F Paul Wilson - Novel 05

by Mirage (v2. 1)

  She checked the readouts in the bottom ribbon bar. Pulse and respiration were normal.

  It's been only a few hours. Is this too soon to be going back in? she wondered. Probably won't have any effect on Sam. But what effect will it have on me?

  She chewed at her lip, once again guiltily aware that it was not Samantha she was concerned with.

  The screen darkened to night.

  And she was back.

  Nine

  Recall—the act of memory—should not be viewed as merely opening a mental drawer and pulling out a memory. Recall is a reconstructive act—the various pieces of that memory must be located, gathered together, and reassembled for inspection. —Random notes: Julia Gordon

  The memoryscape draws you back, like a gravity well sucking you in. You retract your hand, and, like hitting a brake, you stop.

  You look around. You're prepared now, ready for the broken web of twisted structures and scorched earth. Still, it shocks you.

  You search for the blue glow of the gallery. There—you find it. A landmark. You're oriented now. And beyond that, the glow of Eathan's Oakwood. But dimmer now, flickering.

  Oh, no. Is that dying too?

  You approach it and see something beyond it, something you didn't notice last time when Oakwood was brighter, something that looks like a pile of pure white sugar, a giant white hill.

  Cocaine, perhaps? That certainly might occupy a place in Sam's memory. Any substance that stretched her mind was fair game. Anything to feed the frenzy that was Samantha.

  You hear a noise, a scuffling sound, and turn around. A possum. Something is alive here!

  You watch its naked prehensile tail thrashing madly back and forth as it paws under a pile of debris. It pulls something free and begins gnawing on it. Curious, you move closer and it backs away, guarding its prize. You lean closer; you aren't going to steal it away, but you're curious what it's got there. It turns toward you and—

  You jerk back. A hand—the possum has a severed human hand clamped between its jaws. You turn away, sickened, as it begins to gnaw on a finger.

  You raise your glove toward the hill. You want to get out of here.

  You float over the memoryscape, a clinical angel calmly inspecting the damage below as you near the white hill.

  Soon you see it's not sugar, not cocaine. No, it's a snowcapped hill. As you near you see that the peak is flattened. Suddenly on your left a huge wave rears up out of nowhere, its foamy edges reaching for you like white-clawed hands. You dart back and the wave freezes, framing the far-off mountain.

  And now you know that mountain: It's Fuji. And somehow you're in Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

  Well, what did you expect in your sister's memoryscape? You could have guessed it would be lousy with art.

  That was another thing you never agreed on. You're drawn to artists like Georges de la Tour. You adore his The Penitent Magdalen—the light, the shadows, the clarity. You love the representational schools; Sam loves everything but.

  But now you're part of Hokusai's Great Wave, and it's okay as art, but it's in your way. You dart past the wave, ducking through its trough, and continue toward the mountain.

  When you look back, the wave remains as you left it, frozen, waiting to tumble toward a beach that doesn't exist.

  Ahead, you notice tiny people on a snowy mountain that's no longer Fuji. They glide back and forth, skiing under a brilliant blue sky—

  Samantha pushes the goggles higher off her face. The man with her is older, with sharp, dark eyes and a grin that glints like the snow.

  Karl Tennstedt is director of Berlin's Bertolt Brecht Theater. He's been Sam's boss, and now wants to be her mentor and lover. All through the production of Galileo he's been putting moves on her, hinting about other productions ... and their working together.

  But his wife is crazy, and so insanely jealous it's scary.... Who knows what she'll do if she finds out.

  "Let me tell you what to expect on this slope," Tennstedt says.

  Sam shakes her head. Why listen, why experience the slope in words before experiencing it in life? How boring.

  "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

  The man's smile changes.

  "This isn't some baby run, Samantha. This is Die Grosse 'Edge.' This is a professional alpine run."

  Sam pulls down her goggles.

