“He was probably talking about a Nerf gun,” she said, and Ms. Whittaker glanced at her. There was something hard in her eyes.
“A .54-caliber Renegade rifle, is what he said, to be exact. He said the gunpowder smelled like rotten eggs.”
She felt a flicker of pride. Her son knew things—this had always been the case with Noah, some quirk in his brain, like the brains of savants, only instead of numerical equations he knew random facts he must have overheard somewhere. Was Einstein’s brain like this? Was James Joyce’s? Perhaps they, too, had been misunderstood as children. But meanwhile there was the matter of what to say to this woman who sat glowering at her across the table. “I don’t know where he gets this stuff, really. I’ll tell him not to talk about guns.”
“You’re trying to tell me you don’t know where he used a gun? Or how he knows that it smells like sulfur?”
“He didn’t use a gun,” she said patiently. “And as for sulfur—I don’t know. He says funny things sometimes.”
“So you deny it?” She wouldn’t look at Janie.
“Maybe he saw something on television?”
“He’s been watching television, has he?”
Oh, this woman. “He watches Diego and Dora and SpongeBob and baseball games.… Maybe they had an ad on ESPN for hunting, or something?”
“There’s another thing. Noah has been talking a great deal about the Harry Potter books. Yet according to you, you haven’t read them to him or shown him the movies.”
“That’s true.”
“And yet he seems to know them extremely well. He’s been going around saying some sort of killing spell.”
“Look, it’s just how Noah is. He says all kinds of things.” She shifted her legs. Her butt was going numb in the tiny chair. She’d cut the Galloway visit short; Mrs. Galloway was probably calling all her friends right this minute to tell everybody she was wrong, she couldn’t recommend Jane Zimmerman Architecture after all. She was losing clients because of this nonsense. “So that’s why you called me in here from an important business meeting? Because you think my little boy talks too much about guns and Harry Potter?”
“No.”
She shuffled some papers on her desk, ran a knobby, be-ringed hand through her silver hair.
“We were having a discussion about discipline today at school. There was a biting incident … but never mind about that. We discussed our rules, how hurting each other is never acceptable. Noah offered—on his own—that he was once under water so long that he blacked out. He actually used the words ‘blacked out,’ a strange word choice for a four-year-old, wouldn’t you think?”
“He said he blacked out?” Janie tried to process it.
“Miss Zimmerman. I’m sorry, but I have to ask you.” Her eyes, finally focused on Janie’s, were pinpricks of cold fury. “Have you ever held your son’s head under water until he passed out?”
“What?” She blinked at the other woman; the words were so terrible and unexpected that it took a moment for her to absorb them. “No! Of course not!”
“You understand why I’m having difficulty believing you.”
She couldn’t sit in that seat a moment longer. She leaped up and began to pace. “He hates baths. That’s probably what it is. I washed his hair. That’s my crime.”
The woman’s silence was contemptuous. Ms. Whittaker’s gaze followed her as she walked back and forth across the room.
“Did Noah say anything else?”
“He said he called out to his mommy but nobody helped him, and he was pushed underwater.”
Janie froze. “Pushed under?” she repeated.
Ms. Whittaker nodded curtly. “Please sit down.”
She was too baffled to stand any longer. She sunk back into the little chair. “But—nothing like that has ever happened to him. Why would he say that?”
“He said he was pushed underwater,” Ms. Whittaker repeated forcefully, “and he couldn’t get out.”
Understanding washed over Janie at last. “But—that’s his dream,” she said quickly. “A nightmare he has. That he’s stuck underwater and can’t get out.”
A fragment of the night before came back to her—Noah pummeling her with his hard fists, yelling Let me out, let me out, let me out! Their nighttime drama, gone by morning. Remarkable, how completely it dropped out of her consciousness, until the next night. “He’s had the same nightmare for years. He’s just confused.”
She glanced up, but Ms. Whittaker’s face was like a heavy metal door. You could bang and bang, but nothing would open it.
