“Okay, boss.” Kaz pulled a plastic bag from a drawer, cradled the tiny carcass in the palm of his hand, muttered something in Russian and gently placed the mouse in the bag.
Chapter 3
Residents of Hinsdale, Illinois are quick to correct the unenlightened visitor who inadvertently commits the faux pas of referring to their village as a suburb of Chicago. Twenty miles west of the loop, just past the confines of Cook County, Hinsdale boasts a distinct identity with its own quaint downtown area of pristine buildings, many recognized as historical architectural landmarks. Even the topography is disparate with respect to its larger neighbor, with wooded rolling hills in place of the endless flat expanse.
Lloyd decided to avoid the expressways so he could ride his Ducati down Wolf road through the forest preserves which were already teeming with pasty-thighed joggers and stroller-pushing couples reveling in the unseasonably warm weather. He headed west on Ogden Avenue, then turned south on York Road which brought him into the heart of the village. Turning left on an avenue whose trees came together in a shady canopy, he rode past large brick farmhouses and mini-Victorians before reaching the part of town where the hills swell higher, the woods grow thicker and the roads bend in wide, lazy curves, leaving behind the grid-like perfection of the northern neighborhoods in search of a higher esthetic element. Here the houses were larger – a few plantation homes, the occasional prairie-style and the inevitable gaudy, newly constructed maisons. Faux châteaux, Lloyd called them. Homes of corporate lawyers, stock traders and interventional cardiologists with more money than taste.
The road curved and narrowed then dipped under a wood-beamed railroad trestle bridge before rising again and twisting to the right. Lloyd slowed, checking the numbers on the mailboxes of the sparse houses before pulling into a driveway. Spalding’s house was a squat two-story building covered in tan wooden planks: a study in minimalist elegance which would have seemed less out of place had it been erected on the outskirts of Stockholm than in the American Midwest.
Lloyd rang the doorbell. He heard the muffled sound of a deep voice followed by footsteps. The door was opened by a woman with shortly cropped white hair and sparkling eyes. She wore a ruffled blouse over a long house-skirt. A heavy jade necklace hung around her neck dipping on her bosom.
“Mrs. Spalding? I’m Dr. Copeland.”
“I know. Please do come in”
The entryway opened onto a large living area with a built-in unstained white pine bookshelf which dominated an entire wall, littered with hundreds of volumes. Cecil Spalding sat on a padded bar stool, paintbrush in hand, in front of an easel holding a half-painted canvas.
“Well hello,” Spalding said. “Nice to see you.”
Lloyd recognized this as a fairly typical greeting in sufferers of amnesia – vague enough that it would not betray a lack of recognition nor feign a false intimacy.
“Hello Mr. Spalding.”
“Cecil, this is Dr. Copeland. He’s from the university. He’s come to talk to you.”
Spalding carefully placed the paint brush on the ledge of the easel, wiped his hands on a rag and removed his large, rectangular spectacles. “Have we met?” he asked.
Lloyd shook his head. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“A doctor… doctor… doctor,” Spalding muttered under his breath, the way one might repeat a phone number while looking for pen and paper to write it down. “Doctor?”
“Copeland. Lloyd Copeland. I’m a neurologist.”
“A neurologist? Well I hope it’s nothing too serious.”
“Not at all. I just came to chat with you,” Lloyd said.
Spalding chuckled. “Let’s have a nice chat, shall we?” He stood up and walked towards Lloyd. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a conversationalist.” He chuckled again. He reached out and shook Lloyd’s hand and gestured to a sofa before settling in a worn leather armchair.
Mrs. Spalding placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Can I get you something to drink, Dr. Copeland? Coffee? Lemonade? Iced tea?”
“Thank you, iced tea would be great.”
“Cecil?”
Spalding looked at his wife with a quizzical expression.
“Some iced tea or lemonade?” his wife repeated.
“I’m not sure I like those.”
“You’re not thirsty?”
“I’ll have some water, darling.”
Mrs. Spalding stepped through a doorway into the kitchen. The two men looked at each other in silence. Then Lloyd straightened and reached into a pocket of his jacket. He hated this part, but he needed to get as much information from the visit as possible. “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we?” he asked.
