The Man Without a Shadow

by Joyce Carol Oates

  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 Sharpe records in her log, still in notebook form. One day, these will be included in the appendix of her most acclaimed book—The Biology of Memory.

  “Have we met before, Mr. Hoopes?” Kaplan asks.

  E.H. shakes his head no. He looks to Margot Sharpe, his “friend” in the lab, who says, with a pause, “I don’t think so, Professor. I don’t think that you and Mr. Hoopes have met.”

  Kaplan glances sidelong at Margot Sharpe. “Mr. Hoopes and I have not met—it isn’t a matter of what you think, Miss Sharpe, but of what I know.”

  It’s as if Kaplan has struck Margot with the back of his hand, to discipline her. Margot feels a stab of rage. Tell your own lies, you bastard. Cold heartless unfeeling son of a bitch.

  Of course, they have rehearsed the cruel handshake. It is not a very difficult experiment, if it’s even an “experiment”—Margot knows how she should behave.

  Yet, what does it matter? E.H. will begin to forget within seconds.

  “Eli, I’d like you to meet my colleague Professor Alvin Kaplan . . .”

  But this time, as Kaplan approaches E.H. with his usual smile, the amnesiac stands very still, and visibly stiffens. E.H. is smiling a wide, forced smile even as his eyes glare.

  Then, he extends his hand bravely to be shaken—but before Kaplan can squeeze his hand, E.H. squeezes Kaplan’s hand, very hard.

  Kaplan winces, and jerks his hand away. For a moment he is too surprised to speak.

  Then, red-faced and teary-eyed, he manages to laugh. He glances sidelong at Margot Sharpe, who is astonished as well.

  “Mr. Hoopes, you’ve got a strong handshake! Man, that hurt.”

  Kaplan is so stunned by the amnesiac’s unexpected reaction, he has reverted to a way of speaking that isn’t his own but copied from undergraduate speech. Margot laughs nervously, yet with relief.

  Coolly, E.H. gives no sign that he has behaved out of character. His smile is less forced, you might say it is a triumphant smile, though much restrained.

  And restrained too, E.H.’s ironic remark: “One of us is a tennis player, I guess—‘Professor.’ That’s how you get a ‘strong handshake.’”

  MARGOT AND KAPLAN are impressed with E.H.’s most recent response to the handshake. The amnesiac seems to have learned without conscious memory; he has acted reflexively. Subject “remembers” pain. Behavior indicates non-declarative memory.

  Their joint paper will be “Non-declarative Memory in Amnesia: The Case of E.H.” (1973–74). But the experiment is far from complete.

  Next time the “visitor” returns to shake E.H.’s hand, a week later, the amnesiac subject behaves as if he is “trusting”—somewhat stoically, he extends his hand to be shaken, and endures the painful handshake without wincing.

  Margot thinks that this is evidence of E.H. having retained some memory; Kaplan does not.

  To Margot’s surprise Kaplan is dismissive of E.H. He has seen in the amnesiac virtually nothing of the subtlety of response Margot is certain she has seen and recorded in her meticulously kept notebook. (To Margot’s dismay this subtlety isn’t clear in the grainy video a graduate student provides.)

  Kaplan says flatly, “The subject behaves mechanically. His reactions are programmed. He is almost exactly the same each time. Only if we shorten the interval to twenty-four hours does he ‘remember’ something. Otherwise, the neurons in his brain must be firing in precisely the same way each time. He’s a zombie—worse, a robot. He can’t change.”

  Margot is dismayed to hear this and moved to protest. “Eli might be tempering his response because of his respect for the situation. His sense of what the Institute is—the fact that you are a ‘professor.’ He’d like to swear at you, strike you—at least, squeeze your hand in retaliation as he’d done last time—but he doesn’t dare. He suffers the squeezed hand in silence because he’s a socialized being. He has been schooled in non-violence, in the civil rights movement. He has been conditioned to be polite.”

  “Bullshit! Poor bastard is a robot. There’s a key in his back we have to wind. He can’t ‘remember’ being hurt beyond a day or two. Even then, he doesn’t really ‘remember.’”

  “He feels something like a premonition. That’s a kind of memory.”

  “‘Premonition’—what is that? There is no neurological basis for ‘premonition.’”

  “I don’t mean ‘premonition’ literally. You know that.”

  Margot raises her hand as if to strike Kaplan in the face. Instantaneously Kaplan shrinks back, lifting an arm to protect himself. Margot cries in triumph, “You see? What you did just now? You protected yourself—it’s a reflex. That’s what E.H. has been doing—protecting himself against you.”

  Kaplan is mildly shocked by Margot Sharpe. Indeed, it will not ever be quite forgotten by Kaplan that the subordinate Margot Sharpe actually “raised” her hand against him even to demonstrate the phenomenon of involuntary reflexive action.

  “Look, the subject is brain-damaged. We’re experimenting to determine if there’s another avenue of ‘memory’ in amnesia. Why are you so protective of this poor guy? Are you in love with him?”

  Kaplan laughs as if nothing can be more ridiculous, and more unlikely.

  But Margot Sharpe has already turned, and is walking away.

