6

The sights and sounds of faraway places fascinated Andrew. While Celia transacted her Latin-American business with regional functionaries at outposts of Felding-Roth, he explored the offbeat intricacies of foreign cities or savored scenes of rural life outside. The Parque Colón of Buenos Aires became familiar, as did great herds of grazing cattle on the Argentine pampas. So did Colombia’s Bogotá, surrounded by mountain grandeur, where downward-sloping streets, the calles, carried streams of icy water from the Andes, and ancient mule carts jousted with modern autos for a share of space. In Costa Rica, Andrew came to know the Meseta Central, the country’s heartland and, beyond it, dense broadleaf forests where mahogany and cedar grew. From Montevideo’s narrow, congested Old City streets there were journeys into Uruguay’s valleys, the air fragrant with the scent of verbena and aromatic shrubs. There was Brazil’s dynamic São Paulo city, on the edge of the Great Escarpment and, behind it, wide grassy plains with rich red-purple earth, the terra roxa.

When the children were traveling, Andrew took them along on his explorations. At other times he reconnoitered, then Celia joined him when her work permitted.

One of Andrew’s pleasures was bargaining in native shops and making purchases. The drugstores—droguerias—often with their wares crowded into tiny spaces, fascinated him. He talked with pharmacists and occasionally managed to hold conversations with local doctors. He already had a smattering of Spanish and Portuguese and his use of both languages improved with practice. Celia was learning the languages too; at times they helped each other.

Despite it all, not every trip was a success. Celia worked hard. Sometimes, trying to solve local problems against an unfamiliar background was a strain. The result was tiredness and normal human frictions which led, on one occasion, to the fiercest, most bitter fight of Andrew and Celia’s marriage, a collision of wills and viewpoints they were unlikely to forget.

It happened in Ecuador and, like most husband-and-wife quarrels, this one started off low-key.

They were staying, with Lisa and Bruce, in the capital, Quito, a high mountain city in a cupped palm of the Andes, and a place of vicious contrasts—mostly between religion and reality. On the one hand was a profusion of ornate churches and monasteries with golden altars, carved choir stalls, crucifixes of silver and ivory, and monstrances vulgar with encrusted jewels. On the other was dirty, barefoot poverty and a peasantry undoubtedly the poorest on the continent with wages—for those lucky enough to find work—of some ten cents a day.

Also in contrast to the poverty was the Hotel Quito, an excellent hostelry in which the Jordan family had a suite. It was to the suite that Celia returned in the early evening, after a generally frustrating day spent with the Felding-Roth gerente local, Señor Antonio José Moreno.

Moreno, fat and complacent, had made clear that any visit by a head office functionary was not only an unwelcome intrusion on his territory, but an affront to his personal competence. Moreover, whenever Celia suggested changes in procedures, he had given her what she now knew to be a standard Latin-American response, “En este país, así se hace, Señora.” When Celia suggested that an attitude of “In this country that is how it is done” could sanctify inefficiency and sometimes be unethical, she was met by the same bland rejoinder and a shrug.

One of Celia’s concerns was the inadequate information being given to Ecuadorian physicians about Felding-Roth drugs, in particular their possible side effects. When she pointed this out, Moreno argued, “The other companies do it like this. So do we. To say too much about things which perhaps are not going to happen would be perjudicial to us.”

While Celia had authority to issue orders, she knew that Moreno, as the man on the spot and a successful sales entrepreneur, would interpret them later—aided by differences of language—as he chose.

Now, in the hotel suite living room, her frustrations still seething, she asked Andrew, “Where are the children?”

“In bed and asleep,” he answered. “They decided to go early. We had a grueling day.”

The fact of not seeing Lisa and Bruce, to which she had been looking forward, as well as what seemed a coolness in Andrew’s tone, irritated Celia and she snapped, “You’re not the only one who had a lousy day.”

“I didn’t say it was lousy, just grueling,” he observed. “Though for me there were unpleasant portions.”