“Why no,” Spalding said with a subtle expression of relief. “No, I’m quite sure we haven’t.” He leaned forward and offered his hand.
Lloyd removed his right hand from the pocket of his jacket, a tack wedged between his fingers. “Lloyd Copeland. Great to meet you.” He grasped Spalding’s hand and squeezed it just hard enough.
Spalding let out something of a yelp.
“So terribly sorry, Mr. Spalding,” Lloyd said hurriedly.
“There was something sharp… in your hand.” Copeland tightened his facial muscles, his bushy eyebrows jutted forward.
“Awfully sorry, let me have a look.”
Spalding turned his hand over revealing a tiny crimson dot on the bottom edge of his palm.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Lloyd said as he pulled a tissue from a box on the coffee table and dabbed Spalding’s hand. “What are you painting?”
Copeland’s face softened. There was a puzzled gleam in his eyes. “That’s a view of Lake Como from Villa Monastero.”
“All from memory?”
“Yes, I remember it so well.”
“So you have a good memory?” Lloyd asked.
A distant expression engulfed Spalding’s face. “Of my life, I have some memories.”
“Of your life?”
He leaned forward and whispered, “What is this place?”
“This is your home.”
Spalding waved away the answer. “I know that! What is this place? I mean, how did we get here?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Lloyd.
“I don’t know how I came to this moment. I feel like I’ve just woken up but I don’t recall being asleep. What I’m saying is… I’m not sure I’m alive.” He swallowed. “Is this… purgatory?”
“No Mr. Spalding. You’re very much alive. The problem is your memory.”
Spalding slumped back in the armchair and brought a finger to his chin.
“I’m a doctor that helps people with memory problems. Your wife asked me to meet with you.”
“My wife? Beverly? You’ve seen my wife?”
“Yes I have.”
“Why, that’s… that’s wonderful. I miss her so much, you know.”
“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Oh, I just woke up I think.”
“Who’s the president of the United States?”
“It’s that nice fellow,” Copeland waved a finger in the air. “What’s his name?”
“John F. Kennedy?” Lloyd asked.
“Now don’t get smart with me, young man. It’s Carter. Jimmy Carter; peanut farmer par excellence.”
“How’s your hand?”
“My hand? What do you mean?”
Good, he forgot the pin-prick.
Mrs. Spalding entered the room, a large glass tumbler in each hand. “I’m back with your drinks.”
Cecil Spalding’s face lit up. He sprang from the armchair with boyish enthusiasm and opened his arms. “Look who’s here! Oh, darling.” He cupped his hands on her cheeks and kissed her. “I love you so, my darling.”
“I love you too, Cecil. But you’ll make me spill everything on the floor.”
Cecil laughed and kissed her again.
“It’s like this some twenty times a day, Dr. Copeland,”
Mrs. Spalding said. “I go for a short trip to the ladies room and when I come back, Cecil’s there to greet me as if he hasn’t seen me in ages. I knew I was marrying a romantic but this…” She smiled wearily, “Well, this is the nice part, I suppose.” She carefully set the drinks onto wooden coasters on the coffee table.
Lloyd took a sip of tea. “Very refreshing,” he said. “Thanks.”
“So glad you like it,” Beverly Spalding said. “Cecil has difficulty with flavors. He doesn’t enjoy food as much as he used to. It’s all a bit overwhelming to him and bland at the same time, if that makes any sense.”
“I relish your cooking, my darling,” Cecil said as he sat back in the leather chair and patted the arm rest to invite his wife to sit.
“The painting,” Lloyd said. “It’s quite remarkable.” Lloyd turned to face the canvas. It displayed a serene scene of a mountain lake. A stone stairway seemed to come up from dark blue waters leading to a small terrace, flanked on one side by two tortuous marble columns. Past the terrace stood what seemed like a series of archways and in the distance, the silhouette of mountain peaks.
“That’s Lake Como,” Beverly Spalding said.
“So he told me.”
