Flashback

SIXTEEN

Though the hormone that is its main component is tied inextricably to the brain’s ability to recall information and events, the use of vasopressin as a memory enhancer is strictly experimental. The approved medical application for the drug and its more potent counterpart, desmopressin, is as an antidiuretic. Normally, the two drugs are given to diabetics or chronic bed wetters, to cut down on the frequency with which they urinate. As a result, an unfortunate side effect of the medication is that it greatly, sometimes dangerously, reduces the outflow of bodily fluids.

In other words, a person who drinks too much while using vasopressin runs the risk of literally drowning from the inside out. I experienced this nasty aftereffect firsthand one night in Lyon, when I’d had one too many gulps of water from the cooler in Dr. Delpay’s office and ended up on my hands and knees in the bathroom, racked by uncontrollable vomiting. I escaped the seizures that would have been the next result of the internal deluge, but the episode left an indelible impression on me and gave me a new respect for the drug’s hidden powers.

So when Salim and his nameless cohort appeared with a syringe and an inhaler, my mind leaped immediately back to each drink I’d had that morning. Three cups of water, the grapefruit juice, at least half a cup of coffee.

I looked at Werner, unable to keep my panic from showing. “You can’t give me that now. It could kill me.”

Werner pushed the chair back from his desk and stood. “I’m afraid your comfort is not the top priority here,” he said, then made his way to the door.

“Don’t worry,” Salim said when Werner was gone. He came forward and grasped my wrists in his hands, pressing my arms against the arms of the chair. “We’ve taken special care.” He nodded to his accomplice. “Hassan here is a doctor.”

Somehow the news was less than reassuring. “What’s in there?” I asked, glancing at the syringe.

Hassan spoke for the first time. “Idebenone, pyritinol, piracetam,” he said proudly, jabbing the needle into my arm. “I call it a memory cocktail.”

Jesus, I thought, watching the plunger depress, I was in for a wild ride. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

Finished, the good doctor lifted the needle from my arm, set the syringe aside, reached back, and grabbed a handful of my hair. As he lifted the inhaler to my nose, I caught a glimpse of the label. Desmopressin, it said. With his free hand, Hassan primed the pump, then jammed the plastic tip into my right nostril, and I felt the sickening rush of the drug.

Keep us safe, Lord, I prayed, though I wasn’t sure what help, if any, the prayer could bring me now.

The real downside to overdosing on nootropic drugs is that they leave you with an acute and lasting memory of each unpleasant detail of the experience. I will never forget that room at Bruns Werner’s house in Marrakech, the gruesome photographs, the three figures at the café Les Trois Singes. Nor will I forget the trip that followed, the vertiginous ride across the mountains, the color of my bile on the roadside, or the smell of the car we rode in, a mixture of aftershave and body odor, and some unknown sweetness I have yet to put a name to. Nor, try as I might, will I ever forget the constant, shivering, bone-deep ache.

Hassan, Salim, and I left the villa shortly after my meeting with Werner and, with Salim driving, headed out of town and up into the green foothills of the Atlas. Before we crossed the Oued Zat, I had regurgitated the entirety of my breakfast and was retching up mucus. By the time we reached the High Atlas, I was incapacitated enough by convulsions that my two escorts felt safe leaving me in the Mercedes at the Tizi n’Tichka Pass while they rinsed their feet and hands, unrolled their mats, and performed their midday prayers. Then we were on our way again, plunging down into the austere southern mountains, toward Ourzazate and the desert.

In its own spiteful way, the noxious combination of drugs was working, though what I remembered on that trip was doubtless not what Werner had hoped I would. Later, I would be tempted to think my prayer had worked, but at the time I didn’t have the strength to question the source of my luck.

Though it was the beginning of November when the sisters found me, I spent the first six weeks of what I remember as my life in the hospital in Lyon, vainly trying to retrieve myself. It wasn’t till the middle of December that Dr. Delpay suggested I might think about a more permanent home, and the sisters offered to take me in. I arrived at the convent just in time for the last week of Advent.

That week before Christmas is a time for summoning Christ, and each night at vespers, before the Magnificat, the Benedictines sing a series of antiphons that literally call out to Him, each addressing the Savior by a different name. O Wisdom, they sing, O Root of Jesse, O Adonai. It’s a primal kind of call, beautiful and mystical as a Buddhist chant, each yearning O resonating through the barren winter air.

On that trip to the desert it was my first night at the convent I relived, the singing of the antiphon. Heloise had been appointed my unofficial guardian, and it was she who took me to the chapel that evening. It was snowing, the flakes fine as sifted sugar, dusting us on the walk across the yard. We arrived at vespers glistening like candied almonds.

