A Traitor to Memory

He led me into the koala enclosure, where simulated eucalyptus trees were formed by crisscrossing branches that rose out of the floor, and the forest in which the bears would have lived in the wild was expressed by a mural painted on a tall pink wall. A single diminutive bear slept in the V of two of the branches, nearby him hanging a bucket that contained the leaves upon which he was supposed to feed. The forest floor beneath the bear was concrete, and there were no bushes, no diversions, and no toys for him. He had no companions to break his solitude either, only the visitors to his enclosure, who whistled and called out to him, frustrated that a creature nocturnal by nature would not accommodate himself to their timetables.

I looked at all this and felt a heaviness settle onto my shoulders. “God. Why do people come to zoos?”





“To remind them of their freedom.”





“To exult in their superiority.”





“I suppose that's true as well. After all, as humans we hold the keys, don't we?”





“Ah,” I said. “I did think there was a greater purpose behind this sojourn to Regent's Park than just getting some air. I've never seen you as interested either in exercise or in animals. So what did Dad say? ‘Show him he ought to count his blessings. Show him how bad life really can be’?”





“There are worse places than a zoo if that was his intention, Gideon.”





“Then what? And don't tell me you thought up the zoo on your own.”





“You're brooding. It's not healthy. He knows it.”





I laughed without humour. “As if what's happened already is healthy?”





“We don't know what's happened. We can only guess. And that's what this amnesia business is. It's a qualified guess.”





“So he's brought you on board. I wouldn't have thought that possible, your past relationship with him considered.”





Raphael kept his gaze on the pathetic koala, a ball of fur unmoving in the embrace of the wood that posed as branches from his native land. “My relationship with your father isn't your concern,” he said steadily, but the pinpoints of perspiration—always his Nemesis—began to sprout on his forehead. Another two minutes and his face would be dripping and he'd be using his handkerchief to mop up the sweat.

“You were in the house the night Sonia drowned,” I said. “Dad told me that. So you've always known everything, haven't you? Everything that happened, what led up to her death, and what followed it.”





“Let's get some tea,” Raphael said.

We went to the restaurant in Barclays Court, although a simple kiosk selling hot and cold drinks would have done as well. He wouldn't say anything until he'd meticulously looked over the mundane menu of grilled everything and ordered a pot of Darjeeling and a toasted tea cake from a middle-aged waitress wearing retro spectacles.

She said, “Got it, luv,” and waited for my order, tapping her pencil against her pad. I ordered the same although I wasn't hungry. She took herself off to fetch it.

It wasn't a mealtime, so there were few people in the restaurant and no one at all near our table. We were next to a window, though, and Raphael directed his attention outside, where a man was struggling to unhook a blanket from the wheels of a push chair while a woman with a toddler in her arms gesticulated and gave him instructions.

I said, “It feels like night in my memory, when Sonia drowned. But if that's the case, what were you doing at the house? Dad told me you were there.”





“It was late afternoon when she drowned, half past five, nearly six. I'd stayed to make some phone calls.”





“Dad said you were probably contacting Juilliard that day.”





“I wanted you to be able to attend once they'd made you the offer, so I was lining up support for the idea. It was inconceivable to me that anyone would think of turning down Juilliard—”





“How had they heard of me? I'd done those few concerts, but I don't remember actually applying to go there. I just remember being invited to attend.”





“I'd written to them. I'd sent them tapes. Reviews. A piece that Radio Times did on you. They were interested and invited the application, which I filled out.”





“Did Dad know about this?”





Again, the perspiration speckled his forehead, and this time he used one of the napkins on the table to mop it up. He said, “I wanted to present the invitation as a fait accompli because I thought that if I had the invitation in hand, your father would agree to your attending.”