The Memory Police

Chapter 21

When the shaking stopped and I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw amid the debris was Don, hiding under the couch, trembling with fear.

“It’s all right,” I told him. “Come here.”

I pushed aside the drawers that had fallen from the dresser and the toppled lamp and pulled him to me through the narrow space.

“Are you all right?” I called to the old man. The room was so completely ruined that it was impossible to tell where he had been sitting just a moment before. Don began barking, as though he, too, were calling the old man.

“Yes, I’m here,” I heard him say, after what seemed a long time. His voice was weak.

He was trapped under the dish cabinet and covered with shards from the shattered plates. His face was bloody.

“Are you all right?” I asked again. I tried lifting the cabinet, but it wouldn’t budge, and I was afraid I might hurt him.

“Don’t worry about me. Get away as fast as you can.” His voice was barely audible under the rubble.

“Don’t be silly. I can’t leave you here.”

“But you have to. The tsunami will come.”

“Tsunami?… What do you mean?”

“A huge wave that comes from beyond the horizon. They come after an earthquake. If you stay, you’ll be caught up in it.”

“I don’t understand, but I’m not leaving without you.”

He waved the fingers of his one visible hand, as if to urge me on my way. I tried again to lift the cabinet, but I couldn’t move it more than a few inches. Don watched us with a worried look.

“It may hurt, but you have to try to crawl out as soon as I move the cabinet.” I said this as much to reassure myself as to explain my plan. A piece of glass had torn my stocking and cut my knee. There was blood everywhere, but I felt no pain. “I’ll tell you when, and then you move. I’m sure we can get you out of here.”

“Please, you have to leave me…”

“Don’t say that! I’m not leaving without you,” I yelled, almost angry with him for giving up so easily. I saw the pole and hook that had once been used to pull open the skylight in the cabin and it occurred to me to force it under the cabinet and use it as a lever.

“One, two, three!” I called. The cabinet moved a bit more this time. I heard a creaking sound—from the trembling earth or the cabinet… or perhaps from my back?—but I paid no attention and continued to push on the pole with all my might. “All right, one more time. One, two, three!”

The old man’s left shoulder and ear came into view. And just then the boat began to roll again. Not as violently as before, but I lost my balance and gripped the pole to avoid falling.

“Is that the… tsunami?”

“No, a tsunami is much worse than that.”

“We’d better hurry,” I said.

No doubt wanting to help, Don bit the sleeve of the old man’s sweater and began to tug at it.

My palms were red, my temples and teeth were throbbing, and my shoulders felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets, but still the cabinet did not move as much as I’d hoped. But as I continued to push, the old man’s body gradually came into view.

I tried to keep the tsunami out of my mind, but somehow the word was stuck in my head. What was it? If the old man was frightened, it must be a terrible thing. A monster that lives at the bottom of the sea? Or some sort of force that was impossible to oppose, like the disappearances? I pushed even harder on the pole, hoping the physical effort would keep this fear at bay.

As the old man’s right leg came into view, I fell over backward in relief. He immediately struggled to his feet.

“All right, young lady,” he called. “We have to go!” I gathered Don in my arms and followed him.

I don’t recall how we managed to escape the shattered boat or which way we went after we left the dock, but when we finally stopped to catch our breath, we found ourselves among the ruins of the library, halfway up the hill, surrounded by others who had also taken refuge from the earthquake. The weather, which had been magnificent, had turned gray and gloomy, and the sky threatened snow.

“Are you injured?” asked the old man, turning to look at me.

“No, I’m fine. But how are you? You’re all bloody.” I took a handkerchief from my pocket and began wiping his face.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just scratches.”

“No, there’s blood coming out of your ear.” A thick, dark ooze trickled from his earlobe to his chin.

“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Just a cut.”

“But what if it’s inside your ear… or your brain. It could be serious.”

“No, no, it’s nothing. No need for you to worry.”

He put his hand up to hide his ear, and just then we heard a rumbling in the distance and saw a white wall of water rushing toward the coast.

“What is that?” I gasped, dropping the handkerchief.

“The tsunami,” he said, his hand still clasped to his ear. The scene in front of us was transformed in an instant. It seemed as though the sea were being simultaneously drawn up into the sky and sucked down into a hole in the earth. The floodwaters mounted higher and higher, threatening to wash over the entire island, and the people around us began to wail and moan.

The sea swallowed up the boat, washed over the seawall, and smashed the houses along the coastline. All this must have happened in a moment, but I had the impression that I was able to observe individual scenes, one at a time—the deck chair where the old man took his naps being carried away; a baseball abandoned on the docks being tossed on the waves; a red roof being folded like origami and sucked under the surging waters.

When the wave at last subsided, Don was the first one to open his mouth. He leapt up on a stump, faced the sea, and howled long and low. Then, as if this were a signal, everyone began to move again, though slowly at first. Some headed back downhill. Others went in search of a phone or water. Some simply sat and cried.

