The technician presses a button and writes something down. The image on the screen flips to a side view, showing the profile of Carol’s face, the bone of her nose. “We’re checking for abnormalities in the hippocampus.”
Harold stares at the brain. Viewed from the side, there is a breathtaking architecture of curved vaults and aqueducts, and a purposeful canal leading to the rest of the body. It seems far too complex a thing to be inside Carol. Harold feels an itch at the top inner part of his right thigh, near his groin. He resists the urge to scratch it, and considers the elaborate circuitry that makes him aware of the itch and that keeps his hand in place despite the overwhelming desire to move it. He wonders what that particular neural scenario would look like on the brain screen. Perhaps the arising itch might appear as a spontaneous bright dot in one of the brain lobes. Which lobe, he cannot hope to know. It would be improper to ask now, of course, and distract the technician from the medical attention he is supposed to be giving his wife.
Several moments of silence pass. Harold takes his eyes from the screen and looks through the lab window to the colossal machine that contains Carol. He can see the hem of her hospital gown, the soles of her socks, her bare legs tan from Hawaii. The top part of her body is hidden. She looks like a magician’s assistant about to be cut in half. What is she thinking in there? Is she thinking about drapes? Death? Handbags? She looks lonely in the tube. The brain on the screen looks lonely, too. It feels like a strange sort of perfidy, to examine her mind in this way, to ogle it with these other men. The most surprising part of it, so far, is that her brain is exactly the shape he expected. It is the shape of all brains in the world.
“What are you looking for, exactly?” Harold asks.
“Any lesions or abnormalities in the brain’s anatomy,” the technician mutters, “that might help us determine the cause of your wife’s seizures.”
“Any indication yet?”
“You’ll have to discuss the results with the doctor.”
Harold looks back through the glass and sees Carol’s foot jiggle. What if she has an itch inside the tube? How terrible, he thinks, not to be able to scratch it.
Harold watches the technician’s face in profile, lit up by the glow of the screen. The face contains godly knowledge. What, on the other hand, does Harold know? Cash-flow projections? Imaginary galaxies of real use to no one. He feels the same hunger that he felt as a boy, a driving need to know, to be taught.
“Now twenty seconds of clicking,” the technician says.
Harold thinks he can hear the clicking sounds himself. Like the sound of a fork tapping a glass bowl around his head.
Carol emerges, whole, from the MRI tube. She emerges fully clothed from the hospital, and Harold escorts her back to the car. She is a civilian again, with makeup and high-heeled shoes. The only difference is the slightly shaken look on her face, the lips flexed in a strained half-smile.
“The doctor said we’ll hear in a few days. I’m sure everything’s fine,” says Harold.
“Yes, I know. I’m just glad it’s over.”
The MRI was nothing, thinks Harold. If there is bad news, she might have to undergo brain surgery. No one has told him this, but he’s sure it is true. Bad news always means surgery.
“It didn’t hurt, did it?”
“Not at all, but the noises were unpleasant.”
Harold tries not to grin.
“You mean the bangs and taps and whirs?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I talked to the doctor about it. I wanted to know what you were experiencing.”
“That was sweet of you, honey. But really, it wasn’t that bad. I’m just glad to be out of that tube.”
“It looked claustrophobic.”
“It was! I had a terrible itch on my nose and there was nothing I could do!”
“I can imagine, sweetheart. It sounds terrible.” But not as terrible as brain surgery, he thinks.
They are relieved when the doctor reports that Carol’s brain has no anatomical malformation they can find. The seizure could have been an anomaly, possibly even an allergic reaction to something. That sounds likely, the family agrees. They’d been in Hawaii, after all, eating unusual foods and breathing unusual air.
Back home, Harold watches his wife flip through fabric swatches. She’s returned to her work, reupholstering everything in the house. A diamond twinkles from the lobe of her ear, that weird, primitive organ. Harold thinks of what brain surgery might entail, whether a piece of skull would need to be removed like a door, whether the brain matter itself could stand to be touched by an instrument, or if it is done in some other way—maybe with lasers.