The Memory Thief

by Sarina Dorie

  Taishi shrugged.

  As many times as we tried to sneak up on them in the weeks that followed, we couldn’t catch them. Even Faith was curious, but that was only because she didn’t know any better. She couldn’t even recall Mother kissing Father or the way he used to hug her—or us. Hugging and kissing were now gestures of affection that we only practiced with each other—and chiramantep when Faith could help it.

  “Why you care? It no . . .” Taishi paused, searching for the word. “Interesting. Animals mate. See.” He pointed to the nose birds. Faith and I watched for a whole half hour.

  “Who is rapsyon?” Taishi asked.

  “You mean a rapscallion? You are,” I said.

  “Hmmph! Faith and Felicity.”

  I leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. He scrambled back and rubbed his face. “You eat human meat like Osborn-san?”

  It took a full hour to figure out Taishi thought we were cannibals because Jomon didn’t know the custom of kissing. We used many words and pictures to explain we weren’t. In the days that followed, I tried to kiss Taishi several times, no easy feat considering I now wore my corset and couldn’t move the same.

  The memories of my childhood faded in and out of my grasp. But they were true—at least I hoped they were.

  Chapter Six

  When the first prospectors came to Planet 157, the excavations were largely confined to the poles, where the richest oil and minerals were located and little life could be sustained. It is hard to believe my team of surveyors, seven adults in total, missed the greatest discovery on the planet. It is a discovery that two young girls found and I ignored. I don’t know if this oversight makes me a worse prospector or a worse father.

  —Entry from the journal of Mr. William Earnshaw, the Santa Maria

  I sat in a stone tub of heated water. Sconces on the walls at the entrance and candles lit the onsen. Ghostly shadows of the attendants were cast on the walls of the steamy bathing chamber.

  The water was so hot it stung my skin. “Are you sure it isn’t going to boil me alive?” I asked.

  The old woman laughed. I could barely see her or the other attendants at the counter with all the steam. I eased my way completely in as fast as I could, which was about as fast as a tree snail.

  Nipa’s trick with the wife-swap nagged at my conscience. The part of me that had lived on this planet for five years understood the cultural values of cleverness and wanted to laugh. Another part of me was too worried about the deceit behind this trick. The Jomon could not be trusted. If I was not careful, I might end up betrayed like my fiancé, or worse yet, like my father.

  “Whew, she is a smelly gaijin,” one of the female attendants said under her breath, using the derogatory name for outsiders and aliens.

  “Shh! She can hear you.”

  I had forgotten how offensive the fragrances of our soaps were. I glanced over my shoulder at the woman cleaning my clothes in a wooden tub. Another ground herbs in a mortar with a pestle.

  They were old enough to remember the Chiramantepjin tribe. I ventured, “I once had friends among the Chiramantepjin. Were there any survivors? Are any here amongst you?”

  One of the old women snorted. Another said, “We are all Tanukijin now.”

  “There was a warrior who brought us here. Was he once of the Chiramantepjin tribe? He said he knew me.”

  “Horiuchi-san? He mentioned meeting you once before. Years ago, ne?”

  I watched their indifferent expressions. “Does he know any Chiramantepjin? Does he know my sister? Do you know her?”

  “So many questions from this one? She chatters like a tree snail.” They cackled at that.

  Two of the women stripped and joined me in the pool to scrub me down with cloths. Not wanting to insult these women, I tried my best not to cringe from their touch, but I was unused to such attentions. Gaiyojin didn’t see this much of me, nor did the maids in the Klark household ever bathe me. The Tanukijin women didn’t blatantly stare at the black tattoos on my forearms but they snuck glances. They were very similar to their own, though an oddity for a United Worlds citizen. I was relieved that these women were too polite to ask me how I came by them. I wouldn’t be able to answer if they asked.

  One woman smoothed a rag over my thigh and between my legs. I grabbed her hand.

  “You must be clean for your husband,” the maid said.

