Brain Child

by John Saul

  Torres placed his pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “If I were you, I think I’d be excited. You’re finally going home after three months—it seems to me that should be exciting.”

  “Except I’m not really going home, am I?” Alex asked, his voice as expressionless as his eyes. “I mean, Mom and Dad have moved, so I’ll be going to a house I’ve never lived in before.”

  “Do you wish you were going back to the house you grew up in?”

  Alex hesitated, then shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter where I go, since I don’t remember the old house anyway.”

  “You don’t have any feelings about it at all?”

  “No.” Alex uttered the single word with no expression whatsoever.

  And that, Torres silently reminded himself, was the crux of the matter. Alex had no feelings, no emotions. That was not to say that Alex’s recovery had not been remarkable; indeed, it was very little short of miraculous. The boy could walk and talk, see, hear, and touch. But he seemed not to be able to feel at all.

  Even the news that he was being released from the Institute had elicited no emotional response from him. Rather, he’d accepted the news with the same detachment with which he now accepted everything. And that, Torres knew, was the one factor that kept the medical world from viewing the operation as a complete success.

  “What about going back to La Paloma?” Torres pressed.

  Alex shifted in his chair and started to cross his legs. On the second try, his left ankle came to rest on his right knee.

  “I … I guess I wonder what it will be like,” he finally said. “I keep wondering if I’ll recognize anything, or if it’s all going to be like it was when I first woke up.”

  “You’ve remembered a lot since then,” Torres replied.

  Alex shrugged indifferently. “But I keep wondering if I really remember anything, or if I’m just learning things all over again.”

  “Not possible,” Torres stated flatly. “It has to be recovery—nobody could learn things as fast as you have. And don’t forget that when you first woke up, you spoke. You hadn’t forgotten language.”

  “There were a lot of words I didn’t understand,” Alex reminded him. “And sometimes there still are.” He stood up and took a shaky step, paused, then took another.

  “Take it easy, Alex,” Torres told him. “Don’t demand too much of yourself. It’s all going to take time. And speaking of time, I think we’d better get started.” He waited while Alex swiveled his chair around so both of them were facing the screen that had been set up in a corner of the large office. When Alex was ready, Torres switched off the lights. A picture flashed on the screen.

  “What is it?” Torres asked.

  Alex didn’t hesitate so much as a second. “An amoeba.”

  “Right. When did you take biology?”

  “Last year. It was Mr. Landry’s class.”

  “Can you tell me what Mr. Landry looked like?”

  Alex thought a minute, but nothing came. “No.”

  “All right. What about your grade?”

  “An A. But that was easy—I always got A’s in science.”

  Torres said nothing, and changed the slide.

  “That’s the Mona Lisa,” Alex said promptly. “Leonardo da Vinci.”

  “Good enough. Is there another name for it?”

  “La Gioconda.”

  The pictures changed again and again, and each time Alex correctly identified the image on the screen. Finally the slide show ended, and Torres turned the lights back on. “Well? What do you think?”

  Alex shrugged. “I could have learned most of that stuff since I’ve been here,” he said. “All I’ve been doing is reading.”

  “What about your grades? Did you read them here, too?”

  “No. But Mom told me. I don’t really remember much of anything about any of my classes. Just names of teachers and that kind of thing. But I don’t see anything. Know what I mean?”

  Torres nodded, and rifled through some of his notes. “Having problems visualizing things? No mental images?”

  Alex nodded.

  “But you don’t have problems visualizing things you’ve seen since the accident?”

  “No. That’s easy. And sometimes, when I see something, it seems familiar, but I can’t quite put it together. Then, when someone tells me what it is, it’s almost like I remember it, but not quite. It’s hard to describe.”

  “Sort of like déjà vu?”

  Alex knit his brows, then shook his head. “Isn’t that where you think what’s happening now has happened before?”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s not like that at all.” Alex searched his mind, trying to find the right words to describe the strange sensations he had sometimes. “They’re like half-memories,” he finally said. “It’s like sometimes I see something, and I think I remember it, but I really don’t.”

  “But that’s just it,” Torres told him. “I think you do remember, but your brain isn’t healed yet. You’ve had a lot of damage to your brain, Alex. I was able to put it back together again, but I couldn’t do it perfectly. So there are a lot of connections that aren’t there yet. It’s as though part of your brain knows where the data it’s looking for are stored, but can’t get there. But it doesn’t stop trying, and sometimes—and I think this will happen more and more—it finds a new route, and gets what it’s after. But it’s a little different. Not the data itself—just the way you remember it. I think you’ll have more and more of those half-memories over the next few months. In time, as your brain finds and establishes new paths through itself, it’ll happen less and less. And eventually, everything left in your mind after the accident will become accessible again.” A buzzer sounded. Torres picked up the phone and spoke for a moment, then hung up. “Your parents are here,” he told Alex. “Why don’t you go over to the lab, and I’ll have a talk with them? And when you’re done, that’s it. We check you out, and you only have to come back for a couple of hours a day.”

