Andrew's Brain

XI

So, Doc, how long have I been here?

It’s been a while.

And you won’t tell me where this is?

I can’t.

It’s not home.

How do you know that?

The air. There’s a softness to it. It gives one a settled sweet earth taste of the spring air. I’ve never experienced that in the New World. I think this is a countryside of low hills and wildflowers and grape arbors. I can’t see over the walls, but in the exercise yard I hear birds and they’re not the birds of home. Also it stays light long into the evening. I think this is Mediterranean Europe you people have dropped me into, and it’s not bad — the torture is not exquisite but only in my reflection of what has happened to me — apart from talking to you I have no one and no lawyer has been appointed and I’m being held without trial and it’s already been indefinitely. That’s celestial time, you know. I’m sentenced to roll round with the planet, to count the suns, the moons, the seasons.… Do you think I threatened the life of the president?

No, actually.

Yet I won’t accuse you of following orders and being a nullity. You know why?

Why?

Without you to talk to I’d be even worse off than I am.

You don’t have to worry.

Although I have my collected MT on the shelf I think how can I keep my mind from going? And if my mind goes can the country be far behind?

So you’re saying there’s a connection?

My mind is shot through with visions, dreams, and the actions and words of people I don’t know. I hear soundless voices, phantoms loom up out of my sleep and onto the wall, lingering there, cringing in anguish, curling up in visible contortions of pain and crying out wordlessly for my help. What are you doing to me! I shout, and fall back into bed only to stare at the black ceiling and my room is a darkened movie theater where another silent horror show is about to begin. I speak of a broached integrity. Only by hoping that there is a science behind this am I able to endure it. Perhaps I’m carrying in my brain matter the neuronal record of previous ages. I know you haven’t gone through anything like this, you’re too accepting of your own experiences. They thrive in you, maxing out to your brain’s capacity. But when you’re as unfeeling as I am—

Ah, we’re back to that?

— there may be an opportunity for the dormant genetic microtraces from earlier times to express themselves in dreams.

So is this cognitive science?

Not quite yet. It’s still only suffering.

Tell me, Doc, am I a computer?

What?

Am I the first computer invested with consciousness? With terrible dreams, with feelings, with grief, with longing?

No, Andrew, you’re a human being.

Well, you would say that.

I see you’ve let your beard grow, your hair. You could indeed be the Holy Fool. But it needs something.

What’s this?

A Yankees baseball cap. Your wardrobe needed refreshing.

How old is Willa now?

Twelve.

And where are they all living?

We’ve been through this—

Where?

They’re in New Rochelle.

In their old house?

Yes.

Martha and Martha’s large husband.

Yes.

And they need my agreement? Why? A judge will rule in their favor — Martha has raised her since she was a baby. And I’m an enemy combatant.

You’re not an enemy combatant.

Whatever I am I haven’t much legal standing, have I?

It’s for the child’s sake. Here are the papers.

So my daughter will have Boris Godunov, that drunk, that Pretender, for a legal father.

He’s in AA. Doesn’t drink anymore.

When did they get back together, the loving couple?

A few years ago, I think. Three or four.

And where did she take my child when she disappeared?

As I’ve told you, Martha settled in a small town in western Pennsylvania. A farm inherited from an aunt and uncle.

Do they have the finances to keep my daughter as she deserves?

They are not without resources. She teaches piano again and he has a master class in voice. They are both at Juilliard.

It says here Willa is not to be told about me. It says I may never approach her, reveal myself to her as her father—

She has no reason to believe that Martha is not her mother. I’m not sure how the status of the husband will be represented in her eyes.

— or that her real mother died trying to save people.

Is that what you think now?

Yes.

I don’t imagine they would tell the child that.

Well, then, the hell with them!

Oh, for God’s sake, why can’t you be reasonable for a change? Think of someone besides yourself.

Oh, Doc. I do. I think all the time of my two girls. I want to read to them like MT did to his little girls, making up stories to help them get to sleep. He says, “They think my tales are better than paregoric, and quicker.”

Andrew, please—

He wrote down this one story for other fathers to use? Every name, and where possible every word, will have a cat in it — Catasauqua, Cataline, cattalactic. And the girls keep interrupting. What is a catadrome, Papa? I’ll look, he says, pretending to consult the dictionary. Ah, it is a racecourse. I thought it was a tenpin alley, but cats do not play tenpins when they are feeling well, but they do run races. Thank you, Papa, the little girl says. Yes, he says, and the story continues.

Andrew—

MT’s invented silliness at his children’s bedtime. How he is their protector, and the world’s a safe snug place at their bedtime. How when they are grown they will remember this tale and laugh with love for their father. How this is his redemption.