Strong Medicine (28 page)

Should they have kept feeding his habit the way they did?"

"Noah was an addict, but he was still a doctor," Celia pointed out. "And

you know perfectly well, Andrew, doctors can get all the drugs they want,

one way or another. If Noah hadn't got his from detail people he'd simply

have written prescriptions, which maybe

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he did as well as getting samples." She added with some heat, "Besides,

when the medical profession does nothing about doctors who become addicts,

why should pharmaceutical companies be expected to be different?"

"A fair question," Andrew conceded, "for which I don't have an answer."

Then, in August of 1967, Celia's reassignment happened.

Preceding it, one significant event occurred near the end of 1966. Sam

Hawthorne was promoted to executive vice president, making it clear that

unless something accidental intervened, Sam would someday soon be at the

head of Felding-Roth. Thus, Celia's judgment ten years earlier when

choosing a mentor in the company seemed close to being proved correct.

It was Sam who eventually sent for her and told her with a smile, "Okay,

your O-T-C servitude is over."

Sam was now in a palatial office with a comfortable conference area, and

instead of one secretary outside his door, his new job rated two. At a

previous meeting he confided to Celia, "Damned if I know how I keep them

busy. I think they dictate letters to each other."

Now Sam announced, "I'm offering you the post of Latin-American Director

for Pharmaceutical Products. If you accept you'll operate from here,

though you'll be away a bit, with quite a lot of travel." He regarded her

interrogatively. "How would Andrew feel about that? And you about the

children?"

Without hesitation Celia answered, "We'll work it out."

Sam nodded approvingly. "I expected that was what you'd say."

The news delighted and excited her. Celia was well aware that

international business in pharmaceuticals was becoming increasingly

important. The opportunity was excellent, even better than she had hoped

for.

As if reading her mind, Sam said, "International is where the future is

for sales. So far we've barely probed beneath the surface, in Latin

America especially." He waved a hand in dismissal. "Go home now. Share

the news with Andrew. Tomorrow we'll get down to details."

Thus began five years which proved a Rubicon in Celia's career. It also,

far from making the Jordans' family life more difficult, immeasurably

enriched it. As Celia was to write later in a letter to her sister Janet,

"All of us benefited in ways we never expected.

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Andrew and I because we had more real togetherness when Andrew traveled with

me than we ever did at home, where both of us were busy with our separate

working lives. And the children gained because when they traveled too, it

enlarged their education and made their thinking international."

From the beginning, when Celia brought home the news about her new

appointment, Andrew was happy for her and supportive. He was relieved that

her time with O-T-C was over, and if he had doubts about family separations

which her new work would entail, he kept them to himself. His attitude,

like Celia's, was: We'll make it work.

Then, thinking about it more, Andrew decided he would use the opportunity

to take some time away from the pressures of medicine and travel with Celia

when he could. Andrew, now just a year away from being forty, was

determined to profit from the lesson of Noah Townsend whose breakdown, he

believed, began with overwork and too much stress. Andrew had watched other

doctors, too, become obsessed with their profession to the exclusion of all

else, to the detriment of themselves and their families.

In the medical practice he had joined as a newly qualified internist eleven

years earlier-the year before he and Celia met and were married-Andrew was

now senior partner. The second doctor, Oscar Aarons, a stocky, brisk and

bustling Canadian with a lively sense of humor, had proved to be an asset

in whom Andrew had great confidence, and he enjoyed their burgeoning

friendship. A third internist, Benton Fox, a twenty-eight-year-old with

excellent credentials, had been with them for just a month and was already

working well.

When Andrew told Celia of his intention to travel with her sometimes she

was ovedoyed; as it worked out, he went along on South American journeyings

several times a year. Occasionally, depending on school arrangements, one

or both of the children traveled too.

All of it was made easier by some fortunate arrangements at home. Winnie

AugusL their young English bousekeeper-cum-cook, having long ago abandoned

her plan to move on to Australia, and being virtually a member of the

Jordan family after seven years, was married in the spring of '67.

Incredibly, her husband's last name was March. As Winnie put it, "If it 'ad

to be another month, I should be glad it ain't December."

When Andrew learned that Hank March, a likable, energetic

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man who worked at various outdoor jobs, was looking for steady employment,

he offered him a post as chauffeur-gardener and general handyman. Since

live-in accommodation would be included, the offer was accepted with

appreciation from both Winnie and Hank. For his part, Andrew continued to be

grateful for Celia's foresight in insisting, shortly after their marriage,

that they buy a large house.

Within a short time Hank seemed as indispensable as his wife, now Winme

March.

Thus Andrew and Celia could leave home, with or without the children,

confident their interests would be taken care of in their absence.

_- One note of family sadness intruded at this time. Celia's mother,

Mildred, died of respiratory failure after a severe asthma attack. She was

sixty-one.

Her mother's death affected Celia greatly. Despite the strength and support

of Andrew and the children, she experienced a sense of "aloneness" which

persisted long afterward, though the feeling, Andrew assured her, was

entirely normal.

"I've seen it happen in patients," he said. "The death of a second parent

is like severing an umbilical cord to our past. No matter how much we grow

up, while at least one parent is alive there's always a sense of having

someone to fall back on. When both are gone, we know we are truly on our

own."

Celia's younger sister, Janet, flew to Philadelphia for the funeral, though

leaving her busy oilman husband and their two small children in the Middle

East. Afterward, Janet and Celia had a few days together in Morristown,

each promising they would try to make mutual visits more frequently in

future.

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6 1

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 Co16n of Buenos

Aires became familiar, as did great herds of grazing cattle on the Argentine

pampas. So did Colombia's Bogotd, surrounded by mountain grandeur, where

downward-sloping streets, the calles, carried streams of icy water from the

Andes, and ancient mule carts jousted with modem 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 Sdo 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 drugstore"roguerias---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 ~vhich led, on

one occasion, to the fiercest, most bitter

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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 loca4 Sefior Antonio Jos~ 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 pals, asi se hace,

Sefiora. " 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

the,.n 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."