The Art of Forgetting (4 page)

              “But, professor?” A woman with sallow skin sitting cross-legged in the front row had her hand raised in the air. Lloyd turned to face her and nodded. She rested her hand back on her lap. “I feel like our memories are inseparable from our identity. When it comes down to it, they are who we are. Without our memories we have no history, no personality… no soul. If we can’t trust our own memories, how can we trust anyone else?  How can we trust ourselves?”

              Lloyd flashed a sardonic smile. “It’s a dark place, isn’t it?” He rubbed his palms together. The set-up was complete. Time for the pay-off. “But I think I can offer a glimmer of hope.”

              Lloyd stepped back on the podium, grabbed a small remote control from the lectern and squeezed it with his thumb. A close-up photograph of a white mouse with sharp, pink cones for ears projected on an overhead screen.

              “Meet Ludwig. Whereas my memory, as I’ve already told you, is only average, Ludwig’s memory is truly exceptional. He can memorize a maze with incredible ease. Even the most complicated three-dimensional labyrinth is no match for him. He can run a maze just once, yet recall it in detail a month later with no fall in performance. He simply doesn’t forget.

              “But what is even more astonishing is that Ludwig wasn’t always this way. You see, Ludwig is a strain of a
tau
transgenic mouse: an animal model we use to study dementia. As a pup, he couldn’t find his way out of a paper sack. Everything changed when Ludwig became the first mouse to receive a new experimental treatment – a single intravenous injection that indelibly changed him.”

              Lloyd scanned the faces of the students, his eyes narrowed and beaming.

              “Within seventy-two hours he was slogging his way around simple radial mazes – these are just straight corridors extending from a center circle. Within a week his capacity for learning was equivalent to a normal mouse and by the ten day mark his performance was more than two standard deviations above the mean faster than the average healthy mouse. Now, Ludwig would make a great witness in court. If he could only talk…”

              “What did you inject him with?” the strawberry blond student asked.

              Lloyd paused teasingly.

              “I injected him with a proteinaceous infectious particle, or as most people call it, a prion.”

              “As in mad-cow disease prion?” Mills asked from the third row.

              “Mad-cow disease is tabloid newspaper terminology, Mr. Mills,” Lloyd said.

              “Bovine spongiform encephalopathy,” the sallow woman in the front row said softly.

              “Now that’s real doctor talk, Miss Polanski.”

              “But I though prions took years to manifest their effects,” a student in the back spoke up. “Like in Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.”

              “CJD, now that’s one hideous neurodegenerative disease,” Lloyd said. “And you’re absolutely right. The incubation phase for prions can be long and unpredictable, two qualities that are the bane of biomedical research. But we discovered that by linking it to a specific glycopeptide moiety (to which our medical center holds the patent) we could stimulate consistent, rapid uptake of prion into the neuronal lysosome.” Lloyd puffed out his cheeks. “So what other prion diseases do you know?”

              “Kuru,” the strawberry blond said.

              “Excellent. And what exactly is Kuru?”

              “Well, there was some tribe somewhere, like in Africa or something...”

              “The Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea,” Lloyd corrected.

              “Right, that’s the one,” the student said, snapping his fingers. “Anyway, these tribesmen had some mysterious deadly neurologic disease and someone figured out that it was because they were eating the brains of their dead family members.”

              “Very good,” Lloyd said. “And when brain samples obtained at post-mortem from the corpse of an eleven year old girl were injected in a chimpanzee, the poor chimp developed the disease. A discovery that earned Dr. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1976.”

              “Then why would you want to inject a prion in a poor demented mouse?” Miss Polanski asked with an indignant mien.

              “Why indeed?” Lloyd said. “To understand that we have to understand the nature of prions.”

              A burly man in a red bow-tie and a starched white doctor’s smock entered the lecture hall from a back door and waved at Lloyd in a fairly good imitation of a British monarch. Lloyd raised his eyebrows as the man settled in a seat in the back row. He glanced at his wristwatch.

              “Why don’t we call it a wrap for today?” Lloyd said. “The topic of our next discussion will be prions. I want you to hit the library and research the evolutionary advantages and beneficial effects of prions.”

              A student with a bulbous nose, his neck tie askew said, “Umm, library?  What’s that?”

              “Dude, he means Wikipedia,” the heavy set fellow sitting next to him said. The rest of the students laughed. Lloyd shook his head, a broad grin carved on his face.

              “Get to work, clowns.” Lloyd retrieved the deck of playing cards and slipped it in its cardboard box which he tucked in a pocket of his lab coat. The students filed out, some chortling, some muttering subdued good-byes. The last, a tall black girl who had sat quietly throughout the class, strutted by him with coy propriety – a Nubian princess awakened from her magical slumber. Her skin was the color of the cream on espresso, her face sculpted with high cheekbones that seemed to pull the lateral canthi of her cinnamon eyes into tear-drop shapes.
Queen Nefertiti in a lab coat
.

              She said, “Thank you, Dr. Copeland”, deliberately over-enunciating every syllable, extending the tip of her tongue to the mid upper lip for the th- sound: a luscious strawberry dipped in milk chocolate. She smiled coquettishly and paced out of the classroom in a gait that seemed practiced for a Milan catwalk.

              The bow-tied doctor, who by now had stepped to the front of the classroom, muttered, “Looks like Dr. Copeland’s gonna have some brown sugar with his morning coffee.”

              Lloyd stuffed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “Dr. O’Keefe. To what do I owe the pleasure of –”

              “Oh, cut the crap, Lloyd.” Mark O’Keefe grabbed Lloyd in a head lock and tousled his hair with his free knuckle. Lloyd struggled to break free.

