The Man Without a Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

played tennis just last week.”
    Eli stares at Ferris. This is not what Eli has expected to hear and he seems incapable of absorbing it but without missing a beat Ferris says in a warm and uplifting voice, “Now, Eli, you’ve always trounced me . And it has been reported to me not only that you’d played with one of the best players on the staff but you’d won each game.”
    â€œâ€˜Reported’—really!”
    E.H. laughs, faintly incredulous.
    Margot sees: the poor man is feeling the unease of one being made to understand that the most complete knowledge of himself can come only from the outside—from strangers.
    A melancholy conviction, Margot thinks, to realize that you can’t know yourself as reliably as strangers can know you!
    Patiently Milton Ferris explains to E.H. why he has been brought to the Institute that morning, and why Ferris and his laboratory are going to be “testing” him—as they’d done in the past; E.H. listens politely at first, then becomes bemused and beguiled by Margot whom he has rediscovered: she is wearing a black wraparound skirt with black tights beneath, a black jersey pullover that fits her petite frame tightly, and black ballerina flats—the clothes of a schoolgirl dancer and not the crisp white lab coats of the medical staff or the dull-green uniforms of the nursing staff. There is no laminated ID on her lapel to inform him of her name.
    Annoyed, Ferris says: “Whenever you’d like to begin, Mr. Hoopes—Eli. That’s why we’re here.”
    â€œWhy you are here, Doctor. But why am I here?”
    â€œYou’ve enjoyed our tests in the past, Eli, and I think you will again.”
    â€œThat’s why I am here—to ‘enjoy’ myself?”
    â€œWe are hoping to establish some facts concerning memory. We are hoping to explore the question of whether memory is ‘global’ in the brain—not localized; or whether it is localized. And you have been helping us, Eli.”
    â€œHave they kicked me out of the office?—has someone taken my place? My brother Averill, and my uncle—” E.H. pauses as if, for a vexed moment, he can’t recall the name of one of his Hoopes relatives, an executive at Hoopes & Associates, Inc.; then he rallies, with one of his enigmatic remarks: “Where else would I be, if I could be somewhere else?”
    Milton Ferris assures E.H. that he is in “just the right place, at just the right time to make history.”
    â€œDid I tell you? I’ve heard Reverend King speak. Several times. That is ‘history.’”
    â€œYes. An extraordinary man, Reverend King . . .”
    â€œHe spoke in Philadelphia on the steps of the Free Library, and he spoke in Birmingham, Alabama, at a Negro church that was subsequently burnt to the ground by white racists. He is a very brave man, a saint. He is a saint of courage. I intend to march with him again when my condition improves—as I’ve been promised.”
    â€œOf course, Eli. Maybe we can help arrange that.”
    â€œIt’s because I was clubbed on the head—billy clubbed—in Alabama. Did I show you? The scar, where my hair doesn’t grow . . .”
    E.H. lowers his head, flattens his thick dark hair to show them a faint zigzag line in his scalp. Margot feels an impulse to reach out and touch it—to stroke the poor man’s head.
    She understands— It’s loneliness he feels most.
    â€œYes, you did show us your scar, Eli. You’re a very lucky man to have escaped with your life.”
    â€œAm I! You think that’s what I managed, Doctor—to ‘escape with my life.’” E.H. laughs sadly.
    Milton Ferris continues to speak with E.H., humoring him even as he soothes him. Margot can imagine Ferris calming an excited laboratory animal, a monkey for instance, as it is about to be “sacrificed.”
    For such is the euphemism in