The Memory Police

Chapter 4

On Wednesday afternoon, on my way to take my manuscript to my publisher, I had an encounter with the Memory Police. It was the third time I’d seen them this month, and they seemed to grow a bit more brutal each time.

It occurred to me that it has been fifteen years since they first appeared. In those days, it was just becoming obvious that some people, like my mother, did not lose their memories of the things that had disappeared, and the Memory Police began taking them all away. Though no one had any idea where they were being held.

I had just gotten off the bus and was waiting to cross the street when three of their dark green trucks with canvas covers in back rumbled into the intersection. The cars along the street slowed and pulled to the curb to let them pass. The trucks stopped in front of a building that housed a dentist’s office, an insurance company, and a dance studio. Ten men from the Memory Police jumped out and hurried into the building.

The people in the street watched tensely, some ducking into nearby alleys, and they all seemed to hope that the scene unfolding before them would be over before they themselves were pulled into it.

I clutched the envelope that held my manuscript and stood stock-still behind a lamp pole. Several times, as I waited, the traffic light changed from green to yellow to red and back again to green. No one ventured into the crosswalk. The passengers on the streetcar peered out the windows. At some point I realized that my envelope had gotten completely wrinkled.

A short time later, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming from the building—the forceful, rhythmic boots of the Memory Police mixed with quieter, more uncertain steps. Then a line of people emerged: two middle-aged gentlemen, a woman in her thirties with dyed brown hair, and a thin girl barely in her teens.

Though the cold weather had not yet set in, they each wore several layers of shirts, an overcoat each, and mufflers and scarves wrapped around their necks. They held bags and suitcases that were obviously stuffed full. It seemed they had been trying to bring with them as many useful items as they were able to carry.

Judging from the loose buttons, fluttering shoelaces, and bits of clothing protruding from their bags, it was clear that they had been forced to pack quickly. And now they were being marched out of the building with weapons at their backs. Still, their faces were calm and they stared into the distance with eyes as still as a lonely swamp deep in the woods. In those eyes, no doubt, were all sorts of memories that had been lost to us.

As always, the Memory Police, badges glinting from their collars, went about their appointed task with terrible efficiency. The four were led past the spot where I was standing, and I caught just a whiff of an antiseptic smell—perhaps they had come from the dentist’s office.

They were loaded, one after another, into the back of one of the trucks, the guns trained on them the entire time. The young girl, who was last in line, carried an orange bag decorated with an appliqué of a bear. She had thrown this into the truck and was attempting to climb up herself, but it was too high and she ended up falling on her back.

I cried out before I could stop myself and dropped my envelope. The pages of my manuscript scattered over the sidewalk, and the other bystanders turned to look disapprovingly. They were afraid of creating a disturbance, of giving the police reason to notice them.

A boy who was standing nearby helped me pick up the pages. Some were damp from falling in puddles and others had been trampled, but we managed to find everything.

“Is that all of them?” the boy whispered in my ear. I nodded and gave him a grateful look.

But this little incident had no effect on the work of the Memory Police. Not one of them had turned to look at us.

The girl had scrambled to her feet, and one of the officers who was already in the truck reached down, caught hold of the girl’s hand, and pulled her up. There was still something childish in the small, knobby knees that protruded below her skirt. The canvas cover was lowered over the back of the truck and the engines started.

Even after they were gone, it took a moment before time resumed its normal flow. When the trucks had gone and the sound of their engines had receded in the distance, the streetcar started up again—and only then did I feel sure that the Memory Police had left and would do me no harm. The people on the sidewalk went off in whatever direction they had been heading, and the boy who had helped me crossed the street.

I stood looking at the door to the building, now tightly shut, and wondered how the officer’s hand must have felt to the young girl as he pulled her into the truck.

“I saw something terrible on my way here,” I told R, my editor, in the lobby of the publishing house.

“The Memory Police?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Yes. They seem worse recently.”

“They’re awful,” he agreed, slowly exhaling a long stream of smoke.