Though neither realized it, the high altitude of Quito—more than nine thousand feet above sea level—was having an effect on them both. In Celia it produced a physical weariness, worsening her already downbeat mood. And Andrew had a sharpened acuity, an aggressive edginess, in contrast to his normal easygoing ways at home.

Celia said, “‘Unpleasant portions!’ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about that!” Andrew jabbed a finger, pointing to a collection of pharmaceutical bottles and packages on a side table.

With an expression of distaste, she told him, “I’ve had enough of that stuff for one day, so I suggest you get those out of here.”

“You mean you’re not interested?” His tone was sarcastic.

“Dammit! No!”

“Frankly, I didn’t expect you to be. Because what I have here is about drug companies and it’s unpleasant.” Andrew picked up a small plastic container. “Today, as well as taking the children out, I did some shopping and asked questions.”

Flipping open the container top, he poured tablets into his hand and held them out. “Do you know what these are?”

“Of course I don’t!” Dropping into a chair, Celia peeled off her shoes and left them where they fell. “What’s more, I don’t care.”

“You should care! Those are Thalidomide and I bought them today in a local drogueria—without a prescription.”

The reply jolted Celia and the sharp exchange might have ended there, except that Andrew went on, “The fact that I could buy them, five years after they should have been withdrawn, and buy other dangerous drugs marketed here without proper warnings because there are no government agencies to insist on adequate labeling, is typical of the don’t-give-a-damn attitude of American drug firms, including your own precious Felding-Roth!”

The injustice, as Celia saw it, when she had spent a large part of her day attempting to change what Andrew had just criticized, inflamed her to hot anger. It also robbed her of all reason. Instead of telling Andrew, as she had intended to do later that evening, of her frustration with Antonio José Moreno, she threw back at him her version of Moreno’s answer. “What the hell do you know about local problems and regulations? What right have you to come here and tell Ecuador how to run this country?”

Andrew’s face went white. “The right I have is that I’m a doctor! And I know that pregnant women who take these tablets will have babies with flippers instead of arms. Do you know what the pharmacist told me today? He said, yes he had heard about Thalidomide, but he didn’t know these tablets were the same thing because they’re called Ondasil. And in case you don’t know, Celia, or don’t want to know, Thalidomide has been sold by drug companies under fifty-three different names.”

Without waiting for a response, he stormed on, “Why always so many different names for drugs? Certainly not to help patients or their doctors. The only reason anyone can think of is to sow confusion and aid the drug firms when there’s trouble. Speaking of trouble, look at this!”

Selecting another bottle, Andrew held it out. Celia could read the label: Chloromycetin.

“If you bought this in the U.S.,” he declared, “there’d be a published warning about possible side effects, especially fatal blood dyscrasias. Not here, though! Not a word!”

From the collection on the table he chose one more. “I got this today, too. Take a look at Felding-Roth’s Lotromycin, which you and I both know about. We also know it shouldn’t be used by anyone with impaired kidney function, or by pregnant women, or women breastfeeding infants. But is there a printed warning saying so? Not on your life! Who cares if a few people suffer or die here because they haven’t been cautioned? After all, it’s only Ecuador, a long way from New Jersey. Why should Felding-Roth care? Or Celia Jordan?”

She screamed back at him, “How dare you say that to me!”

Now Andrew lost control.

“I dare,” he answered fiercely, “because I’ve seen you change. Change little by little over eleven years. From having decent feelings and ideals and caring, to not caring quite so much, then relaxing while you helped push useless over-the-counter junk, and now moving on to this—using phony head-in-the-sand excuses to justify something which you know is evil, but won’t concede, even to yourself.” His voice rose. “What happened to that idealistic girl who first brought me Lotromycin and wanted to raise the ethics of the drug business, the same one who stood up, straight and strong, at a New York sales meeting and criticized dishonest detailing? You want to know what happened to her? I think she sold out.”

Andrew stopped, then inquired scathingly, “Were ambition and promotion worth it?”

“You bastard!” Acting instinctively, without rational thought, Celia reached down and, seizing one of the shoes she had dropped moments earlier, threw it hard at Andrew. Her aim was unerring. The shoe’s stiletto heel struck him on the left side of his face, opening a gash from which blood spurted. But Celia failed to see. Blind to all else, she hurled venomous words.

