My Famous Brain

by Diane Wald

  Not that I was sad all the time. I tried to keep busy, and since so many daily tasks were challenging for me, keeping busy was an easy chore. I built up a little army of practical helpers to take the place of Don’s tireless assistance. Once again, I hired a young man to chauffeur me, and I also hired a motherly local woman, Mrs. Jennie O’Neill, to shop and keep my domicile civilized. The radio station kindly provided an assistant to help me with the program, which, since the newspapers had unveiled “Doctor Mac” as the bereaved friend of the slain psychologist, had leapt to prominence in its ratings. The telephone lines were jammed every night, mostly with young men who identified somehow with Donald’s case: they were either Vietnam veterans with problems of adjustment, or people who had latched onto the somewhat distorted story the media had made of Don’s last days. Since no one really knew what had gone on in M. G.’s deranged mind, everyone had a theory. At first, I found it difficult to deal with all of it, and wondered if I should even take such questions, but eventually I relaxed. I tried to do what I felt Don would have wanted me to do. And, in fact, without the program, I might have lost all touch with the outside world.

  For the truth was, I was slowly retreating. I had not yet told anyone, but my worst symptoms were returning: the headaches had begun to trouble me severely even some weeks before Don’s death. I was taking nothing for them and had not yet informed my doctors of their reappearance. What was the point? A “third chance” was out of the question, I knew. There was also a frightening and overwhelming weakness that would sometimes flatten me for hours at a time—a kind of non-physical paralysis that I found particularly scary. I knew I was no longer eating properly (my appetite was nil) and tried to counter my dietary imbalances with vitamin supplements for a while, but I lost interest. I began to spend my days in a dreamy never-never-land.

  Each day, after feeding Tillie and spending a little time with her, I would try to eat breakfast. Then I would wait for Mrs. O’Neill’s cheery visit: she’d bring my groceries and flutter about the place for a half-hour or so until she was satisfied that everything was shipshape. If I had to, I’d make my phone calls then. If necessary, I would call my driver and attend to any errands in town. Then the long afternoon would stretch out before me, the time when I missed Donald—missed life—the most.

  I had kept Don’s room essentially the same (except for giving away his stylish clothes, mostly to Denny), and there I would go each day after lunch. If I had a headache, I would practice some self-hypnosis, and this procedure eased me so much that I soon began to indulge in it even if my head didn’t hurt that much.

  Lying back in Don’s old armchair, I would give myself over to a living daydream, where memories, ideas, fantasies, and myriad physical sensations would reveal themselves endlessly on a revolving stage. The physical sensations were perhaps the most astounding: with my eyes closed, I could see everything clearly; with my ears “closed” (except to two sounds: Tillie’s little cry, if she needed me for anything, and the rude clang of the alarm clock I would set every day for six, in time for me to get myself together for the evening’s radio program), I could hear the voices of everyone I’d ever loved. Indeed, I imagined I could even “speak” to them—to Eliza, Don, Mark, and Harry, lost friends from any period in my life—and carry on fascinating conversations with them on topics none of us had ever tackled in real life.

  And this is very, very odd, but I must tell it to you: one time, one astonishing time, while thinking about Eliza—about making love to her the way a healthy man might have done—I experienced what felt to me like an actual orgasm. So intense was this feeling that it woke me immediately from my reverie, and while—if you will excuse my bluntness—I could find no physical evidence of this event, nevertheless I was quite sure of what had happened.

  I suppose I should have been worried about these strange daily meditative interludes, but I was not. Although I began to feel more and more like a visitor from another world, I didn’t notice that anyone else had remarked on any change in my behavior. Except for an occasional questioning from Mrs. O’Neill regarding my eating habits or health in general, no one seemed to notice my gradual withdrawal. This continued for several months.

