But don't tell me what you find out."
He didn't have to.
I knew enough about the Rorschach to know that it wasn't what you saw in the cards that counted, but how you reacted to them. As wholes, or parts, with movement or just motionless figures, with special attention to the color spots or ignoring them, with lots of ideas or just a few stereotyped responses.
"It's not valid," I said. "I know what you're looking for.
I know the kind of responses I'm supposed to have, to create a certain picture of what my mind is like.
All I've got to do is…"
He looked up at me, waiting.
"All I've got to do is…"
But then it hit me like a fist against the side of my head that I didn't remember what I had to do.
It was as if I had been looking at the whole thing clearly on the blackboard of my mind, but when I turned to read it, part of it had been erased and the rest didn't make sense.
At first, I refused to believe it.
I went through the cards in a panic, so fast that I was choking on my words. I wanted to tear the inkblots apart to make them reveal themselves.
Somewhere in those inkblots there were answers I had known just a little while ago. Not really in the inkblots, but in the part of my mind that would give form and meaning to them and project my imprint on them.
And I couldn't do it.
I couldn't remember what I had to say.
All missing.
"That's a woman…" I said, "… on her knees washing the floors. I mean—no—it's a man holding a knife." And even as I said it, I knew what I was saying and I switched away and started off in another direction. "Two figures tugging at something… like a doll… and each one is pulling so it looks as if they're going to tear it apart and—no!— I mean it's two faces staring at each other through the window, and—"
I swept the cards off the table and got up.
"No more tests.
I don't want to take any more tests."
"All right, Charlie.
We'll stop for today."
"Not just for today.
I'm not coming back here any more.
Whatever there is left in me that you need, you can get from the progress reports.
I'm through running the maze. I'm not a guinea pig any more.
I've done enough. I want to be left alone now."
"All right, Charlie.
I understand."
"No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me.
I don't blame you.
You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and—oh, yes, don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but still you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level.
I passed your floor on the way up, and now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again.
So let's just say good-bye here and now."
"Don't you think you should talk to Dr.—"
"Say good-bye to everyone for me, will you?
I dont feel like facing any of them again."
Before he could say any more or try to stop me, I was out of the lab, and I caught the elevator down and out of Beekman for the last time.
October 7
Strauss tried to see me again this morning, but I wouldn't open the door.
I want to be left to myself now.
It's a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don't remember it.
I recall how wonderful I thought Milton was.
When I picked up Paradise Lost I could only remember it was about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, but now I couldn't make sense of it.
I stood up and closed my eyes and saw Charlie—myself—six or seven years old, sitting at the dinner table with a schoolbook, learning to read, saying the words over and over with my mother sitting beside him, beside me…
"Try it again."
"See Jack. See Jack run.
See Jack see."
"No!
Not See Jack see! It's Run Jack run!" Pointing with her rough-scrubbed finger.