Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Wonderland (24 page)
I crumple up the candy wrapper
.
Silence
.
“Well, Oscar, can you tell us? What were the thought processes you experienced?”
Oscar wipes his nose with one bony hand and says nothing
.
“Is either of you aware of any process at all?” the doctor asks
.
Oscar and I wait impatiently for the next card
.
“Do you know the answer at once? Does no time at all elapse?”
Silence
.
Out in the audience someone coughs. I stop looking out there, I turn my mind off. I run the numbers on that white card back and forth in my head, for something to do. Beside me Father sits proudly. He is at the end of the table. On my other side is another doctor, then Oscar and his mother, and at the far end of the table is the doctor who is talking. He is explaining that he would like to begin with a simple test of memorization. He flashes a card—what a joke! I shut my eyes after the first second and begin chanting the numbers. There are seventy-two of them. Oscar joins me, the two of us chanting as fast as we can. I think I finish a little ahead of Oscar
.
The doctor beside me is taking notes
.
“Would you please add up the numbers you have just seen …?”
Oscar and I give the answer in unison
.
“Correct … yes, that is correct.…” the doctor says. “Now, Hilda, could you comment at all on your performance? Do you know the answer instantly?”
I shut my eyes and see nothing
.
“Hilda, you are being asked a question,” Father says
.
No. I shake my head
.
“Oscar …?”
Oscar says nothing. I can sense his impatience
.
“Would you say that this process is at all visual? Do you actually see, in your mind’s eye, the numbers themselves? Or do you simply see the answer? Do you ‘see’ anything at all—or do you simply know the answer?”
Why does he ask such stupid questions!
After a few minutes he gives up. He holds up another card for us to memorize and multiply. At once Oscar and I look away from the card, shutting our eyes, and begin giving the answer at the same time
.
“Correct … yes … that is correct.…”
The audience is stirring. Someone laughs incredulously. I am unwrapping another chocolate bar and my mouth aches to see that it is an almond cluster bar, my very favorite. I can sense people around me, uneasy people. Even Father is uneasy. Out in the little amphitheater some men are smoking. Smoke rises. I am careful not to look at Jesse there in the first row. Am I doing well? Are these people pleased? Father whispers, “Excellent, my dear,” and pats my hand; his hand is like a paddle
.
“… a more difficult type of problem … involving several separate processes.…” the doctor is saying. Oscar and I have only to wait for him to finish all this, to come to the important part: the numbers. All the answers are in us, waiting. We know the answers to all questions. Why does it take these men so long to ask us the questions?
At last!
“… the number whose cube minus fourteen, multiplied by seventy-nine is six hundred seventy-one thousand, five hundred and twenty.…”
Oscar and I give the answer instantly
.
Now we look shyly at each other. He doesn’t look much older than Frederich. He is sallow and sick and skinny; just looking at him makes me hungry for another almond cluster. I make too much fuss unwrapping it and Father has to say, “Don’t be so eager, Hildie,” and I see the eyes everywhere, watching me. I try to hide the candy bar in my lap
.
The wires are uncomfortable on my head
.
“… you will raise to the sixteenth power,” the doctor is saying slowly, reading out from a card, “the sum of the numbers I am going to show you …” and he holds a card up to us containing eleven numbers. I feel giddy. Oscar and I begin giving the number at once, rattling it off
.
“Yes, that is correct.…”
A moment of silence. The doctor seems to have lost his place
.
“… these unusual gifts of the mind are often evident at an early age … in both Hilda Pedersen and Oscar DeMott this has been true.…” The doctor talks about us for a while, uncertainly. Someone in the audience puts up his hand; he asks a question; the doctor who sits beside me answers it. I sift through their words and find no numbers, nothing to work with. I stop listening to them. At one point Father answers a question. He speaks for several minutes. Though I am not paying attention, I can sense how interested they are in him, in his answer. I take the candy bar out of my lap and bite into it
.
