Дэвид Салой: The Innocent

Nevertheless, I pressed on. I said, ‘Where are you from?’

For a long time Yudin seemed to think about this. Eventually he shook his head, as if to say, ‘Tell me. I don’t know.’

‘Where are you from?’ I said. ‘Are you from Sverdlovsk?’ He nodded, though he did not seem to know what I was talking about. I patted him on the shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s sit down.’ Sitting was not easy for him. Anichkova had to help him, steady him, steer him into the seat. In some ways he seemed like someone who was extremely drunk. When we were sitting I said, ‘How long have you been here? Do you know how long you’ve been here?’

‘I … I … don’t …’ He shook his head.

We sat in silence. Then I said, ‘You’ve been here since January forty-four.’ Something in this seemed vaguely familiar to him. His expression sharpened slightly. Encouraged, I said, ‘You’ve been here since January forty –’

And suddenly, startling me, he said, ‘January februarymarchaprilmay.’ He smiled. He seemed pleased with himself.

Seeing that I was at a loss, Lozovsky intervened and suggested that Anichkova take Yudin out, which, with some difficulty, she did.

When they had left, Lozovsky tried to explain the situation to me. ‘You probably don’t appreciate,’ he said, ‘the extent to which your mind creates the sense of order, stability and meaning that you have about the world around you. I’m not talking about anything philosophical here. Just the fact that when you see things, you know what they are, and where they are. You know what a pencil is when you see it. A letter opener, you know what it is. Things make sense. Spatially – as simple as that. The pencil is on the desk. To the left of it is the ashtray. It’s all very easy to understand, isn’t it? In fact, it’s so easy to understand that it seems strange to talk about “understanding” at all. You might wonder: how is it possible not to understand? We seem to be talking about intrinsic properties of things we perceive. In perceiving them, we seem totally passive. This isn’t so however. And one of the reasons we know it isn’t, is that Anatoly Lvovich does not understand.’ He spoke fluently, impersonally, as if to a lecture hall full of students, with a sort of smile in his grey eyes. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what doesn’t he understand? Two things, mainly. First, physical space. And second, language. He suffers from aphasia – the loss of the ability to use and understand language.’

He said that Yudin had been shot in the head, in 1942. That he had survived such an injury was improbable. He had been operated on, and Lozovsky showed me the original surgeon’s report. ‘Essentially,’ he said, summarising its technicalities, ‘he had the back of his head blown off.’ He put his hand on the upper part of his own head, where the hair was thinning. ‘Here.’ Yudin’s situation was interesting, he said, because of the severity of the injury to one part of the brain, while leaving all other parts intact – ‘which is obviously useful from the point of view of my studies, since what I study is how damage to different parts of the brain affects a person’s ability to think, speak and understand the speech of others.’ He said that in Yudin’s case the injured part had several important functions. Notably, taking sensory information and forming it into a meaningful whole, and playing an essential, if little understood, part in the use of language. Hence Yudin’s problems, which Lozovsky said were the normal effects of an injury like his. ‘Plus amnesia, of course. When I first knew him, he had no memory. Nothing at all. And I mean nothing at all. Not a single word. Then, after a few months, there was some improvement. His own name. His sisters’ names. Some things from his childhood. That’s what you’d expect. His short-term memory’s very poor though. More or less nonexistent.’

‘He didn’t seem to know his own name just now,’ I said.

Lozovsky smiled. ‘No. Sometimes he knows it, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s like that with everything.’

‘He’s never had any visitors?’

‘No.’

‘And no letters?’

‘No.’

‘The months,’ I said. ‘He could go through the months. He seemed to be able to do it easily, fluently.’

‘Yes.’ Lozovsky seemed to think for a moment. ‘That’s something else,’ he said.

‘Is it? What?’

‘Well … When we learn things early in life, by saying them over and over – sequences especially, like the months – we develop what I would describe as a “muscle memory” of them. So he still has that, but it’s only a kinetic motor function, a “muscle memory”. That’s why he still has it. He doesn’t understand what he’s saying.’

I had lunch with Lozovsky and some of the other hospital staff. Later I said to him, ‘Is it possible that it’s all some kind of act?’

He laughed. ‘No, of course not.’ I did not say anything – I wanted to let him think about it some more. ‘Of course not.’ Still I said nothing. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘Why not?’

‘His injuries.’

‘Yes?’

‘Anyone with those injuries would show the symptoms he shows. It’s not possible that they wouldn’t.’

‘But how can you be sure about the injuries?’ I said. ‘Can you be sure about them by looking at his head now?’ He said something about the surgeon’s report. ‘The surgeon’s report could be forged,’ I suggested.

He laughed again. ‘Do you think it’s forged?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know for a fact that it isn’t. Let’s say,’ I went on, ‘for the sake of argument, that it is. Let’s look at his behaviour – could that be …’

‘An act? No …’

‘Why not?’

‘Are you really suggesting,’ he said, ‘that for the past four years, and more, he has spent every single day pretending to be in the state you’ve seen?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ I said. ‘I’m wondering if it’s possible.’

‘I don’t think it is possible.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the pattern of his symptoms is exactly what we’d expect from someone with the injuries described in the report! I don’t think someone who wasn’t a neuropsychologist, an expert, would know what that was. We’re not stupid, you know. If his behaviour was full of anomalies we’d have been suspicious ourselves. And what would be the point?’ he said impatiently. ‘What would be the point of it?’ He stubbed out his papirosa. ‘It’s silly.’

I stood up and went to the window while he watched me nervously. It did seem silly. Outside, everything was misty, wet. Primeval forest sinking into muddy twilight. It was time for me to leave, and I was looking forward to leaving. There was only one more thing I needed to do.

I was led up some stairs. An unpainted pine door. It was opened by a nurse – a middle-aged woman with Mongolian features. Inside, in a small room, Anichkova was reading to Yudin from a book with a red paper cover. I smiled, and indicated to her that she should continue. She read very slowly – it seemed to be some sort of children’s story – occasionally stopping to ask him if he understood. She was very patient with him, very sweet. Eventually she shut the book, and said, ‘Are you tired, Tolya?’ He did not say anything. He did not seem to understand the question. Anichkova smiled at the nurse, who stepped forward and pulled him to his feet. Then, for the first time, he saw me. ‘Hello, Anatoly Lvovich,’ I said. Nothing – only the same stupid frightened smile. ‘He doesn’t know who I am,’ I said.

‘No.’

I took his hand and squeezed it, and patted him on the shoulder. When he and the nurse had left, I said to Anichkova, ‘I want to ask you a few qustions about him.’