  Alex got to his feet and started toward the door in the shambling gait that, most of the time, got him where he wanted to go. He was still unsteady, but he hadn’t actually lost his footing for a week, and each day he was doing better. Still, he wasn’t allowed to attempt stairs without someone there to help him, and he used a cane whenever he wanted to go more than a few yards. But it was coming back to him.

  The door opened just before Alex got to it, and his parents stepped inside. He stopped short, leaning his weight on the cane, and bent his head to kiss his mother’s cheek as she gave him a hug. Then he shook his father’s hand, and started out of the office.

  “Alex?” Ellen asked. “Where are you going?”

  “My tests, Mom,” Alex replied, his voice flat. “Then we can go home, I guess.” He turned away, and shambled out of the room. Ellen, her brows furrowed, watched him go, then stood perfectly still for several long moments. When at last she spoke, she still faced the door.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stand this, Raymond,” she said, her voice trembling. “He isn’t changing, is he? He doesn’t really care if he goes home or not.”

  “Sit down, Ellen.” Torres gestured the Lonsdales toward the sofa, but remained standing himself, preferring to roam the room while he brought them up to date on Alex’s progress.

  “So that’s it,” he finished thirty mintues later. “Physically and intellectually, he’s doing better than we could possibly have hoped for.”

  “But still no emotions,” Ellen said, her voice dull. Then she sighed, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve got to learn not to expect miracles, don’t I?”

  “We’ve already had the miracle,” Torres replied. “And I’m not through yet. But I think you have to face the fact that Alex is probably never going to be the same as he was before.”

  “I don’t expect him to be,” Marsh said evenly, determined that today he would keep his dislike of Torres under control. “I’ll b
e honest—I never expected him to come as far as he has.”

  Torres shook his head. “Some of it may be deceiving. There are still enormous gaps in his memory, and when he leaves here, he may become completely disoriented. He says he doesn’t remember what La Paloma looks like, or how to get to his house.”

  “We’ll get him there,” Marsh said. “Anyway, we’ll try,” he added, grinning ruefully. “I’m afraid I still go to the old place a couple of times a week. But I’m getting better.”

  Torres didn’t respond to Marsh’s grin. “Actually, I think Alex could get you there himself. We gave him a map, and after he studied it, I asked him to tell me how to get home from here. He didn’t miss a turn. But he says he doesn’t have any idea of what any of it looks like. He simply can’t get a mental image of anything he hasn’t actually seen since the accident.”

  “Is that possible?” Ellen asked.

  “Possible, but unlikely.” He told them what he’d told Alex earlier, then, finally, sat down behind his desk. “Which brings us, finally, to the problem of his personality, or lack of it.”

  Marsh and Ellen exchanged a glance—it was Alex’s altered personality that had, during the last few weeks, become their primary concern. Steadfastly Ellen had insisted that Alex’s strange passivity was only temporary, that once he had recovered physically from his injuries, Raymond Torres would begin working to restore his personality. Marsh, on the other hand, had tried to prepare her for the possibility that Alex’s personality might never recover, that the emotional center of his brain might very well be irrevocably damaged.

  “No,” Ellen had insisted over and over again. “It’s just a matter of time. Raymond will help him. We just have to trust him, that’s all.”

  Futilely Marsh had pointed out that Torres was a surgeon, not a psychologist, but it had done no good. Through the end of spring and the long summer that followed, Ellen’s faith in Torres’s abilities had only grown stronger, while at the same time, Marsh’s own dislike of the man had increased proportionately. On the surface, Marsh pretended that his animosity toward Torres was based solely on the man’s arrogance, but privately he was all too aware that he was, indeed, jealous of Torres. More and more, Torres was taking over the role of father to his son, and adviser and confidant to his wife. And there was nothing he could do about it—he owed the man Alex’s very life.

  “I’m afraid Alex has what we call a flat personality,” he heard Torres saying.

  “I know the term,” he said, abandoning his previous resolve and making no attempt to keep his voice free of sarcasm.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Torres replied coldly. “But I’m going to explain it anyway.” He turned to Ellen. “It’s very common in this kind of case,” he went on. “Often, when there is brain damage—even much less brain damage than Alex suffered—the emotional structure of the victim is the slowest to recover. Sometimes the damage results in what is called a labile personality, in which the patient tends to exhibit inappropriate emotions—such as laughing uncontrollably at things that don’t appear funny to others, or suddenly bursting into tears for no apparent reason. Or, as in Alex’s case, the personality simply goes flat. There seems to be little emotional reaction to anything. Over a long period of time, the personality may be partially rebuilt, but there is rarely a full recovery. And that, I’m afraid, may easily be the case with Alex. From what we’ve seen so far, it appears that the permanent damage in him is going to be to his personality.”

  There was a silence. Then: “I told you at the outset that there was no chance for a complete recovery.”

  “But of course he will recover,” Ellen said, and Marsh felt a slight chill at the determination in her voice, and the faith in her eyes as she gazed at Raymond Torres. “He has you to help him.” Torres nodded, but made no reply. “All I have to know,” Ellen went on, “is how to help him. Should I go ahead and put my arms around him, even though he just stands there? Should I try to elicit emotional responses in him?”