“I don’t know how familiar you are with Lake Como, Dr. Copeland, but I can assure you that every detail on that canvas is absolutely spot-on, as if he were painting it while sitting on a balcony in Villa Monastero.”
“That’s very impressive, Mr. Spalding,” Lloyd said.
“Oh hush. I’m a rank amateur with a paint brush.”
“But you’re an accomplished author,” Lloyd said. “Do you still write?”
“Write? What should I write? I haven’t had an original thought in my whole life,” Spalding said in a perturbed tone.
“Let’s not talk about writing,” Mrs. Spalding said.
“I’ve never lived a day of my life!” Spalding shouted, wringing his trembling hands.
“Would you like to see more of Cecil’s paintings, Dr. Copeland? He sometimes needs a minute to himself to… settle.”
Beverly Spalding led Lloyd to a door at the end of a corridor. She took a key from a pocket of her house-skirt and unlocked it. “It’s not safe for Cecil to go to the basement,” she said in an apologetic tone.
Lloyd followed her down the wooden steps and was quite unprepared for what he saw when he reached the bottom. Stacked against the cinder block walls of the basement were canvases of various sizes, too numerous to count. Each canvas portrayed the same bucolic scene from precisely the same vantage point: a mountain lake with a stone staircase emerging from deep blue waters, a terrace with two marble columns, an archway and in the distance, the silhouette of mountain peaks.
Lloyd picked up a canvas lying on its side, righted it and lifted it for inspection. “When did you last travel to Lake Como?” he asked.
“Some thirty years ago, I’d say.”
“So he’s able to retrieve old memories.”
“Only just a few. He remembers next to nothing of the year leading up to the illness. As for the time after the infection… Well, he still thinks our grown son is eight years old. Doesn’t even recognize him when he visits. Which isn’t very often anymore.”
“Yes, Dr. O’Keefe told me. So he can’t form any new memories?” Lloyd carefully set the canvas down.
Beverly Spalding shook her head. “He won’t recognize you when we go back upstairs. It’s as if… I think of it as if his life is the bow of a ship, slicing through the water, and the only thing he can experience is that very water he is parting. The wake that he leaves, the entire ocean surrounding him, he has no way to experience. He’s trapped in the present. I call it, the never-ending happening.”
“I’ve never heard it put quite that way,” Lloyd said peering into her eyes.
“So, Dr. Copeland. Can you help my Cecil?”
Lloyd averted his eyes. “It’s not so simple. I have a potential treatment –”
“Yes, I know. Dr. O’Keefe told me,” she smiled. “I don’t usually allow doctors to come to the house, not lately at least. It’s all been so disappointing. But I understand you hold a fresh promise.”
The image of the white mouse, stiff and still at the bottom of the plastic bin flickered in Lloyd’s mind. “It’s never been tried on humans.”
“Dr. O’Keefe already explained that to me too,” she said. “Honestly, Dr. Copeland, who would be a better candidate to be your first human subject than my husband?”
“There are risks involved,” Lloyd said.
“Please don’t patronize me. Every moment of every day for the last sixteen years has been a torment. How much worse can it possibly get?”
Lloyd paused. “I only just received FDA approval for testing in human volunteers but the trials haven’t started yet.”
“And I understand you’re looking for research subjects to enroll. So when do we start?”
“Look, I’m not promising anything, understand that, but if your husband were to qualify as a subject –”
“He’ll qualify,” Mrs. Spalding said resolutely.
“We would have to wait for my hospital’s Institutional Review Board to give me the green light.”
“How long will that take?”
“It’s hard to say. It might take some time.”
“Time.” Mrs. Copeland smiled feebly. “Such a funny concept when you think about it.” She grasped his arm and searched his eyes. “I know I can count on you to do the right thing. Dr. O’Keefe told me you’re a little rough around the edges but that deep down you’re a decent man. You’re my only hope. Cecil’s only hope.”
Lloyd wondered exactly what Mark had told her.
“Shall we go back upstairs?” she said. “I left the door unlocked and I don’t want him to come down and see… this.” She surveyed the stacks of paintings.
