Central Park

by Guillaume Musso

  I roll up the sleeves of my blouse and wipe the beads of sweat from my forehead. I have brought a bottle of water as a way of establishing contact. Instead of handing it to the suspect, however, I decide to open it and take a long drink myself.

  To begin with, the water makes me feel better. Then, abruptly, I feel dizzy and disoriented. I close my eyes and lean against the wall.

  When I open them again, I have no idea where I am. My mind is a blank, a void. And I feel the most awful anxiety, as if I’ve been teleported to an unknown place.

  I feel myself reeling, so I sit down in the chair, facing the man, and ask: “Who are you? What am I doing here?”

  One week ago

  Tuesday, October 8, 2013

  I remember everything…

  Paris, six p.m. The end of a beautiful fall day.

  The last rays of the setting sun set the capital ablaze, reflecting in the windows of buildings, the surface of the river, the windshields of cars, spreading their golden light through the city’s streets. A wave of dazzling light and long shadows.

  Near the Parc André-Citroën, I extricate my car from a traffic jam and drive it up the concrete ramp that leads to a glass ship moored on the banks of the Seine. The façade of the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital looks like the prow of a futuristic ocean liner that has made a stopover in the south of the fifteenth arrondissement; it hugs the rounded bend of the street and mirrors the Judas trees and hawthorn hedges planted along either side of the esplanade.

  Parking lot. Concrete maze. Sliding doors opening on a large central atrium. Row of elevators. Waiting room.

  I have an appointment with Professor Evariste Clouseau, the head of the National Institute of Memory, which occupies the building’s entire top floor.

  Clouseau is one of France’s leading specialists in Alzheimer’s disease. I met him three months ago as part of the investigation my team was conducting into the murder of his twin brother, Jean-Baptiste, the head of the cardiovascular unit in the same hospital. The two brothers hated each other so virulently that when Jean-Baptiste learned that he had pancreatic cancer, he decided to commit suicide and make it look as if he had been murdered by his brother. The case was big news. Evariste was even briefly imprisoned before we managed to uncover the truth. After his release, he told Seymour that we had freed him from hell and that he would be eternally grateful to us. These were not empty words; when I called him a week ago to book an appointment, he managed to squeeze me in that very day.

  After the fiasco during my interrogation of the suspected terrorist, I quickly recovered my memory. My lapse lasted no more than three minutes, but it happened with everyone watching. Taillandier forced me to take medical leave, then blocked my return, pending a doctor’s assessment. So I had to undergo an in-depth medical examination and consult a psychiatrist again. Despite my protests, I was prescribed a long break from work.

  This came as a surprise to no one. Taillandier had been openly trying to get rid of me for years. She had failed after the Vaughn case, but this new episode handed her the chance at revenge on a silver platter. I refused to go quietly, however. I contacted the union, hired an employment lawyer, and saw several other doctors, who all testified to my perfect health.

  I wasn’t really worried. My morale was high, and I wanted to fight, get my job back. Sure, I’d had that sudden, brief memory loss, and—like everyone—I sometimes forgot what I was doing, but I attributed these little episodes to stress, tiredness, overwork, the heat…

  And that opinion was shared by all the doctors I went to see. All but one, who mentioned the possibility of a neurological disease and asked me to undergo a brain scan.

  Figuring that the best defense is a good offense, I decided to be proactive and consult a recognized authority in the field. So it was that I went to see Clouseau, who ordered a whole battery of tests. Last week, I spent an entire day in this damn hospital, enduring a spinal tap, an MRI, a PET scan, and various blood tests and memory tests. Clouseau asked me to come in today so he could talk to me about the results.

  I feel confident. And impatient to start work again. I have even planned an evening out with some university friends—Karine, Malika, and Samia—to celebrate my return to the job. We are going to drink cocktails on the Champs-Élysées and—

  “The professor will see you now.”

