The Hormone Factory (14 page)

The doctor received me in his surgery in the late afternoon.

“I have come on condition that I can trust you not to breathe a word to anyone about this,” I began. “I would hate to have my brother or Professor Levine hear from you that we’ve had this
little talk. Aaron keeps me informed about his treatment, naturally, but I’d nevertheless like to hear from you if there is any chance he can be cured.”

The doctor gave me a reassuring smile and reminded me that he was bound by his Hippocratic oath. In any case, his lips were sealed. When I asked him if he agreed with the diagnosis I had initially shared with him over the telephone, he nodded in the affirmative.

“Well now,” he eagerly began, despite his sworn adherence to the Hippocratic oath, “your brother presents as a typical case of a man suffering from a low sex hormone condition, and it has probably affected his life grievously, as you more than anyone else must know. It’s a blessing that we now have a remedy for it, and he seems to be tolerating this brand-new drug exceptionally well.”

“But it isn’t having any effect,” I blurted out.

The doctor carefully shook his head from side to side, trying to suppress a smirk. “As you are no doubt aware, I have been emphatically instructed to increase the dose by the smallest of increments only, since the preparation is still in the experimental stage. Although there have been practically no significant negative side effects, it nevertheless behooves us to proceed with caution. Surely I don’t have to explain that to you?”

“I am only too aware of Professor Levine’s conservative approach,” I replied, “and of course I completely agree that unreasonable risks must be avoided at all costs. But my brother’s depression and his inertia are so extreme that I am very worried and live in fear every day that he might harm himself. I would give anything to see you step up the dosage a bit, so that he’ll be cured sooner. The professor’s prudence is often somewhat exaggerated.”

The doctor looked a bit troubled. He’d apparently thought that Levine and I were of the same mind.

“If you were to hurry the whole thing up a bit, and boost my brother’s medication by some significant amount, you could be the first in the country to come up with a concrete, positive result! It would be a way to make a name for yourself. You’d be able to publish your results, and gain instant fame all over the world.”

I can spot a man seething with frustrated ambition a mile away, one who wishes he could set himself apart from his colleagues as he plods through life in a stuffy consultation room.

“I would be
most
grateful, and in recompense, you may be assured that in the future Farmacom will always be giving you our new products to try out first, before distributing them to any other practitioners.”

The doctor had to give it some thought. The room grew quiet. I waited. I can be patient as long as I know it’s worth it. The doctor squared his shoulders and answered, as I’d expected, “Fine, I will up the dose significantly. On one condition: you may not have a professional oath to abide by, but I trust that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone.”

I stood up and shook his hand firmly. “Naturally. And I promise you won’t regret it.”

“I trust that I won’t.” He shut the door quietly behind me.

23 …

The next few weeks saw a noticeable change in my brother’s behavior. Little by little his step grew more energetic, his expression livelier. He was starting to not only speak up in meetings, but also express disagreement, which he had never done before. He came up with new suggestions for increasing our exports, and took steps to improve working conditions in the factory. I gave him plenty of elbow room, happy to see the change in him, and chuffed that Rafaël’s discovery did indeed work the way he had said it would.

I had asked the girl Rosie to come and see me in my office one day. A cute little thing with long, slightly wavy black hair; big, dark eyes; full lips; even white teeth; a well-proportioned body with small breasts; and startlingly large hands. At first she’d resisted my advances, nervously shaking her head, twisting her mouth, and fluttering her long, sturdy fingers incessantly, as if the strangled words hidden inside were struggling to come out in the form of some kind of sign language. A strange dance of the hands. She seemed to regard our brief encounters on my Cozy Corner sofa as necessary insurance against unemployment. I assumed, however, that she enjoyed the passion with which I took possession of her. In any case, she must have been flattered
by my attentions. That day, just as I was seeing her out of my room after a short but satisfying intermezzo, Aaron happened to walk by on his way to his office. He stared at Rosie, who lowered her eyes bashfully, greeting him in a low voice. It was the first time I’d ever seen Aaron’s eyes light up. I winked at him, upon which he turned his head away and darted back into his room.