Now a question begins: “… in an area of 143,658,992 cubic miles, how many units of 14,322 yards long by 443,225 yards wide by 36,115 yards thick …”
It takes me one, two, three seconds to think about this; Oscar hesitates too. Then we begin giving the answer, almost at the same time. We are both shouting
.
Someone exclaims in surprise but I don’t bother to look up. My heart is pounding. I want to snatch the wires away from my head and get free—I want to run around the table—and Oscar squirms nervously, one shoulder twitching. Another man is being introduced: “Dr. Miles Gordon of the MacLeod Institute will now conduct this examination.…” Who are these people? I am a little confused. Father hands me a chocolate-covered marshmallow ball wrapped in tinfoil. I am starved. Saliva runs in a quick stream down the side of my chin and I have to wipe it away with my hand
.
“The next series of questions will involve …”
I stop listening and begin again when the question is asked. Now I am so agitated that I have to take off the wires, I can’t stand them holding me down.… So I snatch them off and push my chair back and stand up. I yell out the answer a split-second ahead of Oscar, I think. Father tries to get me to sit down, but I am too excited
.
Great panting breaths. Gulps of this light-hot air
.
Is Jesse watching? Is he proud of me?
The examiner asks another question and this time I can’t stay still. I run to the end of the table and back again, giving the answer as I run. Oscar thumps his elbows on the table as he gives the answer, racing me. His wheelchair trembles
.
“Yes, yes, that is correct … yes.…”
The examiner smiles vaguely at Oscar and me. That look in his face: Oscar and I both recognize it
.
“The next question will involve a slightly more complicated process of thought,” the examiner is saying. What is this man’s name? I know he is a doctor, I heard his name only a minute ago, but I can’t remember
.
“What are the days of the week?”
I answer at once: “MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySunday!”
But Oscar says nothing
.
He throws himself forward against the table. He begins to stammer and then cannot speak
.
After a pause the examiner says: “… the months of the year?…”
Oscar cannot answer. I see this at once and I look away from him as I answer: “JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember!”
Everyone is silent
.
“And here is a quite different question.… What is the date of the second Sunday of August, 1941?”
I
—
Oscar says at once: “August 12.”
“Correct.”
My mind is blank
.
“And the third Wednesday of June, 1444?”
“June 20 on our calendar,” Oscar says quietly
.
“Correct.”
Ashamed, I cram my mouth with something—some chocolate—I am ravenously hungry and dare not look at anyone
.
“Oscar, would you explain to us your ability to answer these specific questions?”
Oscar says nothing
.
Now they are hooking up the wires on me again, on my forehead, on a mountainous arm, around my mountainous chest, deft and furtive, as if they are anxious to get away from me. I ignore them. A young doctor and a nurse, I think it is a nurse, I ignore them. I hardly bother to chew the chocolate in my mouth; it is my jaws, my perfect teeth, that do the work
.
“… Hilda and Oscar, will you tell us exactly where you are?”
I look down at my hands sullenly. This is a joke. Oscar does not answer at all
.
“Can you tell us the name of the place you are now in?”
“The MacLeod Institute,” I say. This seems to be the right answer, so I go on. “235 West Bryant Drive, Queens, New York.”
“Yes. And what is the date today?”
“April 23, 1941,” I say
.
But Oscar cannot answer
.
The audience buzzes. Am I happy?—why am I fighting to get up again, pushing
myself away from the table? I bump against someone’s chair—the doctor next to me—and start to run to the end of the table, again, panting. I bend down to pull up my socks. Father calls out, “Hilda. Hilda, you are disturbing the examination—”
“It will be over in just a few minutes,” the examining doctor says nervously, “just three or four minutes—”
“Ah, it is the eccentricity of the gift,” Father says
.
I yank up my socks. Is Jesse watching? Is he proud of me? My socks are a little dirty from the chocolate on my fingers. I run back to Father and I know that everyone is staring at me. Oscar’s face working violently, as if he would like to get up too and run around the table. The wires on his forehead have slipped because his face is so damp
.