“Is it over?” I asked, gathering up my handkerchief.

“Probably, yes,” said the old man. “But we should stay here a while yet, just to be sure.”

We turned to look at each other… and found we were both in an awful state. The old man’s sweater was hanging in tatters, his hair was covered with dust, and he had lost both shoes. In his hands he held just one thing: the music box—totally unharmed despite all we had been through. For my part, the hook on my skirt had come loose, my stockings were in shreds, and the heel had come off one of my shoes.

“Why did you bring the music box?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. It was under me when I was pinned by the cabinet, but I have no idea how I managed to get it here. Clutched in my hand, I suppose, or shoved in a pocket…”

“I’m glad you were able to save something. The only thing I brought with me was Don.”

“But Don is most important of all. An old man like me doesn’t need much. I don’t mind that everything was washed away. And besides, the ferry itself had disappeared a long time ago.”

He gazed out at the sea. The shoreline was buried in splintered wood and debris. Cars floated here and there. Farther out, the boat was knifing into the waves, sinking, bow down.

“And I’m afraid we’ve lost R’s pancake,” I said.

“I suppose so,” he answered, nodding.

Some neighborhoods in the town were damaged as well. Walls had caved in and cracks had opened in the streets. Fires were burning. Emergency vehicles and the trucks of the Memory Police raced around us. And now, to make matters worse, it had started to snow.

From the outside, my house seemed to have escaped with only minor damage; a few roof tiles had fallen and Don’s doghouse had toppled over. But things inside were far worse. Everything had been tossed from its place and lay strewn about at random—the pots and dishes, the telephone, the television, vases, newspapers, boxes of tissue…

As soon as we’d tied Don in the yard, we hurried through the mess to the hidden room. Our greatest concern was to see how this little space, suspended between floors, had fared in the earthquake. I turned up the rug and tried to raise the trapdoor, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Hello! Can you hear us?” the old man called. After a moment, we heard a knock coming from the other side. And then R’s voice.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Are you all right?” I got down on the floor and called through the gap. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine. But how are you? I’ve been worried about both of you, but I can’t tell what’s going on out there. I’d just started to wonder what would happen to me if no one came back.”

“We were on the boat when it struck. We were able to get away, but I’m afraid the boat sank.”

“I’m glad you’re safe. I tried opening the door to get some idea of what happened, but it wouldn’t move.”

“I’m going to try pulling on it again,” said the old man, coming over to examine the door. “Could you push from your side?” But the results were the same.

“The earthquake must have warped the floor.” Though we were separated from R by no more than the thickness of a single board, his voice sounded distant and weak.

“I’m sure that’s it. The door is jammed into the floorboards.” The old man put his hand to his chin to ponder the problem.

“What if we can’t get it open? He’ll starve to death, or suffocate.” The words came rushing out.

“Is the ventilation fan working?” asked the old man.

“No, I think the electricity has been cut off.” Since it was midday, I hadn’t noticed until now, but the power was, indeed, off.

“Then it’s pitch-black in there?” the old man called down to R.

“Yes.” R’s voice seemed to be slowly retreating from us.

“We have to hurry,” I said, getting up from the floor. “We’ll get it open—I’ll go find a chisel or a saw.”

The old man worked quietly and precisely, as he always did, and in no time at all the trapdoor had been opened. I stood by, feeling useless, my one contribution being that I’d gone to the neighbors across the street to borrow the tools. There were chisels among the sculpting tools in the basement studio, but it would have been impossible to find them with everything in such a mess, and the old man’s tools had been washed away with the boat, so there was no other choice but to ask. The ex-hatmaker agreed readily, but he insisted that he should come along to help.

“How terrible! Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

“Thank you, but I’m fine. I can manage.”

“A young woman, all by herself?”

“No, the old man is there as well.”

“You can never have too many hands in an emergency,” he said. Smiling, I wracked my brain for an excuse that would avoid hurting his feelings but also keep from arousing suspicion.

“To tell the truth, the old man’s face is broken out in a rash—eczema of some sort. He looks terrible and says he doesn’t want anyone to see him. He must feel embarrassed, even at his age, and he can be quite stubborn at times.”

So it was that I managed to put off the hatmaker.

The trapdoor gave way in a shower of splinters, accompanied by cries of joy from all three of us. The old man and I immediately got down on our bellies and peered into the opening. R, crouching at the bottom of the ladder, was looking up at us with an expression of exhaustion and relief. His hair was flecked with chips of wood from the shattered door.

We made our way down the ladder, uttering meaningless grunts in greeting as we patted and embraced one another. Though it was difficult to see in the dim light, it was clear that the hidden room had been battered by the earthquake. The slightest movement meant treading on the scattered contents of R’s shelves. But we did not need to move, content to hold hands and stare at one another for a long time. There seemed to be no other way to reassure ourselves that we had all come safely through the ordeal.