  I felt very spiritual. I also felt very ill. Finally, I made an appointment for what I called a check-up with Gerry Hamilton’s office in New York, for the first Friday of the following month. I spoke to Gerry himself when I called, and he agreed to the relatively far-off date because I lied to him that I had noticed no changes in my condition. He was happy to hear from me; he’d called me right after Don was killed (he’d seen it on the news), and had checked in every few weeks ever since, but this was the first time I’d made the first move. I guess he saw it as a sign that I was coming out of mourning and facing up to my daily responsibilities. I let him think so. I suppose, subconsciously, I was already covering my tracks.

  Eventually, after a great deal of self-examination, I decided it was time to attempt my final recitation of The Age of Innocence. It saddened me greatly, of course, that Don would no longer be the sole, honored member of my audience, but I felt that I could still dedicate the performance to him, and that, somehow, he would know it.

  I chose a Sunday, the Sunday before my appointment with Gerry Hamilton. Mrs. O’Neill did not appear on Sundays, I did not have to do the radio show, and I could pretty much depend on having a completely quiet day to spend on my project, free of interruptions. I knew it would take up the entire day, and a big slice of the night. Then I would rest and continue the following Sunday. Just to be safe, I would turn off the phone.

  I planned for this day as if I were planning a grand dinner party: everything had to be perfect. I picked out some loose, comfortable clothes and made sure they were clean and ready. I decided upon a breakfast menu that would be substantial enough to carry me through most of the afternoon. I would force myself to eat it. I laid in a supply of fruit juices, teas, and mineral water that would stand ready to quench my thirst and soothe my throat once the recitation began. Figuring on a late afternoon break, for a nap and a snack, and to feed and play with Tillie (she would become lonely if I left her to herself too long), I set a mental bookmark halfway through the book. I would stop for a while, rest and build myself up, then continue to the end the following Sunday. When my triumph was complete, I would drink a glass or two of champagne, even if it killed me. I could already feel an exhilarating sense of accomplishment; I was very excited. The only thing that could possibly inhibit my plans would be a crippling headache, and I searched all through some old boxes I’d never unpacked until I found an almost full bottle of the old, extra-heavy-duty prescription I used to use for such emergencies. For some reason, I put the bottle on the dresser in Don’s room. I would count on these pills, coupled with my recent expertise in self-hypnosis, to carry me through if the need arose.

  I was ready. I had about two weeks to savor my anticipation. It was winter and the world was deeply comforted in white. My eyes seemed slightly worse, but I hardly even noticed. I could see within. I could feel my power.

  45. Don’s New Robe

  My final recital was a dismal, heartbreaking failure. When the great day came, I woke with the most delectable anticipatory feeling in my heart. I completed all my preparations just as I had planned and set myself up in Donald’s room right after breakfast, intending not to leave again until my projected break was due. In my own peculiar way, I invoked Don’s spirit, asking him to accept this late but heartfelt gift, and I gave a loving spiritual nod to Eliza as well, thanking her for suggesting the book to me, and blessing her existence, wherever she might be now.

  Everything went fine for about five minutes, and then, my voice breaking in despair even before my brain realized what was happening, I began to repeat whole sentences, then paragraphs, then pages. Then I lost track altogether. And when I tried to go back to the beginning, the beginning simply was not there. I tried once more, but that was the end of it.

  I was convinced the book had vanishe
d from my mind, as irretrievably as a mislaid dream. I sat in Don’s old armchair with my aching head in my hands until Tillie’s scratching at the door wakened me from my despondent musings. I understood, for the first time, why many religions consider despair one of the gravest sins. They say it can kill you.

  I was broken, but I could not ignore my Tillie. I fed her, tossed a little ball around to her for a while, then decided to go for a walk. I felt blank and ill—so blank in fact that I did not even remember that I could no longer really take a walk alone in safety. I just had to get out of the house: it embarrassed me to stay in a place I had once so loved and had now reviled with failure. My famous brain had never really let me down before. I put on coat, hat, and boots, and, feeling my way along the brick wall that bounded the edge of the property, shuffled slowly towards the tree-lined avenue that led downtown. It occurred to me how easy it would be to just wander out into traffic; then I laughed scornfully at myself. Considering the volume of traffic we had in those hills, it might take days before anyone hit me. Anyway, I didn’t have the energy to complete even so uncomplicated a mission, which I soon realized. It was all I could do to find my way back to the house.

