The Man Without a Shadow (15 page)

T
o reply to your question which I will refrain from dismissing as an ignorant and provocative question, in fact it is a question much asked if indeed ignorant and provocative and with maddening frequency and in admission of a basic incomprehension of what science is and does—No. We did not exploit the amnesiac subject E.H. in more than thirty years of our association with him.

The amnesiac lived in the present tense, and in the present tense we shared with him over the years, E.H. was happy, and hopeful. He loved to be tested and didn't tire for hours. He was a superior subject in our testing-lab, as obviously he'd been superior as a child and adolescent, winning the praise of his teachers and high grades. Tests of the kind we administer are often the only opportunities of intellectual engagement available to the brain-damaged and so, as it was carefully explained to E.H., our work with him would benefit countless individuals unknown to him—as to us: victims of stroke, Alzheimer's, dementia, brain tumors and lesions. For the brain-damaged individual who has once been a highly functioning citizen, and is now incapacitated, being a part of such an endeavor is deeply
satisfying, and so it was with “Elihu Hoopes”—whose name can now be revealed.

Yes. The world is much emptier without him—“Elihu Hoopes.”

Even E.H.'s “failed performances” were valuable to us—to science. All that E.H. could not do, that a normal person could do, has been illuminating to us. It was the hypothesis of our principal investigator Milton Ferris that the amnesiac had suffered memory loss as a consequence of damage to a part of the brain called the hippocampus—in those early days, there were no MRIs to scan the brain.

Basing our hypotheses on memory work in other neuropsychology and neuroscience labs, some of which conducted experiments inducing lesions in primate brains, we came to a more or less firm conviction that E.H.'s hippocampus had been devastated by encephalitis but we had no way of knowing this, or whether other, adjoining areas of the brain had been affected, and to what extent—we would not know until E.H.'s brain was at last scanned by an MRI in 1993.

Often I am asked that question—indeed, it is one of the foolish, provocative questions of the kind scientists are asked by ignorant interviewers though I will respond more courteously than most of my—virtually all of my—male—colleagues would respond: No. E.H. did not “exhibit sexual proclivities”—not so far as we know. (Recall, we saw E.H. only under clinical conditions, and for a relatively small part of his time. We had no idea apart from anecdotal information casually and infrequently provided by his guardian Mrs. Lucinda Mateson how he “behaved” at home.) It was our hypothesis, borne out by the MRI, that there was encephalitic damage to E.H.'s amygdala—a part of the brain related to emotional and sexual activities.

Perhaps as a consequence of this deficit, E.H. behaved like a gentleman of another, bygone era. He did not raise his voice. He was never quarrelsome. He was courtly, courteous. His speech was never
suggestive or rude. When he was older, he came to refer to women as “ladies”—female medical workers he described as “lady nurses.” We came to believe that he was emulating older male relatives, as he became older himself.

And here is the crucial fact: without
Project E.H.
, the afflicted man would have been marooned in his solitary life from the age of thirty-seven to his death.

And so, my final answer is no: we did not “exploit” Elihu Hoopes.

And I, Margot Sharpe, do not feel any regret, any remorse, any guilt for having worked with this remarkable individual for thirty-one years. I feel instead immense gratitude.

And whatever other emotions I may feel for Elihu Hoopes will remain forever private.

“I am not a jealous person. I am ‘investigating.'”

She behaves riskily! Finds herself doing things she would not ever have anticipated doing as Professor Margot Sharpe who is a methodical and conventional scientist and (indeed) a methodical and conventional person.

Except in this instance: seeking out the ex-fiancée of Elihu Hoopes.

The woman whom he'd left with no explanation. The woman who must have felt herself abandoned, rejected. Not knowing if their engagement had been broken off—since Eli Hoopes had not informed her.

There is something thrilling in this. A low, dirty thrill—the kind abhorred by Professor Sharpe.

