The Man Without a Shadow. Joyce Carol Oates

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.

      (It is not a very happy day in Margot Sharpe’s life. It has not been a very happy week in Margot Sharpe’s life, nor has it been a happy month in Margot Sharpe’s life. But Margot Sharpe is not one to acknowledge personal problems when she is performing professionally.)

      More frequently in recent years, Milton Ferris has designated Margot Sharpe his surrogate in Project E.H. Ferris trusts Margot Sharpe “without qualification”—(he has told her, and this is greatly flattering to her)—and behaves as if she were now his favored protégée at the university; he has been responsible for Margot being hired in a tenure-track position in the Psychology Department, and at a good salary. Of his numerous younger colleagues, Margot Sharpe seems to be the one Milton Ferris trusts most in the wake of the departure of Alvin Kaplan.

      There has been some good news for the university memory lab—a renewal and an expansion of their federal