Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss Read Free Book Online

the darkness.
    He couldn’t help staring. He told this to Lavell, who quoted a famous photographer to the effect that staring is the best way to educate the eye. If someone referred to something Samson didn’t know about, he often didn’t ask. Later he might look it up. He was devoted to the information he could get from books or, even better, magazines. He filled his time reading everything he could get his hands on.
    Lavell’s office was located in an almost forgotten hallway of the Neurology Institute, terminating in the dead end of a broom closet. On the way Samson passed a woman in a hospital gown and socks with rubber skids who mimicked with unnerving precision the expressions and gestures of anyone who passed. He tried to look away, but out of the corner of his eye saw her look away too, caricaturing his dismissal.
    Lavell had been at the end of the hall for so many years that his room, though spacious, had a cramped feel. The floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked with books. Every surface not taken up by papers was cluttered with medical paraphernalia. There were plastic models of the brain with removable hemispheres, a ceramic phrenology bust mapped with L. N. Fowler’s psychogeography: the regions of blandness, youthfulness, wit. A skeleton stood by the erasable whiteboard on which Lavell sometimes illustrated things for his patients. Scattered here and there were toys for children who came to him, locked in the anechoic chamber of autism.
    “Who’s that woman?” Samson asked, sitting in the chair the doctor motioned to.
    “Who?”
    “In the hall, like she’s possessed.”
    “Marietta? She has Tourette’s, a very severe case. It makes her tic like that. She has an overpowering impulse to mimic whatever she sees.” Lavell lifted a stubby finger and rubbed his eyebrow. “A colleague of mine, smart guy, wrote a case study of her. Whether the individual Marietta truly exists or if the impulses, so all-consuming, make her just a phantasmagoria of a person.” He listed the great ticquers of all time, enumerating them like Hall of Fame batters. He described an old medical book that began with the anonymous memoir “Confessions of a Ticquer.” “Have you considered writing anything yourself since your surgery? Keeping a journal, et cetera?”
    Samson was aware of Lavell leading the discussion here and there, directing a flashlight on the empty mine shafts of his mind. But he enjoyed their talks; Lavell seemed to expect nothing from him. Samson felt he could say or do anything, could crouch on the chair and jerk around like a monkey, screech
Whoo! Whoo!,
and Lavell would not be moved to comment.
    A tall Asian man with his hair standing on end opened the door of the office and squealed a quick-fire “Hi! How are you? Hi! How are you?”
    “Fine,” Lavell replied curtly, and turning his attention back toSamson, continued talking until the man softly shut the door and continued on his way.
    “And how are
you?”
Lavell asked, leaning back in his chair.
    “Oh, fine, I guess.”
    “How are things with Anna?”
    There was so much Samson wished to ask, for instance how many times a day did an average man of thirty-six masturbate, and how often did married couples have sex? He wanted to administer to Lavell a questionnaire about how a woman’s body worked, about what to do to make her scream and moan and throw flowers at his feet. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was too mortifying, especially as it seemed highly possible that the questions would be answered with textbook pictures, reducing the whole erotic mystery to a series of movements as academic as a square dance.
    Lavell leaned back, waiting. His chair creaked.
    We did it!
Samson wanted to shriek, but instead he coughed and answered, “With Anna? The same, really. She was upset the other night.”
    “Yes?”
    “She asked me if I had any empathy for her. For everything she’s going through right now.”
    “Do you?”
    “It’s sad.