“So you must understand my dilemma.” Ms. Whittaker spoke slowly.
“Your dilemma? No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Miss Zimmerman. I’ve spent many years with small children, and in my experience they do not talk about their dreams this way. That sort of—confusion—is not common.”
Common, no; nothing about Noah was common, was it? Janie tried to think. It wasn’t only that he knew things; it was more than that, wasn’t it? When had she first become aware that Noah was different from other children? When had she stopped going to her single moms’ group? Somewhere along the line, when discussions had evolved from sleeping through the night and infant gas to baths and preschool there had been one too many moments when she’d looked around after sharing (his nightmares and fears, his long, inexplicable bouts of crying) and seen blank stares instead of nods. It was just part of Noah’s uniqueness—that’s what she’d always said to herself, only now—
Ms. Whittaker cleared her throat, an awful sound. “A young child with a water phobia talks about being held underwater … and clings for dear life to a junior teacher here, sobbing uncontrollably for hours when she’s absent—”
“I picked him up at noon that day.”
“… and then the other evidence of a house somehow not quite in order, the fact that the boy smells … well, you understand? I have an obligation. His teachers and I have an obligation.…” She lifted her head, a flash of silver, a sword, slicing. “To report any sign of child endangerment to child protective services.…”
“Protective services?”
The words dropped down into a well without a bottom. She felt a hot, tingling sensation, as if she’d been slapped hard on both cheeks. The Galloways; her financial worries; everything that had cluttered her mind fell away.
“You must be joking.”
“I assure you I am not.”
It was impossible. Wasn’t it? She was a good mother. Wasn’t she?
She looked away from her, at the playground out the window, and tried to pull herself together. They couldn’t take him away. Could they?
A crow alighted on the swing set, taking her in with its sharp beady eyes. She forced the panic back down her throat with an effort.
“Look,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Have you ever seen a mark of any kind on him? Or any evidence of abuse? I mean, he’s a happy kid.” And it was true, she thought. She could feel Noah’s joy, anyone could. “Talk to his teachers—”
“I have.” Ms. Whittaker sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers. “Believe me, I don’t take this lightly. Once you’re in the system—”
“Noah’s quirky,” Janie said suddenly, interrupting her. “He’s imaginative.” She cast her gaze out the window. The crow ruffled its feathers, cocking its head at her. She turned back into the room and faced her adversary. “He lies.”
Ms. Whittaker lifted an eyebrow. “He lies?”
“He makes up stories. Just little things, mostly. Like once, at the petting zoo, he said, ‘Grandpa Joe had a pig, remember? It was so loud.’ But he doesn’t have a grandpa, much less one with a pig. Or in school—one of the teachers said that he told the class about going to the lake house in the summer and how much he loved it there. How he’d jump from the raft into the water. She was proud of him for speaking up at circle time.”
“Yes?”
“Well, you see, there isn’t any lake house. And as for swimming … I can’t even g
et him to wash his hands.” She laughed, a dry sound echoing in the room. “And at night, before he falls asleep, he says he wants to go home and asks when his other mother is coming. That kind of thing.”
Ms. Whittaker was staring at her.
“How long has he been talking like this?”
She thought about it. She could hear Noah’s toddler voice, that plaintive whine. “I want to go home.” Sometimes she’d laugh at him. “You’re right here, silly.” And before that, when he was a baby, there was a period of time (a blur now, yet agonizing while it was happening) when he would cry for hours, calling “Mama! Mama!” while wriggling in her arms. “I don’t know. A while. But don’t many children have imaginary friends?”
The director was looking at her speculatively, as at a child who has bungled basic arithmetic. “This is beyond imaginative,” she said, and the statement rang in Janie’s ears, reverberating in a back room of her mind that had been waiting for it, she realized, for quite some time.
Janie felt all the fight begin to seep out of her. “What are you saying?”
