Yet then I would encounter another tool or toy of the present, and surrender my judicial prudence all over again. For example there was the device through which images from one time and place are sent to another, countless options, a torrent of information, a lifetime’s worth of narratives happening at once—the television. At first I was amazed. Soon I found it predictable, however, and dulling to the senses. There were only two subjects, death and money, both taken to violent excess. The one exception was my old amusement, baseball. The game was unpredictable, at least, with moments of alertness and speed. Dr. Gerber’s computer held more appeal, until I inadvertently spied that journalist Dixon savoring a screen filled with pendulous breasts.
He hardly held supremacy for lewdness, however; I heard obscenities everywhere, as though the world were populated entirely by longshoremen. Drivers, pedestrians, shopkeepers, professionals, all exercised the lower end of their vocabulary without reserve or apology. Had no one told them that coarseness lacks dignity?
One afternoon Dr. Philo and I sat on a trolley about to depart, and two schoolgirls hurried on at the last moment: pigtails, plaid skirts, as fresh as apples. They flounced into their seats, met eyes, and simultaneously pronounced a single syllable of filth that no lady of my era would have uttered at any time.
I startled easily: when an engine backfired, a police car passed shrilly, or someone yelled. The violent images from television had made me suggestible. A door slammed and I wheeled, expecting to see a gun. A jet bellowed overhead and I resisted the urge to cower against the nearest building. A car honked and I jumped.
Another disconcerting observation: memory was worth less than a fig. You could have brought me before a black-robed justice, and with my hand upon the holy book I would have sworn before him, God, and all, that I knew every building on Newbury Street, the names of each crossing avenue, the nearest place horses could be watered. Yet when Dr. Philo and I strolled that boulevard one sunny afternoon, peering into shops and pausing to enjoy some flowering azaleas, I found the order of the cross streets had changed. In my memory they fell, from east to west, in reverse alphabetical order: Fairfield, Exeter, Dartmouth, Clarendon. That day, however, when we passed Dartmouth and Dr. Philo detoured into a shop to buy a coffee, I meandered ahead expecting to see Clarendon at the next corner. The sign read EXETER.
“One moment,” I said to her. “Hurry on with me, would you?”
She held the coffee at arm’s length whilst keeping up, and I was certain the next block assuredly would be Clarendon. Yet the sign read FAIRFIELD. I stopped in complete perplexity.
“Something wrong?” Dr. Philo asked.
“I presume that no one in the past century changed the order of boulevards.”
“I imagine not.”
“Fascinating,” I said. The rather, though, it felt a bit frightening. In what other realms have I misinformed myself? I could be wrong about the street where I lived. I might be misremembering the law. My literary references seem right, but no one around me is well read enough to correct any errors. My grasp of the past feels thin.
Thank goodness one region remains sure, as certain in my person as my bones, and it contains a population of two: my Joan, firm in mind, quick in temper, generous in tenderness, and my Agnes, a barefoot, laughing gnome of joy. Much is disconcerting in this land of unknowns. So long as that one region is secure, none other matters. The heart knows truths that cannot be altered by the sequence of the streets.
Everywhere we went, there were cameras. Sometimes it was a newsperson. Sometimes it was Daniel Dixon, who on odd days would follow Dr. Philo and myself at a distance but whom I could not persuade to join us. Often the camera was borne simply by some person who recognized me, and had a telephone in his pocket or her purse. I posed with the checkers players. I posed with the babies. I smiled with a pilot. I stood beside a surgeon after watching with astonished eyes as he removed a diseased man’s tumor, dropping it in a pan like so much rancid meat. I posed for a photo with my arm, as requested, around the shoulders of a lovely shopgirl, no more than sixteen, who had wires all through her mouth for a therapeutic purpose I was too intimidated by the sight of to ask about, and my discomfort in the moment was outdone by her delight in it.
