The Memory Police

Chapter 14

The old man was released three days later. I had stopped by to check on the boat during my usual evening walk and found him stretched out on the bed in the first-class cabin he used as his room.

“When did you get back?” I asked him, kneeling by the bed.

“This morning,” he answered, his voice hoarse and weak. His face was pale, his beard had grown out, and his lips were covered with scabs.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” I said, stroking his hair and cheeks.

“I’m sorry I worried you.”

“That doesn’t matter. How are you feeling? Are you injured? Should I take you to the hospital?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just a little tired, so I’ve been lying down.”

“Are you sure? Then you must be hungry. Hold on a minute. I’ll make you something.” I patted his chest through the blanket.

During his absence, everything in the refrigerator had gone limp and stale. But it hardly seemed the moment to worry about it, so I made soup out of every vegetable I could find and then made some tea. Propping him up in the bed, I tucked a napkin around his neck and spooned the soup into his mouth. After a moment, when I thought he seemed to have recovered a bit, I began to question him.

“But what did they do to you?”

“Don’t worry. They don’t know anything about the room. I’m sure of that at least. Their attention is focused on a smuggling incident.”

“Smuggling?”

“At the end of last month, some men took a boat and escaped from the cape by the lighthouse. They were fleeing the Memory Police.”

“But how? I thought the boats were useless. They disappeared years ago. Your ferry doesn’t work, does it? And no one would remember how to sail it anyway.”

“No, the people who they were hunting haven’t forgotten anything—the sound of the engine, the smell of the fuel, the shape of the waves as the boat glides through them.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin and coughed before continuing. “There must have been someone in the group who was a naval architect or a navigator, someone who still knew about boats. That must be why they were able to do the impossible—smuggle themselves off the island. Up until now, everyone has been focused on trying to hide. No one even imagined he could get away by crossing the sea. Even the Memory Police seemed caught off guard.”

“Did they think you had helped them somehow?”

“Yes. It seems they brought in everyone who knew anything about boats. They questioned me over and over, about everything. Showed me pictures of people I didn’t know, took my fingerprints, made me go back over the past few months and tell them where I’d been and what I’d done. It was an impressive interrogation. But I didn’t tell them anything about the room, and they were too focused on boats to be suspicious.”

I stirred the soup, scooping up some parsley and a piece of carrot, and fed them to the old man. With each bite, he bowed his head, as though excusing himself again for the trouble he was causing.

“But it’s too terrible, doing all that to someone who wasn’t involved with the escape.”

“No, no, it wasn’t so bad. Since I had nothing to hide as far as the boat was concerned, their questions didn’t really bother me. I just wish I’d been able to put up a bit more of a fight.”

“But how did they manage to get the boat ready without the Memory Police finding out?”

“I don’t know the details, but I think they must have secretly repaired a boat that was left in the shipyard. They wouldn’t have had the right tools or parts. The Memory Police stripped out all the engines when the boats disappeared, broke them in pieces and threw them in the sea. They probably had to make do with all sorts of improvised parts—that’s what the police were asking me about, technical things about ships. But of course I didn’t help them, since I don’t remember anything at all.”

“Of course,” I said, pouring some tea and passing it to the old man. The air outside the window was still, but the sea had worked up a considerable swell. Strands of seaweed floated in the waves. Evening was creeping over the horizon. The old man took his cup in both hands, peered into it for a moment, and then drained it in one gulp. “But it must have been terrifying—heading out to sea like that in the middle of the night.” I shuddered.

“I’m sure it was. Especially since the boat would have been patched together from whatever they could find,” said the old man.

“How many do you think there were?”

“I don’t really know. But I’m sure it was more than the boat was intended to hold. There must be more than one boatload of people trying to get off the island.”

I looked out the porthole again, trying to imagine it—a little wooden boat like the fishermen used, with a flimsy little roof, floating on the sea. The paint peeling away, the hull covered in barnacles and seaweed, the engine puttering softly. And the people crowded together on the deck.

