Somewhere East of Life

by Brian W Aldiss

  He had considered himself haunted by bad luck. He had tried to commit suicide. In some strange way, he felt an identification with Larry Foot, the killer of Bishops Linctus. He could only wonder if he had committed any crimes during the years for which memory was missing. He was sure Stephanie would know.

  “You’re dependent on her and what she says.”

  “How should I know?”

  Through questioning, they established that it was an entire ten years which had been stolen. Rosebottom ventured the thought that the theft had taken place abroad, since EMV was strictly regulated in Britain.

  “From what you say, I gather you are sorry that your marriage has been wiped from memory.”

  He became impatient. It was not the marriage alone. He did not know what kind of man he had been, how his professional reputation stood, or how much money he earned. Her mummified presence and occasional comments served merely to make him more aware of his predicament, while resolving nothing. It was bad enough facing life; facing Rebecca Rosebottom was worse.

  Before going to the second floor for his third session, he found the little black cat again. He cradled it in his arms and took it into the clinic with him.

  Once more, Larry Foot forced his way into the confessions. Rosebottom remarked on it.

  “I’ve suffered two traumatic shocks, Rebecca. Unconnected, but one after the other. I probably need proper counseling on both. Though counseling is not going to get my memory back.” He looked hopelessly out of the window as silence fell between them. A convoy of three military vehicles was entering the car park, billowing out a blue haze of pollution as they lined themselves up.

  Turning his attention back to the fine immobile Egyptian head, he said that he was troubled by a contradiction he could not resolve. Of course he understood the terrible nature of Larry’s crime, for which he had paid with his life; but there was also the factor of Larry’s innocence. Larry had said he liked to help people. He seemed not to have understood that even his mother was real. Burnell elaborated on this for some while without making himself clearer, only half aware that what had puzzled him was the nature of cruelty and of pain, the tidbit that followed cruelty.

  When Rosebottom indicated that Larry was just an incidental misfortune, with nothing to do with Burnell’s personal predicament, Burnell disagreed. Privately, he thought that whoever had stolen part of his memory was also no better than a murderer; the cruelty factor had operated.

  All he brought himself to say was, “I was threatened with death, Rebecca. I was shit-scared.”

  “I sympathize, believe me. You can keep on telling me if it makes you happier. I’m no ordinary shrink. EMV cases always have attitudes.”

  As often happened, silence fell between them. He felt he had never known such a conversation stopper as this lady who was supposed to promote the flow of talk.

  And, as so often happened, he then began talking in an unpremeditated way, telling her that, as he had said, he had suffered two traumatic shocks. He woke in the middle of the night after a nightmare, wondering if he had become schizophrenic.

  Rosebottom invited him to tell her what he meant by schizophrenic.

  He said, “That’s what my brother’s got. I have a brother called Adrian. At present he’s under medication in Leeds.”

  After a protracted silence, in which Rosebottom maintained an attitude almost beyond stillness, Burnell said he did not want to talk about it.

  Her smile stretched her lips sideways to a great extent.

  “Time’s up, I’m afraid. Perhaps you will feel more like saying something tomorrow.”

  “Just tell me whether I am schizophrenic or not.”

  She shook her head, slightly. “You have a long way to go yet.”

  As he rose to leave, Rebecca Rosebottom said, “There’s just one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I am allergic. Also my star sign is against black animals of any kind. So just don’t bring that frigging creature in here next session. OK? You don’t need any kind of baby surrogate. OK?”

  Burnell turned and stared at her. “Do you think there’s going to be a next session?”

  Hurrying from the clinic, letting the little cat free in the corridor, he made his way back to the ward, taking a route that led him past Dr. Kepepwe’s office.

  He looked through her glass door. Rosemary Kepepwe was sprawled at the desk with her face buried in her arms. For an instant, he thought she was crying. Barker sat by her on the desk, regarding his mistress thoughtfully, wondering what action to take, Burnell went in.

