The Book of M. Peng Shepherd
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Название: The Book of M

Автор: Peng Shepherd

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Эзотерика

Серия:

isbn: 9780008225629

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ you kindly tell me your name, and how we know each other?”

      “Um. Of course.” The woman shifted awkwardly and tucked her hair behind her ear. She was not pretty, the amnesiac decided. That was not the word he’d use. “My name is Charlotte. We went to college together.”

      “Oh, yes. I have a bachelor’s degree in history,” he recited. He watched her for another long moment. The way she had answered made it seem like not the full truth. Not a lie; just not everything. The flash cards said he did not have a sister. “Did you also study history?”

      “No, anthropology.” She smiled. “Very marketable.”

      “Did you become an anthropologist?”

      Charlotte laughed. “I’m in marketing. Data storage company.” She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again the other way. “You—you also didn’t end up becoming a historian,” she offered.

      “No.” The amnesiac nodded. “I went into law.” So were the facts.

      “Yes, I know.” She smiled.

      That excited him. “Did I enjoy law school? How did I seem there?” he asked.

      Charlotte pressed her lips together. “Well, probably no one enjoys law school—it’s a lot of studying, a lot of competition. But I think you enjoyed being a lawyer. You always seemed passionate when you talked about your job.”

      “I’m glad,” he said. That was very nice. He was happy he had liked being a lawyer. Charlotte pushed her hair behind her ear again and clasped her hands. It struck him then. Fixed. That was the word he would use. He meant it in the best of ways. He felt as though he was spinning around the world, unanchored, careening all the time. But for Charlotte, the world spun around her. He could feel it. She did not move an inch. She was the most fixed thing he’d found so far.

      “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she blurted suddenly. “This was as early as—I didn’t know you’d been in an accident. Dr. Zadeh only called me last week. I guess it took them some time to work everything out off your driver’s license. Who you were, everyone you might have known.”

      “It’s all right,” he said. It really was. He hadn’t known to miss her at all.

      Charlotte tried not to fidget. She was trying to look at him intently without actually looking at him.

      “You can ask me anything,” the amnesiac said. “I don’t mind.”

      “So you remember nothing? Nothing from before you woke up in the hospital?”

      He shook his head. “The first thing I remember is a nurse. She was leaning over me, trying to adjust my IV bag, when my eyes opened.”

      “But you remembered what an IV bag is.”

      “Yes.”

      “And how to talk.”

      “Yes.”

      “Could you walk? And dress and eat?”

      “Well, at first everything was too broken for me to move. But once I healed, then yes.”

      Charlotte leaned back on the couch. “Huh,” she said to herself, mystified. “Huh.” The plate of cookies the facility staff had supplied for the visit sat untouched on the coffee table between them. He thought she might be about to cry.

      The amnesiac understood then what she wanted. Why her answers were true but incomplete. The answer was no. No, no matter how long she sat there with him, he would not suddenly remember her on his own.

      Dr. Zadeh suddenly appeared in a burst of starched cotton and papers. He was the way he was when on the verge of another idea to test on the amnesiac—excited, moving at double speed. He seemed to have forgotten that they were mid-visit, that Charlotte was even there. “Sorry to interrupt,” he managed at last, aiming a remote at the sleeping television in the corner of the room. He looked at the amnesiac as the screen blinked on. It was a festival of some kind, it seemed. At the center of all the colors, there was a man. A man with no shadow beneath him. “You have to see this.”

      THE AMNESIAC SAT BACK AND SETTLED HIS ELBOWS ON THE armrests. The chair was uncomfortably small. “Have I ever been on a plane before?” he asked.

      “Many times, I’m sure,” Dr. Zadeh said as he fastened his own seat belt.

      The amnesiac nodded, considering. The endless, low droning sound that filled the cabin of the plane made him feel like he was back in the hospital, hooked up to something. He wouldn’t notice it after a while, Dr. Zadeh had promised. “Have I ever been to India before?”

      “That you have not,” Dr. Zadeh replied. “The consulate didn’t have any record of previous tourist visa applications under your name when I filed for this one.”

      The amnesiac nodded. “Good.”

      “Good?”

      “This will be my first experience that hasn’t actually already happened before.” He smiled. “My first real memory.”

      THE FLIGHT WAS VERY LONG. BUT NOT AS LONG AS HE HAD laid locked into his broken body in the hospital. The amnesiac sat comfortably. Any amount of time that was shorter than three weeks, he imagined he’d be able to tolerate quite easily. The plane sailed through the sky. He waited.

      They brought a meal around. It looked different from the food at the assisted-living facility. He had never seen anything like it. Or perhaps he had. He took note to ask Charlotte about it at her next visit, to see if she knew.

      “Lamb vindaloo.” Dr. Zadeh pointed with his fork. “It’s pretty good.”

      “It is,” the amnesiac agreed. “Is this Indian food?”

      “Not even close.” Dr. Zadeh grinned. “This is airplane Indian food.”

      An hour later, he had finished the tea they gave him. It was strange how it worked, retrograde amnesia. He knew what tea was, what India was. He knew the words for everything, and all their meanings. He knew people spoke English in Pune—among other local dialects—as all schooling was taught in English in India. When he heard that Hemu Joshi played cricket, he realized he knew what cricket was, the rough idea of the game, even what the ball itself looked like. But he couldn’t say for the life of him if he’d ever seen one with his own eyes—eye.

      He wondered if it was like this for Hemu Joshi, too. Inside, he thrilled at the knowledge that he would meet him soon. Someone else who would understand what it was to be like himself—or not himself, rather. He hoped it would work. That one of them might somehow teach the other something and unravel this mystery.

      He turned to Dr. Zadeh, but the doctor had fallen asleep while looking over the amnesiac’s file again, leaving it open on his foldout tray table. The amnesiac slid it to his own.

      He read the police account of the car crash again, and the paramedic’s report. A collection of colorful ovals filled one page. My brain, he thought. They seemed bright enough, he guessed. He didn’t know which part meant that his memories had been knocked loose. His visitation log was also there. Charlotte’s basic information. Name, phone number, relationship СКАЧАТЬ