  I had no intention of performing any wifely duties, but there was no point in correcting her on that note. “I can clean myself,” I insisted. “You may leave.”

  The three women squabbled amongst themselves over the prudence of leaving me, but after a time slipped out. I soaked in the tub alone with the silence of the room and the rambling of my thoughts far longer than I thought they would permit me. I dried and dressed in the woven attush style robe they’d left. It was dyed with blue geometric patterns of interwoven lines and spirals—not so different from the tattoos on my arms. On the counter next to the robe was an oil smelling of green herbs and summer that I supposed was for me. I rubbed it over my arms and legs. With nothing else to do, I sat. Waiting in the swirls of warm vapor, I hoped to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. When Sumiko poked her head through the flaps of animal-hide noren style screen that covered the doorway, I knew I couldn’t delay longer.

  “If it pleases you, come with me. Your husband waits.”

  I followed her through twisting hallways and up a flight of stairs. My heart raced with anxiety as soon as I saw Nipa kneeling on the floor behind a low, wood table. Closer to the fire was a bed of animal skins. Along the wall were shelves. He wore the same style of woven attush that I wore. The V neck caused by the overlapping folds revealed a hint of muscular chest that was somehow more formidable than when his chest had been completely bared under animal skins. His purple tanuki headdress concealed his face as before. I kneeled behind the table across from him and allowed him to serve me tea. When he finished pouring, I poured his as custom dictated. The loose sleeve of my robe slipped back, exposing the tattoos I usually kept hidden.

  He touched a finger to my wrist where the black lines began. “You are well acquainted with our customs, ne?” He spoke English. “I can see why your people would wish you to return to serve as translator and guide.”

  As casually as I could, I shifted my arm out of his reach and lifted my cup of tea. “It was never their desire for me to return. I came of my own accord despite my guardian’s protests.”

  “Ah, but you came anyway. Is such willfulness typical of gaiyojin females? Your women are known for being . . . . What is the word? Submissive.” A smile tugged at his lips and I had a feeling he was making a joke at my expense.

  I crossed my arms. “You will be disappointed to find you’ve won a headstrong bride who will not be likely to do your bidding.”

  He shook his head, his steady smile filled with warmth. “You are so spicy with your words.”

  I sipped my tea tentatively, noting the familiar floral flavor. I bowed my head. “I beg you will pardon my ignorance, but what kind of tea are we drinking?”

  “You need not speak so formally now that we are alone.” He nodded to the teapot. “We call it night tea. It’s a mixture of sakura blossoms, sweet tree bark and satsumaimo. The old grandmothers prepared it, hoping it would calm you.”

  I couldn’t remember if “satsumaimo” meant big toe or sweet potato. I was hoping it was the latter. The sweet tree bark induced drowsiness. I set my cup down, wanting my wits to be about me.

  He switched to his own language. “You are uncommonly quiet. You may speak freely now that we are alone.”

  “What have you done with Meriwether Nipa? You claim to have rules against men ravaging women, but you never assured me women do not force men.”

  He sat back and laughed. “Come, that was a harmless joke. No violence will come to your headman. You know our customs and speak in our tongue well enough to be aware humor and playful tricks are part of our culture.”

  “And
you speak enough English to know you have been uncommonly rude in the eyes of my culture.”

  He sat forward, turning serious. “After the deaths your people brought to my province, the newest being today, the Tanukijin needed relief from their anger. Had I not shown your headman was meant to be laughed at, my people might have demanded further bloodshed from your party.”

  There was a Jomon logic to this that I could see, but I still wasn’t satisfied. “You have lost one man and we lost a dozen. Yet you say your people need more bloodshed? Do you not think the ordeal we have been through is enough? We have seen people we know die, we have been tied up, poked with spears, been afraid for our lives, coerced into marriage, and laughed at.” My voice rose and I checked my anger before I embarrassed myself. “How do I know you won’t resort to deceiving me if it entertains you? How do I know you haven’t already? You’ve already manipulated me into agreeing to your wife-swap with the offer of seeing my sister. Is there even such a thing as a tsuma no kokan or is that a trick as well?”

