to speak. Tommy Cooper, the well-known comedian, keeled over onstage of a heart attack, and the audience howled with laughter. I can’t think of a finer death for a person in his profession. I’d always imagined that I’d croak while making love, right at the grand, overwhelming, and glorious climax. Could there be a more gratifying send-off? I snake my right hand under the plastic edge of the diaper, fumbling for the pathetic remains of my beast. Limp, quivering flesh, a hopelessly sad case; my decrepit old engine has sputtered its last.

  But my ticker keeps beating, and Mizie refuses to let me go. Is it because she’s afraid of being left behind, or is it because this is her revenge, to make me pay for all the miserable years she spent at my unfaithful side?

  Right after we were married she conveniently forgot the fact that when we first started going at it hot and heavy—I no longer in the flower of youth, she still fresh and juicy—I had also been seeing a whole slew of other women. It is man’s nature to play the field, as everyone knows. Did she really think I would shed my reputation like some useless old overcoat the moment I was lured into marrying her? Oh, to hell with marriage, that detestable institution. I’ve always been dead set against it, and the only reason I fell into the trap again was to calm my old man’s fear that my seductive powers would dry up someday. But as I said yes for a second time, I secretly swore to myself (not in vain, as it turned out) that this second marriage would not put a damper on my escapades either.