The Memory Police

by Yoko Ogawa

  “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.”

  Gradually we became accustomed to living without our legs. Needless to say, things did not go back to the way they had been before, not exactly, but our bodies acquired a new sense of balance, and a new kind of daily rhythm took hold. Eventually we stopped noticing people who were unable to stand without holding on to something, or who were too tense to walk naturally, or who fell at random moments. We learned to control our bodies without too much inconvenience.

  Even Don began running around again at full speed. He would jump up on the roof of his house to bask in the sun or leap at the branches of trees in the yard to bri
ng the snow tumbling down. From time to time he proved too successful at this game and would come running to me for help after an enormous lump of snow had fallen on his head. But once I had wiped his face and rubbed his chin, he went right back to the tree, aiming this time for even heavier branches.

  No matter how much time went by, there was no sign that our left legs were going to rot and drop off. They remained firmly in place, fixed to our hips. But no one seemed to care.

  The number of people who were taken away by the Memory Police suddenly increased. Those who had used all sorts of tricks in the past to blend in could no longer fool the police after the disappearance of their left legs. It was surprising to see how many people had managed to hide in plain sight without being captured or resorting to safe houses, but now they found it impossible to imitate our new sense of balance. No matter how much they tried, something was slightly different about the distribution of the weight or the alignment of the muscles or the movement of the joints. And the Memory Police could spot it immediately.

  This crackdown, and the loss of the old man, meant that our communication with R’s wife had now been suspended for some time. There was always the fear that the phones were tapped, and sending me for a face-to-face meeting seemed still riskier. Letters and packages from his wife were R’s only ties to his former life, but receiving them was dangerous, and the best way to keep him safe was to keep him completely isolated. Still, at some point we decided we could use the telephone to communicate if we managed to settle on a code. We decided that we would let the phone ring three times at a predetermined hour before hanging up—the signal that R was healthy and doing well. Three rings from the other end meant the message had been received and understood.

  But in order to set up this system, I needed to go back to the elementary school for the first time in a long while. When I did, I discovered that the meteorological box was no longer mounted on its post. I found it in pieces on the ground, perhaps destroyed in the earthquake or crushed under the weight of the snow. I could see the thermometer, shattered and half covered by a pile of boards. I hesitated, wondering what to do, but in the end I decided to push the letter in among the remains of the box. This tiny meteorological station had long ago been forgotten, and now that it was in ruins, it was even less likely to attract attention—making it all the more ideal for our purposes. My one concern was whether R’s wife was still coming to look for letters here.

  Still, at the appointed hour, I dialed the number and let it ring three times before hanging up. Then I waited in front of the phone. After a moment, it began to ring. Three rings that seemed to dissolve into the shadows and then silence. I had the feeling that the receiver had been trembling.

  * * *

  . . .

  I continued with the task of writing strings of words that made almost no sense. The feeling of purpose I’d had during my time as a novelist was gone, but compared to the emptiness I’d felt after the burning of the library, things were going more smoothly. At any rate, I’d gotten to the point where the shapes of certain words seemed to be returning. I could vaguely recall the fingers of the typist locked away in the clock tower, the pattern of the parquet floor, the mountain of typewriters, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Still, it was extremely difficult to fill the boxes on the blank manuscript paper with characters, and the number of words I produced for an entire night’s effort was painfully small. At times I grew so weary and frustrated that I wanted to throw the stack of paper out the window, but then I would choose one of the objects I had borrowed from the hidden room, set it on my open palms, and breathe deeply to calm myself.

  Little by little, the boat slipped lower. When I took Don out for a walk, I stopped at the ruins of the library to sit and gaze out at the sea. It was lonely but peaceful there, with the sound of cars on the coastal road barely audible in the distance. The rumor had continued to spread that they were planning to build a headquarters for the Memory Police on the site, but the piles of burned bricks had not been removed and there was no sign that construction would be starting anytime soon.

  “Do you remember how the old man looked sitting right here?” I asked Don. “I never imagined that would be the last time I’d see him.” Don galloped about, clearly unconcerned with what I was telling him. “I should have noticed something was wrong that day. But he looked fine, his usual self. Though I suppose he did seem a bit sad, and he was never willing to ask for help. I wish I could put my arms around him and tell him there’s nothing to fear, that everything will be all right—the way he always did for me. But he’s gone, Don.”

