by Ranjini Iyer
Note 3: What is puzzling are unrelated symptoms exhibited by the control group. Some monkeys developed high cholesterol, others showed slight increases in blood sugar levels.
There is a link between all of this, but we haven’t been able to find it.
Schultz of course was hopping mad by the time Lars was done with the recap. He hates it when I tell him things he already knows. He has heard us talk about the Indus pills and our inconclusive results dozens of times. And yet he wants to start human trials.
I told Lars this for the first time today. Lars was shocked and stated the obvious. The pills were nowhere near human consumption. I looked at Schultz.
Schultz stood up and put his enormous hands on my shoulders. They felt like dead weights. He had never touched me before. The Nazis are excited at the prospect of a drug that can extend lives, he said. His hands gripped my arms. They want to include our pill in their medical experiments, he said. To his credit, he said those awful words with a degree of contrition.
But I jerked him away. Schultz tried to sound sincere. If we want to stay alive, we must do as the Nazis ask, he said. He told me Hitler had heard stories of the immortals of Indus Valley. Lowered metabolic rate is the answer to living longer, Hitler and his cronies have decided.
And because we have concluded lowered metabolic rates twice over with our pill, that mustachioed idiot, that failed artist wants a piece of this immortality!
The Indus pill, Schultz informed me, is the main thing—perhaps the only thing—keeping me in my lab and Berliner still in business. That and Lars’s crowd control gases, he said, glowering at poor Lars.
Schultz moved closer, towering over me. I was this close to being put away myself, he said.
Today for the first time, I felt real fear. I staggered toward my table and let my forehead hit its hard, cold surface. Over and over again. And I’m not one to display emotion freely.
Schultz touched my shoulder. Never in over a decade and now twice in one day! He told me about a labor camp for skilled workers based on the ‘Hofjuden’ portion of Sobibor starting at Krippenwald. Skilled Jews who aren’t part of the Hofjuden will be placed there, he said.
Sobibor is a death camp, of course. And Hofjuden. Privileged court Jews of the old times. Even as they kill us, they mock us. They strip us of our dignity.
Schultz then tried diplomacy. The Hofjuden have slightly better living conditions, he said. And at Krippenwald, they want to keep the inmates alive. But what they also want is to spend as little on nutrition as possible. I knew the Nazis were conducting medical experiments at Krippenwald, among other places. Schultz said he had met with some top Nazi officials last week. They would like us to conduct our human trials at Krippenwald labor camp.
The final straw is that he has told the Nazis the pill works. So of course, they are eager to test it. I remember letting out a moan, like the cry of a lamb about to be slaughtered.
Schultz persisted. With this pill, the Nazis will get workers to live on reduced nutrition and live longer. And you get to continue working, he told me.
I have said nothing so far, but I could not hold back any longer. I lashed out at Schultz. How can I do this to my people? I asked him. Aid in experiments with my brethren? I have been blind and arrogant, but I cannot unleash an unknown compound on anyone, let alone my own people who are suffering simply because they are Jewish.
Schultz slammed an enormous fist against the table. In the quiet of the lab, it sounded like a cannon going off. Again, to his credit, Schultz did try to send me away when the Nazi propaganda began years ago. He begged me to leave. A thousand times. But I didn’t listen.
I was a fool.
I could tell that Schultz was upset for me. But he was also excited for the possibilities that lay ahead with the Indus pills. And no matter how hard he tried, his voice betrayed it.
I am trapped. I am at young Schultz’s mercy. I know this now.
Schultz tried to tell me that the inmates at Krippenwald are skilled workers, useful to the Nazis and therefore being kept alive, but in the end, they will die. We cannot help them get out. We are extending their lives. They can survive on lowered nutrition because of our pill.
Schultz was succeeding in making his point without raising his voice. It was a practiced art. He had often practiced it with me before addressing meetings. And today he was using it on me! Keeping calm, his voice modulated as if he were talking about gardening tips. I tried telling him that I need more time.
All Schultz did was sit down and cross his long legs. All those unexplained symptoms must be because of contaminants, he opined, calmly examining his manicured nails.
It’s true. Lab animals are notorious for having unexplained symptoms. We have to ignore that which is unrelated and work with what we know. The good results triumph over the bad side effects. We say that to clear our conscience, but this time, it’s different.
He asked me to start work on a composition profile for the pill so we can manufacture them. Hitler is going to start a war. He wants enough pills to dispense to every single soldier. If this pill works in their camps, we need to be able to produce them.
I’ve been asked to find out how much we have in stock. We have quite a lot, and a trip to India should be enough to take care of us for a while. I know Schultz will send a team to India to clean out the grave. I wish I could go, but my passport was confiscated years ago.
April 1938
Thousands of pills have arrived from India and will be dispensed as the Nazis choose. Manufacturing will begin in a year’s time, Schultz has informed the Nazis. I have been assigned a team of scientists and a superb new lab. We have commenced work on a composition profile. The active bacteria will be included in the manufactured pills.
All aspects of its contagiousness, the fevers and other unexplained symptoms in the monkeys, are to be kept secret, Schultz has warned—known only to Lars, himself, and me.
