Fortunately, there was one financial resource that Adam had not reckoned on. Anya’s modest salary as a lab employee suddenly gained significance. Moreover, thanks to Dmitri’s perverse “generosity,” they had a roof over their heads. Leaky, but a roof nonetheless.
Still, for Adam the emotional compensation more than justified his financial loss. Now he could be with Anya openly, walk over to her station in the lab at any time and give her a hug.
He had always known that she was intelligent, but now he could appreciate her scientific acumen to the fullest. And whatever she had not absorbed from her omnivorous reading, he could fill in.
Heather was their house guest the next weekend. For some inexplicable reason, she adored their rickety apartment and enjoyed sleeping on the new convertible sofa they had purchased to replace the sagging couch.
She had liked Anya instantly. Among other things, Anya had an unerring instinct for talking to younger people. Far from making Heather feel like a child, she soon had her feeling like a friend and equal.
“Your father’s a great teacher,” Anya enthused to Heather.
“No,” he told his daughter, “Anya’s a great pupil.”
Heather laughed. “Well, at least you both agree that the other’s ‘great.’ ”
There was something satisfying—even reassuring—to Heather in the way her father and Anya so obviously cared for one another.
“I was just thinking,” Heather offered. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could move in with you guys? Can you imagine how I’d do in my science homework?”
Adam smiled warmly. “Well, honey, you know how Anya feels. And how hard I’ve tried.”
“Yeah,” Heather acknowledged, unable to mask her disappointment. “Do you think maybe the court would reconsider if you were married?”
Anya turned to Adam, her eyes sparkling. “Did you put her up to saying that?”
“Not at all, darling. You know Heather well enough to realize that nobody puts words into her mouth.”
“Absolutely,” his daughter concurred. “And speaking as a Boston bluestocking, I want to express my official disapproval of your unofficial shacking up. In fact, I was going to ask you for a CD player for my birthday. But I’ll drop that request and settle for a quiet wedding.”
At this point Adam addressed Anya melodramatically. “Darling, for the sake of my daughter’s sensitive psyche, would you consider marrying me?”
She smiled happily. “Yes, my love, I’ll think about it.”
“When will you make up your mind?” Heather asked enthusiastically.
“Now. I’ve thought about it. And I will.”
But the honeymoon would have to wait, for professionally they were making progress at a feverish pace. Other medical centers throughout the world had been helping them by running identical trials on similarly afflicted women. Results were now beginning to come in from the larger scale studies in Minnesota, Bonn, and at the University of Nice. These statistics were so astonishingly alike that, in his wildest dreams, Adam would never have dared to imagine them.
Oh Christ, Max, he thought, I wish you could have lived to see these printouts. The trials selected women who had had five or more unexplained miscarriages in the first trimester of pregnancy and divided them into groups. In subsequent pregnancies, one-third were treated with cortisone. Another third were given large doses of natural progesterone in vaginal suppositories, with the rest merely used as controls.
To the elation of Adam and his team, more than seventy-five percent of groups A and B carried their babies successfully to term. This meant that, if he could convince the medical community, doctors would be able to replace steroid treatment with natural progesterone and risk far fewer side effects.
Now the scouts for the pharmaceutical companies caught wind of the profit potential in Adam’s work and approached him. Clarke-Albertson, the most enthusiastic of them, was anxious to buy into his research.
After wining and dining the two Coopersmiths at the Colonnade, their vice-president for public relations, Prescott Mason, a patricianly tweeded Boston Brahmin with an upper-class accent, was somewhat nonplused to find Anya the reluctant party.
“With due respect, Mr. Mason,” she argued, “I personally can’t see a reason for making a pharmaceutical commitment now. Adam’s pretty well fixed to do his work. We not only have research money from the Harvard endowment, but NIH has responded generously to our proposals.”
“All the more reason to let us on board—I mean, for your own protection,” Prescott Mason countered. “It’s pretty certain they’re backing a winning horse. And my company has always seen to it that the jockeys get their share of the purse.”
He turned deliberately to Adam and remarked, “A little extra pocket money never hurt anybody, did it, Dr. Coopersmith?”
Adam wondered whether this was mere salesman’s banter or if Mason had done his research and was making a thinly veiled allusion to his punishing monthly matrimonial debt.
Clarke-Albertson’s man was a trained scientist and could discourse on every potential use that might arise from Adam’s research.
“Our people are not only interested in the cure you’re searching for, but the exact identity of the villain. Imagine what benefits could accrue if we ever reproduced the antibody you’re trying to tame. I mean, right now, the women you’re treating object to the negative effects it has on their pregnancies.
“To look at it from the opposite perspective, it could be the perfect medium for birth control. I mean, there’s been such a fuss because the French RU-486 is, technically speaking, an early abortion pill. But since your ultimate product is a natural hormone, the fact that it can also prevent conception would pose no moral dilemma at all.”
“That’s a good point, Mr. Mason,” Anya interposed, “I can imagine a range of possibilities in developing countries with population problems—India, for example.”
“Quite,” Mason agreed, unable to evince much enthusiasm for the profit potential from a third-world country.
But then, in a cadenza to his pitch, he added, “And, of course, there’s the ultimate side effect. If your research succeeds, you will inevitably attract the attention of the Swedish Academy.”
Anya’s face was glowing as she turned to her husband. “Haven’t I always told you that, darling?”
“Come on, it’s a real rat race,” Adam protested.
“I agree,” the executive said, “but Clarke-Albertson not only has resources to subsidize and ultimately market your work, we’ve also got plenty of influence in the Nobel situation. Actually, we’ve already stage-managed two prizes—and one near-miss. The fellow died on me.
“I’m surprised,” Anya commented, “I’d have thought that was the last morally unspoiled domain.”
“Oh, let me assure you,” Mason responded. “They don’t give the award to undeserving people. They’ll pick you sooner or later. But wouldn’t it be nice if the recognition came sooner?”
“Mr. Mason, there’s something I want you to understand,” Adam responded. “I am—quite literally—the heir to a wealth of research and insight that should have brought Max Rudolph the Nobel. Frankly, if recognition came ‘sooner,’ there’d be a better chance that his wife would be around to see it.”
“I hope, if anything, that strengthens our appeal to you,” Mason commented.
“Let me be absolutely candid with you, Mr. Mason. There’s only one appeal to me in any of this—time. This is one instance in which money can buy time, and that’s the one thing I can’t give my patients. They need answers as soon as possible, and if what you’re proposing brings them even a day closer, then I’m morally bound to accept the best offer possible.”
“I appreciate that, Dr. Coopersmith,” Mason said with genuine admiration. He quickly added, “Only promise me that if any of our competitors get to you with something concrete, you’ll give us a chance to beat it.”
They sat up for the rest of the night discussing the matter. They quickly realized that the opportunity was too attractive to let pass.
“Adam, let me speak as a woman for a moment,” Anya said with emotion. “This cure couldn’t help me, but I know how others would feel. Right now they’re walking around thinking themselves inadequate, with their own personal rain clouds darkening their lives.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “A lot of my patients are in their early forties—which is adding to the agony. For their sake, we shouldn’t keep him waiting. I think we’d be derelict not to say yes right away.”
Adam refrained from telling her how much he had been moved by her altruism. He still regretted that he could do nothing to help her own pain. Perhaps she would take some consolation from helping others.
The next morning he phoned Prescott Mason. Who, in turn, phoned his legal department. Who, in turn, phoned Harvard’s legal department. And at the end of politely tenacious bargaining, each side came out thinking that its deal had bettered the other.
Now, in a very literal sense, Adam and Anya were in business.