by Jake Wolff
He thinks, What’s wrong with me?
15
The Journal of Sammy Tampari: March 8–April 1, 2003
March 8
Arrived today in Bucharest with S and C. We flew first to London and spent two days there as tourists. I should have held firm and said no, let’s push on to Romania. But I’m grateful to S for helping me, and when he said he wanted to show us around his home city, how to say no? I asked C that actual question, and she stared into her hands and said, “Do you want to know if I want to see London?”
While we were there, C turned twenty-six. “My last birthday as your fiancée,” she said, and I knew what this meant: set a date.
What’s wrong with me? Recently I described it to C like light. What’s wrong with me is the absence of feeling the way black is the absence of light.
What’s wrong with me is this:
Good night.
March 9
S arranged for us to have a private tour of the Romanian Center for Health and Life-Extension. He knows the former research director of the center, someone named Bogdi, and organized this trip after I mentioned the center in an e-mail. I’ll meet Bogdi in a few days. For reasons I look forward to hearing, he quit the center to form a sort of rogue scientific consortium known as the Immortalist Underground. They have a website that requires a password log-in, and if you get the password wrong, the website crashes your computer.
The people who work at the center call it the Constantin, after the woman who founded it. In the 1950s, Cristina Constantin developed Rejuvitol-X5, an antiaging treatment that is now illegal in the States. C thinks I’m writing a chapter on the Constantin for my book, but I’m really here to heed the Belgian’s advice, to search for an injectable to go along with my ingestible. An appetizer to my entrée. I tried to convince C to skip this trip, to stay home and rest, but she is stubborn and suspicious, and I’ll have to be careful. S promised he would prep Bogdi on my lie.
Alarm set for 7:00 a.m., EET. An hour later, S arrived from down the hall. I was already showered and dressed. S was wearing a sweater vest over a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He has forearms like a race-car driver.
The Constantin is located a few miles north of the city. The place is described as a research facility, but it reminded me more of the health spas that line the Black Sea, places where celebrities sunbathe on the golden sand while paparazzi disguised as beach vendors take close-up photos of their famous breasts.
In the scientific community, no one takes this place seriously. The center produces a lot of wild claims and almost no verifiable research. But for the people who spend the last of their retirement savings on the Rejuvitol-X5 Life-Prolonging Program, the Constantin is anything but a joke. As we approached the entrance, I watched a queue of old people snake its way from the outer steps to the welcome desk.
“Waiting list hundreds of names deep,” said Alex, short for Alexandru, our tour guide while on the grounds.
In the late 1940s, Cristina Constantin, a biologist, discovered that procaine hydrochloride, i.e., Novocain, seemed to promote antiaging effects: increased wound healing, reduced cholesterol, even hair growth. The problem was that the body hydrolyzes procaine too quickly for these benefits to take hold. The numbing effect of procaine results from its disruption of neuron communication, like cutting the cord of a landline phone, and the body responds to this disruption with cholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down procaine in about an hour. Constantin theorized that if she could stabilize the procaine by eliminating its anesthetic function, the body would tolerate its presence for longer periods and allow the antiaging properties to do their regenerative work.
In 1951, Constantin premiered Rejuvitol-X5, a compound of procaine, benzoic acid, disodium phosphate, and a variety of antioxidants. In one of her earliest papers, Constantin documented a case study in which a sixty-year-old man with diabetes and severe eczema began treatment with injectable Rejuvitol-X5. In the “before” photographs, the patient looks oily and corpselike, as though someone made a wax sculpture of a mummy. In the “after” photographs, he looks like Tom Selleck from Magnum, P.I.
For a little under a decade, Hollywood celebrities and European political leaders flocked to Romania. The peer-review process allows for the emergence of fads such as this—it takes time to debunk them. But when it happens, it happens fast. In quick succession, the British Medical Journal released one, two, three articles proving that Rejuvitol-X5 offers no life-extending benefits. The FDA banned the drug in the United States. It was strange, in Bucharest, to walk into a convenience store and see little vials of the stuff hanging right there on the shelves, next to the spearmint gum. But if you want the really strong version, you have to attend the Constantin and get it shot into your veins.
I never doubted the studies discrediting Rejuvitol, but the center has continued to develop and test new formulations of the drug, or so I’d heard, and they’ve done so without the kind of regulations that plague medical technology in America. In the 1970s, at the height of the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the dictator ordered Cristina Constantin to make him immortal. Even after his execution, the center continued to operate with a kind of vaguely threatening authority. What did I think I’d find here? Maybe large vats of Rejuvitol bubbling in cauldrons, monkeys in cages undergoing highly unethical tests, the kind of experiments I would never condone, but if someone else happened to be doing them, ideally in a faraway country …
As Alex showed us around the facilities, it didn’t take long for my outlaw spirit to fade. The first floor was mostly examination rooms, and these looked like anything you’d find in a small-town private practice: blood pressure gauges, privacy screens, clear plastic jars full of tongue depressors. The room Alex showed me had a bookshelf stocked with bootleg DVDs, almost all of which starred Sandra Bullock.