  Again Torres nodded. “Of course you should. And frankly, I don’t think you’ll be able to resist trying. But I’ve worked with Alex all summer, and I can tell you there are times when it will be very frustrating. You’ll want him to be as excited about his progress as you are, and it just won’t happen. Or perhaps it’s just that he hasn’t learned how to express his feelings yet. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Ellen nodded, and smiled triumphantly at Marsh. “Is there anything else we should expect?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Expect anything and nothing. Just don’t be surprised at anything. Alex’s mind is still healing, and all kinds of things might happen during that process. The most important thing for you to do is keep track of what happens. I want you to keep notes, and bring them with you every day. I don’t care what’s in the notes—I want to know when his behavior seems normal, and when it doesn’t. I particularly want to know what, if anything, makes him laugh or cry. Or even smile.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ellen assured him. “I’ll get him smiling again.”

  “I hope so,” Torres replied. “But try not to worry about it too much if it doesn’t happen. And keep in mind that while he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t frown, either.”

  Marsh silently wondered if Torres had intended that to be a comforting thought. If he had, he’d failed totally.

  In the lab, Alex began to come up from the anesthesia that was always administered to him during the daily tests, and, as always, slowly became aware of the strange and fleeting images that filled his mind. As always, the images were unidentifiable; as always, they were accompanied by an incomprehensible stream of something that was almost, but not quite, like sound.

  Then he came fully awake, and the images and sounds faded away. He opened his eyes.

  “How do you feel?” the technician asked. His name was Peter Bloch, but other than that, Alex didn’t know much about him. Nor, for that matter, was he curious to know anything about him. To Alex, Peter was simply one more part of the Institute.

  “Okay,” he said. Then: “How come I always see and hear things just before I wake up?”

  Peter frowned. “What kind of things?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like a flickering I can’t quite see, and there’s a sort of squeaky, rasping sound.”

  Peter began disconnecting the monitors from the tiny wires that emerged, almost like hairs, from the metal plate that had replaced part of Alex’s left parietal bone, and the scalp that had been drawn across to cover it. “What about pain?”

  “No. There’s no pain.”

  “Anything at all? Do you feel anything, or smell anything? Taste anything?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” Peter told him. “I know that during the tests, some of these electrodes are constantly stimulating your brain, then measuring its responses. That’s why we have to put you to sleep. We’re giving your brain artificial stimuli, and if you were awake, it could be pretty unpleasant. You might feel like we’d burned your hand, or cut your arm, or you might smell or taste something pretty awful. It sounds like you’re just waking up too early, and responding to visual and otic stimuli—seeing and hearing things that aren’t there at all.”

  Alex got up from the table and pulled his shirt on, then sat still, waiting for the last of the anesthesia to wear off. “Shall I tell Dr. Torres about it?”

  Peter Bloch shrugged. “If you want. I’ll make a note of it, and tomorrow we’ll hold off on flushing you out with oxygen for a few more minutes.”

  “That’s okay,” Alex replied. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  Peter offered him an uncertain grin. “Does anything ever bother you?”

  Alex thought a moment, then shook his head. “No.” He tucked in his shirt and carefully put his feet on the floor, then took his cane in his right hand and began making his slow way to the door.

  Peter Bloch watched him go, and his grin faded away. He began closing up the lab, shutting down the equipment that ha
d been in use almost constantly over the last three months. For himself, he was glad Alex Lonsdale was going home. The work load, since Alex had arrived, had been nearly intolerable, and Torres had never let up on the staff for a moment.

  Besides, Peter realized as he took off his lab jacket and hunched into his favorite khaki windbreaker, he didn’t like Alex Lonsdale.

  True, what Torres had accomplished with Alex would probably make some kind of medical history, but Peter wasn’t impressed. To him, it didn’t matter how well Alex was doing.

  The kid was a zombie.

  Marsh drove north out of Palo Alto, staying on Middlefield Road until he came to La Paloma Drive, where he turned left to start up into the hills. Every few minutes he glanced over at Alex, who sat impassively in the passenger seat next to him, while from the back seat Ellen kept up a steady stream of chatter:

  “Do you remember what’s just around the next curve? We’re almost to La Paloma, and things will start looking familiar to you.”

  Alex pictured the map he’d studied. “The county park,” he said. “Hillside Park.”

  “You remember!” Ellen exclaimed.

  “It was on the map Dr. Torres gave me,” Alex corrected her. They came around the bend in the road, and Marsh slowed the car. “Stop,” Alex suddenly said.

  Marsh braked the car, and followed Alex’s gaze. In the distance, there was a group of children playing on a swing set, while two teenage boys tossed a Frisbee back and forth.

  “What is it, Alex?” Marsh asked.

  Alex’s eyes seemed to be fixed on the children on the swings.

  “I always wanted to do that when I was little,” he said.

  Marsh chuckled. “You not only wanted to, you nearly drove us crazy.” His voice took on a singsong tone as he mimicked a child’s voice. “ ‘More! More! Don’t want to go home. Want to swing!’ That’s why I finally hung one in the backyard at the old house. It was either that or spend every free minute I had bringing you out here.”

  Alex turned and gazed at his father, his eyes steady. “I don’t remember that at all,” he said.