“But today was different somehow. They took four people at once from the center of town, in broad daylight. As far as I know, they’ve generally acted at night, on the edge of town, taking just one member of a family.”

“Those people must have been hidden in a safe house.”

“A safe house?” I said, repeating the unfamiliar words, but they died in my throat almost before I’d said them. I’d been told it was best not to talk about such sensitive matters in public. There was no telling whether plainclothes police might be nearby. Rumors about them were rampant on the island.

The lobby was nearly deserted. Just three men in suits near the potted ficus tree, deep in discussion around a thick stack of papers, and a receptionist sitting at the desk looking bored.

“I would guess they had converted one of the rooms in the building into a hiding place. There isn’t really much else they can do. I’ve heard that there’s a fairly large underground network that creates these safe houses and then keeps them running. They build the rooms and then provide the occupants with supplies and money. But if the police are starting to raid the safe houses, then there’s really no place left to hide…”

R seemed to want to add something more, but he fell silent and reached instead for his cup of coffee, his gaze wandering to the garden in the courtyard.

There was a small fountain made of bricks in the garden. A plain, nondescript thing. As the conversation lagged, the sound of the spray could be heard through the window, like soft chords being played on an instrument in the distance.

“It’s always struck me as odd that the police can tell who they are,” I said, watching him as he looked out at the fountain. “I mean, the people who don’t forget after a disappearance. I don’t think they have any distinguishing features. They’re men and women, all ages, from all different families. So if they’re careful and make sure to blend in with everyone else, they should be able to pass. It shouldn’t be that hard to play the game, to pretend that the disappearances affect them like they do the rest of us.”

“I wonder whether it’s really as simple as you make it sound.” R thought for a moment. “The conscious mind is embedded in a subconscious that’s ten times as powerful, which may make trying to pretend almost impossible. They can’t even imagine what these disappearances mean. If it were easy to pretend, they wouldn’t be hiding away in these safe houses.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“It’s just a rumor, but I’ve heard they’re learning to analyze our genes to find out who has this trait. They’re assembling technicians in a secret facility at the university.”

“Analyzing genes?” I murmured.

“That’s right. There are no visible identifiers that link this group of people together, but the assumption is that there must be something in their genetic makeup. Judging from the behavior of the Memory Police, it seems the research must be fairly advanced.”

“But how do they access our genes?” I asked.

“You just drank from this cup, didn’t you?” R said, stubbing out his cigarette and lifting my coffee cup to eye level. I nodded.

“They could take this and isolate your genetic material from your saliva. Nothing could be simpler for the Memory Police. They’re lurking everywhere—maybe in the back room where they do the dishes. Before we know it, they’ll have tested everyone on the island and stored our information in their database, though it’s impossible to know how much progress they’ve made so far. No matter how careful we are, we all leave behind little bits of ourselves as we go about our lives. Hair, sweat, fingernails, tears… any of which can be tested. No one can escape.”

Slowly he lowered the cup back to the saucer, his eyes looking down at the coffee that remained in the bottom.

The men who had been talking near the ficus tree had finished their conversation. Three cups were left behind on their table. The receptionist began clearing them, her face completely blank.

I waited until she had gone. “But why do they take people away? They haven’t done anything wrong.”

“The island is run by men who are determined to see things disappear. From their point of view, anything that fails to vanish when they say it should is inconceivable. So they force it to disappear with their own hands.”

“Do you think my mother was killed?” I knew it was pointless to ask R, but the question slipped out.

“She was definitely under observation, being studied.” R chose his words carefully.

He was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the splashing of water in the fountain. The crumpled envelope lay on the table between us. R pulled it to him and took out the manuscript.

“It seems strange that you can still create something totally new like this—just from words—on an island where everything else is disappearing,” he said, brushing a bit of dirt from one of the pages as though he were caressing something precious.

I realized then that we were thinking the same thing. As we looked into each other’s eyes, I felt, once again, the anxiety that had taken root in our hearts a long time ago. The light reflecting from the spray of the fountain lit R’s face.

“And what will happen if words disappear?” I whispered to myself, afraid that if I said it too loudly, it might come true.