The Man Without a Shadow. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ with one of his enigmatic remarks: “Where else would I be, if I could be somewhere else?”

      Milton Ferris assures E.H. that he is in “just the right place, at just the right time to make history.”

      “Did I tell you? I’ve heard Reverend King speak. Several times. That is ‘history.’”

      “Yes. An extraordinary man, Reverend King …”

      “He spoke in Philadelphia on the steps of the Free Library, and he spoke in Birmingham, Alabama, at a Negro church that was subsequently burnt to the ground by white racists. He is a very brave man, a saint. He is a saint of courage. I intend to march with him again when my condition improves—as I’ve been promised.”

      “Of course, Eli. Maybe we can help arrange that.”

      “It’s because I was clubbed on the head—billy clubbed—in Alabama. Did I show you? The scar, where my hair doesn’t grow …”

      E.H. lowers his head, flattens his thick dark hair to show them a faint zigzag line in his scalp. Margot feels an impulse to reach out and touch it—to stroke the poor man’s head.

      She understands—It’s loneliness he feels most.

      “Yes, you did show us your scar, Eli. You’re a very lucky man to have escaped with your life.”

      “Am I! You think that’s what I managed, Doctor—to ‘escape with my life.’” E.H. laughs sadly.

      Milton Ferris continues to speak with E.H., humoring him even as he soothes him. Margot can imagine Ferris calming an excited laboratory animal, a monkey for instance, as it is about to be “sacrificed.”

      For such is the euphemism in experimental science. The lab animals are not killed, certainly not murdered: they are sacrificed.

      Shortly, in E.H.’s presence, you come to see that the amnesiac’s smiling is less childlike and eager than desperate, and piteous. His is the eagerness of a drowning person hoping to be rescued by someone, anyone, with no idea what rescue might be, or from what.

       In me he sees—something. A hope of rescue.

      In profound neural impairments there may yet be isolated islands of memory that emerge unpredictably; Margot wonders if her face, her voice, her very scent might trigger dim memories in E.H.’s ruin of a brain, so that he feels an emotion for her that is as inexplicable to him as it might be to anyone else. Even as he tries to listen to Dr. Ferris’s crisp speech he is looking longingly at Margot.

      Margot has seen laboratory animals rendered helpless, though still living and sensate, after the surgical removal of parts of their brains. And she has read everything she could get her hands on, about amnesia in human beings. Still it is unnerving for her to witness such a condition firsthand, in a man who might pass, at a little distance, as normal-seeming—indeed, charismatic.

      “Very good, Eli! Would you like to sit down at this table?”

      E.H. smiles wryly. Clearly, he doesn’t want to sit down; he is most at ease on his feet, so that he can move freely about the room. Margot can imagine this able-bodied man on the tennis court, fluid in motion, not wanting to be fixed in place and so at a disadvantage.

      “Here. At this table, please. Just take a seat …”

      “‘Take a seat’—where take it?” E.H. smiles and winks. He makes a gesture as if about to lift a chair; his fingers flutter and flex. Ferris laughs extravagantly.

      “I’d meant to suggest that you might sit in a chair. This chair.”

      E.H. sighs. He has hoped to humor this stranger with the fiercely white short-trimmed beard and winking eyeglasses who speaks to him so familiarly.

      “Heil yes—I mean, hell yes—Doctor!”

      E.H.’s smile is so affable, he can’t have meant any insult.

      As they prepare to begin the morning’s initial test E.H.’s attention is drawn away from Margot who plays no role at all except as observer. And Margot has eased into the periphery of the subject’s vision where probably he can’t see her except as a wraith. She assumes that he has forgotten the names of others in the room to whom he’d been introduced—Kaplan, Meltzer, Rubin, Schultz. It is a relief to her not to be competing with Milton Ferris for the amnesiac’s precarious attention.

      After his illness E.H.’s performance on memory tests showed severe short-term loss. Asked by his testers to remember strings of digits, he wavered between five and seven. Now, months later, he can recall and recite nine numbers in succession, when required; sometimes, ten or eleven. Such a performance is within the normal range and one would think that E.H. is “normal”—his manner is calm, methodical, even rather robotic; then as complications are introduced, as lists become longer, and there are interruptions, E.H. becomes quickly confused.

      The experiment becomes excruciating when lists of digits are interrupted by increasing intervals of silence, during which the subject is required to “remember”—not to allow the digits to slip out of consciousness. Margot imagines that she can feel the poor man straining not to lose hold—the effort of “rehearsing.” She would like to clasp his hand, to comfort and encourage him. I will help you. You will improve. This will not be your entire life!

      Impairment is the great leveler, Margot thinks. Eighteen months ago, before his illness, Elihu Hoopes would scarcely have glanced twice at Margot Sharpe. She is moved to feel protective toward him, even pitying, and she senses that he would be grateful for her touch.

      Forty intense minutes, then a break of ten minutes before tests continue at an ever-increasing pace. E.H. is eager and hopeful and cooperative but as the tests become more complicated, and accelerated, E.H. is thrown into confusion ever more quickly (though he tries, with extraordinary valor, to maintain his affable “gentlemanly” manner). As intervals grow longer, he seems to be flailing about like a drowning man. His short-term memory is terribly reduced—as short as forty seconds.

      After two hours of tests Ferris declares a longer break. The examiners are as exhausted as the amnesiac subject.

      E.H. is given a glass of orange juice, which is his favorite drink. He hasn’t been aware until now that he’s thirsty—he drinks the juice in several swallows.

      It is Margot Sharpe who brings E.H. the orange juice. This female role of nurturer-server is deeply satisfying to her for E.H. smiles with particular warmth at her.

      She feels a mild sensation of vertigo. Surely, the amnesiac subject is perceiving her.

      Restless, exhausted without knowing (recalling) why, E.H. stands at a window and stares outside. Is he trying to determine where he is? Is he trying to determine who these strangers are, “testing” him? He is a proud man, he will not ask questions.

      Like an athlete too long restrained in a cramped space or like a rebellious teenager E.H. begins to circle the room. This behavior is just short of annoying—perhaps it is indeed annoying. E.H. ignores the strangers in the room. E.H. flexes his fingers, shakes his arms. He stretches the tendons in his calves. He reaches for the ceiling—stretching his vertebrae. He mutters to himself—(is he cursing?)—yet his expression remains affable.

      “Mr. Hoopes? Would СКАЧАТЬ