  He fidgeted with his blue robe. I’d made him uncomfortable, either by the directness of my confrontation or discomfort over the content of those accusations. When he spoke, he confirmed the latter. “It was dishonorable to entice you to agree by offering your sister as a barter. I had instead hoped that you would agree on your own and I would surprise you by telling you of your sister. I do not regret the joke on Meriwether Nipa. I told you of its usefulness.” He licked his lips. Plump lips that could have been young, but the creases around his mouth betrayed his age. He switched back to English. “I regret the dishonesty in how I convinced you. I have made you distrust me. Now you are afraid I have lied and I will go back on my word and injure your virtue. Is that correct?”

  I glanced at the bed of furs waiting and nodded. That, and the deal to see my sister, and the notion he could steal my memories like the last man had. Oh, and I might as well include my life in there as well.

  “I have told you that isn’t the way of my people. In your time on this world, did you ever witness this kind of violence or a coercion of virtue? Or do you confuse the ways of Jomonjin with gaijin?” He used the derogatory word for alien, not the polite one he’d used earlier.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I did not see—” It was hard not to glance at the bed. “The last time I was here in your province something happened to me when I was among the Chiramantepjin. My trust has been broken and I do not believe it can be repaired so easily.”

  “I don’t understand.” He waited for me to supply an answer. The crackle of the fire sounded too loud in the small room. I tried to make my mouth work, but no words were forthcoming. Lord Klark had drilled into me the shame it would bring me if I spoke of my past. Even now among the Tanukijin, whose ways differed from the British Empire of Worlds, I didn’t know if I could trust him not to judge me.

  “I have given you my word that all I will do is exchange memories with you.” He slid an ornate box out from under the table and placed it between us.

  I flinched back. “I don’t want to exchange memories. I’m not ready. I—I can’t do this.” I inhaled deeply, trying to find a way to explain that wouldn’t shame me. “Someone did something to me. I don’t remember exactly. I didn’t see it. Or I did, but now I can’t.”

  He tilted his head. His silence was harder to endure than if he had argued with me.

  “I do not wish to say more,” I said. “It is too personal and I’m reluctant to confide in someone I don’t know well.”

  I stiffened when he slid the lid to the box aside. It no longer surprised me for my requests to be ignored; I’d endured as much while living on the space station and traveling by starship. Meriwether was one of the few who listened to me.

  Instead of taking out memory moss, Nipa scooped up a metal object. He cradled the pocket watch and chain in his hand. “I can see I’ve alarmed you in something I’ve said. There are many things I don’t understand, including all you’ve been through, but perhaps I can make a small gesture to bring you comfort, no? I was told you were carrying this and were reluctant to part with it. If there is anything else you wish returned to you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  He carefully placed it in my palm. I immediately felt better having the watch in my possession again. He covered my hands with his, sandwiching the ticking clock between us. His touch was warm and comforting.

  He bowed his head. “I apologize for my presumptuousness. After all you’ve told me, I suspect a man in this chamber would be less welcome than I realized. I will send for my sister to sleep by your side tonight and in the nights that follow. She will be your guardian and guide. It is my hope that tomorrow you and I will be able to make a fresh start.”

  I bowed, feeling better already. Whether it was the strength of my father’s watch or the kindness of Nipa’s words, I felt reassured that tomorrow might be a better day.

  Chapter Seven

  Upon being introduced to the Chiramantepjin peoples, I had no doubt they were descended from the Jomon peoples of Earth. Though many of their customs are alien to us, I am beginning to see after two years of acquaintance how their religious rites could have evolved, their language altered from what is currently the Japanese of Hokkaido, and how the climate and geography could render their principles much more immodest than what the modern man is accustomed to when dealing with those from the Orient. I can only hope to spare my children from becoming too familiar with their indecent dress and ways so that they do not see such customs as the norm.

