The Man Without a Shadow (31 page)

Margot wonders if her young lab colleagues have been spreading these rumors. She has been keeping them away from E.H. recently; she has been working with the subject herself. E.H.'s “moods” scarcely worry her—Margot knows that E.H. trusts
her
.

If it's the Institute staff that is spreading rumors about E.H., there is not much that Margot Sharpe can do. But if it's an individual or individuals in her lab, she can take measures.

“It's true, Eli has had respiratory infections this winter. He doesn't play tennis as impressively as he'd once done. And he isn't quite so childlike and cooperative as he'd once been. But he has aged, after all—he's sixty-five years old.”

Sixty-five!
Poor Eli.

In fact, E.H. has lately become sixty-six years old. But Margot can't bring herself to say
sixty-six
.

Margot dismisses rumors that E.H. is becoming temperamental or difficult. She points out that E.H. remains youthful, despite his age; he continues to dress with care, and to shave each morning; his enthusiasm for his old, favorite subjects—civil rights activism and the bigotry of most whites, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., economics and “game theory”—has not abated, nor has his ability to recite favorite poems, song lyrics, passages from speeches. He continues to record faithfully in his notebook and to sketch in his sketchbook—“E.H. is a remarkable artist. I think that over the years he has recaptured some of his original, lost talent.” Margot speaks so persuasively, and so calmly, no one could guess how rapidly her heart is beating. Unconsciously she turns the ring around her finger.

Latta asks if E.H. shares his notebook and sketchbook with the memory lab and Margot says stiffly, as if this were a frankly stupid question she will nonetheless politely consider, “No. Not usually. But he will share them, sometimes, with
me
.”

“And are you alone together often, with the subject?”

“No. Not ‘often'—I don't think so.”

“Someone is usually with you?”

“The Neuropsychology Department at the Institute is a very busy place, Hendrik!”—(There: she has called him
Hendrik
. It is a discreet concession Margot hopes will placate him).

But Hendrik Latta continues to regard Margot with a look of concern. “He hasn't hurt you, Margot?”

“‘Hurt me'? How?”

“Well—physically. By accident or—deliberately.”

“Certainly not! Eli Hoopes is a gentleman.”

“He hasn't threatened you?”

“How could Eli Hoopes threaten anyone? The poor man has virtually no conception of the future.”

Margot laughs. Turning the ring around her finger.

It is a peculiar thing to have said, it is not very logical, but Margot isn't about to retract it.

“He hasn't”—(an awkward pause, as Latta considers how to phrase this query, what discreet words that will not alarm and inflame Margot Sharpe who is notoriously quick to take offense)—“in any way—suggested—behaved—touched you—sexually?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I'm sorry, Margot. But I had to ask. I've been hearing . . .”

“Eli Hoopes is not a ‘sexual' person—so we've observed. His brain damage seems to have precluded ‘sexual' and ‘emotional' attachments. And so, to answer all your questions, Hendrik—
no
.”

Stiff-backed and unyielding Margot exits the office of the departmental chair without a backward glance.

WHAT DO YOU
know, you fool you know nothing.

(Hides her wrists, in case her wrists are bruised. Hasn't examined her wrists and if she does, and finds bruises, she rubs
Arnica montana
oil into the skin. Once or twice he has squeezed her upper arm, and shaken her, in frustration at all that his poor broken brain cannot communicate, and bruises on that part of Margot's arms are hidden in any case for she never wears short sleeves.)

(She has vowed never to upset him again. It is cruel, though the results are significant, exciting.)

(She has vowed never to upset him again and yet—she must risk upsetting the subject, sometimes. There is no progress without such upsets, and such risks. One more time to show E.H. the charcoal sketch of the naked girl in the stream, and to ask him to identify her, and the setting.)

(For each time is the first time for the amnesiac subject. Each time is a unique time, and it is not repeatable. And for the research scientist each unique time substantiates the experiment in which meticulously recorded data is the ideal.)

