The Man Without a Shadow (21 page)

Already, the water was too deep for him to step into, to wade back to shore. He was frightened of trying to swim.

Eli, good-bye!

Eli darling! Good-bye.

THE LOVERS' QUARREL.
“Mr. Hoopes—Eli—hello! How are you this morning?”

“Very good. How are
you
?”

“Very good, Eli. Do you remember me?”

“Yes. I remember
you
.”

(Is this true? Elihu Hoopes isn't sure, but he is a gentleman, and knows what must be said.)

“My name is”—pausing discreetly as if to encourage Elihu Hoopes to supply her name even as, with a smile, to alleviate any discomfort the amnesiac subject might feel, and to suggest the bond of intimacy and friendliness between them, seemingly of long standing, she provides the name herself —“Margot Sharpe.”

“Yes! Mar-go Sharpe, hel-
lo
.”

Shaking her hand. Closing her slender fingers in his. Leans close, to inhale the scent of her glossy black hair, threaded very lightly with silver.

Is she a doctor? Associated with this hospital or clinic? Though not wearing a white lab coat, and there is not a laminated ID badge on her lapel.

He has never seen this woman before, he believes. There is a sort of pale glare in her face, he can't see her distinctly.
We are something to each other. We are linked, in some way.

He has forgotten her name, and so she tells him another time: “Margot Sharpe.”

“Yes. ‘Mar-go Sharpe.'”

“Though I think I resemble a grade school classmate of yours—‘Margo Madden'?—or ‘Margaret . . .'”

She laughs, and Elihu Hoopes laughs with her, though he is utterly perplexed.

“By saying that you resemble ‘Mar-go Madden'—or ‘Margaret'—you are not actually saying, you know, that you
are
not
her. For if you are my old classmate, you would also resemble her. Is that correct, dear?”

“Yes, Mr. Hoopes. That is correct. But in fact, I am not your old classmate from Gladwyne Day School, and I don't know anything about her. My name is—”

“Excuse me, I know your name perfectly well: ‘Mar-go Sharpe.'”

It is an obscure sort of sexual flirtation, Eli thinks. He is both perplexed and intrigued. Here is a woman not previously known to him—(he is sure)—who seems to know him, and whom in a way he seems to know, though he has never seen her before, and is sure she has never before seen him; even if she has access to his (medical?) files, how could she possibly know about the little Madden girl whom Eli Hoopes hasn't seen in—how long?—it might be a quarter-century.

More seriously, the woman introduces herself as a neuropsychologist at the university, who has been working with him for several years.

Neuropsychologist! Several years!
He is stunned by this. He does not believe this.

He laughs, dismissively. “I don't think so, Professor.”

“You don't remember me, Eli?”

“No. Maybe. I have trouble with my memory . . .”

“How long have you had trouble with your memory, Eli?”

He dislikes and distrusts this female professor.
Neuropsychologist
—what does that mean? He has had too much of
neuro-
. He would like to think of something other than
neuro-
.

“I'm not sure. I told you—I have problems with my memory, sometimes. Could be—six weeks.”

“Six weeks?”

“Six months. Maybe that's a closer estimate.”

“And did something precipitate your problem?”

“I think that I was ill. I had a fever, an infection. I think that I was hurt in a plane crash, but I'm not sure when this was. I think—I think I can remember being brought by ambulance to the hospital here, from Lake George. But I don't remember when.”

“How old were you when you became ill, do you recall?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“And how old are you now, Mr. Hoopes?”

“How old? Why, thirty-seven. It hasn't been that long—I've told you, six weeks.” He laughs irritably, beginning to feel impatient.

He sees now, the woman is regarding him with an expression of intense sympathy, curiosity. She is white-skinned, as if unhealthy, her hair worn in a style slightly too young for her age—straight-cut bangs to her eyebrows, glossy black like Asian hair. She appears to be in her early forties, older than he; she wears a black long-sleeved jersey and black trousers, or leotards. (Like a dancer?
Is
she a dancer?) Her mouth is red, her eyebrows darkly defined. He finds her a sexually attractive woman. An inquisitive woman, a kindly woman, a strong-willed woman. A woman of whom you might say after the most fleeting of glances—
Professional woman, unmarried. Hard on herself and on others. Respected by colleagues and subordinates, grudgingly.

She has asked him a question about his age, and he has answered her. He is certain that he's thirty-seven years old, for he can't be younger, or he wouldn't yet have succumbed to the mysterious fever that left him dehydrated, staggering and delirious, scarcely able to telephone for help; this occurred when he was thirty-seven. And he can't be older—he would know, if he were older.

Bemused he asks his interrogator, whose name he has forgotten, “How old do you think I am?” A slight, insolent emphasis on
you
.

The woman with the straight-cut glossy-black hair regards him for a moment in silence. Her eyes are beautiful eyes but there is something too intense in them. The irises are so dark, there is virtually no distinction between pupil and iris. In a faltering voice the woman says, “I don't think that I can guess, Mr. Hoopes—Eli. We are all as old or as young as we feel.”

He laughs, mystified. Why are they having this strange conversation?—an unsettling mixture of the banal and the inexplicable. Is there someone else in the room, observing? (Is that a camera-eye turned upon them? But why would anyone be filming
him
?)

“And where do you live now, Mr. Hoopes?”

“Where do I—
live now
?”

It is a profound question, like a sledgehammer to the head. He is quite stunned by it. Where does he
live now
;
or, if he lives now,
where does he live
?

The examiner sees that she has upset Elihu Hoopes, and regrets her question. Another time she touches his wrist with her forefingers, lightly. She seems to be signaling him—
I will take care of you. I will comfort you. I am your special friend, please trust me, Eli!