  “Oh, these people!” the doctor exclaimed, without being more specific. She ranted about them for some while before stating exactly what it was that had upset her. The military administration who would be taking over the hospital had just visited and left their orders. The first instalment of wounded from the Crimea was expected to arrive at first light on the following day. But before that—in just an hour or two—a squad of men from the RASC were going to arrive to repaint the interior of the hospital.

  “Does it need repainting?”

  “I always liked it blue and white. So fresh, you know.” Dr. Kepepwe mopped her eyes. “I like this hospital. I like working here. Barker likes it here, don’t you, Barker, my love? Blue and white create a cheerful healing atmosphere. These horrible army men are going to paint it all green today.”

  “Green! Why on earth?”

  “Dark green. Khaki green.” She looked piteously at Burnell. “They say it’s for camouflage purposes.”

  Barker looked extremely serious.

  The corridors were already beginning to smell of paint when one of the small Asians showed Stephanie into Ward One.

  He heard her footsteps before he saw her. She entered with the air of someone determined to perform a duty not to her taste, with a firm jut to her jaw. Stephanie was tall, fair-haired, walking with ease inside a fawn linen suit, with a handbag slung over one shoulder. She held out a hand to Burnell, stepping back when he had shaken it. The hand was slender and cool. He liked the feel of it. Stephanie was fine-boned, delicate of countenance and strikingly attractive, he saw, only a slightly heavy jaw detracting from full beauty.

  He invited her to take the one chair in the room. Sitting on the end of the bed, he scrutinized her, trying to see behind the cautious smile.

  Keeping the pain from his voice, he explained that sections of his memory had been stolen by persons unknown. He had no idea where this had happened. It felt as if his head had been bitten off.

  “So I was told when Laura called me,” Stephanie said. “By chance I was in Britain, so I came along. That’s what Laura said to do…” She chatted for a while, possibly to cover nervousness. Suddenly she said, “Do you remember that my home is in California?”

  Burnell frowned. “We live in California? What for? Whereabouts? My work’s in Europe.”

  She rose from her chair to walk about the room. She complained of the smell of paint. He stood up politely, half-afraid she was about to leave.

  “This is terribly embarrassing for me, Roy. If Laura called you, she should have explained.” She looked at him, then down at the floor, then toward the door.

  “Well? Explained what?”

  “Our divorce came through over four years ago.” With a burst of impatience, “You mean you’ve even forgotten that?”

  Burnell sat down on the bed. “What are you telling me? You want to sit down or you want to walk about like a caged tiger?”

  She began to walk about like a caged tiger. “We got married. We got unmarried. Surely to God you must remember that! I live in Santa Barbara now, with Humbert Stuckmann. It just so happened I was over here in the Orkneys and I called Laura. Laura’s remained a friend. She told me you were here.”

  “So you came to see me.”

  “That’s obvious, isn’t it? I called the hospital and spoke to someone or other. They suggested I might trigger off a missing memory.”

  “If it’s missing, how can it
be triggered off?” He spoke abstractedly. The ocean was stormy indeed; indeed there was not a continent in sight. The Atlantis of his marriage was gone. Somehow he had loved this lady, won her, and lost her. By what fatal flaws of character?

  Stephanie had settled again in the chair and was talking in a formal way of crofters and dyes and looms far away. He was not hearing her. All he could find to say was “Humbert Stuckmann? What kind of name is that?”

  “Don’t be superior. I hated it when you were superior. You used to treat me as if I was a child.” She said he must have heard of Stuckmann Fabrics. Stuckmann fabrics and ceramics were famous world-wide. People worked for him in Scotland and even in Central Asia. Humbert, she did not mind saying it, was a genius. OK, so he was a bit older than her but he was a magical personality. Real genius. Loved color. Always surrounded by admirers. Full to overflowing with occult knowledge which he beamed into his creations.

  When her outpourings had ceased, he spoke again.

  “This guy’s rich, Steff? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Stephanie brushed the envious question aside. She spoke of how a certain phase of the moon had led Humbert to design the pattern which crofters were now weaving for him in the Orkney islands.