PROFESSOR SHARPE WAS
some kind of fanatic. I'd never worked with any scientist like her, and I'd gotten my Ph.D. at Harvard. She was totally devoted to her work—to recording E.H. “Unlocking the mysteries of memory”—she'd say. Virtually nothing could interrupt her, that we knew about—a call might come announcing that she'd won another award, or another grant—Margot would thank the caller politely, hang up and return to work. Sometimes she wouldn't even tell us what it was—we'd read about it later in the paper. She was the most modest—selfless—individual any of us had ever met,
and not just in science. Everything that wasn't work was a distraction to her, and she demanded the same sort of devotion from her students and colleagues. That she was a woman in a man's field made no difference. She was as hard on her female associates as on her male associates. Possibly she made no distinction—she didn't notice. It wasn't always a pleasure to work with Margot Sharpe but it was a revelation, we've all been changed by her. I scarcely knew what it meant to be a scientist before I'd met Margot Sharpe and I think it's fair to say that I owe everything to her.

Yes, it's true—she was strangely attached to E.H.—as he was then called. Some observers said she was “morbidly” attached to him. But there was nothing more than professional interest, I'm sure. Margot Sharpe was totally professional, and made sure that everyone around her was as well. Poor Eli Hoopes was in his sixties living with an elderly aunt in a Philadelphia suburb at the time I began to work in Margot's lab—a driver brought him to the Institute most days. He had no idea what was going on—his surroundings were always a mystery to him, and he never recognized us from one hour to the next. Of course he never recognized Margot Sharpe—he called her “Doctor.” He called me “Doctor”—he confused me with someone he'd known long ago in Philadelphia.

When the aunt died, there was some difficulty, and how Margot Sharpe resolved it, I'm not sure. I'd left the university by then, and established my own lab at Caltech. And all that I know, Margot Sharpe taught me. And Margot Sharpe would always say, all that she knew, she'd learned from Milton Ferris.

In generational terms, Ferris is my “grandfather.” Margot Sharpe is my “mother”—the least maternal woman I've ever met.

SHE TELLS HIM—“I
think that I am pregnant, Eli.”

She tells him—“Eli darling, I think—I think that I am pregnant.”

She tells him—“Dearest Eli, I hope you won't be upset, or shocked, but—I think—think that I am—might be . . .”

She tells him nothing. She cannot summon the words. Though they are alone together. Though E.H. is happy, and has been calling her his
dear wife
.

SHE IS NOT
pregnant, of course. She has never been pregnant, and she will never become pregnant. Vaguely she thinks of herself as
in her late forties
but in fact she is fifty-three years old.

Fifty-three! It is so astonishing to her, who believes herself to be the Chaste Daughter still, that it is a fact rarely allowed into consciousness.

Also, Margot Sharpe is a very slender woman. Since adolescence she has been underweight, perhaps purposefully so; being underweight, she'd menstruated far less frequently than women of normal weight, for she has always instructed herself
To be female is to be weak, and to squander time. To be female is a second choice.
In which case, it wasn't likely that she could have become pregnant even years ago.

Still, Margot is distracted by thoughts of
being pregnant.

Her breasts are small, and hard. Hardly the breasts of a pregnant woman. Yet, the nipples are “sensitive”—and in the early morning, waking in a wintry dawn to rain pelting against her window, and Eli Hoopes miles away and oblivious of her, she has frequently felt nauseated.

Margot knows of hysterical pregnancies of course. Margot knows of the delusions of the (semi)conscious mind. She knows of the extreme impressionability of human beings, how “hypnotizable” many individuals are. Her stomach is flat, in fact just slightly concave if she is lying on her back. Her pelvic bones feel
to her distinct as (for instance) the wishbone on a Thanksgiving turkey carcass. And yet . . .

At last she makes an appointment with a gynecologist at the university medical school, to determine absolutely and unequivocally if she is/is not pregnant.

Dr. Liu is “her” gynecologist but Margot has not seen Dr. Liu in six years—an unconscionable amount of time, considering that Margot Sharpe is a scientist and should know better than to avoid physical examinations. Mammograms, Pap smears, cervical and rectal exams for cancer—how can a woman so intelligent be so negligent about her health!

“Pregnant? You are—inquiring?”

