The Fifth Profession (30 page)

“But why would they both have the same hallucination?” Rachel asked.

“Guilt.”

“I don't follow.” Savage frowned.

“If I understand correctly, your profession means more to you than just a job. Obviously your
identity
is based on protecting, on saving lives. It's a moral commitment. In that respect, you're comparable to devoted physicians.”

“True,” Akira said.

“But
unlike
physicians, who inevitably lose patients and are consequently forced to put a shell around their emotions, I gather that both of you have had remarkable success. You've never lost a client. Your success rate has been an impressive one hundred percent.”

“Except for …”

“The events in the rural hotel six months ago,” Weinberg said. “For the first—the
only
—time, you lost a client. A major threat to your identity. With no experience in dealing with failure, you weren't prepared for the shock. A shock that was reinforced by the vividly gruesome manner of your client's death. The natural reaction is guilt. Because you survived and your client didn't. Because your client's safety meant everything to you, to the point where you'd have sacrificed yourself to save him. But it didn't turn out that way.
He
died.
You're
still alive. So your guilt becomes unendurable. Your subconscious struggles to compensate. It seizes on your murky impression that your fellow bodyguard died as well. It insists, it demands, that your client couldn't possibly have been defended if both he and your counterpart were killed and
you,
too, nearly died in your heroic but demonstrably futile effort to fulfill your vocation. Given your similar personalities, your mutual hallucinations are understandable, even predictable.”

“Then why can't we find the hotel?” Savage asked.

“Because deep in your mind you're struggling to deny that your failure ever took place. What better way than to convince yourselves that the hotel, where your failure occurred, doesn't exist? Or the doctor who treated you? Or the hospital where you recovered? They do exist, at least if your account is authentic. But they don't exist where your urge for denial compels you to search.”

Savage and Akira glanced at each other. As one, they shook their heads.

“Why”—Akira sounded skeptical—”did we both know where the hotel ought to be? And the doctor? And the hospital?”

“That's the easiest to explain. You reinforced each other. What one of you said, the other grasped at. To perpetuate the delusion and relieve your guilt.”

“No,” Savage said.

Weinberg shrugged. “I told you, this was all hypothetical.”

“Why,” Akira asked, “if our arms and legs weren't broken, were we put in casts? Why did we endure the agony of rebuilding our muscles for so many terrible months?”

“Casts?” Weinberg asked. “Or were they immobilizers required to help repair ligaments detached from your arms and legs? Were the casts on your chests actually thick, tightly wound tape that protected bruised—but not broken—ribs? And possibly your bandaged skulls indeed had fractures, hairlines that healed so perfectly an X ray wouldn't detect them. You admit you were given Demerol. It affects one's sense of reality.”

“Certainly,” Rachel said. “And of course I wasn't there. I didn't experience their pain. I grant I'm fond of these two men. We've been through a lot together. But I'm not a fool, and of the three of us, I'm the one with the best claim to be objective. My friends have
not
been reinforcing each other's delusions.”

“Well, of course you've heard of the Stockholm principle,” Weinberg said. “People under stress tend to identify with those they depend on for their safety.”

“And of course you've heard of the ostrich principle,” Rachel said. “A psychiatrist who puts his head in the sand because he can't acknowledge a problem he's never heard of before.”

Weinberg leaned forward, scowled, and abruptly laughed.

“You were right,” he told Santizo. “This
is
amusing.”

“You're sublimating, Max. Admit it. She made you angry”

“Only hypothetically.”

Now Santizo laughed. “Hey, of course. Let's write a hypothetical article. About the phenomenon of being hypothetically angry.”

“What's going on?” Savage asked.

Santizo stopped laughing. “A test. To determine if you were cranks. I had no choice. And Max is wonderful. A gifted man with a marvelous mind and a talent for acting.”

“I wasn't acting,” Weinberg said. “What I've heard is so bewildering I want to hear more.”

Someone knocked on the door.

Santizo pivoted. “Come.”

A secretary, who'd brought in the teacups, now brought a large brown folder.

“The MRIs.” Santizo stood.

