The Man Without a Shadow. Joyce Carol Oates

much in Nature is “unnatural.”

      At this midpoint Milton Ferris departs. He has an appointment—a luncheon perhaps. The principal investigator entrusts his assistants to run the tests he has designed without his supervision.

      Margot follows instructions diligently: even when she knows what to do next she waits for Alvin Kaplan, Ferris’s protégé, to instruct her. Testing E.H. is laborious, repetitive, yet fascinating—memory tests of various kinds, auditory and visual, of gradually increasing complexity.

      One of the tests seems purposefully designed to frustrate and discourage the subject. E.H. is instructed by Kaplan to count “as high as you can without stopping.” E.H. begins counting and continues for an impressively long time, beyond seventy seconds; his counting is methodical, by rote. Then, at numeral eighty-nine, Kaplan interrupts, distracting E.H. by showing him a card with an elaborate geometrical design E.H. is asked to describe—“Looks like three pyramids upside down or maybe—pineapples?”

      And now when Kaplan asks E.H. to continue with his counting, E.H. is utterly baffled. He has no idea how to proceed.

      “‘Counting’—what? What was I ‘counting’?”

      “You were counting numbers ‘as high as you can’—then you stopped to describe this card. But now, Eli, you can continue.”

      “‘Continue’—what?”

      “You don’t remember the count?”

      “‘Count’—? No. I don’t remember.”

      E.H. stares at the illustrated card that has distracted him, registering now that it is a trick.

      “I played cards when I was a little boy. I played checkers and chess, too.” E.H. glances about as if looking for more cards, or game boards.

      E.H.’s fingers twitch. His usually affable eyes glare with fury. How he would like to tear into bits the stupid card with a picture of pyramids, or pineapples!

      Seeing the look in E.H.’s face Margot feels a twinge of guilt. She wonders if the test isn’t cruel after all—mental cruelty. Though E.H. has clearly enjoyed being the epicenter of attention until now.

      Margot thinks—But he won’t remember! He will forget.

      She thinks of those laboratory animals of decades past whose vocal cords were sometimes cut—monkeys, dogs, cats. So that their cries of pain and terror could not be expressed; their torturers were spared hearing, and did not need to register their suffering. Before a new and more humane era of animal experimentation but well within the memory of Milton Ferris, she is sure.

      Ferris has often joked of the new “humane” era—its restrictions on animal research, the zealotry of “animal terrorists” protesting experiments of the kind he’d done himself not long ago with splendid results.

      Margot does not like to speculate how she would have behaved in such laboratories, in the past. Would she have protested the suffering of animals? Or would she have silently, shamefully concurred?—for to have objected would have been tantamount to being expelled from the great man’s lab, and from a career in neuroscience itself.

      Margot tells herself it is all science: a quest for the truth that is elusive, deep-lying.

      For truth is not lying on the surface of the earth, scattered bits of fossil you might fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Truth is buried, hidden, labyrinthine. What others see is likely to be surface—superficial. The scientist is one who delves deeper.

      E.H. is looking blankly about the examining room, which has become an unknown place to him. It’s as if a stage set has been dismantled and all that remains are barren walls. The bright eager smile has faded from his lips. Elihu Hoopes is a marooned man who has suffered a grievous loss; his manner exudes, not charisma, but desperation. “You were at eighty-nine, Mr. Hoopes,” Margot says gently, to comfort the forlorn man. “You were doing very well when you were interrupted.” She ignores the stares of Kaplan and the others which are an indication to her that she has misspoken.

      Hearing Margot’s soft but insistent voice behind him E.H. turns to her in surprise. He has been focusing his attention upon Kaplan and he has totally forgotten Margot—he registers surprise that there are several others in the room, and Margot behind him, sitting in a corner like a schoolgirl, observing and taking notes.

      “Hel-lo!—hel-lo!”

      It is clear that E.H. has never seen Margot Sharpe before: she is a diminutive young woman with unusually pale skin, black eyebrows and lashes, glossy black bangs hiding much of her forehead; her almond-shaped eyes would be beautiful if not so narrowed in thought.

      She is eccentrically dressed in black, layers of black like a dancer. Notebook on her lap, pen in hand, frowning, yet smiling, she is—very likely—a young doctor? medical student? (Not a nurse. He knows that she is not a nurse.) Yet, she isn’t wearing a white lab coat. There is no ID on her lapel which vexes and intrigues E.H.

      Ignoring Kaplan and the others E.H. extends his hand to shake the young woman’s hand. “Hel-lo! I think we know each other—we went to school together—did we? In Gladwyne?”

      The black-haired young woman hesitates. Then gracefully rises from her seat and comes to him, to slip her hand into his, with a smile.

      “Hello, Mr. Hoopes—‘Eli.’ I am Margot Sharpe—whom you have never met before today.”

       ACROSS THE GIRL’S white face beneath the rippling water are shadows of dragonflies and “skaters.” It is strange to see, the shadows of the insects are larger than the living insects

       He has discovered her, in the stream. No one else knows—he is alone in this place.

       But he doesn’t look, he has not (yet) seen the drowned girl. He was not there, so he cannot see. He cannot remember what he has not seen.

       On the plank bridge in this strange place so many years later he does not turn his head. He does not glance around. He grips the railing tight in both his hands, bravely he steels himself against the anticipated wind.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Mr. Hoopes? Eli?”

      “Hel-lo!”

      “My name is Margot Sharpe. I’m Professor Ferris’s associate. We’ve met before. We’ve come to take up a little of your time this morning …”

      “Yes! Wel-come.”

      Light coming up in his eyes. That leap of hope in his eyes.

      “Wel-come, Margot!”

      Her hand gripped in his, a clasp of recognition.

       He does remember me. Not consciously—but he remembers.

      She can’t write about this, yet. She has no scientific proof, yet.

       The amnesiac will discover ways of “remembering.” It is a non-declarative memory, it bypasses the conscious mind altogether.

       For there is emotional memory, as there is declarative memory.

       There is a memory deep-embedded in the body—a memory generated by passion.

      Suffused with happiness, Margot Sharpe feels like a balloon rapidly, giddily filling with helium.

      “MR. HOOPES? ELI?”

      “Hel-lo! Hel-lo.”

      He has not ever seen her before. Eagerly he smiles at her, leans close to her, to shake her hand.

      In his large, strong hand, Margot Sharpe’s small hand.

      “You may