• • •

Some days later the priest asked to see me. That surprised me, for our twice-yearly conversation had taken place three months earlier. What did he want with me?

After greeting me warmly, he took his usual place on the sofa. He gazed at me beatifically, tapping his long, emaciated fingers together, a habit of his, as if he felt the need to rehearse the rhythm of his sentence first.

“Mr. De Paauw,” he said, and swallowed, “I am obliged to raise a delicate subject with you.” As he tried to find the right words, a faint blush spread across his pallid visage. “It feels like I’m sticking my nose in someone else’s business, and I had to do a great deal of soul-searching before I finally screwed up the courage to come here. There’s no worse venom than evil tongues. One of my parishioners has been telling tales about you, and what she is saying worries me.”

He leaned forward and looked at me sternly. I felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through me. Had one of those little sluts spilled the beans? I quickly tried to recall which girls had spread their legs for me recently, right there, on the very sofa where the reverend now sat stiffly perched. And as the pastor lisped on in his roundabout way, unable to get to the point, I cast about for ways to save myself. A substantial donation to the Church. It would probably have to come down to that.

The clergyman took a deep breath and seemed finally ready to come out with it.

“Mr. De Paauw, there appear to have been some improper activities in these parts.” As he spoke he didn’t dare look at me. “I have therefore spoken sternly to my parishioner and have made it very clear to her that such unsavory situations arise only when the alleged recipient has given some provocation thereto. I know the young people in their teenage years well enough to understand how difficult it is for a man to resist temptation when they flaunt their bodies at us as they do. I do not know if it is yourself or your brother who has failed to control himself. You are a happily married man, and I must therefore assume that these lapses are your brother’s. I would urge you to admonish him. Please regard this conversation as the warning of a friend, one who would not wish your enterprise anything untoward.”

I let out a deep sigh of relief. If I had understood him correctly, the padre had some secret peccadillos of his own that he didn’t want to come to light, and so he wasn’t about to shout this kind of gossip from the rooftops. Whether he was really unsure whether the stories were about me or he just wanted to spare me the embarrassment didn’t matter right then.

I assured him that I would reprimand my brother and that there would be no further improprieties. But which of the little bitches had let the cat out of the bag? I thought it better not to ask. I ended the conversation by thanking him for placing such trust in me, and saw him to the door. I decided that for the time being I had better restrict my dalliances to just the girls who were most receptive. And to Rosie. After all, with her I had nothing to worry about, since she never set foot in the priest’s house of worship. Rosie belonged to my own race, the Chosen People,
the ones who in these turbulent years were feeling the noose of hate tightening ever more snugly around our necks.

No need for hush money, then—for the time being.

• • •

In February 1938 we convened a lengthy board meeting to deal with a packed agenda, including, to mention just a few items, the construction of a new laboratory on the recently purchased tract of land; a strategy to deal with the effect the evil prick’s likely takeover of Austria could have on our foreign trade; and the renewal of Levine’s contract, which ran out the following year. Levine decided to make the most of the opportunity by demanding an absurd increase in his already exorbitant salary, an unreasonable cut of the profits, and an even greater say over the way we manufactured our products. Tensions were running high among the board members, and there were many angry exchanges. Levine’s bitter accusations that we were unwilling to meet him halfway made me seethe. Aaron, who much to Levine’s surprise and dismay was taking an active part in the debate, parried that if the proposed contract did not meet his expectations, he was free to resign from Farmacom. Although I was happy to see Aaron taking my side so energetically, I did have to do some deft backpedaling to ensure that Levine did not pack his bags right then and there. I had been fantasizing about ending the relationship, but was all too aware that Farmacom did not yet have the necessary know-how, and hadn’t yet built up enough of a worldwide reputation, to stand on its own without him.

Another concern was that Levine, with his gold mine of international contacts, might pack up his wife and his five children any day now to abscond to the other side of the world and throw in his hat with some big multinational corporation. After all, how
can you ever be sure that a foreigner who’s been kicked out of his own country will remain loyal to the nation that took him in and gave him both work and recognition?

