A Traitor to Memory

“The officer who headed the investigation into Sonia's death was hit last night. He's in a coma.”


Sister Cecilia's fingers reached for the crucifix she wore round her neck. They curled round it and held on fast as the nun said, “I cannot believe Katja had anything to do with that.”

“Right,” Barbara said. “But sometimes we end up having to believe what we don't want to believe. That's the way of the world, Sister.”

“It is not the way of my world,” the nun declared.

GIDEON





6 November





I've dreamed again, Dr. Rose. I'm standing on the stage at the Barbican, with the lights blindingly bright above me. The orchestra is behind me, and the maestro—whose face I cannot see—taps on his lectern. The music begins—four measures from the cellos—and I lift my instrument and prepare to join in. Then from somewhere in the vast hall, I hear it: A baby has begun crying.

It echoes through the hall, but I'm the only person who seems to notice. The cellos continue to play, the rest of the strings join them, and I know that my solo will be fast upon us.

I cannot think, I cannot play, I cannot do anything but wonder why the maestro won't stop the orchestra, won't turn to the audience, won't demand that someone have the simple courtesy to take the screaming child out of the auditorium so that we can concentrate on our playing. There is a full measure's rest before I'm to begin my solo, and as I wait for it to arrive, I keep glancing out to the audience. But I can see nothing because of the lights, and they are far more blinding than lights ever are in an actual auditorium. Indeed, they're the sort of lights one imagines to be shined upon a suspect who is under interrogation.

When the strings reach the full measure's rest, I count the time. I know somehow that I won't be able to play what I'm supposed to play while the distraction continues, but I feel that I must. I will thus have to do what I've never done before: As ludicrous as it sounds, I will have to fake it, to improvise if necessary, to maintain the same key but to play anything if I have to in order to get myself through the ordeal.

I begin. Of course, it isn't right. It isn't in the right key. To my left, the concertmaster stands abruptly and I see that he's Raphael Robson. I want to say, “Raphael, you're playing! With an audience, you're playing!” but the rest of the violins follow his lead and leap to their feet as well. They begin to protest to the maestro, as do the cellos and the basses. I hear all their voices. I try to drown them out with my playing and I try to drown the baby out, but I cannot. I want to tell them that it's not me, it's not my fault, and I say, “Can't you hear? Can't you hear it?” as I continue to play. And I watch the maestro as I do so, because he's continuing to direct the orchestra as if they'd never stopped playing in the first place.

Raphael then approaches the maestro, who turns to me. And he is my father. “Play!” he snarls. And I'm so surprised to see him there where he should not be that I back away and the darkness of the auditorium envelops me.

I begin to search for the screaming baby. I go up the aisle, feeling my way in the dark, until I hear that the crying is coming from behind a closed door.

I open this door. Suddenly, I am outside, in daylight, and in front of me is an enormous fountain. But this is not an ordinary fountain, because standing in the water are a minister of some sort dressed all in black and a woman in white who is holding the yowling infant to her bosom. As I watch, the minister submerges them both—the woman and the child that she holds—in the water, and I know that the woman is Katja Wolff and that she's holding my sister.

Somehow, I know I must get to that fountain, but my feet become too heavy to lift. So I watch, and when Katja Wolff emerges from the water, she emerges alone.

The water makes her white dress cling to her, and through the material her nipples show, as does her pubic hair, which is thick, dark as night, and coiling coiling coiling over her sex, which still glistens through the wet dress she's wearing as if she's not wearing a dress at all. And I feel that stirring within me, that rush of desire I haven't felt in years. The throb begins and I welcome it and I no longer think of the concert I've left or the ceremony I've witnessed in the water.

My feet are freed. I approach. Katja cups her breasts in her hands. But before I can reach the fountain and her, the minister blocks my way and I look at him and he is my father.

He goes to her. He does to her what I want to do, and I am forced to watch as her body draws him in and begins to work him as the water slaps languidly against their legs.

I cry out, and I awaken.