  Go to hell. We hate you. We wish you would die.

  MARGOT DOWNS A shot of whiskey her lover has poured for her.

  Fire-swift, her throat illuminated like a flare. Her chest, that seems to swell with elation—the thrill of despair.

  I have abased myself before this man. My shame can go no further.

  Yet, she is smiling. She sees in her lover’s eyes that he wants her, still—she is a young woman, in the eyes of this man who is thirty-two years her senior.

  Their time together is hurried, like a watch running fast. He tells her of his early, combative life in science: his impatience with the limitations of behaviorism, his feuds with colleagues at Harvard (including the great B. F. Skinner himself), his eventual triumphs. The several men who were his mentors, and those who were his detractors and who tried to sabotage his career (again, the “tyrannical” Skinner). His first great discoveries in neuropsychology. His academic appointments, his research grants, his awards and election to the National Academy at the age of thirty-two—one of the youngest psychologists ever elected to the Academy. He tells her of his children’s accomplishments, and he tells her that his wife is a good, kind, decent woman, an “exemplary” woman whom he has nonetheless hurt, and continues to
hurt. He tells Margot that he loves her, and does not intend to hurt her.

  Is this a pledge? A vow? It is even true?

  Another shot of whiskey?—her zealous lover pours her a drink without asking her, and Margot does not say no.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hel-lo!”

  “Eli, hello.”

  (Does he remember her? Margot is beginning to believe yes, the amnesiac definitely remembers her.)

  “We have some very interesting tests for today, Eli. I think you will like them.”

  “‘Tests’—yes. I am good at tests—it seems.”

  E.H. rubs his hands together. His smile is both anxious-to-please and hopeful.

  It is true, E.H. is very good at tests! And when E.H. fails a test, it is sometimes nearly as significant (in terms of the test) as if he had not failed.

  Before they begin, however, E.H. insists that Margot try his favorite “brainteaser” puzzle, which fits in the palm of a hand, and consists of numbered, varicolored squares of plastic which you move around with a thumb until there is an ideal conjunction of numerals and colors. E.H. is something of a marvel at the Institute where no one on the staff, not even the younger, male attendants, can come near his speed in solving the puzzle; others, including most of the women, and certainly Margot Sharpe, are totally confused by the little puzzle, and made to feel like idiots desperately shoving squares about with their thumbs until E.H. takes it from them with a bemused chuckle—“Excuse me! Like this.”

  And within seconds, E.H. has lined up the squares, to perfection.

  Margot pleads with E.H., please no, she doesn’t want to try the maddening little thing, she knows there is a trick to it—(obviously: but what is the “trick”?)—and she doesn’t have time for such a silly game; but E.H. presses it on her like an eager boy, and so with a sigh Margot takes the palm-sized plastic puzzle from him and moves the little squares about with her thumb—tries, tries and tries—and fails, and fails—until her eyes fill with tears of vexation at the damned thing and E.H. takes it from her with a bemused chuckle—“Excuse me! Like this.”

  And within seconds, E.H. has lined up the squares, to perfection.

  His smile is that of the triumphant, just slightly mocking pubescent boy.

  “HEL-LO!”

  “Eli, hello.”

  Does he remember her? Margot is certain that he does—in some way.

  He doesn’t understand that he is an experimental subject. He is data. He thinks—

  (But what does E.H. think? Even to herself Margot is reluctant to concede—The poor man thinks he is one like us.)

  E.H. has been told many times that he is an “important” person. He believes that this fact—(if it is a fact)—both predates his illness (when he’d had a position of much responsibility in his family’s investment firm and had been a civil rights activist) and has something to do with his illness (if it is an “illness” and not rather a “condition”)—but he isn’t certain what it entails.

  The “old” Elihu Hoopes—a man of considerably higher than average intelligence, achievement, and self-awareness—cohabits uneasily with the “new” Elihu Hoopes who feels keenly his disabilities without being able to comprehend them.

  “Good that our hunting rifles and shotguns are kept at the lake,” E.H. has said to Margot Sharpe, with a sly wink. “And good that such weapons are not kept loaded.”

  What does this mean? Margot feels a frisson of dread.

  More than once the amnesiac subject has made this enigmatic remark to Margot Sharpe but when she asks him to explain it, E.H. simply smiles and shakes his head—“You’re the doctor, Doctor. You tell me.”

  MARGOT REPORTS TO Milton Ferris: “I think that—sometimes—unpredictably—E.H. is ‘remembering’ things in little clusters that, so far as we know, he shouldn’t be able to remember. For instance, last week we watched a short film on Spain, and while E.H. has forgotten having seen the film, and has forgotten me, he seems to be remembering some fragments from the film. He’s been ‘thinking of Spain,’ he told me, out of nowhere. And I think he remembers some of the Spanish music from the film, I’ve heard him begin to hum when we’re working together. And he’s been making sketches that are different from his usual sketches—‘They just come to me, Doctor. Do you know what they are?’—and they are scenes that look vaguely Spanish. An exotic building or temple that resembles the Alhambra, for instance . . .”

  It is like a tightrope performance, speaking to Milton Ferris.