Their eyes met. The hardness was gone; the woman’s eyes shone with a sadness Janie had no defense against. “I think you should take Noah to see a psychologist.”
Janie looked out the window, as if the crow might think otherwise, but he had gone. “I’ll do it right away,” she said.
“Good. I have a list you can choose from. I’ll e-mail it to you tonight.”
“Thank you.” She tried to smile. “Noah’s been happy here.”
“Yes. Well.” Ms. Whittaker rubbed her eyes. She looked exhausted, every hair on her silver head a testament to overseeing other people’s children. “We’ll all be looking forward to his return.”
“Return?”
“After he’s been in therapy for a while. We’ll be in touch before the summer session and reevaluate the situation then. All right?”
“All right,” Janie murmured, and stumbled to the door before the woman could say anything else she couldn’t bear to hear.
Outside, she sat heavily on a bench among the tiny boots and coats. No call to child services, then; she’d averted that disaster. Her mind went black with relief. And at the far corner of the blackness, flickering like a spark that had gone astray and was beginning to smolder, the anxiety (which had been there all along): what was wrong with Noah?
Six
“APHASIA IN MAURICE RAVEL,” BULLETIN OF THE LOS ANGELES NEUROLOGICAL SOCIETY
At fifty-eight, Ravel was struck with aphasia, which quelled any further artistic output. Most strikingly, he was able to think musically but unable to express his ideas in either writing or performance. Hemispheric lateralization for verbal (linguistic) and musical thinking offers an explanation for the dissociation of Ravel’s ability to conceive and to create …
“Jerr!”
Anderson slid his uneaten plate of food over the article he’d been trying to read and glanced up. The man in front of him, a portly fellow with a goatee floating like an island in the center of his chin, was holding his tray aloft and looking down at him inquiringly. It couldn’t possibly have been worse.
He had known the medical school cafeteria was probably a bad idea, but he had thought that the collegial buzz of activity, the long walk to the familiar building, might do him some good. Now he nodded at the man and bit into an apple. It felt cold and mealy in his mouth.
“You’re here!” the man said. “I was telling Helstrick just the other day I was sure you’d moved to Mumbai, or Colombo.” He waved a manicured hand. “Or some such.”
“Nope. Still here.” Anderson looked up at his colleague and broke into a sweat. He’d known this man for decades but couldn’t remember his name.
The man had been a rising star when they were both medical residents, the two of them friends and competitors, talked about in the same breath. They had been in the same institution now for the last twenty years and still both seemed startled at the different directions fate and their interests had taken them. Now the other man was chairman of his department at the medical school and Anderson was … Anderson was …
Anderson was forcing himself to move over, letting this nameless man take up the space next to him. He marveled at how much compressed energy some bodies had. The steam from his food tickled Anderson’s nose. He thought maybe he’d throw up. That would put an end to the meal in a hurry.
“So, where’ve you been hiding, then? Haven’t seen you in months! Did you hear the latest?”
Anderson picked his response carefully. “I doubt it.”
“There’s talk that Minkowitz is in the running for a—you, know. The N word.”
“The N word?” Anderson stared.
He whispered. “Nobel. Just talk, you know, but—” He shrugged.
“Ah.”
“His recent studies have really been groundbreaking. They actually change our current understanding of the brain. We’re all very proud.”
“Ah,” Anderson said again. The man looked at him sideways, and he could tell exactly what he was thinking: you could have been a part of this, you could have done something, if you hadn’t swerved so inexplicably. You could have changed lives.
They all thought this, Anderson realized. They always had, but he had been too busy to feel the weight of it. He looked around him now at all his colleagues chatting and chewing, clanking their silverware. Doctors, mostly; cautious, oblivious people. He could sense their aura of smug certainty even in the way they plunged their forks into their baked ziti. He had known some of them for decades and had always thought of this as his community: these strangers whose names he had forgotten, who wanted nothing to do with him.
