Flowers for Algernon

back.

I wanted to look away, to turn back down the street, but I couldn't—not after having come so far. I would just ask directions, pretending I was lost in a strange neighbor­hood. Seeing her had been enough. But all I did was stand there waiting for her to do something first. And all she did was stand there and look at me.

'Do you want something?' Her voice, hoarse, was an unmistakable echo down the corridors of memory.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My mouth worked, I know, and I struggled to speak to her, to get something out, because in that moment I could see recognition in her eyes. This was not at all the way I wanted her to see me. Not standing there in front of her, dumbly, unable to make myself understood. But my tongue kept getting in the way, like a huge obstruction, and my mouth was dry.

Finally, something came out. Not what I had intended (I had planned something soothing and encouraging, to take control of the situation and wipe out all the past and pain with a few words) but all that came out of my cracked throat was: 'Maaa…'

With all the things I had learned—in all the lan­guages I had mastered—all I could say to her, standing on the porch staring at me, was, 'Maaaa.' Like a dry-mouthed lamb at the udder.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm and frowned at me, as if she could not see me clearly. I stepped forward, past the gate to the walk, and then toward the steps. She drew back.

At first, I wasn't sure whether or not she really recog­nized me, but then she gasped: 'Charlie! …' She didn't scream it or whisper it. She just gasped it as one might do coming out of a dream.

'Ma…' I started up the steps. 'It's me…'

My movement startled her, and she stepped back­wards, kicking over the bucket of soapy water, and the dirty suds rushed down the steps. 'What are you doing here?'

'I just wanted to see you… talk to you…'

Because my tongue kept getting in my way, my voice came out of my throat differently, with a thick whining tone, as I might have spoken a long time ago. 'Don't go away,' I begged. 'Don't run away from me.'

But she had gone inside the vestibule and locked the door. A moment later I could see her peering at me from behind the sheer white curtain of the door window, her eyes terrified. Behind the window her lips moved sound­lessly. 'Go away! Leave me alone!'

Why? 'Who was she to deny me this way? By what right did she turn away from me?

'Let me in! I want to talk to you! Let me in!' I banged on the door against the glass so hard it cracked, and the crack spread a web that caught my skin for a moment and held it fast. She must have draught I was out of my mind and had come to harm her. She let go of the outer door and fled down the hallway that led into the apartment.

I pushed again. The hook gave way and, unprepared for the sudden yielding, I fell into the vestibule, off bal­ ance. My hand was bleeding from the glass I had broken, and not knowing what else to do, I put my hand into my pocket to prevent the blood from staining her freshly scrubbed linoleum.

I started in, past the stairs I had seen so often in my nightmares. I had often been pursued up that long, narrow staircase by demons who grabbed at my legs and pulled me down into the cellar below, while I tried to scream without voice, strangling on my tongue and gagging in silence. Like the silent boys at Warren.

The people who lived on the second floor—our land­lord and landlady, the Meyers—had always been kind to me. They gave me sweets and let me come to sit in their kitchen and play with their dog. I wanted to see them, but without being told I knew they were gone and dead and that strangers lived upstairs. That path was now closed to me forever.

At the end of the hallway, the door through which Rose had fled was locked, and for a moment I stood— undecided.

'Open the door.'

The answer was the high-pitched yapping of a small dog. It took me by surprise.

'All right,' I said. 'I don't intend to hurt you or any­thing, but I've come a long way, and I'm not leaving with­out talking to you. If you don't open the door, I'm going to break it down.'

I heard her saying: 'Shhhh, Nappie… Here, into the bedroom you go.' A moment later I heard the click of the lock. The door opened and she stood there staring at me.

'Ma,' I whispered, 'I'm not going to do anything. I just want to talk to you. You've got to understand, I'm not the same as I was. I've changed. I'm normal now. Don't you understand? I'm not retarded any more. I'm not a moron. I'm just like anyone else. I'm normal—just like you and Matt and Norma.'

I tried to keep talking, babbling so she wouldn't close the door. I tried to tell her the whole thing, all at once. 'They changed me, performed an operation on me and made me different, the way you always wanted me to be. Didn't you read about it in the newspapers? A new scien­tific experiment that changes your capacity for intelli­ gence, and I'm the first one they tried it on. Can't you understand? Why are you looking at me that way? I'm smart now, smarter than Norma, or Uncle Herman, or Matt. I know things even college professors don't know. Talk to me! You can be proud of me now and tell all the neighbors. You don't have to hide me in the cellar when company comes. Just talk to me. Tell me about things, the way it was when I was a little boy, that's all I want. I won't hurt you. I don't hate you. But I've got to know about my­self, to understand myself before it's too late. Dont you see, I can't be a complete person unless I can understand myself, and you're the only one in the world who can help me now. Let me come in and sit down for a little while.'

It was the way I spoke rather than what I said that hypnotized her. She stood there in the doorway and stared at me. Without thinking, I pulled my bloody hand out of my pocket and clenched it in my pleading. When she saw it her expression softened.

'You hurt yourself…' She didn't necessarily feel sorry for me. It was the sort of thing she might have felt for a dog that had torn its paw, or a cat that had been gashed in a fight. It wasn't because I was her Charlie, but in spite of it.

'Come in and wash it. I've got some bandage and iodine.'

I followed her to the cracked sink with the corrugated drainboard at which she had so often washed my face and hands after I came in from the back yard, or when I was ready to eat or go to sleep. She watched me roll up my sleeves. 'You shouldn't have broke the window. The land­lord's gonna be sore, and I don't have enough money to pay for it.' Then, as if impatient with the way I was doing it, she took the soap from me and washed my hand. As she did it, she concentrated so hard that I kept silent, afraid of breaking the spell. Occasionally she clucked her tongue, or sighed, 'Charlie, Charlie, always getting yourself into a mess. When are you going to learn to take care of your­self ?' She was back twenty-five years earlier when I was her little Charlie and she was willing to fight for my place in the world.

When the blood was washed off and she had dried my hands with paper toweling, she looked up into my face and her eyes went round with fright. 'Oh, my God!' she gasped, and backed away.

I started talking again, softly, persuasively to convince her that nothing was wrong and I meant no harm. But as I spoke I could tell her mind was wandering. She looked around vaguely, put her hand to her mouth and groaned as she looked at me again. 'The house is such a mess,' she said. 'I wasn't expecting company. Look at those windows, and that woodwork over there.'

'That's all right, Ma. Don't worry about it.'

'I've got to wax those floors again. It's got to be clean.' She noticed some fingermarks on the door and tak­ ing up her washrag she scrubbed them away. When she looked up and saw me watching her, she frowned. 'Have you come about the electric bill?'

Before I could say no, she wagged her finger, scolding, 'I intend to send a check out the first of the month, but my husband is out of town on business. I told them all they don't have to worry about the money, because my daughter gets paid this week, and we'll be able to take care of all our bills. So there's no need bothering me for money.'

'Is she your only child? Don't you have any other children?'

She started, and then her eyes looked far away. 'I had a boy. So brilliant that all the other mothers were jealous of him. And they put the evil eye on him. They called it the I.Q. but it was the evil I.Q. He would have been a great man, if not for that. He was really very bright— excep­tional, they said. He could have been a genius…'

She picked up a scrub brush. 'Excuse me now. I've got to get things ready. My daughter has a young man coming for dinner, and I've got to get this place clean.' She got down on her knees and started to scrub the already