  I took a cracker from my pocket, broke it in pieces, and tossed them to Don. He jumped and twisted, deftly catching them in midair, and as I clapped my approval he raised his nose and capered about, begging for more.

  “If I’d realized sooner what was happening, we might have saved him.”

  I tried to put into words the regret that lingered in my head, though I knew that saying this aloud might only make things worse. Don noisily chewed his cracker.

  Now, when the waves were high, they hid the last bit of the boat still visible. And it seemed clear that it would soon vanish entirely beneath the surface. My heart ached when I thought about that day. Would I remember how we had eaten cake in the wheelhouse? Or made our plans to build the hidden room? Or stood on deck, leaning against the rail, watching the sunset? It was more than my empty heart could stand.

  * * *

  . . .

  By the time their right arms disappeared, people were less troubled than they had been with the disappearance of their left legs. They didn’t linger in bed, wondering what had happened, or spend long hours trying to figure out how to get dressed, or worry about how to dispose of the disappeared item. To be honest, we had been certain something like this would happen sooner or later.

  The disappearances of body parts were, in fact, easier and more peaceful than earlier ones, as no one had to gather in the square to burn the objects or send them floating down the river. There was no uproar, no confusion. We merely went about our usual morning routines, accepting that a new cavity had opened in our lives.

  Of course, this disappearance brought subtle changes to my daily routine. I could no longer apply polish to my nails. I had to come up with a new way to type using only my left hand. It took inordinate amounts of time to peel vegetables. I had to move the rings I had worn on my right hand to my left…But none of this posed any real problem. I had only to surrender to each new disappearance to find myself carried along quite naturally to the place I needed to be.

  I was no longer able to carry a tray of food and climb down the ladder to the hidden room. I would hand the tray carefully down to R and then descend the rungs, one by one, leaning on him for support. Nor was climbing back up any easier, as I struggled with the ladder and the trapdoor before pulling myself through the narrow entrance. As I did, R would watch me from below with a worried look.

  “The time will come when I won’t be able to get in and out of this room,” I told him.

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll just pick you up and carry you, like a princess,” he said, holding out his arms toward me. They still seemed surprisingly strong, though they’d had no more taxing exercise than organizing receipts, shelling peas, or polishing silver. They were supple and alive, unlike my right arm, which seemed to have hardened like plaster.

  “That would be wonderful,” I said. “But how can you hold something that has disappeared?”

  His hands dropped to his knees and he looked up at me and blinked as though he hadn’t grasped the meaning of my question.

  “I can hold you, I can touch any part of you I want.”

  “You can touch me, but what does it mean if I don’t feel anything?”

  “What do you mean? Look, what about here? And here?…” As he spoke, he took hold of the limp rods that hung from my shoul
der and hip. The hem of my skirt swayed. My hair fell across my face.

  “Yes, I know you take good care of my body. And I know you can summon up memories of the music box and the ferry ticket, the harmonica or the ramune. But that doesn’t mean the things themselves come back. It’s no more than a momentary flash, like the tip of a sparkler when you light it in the dark. When the light’s gone, it’s instantly forgotten, and you can scarcely believe what you saw just a moment ago. They’re all illusions—my leg and arm and all the rest of the things lined up on the shelves.”

  I looked around at the objects in the room and then tucked my hair behind my ears. R let go of my arm and leg, and I scuffed my foot in and out of my slipper. The traces of his fingers on my ankle and calf vanished almost immediately as they reverted to their plaster state.

  “My body will go on disappearing bit by bit,” I said, shifting my gaze from my toes to my knees, from my hips to my chest.

  “No, you mustn’t say that.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say, the disappearances will continue. There’s no escape. I wonder what will be next. Ears? Throat? Eyebrows? My other arm or leg? Or maybe my spine? And then what will be left? Or will nothing be left at all? I suppose that’s it, every last bit of me will disappear.”

  “No, that’s impossible. Aren’t we here together, right now, in spite of everything?” He put his hand on my shoulder and drew me to him.

  “But the arm and leg you see aren’t really mine. No matter how much you care for them, they’re just shells, empty skin. The real me is disappearing as we speak. Slowly but surely being sucked into thin air.”

  “But I won’t let you go.”

  “And I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you, but that won’t be possible. Your heart and mine are being pulled apart to such different, distant places. Yours is overflowing with warmth and life and sounds and smells, but mine is growing cold and hard at a terrifying pace. At some point it will break into a thousand pieces, shards of ice that will dissolve.”