  By this time, my head seemed to be on fire. I tried to lie down: that made the pain worse, but I was too weak to get up again. I considered calling Hamilton, or even the local ambulance corps, but it all seemed too dramatic. After all, hadn’t I been too dramatic altogether of late? The way I had planned the recitation suddenly disgusted me—my hubris, my foolish-ness—and the more agitated I became, the more my head hurt. At times, the pain was so bad that it lifted me out of myself. I suppose I was semiconscious for much of the afternoon, unable to get myself a drink of water, or look for my medication, or even remove my boots. For some reason, they were bothering me intensely. My feet seemed to be burning up, just like my head, and all I wanted was to plunge them into cold water. The rest of my body seemed to be gone: I wondered if I were dying. The last thing I remember was Tillie jumping up to what I determined to be my chest and stretching out there. It must have been her magic that finally lulled me to sleep.

  When I awoke, the pain had abated by about half. I immediately gathered up my tape player and some music, then ran a bath and got into it, hoping Donald’s water cure would bring me enough relief so that I could decide what next to do. It worked wonders, as always, and, after drying off and dressing in my old terrycloth robe and some very soft slippers, I was even able to swallow a little soup; I knew I needed nourishment to stay alive—that idea took precedence over all others. Remarkable, I thought: the body’s stubborn insistence on survival. I took my soup and crackers out to the living room. I needed to think.

  I thought what a pitiful, useless bastard I had become; then suddenly I remembered the radio show. Tomorrow night, unless I made some immediate arrangements for a substitute, I would have to go on the air. That was unthinkable. I called my producer, and, on the pretext of some sudden family business, begged off, for Monday and Tuesday at least. I suppose I must have sounded funny, for the poor man asked me a number of times if there was anything he could do. I told him I was fine, that I just needed a day or two to take care of things, and finally he relented. So genuinely considerate was his voice and manner that something in me almost cried out to him, almost asked for help. Luckily, I caught myself.

  Then—for some reason: just to hear a familiar voice, I suppose—I called Mark and Harry, but alas, neither one of them was at home. It’s just as well, I thought. It wasn’t my regular night for calling them, and, coupled with this rare deviation from routine, something in my voice or manner might have caused them to worry. Having eaten as much as I could, I began to take my tray back into the kitchen, when I suddenly realized that the terrible pain in my head that had begun earlier in the day must have signaled some new deterioration of my vision. While rounding the corner of the kitchen door, I bumped smack into the edge of the counter, dropping the tray and all its contents, and bruising my hip severely. I cursed my clumsiness, then bent down to see the extent of the mess I had made. Shapes were blurrier than ever before, and, now that I was concentrating on my sight, I noticed a funny sort of halo surrounding the larger shapes still visible to me. It occurred to me that I could leave the clean-up for Mrs. O’Neill, but then I remembered Tillie: she would no doubt consider the scene a fine chance to do some mischief, and might injure herself on the broken crockery. So I set about sweeping things together, mopping up the liquid, and disposing of the cracker bits and pieces of soup-dish. It took forever. At last, I was finished (or thought I was: I felt around on the floor and could find nothing more) and I went upstairs to rest. I was wiped out, and I was frightened. I went to my room and lay on the bed, closing the door to Donald’s room as I passed along the hallway, not wanting to be reminded of my morning’s failure.

  I threw myself on my bed, and, when I closed my eyes, I wondered if I were going suddenly insane. I began to see pictures of people—clear, snapshot-like pictures, something akin to what had been happening to me during my daily meditations, but a great deal more immediate and more bizarre. It was as if the pictures were coming not from within me, but from some external source. At first these portraits flashed themselves before me in seemingly random order: people from my youth, people I’d only met once or twice, my parents, Frances, students, or patients. But then, when my initial fear had worn off, I began to try to control them. Soon I could do so; I could stop the parade of “photographs” at any point and spend as long as I liked with any individual likeness. The longer I examined a picture, the more three-dimensional it seemed to become. After a while (I have no idea how much time was passing, really), I decided to try and call up pictures of certain individuals at will. This was frustratingly unsuccessful at first, but gradually it began to work. I practiced on a picture of Eliza.