The lighthouse had, of course, long since ceased working, so the only light would have come from the moon, making it difficult to see the expressions on their faces. But perhaps it had been snowing and even the moon had failed to shine, leaving them no more than a black lump huddled close in the bottom of the boat. So tightly packed that the slightest loss of balance threatened to tip them into the sea like so many kernels of popcorn scattering from a pan.

The overloaded boat would have had difficulty working up speed. Nor could they have opened the throttle completely, since the noise would have alerted the Memory Police. That was their greatest fear, a fear that would have forced them to make their way toward the horizon at only the slowest of speeds. Every soul aboard keeping one hand firmly on the rail, the other pressed to his or her chest, praying continually that the boat would clear the cape and find its way to the open sea.

When I blinked my eyes, I realized that the only things floating on the water outside the porthole were the plumes of seaweed. It had been years since I’d seen a boat moving across the horizon. The day they had disappeared, my memories of them had been fixed in place and had sunk into the bottomless swamp of my soul—so that now it was hard work indeed to imagine these people who had gone off over the water.

“I wonder if they got away safely,” I said.

“I’m sure that they managed to get off the island. But the seas are rough in winter. It’s possible they vanished without a trace.”

He set his cup on the table next to the bed and then wiped his mouth with the napkin.

“But where do you think they were going? You can’t see anything beyond the horizon,” I said, pointing out at the sea.

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a place out there where people whose hearts aren’t empty can go on living.”

He folded the napkin and set it on the blanket.

In addition to the old man’s return, there was another happy event to celebrate: R’s child was born. A baby boy, six and a half pounds.

Since the old man had not completely recovered, I was making his regular trip to the elementary school myself. The snow was too deep to go by bike, and I didn’t have the money to hire a driver, so I had to walk all the way to the north of the hill.

Once you turned the corner at the far end of the cape, the smelting works came into view and all you had to do was continue straight on. The iron tower rose beyond the shuttered cafeteria, the cluster of company apartments, the gas station, the withered fields. Just as I’d been told, it looked like a great iron mummy of a corpse that had died of exhaustion.

The streets were unplowed, with only a few tracks from those who had already passed in the same direction, so I had trouble walking. Any number of times I lost my footing and fell to the ground. Only occasionally did I meet another traveler—an old woman shrouded under her scarf, a single sputtering motorbike, a mangy cat.

It was long past noon by the time I reached the school. The playground was an untouched field of snow. On my right were a horizontal bar, a seesaw, and a basketball hoop. On the left, several hutches that must have held rabbits or some other animal, but which were empty now, of course. Ahead of me was the school building, three stories high with evenly spaced windows.

Nothing moved in this little tableau—no wind, no sign of life—with the sole exception of my breath, which labored quietly in the cold. Everything that had lost its purpose seemed to have been gathered together right here.

Blowing on my fingers through my gloves, I crossed the schoolyard, heading for the meteorological box. The snow was so perfect and untouched that it was almost frightening to disturb it, and I found myself unable to resist turning around to see whether my footsteps were following me as I made my way across the field of white.

A round cap of snow was perched atop the box. Just as the old man had advised, I pulled on the door while lifting it up just a bit, and it opened with a creak. A spider’s web was draped across the dim interior, and I could see the objects behind the thermometer and the hygrometer. A neat package, bound in twine, small enough to fit in my two palms—underwear, some paperbacks, a small box of candy—and tucked on top, a picture of a baby.

Who could have drawn it? I picked it up and studied it. A portrait of a baby with its eyes closed, drawn in colored pencil on a heavy piece of paper the size of a postcard. His hair was soft and brown, his ears perfectly formed, his eyes clearly outlined. Wrapped around him was a pale blue crocheted blanket. The drawing wasn’t particularly skillful, but it was clear that tremendous care had been taken in rendering each strand of hair, each stitch in the blanket.