One evening in Harvard Square we encountered jugglers of surpassing skill, including a fellow who tossed flaming batons to his partner whilst both of them rode unicycles up and down ramps. Meanwhile the city sped by uninterrupted all around.
“For my next trick,” said the cyclist in a top hat, “I need to borrow a twenty-dollar bill. Who has a twenty?”
A man raised his hand, the rider wheeled over, thanked the man for volunteering, snatched the money, and tucked it in his back pocket. “Presto, it disappeared.” Then he zoomed away while the crowd laughed.
Later he returned the cash, and at the end of the show he ambled through the crowd with the top hat outstretched. People put in dollar after dollar. I was astonished—and felt like I’d been to an impromptu circus.
One night Dr. Gerber took us, over Dr. Philo’s objections and then begrudging agreement, to what he called a nightclub. I had no money, and thus felt somewhat like the second rider on a horse: no stirrups, no reins. At the entrance a muscular man dressed entirely in black scanned me with his eyes and sneered, then waved us in.
The music was deafening, the lights bright and spinning. The songs were less melodic than those in Dr. Gerber’s headphones, with an emphasis, the rather, heavily upon the drums. Men and women mingled in close quarters. I witnessed a kind of public animalism, flirting gestures and suggestive clothing unimaginable in my former time.
Dr. Philo drank water but Dr. Gerber bought two alcohol combinations which were as clear as water and came with an olive. He handed me one, then poured half of the other into his gullet. I took one sip and thought of the fluid my father had used as fuel for our old kitchen lamp.
Dr. Gerber went by himself to the dance floor, swaying his hips, jerking his shoulders, tilting his head side to side. His hair followed, but lagging a little, and with no offense meant I thought it appeared comical. The music’s beat was so loud and low it made my chest feel like a drum. A wave of nausea passed through me, but I fought it. I did not want to upset the evening.
It was thrilling to see people of every shape and color socializing together. I watched them moving, dancing, or working their way to and around the bar.
“The crowd is from all the human races,” I shouted to Dr. Philo.
“What?” she answered. “I can’t hear you.”
I leaned down to repeat myself, and found my mouth poised over the curl of her ear. Her hair brushed my face. The words would not come and I straightened again. She simply smiled and turned to watch the dancers.
A different kind of light began flashing during the next song, blindingly bright but shining for the merest fraction of a second. It made the dancers look like machines, moving in the jerky gears of a clockwork. My stomach clenched and I closed my eyes till the song ended.
Gradually I downed perhaps half of my drink. It seemed stronger than the port I was familiar with, but it had other properties, an aggressiveness perhaps, a vigor. By mutual invitation my companions both danced for one song, though it would be a stretch to say they did so together. The rather, they barely acknowledged each other, turning and bending to their own impulses.
My experience with dancing was limited to a few youthful jigs and the occasional waltz with Joan, who carried herself at those times like a glass of water filled to the brim, all elegance and elevation. Here and now the lights whirled, people orbited one another, and no one touched. It was the opposite of the easy body contact I’d seen on the streets, and I wondered which was sham.
As the song finished, a smiling Dr. Philo returned to the counter and took a long draw from her water. I intended to ask if we might return to the lab. I’d grown tired, and the music’s unceasing throb had troubled my stomach. How could people endure it for an entire evening?
&n
bsp; Suddenly a man stood between us, calling an order to the fellow behind the bar. Next he bent and shouted something to Dr. Philo, who made a quizzical expression I construed to mean she had not understood him. The man was broad-shouldered, and smelled strongly of cinnamon and lime. He pulled out a pen and began drawing on a napkin: one triangle below, one triangle above, a line connecting them, and as he was darkening the upper area I saw it was identical to the drink with the olive Dr. Gerber had bought me. Lastly the man drew a question mark and looked at her.
Dr. Philo blinked, realized his meaning, and mouthed, “No thank you.” Then she stepped around him to stand beside me, took my arm in both her hands, and rested her head on my chest. I held my breath. Let it last, let it last.
