GAJARAJAN (M).
For a few minutes, it felt like Dr. Zadeh might walk through the door again at any moment. Then it felt like the amnesiac had been sitting there wishing he could see him one more time for years.
Finally he stood up and went to the far corner, where a much smaller table sat by a window. A heavy binder rested atop it. The amnesiac had kept working on his own research at least, even if he couldn’t complete Dr. Zadeh’s. His copy of Hemu’s notebook was probably four times as thick now as when Hemu’s doctor had first gifted it to him.
He didn’t mean to, but it was hard to resist. He found his fingers flipping through the familiar pages, articles and snippets he knew backward and forward. In the middle, he stopped on a torn-out scene from an old play. Peter Pan, written in 1904 by a man named J. M. Barrie.
MRS. DARLING (making sure that MICHAEL does not hear). The first time was a week ago. It was Nana’s night out, and I had been drowsing here by the fire when suddenly I felt a draught, as if the window were open. I looked round and I saw that boy—in the room.
MR. DARLING. In the room?
MRS. DARLING. I screamed. Just then Nana came back and she at once sprang at him. The boy leapt for the window. She pulled down the sash quickly, but was too late to catch him.
MR. DARLING (who knows he would not have been too late). I thought so!
MRS. DARLING. Wait. The boy escaped, but his shadow had not time to get out; down came the window and cut it clean off.
MR. DARLING (heavily). Mary, Mary, why didn’t you keep that shadow?
MRS. DARLING (scoring). I did. I rolled it up, George; and here it is.
She produces it from a drawer. They unroll and examine the flimsy thing, which is not more material than a puff of smoke, and if let go would probably float into the ceiling without discolouring it. Yet it has human shape.
. . .
MR. DARLING. It is nobody I know, but he does look a scoundrel.
MRS. DARLING. I think he comes back to get his shadow, George.
“A scoundrel.” The amnesiac smiled. He knew why Hemu had saved this clipping among the rest of his far more serious, desperate research, as silly and unhelpful as it was—because it was so charming. If only shadows were actual objects that could be touched or rolled up in drawers like pieces of paper. The amnesiac sighed. If only it was all that simple.
He closed the binder before he read any more, lest he lose track of time. The pale, solemn face on the cover stared back at him, dark eyes hovering over the long, hanging trunk. He put it on top and zipped up the leather bag as he ducked out.
“WATER, MAIN HALL.” THE FAINT MUSIC REACHED THE AMNESIAC as he passed the main room again, on the way to the infirmary. “Water, main hall . . .” Thunder shattered outside, booming through the facility, and a few startled screams chirped down the hallways.
“Good job, everyone!” the amnesiac yelled as loudly as he could. “Do as much as you can, and get to the main hall quickly!”
“Food, main hall!” He heard Marie shout back, trying to spur herself and her teammates on.
“Infirmary, main hall,” he said to himself, turning into the tiled room with a row of beds. “Old man, time to go.”
“Water,” the old man whispered.
“We have plenty. But we have to go downstairs to get it. Can you walk?”
The old man blinked dazedly. “I think I’m dying,” he finally said. “Too much. Pushed too hard.”
The amnesiac hefted the leather bag higher onto his shoulder. The old man was fairly tall, but weighed almost nothing now. “Can you sit?” he asked. “If you can sit, I think I can get you into a position where I can carry you.”
The old man tried to sit. He struggled up onto his elbows, arms shivering. Bravely he grasped the side of the bed with one skeletal hand and pulled.
“Easy,” the amnesiac said. He looped one arm through each of the leather bag’s short straps, so it was stuck against the front of him like a backpack worn on the wrong side. “I’m going to gently lay you over my back. Ready?”
“Maybe you should just leave me here,” the old man said. “I don’t think it’ll be long.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to be up here,” the amnesiac said. The rain had started to thrash the roof overhead. “If you’re going to die tonight, you want to go in a dry, warm place, with someone sitting next to you. I’ve done this a lot here. Seen people off. It’s better to go in company—even if you only met them yesterday.”
“You’re a good man,” he wheezed.
“Maybe.” The amnesiac shrugged. “I don’t remember.”