A note from R’s wife was written on the back: “The baby was born on the twelfth at 4:46 a.m. The midwife said that it was the easiest birth she’d assisted with in her entire career. He’s doing fine. He peed almost as soon as they set him down on my belly. I bought both pink and blue buttons for his clothes, and today I sewed the blue ones on everything. Please don’t worry about us. We’re waiting, hoping for the day when you’ll be able to take him in your arms. Please take care of yourself.”

I read these words over three times, then tucked the picture back under the twine and closed the door of the box. The snow piled on top broke into pieces and fell at my feet.

I opened the trapdoor to the hidden room without knocking. R was busy at his desk and seemed not to notice as he continued to work on the task I had given him the day before: polishing all the silver in the house.

I watched him from behind for a few moments. Was it an illusion, or had his body actually begun to shrink since he’d hidden himself away here? He had definitely grown pale, without any contact with sunlight, and his appetite was poor, so he’d lost weight, but what I sensed was not that sort of tangible change but some more abstract transformation. Every time I saw him, I could feel the outline of his body blurring, his blood thinning, his muscles withering.

Perhaps this was just evidence that his body was adapting to the secret room. Perhaps it was necessary to rid oneself of everything that was superfluous in order to immerse completely in this airless, soundproof, narrow space shrouded in the fear of discovery and arrest. In recompense for a mind that was able to retain everything, every memory, perhaps it was necessary that the body gradually fade away.

I recalled a circus freak show I’d once seen profiled on television. There was a shot of a wooden box that held a young girl who had been sold to the show. Her head protruded from a hole, but her arms and legs must have been folded tightly inside. She had been forced to pass months and then years in that state, never released even to eat or sleep. In time, her arms and legs would have frozen in place, and she was exhibited to the public as a kind of deformed human insect.

For some reason, as I stared at R’s back, this young girl came to mind, her withered limbs and knobby joints, her protruding ribs, filthy hair, downcast eyes.

Still unaware of my presence, R continued his polishing. His back was bent as though in prayer, and he spent a long time rubbing the cloth between each tine of the fork in his hand, each groove in the design. The pieces that did not fit on the desk were lined up on sheets of newspaper he had spread on the floor—the sugar bowl, the cake server, some finger bowls and soup spoons.

My mother used to bring out the silver for special guests. It had been part of her trousseau. But it had been years since anyone had last used it; it had been hidden away in the back of the cupboard in the dining room. No matter how carefully R polished it, I knew it was unlikely I would ever have occasion to use it again. Never again would there be guests, nor parties to invite them to, nor was my grandmother alive to prepare food worthy of these elegant utensils.

It had been harder than I’d imagined to find tasks to distract R that could be done in the hidden room but weren’t too tiring. Whether they were truly useful or not was beside the point. Among the chores I had come up with, polishing silver proved to be the one best suited for R.

“Do you plan to go on polishing that fork when the Memory Police come barging in?” At the sound of my voice, R started and turned. He let out a quiet cry, the fork still clutched in his hand. “I’m sorry,” I added quickly, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, it’s fine. But I really didn’t notice you,” he said, setting the polishing cloth on the table.

“You were so absorbed in what you were doing, I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“I suppose I was, though I can’t imagine what was so interesting.” Embarrassed, he took off his glasses and set them next to the polishing cloth.

“Can I bother you for a few minutes?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he replied. “Come and sit with me here.” I tiptoed through the silver on the floor and sat down on the bed. “There are some valuable pieces here,” he said. “Things you could never find now.” He made a half turn in his chair to face me.

“Do you think so? My mother loved them at any rate.”

“They’re certainly worth the effort it takes to keep them polished. The more care you take with them, the more gratifying they are.”

“Gratifying? How so?”

“The film of age gets peeled away and their luster returns—it isn’t grand, but something humble, even solitary. When you hold them in your hands, it seems as though you’re holding light itself. I feel they’re telling me a story.”

