The Memorist

Chapter 82

The Memorist Society

Thursday, May 1^st-3:46 p.m.

Meer was having trouble breathing. The gas was making her sleepy, dizzy and nauseated. Her father was in worse shape, his breathing even more shallow and labored. They’d been down in the catacombs for hours.

“When you were walking toward me, when Sebastian brought you down here, I could hear your voices.” His speech was so weak.

“Yes?”

“You said something about this place. That Margaux knew there was an exit down here. Do you remember?”

Meer nodded.

“Do you know where it is?”

“No. It was just a sense I had, like all the other goddamned half thoughts.”

“There’s not much down here but this vault, Meer. If there’s an exit somewhere…” He started to cough, and its intensity frightened Meer.

“Didn’t you tell me the other day that…that Margaux had seen all the plans for this building?” Jeremy asked when he could catch his breath.

“She did. I didn’t.”

“The last time I saw you…in New York…you told me that you’re building a suite of rooms in the Memory Dome based on Cicero’s memory game… How does it work?”

She was confused. “Why are you asking about this now?”

“Indulge me.” He smiled.

“Let’s say you wanted to memorize a speech. You’d start by choosing a building that’s familiar to you…”

“For instance, this building.”

She nodded. “You’d walk it a few times in your mind, studying specific rooms or areas so they were very clear to you and then, breaking the speech into separate parts, you’d connect each to an object in a room. When you want to remember the speech, you walk through the building in your mind’s eye and, seeing each object, you’ll be reminded of that part of the speech.”

“Try it,” he whispered urgently. “Picture yourself walking through the front door and into the lobby. Go slowly, look around. Do you see anything?”

“No.”

“All right. Keep going then. Go into the clubroom. Look around…”

Meer kept at it, trying to virtually tour the building and connect to a memory.

“Go into the library.”

Her voice lifted a little in astonishment. “Yes. Caspar showed Margaux the hidden door in the plans and told her the building had twelve doors. That two were hidden doors and part of an escape route…the door in the closet was the first one…the other is down here.”

“Where?” His voice was barely a whisper.

Meer tried to open her eyes but the gas was making her so tired it was a huge effort. Beside her now, her father had slumped down against the wall, half lying-half sitting. Taking his hand, she was shocked at how cold it was.

“Daddy?”

No answer.

“Daddy, please…”

But he didn’t respond.

Margaux preceded Toller into the underground tunnel beneath the Memorist Society and when she came to the vault where she assumed her husband’s treasures were kept, found the iron bars locked. Using the keys around his neck, Caspar’s keys, Toller opened the lock and then stooped to enter the crypt. Once inside he walked to the right corner, counted up eleven stones and pressed on the twelfth. With a scrape, the stone released. Toller removed it, revealing a hollow where in the shadows she could see an iron key and a metal strongbox.

“This is all we have, Margaux,” he explained, opening the box and pointing down to a booklet of copper sheets, verdigris green with age. “This document, written in some kind of ancient Sanskrit we can’t read, supposedly lists a dozen memory tools, explaining what each one is and how it works. Other than the flute I gave to Herr Beethoven, this is all your husband and I found and all I brought back from India. Meager treasures, indeed. Beethoven has had no luck with the flute and implied that it is as inscrutable as this booklet. All in all I’m beginning to believe the entire expedition was a failure.”

As Toller replaced the box his torchlight flickered over the key, and she asked him what it was for.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Our back door. You never know when the government will come knocking and we’ll have to leave without them seeing us go.”

Yes, Caspar had told her he’d required the architects to build a second exit out of the building and that there had been a natural one through the catacombs. Margaux looked in the direction that Toller had indicated and saw a keyhole partially hidden in a crevice between two stones on the west wall.

The gas was so heavy it was hard for her to move, hard for her to stay awake but she had to. She forced herself to stand up, to put one foot in front of the other.

Counting up from the floor, she found the twelfth stone, pressed on it with all of the strength she had left and felt it give. Drawing it out, she peered inside the crevice and found a metal box and an iron key.

She was having such a hard time making her limbs move. Every second that passed, she felt more ill. Shaking from the lack of oxygen, she had trouble fitting the key into the lock on the west wall. It took three tries. Once she managed to insert it, she struggled to turn it. Nothing happened. She couldn’t make it move. Why was she making all this effort? She was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep. Holding the key with both hands to keep it steady she tried it again, and this time heard the mechanism release and the hinges scrape as a portion of the wall opened like a door.

Air, stale but clean air, waited for her. Gasping in huge gulps of it, she peered into the darkness. Illuminated by the cell’s ambient light she could see a twisting set of stairs heading upward. Where it led didn’t matter as much as the air mattered. She gulped twice more and felt some strength returning. Going to her father, she gripped him under his arms and struggled to drag his inert body closer to the opening. “Breathe in,” she whispered. Then louder. “Breathe in.” Then shouting, “Please, breathe in.”

His eyes were still closed; he wasn’t responsive.

She took a huge gulp of air into her lungs and started CPR on him.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing still.

Once more. This time he took a breath. It was shallow and not enough but it was a start. Watching him take in the air and expel it, she tried to figure out what to do next. Perhaps if she pulled him into the tunnel there would be enough clean air for him to be all right long enough for her to take the exit and find him help on the other side.

What should she do? Leave? Stay with him? Was the gas affecting him more than her because of his condition? Had he hurt himself when he’d fallen against the stone wall? Had he suffered another heart attack from all the stress?

Maybe she didn’t have to leave him. Maybe if she yelled loud enough someone out there would hear her.

“Hello?” she screamed.

“Hello?” came the reply.