“What gives you the right to be so goddam holy about morals and ideals? What happened to yours? Where were your precious ideals when you did nothing about Noah Townsend, and let him go on practicing medicine for nearly five years, when all that time he was high on drugs, and a danger to himself and others? And don’t blame the hospital! Their inaction doesn’t excuse you! You know it!

“And what about that patient,” Celia stormed on, “the young one, Wyrazik? Was it really Noah who killed him, or was it you? You, because when you could have done something about Noah, you did nothing, and left doing anything until too late. Do you ever lie awake nights wondering about that, and feeling guilty? Because you should! And do you ever wonder if there weren’t some other patients Noah killed during those five years, others you don’t know about, and who died because of your neglect? Do you hear me, you self-righteous hypocrite? Answer!”

Abruptly Celia stopped. Stopped, not only because she had run out of words, but because she had never seen such anguish as on Andrew’s face. Her hand went to her mouth.

She said softly, to herself, in horror, “Oh, my God! What have I done!”

Then it was not just anguish in Andrew’s expression which she saw, but sudden shock at something happening behind her. Following his gaze, Celia wheeled. Two small pajama-clad figures had come into the room. In their uncontrolled fury, both parents had forgotten Lisa and Bruce in the bedroom next door.

“Mommy! Daddy!” It was Lisa’s voice, choked with tears.

Bruce was sobbing uncontrollably.

Celia rushed toward both, arms outstretched, in tears herself. But Lisa was faster. Dodging her mother, she went to Andrew.

“Daddy, you’re hurt!” She saw the shoe, which had blood on the heel, and cried out, “Mommy, how could you!”

Andrew touched his face, which was still bleeding. Blood seemed everywhere—on his hands, his shirt, the floor.

Now Bruce joined Lisa, clinging to his father while Celia watched helplessly, guiltily, standing back.

It was Andrew who resolutely broke the impasse.

“No!” he told the children. “Don’t do this! You must not take sides! Your mother and I have been foolish. Both of us were wrong, and we’re ashamed, and all of us will talk about it later. But this is still one family. We belong together.”

Then, suddenly, all four of them were holding each other, emotionally, as if they never wanted to be separate again.

Soon after it was Lisa, aged ten, who broke away and, going to a bathroom, brought back wet towels with which, competently, she wiped her father’s face and washed away the blood.

Much later, when the children were again in bed and sleeping, Andrew and Celia came together, making love with a passionate, wild abandon, greater by far than they had experienced for a long time. Near the peak of their frantic coupling, Celia cried out, “Deeper! Deeper! Hurt me!” And Andrew, relinquishing all gentleness, seized her, crushed her, and thrust himself into her, roughly, crudely, deeply, again and again.

It was as if their earlier fierceness had released passions other than anger, passions which suddenly coalesced.

Afterward, though exhausted, they talked far into the night and again next day. “It was the kind of talk,” Andrew said later, “which we’ve needed to have, yet both of us put off.”

What each conceded was that, for the most part, there had been unpleasant truths in the other’s accusations.

“Yes,” Celia admitted, “I have relaxed some standards I once had. Not all, or even most, but some. And there have been times I’ve put my conscience in my pocket. I’m not proud of it, and I’d like to say I’ll go back to the way things were before, but I have to be honest—at least in this—and say I’m not certain if I can.”

“I guess,” Andrew said, “all of it goes with growing older. You think you’re wiser, more seasoned, and you are. But you’ve also learned along the way that there are obstacles and practicalities which idealism won’t ever conquer, so you ease up on ideals.”

“I intend to try to do better,” Celia said. “I really do. To make sure that what happened to us here will not be wasted.”

“I guess that goes for us both,” Andrew said.

