“Oh, you don’t have to read it. I only wanted to show you because it meant a lot to me to meet Fleming today. Come, let’s go read more fun things.”
“More fun than ‘If there ever was a responsibility for humans—one which we should not pass along but accomplish—it is to eliminate that which will eliminate our offspring. Through the production of synthetic NPY/AGRP and POMC, we can embed in our DNA artificial sequences that not only satiate hunger but also extinguish it.’” He quotes the article without looking at it once.
I stare at him, gobsmacked, until a hand waving in front of my face brings me to my senses.
“How did you do that?” I blubber. “You just quoted straight from page 879 but there’s no way you could have read that far. Have you read this before?”
“No.”
I think back through my experiences with him and suddenly, it all clicks. “You have photographic memory, don’t you?”
He tilts his head side to side. “Not exactly.”
For a moment, it looks like he is not going to say more but then he frowns as he makes a decision. He runs his hand over the span of a shelf, looking at me.
“I have a version of eidetic memory, Elisa.”
What? “Are you serious? I thought eidetic memory was a myth,” I manage, remembering my cognitive psychology professor griping that people overuse the term total recall.
“True eidetic memory may well be a myth. Memory is not fully understood. That’s why I say I have a version of it.” He smiles kindly. He has obviously met skepticism before.
“Will you explain it to me? How does it work?” I marvel, wondering if he will let me scan his skull with Reed’s MRI machine so I can look inside.
“Well, it’s broader than photographic memory. I don’t remember only what I read and see, but also what I hear, taste, experience, feel—the full gamut of perception. Once I perceive something, every time I think of it, I will re-experience the same feelings and reactions with perfect clarity. It doesn’t apply just to emotional experiences, but also to mundane ones.” He chuckles, no doubt because my jaw has left and is running to the neuroscience section.
“This is how you knew I was the woman in the painting and Javier was the painter! You remembered even my throat and his paint stains, didn’t you?”
He smiles. “Yes. Those are the obvious parts. Sight. Sound. Centifolia’s smell. It’s why I can play the piano without looking. Why I can sound just like you or even Fleming.” He switches to perfect Mancunian accent. “Why I take no pictures or notes.”
“What about the nonobvious parts? Will you show me some more, please?” I beg shamelessly with a spawning terror that I just lost any hope of ever wanting another man.
He chuckles and takes my hand, heading back to the Purple Room. Fleming is nowhere in sight. “Here’s an example you may know. You said you arrived here on August 24, 2011.”
“Yes,” I breathe, expecting everything from the sound of a Boeing triple-seven coming from his mouth to more accents from British Airways.
“Well, I remember vividly what I did that day.” He winds deeper into the maze. “It was seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit. I had an omelet and four slices of bacon for breakfast, grilled wild salmon for lunch at Ringside, which cost twenty-eight dollars, and spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. I made fourteen business calls, sent one hundred and seventeen emails and read the paper where I learned that the summer Olympics ended in China and Judge Kaplan of Oregon District Court ruled against a local company on logging violations.” He turns on Aisle 422 and reaches on shelf sixteen for a law textbook.
“Page one twenty-seven, paragraph three from the bottom.” He hands it to me.
I skim the book and there it is! Judge Kaplan’s opinion, verbatim. I think I just had an orgasm. With my brain.
“Bloody hell! You’re absolutely right! That day I bought the paper when I landed, and I’ve read it so many times over the years. I remember the news about the summer Olympics except you probably only read it once.” I resolve to dig the paper out of my closet later and read it again.
“That’s why I picked that date. I thought it would stick out for you. And of course, you already know that’s the day I bought my house. I must have known you were coming.”
He is not trying to be romantic. He reports this in his usual factual way. But it’s the most intimate confession of his feelings he has made. I can’t resist. I throw my arms around his neck, reaching for his lips like they might soothe this cerebral fire. But they only fuel it further.
He laughs. “Does my place turn you on?”
“No, you turn me on.”
“Elisa, I think you have a fetish for men with strange brains.”
“Yes, I really think I do.”
“By all means, be my guest.” He brings my lips back to his but now I’m alert again. I want to know more. There is something about what he said that is hinting at the curse behind the blessing.