  —Entry from the journal of Mr. William Earnshaw, the Santa Maria

  With crystal clarity, I remembered my first memory swap. I couldn’t always see Taishi’s face, but I could hear his voice, cracking with adolescence and slowing to pronounce each word in English.

  The memory moss had been growing over a section of fallen logs in the jungle Taishi and I had passed on our way to the creek. We swam in the water, splashing and playing. He wore nothing, whereas I kept my chemise in place lest we be seen. Had my prim and proper little sister been present, she might have swooned at the sight of either of us. As it was, I kept my eyes averted—mostly.

  When we returned to the logs, we sat on the cushions of moss on the forest floor. The sultry air already felt more tolerable as the water evaporated from my skin. My chemise clung to my frame, providing less protection from eyes than I would have liked.

  Taishi rubbed his fingers through the frills of fronds. I sat across from him, not entirely sure I had understood what he’d meant by the memory swap until he smoothed bits of green over my pale arms and I felt my first impression. I wasn’t very good at quieting my mind, and it took several more trials before I understood what I was to do.

  “It will be easier to receive memories if you remove your dress,” he said.

  “Oh? Would it? That sounds like something a rake would say.”

  “It’s so I can rub the moss on your back.” His English was almost perfect by that point since we’d been teaching each other for over four years.

  I glanced around the forest, afraid my sister might find us, or any of the Jomon who would mention to my father what we were doing. Our view was partially obscured by the large fallen logs and thicket of tangled branches. I slumped lower, not wanting to be spotted.

  “I will keep your clothes next to you in case someone comes,” he said.

  I turned away as I undressed. When I glanced over my shoulder, Taishi stared upward at the nose birds, not even looking at me.

  “I’m naked,” I said.

  “Am I allowed to look?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” I giggled because it seemed like a silly question. He walked around naked every day, save his skirt—and sometimes he didn’t even wear that. Nudity meant nothing to the Jomon, who were too practical to make themselves modest in the constant muggy heat. It surprised me he bothered to hide his eyes and not look for my sake when he saw every person in his village nude at some time or another.

  “I’m sor
ry it’s so hard for you to try this. I think this must be like what kissing was for me.” He planted a quick peck on my cheek. His smile was patient and far more understanding than I suspected I had been with him.

  I crossed my arms over my chest as I turned toward him. I drew up my knees to afford more covering. Taishi took my hands in his and gently moved them to my sides. I stared at the purple ferns growing beyond the log.

  “Your skin is as fair as the moons.” Admiration laced his tone.

  I was sure my face was red as sakura fruit.

  The bushes rustled. I swallowed and glanced around again. Nose birds yipped around each other, pushing through the leaves and darting about.

  “It’s just us. Have no worries.”

  He eased my shoulder back into the cushion of moss. My heartbeat thrummed against my rib cage. He planted a kiss on my lips. It had taken three years to get him to stop wiping off my kisses. Now he was the one kissing me. If he was willing to try my gaiyojin ways, it was only fair for me to try his customs as well.

  His voice grew husky as he gazed down at me. “I have never seen you naked before. You are very pretty for my eyes.”

  I giggled, uncertain whether I was flattered or embarrassed. “I thought you told Faith and me that you spied on us bathing lots of times.”

  His lips curled upward in a mischievous grin. “I only said that because I knew it would make you angry and you would stomp around and use the funny words again.”

  “Swearing?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  He picked up the end of my wet braid and brushed it against my cheek. “I’d always wondered what color you were everywhere under your clothes. But I wouldn’t spy on you.” He tickled my hair down my neck and across my breasts. I slapped his hand away. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done this before, but I’d had my dress on then. It was easier to pretend we weren’t doing anything scandalous if we both wore garments of some sort. This was another matter entirely. I hadn’t felt such dangerous wanting before.