Brain Child

by John Saul

  He’d seen the look on Bob Carey’s face when he’d asked Lisa what city she was talking about, and he knew what it meant, even though it hadn’t bothered him.

  Still, Bob Carey thought he was stupid, even though he wasn’t. In fact, after the tests on Monday, he knew he was just the opposite. If anything, he was a lot smarter than everybody else.

  He got out of bed and went to the family room. In the bookcase next to the fireplace, there was an Encyclopaedia Britannica. He switched on a lamp, then pulled Volume VIII of the Micropaedia off the shelf. A few minutes later, he began reading every article in the encyclopedia that referred to San Francisco.

  By the time they got there, he would be able to tell them more about the city than they knew themselves. And, he decided, he would know his way around.

  Tomorrow—Friday—he would find a map of San Francisco, and memorize it by the next morning.

  Memorizing things was easy.

  Figuring out what was expected of him, and then doing it, was not so easy.

  But he would do it.

  He didn’t know how long it would take, but he knew that if he watched carefully, and remembered everything he saw, sooner or later he would be able to act just like everybody else.

  But he still wouldn’t feel anything.

  And that, he decided, was all right. If he could learn to act as though he felt things, it would be good enough.

  Already he’d learned that it didn’t matter what he was or wasn’t.

  The only thing that really mattered was what people thought you were.

  He closed the book and put it back on the shelf, then turned around to see his father standing in the doorway.

  “Alex? Are you all right?”

  “I was just looking something up,” Alex replied.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  Alex glanced at the big clock in the corner. “Three-thirty.”

  “How come you’re not asleep?”

  “I just got to thinking about something, so I decided to look it up. I’ll go back to bed now.” He started out of the room, but his father stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “Is something bothering you, son?”

  Alex hesitated, wondering if maybe he should try to explain to his father how different he was from other people, and that he thought something might be wrong with his brain, then decided against it. If anyone would understand, it would be Dr. Torres. “I’m fine, Dad. Really.”

  Marsh dropped into his favorite chair, and looked at Alex critically. Certainly the boy looked fine, except for his too-bland expression. “Then I think maybe you and I ought to talk about your future, before Torres decides it for us,” he suggested.

  Alex listened in silence while Marsh repeated his idea of sending Alex into an advanced program at Stanford. As he talked, Marsh kept his eyes on his son, trying to see what effect his words might be having on the boy.

  Apparently there was none.

  Alex’s expression never changed, and Marsh suddenly had the uneasy feeling that Alex wasn’t even hearing him. “Well?” he asked at last. “What do you think?”

  Alex was silent for a moment, then stood up. “I’ll have to talk to Dr. Torres about it,” he said. He started out of the room. “Good night, Dad.”

  For a moment, all Marsh could do was stare at his son’s retreating back. And then, like a breaking storm, fury swept over him. “Alex!” The single word echoed through the house. Instantly Alex stopped and turned around.

  “Dad?”

  “What the hell is going on with you?” Marsh demanded. He could feel blood pounding in his veins, and his fists clutched into tight knots at his side. “Did you even hear me? Do you have any idea of what I was saying to you?”

  Alex nodded silently, then, as his fathers furious eyes remained fixed on him, began repeating Marsh’s words back to him.

  “Stop that!” Marsh roared. “Goddammit, just stop it!”

  Obediently Alex fell back into silence.

  Marsh stood still, forcing his mind to concentrate on the soft ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, willing his rage to ease. A moment later he became vaguely aware that Ellen, too, was in the room now, her face pale, her frightened eyes darting from him to Alex, then back again.

  “Marsh?” she asked uncertainly. “Marsh, what’s going on?” When Marsh, still trembling with anger, made no reply, she turned to her son. “Alex?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex replied. “He was talking about me going to college, and I said I’d talk to Dr. Torres about it. Then he started yelling at me.”