The stranger pulled up in a manner that attempted to make him look taller. His drink arriving, he paid and swaggered away. Dr. Philo released my arm and drained her water. She tilted the glass and jiggled loose the last chips of ice. I turned to the space between myself and the bar, and disgorged my dinner.
Thus my first visitor the following morning was Dr. Borden. He stood on a little stool beside the examination table, squeezing a pump that tightened a cuff on my upper arm. “I’m thinking it was a bunch of external factors,” he said.
“Quite possibly. The music was deafening, and the drink—”
He raised a finger to silence me. He listened through his stethoscope whilst releasing the squeeze of the cuff. I wondered what he was hearing. Sometime I ought to wear that listening device.
Dr. Borden pulled the earpieces down and wrote something on his clipboard. “You really are in fine shape, considering.”
“Glad am I to hear it,” I said, giving him a hearty voice. “But it puts me in mind of a question I’d like to ask of you.”
He stepped down from the stool and folded his arms. “Fire away.”
“Doctor, I submit that you and your medical team need not be measuring my health any longer.”
He tucked the stethoscope’s listening part in his pocket, hooking the other ends around his neck. “What do you mean?”
“My heart has shown no indication of stopping, nor my blood pressure of vanishing. Yet you persist with these assessments, and others which are invasive of my privacy. I am well. More so every day, and here we are”—I checked the numerical clock in the control room—“on day sixty-nine.”
Dr. Borden produced from his kit a metal cylinder with a conical black tip, and I turned so he could insert it in my right ear. “Please continue.”
“It cannot have escaped your notice, despite last night’s incident, that my appetite has returned.”
“I am aware of that, yes.” He moved to the other ear. “Go on.”
“My sleep habits are consistent. Daily activity levels. Levity of mood. Speed of reading and conversation.”
He put the device away and produced another one, similar but with an arm that had a light at the tip. He raised it to my right eye. “Come to your point.”
Hm. I had hoped for dialogue. I might have known better, having encountered his type among attorneys often enough. He moved the light to my left eye, then alternated between them.
“My point, Doctor, is that I am fully restored, and as you say, in fine condition. Might it not be time for me to regain some freedom from examination? Must my voiding continue to be weighed? Could we hazard giving this room a curtain, and me a modicum of privacy? Might we stop waking this man for blood pressure tests during the night?”
Dr. Borden sighed and stepped away. He leaned against the near wall and contemplated the floor. He tugged on the point of his beard. Finally he adjudged our conversation more important than his shoes, and lifted his face. “Do you remember when I spoke during the news conference?”
“I was not present for your remarks.”
“That’s right.” He snapped his fingers. “I’d forgotten. Well, that day I referred to the people who opposed our work as ‘ignorant.’ The word escaped in an unguarded moment, and revealed the height of our arrogance. Now there is a subgroup among the protesters that calls itself ‘the Ignorants.’ Their signs say things like ‘I Don’t Matter’ and ‘I Know Nothing.’ ”
“You had expected the dissidents to lose interest.”
“Instead they gave grown in size and rage every day.” He waved the eye tool at me. “Your meeting with the vice president sparked his political opponents, and I fed the flames. Now every news story, and every sign, and every shout I hear on the way in or out of work confirms that they are not the ignorant ones.”
“I fail to see how responsibility for the protesters falls upon you. We are a free society, free to assemble and speak. Further, I do not understand how this relates to your medical scrutiny of me.”
“There is one explanation for both things,” he said.
I held my tongue, waiting. Dr. Borden shifted his weight from leg to leg. He flicked the eye device on and off, light projecting on his other hand. I kept my face in the cool posture of one hearing unreliable evidence.
“What is your reluctance?” I asked finally.
He pointed with the eye device at the ceiling, where a microphone hung.
