The Man Without a Shadow. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ quickly, E.H. recovers from the surprise of the cruel handshake. If his fingers ache, after a few seconds he has no idea why; since he has no idea why, his fingers soon cease to ache.

      In the original, classic experiment the French neuroscientist Édouard Claparède shook hands with his amnesiac subject with a pin between his fingers—so that there could have been no mistaking the intention of the experimenter to inflict pain. But Margot and Kaplan have devised a more subtle, possibly more cruel variant that involves, as well, a degree of social interaction as interesting in itself as the “memory” of pain.

      After scarcely more than a minute E.H. is laughing and joking with his testers—Margot Sharpe, Alvin Kaplan. So long as both are in his presence E.H. is consciously aware of them. (Fascinating to Margot that the amnesiac’s seventy-second limit of short-term memory can be so extended, like water flowing into water—seamless, indivisible.) But then, a few minutes later, after the arrival of another member of the lab to distract the subject, Kaplan slips away unobtrusively—and “vanishes” from E.H.’s consciousness.

      Warmly Margot says: “Shall we continue, Eli? You’ve been doing exceptionally well.”

      “Have I! Thank you for saying so—is it ‘Mar-gr’t’?”

      “Margot. My name is Margot.”

      “‘Marr-got.’ Gotcha!”

      E.H. winks at Margot. Sometimes, peering at Margot with a look of sly intimacy, if no one else is near E.H. draws his tongue along the surface of his lips in a way that is startling to Margot, and disturbing.

      Sexual innuendo—is it? Or just—E.H.’s awkward humor?

      It is believed that the injury to E.H.’s brain has radically reduced his sexual drive. In general there has been observed in the amnesiac subject a “flattening” of affect—as if the afflicted man, by nature sensitive and quick-witted, were forced to perceive the world through a bulky, swaddling scrim of some kind, or through a mask with raddled eye-holes. He tries to play a role of normalcy, but not always very skillfully. E.H. has been observed behaving in a way that might be described as warmly emotional—“affectionate and paternal”—with younger women medical workers and attendants, but no one has reported him behaving in an overtly sexual manner. Still less, in a way that might be described as sexually aggressive.

      There is an essential restraint, a kind of emotional goodness in the man, Margot has thought.

      This is nothing Margot Sharpe can ever “record”—unfortunately!

      One hour and ten minutes later, at the conclusion of a battery of tests, when E.H. is resting in a chair by a window, carefully hand-printing in his little notebook, there is a knock at the door, and Margot Sharpe goes to open it—and Alvin Kaplan steps inside.

      “Eli, I’d like you to meet my colleague Alvin Kaplan. He’s a professor of neuropsychology at the university and a member of Professor Ferris’s lab.”

      E.H. rises to his feet. E.H. smiles brightly and puts away his little notebook. That look of hope in the man’s eyes!—Margot feels a pang of apprehension.

      Boldly E.H. extends his hand: “Hello, Professor!”

      “Hello, Mr. Hoopes.”

      When Margot first met Alvin Kaplan in 1965, as a first-year graduate student, he’d been an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the university; young, without tenure, yet one of Milton Ferris’s “anointed”—already the recipient of a coveted research grant from the National Science Endowment. In the intervening years Kaplan has been promoted in the department, with tenure; he is still wiry-limbed and inclined to irony, though he has gained about fifteen pounds, and seems less uncertain of himself now that he has married, has become a father, and has begun to publish extensively. Margot never challenges Alvin Kaplan, whom she recognizes as very smart, and very shrewd; she guesses that he feels rivalrous toward her, as another of Milton Ferris’s protégés, his only serious competitor in the lab for the elder scientist’s admiration, favoritism, and affection. Yet Margot is self-effacing in Kaplan’s presence, and finds it easy to admire him—to praise him. For Kaplan does have very good ideas. She knows that it would be a terrible blunder to offend him.

      Though E.H. has met Kaplan many times, he appears to have no memory of him, as usual.

      Or does he? As Kaplan reaches out to shake E.H.’s hand, E.H. hesitates, as he has never hesitated previously; clearly, he is wary about shaking this stranger’s hand, assesses the situation and seems to make a stoic decision yes, he will shake Kaplan’s hand—and again, Kaplan squeezes his hand unnaturally hard, and E.H. reacts with surprise and pain, in wincing silence; and quickly disengages his hand.

      Yet—once again—Kaplan doesn’t betray any social cue that he has deliberately caused E.H. pain, nor even that he notices E.H.’s reaction. So far as you would guess Kaplan has shaken E.H.’s hand “normally”—but E.H. has reacted “abnormally.”

      After just a few minutes the encounter ends with a remark of Kaplan’s—a signal to the graduate student who has been filming.

      “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Hoopes! I’ve heard much about you.”

      E.H. smiles, guardedly. But doesn’t ask what the visitor has heard.

      Kaplan and Margot exchange a glance—it is a fact, the amnesiac hasn’t reacted identically each time, with each handshake. His behavior has been modified by the “cruel handshake”—even as he has forgotten the specific circumstances of the handshake.

      In the women’s restroom to which she flees as soon as she can, Margot trembles with excitement over this discovery. It is a profound discovery!

      The amnesiac subject is “remembering”—in some way.

      As a seemingly blind person may “see”—in some way.

      Some part of the brain is functioning like memory. This is not supposed to be happening, yet it is happening.

      Suddenly Margot is feeling nauseated. The very excitement she feels over her discovery is making her sick.

      At the sink she bends double, and gags. Yet she does not vomit.

      The sensation returns several times. She gags, but does not vomit. To the mirror-face she says, “Oh God. What are we doing to him. What am I doing to him. Eli! God forgive me.”

      AS PLANNED KAPLAN enters the testing-room. It is 11:08 A.M. of the following Wednesday—a week after the most recent confrontation.

      Margot Sharpe and two other researchers have been working with E.H. for much of the morning. The tests they’ve been administering to the amnesiac are variants of the “distraction” test, with visual, auditory, and olfactory cues and interruptions. Margot has remained in the room with E.H. more or less continuously through the morning, and he has not seemed to “forget” her; though, when she slips away to use a restroom, and returns, she half-suspects that the amnesiac is only just pretending he isn’t surprised to see her, a stranger close beside him, smiling at him as if she knows him.

       He has learned to compensate for the mystery that surrounds him. Surprise to the amnesiac no longer registers as “surprise.”

      Such observations and epiphanies, Margot СКАЧАТЬ