“All of them sell superbly, particularly the most serious. Murder is highly valued. If the memory comes from the murderer himself, the sky’s the limit. Can you offer something like that?”
“I haven’t killed anyone.”
The owner stood up and so did I.
“Then I’m afraid we can’t be of any help at the moment.” His tone spoke volumes of the fact that he was sorry he’d wasted his time with me. “If anything happens to enrich your memory, however, we will be glad to reconsider you.”
He finally shot the water pistol. This time more than just a few drops reached me. If that hadn’t happened, I would have simply left, equally unhappy with the time I’d lost. And for the humiliation I’d suffered. As it was, I had no choice.
I took out a real pistol and pulled the trigger without a second thought. The owner collapsed in silence onto the botanical garden.
I had to act quickly. Before the secretary collected her wits and the police came after me in hot pursuit, there was just enough time to go to another memory agency and leave a bit of first-class illusion there. If the sky was the limit, I’d get more than enough to spend a tranquil old age after I got out of prison. Filled with books, music and all kinds of art.
7. Les Miserables
“I can’t take it anymore,” said the new patient in a barely audible voice.
He was lying on the leather couch, while I sat in an armchair behind the headrest, where the back of his balding head lay on a disposable cover. His short stature seemed even shorter from that perspective. One look at the middle-aged man’s face was enough to know that he should have visited me long ago. In all my years of practice I’d never seen such pronounced anxiety.
“Is something troubling you?” I asked carefully.
“I want to forget.”
“Are you burdened by memories?”
“Intolerably so.”
“Would you like to talk about them?”
“You won’t like them.”
“It makes no difference whether I like them or not if you feel better after talking about them.”
“It’s not evident that I’ll feel better.”
“You certainly won’t feel worse, so you have nothing to lose. Talking usually helps. Tell me about some of the memories that plague you.”
He didn’t start right away. He pinched the root of his nose with his thumb and index finger. I knew the pain that he felt there from my own experience. Dull and throbbing. When he spoke, I had to strain my ears to hear him.
“A six-year-old boy loses his parents in a train accident in which he is seriously injured. Since he has no close relatives, when he gets out of the hospital they put him in an orphanage. That’s where his misery begins. Everyone mistreats him, from the older wards to the counselors. He puts up with the humiliation, beatings, sexual abuse. Day in, day out. Year in, year out.”
He fell silent. Stillness surrounded us for a while. It’s not advisable to interrupt a confession with superfluous questions or comments. Patients open up the most when they have the impression that they are talking to themselves. That’s why I don’t sit within their field of vision. When I don’t speak, it’s as though I’m not there.
“The young man joins the army. He goes through grueling training that completely breaks his character. He is sent into battle before he is sufficiently prepared. He watches his peers get wounded and killed. Shrapnel grazes his head. Thinking he’s dead, his comrades-in-arms leave him in the tumult of battle, and when he regains consciousness, he is captured by the enemy. They subject him to various tortures. The worst for him are the electric shocks, having the dogs set upon him and being taken to simulated executions. The starvation and forced labor turn him into a bag of bones. He is not released until months after the war is over.”
It was not unusual to hide behind a third person. Some patients ease the trauma by talking about it as though it concerns someone else. Such cases are always complex. Considerable time and effort must be invested to get them to accept that they themselves are the main characters of their stories. It was already clear that a difficult task lay before me.
“The first years of his marriage are idyllic. He’s married a girl he loves and she returns his love. They have a little girl, but she contracts leukemia when she’s three and a half years old. They do everything within their power to help her. They sell the house so she can go to the most expensive hospital. But there is no hope for the little girl. She melts away and finally dies. Unable to bear the pain of losing her child, the mother commits suicide by jumping out a high window. The father follows in her footsteps and takes a full bottle of sleeping pills, but they save him at the last moment.”
My work has put me in contact with a variety of human fates, but never had I seen life be so cruel to a patient. No wonder his memories plagued him. Who could keep a sound mind with such a past? But this was not all. He continued after another short interruption.
“Driving a car with his nerves shattered, he runs into a group of boys. One dies. He doesn’t even try to defend himself at the trial. He pleads guilty and asks for the harshest sentence. They give him several years in prison. Thoroughly depressed, behind bars he’s an easy target for sadistic criminals and perverted guards. He spends more than half of his sentence as a patient in a penal mental institution.”
Since we had clearly reached the end of the story, the time had come for me to get involved.
“What dreadful experiences you’ve gone through. It’s entirely understandable that you don’t want to remember the past.”
He didn’t reply right away. He pinched the root of his nose again.
“You don’t understand. I haven’t gone through any of that. Those are not my memories.”
“Oh, I see. Then whose are they?”
“Other people’s.”