Two minutes later, he turned from the films. “Thanks, Max. I'll take it from here.” “You're sure?”

“Yes. I owe you a dinner.” Santizo faced the MRIs. “But the problem's back to me. Because psychiatry won't explain
this.”

4

Savage stood next to Akira and Rachel, studying the dusky films. Each had twelve images, arranged in four rows and three columns. They made little sense to him, harder to read than the earlier single-image X rays.

“Beautiful,” Santizo said. “I couldn't ask for clearer pictures.”

“You could have fooled
me,”
Akira said. “They look like ink blots.”

Santizo chuckled. “I can see where you'd get that impression.” He studied the films again. “That's why, to help you understand, I have to begin with some basics, though I'm afraid the basics will still sound technical…An MRI scan is an advanced technique of photography, based on magnetic resonance, that allows us to see past your skull and into your brain. It used to be that the only way we could get pictures of your brain was with a CAT scan. But a CAT scan isn't detailed enough, whereas
these
are the next best thing to actually opening up your skull and having a look. We take so many pictures from so many different angles, the combined result provides the illusion of 3-D.”

“But what have you learned?” Akira asked.

“Just bear with me a little longer,” Santizo said. “The brain has many parts.” He gestured toward portions of the MRIs. “The right hemisphere. The left hemisphere. Paradoxically the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, and vice versa. Our ability to think spatially comes from the right hemisphere, our verbal skills from the left. The hemispheres are divided into parts. The frontal lobe. The parietal lobe. The occipital lobe. The temporal lobe. And these in turn contain numerous subparts. The visual cortex. The olfactory tract. The somatic sensory area. The pituitary gland. Et cetera. What makes this awesomely complex organ work is the presence of billions of interconnecting nerves that transmit energy and information. These nerves are called neurons. They're analogous to electrical wires and telephone cables, but that's a simplification. No analogy can truly describe them…. By the way, have you ever had epilepsy?”

The question was so unexpected that Savage blinked.

“Epilepsy? No. Why?
What makes you ask?”

“I'm trying to account for something.” Santizo pointed toward a dark speck on a light portion of one of the images. The speck was on the left, near the middle. “This is a view of your brain from the rear. That speck is in your mesial temporal lobe—the amygdala hippocampal area. It's in line with the plug of bone that was taken out and then replaced in your skull.”

Savage felt as if he'd swallowed ice. “Speck? Jesus, what—?”

“A lesion. That's why I asked about epilepsy. An abnormality in this area sometimes causes that condition.”

“You're telling me something's growing in my brain?”

“No.” Santizo turned to Akira, then pointed toward another film. “There's an identical speck in the same area of
your
brain. The coincidence leads me to conclude that whatever it is, it's not a growth.”

“What
is
it then?” Akira asked.

“An educated guess? Scar tissue. From whatever was done to your brain.”

5

Savage listened in shock as Santizo returned to his desk. “More basics,” Santizo said. “First rule. Eliminate the obvious. The purpose for the operation performed on each of you was
not
to excise a tumor. That type of surgery requires a major invasion of the brain. Hence a major portion of the skull would have to be removed.”

“But not,” Rachel said, “a five-millimeter plug of bone.”

“Correct. The only reason to create so small an access to the brain would be”—Santizo debated—“to allow an electrode to be inserted.”

“Why?”
Savage had trouble breathing.

“Assuming familiar but serious circumstances?
Many
reasons. I mentioned epilepsy. An electrode inserted into the brain can measure electrical impulses from various clusters of neurons. In an epileptic, different levels of the brain transmit normal and nonnormal current. If we can determine the source of the nonnormal current, we can operate in a specific location to try to correct the abnormality.”

“But we're not epileptics,” Savage said.

“I was offering an example,” Santizo said. “I'll give you another. A patient with impairments of sight or hearing or smell—impairments due to the brain and not external receptors—can sometimes have their impairments corrected if
internal
receptors, those in the brain, are stimulated by electrodes.”

“But we can see and hear and smell,” Akira said.