  There is the content of Margot’s words, and there is the tension of speaking to him.

  “Very good, Margot. Good work. Keep records, we’ll see what develops.”

  Laying his hand on Margot’s shoulder lightly, to thank her, and also to dismiss her. For Milton Ferris is a busy man, and has many distractions.

  Margot pauses feeling a sensation like an electric current coursing through her body. Margot swallows hard, her mouth has gone dry.

  Between them, a moment’s rapport—sexual, and covert.

  But soon then, disappointingly, E.H. seems to forget Spain. He stops humming Spanish-sounding music when Margot is near, and he returns to his familiar sketch-subjects. When Margot carefully pronounces “Spain”—“Spanish”—“Alhambra”—E.H. regards her with a polite, quizzical smile and no particular recognition; when she shows him photographs of Spanish settings, he says, “Either Spain or a South American country—though I guess that must be the Alhambra.”

  “Did you ever visit the Alhambra, Eli, that you can remember?”

  “Well! I can hardly say that I’ve visited the Alhambra that I don’t remember.”

  Pleasantly E.H. laughs. Margot sees the unease in his eyes.

  In fact, Margot knows that E.H. has not visited Spain. Surprisingly for a man of his education, social class, and artistic interests, E.H. has not traveled extensively abroad; the energies of his young manhood were focused upon American settings.

  “Were you there, with me? Are these photographs we took together?”—E.H.’s remark is startling, and difficult to interpret: flirtatious, belligerent, ironic, playful.

  Margot understands that the amnesiac subject tries to determine the plausible answer to a question by questioning his interrogator. At such times his voice takes on an almost childlike mock-innocence as if (so Margot speculates) he knows that you are onto his ruse but, if you liked him, you might play along with it.

  “Yes, Eli. We were there together, you and me. For three weeks in Spain, when . . .”

  It is wrong of Margot Sharpe to speak in such a way, and she knows it. But the words leap from her, and cannot be retrieved.

  “Were we! And were other travelers with us, or—”

  E.H. gazes at her plaintively, yearningly.

  Margot regrets her impulsive remark, and is grateful that no one is close by to overhear.

  “—were you my ‘fiancée’—is that why we were together?”

  “Yes, Eli. That is why.”

  “Or was it our honeymoon? Was that it?”

  “Yes. Our honeymoon.”

  “Were we happy?”

  “Oh, very happy!”—Margot feels tears flooding her eyes.

  “And are we married now? Have you come to take me home?”

  “Soon, Eli! When you’re discharged from this—clinic . . . Of course, I will take you home.”

  “Do you love me? Do I love you?”

  Margot is trembling with excitement, audacity. She has gone too far. She has no idea why she has said such things.

  It is a Skinnerian experiment, Margot thinks: stimulus/response. Behavior/reward/reinforcement.

  A Skinnerian experiment in which Margot Sharpe is the subject.

  It is clear, and she should prevent it: when E.H. smiles at her in a way that suggests sexual craving, Margot feels a surge of visceral excitement, a thrill of happiness, and can barely restrain herself from smiling at him in turn.

  Instinctively—unconsciously—the amnesiac subject is conditioning
her, the neuropsychologist, to respond to his feeling for her; and as Margot responds, she is further conditioning him.

  She has begun to notice a twinge of excitement, yearning, in the region of her heart when she enters the perimeter of E.H.’s awareness. He does not see Margot Sharpe, whose name he can’t remember, but he sees her: a young woman whose face he finds attractive partly or wholly because it reminds him of a face out of his childhood, a comfort to him in the terrible isolation of amnesia. He is looking at Margot with such yearning you would certainly think that he is, or has once been, her lover.

  “Do you love me? Do I love you?”—it is a genuine question.

  Margot feels a wave of guilt. And anxiety—for what if Milton Ferris were to know of her unprofessional behavior, her weakness!

  She must break the transference—the “spell.” Quickly she calls over a nurse’s aide to watch over E.H. while she goes to use a restroom; and when she returns she sees E.H. in an animated conversation with the young female aide, who laughs at the handsome amnesiac’s witty remarks as if she has never heard anything quite so funny.

  He has totally forgotten Margot Sharpe of course.

  When Margot approaches he turns to her, with a quick courteous smile, like one who has become accustomed to being the center of attention without questioning why, only perceptibly annoyed at being interrupted—“Hello! Hel-lo!”

  “Hel-lo!”

  “Eli, hello.”

  Does he remember her? It is very tempting for Margot Sharpe to think yes, he remembers her.

  Though she knows better of course. As a scientist of the brain she knows that this terribly damaged man cannot truly remember her.

  This is a day when Margot Sharpe has come to the Institute alone. She has driven alone in her own vehicle, a Volvo sedan; she has not ridden with the other lab colleagues, as usual; she is feeling somewhat agitated, after a night of disturbing dreams, and is grateful not to have to talk and relate to anyone else.

  She is particularly grateful that she has been scheduled to work with the amnesiac subject alone that day. For being with the amnesiac subject as he takes his interminable tests is not like being with another person, even as it is not like being alone with oneself.