“So how’s the soul business? Discover any new ones lately? Or is it old ones?” The nameless man chuckled to himself. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to call you. Corinne swears our attic is haunted, I told her she should look you up. ‘Jerry’ll get to the bottom of it for you,’ I said. ’Course, it’s probably the squirrels.” He winked. A man pleased with himself in every particular. In his surety that his work was valuable and that Anderson’s was not.
At another moment in time, Anderson would have nodded, his eyes elsewhere, would have let the other man’s mockery fall on the shell of civility he’d had to create around himself. His usual response was to pretend not to hear the humor behind the inquiries, to answer back with an utterly serious discussion of his work, as if his data could possibly interest them, as if he could still change their minds. “Well, actually, I had an interesting case recently in Sri Lanka,” he might have said, and talked until he saw their mockery drain out into boredom.
Now, though, he looked right into this familiar, nameless man’s small, shiny eyes, and words fell into his head, and he said them: “Fuck you.” The most eloquently expressive and pithy sentence he had said in some time.
The man narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth and closed it. He spooned some soup into his mouth, red splotches rising on his neck and his cheeks. He wiped his lips on his napkin. For a few moments, he said nothing at all. Then:
“Oh, my—is that Ratner? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for weeks!” Hoisting the tray scattered with his half-eaten lunch, he scurried away from Anderson’s table in search of more favorable climes.
Anderson pulled the Ravel article from beneath his plate, smoothed it, and began reading again. He bent his head low over the text in what he hoped was the universal sign for “bug off.” He’d tried three times that week to read it, and had found his mind oddly resistant to completing the task.
… Hemispheric lateralization for verbal (linguistic) and musical thinking offers an explanation for the dissociation of Ravel’s ability to conceive and to create …
Perhaps he was in denial, and that’s why he couldn’t get through it. Or perhaps the aphasia was interfering with his attempts to understand different aspects of its progression. If he wasn’t so frustrated, the irony of it might have tickled him.
Swimming at Saint-Je
an-de-Luz, Ravel—an expert swimmer—suddenly found that he could not “coordinate his movements”…
Saint-Jean-de-Luz. He’d been to that beach once, years ago, on his honeymoon. He and Sheila had driven down the French coast. He had two weeks off and had promised not to talk about the lab or the rats. Without his usual topics, he had been both flummoxed and free. They ate and spoke of the food; they swam and spoke of the water and the light.
They’d stayed in a large white hotel on the beach. The Grand Hotel Something or Other. Bobbing fishing boats. The light on the water, in the air, bouncing off Sheila’s white shoulders. There was nothing like that light, as the painters all knew.
He tried to focus on the words again.
… Ravel—an expert swimmer—suddenly found that he could not “coordinate his movements” …
What had that been like—that moment when he suddenly found he could not control his own body? Did he think it was the end? Was he flailing, sinking?
Ravel’s was a Wernicke’s aphasia of moderate intensity.… Understanding of language remains much better than oral or written abilities.… Musical language is still more impaired … with a remarkable discrepancy between loss of musical expression (written or instrumental) and musical thinking, which is comparatively preserved.
A remarkable discrepancy, he thought. They should write that on my tombstone. He made himself go through that paragraph again.
a remarkable discrepancy between loss of musical expression (written or instrumental) and musical thinking, which is comparatively preserved …
Which meant—the words finally sinking into Anderson’s consciousness, as if he were recognizing words he himself had written—which meant that Ravel could continue to create orchestral works, he could hear them in his head, but he couldn’t get them out. He couldn’t mark the notes. They were locked inside forever, playing for an audience of one.
In spite of his aphasia, Ravel recognized tunes easily, especially his own compositions, and could readily point out errors of incorrect notes or rhythm. Sound value and note recognition were well preserved.… Aphasia made analytic deciphering—sight reading, dictation and note naming—almost impossible, hindered especially by an inability to recall the names of notes just as garden-variety aphasics “forget” the names of common objects.…
The Forgetting Time: A Novel Page 5