“And yet you think you saw each other die. You can't find a hotel where you were beaten. Or a hospital where you were treated. Or a doctor who supervised your case. Someone has interfered with your brain functions. Specifically your ability to …”

“Remember,” Savage said.

“Or more interesting, has someone caused you to remember what never happened?
Jamais vu.
The phrase you invented is fascinating.”

“To remember what never happened? I didn't mean it literally. I never believed …”

“I can take you down to Pathology,” Santizo said. “I can dissect a corpse's brain and show you each component. I can tell you why you see and hear, why you taste, touch, and smell, why you feel pain—though the brain itself
cannot
feel pain. But what I can't do is show you a thought. And I certainly can't find a specific site in your brain that enables you to remember. I've been doing research on memory for the past ten years, and the more I learn, the more I'm baffled ….Describe what happens when you remember a past event.”

Savage and Akira hesitated.

Rachel gestured. “Well, it's sort of like seeing a movie inside my head.”

“That's how most people describe it. We experience an event, and it seems as though our brain works like a camera, retaining a series of images of that event. The more we experience, the more films we store in our brain. When circumstances require, when we need to review the past to understand the present, we select an appropriate reel and view it on a mental screen. Of course, we take for granted that the films are permanent records, as immutable as a movie.”

Rachel nodded.

“But a movie
isn't
permanent. It cracks. It discolors. Scenes can be eliminated. What's more, we're explaining memory by means of analogy. There
aren't
films in our brain. There
isn't
a screen. We merely imagine there are. And memory becomes even harder to explain when we pass from concrete events to learned abstractions. When I think of the mathematical principle of pi, I don't see a film in my head. I somehow, intuitively, understand what pi signifies. And when I think of an abstract word such as ‘honor,’ I don't see a film. I just
know
what ‘honor’ means. Why am I able to recall and understand these abstractions?”

“Do you have an answer?” Savage's chest ached.

“The prevailing theory is that memories are somehow encoded throughout the brain in the neurons. These billions of I nerves—the theory goes-—not only transmit electricity and information but also retain the information they transmit. The analogy of a computer is frequently used to illustrate the process, but again, as with the illusion that we have a movie screen in our heads, an analogy is not an explanation. Our memory system is infinitely more complex than any computer. For one thing, the neurons seem capable of transferring information from one network to another, thus protecting certain memories if a portion of the brain is damaged. For another, there are two types of memory—short term and long term—and their relationship is paradoxical. ‘Short term’ refers to temporary memories of recently acquired but unimportant information. The telephone number of my dentist, for example. If I need to make an appointment, I look up the number, remember it long enough to call his office, and immediately forget it until the next time I need an appointment and repeat the process. ‘Long term’ refers to lasting memories of necessary information: the telephone number for my home. What physical mechanism causes my dentist's number to be easily forgotten but not my own? And why, in certain types of amnesia, is a patient unable to remember any recent event, whether trivial or important, while at the same time he can recall in vivid detail minor long-forgotten events from forty years ago? No one understands the process.”

“What do
you
believe?” Akira asked.

“A musical by Lerner and Loewe.”

“I don't …”

“Gigi.
Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold sing a wonderful song, I Remember It Well.’ Their characters are former lovers recalling when they met. ‘We went
here.’
‘No, we went
there.’
‘You wore
this
dress.’ ‘No, I wore
that.’
‘Ah, yes, I remember it well.’ But they
don't.
Sure, the point of the song is that old age has made them forget. The trouble is, I'm not sure the rest of us don't forget also. A
lot
of specifics. And sooner than we realize. Dr. Weinberg and I have a sentimental tradition. Every Saturday night, when Max and I aren't on call, we and our wives see a movie and then go to dinner. After the stress of the week, we look forward to the distraction. Yesterday, Max fondly remembered a film the four of us had seen together. ‘But Max,’ I said, ‘I saw that movie on cable television, not in a theater.’ ‘No,’ Max insisted, ‘the four of us saw it downtown.’ ‘No,’ I told him, ‘I was at a conference that weekend. You, your wife, and mine went to see the film without me.’ We questioned our wives, who didn't remember the circumstances. We still don't know the truth.”