But Eli surprises her by saying coldly, “I live in Philadelphia. I live at Forty-Four Rittenhouse Square. I've lived there since 1959, and I have always lived there alone. And I think I will be going home now, if you don't mind.”

“But, Eli—Mr. Hoopes—we've only just begun . . .”

“No. We're finished.”

He has risen to his feet, he looms above her. He has surprised and frightened her now! Almost, he could close his hands around her slender white throat—not to strangle, not even to inflict pain, but to allow the woman to know that he, Elihu Hoopes, is not a
man to be trifled with. If he is an
outpatient,
he is still a man in the prime of his life.

“But, Mr. Hoopes—wait . . .”

“Am I ‘committed' to this place? Am I ‘detained'?”

“Certainly not, Eli . . .”

“Am I arrested?”

“Of course not!”

“Then, good-bye.”

“Please wait—”

He does not wait. He does not have to wait. He is not committed to this place, he is not arrested. He cannot be legally apprehended and detained without a formal arrest, and there is no one here to make the arrest. No one here knows about his young cousin Gretchen and how he might have saved her but had not saved her, how he'd failed her and allowed her to die a terrible death. All that has been erased and forgotten.

He hears the woman's voice behind him, pleading—“Eli! Mr. Hoopes! Please come back . . .”

“Go to hell, all of you.
Fuck you.
”

He pushes through a swinging door. He does not glance back. He is suffused with a happiness so deep and so profound it leaves him trembling.

BY THE TIME
he has left the Neuropsychology Department, and taken the elevator to the first floor, his resolve has begun to diminish. He has no idea where he is. The jigsaw puzzle-piece in his skull is missing, keenly he can feel it. Strangers surround him, oblivious of him. Some are in the uniforms of medical staff, some are in civilian clothing. Some wear white lab coats over dress trousers, shirts and ties—these are physicians. He sees, on a sign outside the gleaming new building, that it is
the
UNIVERSITY NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE AT DARVEN PARK
—he recalls that Darven Park is a suburb of Philadelphia, and it is approximately twenty miles from Gladwyne, where his parents and grandparents live, or had lived. And he himself now lives in—is it Rittenhouse Square, in central Philadelphia? But why is he here in a medical center in Darven Park, who has brought him here? Has he driven himself? But he can't recall having driven to this place, and he has no idea which car, which vehicle, he might have driven.

Tries to recall—he'd left the building through a revolving door that seemed to suck him into it, and flung him outside. He knows that he should look for his vehicle in the parking lot, but—he can't bear the prospect of searching through the immense parking lot for it, as in one of those protracted and excruciating dreams that exhaust the dreamer even as they come to nothing.

No car keys in his pocket. And he is missing something else—what?

Something he is accustomed to carrying with him, that is too large for a pocket.

His fingers twitch. He is feeling uneasy.

A sensation as of small ants streaming over his lower body.

Finds himself on a graveled path leading away from the building and into a landscaped park. Here is a large pond beautifully bordered by weeping willow trees and sycamores; on the rippling surface of the water are swans, mallards, Canada geese and snow geese.

There is a temptation to think—(but he will not give in to this temptation!)—that he has (somehow) found his way to Lake George, and to another time. Making his way along a trail, beginning to walk at a quickened pace, now there is no one to observe him. And now in a marshy area, following a raised plank trail to a plank bridge where he stands at the railing, staring into the
marshland. Is this a wild place, is this offshore at Bolton Landing? There is a shallow stream that passes beneath the bridge. But so slowly, you can't determine the direction of the current. He is relieved, for perhaps it has not happened yet.

His cousin Gretchen is still alive. He has not heard the adults whispering, and he has not heard his aunt scream. He has not been sent hurriedly away.

Water-insects, playing on the surface of the marshy water. He is fascinated by their faint shadows cast upon the creek-bed a few inches below.

If he could sketch these! He would feel so much better, if he could. But his fingers twitch emptily.

No charcoal stick or pencil. No sketch pad.

Everywhere there is life in this fecund place. Monarch butterflies, dragonflies. Redwing blackbirds, starlings, crows. Tall reeds and cattails. Even the lifeless trees exude a strange stark beauty. Yet he is feeling anxious. Something is wrong, or will be wrong. He grips the railing with both hands as if expecting a sudden gust of wind. But there is no wind, it is very still, calm. Is this a sign of something wrong—it is so very calm? A warm day, overcast and gray. Here is the horror: color has been draining slowly out of everything he sees—the monarch butterflies have become ghost-moths.

A sensation of utter despair overcomes him, rising from his legs like paralysis. As in a biblical curse he has been turned to stone.

Imagining the Future.
He cannot.

Margot Sharpe asks, why? Why can't the amnesiac imagine the future? Is it because he has lost the past?

THE EXAMINATION. “MR.
Hoopes, are you comfortable in that seat?”

He is being tested in a way that makes his heart race. It is not a sensation he likes, and yet he seems to crave it.

There is a senior examiner, and there are three younger assistants who may be graduate students, as well as another young assistant who is filming the examination. He has been told their names, which he has not remembered.

The senior examiner, an attractive, fiercely-pale-skinned woman with glossy, graying black hair, is showing him a sequence of photographs which he is to identify. She is, to Eli, a striking presence, of an indeterminate age, though not
young;
a mature woman, in black, very small-boned, intense. Her voice is softly modulated and yet steely, resolved. She has spread out photographs on a table: very young girls, children younger than ten, and among them a cloudy-haired girl with widened eyes—his younger sister Rosalyn, aged about five. Of course, Eli identifies her at once. “This would be about 1930.”