I had come from the hospital in Lyon that afternoon and had yet to meet many of the sisters. When we entered the chapel, each head turned briefly toward us, each pair of eyes falling on my own, then looking quickly away. I would later come to learn the delicate equilibrium it took to maintain such a community, the magnitude of the chance they’d taken by giving me a home. I’m sure they were eager to see what they’d gotten themselves into, eager to get a look at the strange American who would be living among them. Heloise must have known how scared I was. She reached out, took my hand in her own, and gave my fingers a tight squeeze.

We sat in the back, under the apple-cheeked statue of the Christ child and the adoring face of his mother. The chapel smelled of wet wool and frankincense, and of old age, of camphor and lavender soap and garlic. The antiphon that night was O Oriens.

“O Radiant Dawn,” Heloise sang beside me, “brightness of light eternal, and sun of all justice; O come and illumine those who live in deep darkness, in the shadow of death.”

I sat in the hard pew and watched my new friend, the snow melting in her dark hair. It was such a rich memory, so immediate, so lush with detail, each bead of water reflecting the altar candles. Heloise looked over at me and smiled, and her face brightened as if by magic. How lucky, I thought, how incredibly lucky I was to have been found by these women.

Heloise was with me all the way to Ourzazate and down into the oases of the Draa Valley, not an angel but an escort, a guide through the dark terrain of memory. She was with me when we arrived at the palmeraie, at my side as Salim and Hassan carried me in through the doors of the great red Casbah and down into the cool warren of dark rooms. She remained there through the first two nights of desmopressin and Hassan’s foul concoction, a nightmare from which I thought I might never awaken. Sometimes she perched in the far corner of my cell, and sometimes she lay beside me in the narrow cot that served as my bed, her hips touching mine, her fingers stroking my hair.

It was dead silent in my small room, the thick mud walls and heavy door damping the sounds of the house. A tiny, grated window high up in one corner let in just enough light to allow me to differentiate between day and night. A single bare bulb, of which I thankfully had control, offered respite from the terrifying darkness.

I’d seen Werner’s black Mercedes when we’d first arrived, and I had no doubt he was somewhere in the Casbah. In my more lucid moments I wondered if Brian was there as well, or if his betrayal had served an interest other than that of my host. I had a feeling Werner wasn’t the only one with a stake in whatever treasure Leila Brightman had disappeared with.

I was left alone for some time after my arrival, and eventually the drugs wore off enough for me to relieve myself in the plastic bucket I’d been given for that purpose. Then, toward what my best instincts told me was late evening, there was a knock on the door, and Salim appeared with a tray of food and a bottle of mineral water.

“Eat!” he said, setting the tray down on the floor next to my cot. “We don’t want you to die.”

He was just a few inches from me. I worked up what little saliva was left in my mouth and spit in his face.

“Not yet, at least,” he leered, wiping my spittle from his cheek.

I watched him go, then took a swig of the water and poured out the remainder of the bottle on the floor. As thirsty as I was, I didn’t trust myself not to drink the whole thing. Of the food, I ate just enough to quell my hunger pangs, then scraped the rest into my rudimentary chamber pot.

I had no doubt Hassan would come to medicate me again, and I wanted to be as ready as possible this time. When he did come, there was no knock. I heard the door latch click; then Salim and the doctor stepped into my cell.

During my time at the abbey, I often wondered at the lives of the saints, so many of them martyred, tortured and killed for their faith. How did they do it? I wanted to know. How did they survive the searings, the drownings, the rapes, the stretching of their bodies, the slow disembowelments, the desolate years in some cramped hole not fit for a rat? When Hassan came for me again, I began to see how they withstood it all.

There’s a certain bleak comfort in the familiar, an advantage in knowing exactly what has to be endured. As I watched Hassan come toward me with the needle and the inhaler, I had a fleeting memory of a beach somewhere, great blue curls of surf moving in to shore. Here’s how you do it, I thought, take a deep breath and duck your head to the wild tussle of the waves. I could feel the water close on me, the sand scraping my legs, the inescapable pull of the sea. Just ride, just ride, I told myself, my lungs aching, my arms fighting to pull myself up. And then, when I thought I couldn’t hold my breath for a second longer, I shot up and out. I would come out of this, too, I reminded myself, as Hassan’s cocktail hurried to my heart, and the desmopressin rushed toward my brain.

Imagine the wind-scoured contents of a prairie tornado, a roll of barbed wire, a half dozen fence posts, a tire, a bale of hay, part of a roof, a single high-heeled shoe lifted from the bedroom of a trailer, each tumbling momentarily into view, then snatched back into the whirlwind. Or a garden spied through a picket fence, narrow glimpses of green grass, a rosebush, a white chaise lounge, seen, then unseen, then seen again.