              “And they promoted you to Associate Professor,” Lloyd said with a grin, trying to comb his hair back in place with his fingers. “I guess maturity wasn’t a prerequisite.”

              “It’s all in who you, Kemosabe.”

              “You mean, who you blow.”

              “That too, my friend. While you fritter your time away chasing medical student tail, I’ve been busy earning my promotions the old-fashioned way.”

              “On your knees.”

              “Damn right. Kissing every dimpled, sagging, senile butt in the department. I don’t have your beautiful brain, Lloyd. Never will.” Mark said tapping his temple with his fingers.

              “Meanwhile, I’m still an Assistant Professor.”

              “That’s because they expect so much more from you. They figure if they promote you too soon it’ll take away your hunger. Speaking of which, did you have lunch yet?”

              “It’s barely noon,” Lloyd said.

              “Good. Walk with me. I’m heading for the caf.”

              The two walked through the sterile hallway connecting the medical school to the main hospital building appearing every bit the odd couple: lean, slick, dark-haired Lloyd dwarfed by the bow-tied, heavy-jawed, ambling red giant that appeared capable of stepping back in the lineup for the University of Iowa at nose guard on a moment’s notice. Despite outward appearances, since the day they were matched up as roommates their freshman year of medical school, the two instantly clicked.

              “Do I have a scoop for you, my friend,” Mark said. “You’re going to owe me big time for this.” Lloyd’s facial expression gave no hint of curiosity so Mark stopped, put a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, pulled him to the side and scouted the corridor with an embellished sense of secrecy. “I had the most amazing phone call a couple of days ago.” He glanced over Lloyd’s shoulder once more and whispered, “I found Cecil Spalding.” Lloyd shrugged and jutted out his lower lip. “Cecil Spalding…
The Constellation of Doom
?”

              “Aah, that Cecil Spalding,” Lloyd said nodding his head. “I don’t know who the hell that is.”

              “And you’re supposed to be the cultured one. Cecil Spalding was one of the most promising Science Fiction writers of his generation. Wrote a trilogy called
The Constellation of Doom
. A damn masterpiece of story-telling, won him all sorts of awards and accolades.”

              “I didn’t know you were for a Sci-Fi geek.”

              “Are you kidding? The universe fascinates me. Did you know NASA just found water on Mercury? Water on Mercury! Anyway, at the peak of his career, Cecil Spalding suddenly disappears. Never publishes another book, just vanishes in thin air like some magical unicorn.”

              “And now you found him.”

              “I met him this morning… in the flesh.”

              “He was naked?”

              “You know what I mean,” Mark said with a frown.

              “Well, the mystery’s solved then,” Lloyd said flatly. “Well done,” Lloyd patted Mark’s shoulder.

              “I told his wife you would see him… as a patient.”

              Lloyd studied Mark’s face. “Why don’t
you
see him… as a doctor?”

              “This is your ballpark Lloyd. The man has the most severe short term-memory dysfunction I’ve ever seen. You can talk to him for half-an-hour, step out of the room for a piss, come back in and he has no recollection of ever having met you. He thinks his grown son is still eight years old – doesn’t recognize him as his son at all. Only person he does recognize is his wife.”

              “What was the cause?” Lloyd asked.

              “Viral encephalitis, sixteen years ago. Was in a coma for three weeks. Woke up but his memory was Swiss cheese.”

              “Mmm,” Lloyd said with downcast eyes.

              “You’re getting a woody, aren’t you?  I can hear the little gears spinning in your head. You’re thinking, ‘This guy’s a perfect subject for my study.’”

              “I haven’t even received the green light for human trials yet.”

              “When do you go in front of the IRB?”

              The Institutional Review Board was the hospital panel charged with reviewing and approving studies that employed human subjects. 

              “I don’t know,” Lloyd said. “Soon I guess.”

              “Well, then, you’re welcome,” Mark said. “Just remember your friends when you get that early morning phone call from Stockholm one day.”

              “I just don’t know when I’ll be able to see him,” Lloyd said. “I’ll have to check my clinic schedule.”

              “No need. You’re making a house call. The guy doesn’t leave his home. It makes him batty.” Mark placed his hand on Lloyd’s back and the two started walking again. “Don’t worry. I was there this morning, cozy little home in Hinsdale. Wife makes great iced tea.”

              “When?”

              “Today,” Mark said.

              “You want me to go
today
?”

              “Don’t bullshit me. I know you’re champing at the bit. And it’ll be good for you. It’ll help to broaden the horizons of your social life past the walls of your excellent bachelor pad. By the way, you free this weekend?”

              “I’m not on call,” Lloyd said.

              “And no previously scheduled engagements?” Mark traced quotation marks in the air with his fat fingers.

              Lloyd briefly thought of Alison: beautiful, sensual Alison, whose memory did not arouse the slightest tinge of an emotion. “No, I got nothing, man.”

              “Good. Monica asked me to invite you to our house for a little back-yard barbecue, Saturday afternoon. Scored me some premium Kobe rib-eyes – not the kind of stuff you can buy at the supermarket. Husband of a patient of mine is a restaurant supplier.”

              Dr. Mark O’Keefe was beloved by his patients who regularly manifested their devotion by showering him with gifts. Around the holidays you could barely move in his cramped office without tripping over a honey-baked ham or stepping into a basket of fruit. Mark might have been able to publish the definitive text on bedside manner if he could find a way to sit still long enough for his burly fingers to type out the manuscript.

              “You want me to bring anything?” Lloyd asked.

              “I don’t know, I was thinking you might bake a nice casserole,” Mark said in a sing-song voice. “What the hell are you going to bring, foolish lad?  Bring your appetite.”