The Memory Police

Chapter 25

Around seven thirty that evening, a call came from the hospital saying that the old man had collapsed in front of the butcher shop. Worried that he was late, no matter how far out of his way he might have gone, I had just been going out to look for him when the phone rang. The woman—a nurse or a secretary—spoke quickly and the connection was poor, so I didn’t understand everything she said. Still, I knew I had to get to the hospital right away.

After telling R the news through the funnel speaker, I ran out of the house with nothing but my wallet. I thought I’d be able to find a taxi at some point, but not a single one appeared and I ended up running all the way to the hospital.

The old man was not in a bed but rather had been laid out on a plain metal table with wheels that resembled a kitchen cart. The room was tiled and very cold. His body was draped with a cloth, a frayed, faded blanket that looked rough to the touch.

“He apparently collapsed on the sidewalk and was brought here by ambulance, but he had already lost consciousness by the time he arrived and his heart stopped; we did everything in our power to revive him, but he passed away at seven fifty-two p.m.… As for the cause of death, we found an intracranial hemorrhage, but we’d need to do additional tests to discover why it occurred.”

The doctor stood next to me and talked, but I understood almost nothing of what he said. The flat voice of this unknown man droned in my ears.

“Had he recently received any sort of trauma? A sharp blow to the head?”

I looked up at the doctor and tried to answer, but the pain in my chest kept the words from coming out.

“The hemorrhage was not deep in the brain but close to the surface, just under the skull. In those cases, the cause usually turns out to be head trauma. But it’s also possible that he had a heart attack and hit his head as he fell, in which case…” He continued in the same monotone.

I lifted the corner of the blanket. The first thing I saw were the old man’s hands folded on his chest. Hands that would never make anything again. I remembered the dark blood that had come from his ear when he’d been pinned under the dish cupboard after the earthquake. I remembered how much trouble he’d had skewering a pickle or feeling the objects inside the statues. Had the bleeding started slowly back then?

“But he fixed the drainpipe. And what about R’s haircut? He did that so beautifully,” I murmured. But my words were absorbed by the tiles on the walls and did not seem to reach the doctor’s ears.

The old man’s shopping basket had been left next to the cart, carrot greens and a package wrapped in butcher’s paper peeking out from the top.

The funeral was modest. Those in attendance included a few distant relatives—the grandson of a cousin, a niece and her husband—some old friends from work, and a few neighbors. R, of course, could offer only his prayers from the hidden room.

I found it terribly difficult to come to terms with the old man’s death. I had lost many people who were important to me in the past, but somehow my parting with them had been different from what I experienced now. I had of course been terribly sad when my mother and father and my nurse had died. I missed them, and wished I could see them again, and I regretted the times I’d been selfish or cruel when they were alive. But that pain had lessened with the passage of time. Their deaths grew distant with the years, leaving behind only the most precious memories I associated with them. But the laws of the island are not softened by death. Memories do not change the law. No matter how precious the person I may be losing, the disappearances that surround me will remain unchanged.

But this time I had the impression that something was different. In addition to the sadness, I was overcome by a mysterious and menacing anxiety, as though the old man’s death had suddenly transformed the very ground under my feet into a soft, unreliable mass.

I had been left alone, with no one to comfort me, no one to reach out and take my hand, no one to share the terrible void in my heart. Of course R would sympathize with me, would console me, but he was locked away forever in that tiny space, and I found it difficult to descend from my unstable, unbalanced state into the hidden room. Likewise, once I was with him I found myself unable to stay for long. It always proved necessary to return to where I’d come from. And always alone.

The materials of the world that surrounded R and me were simply too different—as though I were trying to glue a pebble I’d found in the garden to an origami figure. And the old man, who always reassured me at such moments, who promised we could find a different type of glue, was no longer here.

In order to boost my courage, I threw myself into the activities of daily life. I rose early in the morning and prepared the most elaborate meals possible for R. At the office, my head was full of schemes to get my work done as efficiently and accurately as possible. At the markets, I persevered, no matter how long the lines, navigating my way through the crowds and somehow managing to fill my shopping basket. I carefully ironed the laundry, recycled old blouses as pillow covers, unraveled a frayed sweater and reknit it into a vest. I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom until they sparkled, took Don for his daily walk, cleared snow from the roof.

