There is an essential restraint, a kind of emotional goodness in the man, Margot has thought.
This is nothing Margot Sharpe can ever “record”—unfortunately!
One hour and ten minutes later, at the conclusion of a battery of tests, when E.H. is resting in a chair by a window, carefully hand-printing in his little notebook, there is a knock at the door, and Margot Sharpe goes to open it—and Alvin Kaplan steps inside.
“Eli, I’d like you to meet my colleague Alvin Kaplan. He’s a professor of neuropsychology at the university and a member of Professor Ferris’s lab.”
E.H. rises to his feet. E.H. smiles brightly and puts away his little notebook. That look of hope in the man’s eyes!—Margot feels a pang of apprehension.
Boldly E.H. extends his hand: “Hello, Professor!”
“Hello, Mr. Hoopes.”
When Margot first met Alvin Kaplan in 1965, as a first-year graduate student, he’d been an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the university; young, without tenure, yet one of Milton Ferris’s “anointed”—already the recipient of a coveted research grant from the National Science Endowment. In the intervening years Kaplan has been promoted in the department, with tenure; he is still wiry-limbed and inclined to irony, though he has gained about fifteen pounds, and seems less uncertain of himself now that he has married, has become a father, and has begun to publish extensively. Margot never challenges Alvin Kaplan, whom she recognizes as very smart, and very shrewd; she guesses that he feels rivalrous toward her, as another of Milton Ferris’s protégés, his only serious competitor in the lab for the elder scientist’s admiration, favoritism, and affection. Yet Margot is self-effacing in Kaplan’s presence, and finds it easy to admire him—to praise him. For Kaplan does have very good ideas. She knows that it would be a terrible blunder to offend him.
Though E.H. has met Kaplan many times, he appears to have no memory of him, as usual.
Or does he? As Kaplan reaches out to shake E.H.’s hand, E.H. hesitates, as he has never hesitated previously; clearly, he is wary about shaking this stranger’s hand, assesses the situation and seems to make a stoic decision yes, he will shake Kaplan’s hand—and again, Kaplan squeezes his hand unnaturally hard, and E.H. reacts with surprise and pain, in wincing silence; and quickly disengages his hand.
Yet—once again—Kaplan doesn’t betray any social cue that he has deliberately caused E.H. pain, nor even that he notices E.H.’s reaction. So far as you would guess Kaplan has shaken E.H.’s hand “normally”—but E.H. has reacted “abnormally.”
After just a few minutes the encounter ends with a remark of Kaplan’s—a signal to the graduate student who has been filming.
“Very nice to meet you, Mr. Hoopes! I’ve heard much about you.”
E.H. smiles, guardedly. But doesn’t ask what the visitor has heard.
Kaplan and Margot exchange a glance—it is a fact, the amnesiac hasn’t reacted identically each time, with each handshake. His behavior has been modified by the “cruel handshake”—even as he has forgotten the specific circumstances of the handshake.
In the women’s restroom to which she flees as soon as she can, Margot trembles with excitement over this discovery. It is a profound discovery!
The amnesiac subject is “remembering”—in some way.
As a seemingly blind person may “see”—in some way.
Some part of the brain is functioning like memory. This is not supposed to be happening, yet it is happening.
Suddenly Margot is feeling nauseated. The very excitement she feels over her discovery is making her sick.
At the sink she bends double, and gags. Yet she does not vomit.
The sensation returns several times. She gags, but does not vomit. To the mirror-face she says, “Oh God. What are we doing to him. What am I doing to him. Eli! God forgive me.”
AS PLANNED KAPLAN enters the testing-room. It is 11:08 A.M. of the following Wednesday—a week after the most recent confrontation.
Margot Sharpe and two other researchers have been working with E.H. for much of the morning. The tests they’ve been administering to the amnesiac are variants of the “distraction” test, with visual, auditory, and olfactory cues and interruptions. Margot has remained in the room with E.H. more or less continuously through the morning, and he has not seemed to “forget” her; though, when she slips away to use a restroom, and returns, she half-suspects that the amnesiac is only just pretending he isn’t surprised to see her, a stranger close beside him, smiling at him as if she knows him.
He has learned to compensate for the mystery that surrounds him. Surprise to the amnesiac no longer registers as “surprise.”
Such observations and epiphanies, Margot Sharpe records in her log, still in notebook form. One day, these will be included in the appendix of her most acclaimed book—The Biology of Memory.
“Have we met before, Mr. Hoopes?” Kaplan asks.
E.H. shakes his head no. He looks to Margot Sharpe, his “friend” in the lab, who says, with a pause, “I don’t think so, Professor. I don’t think that you and Mr. Hoopes have met.”
Kaplan glances sidelong at Margot Sharpe. “Mr. Hoopes and I have not met—it isn’t a matter of what you think, Miss Sharpe, but of what I know.”
It’s as if Kaplan has struck Margot with the back of his hand, to discipline her. Margot feels a stab of rage. Tell your own lies, you bastard. Cold heartless unfeeling son of a bitch.
Of course, they have rehearsed the cruel handshake. It is not a very difficult experiment, if it’s even an “experiment”—Margot knows how she should behave.
Yet, what does it matter? E.H. will begin to forget within seconds.
“Eli, I’d like you to meet my colleague Professor Alvin Kaplan …”
But this time, as Kaplan approaches E.H. with his usual smile, the amnesiac stands very still, and visibly stiffens. E.H. is smiling a wide, forced smile even as his eyes glare.
Then, he extends his hand bravely to be shaken—but before Kaplan can squeeze his hand, E.H. squeezes Kaplan’s hand, very hard.
Kaplan winces, and jerks his hand away. For a moment he is too surprised to speak.
Then, red-faced and teary-eyed, he manages to laugh. He glances sidelong at Margot Sharpe, who is astonished as well.
“Mr. Hoopes, you’ve got a strong handshake! Man, that hurt.”
Kaplan is so stunned by the amnesiac’s unexpected reaction, he has reverted to a way of speaking that isn’t his own but copied from undergraduate speech. Margot laughs nervously, yet with relief.
Coolly, E.H. gives no sign that he has behaved out of character. His smile is less forced, you might say it is a triumphant smile, though much restrained.
And restrained too, E.H.’s ironic remark: “One of us is a tennis player, I guess—‘Professor.’ That’s how you get a ‘strong handshake.’”
MARGOT AND KAPLAN are impressed with E.H.’s most recent response to the handshake. The amnesiac seems to have learned without conscious memory; he has acted reflexively. Subject “remembers” pain. Behavior indicates non-declarative memory.
Their joint paper will be “Non-declarative Memory in Amnesia: The Case of E.H.” (1973–74). But the experiment is far from complete.
Next time the “visitor” returns to shake E.H.’s hand, a week later, the amnesiac