The Memory Police

Chapter 3

I make my living now from my writing. So far, I’ve published three novels. The first was about a piano tuner who wanders through music shops and concert halls searching for her lover, a pianist, who has vanished. She relies solely on the sound of his music that lingers in her ears. The second was about a ballerina who lost her right leg in an accident and lives in a greenhouse with her boyfriend, who is a botanist. And the third was about a young woman nursing her younger brother, who suffers from a disease that is destroying his chromosomes.

Each one told the story of something that had been disappeared. Everyone likes that sort of thing. But here on the island, writing novels is one of the least impressive, most underappreciated occupations one can pursue. No one could claim that the island is overflowing with books. The library, a shabby single-floor wooden building next to the rose garden, has only a handful of patrons, no matter when one visits, and the books seem to cower on the shelves, fearful of crumbling to dust at the slightest touch. They will all, in the end, be tossed out without being cared for or rebound—which is why the collection never grows. But no one ever complains.

The bookstores are much the same. Nearly deserted, and the managers appear almost surly behind their stacks of unsold books with yellowing covers.

Few people here have any need for novels.

I generally begin writing at about two o’clock in the afternoon and keep at it until nearly midnight, yet I rarely finish more than five pages. I enjoy writing slowly, filling each square on the paper, one character at a time. There’s no need to hurry. I take my time.

I work in my father’s old room. But it’s much neater and more orderly now, since my novels require no notes or other materials. My desk holds only a stack of paper, a pencil, a small knife to sharpen it, and an eraser. Though I’ve tried, I’ve found no way to fill in the voids left by the Memory Police.

When evening comes, I go out to walk for an hour or so. I follow the coastal road to the dock, and on the way home I take a path over the hill that passes the observatory.

The ferry has been tied to the dock for a very long time and is now completely covered with rust. No passengers board it and it can no longer take them anywhere. It, too, is among the things that have been disappeared from the island.

The name of the boat is painted on the bow, but the salt air has scoured it away, leaving it illegible. The windows are coated with dust, and the hull and anchor chain and propeller are covered with mussels and seaweed—as though it is an enormous sea creature that is slowly turning to stone.

My nurse’s husband had once served as mechanic on the boat. After the ferry had disappeared, he worked as a watchman for a warehouse by the docks. But at some point he retired and he lives now on the abandoned boat. On my walk, I invariably stopped in to chat with him.

“How have you been?” he asked one evening, offering me a chair. “Are you making progress with your novel?” There are lots of places to sit, so depending on the weather or our mood we might find ourselves occupying a bench up on deck or relaxing on a comfortable couch in the first-class lounge.

“Slowly,” I told him.

“Well, the most important thing is that you take care of yourself.” He nodded to himself and added, “There aren’t many people who can sit all day at a desk and make up such complicated things right out of their head. If your parents were here to see you, they would be so proud.”

“A novel isn’t as marvelous as all that. To me, taking apart a boat engine, fixing it, and putting it all back together again is much more mysterious and wonderful.”

“No, no. The ferry has been disappeared and there’s nothing more to be said about it.” We fell silent then for a moment.

“Ah,” he said at last. “I’ve managed to get some excellent peaches. Why don’t we have one?” He went into the tiny galley next to the boiler room, where he laid out slices of peach on a plate lined with ice and topped them with a sprig of mint. Then he made a pot of strong green tea. He was truly gifted when it comes to machines, food, and plants.

I’ve always given him one of the first copies of each of my books.

“So this is your new novel,” he would say each time, pronouncing the word with great care and taking the book in both hands, as though he were receiving a sacrament. “Thank you, thank you,” he would repeat, as his voice grew almost tearful and I felt increasingly embarrassed.

But he has never read a single page of any of my books.

Once, when I told him I’d love to know what he thinks of them, he demurred.

“I couldn’t possibly say,” he said. “If you read a novel to the end, then it’s over. I would never want to do something as wasteful as that. I’d much rather keep it here with me, safe and sound, forever.”

Then he placed the book in the little altar to the sea gods in the ship’s wheelhouse and joined his wrinkled hands in prayer.

As we enjoyed our snack, we talked about all sorts of things—but most often we spoke of our memories. Of my mother and father, my old nurse, the observatory, sculptures, and the distant past when one could still take a boat to other places. But our memories were diminishing day by day, for when something disappeared from the island, all memory of it vanished, too. We divided the last bit of peach and repeated the same stories to each other, allowing the fruit to dissolve, ever so slowly, on our tongues.

When the sun began to tilt down toward the sea, I climbed down from the boat. Though the gangway wasn’t particularly steep, the old man came out to escort me. He treated me as though I were still a little girl.

“Take care on the way home.”

“I will,” I told him. “See you tomorrow.”

He stood watching me as I walked away, never moving until I was completely out of sight.

Leaving the harbor behind, my next stop was the observatory at the top of the hill. But I never lingered long. I gazed out at the sea, taking a few deep breaths, and then walked down again.

The Memory Police have done their work here, much as they did in my father’s study, leaving it little more than a ruin. Nothing at all remains to remind a visitor that it had once been a place to observe wild birds. The researchers, too, have scattered.

I stood at the window, where I once stood with my father looking out through binoculars, and even now small winged creatures occasionally flitted by, but they were no more than reminders that birds mean nothing at all to me anymore.

As I climbed down the hill and made my way through town, the sun was setting. The island was quieter in the evening. People coming home from work walked with their heads lowered, children hurried along. Even the sputtering engines of market trucks, empty after the day’s sales, were muffled and forlorn.

Silence fell around us all, as though we were steeling ourselves for the next disappearance, which would no doubt come—perhaps even tomorrow.

So it was that evening came to the island.