“I’d never realized silver could have that effect,” I said, glancing at the dark blue polishing cloth crumpled in a ball on the desk. He opened and closed his hands to stretch his tired fingers. “I’ve heard that wealthy families used to employ whole teams of servants just to keep the silver polished,” I continued. “I imagine them working day and night in a stone building off a courtyard, with no other job than polishing. There would have been a long, narrow table in the middle of the room, and the servants sat there on both sides of it with their daily quota of polishing stacked in front of them. They were strictly forbidden to speak, lest their breath cloud the silver, so the work took place in absolute silence. The room was always chilly, and even in the middle of the day, the sun never shone in, meaning that the sole source of light was a single sputtering lamp. Apparently it was only possible to tell that the silver had been properly polished by viewing it in the lowest of lights. A servant of slightly higher rank—the one responsible for kitchen utensils—would carefully check everything as it was finished. He would hold up each piece under the lamp, with the stone wall in the background, and examine it from every angle. The slightest smudge would mean starting over from the beginning—and a doubling of the next day’s quota for the servant, which would keep him polishing through the next night. So the servants sat, heads bowed in fear, as the inspection was taking place… But I’m sorry, this isn’t the right time or place for this story.”

I realized I’d said too much on the subject of silver polishing.

“No, not at all,” he said.

“I’m afraid I’ve bored you.”

“Anything but,” he said, shaking his head.

Up close, I could see even more clearly how frail R had grown. When I’d known him in the outside world, he had been much sturdier, more balanced. Each part of his body had played its proper role, giving the whole a sense of cohesion. There had been no chinks in his armor. But now it seemed that the smallest tap of my finger on his chest would have sent him collapsing into pieces, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“The thing that I found most surprising,” I said, taking up the story, “was that over time, the servants who did this work lost the power of speech. After many long days, dawn to dusk, rubbing their cloths in that stone room, they actually became mute. They had no fear of clouding the silver with their words, for even after they finished work and left the room, they could no longer recall the sound of their own voices. But these were poor, uneducated people who were unlikely to find work elsewhere, so they continued polishing year after year, willing to sacrifice their voices for a steady income. And the room became quieter and quieter as one after another lost the power of speech, with nothing to be heard but the muffled sound of cloth on silver. But I wonder how it got to that point.”

I picked up a large dessert plate that had been sitting on the floor and set it on my lap. It was one my mother had used at parties to serve chocolate, something I was never allowed to eat. My nanny had told me that bugs came to infect the chests of children who ate chocolate. The border around the edge of the plate had a raised design of grapes—which R had apparently not yet polished, since the grooves were dark and tarnished.

“I suppose it’s hard to know,” R said after a pause. His voice sounded weak, as though he had nothing more to say.

The funnel that served as the speaker on his intercom had rolled out by his pillow. The bedcover was freshly washed and starched. X’s had been drawn on the calendar on the wall to mark the passing days. I had the impression that the shelves by the bed, which had been empty when R moved into the room, were gradually filling each time I saw them.

“There’s no need to hurry with the polishing, you know,” I said, after I’d looked around the room for a moment. “You can take your time.”

“Thanks, I understand,” he said.

“And it would be terrible if you lost your voice.”

“No danger there,” he replied. “You forget, I’m the one who never loses anything.”

“I see what you mean,” I said. Our eyes met and we smiled.

When it was time to leave, I gave him the things his wife had left in the box at the school. He looked at the baby’s picture in silence. I thought I should say something, but I couldn’t think what it would be.

But he didn’t seem to be overly emotional. He simply sat quietly, his eyes lowered, just as he did when reading my manuscript or polishing silver.

“Congratulations,” I said at last, unable to stand the silence.

“Of course, photographs have already disappeared,” he murmured.

“Photographs?” I said, not understanding what he meant. Then, after repeating the word to myself, I finally realized I had a vague memory that there had once been smooth pieces of paper that captured someone’s image. “Yes, now that you mention it, they must have disappeared.”

He turned over the card and began reading the note.

“He’s beautiful,” I said, when I thought he had finished reading. “The photographs are all gone, but there must still be some frames somewhere. I’ll find you one.” I rested my foot at the bottom of the ladder.

“Thank you,” he said, without looking up.