He spends an hour after dinner thumbing through Scientific American. As he sits, he tries to discern the workings of his own brain. The transmitters, he imagines, fire more slowly while he listens to the calming jungle tones, and faster when he looks at the magazine. His brain feels powerfully charged, marvelously elastic. He imagines how it might look on an MRI screen, color-coded.
But this is nothing, this armchair science. There are men who spend their whole lives studying the human brain. Others study outer space. How about that? There are men who do nothing but study the human brain—or the universe—each day, who are excited by pictures that are meaningless to the rest of the world. Harold feels a gnawing envy. The magazine pictures of the brain and of the cosmos are beautiful and not dissimilar—abstract smudges of color against the same fluid black background. Brains and galaxies, these places where everyone lives, where everyone floats in an enormous black egg. Every surgeon and astrophysicist and Wall Street banker alive.
His own house, deep within the egg, features leafy drapes, decorative wreaths, patterns around the rims of dishes, everything made to chase fear away.
Several weeks later, Carol has another episode. It happens while she is out walking on Pelican Point’s narrow finger of land, past its string of hermetic mansions. It is a stroke of luck that the driver of a passing car happens to find her on the side of the road, jolting in a patch of pachysandra.
Dr. Warren prescribes medication for her seizures—for her epilepsy—and Harold’s family gets used to the word. Over the following year the seizures seem to come at random intervals, often preceded by a vivid memory or sensory experience.
Harold leaves Scientific American behind. He buys neuroscience books and learns all he can about the brain’s structure and functions. He is beginning to see the connection, now, between the recurring paella taste and the rigid grasping motions that follow. And now he knows that the brain has no sensory nerves of its own. It is, in fact, dead to the touch.
The more he learns about the brain’s curled geography, its mystifying functions, the more he needs to know. He wants to see the organ up close. He even considers buying a brain in a jar—an authentic cross section for sale on the Internet—but knows his wife would not be happy about it. In any case, a preserved specimen is no substitute for the real, living thing.
There are so many questions. Harold tells himself that it is his responsibility to answer them, to gain uncommon insight into the nature of his wife’s trouble. But, he knows, this is not just about Carol. The truth is that he wants total access, total knowledge. So when Dr. Warren orders a PET-CT scan, Harold requests the doctor’s presence. They stand together in the technician’s booth. Harold watches his wife slide into the scanner’s mouth and waits for her brain to appear. It swims onto the screen, this time in vibrant colors like a flamboyant fish, and the doctor’s face glows aquamarine.
The technician picks up his headset.
Harold coughs. “Dr. Warren, before we start, may I speak to you privately?”
The technician puts the headset down, as if offended, and the doctor looks at Harold. They step into the corner of the room, and Harold whispers, “May I ask you an unusual question?” He straightens his posture, tries to picture an admiring board of directors sitting before him. “Would it be possible for a patient to touch his own brain?” He is dismayed to feel his face heat.
The doctor levels a blank gaze, then smiles slightly.
“Perhaps, yes. I mean, it’s hypothetically possible. There could be local anesthesia on the skull area and nowhere else. In fact, it’s sometimes preferable that a patient remains conscious during an open-brain test. So, yes, it’s technically feasible that a patient could touch the surface of his own brain.”
Harold nods. “I’m sure it would be a very strange feeling.”
The doctor pauses. “Yes, I’m sure,” he says, stepping back toward the monitors.
Harold is quiet, focusing on a yellow cloud in the back of Carol’s brain. The occipital lobe, he knows.
It isn’t difficult to convince Dr. Warren to speak to him privately. All men are vain, in one way or another, Harold knows, and this request would appeal directly to his ego and professional sense of duty.
“I’ve been thinking of making a donation toward your work,” Harold says. “A substantial one.”
“That’s terrific news.” The doctor smiles genuinely as the men walk together down the hall.
“Yes, well, it hasn’t happened yet,” says Harold as they enter the doctor’s office. He sits down without being asked. “The thing is, I think of philanthropy as an investment. And, as a businessman, I like to know what, exactly, I’m investing in.”
“Understandable,” the doctor replies after a moment’s hesitation, taking the seat behind the desk. “I’d be happy to put you in touch with our development office.”
“No.” Harold leans forward. “You see, I’m particularly interested in neurosurgery, as you might gather. I’d like to learn more of the specifics about what you do here, what sort of advances make your own work stand out.”