“Other people’s?” I repeated in an even voice. A psychiatrist must not be surprised by his patients’ statements, regardless of how unusual they are. “I thought they all referred to the same man.”
“No man could endure that much.”
“Indeed. But how do you know about those memories? Did these other people recount them to you?”
“I never talked to them.”
“How, then?”
“I see other people’s memories.”
This time I couldn’t suppress a certain note of amazement. “You see them?”
“Yes. Not only do I see them, but I can hold onto them as well.”
“Why would you hold onto someone else’s memories? Particularly if they’re bad?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To take the load off of miserable people in danger of collapsing under the burden of their memories. When I take them over, they forget them. Completely. Should I let them suffer when I can help?”
“But by taking them over, you burden yourself.”
“I’m tougher than they are. Or at least I was until recently. Now it’s become too difficult even for me. You can’t imagine how many traumatic memories there are in the world.”
“As a psychiatrist I have some insight into the matter.”
“Perhaps. But the real magnitude would only become clear to you if you saw them like I do. Even though you don’t believe that I see them.”
“How do you know whether I believe you or not?”
“Because I can see it. Just as I can see what you’d most like to forget from your past.”
The conversation had taken an undesired turn. I could feel myself losing control of it. As though we’d started to exchange roles.
“There’s nothing in my past I’d like to forget,” I said as firmly as I could.
“Nothing, except, let’s say, still painful memories of your father’s drunken bouts. It’s like you can still feel every one of the blows he gave you and your mother in such a state.”
“How do you know . . . ?” I blurted out, even though I knew the answer I’d get while I was still asking the question.
“I can see. Your past is be
fore me like an open book. And there are some recent pages that you’d rather not remember too. The one, for example, about the patient who committed suicide because you didn’t take her seriously enough.”
I stared at the bald head on the headrest.
“Nothing gave any indication of such an outcome,” I said softly. “Officially I have been absolved of all responsibility . . . ”
“Officially, yes. But has your conscience absolved you of the guilt?” I shook my head slowly, although he couldn’t see it. At least not with his eyes.
“You wouldn’t like the incident to be repeated, right? And have another one of your patients end up the same way because you didn’t believe him?”
“I believe you,” I hastened to reply.
“Good. Otherwise you won’t be able to help me.”
“How can I help you?”
“By making it possible for me to forget all those memories belonging to other people that have accumulated inside of me. In return, I will release you from the several memories that trouble you.”
“But how can I remove what you’ve remembered? I don’t have your gift to see and hold onto memories.”
“Not yet. But you can acquire it. I’ll pass it on to you. Just like the one who had it before passed it on to me. It will stay with you as long as you can bear the burden of dark memories. When you are no longer able, you’ll pass it on to someone else.”
I gave it some thought.
“Why me of all people?”
“Because as a psychiatrist, you are the perfect choice. You don’t have to go in search of people who are tormented by memories. They come to you by themselves.”
“I don’t know whether I could endure other people’s memories. I’ve barely been able to cope with the few that are my own.”
“You’ll bear up, don’t worry. At least for a while. In any case, you will gain an enviable reputation. No other psychiatrist will be able to measure up to the number of patients you will have permanently assisted. In that regard, you have a great advantage over me. Not a single one of the miserable souls I released from their unwanted past has ever thanked me. Indeed, how could they when they weren’t even aware that I had anything to do with it? You, however, will be showered with praise, and that will make it easier for you to cope with the accumulation of dark pasts. So, do you agree?”
I agreed with a nod of my head. And a smile. His eyes didn’t see one or the other, but when he lowered his legs from the couch and turned towards me, he was smiling too. We shook hands. This was something that was to be repeated with increasing frequency in my office: a patient restored to health and a satisfied psychiatrist. The price to pay had not been small, but is any price too high for such an outcome?
8. The Magic Mountain
The man on the phone didn’t have to say his name, even though he did. His voice—deep and velvety, like distant thunder—was more of a giveaway. I recognized it immediately, of course, although I hadn’t heard it in a long time.
It took me a moment to recollect myself.
“You?” I said at last. “I can’t believe it!”
“It’s me all right.”
“This is quite a surprise. What’ve you been up to? Are you alive and well?”
The thunder seemed to draw closer when he laughed. “I’m not calling you from beyond the grave.”
My laughter in return sounded more like a popping firecracker. “How long has it been since the last time we talked?”
“More than seven months,” he replied without a second thought.
“That long? Where were you all that time? On a trip?”
“No. In The Magic Mountain.”
“In The Magic Mountain?”
“Sanitarium. Haven’t you heard of it?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“It’s a mountain health resort for people with memory trouble.”
“I can’t ever remember you having that kind of trouble.”