Yet when I crawled in bed at night, what came was not sleep but deep exhaustion and anxiety. Closing my eyes, I would feel a kind of panic, and tears would begin to flow. Certain I would never get to sleep, I would go to the desk and take out my manuscript. I could think of no other way to pass the night.

I would take some of the objects from the statues that I’d hidden next to the funnel speaker and arrange them on the manuscript pages. Often, when I was visiting him in his room, R would tell me to take any that interested me and keep them with me. To be honest, nothing was likely to interest my soul in its weakened state, but in order not to disappoint R, I chose one or two that happened to be close at hand.

Now, in the middle of the night, I would stare at them. And when I tired of that, I touched them, smelled them, opened their lids, wound their springs, rolled them about, held them up to the light, blew on them. I had no idea how they were really meant to be used.

From time to time, for just a moment, one of the objects would show me something more. A slight curve in the shape or a depth of color would catch my eye—and I would startle, wondering whether this could be the revelation that R was hoping for. But whatever it was, it never lasted more than a moment. Nor was it within my power to bring it back. Worse still, only a small fraction of the objects ever showed these special traits; the rest were content to remain sitting modestly on the manuscript pages.

Passing my nights this way did not relieve the anxiety I’d felt since the old man’s death, but it was better than weeping in my bed. Occasionally, these flashes of recognition were sparked by some object two nights in succession—once it happened three times in one night—but then I might go four nights without encountering even one. I began to wait for these brief moments with increasing impatience, seeing them as luminous signposts that would lead me to R. And I, too, hoped the light would illuminate the cavity in my heart.

One night I made an effort to write some words on the manuscript paper. I wanted to leave a record of what I saw in that dimly illuminated void of my memories. It was the first time I had done such a thing since the novels disappeared. I held the pencil awkwardly, and my characters were either too large to fit within the lines or too small and misshapen. Nor did I have any confidence in the things I wrote—and yet my fingers were moving—however slowly.

I soaked my feet in water.

It had taken me an entire night to write that one line. I tried reading it aloud a number of times, but I had no idea where the words had come from nor any guess as to where they might be leading. When I returned the objects to R the next day, I held out my manuscript along with them. He stared at it a long time, though it was no more than a single line.

“It’s just scribbling,” I told him. “Not something you need to read. I’m sorry. Just throw it away.” He had been quiet so long, I was sure he was disappointed.

“Don’t be silly!” he said at last, placing the page carefully on his desk. “It’s extraordinary progress! This is the first thing you’ve written without tearing holes in the paper with your eraser.”

“I don’t know if you can call it progress. It’s more like a whim. And tomorrow, I may be unable to write anything.”

“No, don’t say that. The stories have begun to stir again.”

“I wonder if you’re right. I don’t expect much, but what do they mean? I have no idea. They make no sense to me.”

“The meaning isn’t important. What matters is the story hidden deep in the words. You’re at the point now where you’re trying to extract that story. Your soul is trying to bring back the things it lost in the disappearances.”

He went on encouraging me. In all likelihood he was telling me lies, unwilling to hurt me further and deepen the damage done by the old man’s death, but I didn’t care. If he was willing to be kind to me, the reason didn’t matter.

Still without feeling the sense of a story, I continued to put together strings of words, one line each night.

The size and balance of my characters gradually improved, but my hand still shook when it came time to select a word.

“That’s wonderful! You’re doing fine.” R took each piece of paper and added it to the pile.

The first disappearance since the death of the old man. I lay in bed collecting my wits, trying to determine the nature of the thing that no longer existed. It was quiet outside, no sign that the neighbors were stirring. Which might mean that it was something relatively insignificant. I tried to get up, but I felt as though dense air had coiled around my body. Weak sunlight filtered in through the curtains, promising a gray day. Perhaps another heavy snowfall. I should get out of the house early and catch the seven o’clock tram. There were always delays on the day of a disappearance.