  A secretary leads me into an office with a view of the Seine. Behind his desk—an unusual piece of furniture made from the wing of an airplane, as smooth and shiny as a mirror—Evariste Clouseau is typing something on his laptop. At first glance, the neurologist doesn’t seem especially impressive: wild hair, pale complexion, tired eyes, badly trimmed beard. He looks like he has stayed up all night playing poker and downing glasses of single-malt whiskey. Under his white coat, he wears a checkered shirt that’s buttoned wrong and a burgundy sweater that looks as if it were knitted by a drunken grandmother.

  In spite of his unkempt appearance, however, Clouseau inspires confidence, and he is highly regarded in the field—in recent years, he has helped implement new diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer’s, and the National Institute of Memory—the organization he runs—is one of the leading establishments in research and patient care. Whenever there are reports about Alzheimer’s on television or in the papers, he is the first person journalists call on for an opinion.

  “Good evening, Mademoiselle Schafer. Please sit down.”

  A few minutes later, the sun sets and the room becomes dim. Clouseau takes off his glasses and gives me an owl-like glance before turning on an old brass library lamp. He presses a key on his computer keyboard, which is connected to a flat-screen monitor on the wall. I guess the display shows the results of my tests.

  “I’m going to be straight with you, Alice. The analysis of your scans is disturbing.”

  I say nothing.

  He gets to his feet and explains. “These are images of your brain taken during the MRI. To be more precise, they are images of your hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays an essential role in memory and spatial location.”

  He uses a stylus to mark out an area on the screen.

  “This part here shows a slight atrophy. At your age, that isn’t normal.”

  Clouseau allows me time to digest this news before showing me another image.

  “You had another scan last week, a PET scan. We injected you with a radioactive tracer to determine if there was any reduction in carbohydrate metabolism in certain brain structures.”

  Seeing that I don’t understand a word of this, he tries to articulate the problem in layman’s terms. “The PET scan enables us to visualize the activity in different areas of your brain and—”

  I cut him off. “Just tell me what it shows.”

  He sighs. “Well, there are signs of damage in certain areas.”

  He walks closer to the large screen and points with his stylus at a segment of the image.

  “You see these red patches? They represent amyloid plaques that form in the areas between your neurons.”

  “Amyloid plaques?”

  “Also known as senile plaques. Protein deposits responsible for certain neurodegenerative diseases.”

  These words hammer into my mind, but I don’t want to hear them.

  Clouseau clicks to a document—a page full of numbers.

  “This problematic concentration of amyloid proteins is confirmed by analysis of the cerebrospinal fluid taken during your spinal tap. That, too, showed the presence of pathogenic Tau proteins, which proves that you are suffering from an early-onset form of Alzheimer’s disease.”

  Silence in the office. I am dumbstruck, on the defensive, incapable of thinking clearly.

  “But that’s impossible. I…I’m not even forty!”

  “It’s very rare, admittedly, but it does happen.”

  “No. You’re wrong.” I refuse to accept this diagnosis. I know there is no effective treatment for this disease—no miracle drug, no vaccine.

  “I understand yo
ur emotion, Alice. For now, I would advise you not to do anything rash. Take your time to think this through. At the moment, there is no reason for you to change the way you live your life—”

  “I’m not sick!”

  “It’s a very difficult thing to accept, Alice, I know that,” Clouseau says in a gentle voice. “But you are young and the disease is still in the early stages. There are currently new medicines being tested. Up to now, lacking effective ways of diagnosing the disease, we have always identified its sufferers too late. But that is changing, and—”

  I don’t want to hear another word. I jump to my feet and leave his office without a backward glance.

  Lobby. Row of elevators. Central atrium. Concrete maze. Parking lot. Engine thrum.

  I lower all the windows and drive with the wind blowing in my hair, the radio on full blast. Johnny Winter’s guitar on “Further On Up the Road.”

  I feel good. Alive. I am not going to die. I have my whole life ahead of me.

