A Traitor to Memory

I followed him. We went back into the building, up the stairs, and into his flat. Jill had made tea and she raised her cup to us, saying, “Some, Gideon? Darling?” as we passed the kitchen. I thanked her and demurred, but Dad made no response. Jill's face clouded in that way I've seen when Dad ignores her: not as if she's hurt but as if she's comparing his behaviour with some unmentioned catalogue of appropriate behaviours she's developed in her head.

Dad strode on, oblivious of this. He went to what I call the Granddad Room, where he keeps a bizarre but nonetheless revealing collection of memorabilia: everything from silver-encased childhood locks of Granddad's hair to letters from the “great man's” wartime commanding officer commending him upon his comportment while imprisoned in Burma. It sometimes seems to me that Dad has spent the better part of his life trying to pretend his father was either a normal or a supernormal man rather than what he actually was, a broken mind who spent more than forty years balancing on the brink of insanity for reasons no one would ever mention.

He shut the door behind us, and at first I thought he'd taken me into the room in order to recite some sort of panegyric to Granddad. I felt myself getting irritated at what I saw as yet another attempt on his part to deflect a proper conversation.

He's done this before? you want to know, don't you? It's the logical question.

And I would have to say Yes, he's done this before. I hadn't much considered that fact until recently. I hadn't actually had to consider it because my music was central to our relationship and that's always what we talked about. Practice sessions with Raphael, work at the East London Conservatory, recording sessions, personal appearances, concerts, tours … There was always my music to occupy us. And because I was so engaged with my music, any question I asked or subject I wanted to pursue could easily be avoided by directing my thoughts to the violin. How's the Stravinski coming along? What about the Bach? Is The Archduke still giving you trouble? God. The Archduke. It always gave me trouble. It's my Nemesis, that piece. It's my Waterloo. It is, in fact, what I was scheduled to play at Wigmore Hall. First time in public to master the bastard and I couldn't do it.

Ah. You see how easily I become distracted by the thought of my music, Dr. Rose. Even then I did it to myself, so you can imagine how skilfully Dad could manage to divert our conversations.

But this afternoon, I couldn't be distracted, and Dad must have realised this, because he didn't attempt either to regale me with a story of Granddad's feats of ostensible bravery during his imprisonment or to move me with a review of his gallant battle against a monstrous mental condition that had its tendrils buried deep in his brain. Instead, he shut the door behind us, and I realised he'd done so to gain us some privacy.

He said, “You're looking for something nasty, aren't you? Isn't that what psychiatrists are always after?”





“I'm trying to remember,” I told him. “That's what this is about.”





“How is remembering Sonia supposed to gain you ground with your instrument? Has your Dr. Rose explained that to you?”





You haven't, have you, Dr. Rose? All you've said is that we'll begin with what I can remember. I'll write about everything I have in my memory, but you don't explain how doing this exercise will manage to dislodge whatever it is that's blocking my ability to play.

And what has Sonia to do with my playing? She must have been a baby when she died. Because surely I would remember an older sibling, one who walked and talked, who played in the sitting room, who created mud puddles in the back garden with me. I would remember that.

I said, “Dr. Rose calls this psychogenic amnesia.”





“Psycho … what?”





I explained it to him as you explained it to me. I ended with, “Because there's no physical cause for the memory loss—and you know the neurologists have cleared the screen on that—the cause has to come from somewhere else. From the psyche, Dad, and not from the brain.”





“That's a load of rubbish,” he said, but I could tell that the words were a form of bravado. He sat in an armchair and stared at nothing.

“All right.” I sat as well, in front of the old roll top desk that belonged to Gran. I did what I'd never considered doing before because I'd never felt it necessary. I called his bluff. “All right, Dad. Accepted. It's rubbish. What should I do, then? Because if all I'm feeling is nerves and fear, I'd be able to play my music alone, wouldn't I? With no one there? With even Libby out of the house so that I could be certain I had no eavesdroppers anywhere? I could play then, couldn't I? And if I couldn't manage so much as a simple arpeggio, who'd be the wiser? Isn't that the case?”





He looked at me. “Have you tried, Gideon?”





“Don't you see? I haven't had to try. I don't need to try when I already know.”





He moved his head, then, away from me. He seemed to go inward, and while he did so, I was aware of the silence in the flat and the silence outside, no breeze even blowing to susurrate the tree leaves. When he finally spoke, it was to say, “No one knows the pain of having a child before the child is born. It seems as if it'll be so simple, but it never is.”