Earlier he had told Celia, “You touched a nerve when you asked if I lie awake sometimes, wondering about Wyrazik’s death and perhaps some others. Could I have saved Wyrazik by acting sooner about Noah? Yes, I could, and it’s no good saying otherwise and living with delusions. The only thing I can say is that there isn’t anyone who’s been years in medicine who doesn’t have something in the past to look back on and know he could have done better, and perhaps saved somebody who died. Of course, it shouldn’t happen often, but if it does, the best you can do is hope that what you learned you’ll use later on for the benefit of someone else.”

A postscript to what happened was that next day Andrew had three stitches in his face, put there by a local médico who observed with a smile as his patient left, “Probably a scar stays, Doctor. It will serve as a reminder to your wife.” Since Andrew had earlier described the cut as the result of a fall while climbing, it merely showed that Quito was a small place where gossip traveled fast.

“I feel terrible about that,” Celia said. It was a few hours later and they were having lunch with the children.

“No need to,” Andrew reassured her. “There was a moment when I felt like doing the same thing. But you were the one who happened to have a shoe handy. Besides, my aim isn’t nearly as good as yours.”

Celia shook her head. “Don’t joke about it.”

It was then that Bruce, who had been silent through the meal, spoke up and asked, “Will you get a divorce now?” His small, serious face was tightly set, reflecting worry, making it clear the question had been weighing on him for some time.

Andrew was about to answer flippantly when Celia stopped him with a gesture. “Brucie,” she said gently, “I promise and swear to you that as long as your father and I live, that will never happen.”

“That goes for me too,” Andrew added, and their son’s face lighted up in a radiant smile, as did Lisa’s beside him.

“I’m glad,” Bruce said simply, and it seemed a fitting end to a nightmare which was past.

There were other, happier journeys the family shared during the lustrum spent by Celia with International Sales. As to Celia’s career, the period proved overall successful, enhancing her reputation at Felding-Roth headquarters. She even, despite opposition within the company, managed to achieve some headway in having the labeling of Felding-Roth drugs sold in Latin America come closer to the precise standards required by law in the United States. However, as she admitted frankly to Andrew, the progress was “not much.”

“The day will come,” Celia predicted, “when someone will bring this whole subject out into the open. Then, either new laws or public opinion will compel us to do what we should have been doing all along. But that time isn’t yet.”

An idea whose time had come was encountered by Celia in Peru. There, a large part of the Felding-Roth sales force was composed of women. The reason, Celia learned, was not liberation; it was sales. In Peru it is considered rude to keep a woman waiting; therefore in doctors’ offices detail women were ushered into a doctor’s presence quickly, ahead of male competitors who might have to wait for hours.

The discovery prompted a long memorandum from Celia to Sam Hawthorne urging recruitment of more detail women on Felding-Roth’s U.S. sales force for the same reason. “I remember from my own time as a detail woman,” Celia wrote, “that while sometimes I had to wait to see doctors, at other times they saw me quickly, and I think it was because I was a woman, so why not use that to our advantage?”

In a subsequent discussion Sam put the question: “Isn’t what you’re suggesting a way of advancing women for the wrong reason? That’s not women’s lib. That’s just using women’s femininity.”

“And why not?” Celia shot back. “Men have used their masculinity for centuries, often to women’s disadvantage, so it’s our turn now. Anyway, man or woman, we’re all entitled to make the most of what we have.”

In the end, Celia’s memo was taken seriously and began a process in Felding-Roth which, during the years that followed, was copied enthusiastically by other drug houses.

And during all this time, beyond the pharmaceutical business, outside events marched on. The tragedy of Vietnam was taking shape and worsening, with young Americans—the cream of a generation—being slain by tiny people in black pajamas, and no one really knowing why. A rock-music cult called “Woodstock Nation” flared briefly, then burned out. In Czechoslovakia the Soviet Union brutally extinguished freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy were savagely assassinated. Nixon became President, Golda Meir prime minister of Israel. Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis. Eisenhower died. Kissinger went to China, Armstrong to the moon, Edward Kennedy to Chappaquiddick.

Then, in February 1972, Sam Hawthorne, at age fifty-one, became president and chief executive officer of Felding-Roth. His accession to power was sudden, and occurred at a difficult, critical period in the company’s history.