The Anatomy of Dreams: A Novel

  “And what are you doing today,” I asked, “besides laundry?”

  “I teach a freshmen composition course in the evening. And I’ll work on my dissertation.”

  He hoisted one of the bags of laundry up on his back and straightened up, tilting his head toward the door.

  “Why don’t you come with? You can help me carry the laundry, have something to eat at our place. More fun than sleeping, I’d hope.”

  “That sounds like free labor.” I grinned. “What’s in it for me?”

  “The pure and stirring pleasure,” said Thom, “of hearing about my dissertation. Lots of people vying to hear more about this project, you know. It’s sure to make me a very attractive job candidate.”

  Now I almost felt sorry for him. “What time is it?”

  “Noonish.” Thom shook his shirtsleeve back and checked his watch. “Quarter after.”

  I craned my head to look in the kitchen, but Gabe still hadn’t come downstairs. I wondered what he would think if he woke up while I was next door, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Besides, it would be nice to spend time with another person. So I took one of the bundles and followed Thom from my front porch to his, where hanging chimes made frantic, high-pitched music in the wind.

  “Is Janna home?” I asked as we crossed through the kitchen. I hadn’t been to other parts of their house before, but now I saw it was the mirror image of the one I shared with Gabe—the rooms were identically shaped but laid out in opposite formation. In the living room, there were two wooden rocking chairs, a low table stacked with books, and an oval-shaped rug, knit in spiraling shades of pastel yarn. In front of a boarded-up fireplace, someone had set a row of candles on a tray. Along the wall were stencils in colored pencil, framed behind glass. The images were abstract, and they seemed to have been drawn in a quick, jittery hand; the thin lines had a sense of impulse and movement, and I had a strange feeling that the walls were quivering.

  “She’s at work,” said Thom. “She has a new pair of clients, filthy rich, who founded some sort of artists’ colony in the Driftless Area. Janna takes care of the grounds, so I take care of the laundry.”

  We set the laundry bags down on the floor, the sort of drawstring sacks that may have once held a tent or a sleeping bag. They wavered, tubular and soft-bodied as dummies, before tipping over. A piece of Janna’s underwear, silky and magenta, sprouted from the mouth of the bag I’d carried.

  I took a seat in the smaller rocking chair and crossed my legs on its salmon-colored cushion. On the wall closest to me was a small door that our apartment didn’t have.

  “Where does that door lead?”

  “The basement,” said Thom, sitting down.

  “Funny,” I said. “You have a basement, and we have an attic.”

  Our attic was a small, cobwebby space accessible only by way of a rickety staircase. Probably it could have been an airy haven of some sort, if we’d put time into cleaning it, but we’d opted to use it for storage. There were piles of canvases and paints, boxes filled with winter clothing and Christmas ornaments.

  “It’s where I go to write,” said Thom. “Clears my head to be underground. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear.”

  “It isn’t depressing?”

  Thom extended his legs and crossed one over the other. He wore a ragged sweater over a starched button-up shirt and a pair of beige slacks, which rode up around his ankles to reveal bones both large and delicate. His legs had the awkward grace of a giraffe, an unwieldy nobility, which made me want to pause in deference as he arranged himself.

  “Depressing?” he asked. “It can be, but it also has the opposite effect. Sometimes I have to go to a place where there’s nothing to look at in order to see clearly. The more attractive the outside world, the more difficult it is for me to retreat into my head.”

  “And what do you do there? What’s your book about?”

  “Keats,” he said. “The poet who wrote the piece I quoted the other night—‘yes, in spite of all, some shape of beauty . . .’ you remember? He died at twenty-five, but he got more done in those years than most of us could hope to do by eighty. Keats was obsessed with beauty, thought it was the highest form of truth—he was a Romantic, so we can’t blame him—and he rejected the rationalism that was taking hold at the time. Other artists tried to analyze the world, pin it down like a butterfly staked to a board, but old Johnny just wanted to stare. He got itchy around people like Coleridge, who sought knowledge over beauty—people who were incapable, as Keats put it, of being content with half knowledge. In 1817, he wrote to his brothers about it, and he came up with this phrase called negative capability.”

  “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.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “The Poetical Works of John Keats. Original edition, 1884. I thought I’d read the rest of the poem you liked. ‘Endymion,’ it’s called. The Greeks believed he was a shepherd or an astronomer who fell in love with the goddess of the moon—some say the moon itself. But Endymion was just a man; unlike the moon, he could age and weaken and die. So the goddess cast a spell on Endymion—one that made him sleep forever, immortal. That way, they could always be together.”