  "Good." She pushes away, close to the edge of the run. She looks down, and the sight takes her breath away. It's not a sheer drop, but it is an incredible expanse of white, sloping sharply at a forty-five-degree angle.

  She sees skiers cutting left and right, controlling their speed by weaving back and forth.

  "The run turns," Tennstedt says. "Halfway down, the run narrows and—"

  Tennstedt is too old. Acting like a father, so worried and concerned. All that, and he wants to get into Sam's pants. That's what this little ski holiday is all about. He's boring her.

  But this slope isn't.

  Tennstedt still jabbers at her. She feels his apprehension and that adds to the excitement.

  She pushes off the edge and hits the slope already moving fast, taking the downhill dead-on. She pulls her poles tight to her body, crouching.

  Look at me. I'm a downhill racer.

  Faster, and faster, the thin layer of powdery snow does little to slow her. She flies past other skiers trying to tackle the steep slope in measured assaults. Such caution, such an accounting approach to life. Tiny crystals of snow in the air bite her cheeks. The goggles paint everything with a warm yellow tint.

  It's dreamlike, wonderful.

  The run begins to narrow.

  What had been a giant tablecloth of white funnels into a narrow gap.

  Now Sam realizes that her speed is out of control. With the gray granite walls closing in from the sides, she knows she's got to do something to slow herself.

  This is the way it's always been for her.

  Test the limits. Heed no warning. Take no prisoners.

  She starts awkwardly schussing back and forth, trying to dig her ski edges into the snow to slow her. The effect is pitiful. Then her right ski edge tries to dig into an exposed icy patch but skids over it.

  She feels her balance go.

  The cold on her face is matched now by terror. She fights to regain control. She can only glance at the slope, ever narrower, the stone walls closing in on her. Then—with a last sickening glance—she sees the run turn sharply to the right.

  Her left leg, trying to counterbalance her wobbling, gives way.

  And she falls, tumbling into the snow, a biting spray flying into her face. She begins rolling, screaming, banging—and ...

  And you feel it.

  The snow shooting into your face, filling your mouth.

  You feel your limbs smashing against the ice, rolling, flopping around.

  You moan. You feel this. But that's not supposed to happen. You're just an observer here.

  You need to think about this, but how can you think while you're falling down a mountain, experiencing your sister's memory with your body feeling every electric jolt, every sensation?

  You moan again.

  Or is that Sam? Why can't you tell?

  Sam opens her eyes.

  She's aware that the movement has stopped. She feels the snow on her lips and knows she is facedown.

  A sharp pain arcs from below, a dull, throbbing message from miles away. She tries to reach down and see what's hurting so much.

  She raises her head off the snow and twists around to look at the source of the pain.

  It seems amazing that the sky is still blue, with the sun a brilliant yellow hanging low in the sky. Nothing has changed. Except—

  She raises her head higher and sees the red stain, so dark, almost black against the white snow. From miles away, she understands. There's blood down there.

  Then another delayed realization.

  It's mine.

  Suddenly all movement on the mountain stops.

&nb
sp; You've done nothing, but now you're gliding back from the brilliant white of the slope, leaving the antlike speck of Sam stranded on the mountain. Farther back until you see the whole snow'Covered mountain.

  Rippling, undulating slowly.

  The white is moving.

  Closer now, again without your doing anything. You remind yourself that this is a memory. More like a dream, the way it cuts back and forth, mixing one scene with the next, making surreal jumps.

  You watch, hooked by this drama of your twin, opening up her life to you in a way that never could have happened when she was conscious.

  You see a bed. A white sheet.

  The sheet moving. Sam, her head in bandages, moves under the sheet. Someone stands nearby, a dark figure. The director?

  The figure moves closer to the bed and puts a hand on Sam.

  Eathan!

  Is this happening now, or then? You feel completely disoriented.

  You see Eathan touch Sam's brow. He looks younger. This was five, six years ago. You remember this, and you don't want to be here.