I pulled back the quilt and made a bizarre discovery—something was stuck fast to my hip. And no matter how much I pulled or pushed or twisted, it would not come off, just as though it had been welded to me.

“What in the world?” I said, gripping the pillow with frustration. I had the feeling I would fall out of the bed if I didn’t hold on to something. At the slightest movement, the thing attached to my hips threw my body off balance.

I held still, my face against the pillow, trying to calm myself. A chilly sensation lingered in my hands from where I’d touched whatever it was that was attached to me a moment earlier. Had I come down with some sort of disease? Perhaps an enormous tumor had developed overnight? How could I get to the hospital with this sort of affliction? I glanced down again at my body, which was still stretched out in the same position on the bed.

Since I couldn’t remain where I was indefinitely, I decided to get up and get dressed. First, I put my weight on my right leg and slowly sat up. But as I did, the thing fell with a heavy thud and I was thrown to the floor. I fell against the wastebasket, knocking it over and spilling the contents, but I managed to crawl to the dresser and pull out a sweater and some pants.

The sweater went on easily. The problem was the pants, which seemed to have two openings. Once I’d slid my right leg into one of them, I had no idea what to do with the other. The thing was still there on my hip, as though it were looking at me, waiting for something. I wasn’t exactly afraid of it, but it did seem somehow rather ominous. But the more I studied it, the more I realized that it had a shape that would exactly fit the other opening in my pants. The right length, the right thickness, it was perfect. I tried taking it in both hands and putting it into the opening. It was heavy and difficult to work with, but after some time, just as I’d imagined, it slid neatly into the pants. As though someone had measured it in advance.

It was then I finally realized what had disappeared: my left leg.

I had trouble getting down the stairs without falling. Holding on to the railing, I had to drag the thing—my disappeared leg—one step at a time. Outside, the snow piled up on the ground made things even more difficult. Fortunately, however, after hesitating for a moment, I had decided to put a shoe on my left foot as well.

The neighbors were gradually beginning to gather in the street outside. They all seemed to be wondering how to deal with their own bodies, as though fearful that the least motion would cause them pain. Some walked holding on to walls or fences, others moved in family groups, using one another’s shoulders for support, and some, like the former hatmaker, were using umbrellas or other objects as crutches.

“How can this be happening?” murmured someone, and there were nods of agreement. It was the first disappearance of this sort, and we were at a loss, unable to imagine what might happen next.

“A lot of unexpected things have disappeared, but never anything as shocking as this,” said the woman who lived across the street. “What’s going to happen to us?”

“Nothing at all. That’s the point. It’s just one more cavity that has opened up on the island. How is it any different from the others?” said the old man in the house next to mine who worked at city hall.

“But something isn’t right about this. My body feels as though it’s gone to pieces and won’t go back together again.” This time it was the hatmaker, who was digging in the snow with the tip of his umbrella.

“You’ll get used to it. It may be a bit tricky at first, but that’s been true for other disappearances as well. It takes time to get accustomed, but there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I guess I’m actually lucky,” laughed the old woman who lived two houses down the street. “Half the arthritis in my knees is gone!” I could manage no more than a faint smile.

As we talked, from time to time each of us glanced down at our left leg. Would the cold creeping up from the snow bring feeling back to it? Perhaps this was all a mistake… Or so the vaguely hopeful expressions on our faces seemed to suggest.

“I wonder,” I said, screwing up the courage to ask the question that had been on my mind for some time. “How can we get rid of them?”

The man from the mayor’s office let out a low moan, the old woman with knee trouble sniffed, and the woman across the street spun the handle of her umbrella. But no one said anything for a moment. Perhaps they were considering the problem, or perhaps they were simply waiting for someone else to say something.

At that moment we saw three members of the Memory Police come toward us from the other end of the street. We moved closer together on the sidewalk to get out of their way. What would they do if they found us here, still in possession of our legs?