Dr. Liu scarcely hides her astonishment. For after all, Margot Sharpe is no longer of childbearing age—is she? (Dr. Liu knows without equivocation that her patient is fifty-three years old.) Margot feels her face heat in embarrassment, and defiance.

“Yes, Doctor. I—I need to know, today.”

Dr. Liu performs a very simple test and the results are, as Margot has anticipated,
negative
.

But Dr. Liu is uncertain. Is this good news for Professor Sharpe, or is this not-good news for Professor Sharpe? Lying on the examination table with her slender legs spread, white tissue paper crinkling beneath her, Margot shuts her eyes to prevent tears leaking out onto her cheeks but tears leak out onto her cheeks nonetheless.

“You are not pregnant, Professor Sharpe. I hope that this is good news.”

Not wanting to consider for a fleeting second any possible scenario in which this news might not be good news for her supine patient Dr. Liu goes on to say hurriedly that the results of the Pap
smear will be received by her office on Monday, and if that test, too, is negative, Professor Sharpe will not receive a call—“Good news is no news.”

Margot is scarcely listening. If Dr. Liu means to be amusing by scrambling the words of the cliché, Margot hasn't noticed. Her lips move numbly:

“Yes. Good news. Thank you, Doctor.”

Her heart beats sharp with scorn. Like the brass pendulum in the exquisite old grandfather clock in Amber McPherson's gray stone house except this pendulum moves swiftly and cruelly.

Pregnant! What a joke you are, Professor.

DRINKS DOWN A
shot. Her lanky spiky-haired companion drinks down a shot.

Nothing to say. So they don't speak.

Johnnie Walker Black Label
Margot has kept on a high cupboard shelf of her small utilitarian kitchen slowly disappearing from the sticky-necked bottle, how many years. Her former lover brought the bottle to her originally, to drink with her. Her lover whose name is painful to acknowledge like a tiny sharp burr in the brain.
Can't think of him now, poor Milton who has had a stroke in Boca Raton where he has gone to die and his elderly wife will survive him after all.

Naïvely once Margot imagined that—well, she'd imagined too much.

I am naming you executrix of my estate, dear Margot. I need you in my life.

But that never happened of course. So much of her life has never happened.

Another drink? Another drink.

Searing flame, going down. Delicious!

She is laughing, hiding her eyes. Badly wanting to tell her younger companion
Can you believe it, at my age imagining I might be pregnant. And the father an amnesiac who would not remember me let alone any child borne by us.

Not the first time that “Hai-ku”—(as Margot Sharpe mispronounces the Korean name)—has brought the senior scientist home from her lab at the university working late and alone and dazed about the eyes as if drugged. He'd found her slumped on the floor in a corner of the fluorescent-lit room mistaking her for a pile of discarded clothes, or rags—Margot Sharpe, one of the most distinguished professors at the university!

Professor? Hey let me help you up.

OK—no need to call 911.

Probably, she'd forgotten to eat that day. Dehydrated, having forgotten to drink. Hai-ku supposes that Professor Sharpe is anorexic—has been anorexic much of her life—without being aware of her condition and if it were pointed out to her, by the most concerned of colleagues, she'd have angrily denied it.

As unaware of her condition, Hai-ku thinks, as the amnesiac subject E.H. is unaware of his.

Tonight is not the first night that Professor Sharpe has insisted that “Hai-ku” stay for a drink or two—or three—and whatever they can find to eat ravenously out of her refrigerator: plain low-fat yogurt, hard chunks of multigrain bread, discolored cheese rinds, bruised remains of a cantaloupe, covered bowls of stale rice, stuck-together pasta.

“Hai-ku” will remain with Margot Sharpe until he's reasonably certain that she is all right. Poor distraught woman won't accidentally or otherwise harm herself.

Hai-ku does not speculate what has upset the professor so much for it isn't in Hai-Ku's interests to know too much. He
was aware—of course—of the professor's desperate attachment to Milton Ferris and knows that this ended long ago; he has been aware of the professor's desperate attachment to Elihu Hoopes and does not care to think how this must end sometime soon.