  You feel yourself being drawn into Sam. You don't want to be inside her because you know what happens here:

  "I've called your sister."

  Sam nods, but the pain makes her wince.

  "I left a message about the accident... your loss of blood."

  He gently touches her head. No matter what Sam does to herself, Eathan is always there to pick up the pieces.

  I'm like Humpty Dumpty, Sam thinks. Except one of these days all the King's men won't be able to put me back together painm

  Then Sam sees something on the small side table. Was it there before or did Eathan bring it?

  A matrioshka with Gorbachev as its outer skin.

  The phone rings. One long ring that fills the room.

  Sam watches Eathan pick up the receiver. She listens.

  "Yes, Julia. She's in Grenoble. Yes, the Universitaire Hospital. It's very good."

  Eathan smiles at Samantha.

  The doll is gone from the table. Vanished. She must have imagined it.

  "Yes, a compound fracture with arterial damage ... yes, a lot of blood before they got to her. Julie. I was hoping..."

  Another smile from Eathan for Sam.

  Thinking about Julie in New York. Stopping her busy New York life, listening to the news of sister Sam's latest disaster.

  You remember the call. You remember how you felt.

  The words you said.

  "So what did Sam do this time?"

  You asked about the hospital. "We're AB positive—that's compatible with just about any donor. There's got to be other ways to get blood to her. She doesn't need me."

  Did you really say that? Yes ... yes, you did. You remember those words.

  She doesn't need me.

  You wanted the tie to be cut. You wanted Eathan to know that you weren't going to be part of Sam's rescue squad. You had your own life, your own work—

  And Eathan said ... he said:

  "I understand. Yes. I'm sure we can get enough blood here. I just thought—right, Julie."

  The receiver clicks down with a terrible finality.

  Sam looks away... up to the ceiling, the off-white ceiling that seems so far away.

  She knows what Julie said. She didn't hear the actual words but she's got a very good idea of the content. She feels a pressure in her chest. She doesn't want to cry, not simply because of the pain it will cause in her broken ribs, but because she swore years ago that Julie would never make her cry again. So she won't cry. She won't, dammit!

  But a sob breaks through, and pain stabs from her right side. And she cries harder, huge, wracking sobs.

  Damn Julie. She did it again.

  You can't stand this. The pain—the emotional pain—is too much. You click the Exit button and watch the scene fade.

  Ten

  Joseph Conrad: "Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory."

  —Random notes: Julia Gordon

  Julie yanked the data glove off her hand. Its sweaty insides stuck to her skin. Then she pulled off her headset and wiped her eyes.

  Tears! she thought. My God, I'm crying!

  She never cried.

  But it really wasn't Julie crying. These were Sam's tears. Somehow Sam's emotions and her physical response had transferred to Julie.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and stared at her silent, unresponsive sister. She almost expected to see Sam all bandaged, still recovering from her ski accident. But Sam's face was unmarked now, and she slept, quite beautiful, her shiny blond hair picking up the muted light in the room.

  Oh, Sam. I always knew you bruised easily, always took things hard, but I never really appreciated, 1 mean, I never knew haw hard. God! Is that how 1 made you feel?

  Julie sniffed. The tears had stopped; the aching hurt was fading, but traces of it remained.

  Soon I'll be all me again, she thought.

  She wiped her eyes one last time and began removing Sam's headgear—she didn't want Eathan to know she'd made another foray into her memoryscape.

  She smoothed Sam's hair.

  I never meant to hurt you, Sam.

  God, 1 lost patience with, you all the time, raged at you, but I never—ever—wanted to cause the land of pain 1 just experienced. Never knew I could.

  Do they make sisters any colder?

  1 don't think so.

  And yet that wasn't completely fair. If positions had been reversed—if it had been Julie in die bed in New York and Sam on the phone from Europe—it would have made perfect sense to Julie for Sam to say it wasn't necessary for her to make a transatlantic trip when there was so much AB positive-compatible blood available. She'd have understood completely.