  He interrupted to pose the question which could no longer be postponed: as to whether he and Stephanie had children.

  “Of course not.” Her tone was cold. “I have a son by Humbert. And you may recall I have fought all my life to be called by my proper name of Stephanie. Not ‘Steff.’ No one calls my man ‘Humb.’ He’d kill them if they did. And by the way I have reverted to my maiden name of Hillington. I’m Stephanie Hillington.”

  And I don’t know you, Burnell thought. Nor do you wish to know me any more. He remarked on something else that must have changed: she had picked up an American accent. She gave him no answer.

  Looking defiantly at him, she made him drop his gaze. With a mixture of compassion and spite, she said, “Poor old Roy! So much for the past. Maybe you’ll find you’re better without it, as I am. I never think of it. Life’s rewarding and I live right smack in the present day.”

  She stood up as if to leave. In his confusion, he could think of no way to try to bridge the gulf between them.

  “This must be difficult for you, Stephanie. You must find this strange. Me, I mean. A crime has been committed against me. Apparently it happens. It’s a new sort of crime—people can always think up new ways to offend against decency… Tell me, when did we first meet?”

  “What a vile smell of paint. In the States, paint has no smell. What are they doing?”

  “When did we first meet?”

  She spoke gently enough and gave him a kindly glance which transformed her face. “We met in your father’s offices, one day in April, nine years ago. I was being interviewed for a job I didn’t get. You took me out to lunch.” She smiled. “You ordered champagne.”

  “And we were in love? We must have been. Please…”

  The smile went. She was on her guard again. “Look, Roy, you’ve had other women since we split up. Laura tells me. You were a great chaser of women. But yes, if it satisfies your male pride, yes, we were in love. Quite a bit. It was fun while it lasted.” Her laugh was uncertain. “I’ve got a car waiting outside.”

  Keeping very still, he asked her how it had ended and what spoilt it. Even, more daringly, if the break had been his fault. She evaded the question, giving every impression of a woman about to take to her heels, saying it was foolish of her to have come. Perhaps she had been driven by… But she withheld the word “curiosity.” She should have mailed Burnell a photocopy of the divorce certificate. Her flight back to Los Angeles had been delayed. As he had probably heard, someone had put a bomb aboard one of the 777s flying on the LA-New York—London route and blown it clean out of the skies. No one had yet claimed responsibility, though a terrorist group in the Middle East was suspected. She regarded Europe as an unsafe place nowadays. It was terrible what was happening in the world.

  She ran out of things to say, to stand there looking downcast, half turned away from him. A silence ensued in which Burnell felt he could have crossed the Gobi Desert.

  He managed to make himself say, “But I’ve not remarried—I mean, as far as you know?”

  Stephanie attempted to laugh at the idiocy of the question, then sighed. “You’re always traveling the globe on your World Heritage errands… You never wanted to go any place glamorous. You liked the tacky dumps where no one had heard of American Express. Well, you were always the self-contained type, didn’t like shopping. Life’s just fine for me in Santa Barbara. Lots of friends, lots of fun…”

  “Do you realize how self-centered you sound? Is that what spoiled things between us?”

  “You’re being superior again. I must go. I have to protect myself, don’t you understand that? The divorce…” A shake of the head hardly disturbed her elegantly styled hair. “Of course I’m sorry about—you know, what’s happened to you, or I’d not be here, would I? I don’t mean to sound unkind but I don’t wish to know about you any more. What’s past is past.”

  “Oh, no, never!”

  “Yes, and for you especially. Start again, Roy.” Now she was half laughing. “You keep sending me postcards from some of these dumps you go to, you know that?”

  “Postcards? What postcards?”

  “Sure. Draughty old churches some place or other. Town squares. I don’t need them. The kind of dumps you used to drag me into.”

  “You can’t beat a draughty old church.” He forced a smile, which was not returned.