That’s how everything came to me that first night in the Casbah, a great tumult of places and things clicking in and out of focus. Here was an endless expanse of dry scrubland, the dark shards of mountains in the distance, the wind blowing sage and smoke. Here I was hurtling through Burgundy, past newly stripped vineyards, past a long stone wall and a field of milk cows. Here was the ditch, and the man beside me with the gun. Then there was a loud crack, the door swung open, and I tumbled forward onto the road.

For a brief moment I was on the train with Pat, smiling for the camera, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes. I was in the abbey kitchen, weighing dough. Then the melee turned again, and I was back at Werner’s house in Marrakech, with the photograph of Les Trois Singes in my hands, the three young friends, the rickshaw driver waiting for a fare. Though even here my memory failed me: the woman in the white shift was missing.

For the most part, the things that came to me were trivial-a lake at dusk, a golden retriever chasing a stick, the smell of bread baking, a baby’s fist on my breast-while what I most desired to remember still refused to reveal itself.

Of my three nights at the Casbah, the first was the best. When the desmopressin wave crested and started its slow downward slide, I figured I was invincible. I could do this. I could beat them, I thought.

A different man came in the morning with food and water and a clean bucket. He was older than my two regular visitors, his skin tanned and weathered beneath the hood of his brown burnoose. He set the tray on the floor and leaned in close to me.

“Eat, Mademoiselle,” he whispered in cultured French. “The others won’t come until tonight.” Catching my eyes with his, he nodded almost imperceptibly, then rose and, taking the soiled bucket with him, turned and walked to the door.

I listened to the latch close and lock. Logic told me not to trust him, but my instincts and my stomach begged me to believe what he’d said. My muscles ached from dehydration. I picked up the bottle and gulped half the water, then fell greedily on the food. Another day without sustenance, I reasoned, and I’d be too weak to fight the drugs anyway.

In the end, the man proved honest in his kindness. Salim and Hassan didn’t come to my room until late that evening. They weren’t alone this time. Werner came in with them and stood in the corner while the doctor did his business. Then my two tormenters left, and my host remained behind.

“How long are you going to keep me here?” I asked. It was a vain question, the answer most likely a lie or meaningless truth. It had long ago dawned on me that he had no intention of letting me leave alive.

Werner didn’t answer. He stepped forward, put his hand on my scalp, and tilted my head back so my face was turned up to his. Then he brought his other hand up and ran his fingers along my neck and across the side of my cheek. He seemed at the same time to be looking for something and to have found it.

I spit at him as I had at Salim, and he dropped his hands and moved away. Something flared inside him, anger, disgust.

“I told you in Marrakech,” he said coldly. “We will keep you here until you remember.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face.

I looked up at Werner, and his stone gray eyes looked back at me. Something had happened to that young man at Les Trois Singes, I thought, something terrible and dark, to turn him into this person.

“Who am I?” I asked.

Werner cocked his head, considering the question. “A traitor, my dear,” he said, “and a murderer.” Then he turned and walked out the door, leaving me to my nightmares.

I lay back on the cot and said a silent prayer, this time for something to keep me from remembering. I was afraid, afraid to die in that awful little room, afraid I might not have the strength to lie if I did remember. I half believed what Werner had told me, that it was someone else who had had the sisters killed. But still, I couldn’t imagine any good would come from whatever information he was looking to find. Werner was a dangerous man, that much was clear, and I didn’t want anyone else hurt because of my cowardice.

The images that came to me that night were gruesome and violent, a horror-show loop of my own worst conjurings. I was back on the roof with Pat, while he slowly bled to death in my arms. I put my hands on his stomach, and the blood covered them. My clothes were sticky with it. It was in my hair. The smell was deep in my lungs.

I was in a hotel room, somewhere cheap and bland, with a dead man in the corner. He had been shot in the head, and his eyes were flung wide open, as if he’d seen the bullet coming. I was in that horrible warehouse again, heart pounding like a piston as I flew down the stairs.

I was at the abbey, inside the chapel, where the sisters had been slaughtered like sheep. There was blood on the altar and on the communion rail, blood pooling in the burnished wood curves of the pews, blood spattered on the old stone floor. Someone was singing the Magnificat. My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

I was in my room at the Continental. On the bed was a Koran, the book open, the five letters from my ferry ticket forming the first line of the page. Kaf. Ha. Ya. A’in. Sad. Then the memory was ripped from me, and I opened my eyes to the low ceiling and narrow walls of my cell.

The man in the brown burnoose didn’t bring breakfast the next morning. Salim and Hassan came instead, and in place of food they brought more desmopressin, a full syringe, and another bottle of water. This was the way it would be from now on, I realized, no respite, no time to recover, just a steady assault until they wore me down. When they were gone, I lay on the bed and wept. Then, my thirst overwhelming my judgment, I took a long drink of water and settled in to wait for the drowning to come.

