The Man Without a Shadow Read Free Page B

.”
    Margot feels her face heat. It is just not the flirtation that makes her uneasy but a kind of complicity of hers, as of the others who are listening, in their reluctance to tell E.H. frankly of his condition.
    It would be Dr. Ferris’s obligation to tell him this; or rather, to tell him again. (For E.H. has been told many times.)
    â€œI—I’m afraid not . . .”
    â€œWell! Will you call me ‘Eli’? Please.”
    â€œâ€˜Eli.’”
    â€œThank you! That’s very kind.”
    E.H. consults a little notebook he keeps in a pocket of his khakis, and jots down a note. He holds the notebook at a slight, subtle angle so that no one can see what he is writing; yet not so emphatically an angle that the gesture is insulting to Margot.
    Margot has been told that the amnesiac has been keeping notebooks since he’d recovered from his illness and was strong enough to hold a pen in his hand. So far he has accumulated many dozens of these small notebooks as well as sketchbooks measuring forty-eight inches by thirty-six inches; he never arrives at the Institute without both of these. Apparently the notebook and the sketchbook serve different functions. In the notebooks E.H. jots down stray facts, names, times and dates; he inserts columns torn from magazines and newspapers from the fourth-floor lounge. (Male staffers who use the fourth-floor men’s restroom report finding such detritus there each day that E.H. is on the premises—that is how they know, they say, that “your fancy amnesiac” has been there.) The sketchbooks are for drawings.
    The complex neurological skills needed for reading, writing, and mathematical calculation seem not to have been much affected by E.H.’s illness, as they were acquired before the infection. So E.H. reads brightly from the notebook: “‘Elihu Hoopes attended Amherst College and graduated summa cum laude with a double major in economics and mathematics . . . Elihu Hoopes has attended Union Theological Seminary and has a degree from the Wharton School of Business.’” E.H. reads this statement as if he has been asked to identify himself. Seeing his visitors’ carefully neutral expressions he regards them with a little tic of a smile as if, for just this moment, he understands the folly and pathos of his predicament, and is begging their indulgence. Forgive me! The amnesiac has learned to gauge the mood of his visitors, eager to engage and entertain them : “I know this. I know who I am. But it seems reasonable to check one’s identity frequently, to see if it is still there.” E.H. laughs as he snaps the little notebook shut and slips it back into his pocket, and the others laugh with him.
    Only Margot can barely bring herself to laugh. It seems to her cruel somehow.
    There is laughter, and there is laughter. Not all laughter is equal.
    Laughter too depends upon memory—a memory of previous laughter.
    Dr. Ferris has told his young associates that their subject “E.H.” will possibly be one of the most famous amnesiacs in the history of neuroscience; potentially he is another Phineas Gage, but in an era of advanced neuropsychological experimentation. In fact E.H. is far more interesting neurologically than Gage whose memory had not been severely affected by his famous head injury—the penetration of his left frontal lobe by an iron rod.
    Dr. Ferris has cautioned them against too freely discussingE.H. outside their laboratory, at least initially; they should be aware of their “enormous good fortune” in being part of this research team.
    Though she is only a first-year graduate student Margot Sharpe doesn’t have to be told that she is fortunate. Nor does Margot Sharpe need to be told not to discuss this remarkable amnesiac case with anyone. She does not intend to disappoint Milton Ferris.
    Ferris and his assistants are preparing batteries of tests for E.H., of a kind that have