  “Go to bed,” Ellen told him. She gave him a quick hug, then gently eased him toward the hall. “Go on. I’ll take care of your father.” When Alex was gone, she turned to Marsh, her eyes damp. When she spoke, her voice was a bleak reflection of the pain she was feeling, not just for her son, but for her husband too. “You can’t do this,” she whispered. “You know he’s not well yet. What do you expect from him?”

  Marsh, his anger spent, sagged onto the couch and buried his face in his hands.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said softly. “It’s only that talking to him just now was like talking to a brick wall. And then all he said was that he’d talk to Torres about it. Torres!” he repeated bitterly, then gazed up at her, his face suddenly haggard. “I’m his father, Ellen,” he said in a voice breaking with pain. “But for all the reaction I get from him, I might as well not even exist.”

  Ellen took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “I know,” she said at last. “A lot of the time I feel exactly the same way. But we have to get him through it, Marsh. We can’t just send him off somewhere. He can barely deal with the people he’s known all his life—how would he ever be able to deal with total strangers?”

  “But he’s so bright …” Marsh whispered.

  Ellen nodded. “I know. But he’s not well yet. Raymond—” She broke off suddenly, sensing her husband’s animosity toward the man who had saved Alex’s life. “Dr. Torres,” she began again, “is helping him, and we have to help him too. And we have to be patient with him, no matter how hard it is.” She hesitated, then went on. “Sometimes … well, sometimes the only way I can deal with it is to remember that whatever I’m going through, what Alex is going through must be ten times worse.”

  Marsh put his arms around his wife and pulled her close. “I know,” he said. “I know you’re right, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.” A rueful smile twisted his face. “I guess there’s a good reason why doctors should never treat their own family, isn’t there? Lord knows, my bedside manner deserted me tonight.” His arms fell away from Ellen as he stood up. “I’d better go apologize to him.”

  But when he entered Alex’s room, his son was sound asleep. As far as he could see, even his rage hadn’t affected the boy. Still, he laid his hand gently on Alex’s cheek. “I’m sorry, son,” he whispered. “I’m sorry about everything.”

  Alex rolled over, unconsciously brushing his father’s hand away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At a few minutes past nine on Saturday morning, Bob Carey maneuvered his father’s Volvo into the left lane of the Bayshore Freeway, and three minutes later they left Palo Alto behind. Alex sat quietly in the back seat next to Lisa, his ears taking in the chatter of his three friends while his eyes remained glued to the world outside the car. None of it looked familiar, but he studied the road signs carefully as they passed through Redwood City, San Carlos, and San Mateo, then began skirting the edge of the bay. His eyes took in everything, and he was sure that on the return trip that afternoon, even though he would be seeing it all from the other direction, all of it would be familiar.

  Then, a little north of the airport, Bob veered off the freeway and started inland.

  “Where are we going?” Kate Lewis asked. “We want to go all the way into the City!”

  “We’re going to the BART station in Daly City,” Bob told her.

  “BART?” Kate groaned. “Who wan
ts to ride the subway?”

  “I do,” Bob told her. “I like the subway, and besides, I’m not going to drive Dad’s car in the City. All I need is to have to try to explain how I smashed a fender on Nob Hill when I was supposed to be in Santa Cruz. I’d wind up grounded lower than Carolyn Evans was.”

  Kate started to protest further, but Lisa backed Bob up. “He’s right,” she said. “I had to argue with my folks for half an hour to keep from having to bring Kim along, and if we get caught now, we’ll all be in trouble. Besides, I like BART too. It’ll be fun!”

  Forty minutes later, they emerged from the BART station, and Alex gazed around him, knowing immediately where he was. Yesterday he’d found a tour guide to San Francisco in the La Paloma bookstore, then spent last night studying it. The city around him looked exactly like the pictures in the guidebook. “Let’s ride the cable car out to Fisherman’s Wharf,” he suggested.

  Lisa stared at him with surprised eyes. “How did you know it goes there?” she asked.

  Alex hesitated, then pointed to the cable car that was just coasting onto the turntable at Powell and Market. On its end was a sign that read “Powell & Mason” and, below that, “Fisherman’s Wharf.”