Father catches me playfully and makes me sit down
.
“The next several questions … the next several questions deal with feats of both memory and calculation,” the examiner says. He speaks slowly and apprehensively. “Would you, Hilda and Oscar, would you multiply the fourth number on the first card that was held up to you by the seventh number on the second card—”
It takes me a few seconds to answer this question, but even so I am a little ahead of Oscar. But he too answers it, shouting. His eyes are darker now, as if the bruises have spread. His lips are trembling
.
“Would you divide the sum of the numbers on the third card by the cube of the forty-third number on the eighth card.…”
Five, six seconds pass. Where is the answer? And then the answer comes to me: I give it, fast. Oscar is answering at the same time. Before the doctor can ask us another question, I take a piece of candy out of Father’s pocket and tear off the wrapper. Oscar’s eyes are bulging. He is skinny as a crow, Oscar, with a caved-in chest. Poor Oscar!
“Oscar, are you all right? Should we terminate this session?”
He moans, shaking his head from side to side
.
“Perhaps we should terminate …?”
Everyone looks at Oscar. But why should I believe in those faces? In my own face? Behind Oscar’s face someone is hiding and I see him, in the shadowed eyes, in the tic in his cheek, struggling
.
“No you don’t!” Mrs. DeMott cries
.
Oscar says nothing
.
“But is your son … How is your son?” the doctor asks
.
“You just ask him the next question. He’s fine.”
Oscar takes the handkerchief from her and wipes his own face. He seems better now
.
“… this final question … involves a number of distinct assumptions and processes. Would you please, Hilda and Oscar, add to the date of the third Wednesday of April, 1265 by our calendar the total of your two ages multiplied together.…”
Choking
.
The chocolate is choking me
.
Oscar begins to whimper
.
I am choking, suffocating. My eyes bulge like Oscar’s; but he is moaning, shaking from side to side
—
“Oscar!” his mother cries
.
She falls across him. Someone shouts. There is confusion, people are moving around, the big stage lights go out. Like the blinking of an eye! We are suddenly in shadow, in an eclipse. Good. Now they will not stare at me. I manage to eat the last chocolate while everybody is standing, moving. Father himself springs to his feet. Oscar has fallen over sideways, blood is streaming from his nose, one of the doctors is bending over him. I can’t see. I don’t want to see. I shut my eyes hard and my mouth chews away on something soft, a sweet gushing circle of chocolate. Is it Mother weeping over me? That sound of a woman weeping?
They are bringing in a stretcher for Oscar. Mrs. DeMott is yelling, “Oh, this always happens! He’s a freak, a curse! You keep him, you people take care of him! Wets his bed, can’t feed himself. Call him a genius! Well, he is a freak no matter what the newspapers say and you bastards can have him for good! Put him in a cage with that other one!”
I run over to the other side of the stage
.
Father comes after me, saying my name. But I turn away from him. A fountain of numbers shoots up in the air
.…
I am saying No. No. Father takes hold of my arm. I jerk away from him. No. The numbers spin into a tower, fatter and fatter at the top, not like an ordinary tower. “Get away! Leave me alone! I have to figure it out!” I scream. Father’s face is white, white as uncooked dough. “Add to the date of the third Wednesday of April, 1265 by our calendar the total of your two ages multiplied together—” I shove something in my mouth, I press it into my mouth with both hands
—
Someone is screaming. It is a girl’s voice. She is screaming up into the white shocked face of Dr. Pedersen. “The tower will give me the answer! It will figure itself out if I wait! Don’t touch me, don’t come near me—nobody come near me–” And still the tower floods upward, a galaxy of numbers. How can I make
them into a single number? How can I still the bursting of these numbers? She clutches her own head, her own face, squeezing it hard. Must stop that screaming. Must make the numbers slow, slow, come to a stop, turn into a single number
.…