Flowers for Algernon

that Charlie was a moron. Her dream that something could be done. The urgent question always: whose fault was it, hers or Matt's? Only after Norma proved to her that she was capable of having normal children, and that I was a freak, did she stop trying to make me over. But I guess I never stopped wanting to be the smart boy she wanted me to be, so that she would love me.

A funny thing about Guarino. I should resent him for what he did to me, and for taking advantage of Rose and Matt, but somehow I can't. After that first day, he was al­ways pleasant to me. There was always the pat on the shoulder, the smile, the encouraging word that came my way so rarely.

He treated me—even then—as a human being.

It may sound like ingratitude, but that is one of the things that I resent here—the attitude that I am a guinea pig. Nemur's constant references to having made me what I am, or that someday there will be others like me who will become real human beings.

How can I make him understand that he did not cre­ate me?

He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don't understand there are human feelings involved. He doesn't realize that I was a person before I came here.

I am learning to control my resentment, not to be so impatient, to wait for things. I guess I'm growing up. Each day I learn more and more about myself, and the memo­ries that began as ripples now wash over me in high-breaking waves….

June 11

The confusion began from the moment we arrived at the Chalmers Hotel in Chicago and discovered that by error our rooms would not be vacant until the next night and until then we would have to stay at the nearby Independence Hotel. Nemur was furious. He took it as a personal affront and quarrelled with everyone in the line of hotel command from the bellhop to the manager. We waited in the lobby as each hotel official went off in search of his superior to see what could be done.

In the midst of all the confusion—luggage drifting in and piling up all around the lobby, bellboys hustling back and forth with their little baggage carts, members who hadn't seen each other in a year, recognizing and greeting each other—we stood there feeling increasingly embar­rassed as Nemur tried to collar officials connected with the International Psychological Association.

Finally, when it became apparent that nothing could be done about it, he accepted the fact that we would have to spend our first night in Chicago at the Independence.

As it turned out, most of the younger psychologists were staying at the Independence, and that was where the big first-night parties were. Here, people had heard about the experiment, and most of them knew who I was. Wherever we went, someone came up and asked my opin­ions on everything from the effects of the new tax to the latest archaeological discoveries in Finland. It was chal­lenging, and my storehouse of general knowledge made it easy for me to talk about almost anything. But after a while I could see that Nemur was annoyed at all the at­ tention I was getting.

When an attractive young clinician from Falmouth College asked me if I could explain some of the causes of my own retardation, I told her that Professor Nemur was the man to answer that.

It was the chance he had been waiting for to show his authority, and for the first time since we'd known each other he put his hand on my shoulder. 'We don't know ex­actly what causes the type of phenylketonuria that Charlie was suffering from as a child—some unusual biochemical or genetic situation, possibly ionizing radiation or natural radiation or even a virus attack on the fetus—whatever it was resulted in a defective gene which produces a, shall we say, 'maverick enzyme' that creates defective biochemical reactions. And, of course, newly produced amino acids compete with the normal enzymes causing brain damage.'

The girl frowned. She had not expected a lecture, but Nemur had seized the floor and he went on in the same vein. 'I call it competitive inhibition of enzymes. Let me give you an example of how it works. Think of the enzyme pro­duced by the defective gene as a wrong key which fits into the chemical lock of the central nervous system—but won't turn. Because it's there, the true key—the right en­zyme—can't even enter the lock It's blocked. Result? Irre­versible destruction of proteins in the brain tissue.'

'But if it is irreversible,' intruded one of the other psychologists who had joined the little audience, 'how is it possible that Mr. Gordon here is no longer retarded?'

'Ah!' crowed Nemur, 'I said the destruction to the tissue was irreversible, not the process itself. Many re­ searchers have been able to reverse the process through in­jections of chemicals which combine with the defective enzymes, changing the molecular shape of the interfering key, as it were. This is central to our own technique as well.

But first, we remove the damaged portions of the brain and permit the implanted brain tissue which has been chemically revitalized to produce brain proteins at a super­normal rate—'

'Just a minute, Professor Nemur,' I said, interrupting him at the height of his peroration. 'What about Rahaja-mati's work in that field?'

He looked at me blankly. 'Who?'

'Rahajamati. His article attacks Tanida's theory of enzyme fusion—the concept of changing the chemical structure of the enzyme blocking the step in the metabolic pathway.'

He frowned. 'Where was that article translated?'

'It hasn't been translated yet. I read it in the Hindu Journal of Psychopathology just a few days ago.'

He looked at his audience and tried to shrug it off. 'Well, I don't think we have anything to worry about. Our results speak for themselves.'

'But Tanida himself first propounded the theory of blocking the maverick enzyme through combination, and now he points out that—'

'Oh, come now, Charlie. Just because a man is the first to come forth with a theory doesn't make him the final word on its experimental development. I think everyone here will agree that the research done in the United States and Britain far outshines the work done in India and Japan. We still have the best laboratories and the best equipment in the world.'

'But that doesn't answer Rahajamati's point that—'

'This is not the time or place to go into that. I'm cer­tain all of these points will be adequately dealt with in to­morrow's session.' He turned to talk to someone about an old college friend, cutting me off completely, and I stood there dumbfounded.

I managed to get Strauss off to one side, and I started questioning him. 'All right, now. You've been telling me I'm too sensitive to him. What did I say that upset him that way?'

'You're making him feel inferior and he can't take it.' 'I'm serious, for God's sake. Tell me the truth.' 'Charlie, you've got to stop thinking that everyone is laughing at you. Nemur couldn't discuss those articles be­ cause he hasn't read them. He can't read those languages.' 'Not read Hindi and Japanese? Oh, come on now.' 'Charlie, not everyone has your gift for languages.' 'But then how can he refute Rahajamati's attack on this method, and Tanida's challenge to the validity of this kind of control? He must know about those—'

'No…,' said Strauss thoughtfully. 'Those papers must be recent. There hasn't been time to get translations made.'

'You mean you haven't read them either?' He shrugged. 'I'm an even worse linguist than he is. But I'm certain before the final reports are turned in, all the journals will be combed for additional data.'

I didn't know what to say. To hear him admit that both of them were ignorant of whole areas in their own fields was terrifying. 'What languages do you know?' I asked him.

'French, German, Spanish, Italian, and enough Swed­ish to get along.'

'No Russian, Chinese, Portuguese?'

He reminded me that as a practicing psychiatrist and neurosurgeon he had very little time for languages. And the only ancient languages that he could read were Latin and Greek. Nothing of the ancient Oriental tongues.

I could see he wanted to end the discussion at that point, but somehow I couldn't let go. I had to find out just how much he knew.

I found out.

Physics: nothing beyond the quantum theory of fields.