  They wandered around the wharf, then started back toward the downtown area, through North Beach on Columbus, then turning south on Grant to go into Chinatown. People milled around them, and suddenly Alex stopped dead in his tracks. Lisa turned to him, but he seemed unaware of her. His eyes were gazing intently at the faces of the people around him.

  “Alex, what is it?” she asked. All morning, he’d seemed fine. He’d asked a few questions, but not nearly as many as usual, and he’d always seemed to know exactly where he was and where they were going. Once, in fact, he’d even told them where a street they were looking for was, then, when asked how he knew, admitted to having memorized all the street signs while they rode the cable car. But now he seemed totally baffled. “Alex, what’s wrong?” Lisa asked again.

  “These people,” Alex said. “What are they? They don’t look like us.”

  “Oh, Jeez,” Bob Carey groaned.

  “They’re Chinese,” Lisa said, keeping her voice as low as she could, and silencing Bob with a glare. “And stop staring at them, Alex. You’re being rude.”

  “Chinese,” Alex repeated. He started walking again, but his eyes kept wandering over the Oriental faces around him. “The Chinese built the railroads,” he suddenly said. Then: “The railroad barons, Collis P. Huntington and Leland Stanford, brought them in by the thousands. Now San Francisco has one of the biggest Chinese populations outside of China.”

  Lisa stared at Alex for a moment; then suddenly she knew. “A tour book,” she said. “You read a tour book, didn’t you?”

  Alex nodded. “I didn’t want to spend all day asking you questions,” he said. “I know you don’t like that. So I studied.”

  Bob Carey’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You studied? You read a whole guidebook just because we were coming up here for a day?”

  Again Alex nodded.

  “But who can remember all that stuff? Who even cares? For Christ’s sake, Alex, all we’re doing is messing around.”

  “Well, I think it’s neat,” Kate told her boyfriend. Then she turned to Alex. “Did you really memorize all the streets while we were on the cable car?”

  “I didn’t have to,” Alex admitted. “I got a map, too. I memorized it.”

  “Bullshit!” Bob’s eyes were suddenly angry. “Where’s the mission?” he demanded.

  Alex hesitated a moment; then: “Sixteenth and Dolores. It’s on the corner, and there’s a park in the same block.”

  “Well?” Kate asked Bob. “Is he right?”

  “I don’t know,” Bob admitted, his face reddening. “Who even cares where the mission is?”

  “I do,” Lisa said, reaching out to squeeze Alex’s hand. “How do we get there?”

  “Go down to Market, then up to Dolores, and left on Dolores.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  The little mission with its adjoining cemetery and garden was exactly where Alex had said it would be, crouching on the corner almost defensively, as if it knew it was no more than a relic from the city’s long-forgotten past. The city, indeed, had even taken away its original name—San Francisco de Asís. Now it was called Mission Dolores, and it seemed to have taken on the very sadness its name implied.

  “Want to go in?” Lisa asked of no one in particular.

  “What for?” Bob groaned. “Haven’t we all seen enough missions? They used to drag us off to one every year!”

  “Well, what about Alex?” Lisa argued. “I bet he doesn’t remember ever seeing a mission before. And did you ever see this mission? Come on.”

  Following Lisa, they went into the little church, then out into the garden, and suddenly the city beyond the garden walls might as well have disappeared, for within the little space occupied by the mission, there was no trace of the modern world.

  The garden, still kept neatly trimmed after nearly two hundred years, was in the last stages of its summer bloom. Here and there dead leaves had already fallen to the ground, dotting the pathways with bright gold. Off in the far corner, they could see the old cemetery. “Over there,” Alex said softly. “Let’s go over there.”

  The quietness of his voice caught Lisa’s attention, and she turned to look into Alex’s eyes. For the first time since the accident, there seemed to be life in them. “What is it, Alex?” she asked. “You’re remembering something, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex whispered. He was walking slowly along one of the paths now, but his eyes remained fixed on the weathered headstones of the graveyard.