They came again that evening, with more of the same. What I saw hadn’t changed for some time, just sharpened in detail, the same dark reel running over and over again. My sickness gave me something to focus on besides the memories, and I drank more water, grateful now for the vomiting and the shuddering in my muscles, grateful for something, anything, even pain, to distract me.

Sometime in the middle of the night there was a quiet, almost inaudible knock on my door. I sat up and strained my ears, certain I’d imagined it, but the sound came again, just one short rap, then a key scratching tentatively at the lock. Standing, I moved toward the far wall and braced myself, rallying what strength I could. I had come to expect the morning and evening visits, and my foreknowledge was all that kept the desperation of my fear at bay. Now I could feel the angry jaws of panic snapping at my throat.

Was it Salim, I wondered as the latch clicked open, come to seek revenge for whatever it was that burned like a pyre in the depths of his eyes? The door swung forward, and I raised my fists. Had Werner decided to try more persuasive means of memory stimulation? If this was my last chance to fight, I would take it.

But it was not Salim. It was the man who had brought me breakfast the morning before. He had on the same brown burnoose. He opened it as he came toward me and unfurled a second hooded robe from the folds of his own. “Put it on,” he said.

I nodded, slipping my arms into the arms of the cloak, pulling the hood over my head.

The man put his hands to his lips and stepped through the doorway. Motioning for me to follow, he slipped his babouches off and started, barefoot, down the long dark corridor, the white skin of his heels winking like two dim beacons. I obeyed, creeping behind, ducking around corners, up one short flight of stairs and down another, weaving through the labyrinth of hallways and rooms, the cerebral folds and cambers of the Casbah, the two of us silent and stealthy as the whip crack of a synapse sparking.

We came out from the depth, out from the heart of the great mud palace, and I could smell the desert air. Somewhere far off an aging car engine sputtered along. There was an archway up ahead, my guide’s pointed hood silhouetted against the blue-black sky, and beyond, the wildly improbable shapes of the date palms, the strength of their slim bodies defying all reason and gravity. The only tree, I thought, that could bend flat to the ground during a hurricane and spring back unscathed. I had seen this, yes, I could remember it, the wind strong as a god, the sea heaving itself up onto the shore.

Just a few more feet, I told myself, but as I stumbled forward toward the opening I heard a man’s voice, a gruff command in Arabic. I froze, shrinking back into the darkness. My guide turned his head and spoke back to the voice. An easy response, laughter, and the answer was easy as well. A second silhouette appeared, then a match sputtered and flared, and I could smell tobacco.

I pressed myself against the wall to keep from shaking, then reached up and steadied my lower jaw with my hand to still the clacking of my teeth. They smoked for what seemed like an hour, two hours, an entire lifetime of smoking, until, by some blessed intervention, a new voice called out. The interloper grumbled, an underling cursing authority, then tossed his cigarette to the ground and turned away.

My guide watched the man leave, then flicked his own cigarette into the dirt, turned back, and waved for me. “Quickly,” he whispered. “Hurry.”

I pushed off from the wall, willing myself forward. The old man grabbed my arm and pulled me along, scurrying across the gravel-and-sand drive that surrounded the Casbah. Then we pitched forward into the desert forest of the palmeraie.

“How far?” I panted. I could run, but I needed to know just how much of my flagging strength to give each breath.

My rescuer stopped short and raised his arm. “There,” he said, pointing through the palms to a tiny speck of light that seemed to me to sit on the far horizon.

I nodded. “Let’s go.”

We ran in silence, moving through the trees toward the lone beacon. It took the very last of my energy to keep myself upright and mobile. The old man ran ahead, every so often stopping to wait for me to catch up. And then, suddenly, we were there, bursting out of the palmeraie and onto the hard-packed dirt of a road. I could see now that the light was a lantern, a goatskin lamp held aloft by a second hooded figure. Beyond the figure was a large truck.

My guide whistled, and the light was quickly extinguished. The figure moved, the coarse fabric of his burnoose rustling as he did; then the truck’s door clicked softly open, and the engine started.

“Montez!” the old man said.

I climbed into the cab, the door was closed behind me, and the truck lurched forward. “Wait!” I yelled, panicking as the old man slipped away behind us.

Unheeding, the driver barreled ahead. He switched the headlights on, and the road ahead of us sprang into view, two washed-out ruts. “It’s okay,” he said. “He’ll be okay.” Then, peeling his hood back, he turned to me. His face was haggard, hollowed out by the green lights of the dash. It was Brian.