  “It happens I’ve a couple of your cards along in my purse.” She placed her handbag on the window sill and began to rummage through it. As she did so, he thought, “She must care something for me if she takes these cards up to the Orkneys with her He said nothing, conscious of his own heartbeat.

  She produced a card, glancing at it before handing it over between two outstretched fingers, as if she suspected amnesia was catching.

  She caught his eye as he took it. “Too bad. Just the one card. Arrived the morning I left home. The others got torn up, I guess.”

  Steff didn’t have to say that, he told himself. Either she was protecting herself or being deliberately cruel—to hold me off? What if I grabbed her and kissed the bitch? No—I’m afraid to do so…”

  The postcard carried a color picture of a church labelled as St. Stephen’s Basilica. Something informed him that architecturally it was not a basilica.

  He turned it over as she watched him intently. “You don’t recall mailing that?”

  He recognized his own handwriting. The card was addressed to Stephanie Hillington in Santa Barbara. He had known. The memory had been stolen.

  The postcard bore a Hungarian stamp. His message had been written only sixteen days before. It was brief. “Budapest. Brief visit here before returning to Frankfurt. Making notes for a lecture. As usual. Need some florid Hungarian architecture. Trust you’re well. Have met ghastly old friend here. Just going round to Antonescu’s clinic to do him a favor. Weather fine. Love, Roy.”

  He jumped up and kissed Stephanie.

  He ran Monty Butterworth to ground in a bar in Pest. Monty was drinking with a few cronies and did not see Burnell. Which was hardly surprising: every line of sight ran up against gilded statuary or supernumerary columns. This nest of rooms, given over to most of the pleasures of the flesh, had been somewhere wicked under an earlier regime, and in consequence was well—indeed floridly—furnished. The posturing plaster Venuses consorted oddly with the group of tousled heads nodding over their glasses of Beck. Burnell stood in an inner room and told a waiter to fetch Monty, saying a friend wished to see him.

  Monty was still wearing Burnell’s sweater. When he saw who was waiting him, he raised his hands in mock-surrender. Burnell put a clenched fist under his nose.

  “Pax, old man. No offence meant. Honest Injun.” He put a hand up and lowered Burnell’s fist. Barely ruffled, he explai
ned that since he had lost his job in England he had had to find work in Europe—like thousands of other chaps down on their luck. Eventually, he had found a job acting as decoy for Antonescu and his illegal EMV enterprise. His role as an Anglophone was to lure in innocent foreigners who arrived in Budapest to take advantage of low Hungarian prices. It was economic necessity that drove him to it. His eyebrows signaled sincerity.

  He knew, he said, it was a bit of a shady enterprise. “Rather like wreckers luring ships on the rocks in the old days.”

  “So you’ve fallen so low you’d even prey on your friends.”

  “Be fair, Roy, old man.” He breathed alcohol over Burnell. “I have to pick and choose my clients. You’ve no idea, no idea, how uninteresting some people’s memories are, all through life. Mine wouldn’t be worth a sausage. But yours—well, perhaps you don’t remember, but I met you and your wife at university. She was a real stunner, so I knew your memories would be worth having.”

  “You little bastard! You had your paws in the till at university. Now you’ve had them in my mind. Stealing memory is a form of murder.”

  Wincing slightly, Monty agreed. “Wreckers again, you see. Poor old mariners… Look, come and have a drink with my friends. No doubt there will be tighter legislation in Hungary when e-mnemonicvision becomes less than a seven days’ wonder. Until that time, Antonescu earns a modest dollar from his bootleg memory bullets and tosses me the occasional crust. Now then, let me stand you an aperitif. It’s almost lunchtime.”

  “It’s three in the afternoon, you boozy git!”

  Monty put a persuasive hand on Burnell’s arm. Burnell wrenched his arm away. “You’ve poisoned my life, you bastard. You’d probably poison my drink. Now I’ve got you, I’m going to turn you in—you and your precious Antonescu.” There was canned music in the room. Ravel’s “Bolero” was playing, dripping away like a tap.