December 1939
Germany attacked Poland three months ago.
In a listless bleeding of one miserable day into another, I go on. The Nazis have spared me for now, perhaps because the Indus pill seems to be working. The bacteria is seemingly lengthening the life spans of Krippenwald’s inmates, since with slower metabolisms, they can survive on lowered nutrition. No problematic symptoms have been reported so far.
The Indus health pills have passed the human trials test.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Max put down the diary. A dull ache had started at the nape of her neck. She massaged it. When she realized that it was moving up to her temple, she went into the kitchen. A bottle of aspirin stood on the counter. Max took out one tablet and swallowed it.
“My grandfather was so hard on himself.” She stared at the label. “He punished himself by keeping a bottle of aspirin near him always to remind him of what he couldn’t achieve.”
“Which is?” Julian said.
“Discovering an aspirin of his own.”
Julian raised his eyebrows. “That is a rather lofty goal for anyone.”
Max smiled lightly. “My Opa wasn’t just anyone.”
Julian laced his hands behind his head and put his feet up on the coffee table. “Is that why he went to India? To look for exotic remedies to turn into drugs? Isn’t that how aspirin came to be?”
Max ran her fingers over the words on the aspirin bottle. “Yes, from willow bark—salicylic acid. Berliner wanted to be a powerhouse like Bayer. So Opa was quite the globetrotter—Malaysia, Thailand, parts of Africa. Over the years, he became desperate to find something as miraculous as aspirin. It became an obsession with him. Then he went to India and found the Indus pill.”
“So aspirin is the elephant in the Rosen household,” Julian said. He poured himself another cup of coffee.
“It’s more like an appendix we cannot get rid of,” Max murmured, almost to herself. “I take it so I don’t ever forget how Papa died. He overdosed on it and alcohol. Morbid, I know. But I cannot help it. It’s as if—�
��
“Max,” Julian said gently. “You’re starting to frighten me.”
“I’m sorry.” She gave him an apologetic glance.
Julian tilted his head. He looked tired, but he smiled. Max’s heart did a quick somersault. Julian had dark rings under his eyes, but he looked positively alluring—could ‘alluring’ be used to describe a man? Max leaned forward to get closer to him.
“Did you know Bayer was also the company that came out with heroin and initially sold it as a pick-me-up? Heroin comes from the Greek word heros, so the user feels like a hero when he takes it.”
Julian gasped. “What a colossal blunder!”
All at once Max felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. The happy air. And taking its place was cold, gloomy air. Cold, like being in a house in winter without the heat turned on. A coldness that was worse than being outside amidst the elements. A cold that permeated every bone and made its home there.
“Perhaps Opa found heroin in his quest for aspirin,” Max said, picking up her grandfather’s diary. “Perhaps what he found is the reason he died a broken man.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
From Samuel Rosen’s diary
Krippenwald special labor camp
About 90 kilometers west of Berlin
January 6, 1942
This is my fourth week at Krippenwald. I haven’t felt like writing so far but I must. It’s a miracle I still have this diary. That must be considered a gift. I have found a cleaning job in the kitchen and am staying focused on getting through one day at a time.
After the successful human trials of the Indus pills, the Nazis asked me to work on chemical warfare. Invisible gases that are undetectable, but lethal—not just to those directly under its onslaught, but for miles around. I finally took a stand. Schultz pleaded with me not to. But I had had enough. The Nazis have raped my country and my people. I had been a coward so far. But I decided not to be anymore. Once I refused to do as I was told, I was sent away.
Here at Krippenwald, the inmates—semi-skilled jewelers, shoe makers, tailors, and cooks—are kept barely alive and working, sometimes on projects that utilize their skills, sometimes in the nearby stone quarry. But people keep continually disappearing.
Krippenwald has gas chambers, too.
A few days ago, Lars managed to smuggle a note into the camp.
Herr Dr. Rosen,
I trust you are keeping fair health.
I was banned from entering our lab the minute you left. But I have found out that the scientists have succeeded in completing the composition profile that you started, with the bacteria included.
The pill will be mass-produced. The initial plan is to dispense to minor soldiers on the front. After, it might be marketed as a wonder drug. All I know is based on rumor. I’m not even allowed in the building anymore.
I’m leaving for London next month. I’m sick of this place.
I promise to get in touch with Frau Rosen. We will pray for your release and the end of this horrific war.
Yours sincerely and gratefully,
Lars Lindstrom.
I may not see Lars again. It’s hard not to grieve.
I wonder if my team at Berliner have found the answers Lars and I didn’t. Have they figured out why the animals developed all the unexplained conditions? And why is the contagious nature of the bacteria being ignored?
Forget it, I tell myself. The past is gone.
February 10, 1942,
Today as usual, the shrill whistle woke me at 6:00 a.m. I reached for the aluminum bowl by my sliver of a pillow. Clutching the bowl to my chest, I stepped out for roll call into the bitter morning. We lined up for breakfast. I got my morning ration—watery turnip soup and a two-inch long piece of hard, yellowing bread.
Lowered nutrition is key to the Indus pill experiment.
I walked to my usual spot, from where I have a clear view of the SS clubhouse.