“Where do you do your research?” I asked Alex.
He didn’t even understand the question. “We keep track of our clients here.”
“But who’s working on the Rejuvitol?”
“Our distributor is in Hungary. We just redesigned our logo!”
S moved to my side and touched my elbow. “Just wait until you meet Bogdi.” S’s fingers on my skin were electric. C took a picture of my unhappy face and smiled at it in the viewfinder.
As we approached the eastern wing, I heard the sounds of Ping-Pong echoing between the columns. Two old men, shirtless and in matching white shorts, volleyed the little ball back and forth between them. Their old-man breasts jiggled with each hit. They looked tan and happy—the men, I mean, not their breasts.
Alex sensed my growing disappointment and turned on the charm. “Listen, you know of President John F. Kennedy?”
“I think I’ve heard of him,” said C.
Alex paused for dramatic effect. “He spent three days here in 1960.”
“Not the best example,” said S.
Alex waved this away. “Come on. Rejuvitol does not stop gunshots.” He led us to a back office where a comically anachronistic row of secretaries—all young, pretty girls in tight-fitting sweaters—typed away on desktop computers. Behind them hung a large photograph of Cristina Constantin laughing and drinking tea with a beautiful and slightly androgynous German woman whom I recognized as Marlene Dietrich. Alex pointed to her.
“Also dead,” I said.
Alex realized that we were committed to giving him a hard time and smiled his first natural smile of the day. “Okay, but she is alcoholic and still lived to ninety? So, not bad?”
As if to court further dissent, he showed us a photograph of Constantin and a haunted-looking Spaniard with a mustache as thin and black as an underline.
“Salvador Dalí,” said Alex.
“Also dead,” said C and S in unison.
“But seriously,” Alex said. “Dalí was poisoned by wife, tried to set himself on fire, et cetera. Rejuvitol does not make perfect world, only healthy body.”
When he’d first introduced himself,
Alex proudly announced his age: “Fifty-nine years young.” He looks closer to thirty, and I have to assume this explains his prominent position at the Constantin. He’s a walking advertisement for the benefits of Rejuvitol. As a PR man, he seemed easily rattled.
“How often did Ceaușescu come here?” I asked.
Alex’s smile went away. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t work here, then?” asked S, in a tone that suggested, yes, Alex did work here, and, yes, S knows he worked here.
“I was very low level, an assistant to an assistant. Basically a boy secretary.”
“What kind of experiments did Constantin have you doing for Ceaușescu?” I asked.
Alex shrugged again. “I don’t know. I was very low level.”
On our way back to the lobby we again passed the row of young women at computers. Their typing ricocheted off the sleek metal desks and made it seem as if there were many more of them than they were.
Alex saw us fixate. “It used to be official policy: only young, beautiful women for clerical work. It really said that in the office handbook! Now that is not the case, but it is like a … trend now. We’ll hire anyone, but only young, beautiful women apply.”
“Was that a Ceaușescu policy?” I asked, even though I’d decided to stop asking about him.
One of the typists, a blue-eyed girl with an ergonomic wrist pillow, turned her head slightly and said, over her shoulder, “I don’t know,” completely out of instinct. Immediately the girl spun back to her computer, but I could see the back of her neck turn bloodred in embarrassment. We stood in awkward silence, during which I realized that this was the company policy now, to answer every question about Ceaușescu with a prompt “I don’t know.”
Alex’s old, smooth face flushed the same color as the girl’s neck.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I was just curious.”
Alex didn’t say anything. He stared for a second at his loafers and then took a deep breath as if he’d decided on something. Without a word he led us to his office, which was large and overlooked the volleyball net outside. He leaned against his desk and asked C to close the door behind her. When she did, he said, “Listen, for the girls the policy is just policy. No talking about Ceaușescu. But for me it is not just policy. It is also”—he weighed his words, searching for the right English phrasing—“a bad memory, like something you don’t want to talk about?”
I started to say something apologetic, but Alex continued without letting me.
“Some years, Ceaușescu visited every week. You could hear the bulletproof car coming miles away. It went very fast and sounded like a helicopter. He would bring many soldiers with guns, and it was like being invaded, only the invaders were your own countrymen. I remember 1978, Ceaușescu turned sixty years old, but you could not mention this. No ‘Happy birthday, General Secretary,’ unless you wanted to be taken out back. He pretended he was in his thirties, always. If you looked at him, you would be fired. If you took a picture of him, you would be taken out back. If you talked to him, taken out back. Only Dr. Constantin could speak to him, and imagine the difficulty! She could not say to him, ‘As a man in your sixties, you must do such and such to be healthy.’ She had to say, ‘You are so young and healthy, so here’s what you do to stay that way.’ Remember that Dr. Constantin was herself very old at this time. She was terrified of forgetting the rules, of saying something that would offend him. The second he left in his helicopter-car, she would cry and cry.