“I didn’t. I went up there to visit my cousin, not as a patient.”
“That was an awful long visit.”
“I would’ve come back within a few days if one of the doctors hadn’t proposed they examine the state of my memory, since I was already in the sanitarium. They said if I shared my cousin’s tendency toward senility, timely measures could prevent a great deal of it.”
“And?”
“It was supposed to be a routine checkup, but when they hooked me up to the machines, something went wrong.”
“What?”
“That’s what they tried to figure out in the following seven months.”
“How dreadful. You’re better off staying away from doctors. All they do is ruin your health. You should sue, you might get a bundle in damages.”
“I’m not going to sue.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t their fault. The disorder could have appeared spontaneously. And then they did everything they could to help me.”
“Is you memory back to normal again?”
“No.”
“They discharged you with a damaged memory?”
“Damaged isn’t the right word. I can still remember everything perfectly, just like before.”
“Well, then, what’s wrong?”
He sighed deeply before answering.
“What’s wrong is that now I don’t have a loss of memory, like in senility, but a surplus of memory.”
“Surplus? How’s it possible to have a surplus of memory?”
“It’s possible. I remember things that didn’t happen.”
For a few moments I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t get it. How can you remember what didn’t happen?”
“It’s not easy to explain. It took me a long time to get used to it myself. In order to understand it properly, you have to forget the usual way you think about the past.”
“In what respect?”
“In thinking that there is only one past behind us.”
“If there’s more than one past, how many are there?”
“Lots. Maybe countless.”
I fell briefly silent again.
“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
“I wish it was a joke. But it isn’t.”
“That’s impossible. There aren’t even two pasts. There’s only one.”
“That’s what it looks like to you because you only remember one. If you had my memory, you’d remember a multitude of pasts. Behind you there wouldn’t be just one thread going back in time, but an infinite bunch of pasts that meet in one point, the present.”
“What are those other threads? Other pasts? They couldn’t be real. I mean…”
I knew what I meant, but for some reason I couldn’t express it.
“They all seem real. And that’s the crux of my problem.”
“You don’t know which past is real?”
“I don’t. All the threads appear equally convincing to me. Countless pasts that differ from each other in some detail.”
“That must be really . . . confusing.”
“Yes. It was particularly so at first. Unbearable. I would have lost my mind if I hadn’t been in The Magic Mountain. The doctors had a hard time too. There’s no previous record of this kind of memory disorder. It was a completely new experience for them as well. That’s why it took so long. It took seven months for me to get used to my new memory.”
“But how do you cope with it if you still can’t tell which past is real?”
“I manage. I run checks to see what happened and what didn’t. That’s why I called you. Do you remember what you asked me at the beginning of the conversation? If I’m alive and well? That’s just what I wanted to make sure about you. Are you alive?”
“Am I alive? Why wouldn’t I be? I’m in the pink of health. Everything’s just fine with me.”
“Healthy people can die too. In a traffic accident, for example. What happened three days ago a little after five o’clock when you jaywalked across Elm Stree
t?”
This insignificant incident didn’t come to mind right away.
“Oh, yes. Nothing happened. The lady hit her brakes harder than she should have. I don’t know why she got so excited. I was fast enough. She wouldn’t have hit me.”
“She did hit you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, she did. I saw you lying on the pavement covered in blood. Dead.”
We sank into painful silence.
“You mean, in one of the other threads?” I asked at last in a low voice.
“Yes. In another past.”
I knew for some reason I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t resist.
“How did I look . . . dead?”
The question seemed to make him uncomfortable.
“It wasn’t a pretty sight. Death is never pretty.”
“I’m glad I’ll never see myself dead.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have that privilege. I saw you dead two other times.”
“How?” I asked after hesitating briefly.
“First in the bathroom. The day before yesterday. You slipped getting out of the bathtub and hit your head on the edge. Unlike the traffic accident, there wasn’t a drop of blood. But that didn’t make death any the prettier.”
Once again I had to strain to remember the incident in the bathroom.
“I did slip, that’s true, but I hit my shoulder on the edge, not my head.”
“I’m happy that was the real past for you.”
“I’m even happier. And the third death?”
“Last night. At dinner. You had dinner alone at home, didn’t you?”
I gave it some thought.
“Yes, I did. I was eating in front of the television.”
“That’s right. Some comedy was on, you were laughing out loud.”
“It was really funny.”
“You shouldn’t laugh and eat at the same time. Particularly when there’s no one nearby to help you. A bit of food got stuck in your throat.”
“That’s right, but a sip of wine helped it down.”
“Not in every past. Death by suffocation is one of the ugliest. The face becomes completely distorted, the eyes bulge out. Good thing you didn’t see yourself on the living room floor.”
Impossible Stories II Page 22
