Chloe Benjamin - The Anatomy of Dreams

“Negative capability?”

“‘When man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’—his words, not mine. What I want to figure out is how this not knowing can be productive — how it isn’t a purely negative capability after all.”

“But isn’t that the point? That it isn’t productive?”

“That’s certainly the point a lot of people are making,” said Thom. “Most of them are economists or scientists, some of them are educators, and plenty of them are ordinary, practically-minded people. People who chase facts like they’re drilling for oil. People who don’t believe in the value of poetry and who think the study of the humanities is a luxury. A part of me believes they’re right. But I still chose to pursue this life, and now I’m trying to figure out why. If I can’t defend myself — even if it’s only to myself — then I don’t want to finish the degree. I want to know why we bother with mystery and what leaving it alone has to offer us.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His hair was drying in a mussed-up, uneven way, like grass a child had trampled through.

“You probably don’t find much use for it, do you, being in the sciences?” he asked. “Probably think it’s a lot of hot air, poetry?”

“I read fiction. I can understand the value of escape.”

But I couldn’t remember the last time I had read a novel; it must have been in college. Mostly, I didn’t want to prove whatever theory he had about me right.

“But that’s precisely my point,” said Thom. “Reading, writing — engaging in this kind of negative capability — I don’t think it’s an escape. I mean to argue that the real world, our world, is negative capability. Not knowing is the only reality, and our escape is the unreality of knowledge.”

“So what you’re saying,” I said, “is that the world of poetry is the only reality, and whatever else we’re doing besides reading it — like building irrigation canals, or improving electrical systems, or, I don’t know, searching for a cure to HIV — all of that’s just escapism?”

“So says the scientist.”

“I don’t consider myself a scientist. I’m a researcher. And all right, it’s true — researchers pursue facts — but facts I’m researching are a lot closer to your world than you give them credit for. We’re looking at the mind and what lies underneath it. We’re investigating mystery — and doesn’t poetry do the same thing?”

Tom leaned back in his chair and brought his hands together so that the fingers were slightly bent, the pads touching, as if he were holding a large glass ball.

“It’s different,” he said. “Poets question mysteries: they observe, they stand witness but they don’t necessarily try to solve them. What you’re doing is much more dangerous. You’re trying to put a face to the subconscious — something that should, in my opinion, remain faceless. You’re dragging it out of its cave, shining a flashlight in its eyes.”

I could tell that Thom was enjoying the debate, but after Jamie’s session, I was squirming with discomfort. I was irritated, too, for being so susceptible to doubt. It was as though I’d discovered that the elegant system of rationale I’d built around our research was actually made of cards — as though I’d seen how very little it took for it to fall apart. Why I put so much stock in Thom’s opinion, and so early, I wasn’t sure; perhaps it was that he was the only person with whom I’d shared so much about our research, and his judgment, now, was the only one I could receive. But I had too much pride to tell him any of this. I raised my eyebrows, leaned back in my chair.

“Well, good luck writing a dissertation without answering any questions.”

“Thank you,” said Thom, with no trace of irony.

“Just because we seek answers doesn’t mean we’re being invasive or turning over rocks that would be better left alone,” I said, gaining momentum. “I think your argument’s too simple. Ignorance isn’t always so noble, you know. We’re meant to ask questions — that’s what makes us human. And answers proceed naturally from questions.”

“Do they? Naturally?” he asked. I paused, and he smiled, more gently this time. “Look at us. Put two academics in a room and all they can talk about is work. Tell me something else about yourself. Do you have a hobby?”

“I used to paint,” I said. “But I haven’t in years.”

“Why not?”

“No time.”

“No?”

I shook my head, my eyes level with his. I felt exposed, plucked from my usual habitat. Here the ground was flat, without boulders to hide behind, and there was no wind to make noise of the air.

“Do you have a hobby?” I asked.

“I do,” he said. “I like to cook, and I make a damn good sandwich. Chicken salad’s my specialty, and I’ve got some fresh in the fridge I made yesterday. Would you like one?”

“A sandwich would be great,” I said. Thom stood and left.

“Anyhow,” he said, shouting from the kitchen, “I didn’t mean to push too hard on your research. I’m a poetry scholar, for God’s sake. What do I know? I’ll have to ask Janna — see how she feels about having her rocks turned over. Was she approved, by the way?”

“Approved for what?”

“For your research. She told me she stopped by your place a few days ago to ask about getting involved.”

“Are you sure?”

I’d seen Janna at our house the day before, when she and Gabe were planting trees, but he hadn’t mentioned that she’d come over before that. I remembered the remark she’d made about wanting to be hooked up to our machines. I just never imagined she’d try to go through with it.

“I’m positive,” said Thom. “This must have been about a week ago. She said she spoke with Gabe, but I assumed you were home.”

He came back into the room with a halved sandwich on a yellow plate. Each half had a generous helping of chicken salad held together with thick mayonnaise, bits of grapes and chopped-up apple visible throughout.

“Does she have any kind of sleep disorder?” I asked. I took a bite and licked the mayonnaise that spread to the side of my mouth.

“Not that I know of.”

“You’d know.”

“How?”

“Trust me.” I shoved another bite in my mouth, and two grapes plopped onto the plate. “You’d know if she was violent, if she screamed in her sleep or kicked and thrashed. You’d know if she tried to hurt you—”

“Jesus, Sylvie.” The amusement on Thom’s face was gone, and he looked uneasy. “Is that what your patients do?”

“Like I said. You’d know.”

Thom was silent as I finished the sandwich. I wiped the sides of my face with my hands and brought the plate to the kitchen. As I washed it at the sink, I noticed that the lights in the downstairs level of our house were on. It was still misty, but when I brought my face closer to the window, I could see Gabe’s shape moving from room to room. I put my plate in the drying rack and went back to the living room to tell Thom I had to leave, but the room was empty.

“Thom?”

Was he upstairs in the bathroom? I walked to the stairs and called again, but there was no reply. I decided to explain myself the next time I saw him; I was anxious to get home and ask Gabe about Janna. I was crossing through the kitchen when I heard Thom’s voice behind me.

“Going so soon?”

He stood in the doorway in the living room wall, the one that led to the basement. In his hands he held a battered, ancient book, its cover soft and green as moss.

“I wanted to show you this,” he said.

He held the book toward me. It smelled sweet and intoxicating, like rotting wood. I tensed, ready to tell him I was leaving, but something in his face made me swallow the words. In it I saw the same vulnerability, the same tentative desire to share, that I’d felt while discussing my research.