When the other board members left the room, Aaron stayed behind, which was unusual for him. I offered him a glass of whiskey, thanked him for his feisty intervention, and pointed out that I too longed for the day when we’d be able to show the Prussian the door, but asked him to hold his horses just a bit longer, since we were going to need more time to extricate ourselves from our involvement with the professor.

Then I looked at him pointedly and asked, “I have the feeling your therapy is starting to work, is that true? You seem so much more active and involved. I’m seeing very little sign of the depressed, apathetic man you were just a while ago.”

Aaron took a sip of his whiskey. He sighed.

“Something’s definitely happening,” he said after a while. “The awful depression, the feeling I’m dragging my body through some sticky morass, yes, that’s definitely getting better. And I’m not finding it as hard to get up in the morning these days.”

He sighed again. I remember that conversation as if it were yesterday. It was a brief exchange but pivotal for both of us. I probably shouldn’t have let my enthusiasm carry me away; maybe what he said should have raised a red flag. But what’s the point of stewing over that now? It’s just one of the endlessly useless thoughts coming at me out of nowhere as I lie here in my iron cage.

“It sounds as if the treatment is doing you some good,” I said, “both mentally and physically.”

Our relationship, which was slowly but surely improving, was still too rocky to allow me to come clean and tell him I knew more about his treatment than he thought.

“Maybe,” he said, “it’s one thing leading to another. The soul gland is what our Prussian pasha calls it, and not for nothing. Something in me is definitely changing, Motke, and it scares me sometimes. It feels like some kind of rage boiling up inside me, something so strong that I fear it might just overpower me. Do you know the feeling?”

“But that’s fantastic!” I cried. “That, Aaron, is masculine energy. Congratulations!”

I slapped him enthusiastically on the shoulder, but Aaron’s expression remained troubled. “Well, we’ll see, Motke,” he said, getting up and draining his glass. He smiled awkwardly and then, without another glance, left the room.

24 …

On March 11, 1938, the news came that we had all feared: Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg had resigned and the Nazis were goose-stepping through the streets of Vienna, where until recently their party had been banned. I was at a Ministry of Economic Affairs conclave in The Hague when I heard the news. I returned to my office in a despondent mood, since this meant we were now barred from doing business with Austria too. I was also worried, naturally, about what other plans the brutal pig might have for Europe.

As soon as I walked into the reception area, I knew something was wrong there as well. Instead of the usual sedate atmosphere, the monotonous rattle of countless typewriters and the quiet murmur of bookkeepers and secretaries conferring, there was a suppressed buzz of excitement in the air. I surprised some visibly agitated employees in the hall, who scurried hastily back into their offices, leaving their doors ajar.

When she saw me, Agnes came running. Her usual composure was gone; she was in a state of total panic.

“I’m so relieved you’re here, Mr. Motke,” she stammered, glancing nervously at Aaron’s closed door. “Something dreadful has happened. Please, let’s go inside.”

She dragged me into my office and as soon as the door was shut burst into tears.

“Your brother, there’s something terribly wrong with him. He went after Rosie; he’s brutally assaulted her.”

“What?” I exclaimed.
“Aaron?”

Agnes looked at me anxiously and went on with her story. “He ordered me to fetch her up from export. I did think it was a bit strange. What does he want with Rosie, I asked myself. But hey, he’s the boss, isn’t he, so I went and got her and when she went in, I hung around outside the door for a bit, because I didn’t really trust it.”

I had always known that my loyal Girl Friday possessed a healthy dose of curiosity, but never before had she admitted it to me so openly.

“ 
‘Come here, you!’
I heard him bellow in a loud, scary voice I’d never heard him use before. Then it was quiet, then Rosie cried
‘No!’
and after that I heard a crash, as if a chair fell over. Your brother growled, Rosie screamed, there was more crashing around, it sounded as if they were fighting and smashing things. And then I heard noises that sounded like they, well,
you
know …” Agnes blushed, shrugging her shoulders. “Rosie kept yelling
‘No!’
I just didn’t know what to do; I called the others out of their offices. But no one dared to intervene, we just stood there listening to your brother bellowing from time to time. Then after a while the door flew open and Rosie ran out.”