  “That’s incredibly depressing.”

  “It’s not.” Thom tucked his chin and pulled away, as though I’d insulted him.

  “It is,” I said, laughing. “The guy gives up his humanity, just to sleep for all time? I mean, granted, I haven’t met her, but I don’t get the sense that the moon makes a very good girlfriend.”

  “She certainly does,” said Thom. “First of all, she’s ridiculously prompt.”

  “She knows how to keep her distance,” I added.

  “She’s like, four billion years old, so she’s got a shit-ton of life experience.”

  “Her face is a little scarred, but hey, whose isn’t?”

  “According to the myth, they also had about fifty daughters.”

  “Good lord,” I said. “That’s nightmarish.”

  We were both laughing now, the book almost forgotten. When we became quiet again, Thom smiled, looking down at it, before putting it inside the open basement door.

  “Well,” he said. “Maybe another time.”

  I left through the porch, pulling the screen shut behind me. Wet grass squealed under my feet as I crossed to our house. When I stepped inside, Gabe was eating a peanut-butter sandwich over the sink.

  “Hey,” he said. “What were you doing at Thom’s?”

  I wondered how long he had been standing there. From the window above the sink, it was possible to see straight into Thom’s living room.

  “He invited me for lunch,” I said. “You were still asleep.”

  “No, I left hours ago. Keller called—said they were understaffed at the clinic and he needed me to take the place of one of the receptionists. I was going to tell you, but then I saw you on the porch, out like a light. So I left a note.”

  He gestured to the counter, where there was a small slip of yellow paper.

  “You should have woken me,” I said. “I could have helped.”

  “But you had such a rough night. I wanted to let you sleep. Besides, I was only answering phones. I thought I was doing you a favor by letting you nap.”

  It was true—there was nothing very exciting about answering phones at the sleep clinic. So why did I feel betrayed?

  “Thom told me that Janna came by a few days ago,” I said. “He said she wanted to be a participant in one of our experiments.”

  Gabe blinked.

  “Right,” he said. “It was over the weekend. You had gone to the bank, I think. Janna knocked on the door. We sat on the porch. We made small talk for a few minutes, mostly about gardening, and then she asked what she would have to do to qualify for one of our studies.”

  “But why? Why would she even want to qualify?”

  “I think she liked the concept. Said
she’s been keeping a dream journal since her teens—one of those types.” Gabe grinned easily. “She wanted to talk about this recurring dream where her teeth fall out. She said sometimes they rot or grow in crooked, and other times they fall out one by one with a light tap.”

  He took his index finger and tapped his two front teeth in demonstration.

  “Did you give her Freud’s interpretation?” I asked.

  “What?” asked Gabe, amused. “That the loss of teeth is a symbol of castration? A punishment for masturbation? No, Sylve, I didn’t tell her that.”

  “Regardless,” I said, “we couldn’t use her. We know her. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “But what’s more ethical than helping the people you know? Why should the process be so quarantined, so sterilized? Science should be applicable to real life—so why should we divorce it from love?”

  I stared at him. He washed his plate and dried it, then shook his hands of water. Little droplets sprayed my chest.

  “Love?”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “I meant on principle.”

  So Janna wanted to do exactly what Thom had warned against—to answer her questions, to crawl down her own rabbit hole. Thom believed it was wrong, and yet he hadn’t tried to dissuade her. Did he respect her freedom to do as she chose, or didn’t he care? Perhaps it was that he didn’t think our research would work, dangerous as it was in theory. I thought about our patients. Was it true that their dreams felt more real than anything tangible, whether or not they were lucid? That the people they dreamed of—partners, children, even people they’d created—were more vivid to them than those who were alive?

  But I quickly shook off the idea. If these dream characters were more vivid to our patients, it was because they were disturbed. That was why they’d come to us. And it was exactly why I was so angry that Janna had gone to Gabe. She didn’t have a sleep disorder. She only wanted attention, and it seemed she wanted it from him.

  •••

  That evening, Gabe left to work in the university library. He wasn’t home by dinner, so I made cream of mushroom soup from the can and ate while I worked in the office. But soon I became restless, and I climbed the stairs to the attic.