A Traitor to Memory

Is that when it began in my head? Is that when I first saw the necessity to prove myself different from my sister? Granddad had lumped me together with Sonia, but I would show him the truth.

Yet how could I do that when everything revolved round her? Her health, her growth, her disabilities, her development. A cry in the night and the household was rallied to see to her needs. A change in her temperature and life was halted till a doctor could explain what had brought it about. An alteration in the manner of her feeding and specialists were consulted for an explanation. She was the topic of every conversation but at the same time the cause of her ailments could never be directly mentioned.

And I remembered this, Dr. Rose. I remembered because when I thought of my mother, my sister was clinging to the shirttails of any memory I was able to evoke. She was there in my mind as persistently as she'd been there in my life. And as I waited for the time when I would see my mother, I sought to shake her from me with as much determination as I'd sought to shake her from me when she was alive.

Yes, I do see what that means. She is in my way now. She was in my way then. Because of her, life had altered. Because of her, it was going to alter still more.

“You'll be going to school, Gideon.”





That must be when the seed was planted: the seed of disappointment, anger, and thwarted dreams that grew into a forest of blame. Dad was the one who broke the news to me.

He comes into my bedroom. I'm sitting at the table by the window, where Sarah-Jane Beckett and I do our lessons. I'm working on school prep. Dad pulls out the chair in which Sarah-Jane generally sits, and he watches me with his arms crossed.

He says, “We've had a good run of it, Gideon. You've thrived, haven't you, son?”





I don't know what he's talking about, and what I hear in his words makes me wary immediately. I know now that what I heard must have been resignation, but at the moment I cannot put a name to what he's apparently feeling.

That is when he tells me that I will be going out to school, to a C of E school that he's managed to locate, a day school not too far away. I say what first comes to my mind.

“What about my playing? When will I practise?”





“We'll have to work that out.”





“But what will happen to Sarah-Jane? She won't like it if she can't teach me.”





“She'll have to cope. We're letting her go, son.”





Letting her go. At first I think he means that Sarah-Jane wants to leave us, that she's made a request and he's acceded to it with as much good grace as he can muster. But when I say, “I shall talk to her, then. I shall stop her from going,” he says, “We can't afford her any longer, Gideon.” He doesn't add the rest, but I do, in my head. We can't afford her because of Sonia. “We have to cut back somewhere,” Dad informs me. “We don't want to let Raphael go, and we can't let Katja go. So it's come down to Sarah-Jane.”





“But when will I play if I'm at school? They won't let me come to school only when I want to, will they, Dad? And there'll be rules. So how will I have my lessons?”





“We've spoken to them, Gideon. They're willing to make allowances. They know the situation.”





“But I don't want to go! I want Sarah-Jane to keep teaching me.”





“So do I,” Dad said. “So do we all. But it's not possible, Gideon. We haven't the funds.”





We haven't the funds, the money, the funds. Hasn't this been the leitmotiv for all of our lives? So should I be the least surprised when the Juilliard offer comes and must be rejected? Isn't it logical that I would attach my inability to attend Juilliard to money?

But I am surprised. I am outraged. I am maddened. And the seed that was planted sends shoots upwards, sends roots downwards, and begins to multiply in the soil.

I learn to hate. I acquire a need for revenge. A target for my vengeance becomes essential. I hear it at first, in her ceaseless crying and the inhuman demands she places upon everyone. And then I see it, in her, in my sister.

Thinking of my mother, I dwelled upon these other thoughts as well. In considering them, I had to conclude that even if Dad had not acted to save Sonia as he might have done, what did it matter? I had begun the process of killing her. He had only allowed that process to run its course.

You say to me: Gideon, you were just a little boy. This was a sibling situation. You weren't the first person who has attempted to harm a younger sibling, and you won't be the last.

But she died, Dr. Rose.

Yes. She died. But not at your hands.

I don't know that for certain.

You don't know—and can't know—what's true right now. But you will. Soon.

You're right, Dr. Rose, as you usually are. Mother will tell me what actually happened. If there's salvation for me anywhere in the world, it will come to me from her.

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