“You’re not on the membership list this month, either,” a boyish voice said.
Ernst. Dear Ernst Frank, my constant companion and comfort these days. He plopped himself beside me and smiled through the grime and dirt that lined his handsome face.
Ernst Frank is a happy-go-lucky man-child, barely twenty. A peddler of dubious herbal cures during peacetime, Ernst managed to convince the SS that he had a marketable skill, and was therefore allowed to stay alive at Krippenwald, where he quickly charmed a shoemaker inmate into taking him on as an assistant.
His honest manner and ability to laugh at his circumstances won him my friendship. But it is his willingness to suffer through painfully detailed stories about Berliner and my work that has endeared him most to me. That and his unconditional camaraderie.
Poor Ernst lost his wife and two-year-old daughter to the gas chambers a year ago. He spent months after their deaths trying to kill himself. Following a third attempt involving a makeshift noose that broke before it could do harm, Ernst had a change of heart. The best thing he could do for his beloved Inge and baby Sophie was to go on, he decided. Now what Ernst yearns for most is to have a child, hopefully a daughter, who will become the center of his life. Never again will he find himself helpless as he did when his loved ones were carted off in front of his eyes to the gas chambers, he rants and swears.
Ernst took a whiff of his bowl and declared the toilet water in it to be delicious. How I envied his ability to smile through his pain.
A whistle sounded. The soup guard called out, “Herr Doctor!” I didn’t respond. Why would I? I wasn’t Herr Doctor or Herr anything here. “Doctor Rosen,” the guard called in a singsong voice. He was smiling. Had Peter Schultz been able to exert some influence? Were they going to release me? I stood up and went to him.
The idiot asked about my Indus pills and congratulated me on their success. When I turned away, he struck my cheek with his leather whip, called me a Jew swine, and dismissed me.
I returned to Ernst, lowered myself to the ground, and raised my bowl to my lips to finish the last dregs of the tasteless soup.
Ernst put a hand on my injured cheek. He looked livid, but only for an instant. He asked why the guard had called me. I told him the guard had asked about the pills my company had made. I would tell Ernst the truth. I just didn’t feel like it yet. I was too ashamed.
Ernst tore off a piece of bread with his teeth. He said they call the pills the “profit maker.” And asked me if I knew why the camp inmates’ nutrition had been reduced.
Ignoring his question, I asked him when he had taken the pill.
A year ago, he said. And his fever occurred a month after he took it. I asked him if he knew if the others who had taken the pill had gotten fevers. He said that fevers and colds occurred in many inmates. But disease isn’t uncommon here.
I asked if they had been given more than one dose, and he said they had. But the fevers had only happened the first time. It was obvious he wanted to know why I was asking all this. I promised to tell him, but right then I wanted to think.
Presumably the bacteria had caused the fevers once. The fevers didn’t recur because the body now had the bacteria protecting it, acting like a vaccine possibly. I asked him if people had developed any other symptom than fevers. Other ailments.
A few have died of unknown diseases, he said. Others…he pointed to the gas chambers.
I wonder if I needn’t worry, since the symptoms of fevers came and went like in our lab monkeys. No one was being carted away with strange symptoms. But our test group monkeys hadn’t shown any symptoms after their fevers went. And their nutrition had been much below normal. Like the camp workers’ here.
The control group, on the other hand, showed the odd assortment of symptoms. And they had normal nutrition—like the guards here. How would I know if the guards had developed anything? Besides, even if one of them had any issues, how could we attribute it to the pill? Plus how was I to know if the guards had been given the pill or not?
One thing is certain. The bacterium is now free to sp
read, potentially infecting anyone who breathes it. It is contagious among humans. That’s one thing Lars and I have proved.
I am unable to put my mind at ease these days. What I have helped do is unconscionable. Of this I am certain. Will I ever be forgiven for it?
Will I ever forgive myself for it, I wonder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
That was all that remained of the diary.
“Opa burned the rest.” Max held the diary close to her chest.
Julian picked up the envelope he had left on the coffee table. “These are the papers the DANK Haus people faxed me. Copies of everything they got from Germany on Bernard Baston. It has details about the dig and names and addresses of those involved. Irrelevant, most likely. I wasn’t much help after all. I’m so sorry.”
“No!” Max touched his hand. “You’ve been very helpful. And kind. Thank you so much.”
Julian waved away her gratitude. He didn’t make a move to pull his hand away, and she didn’t remove hers either. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I rather enjoyed chatting with the guy at the DANK Haus. But Max—”
“Yes?” Her hand was growing warmer by the second.
“You haven’t told me the whole story.” His soft voice turned Max’s knees to Jell-O.
“What do you mean?”
“The bit about the, uh, suspicious death.” His eyes were shining.
Max pulled her hand away, nauseated by his transparent interest. But she had no right to be mad at Julian. After all, she had used her poor father’s death as the carrot to entice him.
Max decided to trust Julian. She had trusted him this far.
She told him about Lars and the package her father had sent him, in as impassive a way as she could manage. She ended with how the man from Berliner, most likely, had attacked Lars and threatened her. She felt such relief after telling him.