  “The graveyard?” Lisa asked. “Do you remember the graveyard?”

  Alex’s mind was whirling, and he barely heard Lisa’s question. Images were flickering, and there were sounds. But nothing was clear, except that the images and sounds were connected with this place. Trembling slightly, he kept walking.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Kate asked, her voice worried. “He looks weird.”

  “I think he’s remembering something,” Lisa replied.

  “We’d better go with him,” Bob added, but Lisa shook her head.

  “I’ll go,” she told them. “You guys wait for us, okay?”

  Kate nodded mutely, and as Alex stepped into the tiny fenced cemetery, Lisa hurried after him.

  The images had begun coming into focus as soon as he’d entered the cemetery. His heart was pounding, and he felt out of breath, as if he’d been running for a long time. He scanned the little graveyard, and his eyes came to rest on a small stone near the wall.

  In his mind, there were images of people.

  Women dressed in black, their faces framed by white cowls, their feet clad in sandals.

  Nuns.

  In his mind’s eye he saw a group of nuns clustering around a boy, and the boy was himself.

  But he was different somehow.

  His hair was darker, and his skin had an olive complexion to it.

  And he was crying.

  Unconsciously Alex moved closer to the headstone that had triggered the strange images, and the images seemed to move with him. Then he was standing at the grave, gazing down at the inscription that was still barely legible in the worn granite

  Fernando Meléndez y Ruiz

  1802–1850

  A word flashed into his mind, and he repeated it out loud. “¡Tío!” As he uttered the word, a stab of pain knifed through his brain, then was gone.

  And then voices began whispering to him—the voices of the nuns, though the images of them had already faded away.

  “Él está muerto.” He is dead.

  And then there was another voice—a man’s voice—whispering to him out of the depths of his memory. “¡Venganza … venganza!”

  He stood very still, his eyes brimming with unfamiliar tears, his pulse throbbing. The voice went on, whispering to him in Spanish, b
ut only the one word registered on his mind: “Venganza.”

  His tears overflowed, and a sob choked his throat. Then, as the strange words pounded in his head, he gave in to the sudden unfamiliar rush of emotion.

  Time seemed to stand still, and he felt a kind of pain he couldn’t remember having ever felt before. Pain of the heart, and of the soul.

  The pain seared at him, and then he became aware of a hand tugging at him, slowly penetrating the chaos in his mind.

  “Alex?” a voice said. “Alex, what’s wrong? What is it?”

  Alex pointed to the grave, sobbing brokenly, and Lisa, after a moment of utter confusion, began to understand what must have happened. She had listened carefully that day last month before Alex came home from the hospital, and she could still remember the words.

  “He could start laughing or crying at any time,” Alex’s mother had told her. “Dr. Torres says it won’t matter if something is funny or sad. It’s just that it’s possible that there will be misconnections in his brain, and he could react inappropriately to something. Or he could simply overreact.”

  And that, Lisa was certain, was exactly what was happening now. Alex was overreacting to an ancient grave.

  But why?

  He had remembered something, she had been sure of it. And now he was staring at the grave, tears streaming down his face, uncontrollable sobs racking his body. Gently she tried to pull him away as a priest appeared from the back of the church and looked at them quizzically.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No,” Lisa quickly replied. “Everything’s all right. It …” She floundered for a moment, trying to think of an explanation for Alex’s behavior, but her mind had suddenly gone blank. “Come on, Alex,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Half-dragging Alex, she edged her way past the priest, then out of the graveyard. Once back in the garden, she put her arms around Alex and squeezed him. “It’s all right, Alex,” she whispered. “It was only an old grave. Nothing to cry about.”

  Slowly Alex’s sobs began to subside, and he made himself listen to Lisa’s words.

  Only a grave. But it hadn’t been only a grave. He had recognized the grave, as he had recognized the cemetery itself. What he had just experienced, he had experienced before.