A woman who has loved, and has been abased. And by Elihu Hoopes.

From what Margot has learned, Elihu Hoopes simply drove
alone to the Adirondacks. He might have told his fiancée that he was going—or his sister told her—but he did not invite her to accompany him, and he made no effort to keep in phone contact with her.

And so: how did “Amber McPherson” endure the embarrassment?—shame? A public sort of humiliation, a woman rejected by a man, treated so rudely by a man, how did the fiancée endure, how did she survive, what is the “narrative” this woman tells herself now after a decade, Professor Sharpe is eager to know.

On university stationery the professor types a letter to Amber McPherson, now “Mrs. Prescott Adams” residing at 28 Balmoral Drive, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Receiving no reply diligently the professor writes again a week later, and a third time another week later on university stationery introducing herself as a neuropsychologist who has been working with Elihu Hoopes for several years at the University Neurological Institute at Darven Park: would it be possible for Mrs. Adams to speak with her?

I will happily drive to your house in Bryn Mawr
.
Our interview would not take more than an hour.

Deliberating whether to sign these letters Professor Margot Sharpe or rather, Professor M. J. Sharpe.

Deciding yes, she had better sign “Margot”—there is no advantage to surprising Amber McPherson in a way that might seem unpleasant, deceptive. Not a good strategy if Professor Sharpe wants to win the woman's confidence.

Still, in her precisely worded letter Margot has not informed Amber McPherson that she isn't a clinician but a research scientist. She may be called “Doctor” in some circumstances but she is not “Doctor of Medicine.” She has not informed Amber McPherson that Elihu Hoopes is not her patient but her research subject. But Margot does not correct Amber McPherson's assumption that this is so though she feels—oh, just slightly!—a stab of guilt.

“Dr. Sharpe, how is Eli? Is he—improved at all? I—I've felt so—so terrible— I hope that his family doesn't think that I abandoned him . . .”

Amber McPherson is literally wringing her hands—her beautiful beringed hands. Amber McPherson speaks in a faint, breathless voice. It is the very voice of exquisite “femininity” of the 1950s which Margot recalls from her girlhood as she recalls, with some reluctance, a mild and annoying envy of such blond beauty, poise.

Margot indicates with a sympathetic nod of her head
no
. Amber McPherson can't know that Margot knows how Eli Hoopes had abandoned
her;
and no one would harshly judge a fiancée who'd been herself abandoned.

“It's so strange to realize that Eli is still—alive . . . And all these years have passed . . . Is he well? I mean—as ‘well' as can be expected?”

Margot indicates with a sympathetic nod of her head
yes
. Eli Hoopes is as well as can be expected.

“It was like becoming—being—a widow. Except Eli and I were never married.”

This too, a striking remark, a remark to evoke a pang of sympathy but also envy in Margot Sharpe, provokes Margot Sharpe to incline her head
yes. Oh yes.

It is something of a giddy triumph for Margot, who rarely ventures out of the carefully constructed routines of her professional life, and who begins to feel physical, visceral anxiety if she hasn't started serious work by midmorning of any day, to have driven, one weekday afternoon, to the leafy suburb of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and to the immense granite house at 28 Balmoral Drive.

The house, and the prestigious residential neighborhood,
remind Margot of Mrs. Mateson's English Tudor home in Gladwyne.
His world, that he tried in vain to leave.

The former Amber McPherson, now Mrs. Prescott Adams, speaks haltingly but bravely. Clearly she has prepared for this visit. On a glass-topped table are packets of snapshots and photographs she has gathered together for Margot to see, if she wishes. So many! Margot feels a sensation of vertigo.

It is startling to Margot at such times to perceive how others have lived their lives entwined with the intimate lives of others. How is this possible? Is it still possible, for her?