When Lloyd entered the living room, Cecil Spalding was back behind the easel. Spalding turned at the sound of footsteps behind him and laughed with excitement before walking to his wife to hug her as if she had surprised him by coming home unannounced from a prolonged trip.
“Have we met?” Spalding asked Lloyd.
“I’m Dr. Copeland.”
Spalding raised his bushy eyebrows and smiled good-naturedly. “A doctor? Well, I hope all is well.” He erupted in wheezy laughter.
Lloyd held out his hand while studying the man’s facial expression. Spalding moved his arm forward but stopped abruptly. He knitted his brow, his smile fading, and crossed his arms behind his back.
“Won’t you shake my hand?” Lloyd asked.
Spalding smiled apologetically. His eyes darted about avoiding eye contact.
“I prefer to bow… like the Asians.” Spalding bowed twice and chuckled.
Lloyd smiled and bowed in return.
When Lloyd returned to his office there was a sticky note pasted on the video monitor of his computer: “Call Bender.” Lloyd peeled off the note and tried to wipe off the thin residue left on the screen with the sleeve of his white coat.
Dr. Martin Bender was an old-school academic – the chief of the Department of Neurology and the only faculty member who had completed training programs in both Psychiatry and Neurology. Uncle Marty (a moniker Bender cherished) had served as faculty advisor to countless residents, including Lloyd. He was one of the few senior faculty members that Lloyd felt he could trust.
Lloyd dialed the number to Bender’s office but reached his secretary who had a message for him.
“He’d like you to meet him tomorrow at eleven, Neurology conference room.”
There was a knock on the door. Kaz stuck his head in.
“It’s five-thirty,” he said.
“You leaving?” Lloyd asked.
“Unless you need me to do something.”
Lloyd shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” Kaz asked.
Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“You look worried.”
“
I think I know who the first human to receive the prion will be,” Lloyd said.
“Well, that’s good. So why are you worried?”
“I’m not worried.”
Kaz scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Wait a minute.”
He stepped away and returned a short while later with a plastic bag. He plopped it on Lloyd’s desk.
“What’s this?” Lloyd asked.
“Organic vegetables… from my community garden. You need to eat better. You’re starting to look a little like shit.”
“I thought they were for the mice.”
“There’s plenty for everyone,” Kaz said.
“You’re giving me mouse left-overs?”
“Better than the highly processed, hormone-injected, pesticide-laden crap you eat every day. And I’m not talking about your girlfriends, this time. Take it easy this weekend. Go for a walk on the lake, breathe in some fresh air, clear out your head my friend.” He raised his hand and flashed a peace sign. “I’m punching out, comrade Copeland. Hasta mañana, amigo.”
“Dasvidaniya, comrade Volkov,” Lloyd replied.
Kaz chuckled and shook his head as he walked away. “Man, your Russian sucks!”
Once the outside door clicked shut, Lloyd peered into the plastic bag. There were several crooked carrots, two ears of corn, and a moth-eaten leafy vegetable that might have been kale. Lloyd shook the bag and tied a knot in the plastic handles.
He straightened in his chair and held a hand out. No tremor. With an outstretched index finger, he alternated touching the tip of his nose with pre-selected items laid out on his desk: the eraser tip of a pencil, the stamp pad of a stapler, the serrated edge of a tape dispenser. Smooth as oil.
Chapter 4
At five minutes to eleven the next morning, Lloyd was standing outside the neurology conference room when its door opened and a dozen students in short lab coats streamed out. A tall scrawny man with a poorly trimmed mustache was singing Tammy Wynette’s Stand by Your Man.
Lloyd couldn’t help but smile. He thought back to the day that Uncle Marty had regaled him and his classmates on the psychiatry clerkship with the fabled lecture on personality disorders. Did he look as young and naive back then as the students who were now stopping in the hallway to chat? Lloyd looked on as they laughed with airy indifference to the stern expression of a respiratory technician who was struggling to maneuver a ventilator draped in clear plastic past the different cliques that had congealed in the hallway. No, he had never been like them. And he felt pity, not for his past self, but for these young men and women whose adolescence had been extended by their protracted education, and who walked through life oblivious to the painful truths that awaited them.
The Art of Forgetting Page 4