They were out on patrol, dressed in their usual uniforms. The first thing I did was look at their left legs. I could see they were intact, so I felt somewhat relieved. If the Memory Police didn’t know how to get rid of their legs, they could hardly blame us for still having ours. But they were walking with their usual even gait, perfectly in balance, as though the disappearance had caused them no difficulty—as though they had been training for just this eventuality.

When they had passed by and we were sure they were out of sight, the hatmaker spoke up.

“I suppose there’s no need for us to get rid of our legs, then.”

“You’re right. No need to get out the saw just yet…”

“Burning, burying, washing away, abandoning—I guess for some things, there’s just no appropriate way.”

“Though I imagine they’ll come up with one soon enough.”

“Maybe they’ll just fall off by themselves, like leaves from a tree.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“So there’s nothing to worry about.”

When we’d all had our say, we made our way home—though we were less sure-footed than the Memory Police. The old woman fell by her gate, and the hatmaker’s umbrella got stuck in a snowbank.

Don had come out of his house and was pacing in front of the door, wagging his tail nervously. When he saw me, he came running, kicking up snow and snorting with pleasure, but as he approached I realized that his back left leg had disappeared.

“You too, boy? Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.”

I wrapped my arms around him. His hind leg dangled limply.

That night in bed, R massaged my disappeared leg. He worked at it for a long time, as though he thought his efforts might bring it back.

“When I was a little girl and had a fever, my mother would rub me like this,” I murmured.

“You see?” he said. “How can your leg have disappeared when you still have a memory like that?” He smiled and pressed harder with his hand.

“I suppose so,” I said, nodding vaguely and looking up at the ceiling.

In fact, the feelings I remembered from my mother’s hand and those from R’s now were completely different. No warmth, no sensation at all came to my leg from his touch. Just the uncomfortable feeling of one thing grating against another. But I worried that it would hurt him if I told him the truth.

“Look,” he said. “Here you have five toenails lined up neat as you please. Smooth and translucent like the skin of a fruit. And here’s the heel, and the ankle. All the same as your right leg. And the lovely curve of your knee fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. You can feel the intricate bone structure. Your thigh is amazingly white, your calf is soft and warm. I can feel every part of your leg, each scratch and bruise and bump. How can you say all that has disappeared?”

He knelt at the edge of the bed, his hands continuing to move.

I closed my eyes, more conscious than ever of the new cavity that had opened up in my body. It was filled to the brim with clear water that retained no trace of any memory. R’s hand stirred the water, but no more than a few tiny bubbles rose to the surface and popped silently.

“I’m happy you’re here,” I told him. “Happy to know you’ll go on looking after my leg even though it’s gone. The other legs on the island must feel sad and abandoned.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like in the outside world, with things disappearing one after the other…”

“I doubt the changes seem as great to us as they would to you. We shrug them off with as little fuss as possible and make do with what’s left. Just as we always have. Though this time people do seem a bit more concerned. Maybe because we haven’t been able to dispose of the thing that’s disappeared and have to keep carrying it around with us. Though I’m already getting used to that, thanks to you.”

“You go to great lengths to get rid of these things, don’t you?”

“I suppose we do. But this time there’s nothing to be done. We can’t burn them or crush them or throw them in the sea. We just try to avoid them as much as possible. But I’m sure that will pass soon enough. I don’t know how, but sooner or later everything will fall back into place.”

“Fall back into place? What do you mean?”

“Eventually, the hole left by our legs will find a place in our hearts and minds that fits it perfectly, a place to fall into.”

“But why would you do that? Why would you want to get rid of these things? I need your leg as much as I need the rest of you…” He closed his eyes and sighed. I started to reach out to touch his face but then froze when my leg threated to slip off of the bed. He took it in his hands and brought it to his mouth, kissing it on the calf. A quiet kiss that was almost like a whisper.

I thought how wonderful it would be had I been able to feel his lips, to sense them on skin and flesh that had not disappeared. But on my left leg there was only a slight pressure, like the weight of a bit of modeling clay.

“Stay a bit longer, like that,” I told him. Though the feeling was empty, I wanted to watch him holding on to that void.

“Of course,” he said. “As long as you like.”