  I accelerate, pass other cars, honk my horn. Quai de Grenelle. Quai Branly, Quai d’Orsay…I am not sick. My memory is good. Everyone has always told me that—in school, in college, in the police. I never forget a face and notice every detail; I am capable of memorizing and reciting dozens of pages of evidence from the police file. I remember everything. Everything!

  My brain is churning, seething, thinking at top speed. To convince myself of this, I begin saying out loud every fact that flashes through my head:

  Six times seven is forty-two / Eight times nine is seventy-two / The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad / The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo / Stalin died on March 5, 1953 / The Berlin Wall was erected on the night of August 12, 1961.

  I remember everything.

  The name of my grandmother’s perfume was Soir de Paris, and it smelled of bergamot and jasmine / Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969 / The name of Tom Sawyer’s girlfriend was Becky Thatcher / I ate lunch at Dessirier today—I had sea bream tartare, Seymour had fish and chips, we both had coffee, and the check came to 79 euros and 83 centimes.

  I remember everything.

  Although uncredited, the guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” from the Beatles’ White Album is played by Eric Clapton / The correct expression is toeing the line, not towing the line, and it refers to runners standing in the correct place at the beginning of a race / I filled my car with gas this morning at the BP garage on Boulevard Murat. The 98 unleaded was 1.684 euros per liter; I spent 67 euros / In North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock makes his cameo appearance after the opening credits; the door of a bus closes in front of him, leaving him on the sidewalk.

  I remember everything.

  In Conan Doyle’s novels, Sherlock Holmes never says “Elementary, my dear Watson” / The pin code for my debit card is 9728 / The card number is 0573 5233 3754 61 / The security code is 793 / Stanley Kubrick’s first film is not Killer’s Kiss but Fear and Desire / In 1990, the referee of the match between Benfica and Olympique Marseille who allowed a handballed goal by Vata was named Marcel van Langenhove. That goal made my father cry / Paraguay’s currency is the guarani / Botswana’s is the pula / My grandfather’s motorcycle was a Kawasaki H1 / At twenty years old, my father drove a French blue Renault 8 Gordini.

  I remember everything.

  The entry code for my apartment building is 6507B and the code for the elevator is 1321A / My sixth-grade music teacher was named Monsieur Piguet. He made us play the Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow” on the recorder / I bought my first two CDs in 1991, when I was in my junior year of high school: Du Vent dans les Plaines, by Noir Désir, and Schubert’s Impromptus on Deutsche Grammophon, performed by Krystian Zimerman / I scored 16 out of 20 in my philosophy baccalaureate. The subject of the dissertation was “Is passion always an obstacle to self-knowledge?” / In my final year of high school, I was in class C3. On Thursdays, we had three hours of coursework in room 207; I sat in the third row next to Stéphane Muratore, and when school was over he would take me home on his Peugeot ST scooter, which struggled up hills.

  I remember everything.

  Belle du Seigneur is 1,109 pages long in paperback / The music for The Double Life of Véronique was composed by Zbigniew Preisner / When I was a college student, my dorm room number was 308 / on Tuesdays in the cafeteria, they used to serve lasagna / In The Woman Next Door, the character played by Fanny Ardant is named Mathilde Bauchard / I remember the goose bumps I felt listening to “That’s My People”—where NTM sample a Chopin prelude—on my first iPod / I remember where I was on September 11, 2001: In a hotel room, on vacation in Madrid, with an older lover. He was a married chief of police who looked like my father. The Twin Towers collapsed while I was in that sleazy atmosphere / I remember that complicated time, those toxic men that I hated. That period before I realized that you had to love yourself a little bit before you could love anyone else.

  I cross the Pont des Invalides, take Avenue Franklin-Roosevelt, and drive down the ramp that leads to the underground parking garage. I walk to Motor Village on the Champs-Élysées traffic circle, where I meet the girls.

  “Hello, Alice!”