  But to Sam it was another stab in the back, another brick in the wall.

  Julie tried to shrug it off, but couldn't. She'd felt physical sensations: tasted die snow, felt the slope slam against her body.

  She rubbed her leg, half expecting to feel the beginnings of a bruise.

  Nothing showed, of course.

  But now, emotions—someone else's emotions. That was scary.

  And other disconcerting things as well: the dimming of the Oakwood memory node. Was there ongoing deterioration in Sam's memoryscape?

  The door to the room opened. A woman dressed in a marched white dress came in.

  "Mademoiselle, vouiez'vous un cafe?"

  Julie nodded. "Oui." Then remembering the niceties of French etiquette, she quickly added, "Merti, Madame."

  Remember the niceties, Julie.

  She was just about through with die shutdown procedure when the door opened. Julie turned, expecting to see the nurse with a steaming mug of coffee.

  But Eathan was there.

  "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to leave you alone for so long."

  Eathan seemed distant, preoccupied. Was something wrong?

  On impulse, she decided to tell him.

  "I made a quick trip back into Sam's memoryscape."

  He stiffened. "Alone? Don't you think—"

  "I saw Sam's ski accident... from her point of view."

  Eathan made a face. They had never discussed Julie's reaction to her sister's accident. Eathan had never criticized Julie's refusal to come to Sam's side, to donate blood.

  "Your sister careens from crisis to crisis." He pulled a chair close to the computer console and sat next to Julie. "That was only broken bones. This is far worse."

  The large windows that faced the quiet rue de Bourgogne were now tinged with a filmy light. The full moon was slowly rising in the east.

  "I gather you didn't stay in too long."

  "No. I..." No, she couldn't tell him about the tears. "I just took a quick look."

  "And it's still devastated?"

  She nodded.

  "I guess it's hopeless, eh?"

  Julie shook her head. "Not at all. I'm convinced I can learn something."

  "But you didn't see what happened to Samantha?"


  "No. Not even close. Just an old, painful memory ... about me."

  Eathan put a hand on her shoulder. "Julia, one of the calls I made was to Samantha's doctor. I asked him if I could arrange to bring Samantha back to Oakwood."

  Julie shook her head. "What? No—I mean, I want to go on with this."

  "I can get Samantha the absolute best care at the estate. I already have my personal physician lining up a U.K. team of neurological specialists. Though no one feels that there's any chance—"

  "But—"

  "And it's more than that."

  The pasty white top of the moon had slid free of the houses across the street. Now it was a giant light shining in on them.

  Julie looked at it, and for some reason it chilled her. The moon, she thought. That dopey, dumb, grinning face. Always the same dopey face ...

  She turned back to Eathan.

  "I think there may be danger here, Julia. If someone did something to her to cause this... Sam could still be in jeopardy. If she knows something and were to come back to consciousness, that could be dangerous. For all of us, but especially her."

  "You think this man, this Liam—?"

  Eathan raised a hand. "I don't know. But the roses, the prowler they've spotted—I only know that it would be safer for Samantha if she came back to Oakwood. She'd be out of the country and away from O'Donnell."

  Julie hesitated. Oakwood. She remembered hearing the name for the first time as a little girl. After the fire, their uncle had purchased an English estate, a secluded manor on the North Yorkshire coast.

  Julie had never liked it there, too big, too many secret places, too isolated—

  "I want to come."

  Eathan shook his head. "Julia, you have your work. You've seen inside your sister's mind. There's no hope. Let it go."

  "I can't."

  She saw Eathan make a face. The lopsided grimace of the moon was now fully in the window, watching her plead for this chance.

  I don't want to go to Oakwood, she thought. But if Sam's going, then that's what I'll do. She reached out and took Eathan's hand.

  "Let me come. As you said, Oakwood is safe, secluded. I can make real progress there."