I nodded. “In Greenland, Second Officer Milliken injured his wrist, after a barrel fell on it. A week later he did not want to remove his bandage. Yet we could smell the wound, we knew what was happening. Finally the captain ordered us. We held him down and unwrapped the linen. The stench was unbearable. We knew, all of us, that he would have to lose the arm. We drew away, but he could not even weep in solitude. There is no privacy on a ship. Here, likewise.”
Dr. Borden stood. “Hey, tech folks?” he called at the ceiling. “Hey, Andrew?”
A control room technician, a handsome black man, raised his eyes from his desk.
“Would you pause audio output for a minute?” Dr. Borden pointed at me. “Physician-patient confidentiality.”
“Got it,” the technician said, pressing some buttons. “All dead on this end, Doctor. Just signal me to restart, okay?”
Dr. Borden put his tool away, then closed his bag. “You know, Carthage is truly brilliant when it comes to cells. His discovery of their latent life potential? That’s genius, the real thing. And then proving his outlandish theory of hard-ice, something completely outside his discipline, by finding naturally occurring examples? Uncanny. Beyond comprehension. A cell, however, is nowhere near as complex as a human being.” He motioned at my chest. “I need to check your breathing.”
I unbuttoned my shirt, letting it fall off my shoulders. He stepped onto the footstool and pressed the cold stethoscope to my skin. “Deep breath.” He checked high and low on my left side, then my right, then moved to my back. “Deep again, please. Now cough.”
I did as I was told, until he stepped down, indicating for me to rebutton. “It is amazing, how fully you’ve healed. You’d never know those lungs were filled with salt water, and iced for a century.”
“You were explaining the strengths and weaknesses of Dr. Carthage.”
“Yes.” He folded the stethoscope away and gave a wan smile. “The truth is, you surpassed any expectation we had for your survival. My ignorance, and believe me, I am the ignorant one here, was in assuming you would die within days at most.”
He went to the window, surveying the control room. “Then there’s you, the personality. We never knew if you would even open your eyes. That’s pretty far from you gallivanting around town, being smart, being popular.”
The doctor faced me again and removed his glasses. His eyes looked sunken and small. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Carthage has grown too excited by controversy and attention. He insists on gathering data and on keeping you here because he cannot admit that we are out of our depth.” He placed the spectacles back on his face. “He has no idea what else to do.”
“Doctor.” It was my turn to speak plainly. “I am not a cell. I am a sentient being. You could have asked me.”
“Well now.” Dr. Borden’s face brightened, as
if the idea had never occurred to him. “Tell me, your honor. What can I do to make you more comfortable here, until we can figure all of this crap out?”
It was not a question I’d prepared myself to answer, despite my rhetoric. I scanned the room, every corner of it confirming the constraints on my freedoms. “I would like a curtain. The end of monitoring, of being filmed. I would like a chair, reading lamp, and some books.”
“I can do those things.”
“I would like variety in my foodstuffs.”
Dr. Borden tugged his beard again. “Let’s put that one aside for a while, okay? That porridge must be pretty boring by now. But there are scientific reasons we keep your diet so simple.”
“I would like the liberty to come and go as I please.”
He chuckled. “I think Carthage is the only one here with that privilege.”
“It is hardly a laughing matter.”
“True. But it is also not within my powers to give you that freedom. I don’t have the authority.”
Hm. There was more to be unearthed. “Let us stipulate to treat this matter as we are my diet. Which is to say, as tabled items which we will reconsider.”
Dr. Borden nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Lastly, I would like to be of use. There is much to enjoy and learn about here and now, but I am accustomed to a less ornamental existence.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I would like to be more than a curiosity. This second life contains the opportunity, and perhaps an imperative, to serve a larger purpose.”
He stared at me then, holding perfectly still, before nodding quite a bit. “You’re correct, of course. There is a role for you to play besides being a celebrity. Let me take it up with Carthage. Very good.”
The Curiosity: A Novel Page 21