“Okay, and experiments? We had to develop new drugs and give them to our other patients without even telling them, to see what would happen? And it was sometimes very bad? Once we give an old woman a kind of Rejuvitol, but with bemegride. Her name was Camelia. Very old face, but young eyes, like our typists. She thought she was taking the regular medicine, but we gave her the new one, we had no choice, and she took it for three weeks. ‘I don’t feel good,’ she’d say, and we had to lie and say, ‘It’s fine, drink some water, be happy.’ And then one day, when I’m walking her to her room, she has such a bad seizure her eye removes from its socket and bounces against her cheek like a tetherball. This is what I think of when I think of Ceaușescu. Camelia’s eye dangling from the socket, because of something we did.”
S stepped forward as though he were going to comfort Alex, but when Alex looked up from the floor, it was clear that he wasn’t sad but angry.
“So you are disappointed,” Alex said. “So be it. We are not what you expected. You think you are the first to come here expecting weird science? We are actually much better than what you expected. We don’t hurt anybody, okay, or do things we shouldn’t based on the greed of one man. People come, we give them medicine—controversial, yes, but certainly safe, no one says otherwise, and they leave feeling good.
“You seem like nice people. But if you’re doing this research, then you already have more in common with Ceaușescu than most. You should look closely at yourself to make sure you are not too much like him, and also allow others to see you, not keep yourself hidden like Ceaușescu. So I thank you for coming to the Constantin and for giving me the chance to show you around. Be honest with yourselves and each other, always.”
On the way home, we stopped at a Kaufland supermarket and bought enough Rejuvitol for all of us. “Now in vials!” exclaimed the English packaging. We toasted one another’s health, tipped back our heads, and squirted Constantin’s elixir into the backs of our throats. This was the weak stuff, just vitamins. It tasted like apple juice. As we drank, I replayed Alex’s words. I am keeping myself hidden—from C most of all.
We polished off the Rejuvitol and threw the empty vials onto the floor of the rental car. S drove, C in the passenger seat, me in the back. More than once I caught S watching me in the rearview, and I thought, Do you see me?
Good night.
March 10
Rain and discord. Trapped inside. The plan was to spend two days sightseeing until the meeting with Bogdi. But in the morning the thunderstorms came and rattled the windows, and by afternoon, when the weather cleared, the streets were chaos. When we asked the concierge for a taxi, he just laughed. The Transport Workers Union has staged what’s called a warning strike, where they stop working for two hours in the middle of the day.
Dinner at the hotel, out of necessity. S came downstairs in jeans and a black T-shirt, the most casual I’ve ever seen him. I had dressed down myself, and C was practically wearing pajamas. It’s as though with the transport union on strike, we all went on strike. We laughed when we saw one another.
The dining room was dark, candlelit, with light piano music bubbling from wall-mounted speakers. The only other table was a group of Swedish real estate agents who are here, they announced to us loudly, on their yearly retreat. It was two guys alone with fourteen women. The guys sat at opposite ends of the table, sucking in their stomachs and grinning at their own luck. I tried ineffectively to order some wine, and S got involved, and C got involved, and somehow we ended up with two bottles.
After several glasses, S grabbed C’s hand and pretended to read her palm. “This is your heart line. You see how it’s all wavy? That means you’ll have many lovers but not many serious relationships.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Honey, is there something I should know?”
C traced the line with her finger. “My palm thinks I’m a slut?”
“I’m afraid so, yes.” S kissed her fingers.
C cooed in a funny, exaggerated way. She made a loving face at me, letting me know that their flirting was just for laughs, but she didn’t need to. Here were these two people I am maybe in love with, being their wonderful selves with each other. What could be better?
“Okay,” S continued, “and here is your fate line. This tells me you’re going to be trapped forever in this hotel.”
“I wonder which one of you I’ll kill first,” C said.
We finished our entrées and sat back in our chairs, exhausted and full. For dessert, the waiter brought a massiv
e cheese plate that I don’t remember any of us ordering. I know cheese, and this was the good stuff. S slipped a cracker into his mouth and closed his eyes in happiness.
“It’s delicious,” C said, “though I always struggle with the idea of cheese as dessert.”
S looked up from his plate. “Whatever you eat last is dessert.”
For a moment I wondered, Is this really going to happen? All three of us, together? I sat rigid at the table. I didn’t know if I wanted to ruin the mood or encourage it. C dabbed her lips with her napkin, and S motioned to the waiter for the check.
My worrying was for nothing. By the time we hit the elevators, the feeling was gone. Maybe I was the only one who ever had it. As the doors dinged open, S went right, and we went left. I allowed myself a final image of S’s body wrapped in the soft cotton sheets, of me waking up next to him, C already brushing her teeth, completely approving of what we’d done.
March 11
The strike continues. When we approach the concierge, he laughs and shakes his head. There is fighting in the streets, he tells us. Later, a bus driver hits a cop with a brick and is punished for it, badly, by a police dog. “Maybe stay in and enjoy the pool?” says the concierge. So we stay in and enjoy the pool. C swims laps. S reads submissions to the Journal of Gerontology & Geriatric Research. I am bored, bored, bored.