  The portrait that emerged came directly from my favorite memory of her (the day I’d shown her my Patchen books), and, having tried so many times to call it up in the past (the way one does with long-lost or deceased friends, only to find that after a while it’s almost impossible to call up an exact likeness), I was more than delighted to find her. I concentrated on her picture a very long time, until she had attained that near-three-dimensional status I described to you, and when I finally felt I truly “had” her, I tried another experiment. I spoke.

  Oh, I didn’t really speak out loud, of course, but I spoke in my mind. “Eliza,” I said, tentatively at first, and sounding, I thought, more than a little ridiculous, “Are you there? Can you hear me?” And, miracle of miracles, although she did not speak in turn, the photograph-figure turned its head and looked me full in the eye, smiling slightly.

  I no longer felt a fool: I was bewitched, and unable to say anything more to her for quite a while. But then I loosened up. I found that Eliza—or her likeness—listened intently to everything I said, and her expression changed with startling rapidity and exquisite gradations of emotion. It was just as easy to understand this face as it would have been to listen to and understand a person speaking—perhaps easier. What did I say to her? Funny, but, although I felt we were climbing together out of a morass of confusion toward a paradise of ineffable harmony, what I said was nothing special. It didn’t seem to matter what I said, because this Eliza could obviously read everything between the lines. I did tell her about my failure with the recitation, and I was comforted both by her expression of sympathy and by the understanding she gave me that it really did not matter. My relief was instantaneous, and it was real.

  I forced myself to open my eyes; I suppose I felt that I was drifting too far off into this magical world, that I was losing control, that I might not be able to get back to this one. I got up and drank a glass of water, taking more time for that ordinary task than I had ever before taken in my life.

  While so occupied, I decided to leave Eliza for a while and try to “speak” with someone else. Oddly, I had no fear of bidding her farewell: so comforting had our contact been that I felt
certain I could reach her again if I so chose. After drinking the water and washing my face, I went back to my room, lay down, and continued my exploration. It took a little time to reach the point at which I had left the pictures, but with a little practice I was again able to call likenesses up at will. Taking a deep breath, I proceeded with my plan: like a lawyer calling one of his star witnesses to the stand, I asked for Sarah.

  It wasn’t as easy to find Sarah as it had been to meet with Eliza or any of the others. I suppose I had buried her memory deeply, and with good reason. But, at last, reasoning that it would be easier to face an early apparition of Sarah than a later one, I called up a likeness of her as she’d been the very first day I’d met her. I was shocked by her beauty, and by the way my heart still pounded at the sight of her. I spoke her name tenderly but received no response; then called it out again, this time angrily demanding an answer. She looked at me.

  It was the same picture, true, but the eyes were dead: it was heartbreaking. I suppose I’d thought that this encounter with Sarah would give me the same sense of communion and empathy I’d experienced with Eliza—that within this magical meeting would lie some sweet revelation to bridge the terrible chasm that had opened between us when she married Wally Mussel. But it was not to be. I tried to reason with her, to get her to give me some sense of why things had happened the way they had, hoping against hope, as always, that there had been some secret and compelling motive for her actions in those long-ago days. She did not respond. Her eyes acknowledged me the way one acknowledges a pesky door-to-door salesman: she was too ladylike to be out-and-out rude, but too disdainful to be truly kind. Finally, unable to bear her cruel stare any longer, I awakened myself from my visions and tried to clear my head.

  I realized quickly that it was going to take more than an act of will to clear it: a headache almost as debilitating as the one I’d had earlier in the day was starting up again. I thought that while I could still navigate, I would go look for the pain-killers I’d laid aside as an emergency measure for my recitation period. I knew they were still safe in Don’s room and that I had to go there to retrieve them, but it took all my resolve to do so. I stood a long time in the hallway with my hand on the doorknob, unable to reenter that room. But at last the headache reminded me to hurry, and I went in.