  They are sitting at a table on the terrace of the Fiat Caffé, nibbling Italian appetizers. I sit down with them, order a champagne spritzer, and drink it in practically a single gulp. We laugh as we talk about life, love, gossip, clothes, work. We order a round of pink martinis and toast our friendship. Then we move on and try several different places: the Moonlight, the Thirteenth Floor, the Londonderry. I dance, let men approach me, flirt with me, touch me. I am not sick. I’m sexy as hell.

  I am not going to die. I am not going to wither. I am not going to come undone. I am not going to wilt like a flower cut too early. I drink—Bacardi mojito, violet champagne, Bombay gin and tonic…I am not going to end up in a home for the mentally ill, yelling insults at nurse’s aides and staring into space as I slurp applesauce through a straw.

  Everything spins around me. I am happily tipsy. Drunk on freedom. Time speeds by. It’s past midnight. I kiss the girls goodbye and walk back to the underground parking garage. Third level belowground. Morgue lighting. Stink of piss. Heels tapping on concrete. Feeling nauseated. Staggering. In a few seconds, my drunkenness is tainted with sadness. I feel pathetic, oppressed. My throat tightens and it all comes rushing to the surface—the image of my brain being assailed by senile plaques, the fear of the great collapse. A weary fluorescent bulb blinks and crackles like a cricket. I take out my car keys, press the button that opens all the doors, and sit crumpled behind the steering wheel. Tears come to my eyes. A sound…there is someone in the back seat! I sit up in shock. The shadow of a face emerges from the darkness.

  “Seymour! Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”

  “Good evening, Alice.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I was waiting until you were alone. Clouseau called me. I was worried about you.”

  “Goddamn it, whatever happened to patient confidentiality?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me anything. Your father and I have been living in fear of this moment for the past three months.”

  I turn on the ceiling light so I can see him better. He has tears in his eyes too, but he wipes them away with his sleeve and clears his throat.

  “It’s your decision, Alice, but I think you need to act quickly on this. That’s what you taught me—never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Take the bull by the horns and don’t let go. That’s why you’re the best cop I know, because you don’t spare yourself, because you are always the first one to enter the fray, because you’re always one step ahead.”

  I sniff. “It’s impossible to be one step ahead of Alzheimer’s.”

  In the rearview mirror, I see him open a manila folder. He takes out an airplane ticket and a brochure with a cover showing an impressive building at the edge of a lake. “My mother told me about this place. It’s in Maine. Sebago Hospital.”

  “
What was your mother doing there?”

  “She has Parkinson’s, as you know. Two years ago, she was trembling so much that her life was a nightmare. One day, her doctor suggested a new form of treatment—they put two thin electrodes in her brain connected to a little electric box implanted under her collarbone. Kind of like a pacemaker.”

  “You told me this already, Seymour, and you yourself admitted that the electrical pulses didn’t stop the disease from progressing.”

  “Maybe not, but they got rid of the worst symptoms, and she feels much better now.”

  “Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are not the same thing at all.”

  “I know,” he says, handing me the brochure, “but look at this place. They use deep-brain stimulation to fight the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Initial results are encouraging. It wasn’t easy, but I got you a place in their study. I’ve paid for it all, but you have to leave tomorrow. I booked you a plane ticket to Boston.”

  I shake my head. “Keep your money, Seymour. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m going to die, period.”

  “Sleep on it,” he insists. “But first, let me take you home. You’re in no state to drive.”

  Too weary to argue with him, I slide over into the passenger seat and let him drive.

  It is 12:17 a.m. when the security camera in the parking garage films us on our way out.

  24

  Chapter Zero

  Tribeca

  4:50 a.m.

  Three hours before Alice first meets Gabriel

  THE TELEPHONE RANG six times in room 308 of the Greenwich Hotel before it was finally picked up.

  “Hello,” said a thick voice, emerging from deep sleep.

  “This is reception, Mr. Keyne. I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but I have a call for you. A Mr. Thomas Krieg is asking to speak with you.”