Amber McPherson is a gracious woman, just slightly overweight, beautiful still in a wan, fading-blond way. Her pale blond hair is stylishly bouffant, her clothes are expensive—woolen slacks, cashmere sweater. Clearly she has been reluctant to meet with Margot Sharpe whom she calls “Dr. Sharpe” in a way that might be defined as mildly deferential; she is the wife of a wealthy man, Margot surmises, and very likely the daughter of a wealthy family. As she speaks, swiping at her eyes, her expensive rings sparkle and wink as if to undercut the gravity of her sorrow.

“I'm so sorry! I am truly, truly sorry. I know that I behaved badly—selfishly. I know that people expected me to marry Eli—some, in my own family—and take care of him—there was always the expectation that he would ‘recover'—‘get well'—but I knew that could not be—and I didn't have the strength, or—courage. The fact was, Eli didn't love me. He'd more or less left me, at the time of his illness. No one knew, only a few knew, close friends of his, possibly his sister—he'd wanted to marry me for family reasons, his and mine—but when it came to it, he'd have broken off the engagement, he wouldn't have gone through with the wedding. And if he had—if we'd had a child, or children—he would have left the marriage, eventually. I knew this. I know this.
I never stopped loving Eli, but—it was not a love that could come to anything but heartbreak even before he got sick. And so—”

And so, Margot thinks, the fiancée of Eli Hoopes became matronly Mrs. Prescott Adams of Balmoral Drive, Bryn Mawr: wife of another man, mother of beautiful and beloved children, a fate not freely chosen but one that happened to her, like weather, subsequent to the defection of Eli Hoopes in the summer of 1964.

“It's been a long time since I've talked with anyone about—Eli. Though sometimes I say his name aloud—‘Eli.' Did you say, Doctor, that he's ‘doing as well as can be expected'—?” The question is plaintive, the wanly beautiful face tensed in apprehension.

Margot assures the anxious woman: Eli Hoopes's condition has not “worsened.”

Mrs. Adams has welcomed Margot Sharpe into her house—she has answered the doorbell herself, though Margot sees that there is a housekeeper or a maid in the background. Surprised at the sight of Margot—(was she expecting someone who looked older, more authoritarian? More “clinical”?)—nonetheless Mrs. Adams has ushered her into an elegant room that might be described as a “library”—(floor-to-ceiling cherrywood bookshelves, massive very masculine mahogany desk, Oriental carpet, exquisite molded ceiling)—adjacent to an ornately furnished living room the size of a ballroom; nervously she has offered Margot coffee, tea, or fruit juice which Margot has politely declined; she has been showing Margot photographs of her old lost life as a younger woman who'd unwisely fallen in love with Elihu Hoopes. (Margot has determined that Amber McPherson is at least ten years younger than Eli Hoopes, a fact that discomforts her. Margot has wanted to think that, younger than Eli Hoopes by fourteen years, she occupies a unique significance in the amnesiac's romantic/erotic life.)

On a mantel is a Chinese vase filled with flowers. Fresh-cut, surely very expensive flowers. (For an ordinary weekday at the Adams's home? For
her
?) A beautifully arranged bouquet in which the predominant flowers are gardenias, carnations, and day lilies the heady scent of which pervades the room.

“Dr. Sharpe, I know that I have behaved badly—unconscion-ably. I tried to remain in Eli's life after his illness but—it was just so painful. At first I visited him every day—but that didn't work out well. I visited him with his sister Rosalyn—we were close friends then. Eli ‘remembered' me of course but it was as if a stranger was ‘remembering' me—pretending to be Eli Hoopes. Eli was impersonating himself—awkwardly. Almost it seemed mockingly. He would stiffen when I tried to touch him, or kiss him—forced himself to respond ‘naturally.' He made jokes, he seemed to be always trying to entertain visitors—he wasn't comfortable with just one visitor at a time. I could recognize this ‘Eli' but it was like a shrinkage of his soul. He'd had a side to him that could be sarcastic and petty, and say things to wound, but now this was the only Eli we saw. I suppose he was driving us away . . .