Lost Past

by Teresa McCullough

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know?” asked Kowalski skeptically.

  “Why don’t we break for lunch?” Wilson interrupted before John could reply.

  John was amused at Wilson’s interruption. They had obviously agreed not to antagonize him as long as he was cooperating. Kowalski forgot and Wilson reminded him.

  Kowalski and Wilson started a desultory conversation about sports. John realized he didn’t have the slightest interest in sports, and participated only when directly addressed. They went from the Ravens to the Redskins to the Nationals and were now on the Capitols when John interrupted.

  “After we finish eating, let me show you the writing.”

  “You write the language!” Kowalski was mildly interested in sports, but this got him excited.

  They spent the afternoon on Vigintees. At the prodding of Kowalski, John gave an extensive vocabulary and recorded the translation of hundreds of words and phrases. The linguist asked John if he knew any words in Vigintees that he didn’t know in English. John said, “Lacrasices.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s a chemical. A drug.”

  “What is it used for?”

  “Schizophrenia.”

  “Any other words you don’t know in English?”

  “I can’t think of any.” After John said it, other words came to mind. Schizophrenia didn’t have a single name in Vigintees; it had four names. He was pretty certain that it wasn’t ignorance of English that made him not know the translations. He decided not to correct his original statement.

  At one point, someone came in with a list of phrases for John to translate, and he was amused at the change of direction. Kowalski wanted to know the language, but someone clearly wanted to know how to speak in a hostile situation. “Drop your weapons” and “Hands up” weren’t part of normal conversation.

  John was concerned that Linda and Tom would worry about his continued absence, his emotional ties overcoming his total loss of any memory. When he took out his cell phone to call Linda, Wilson put his hand over John’s phone. When John looked at Wilson, he shook his head.

  John pushed the phone aside, wanting to call, feeling he should obey Wilson. When Wilson said, “No calls,” John relaxed, content to obey, knowing he had the strength to resist. Wilson spoke with authority in a melodic baritone, but the voice spoiled it. John realized he was used to obeying gestures, which puzzled him.

  “Linda and Tom will worry,” John said, knowing Wilson knew this, and wanted to test his goodwill.

  “I’ll have them called,” Wilson said. While John put away the phone, he was tempted to comment that a call from a stranger would hardly be reassuring. He felt he learned something important about himself when he obeyed gestures more naturally than words, but he had no idea what it meant.

  The linguist left and John was left alone with Wilson. “Where do these Vigintees live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you know the language?”

  “I don’t know,” John repeated.

  “Can you tell us anything about the technology they used to pull a passenger off a flight in mid-air?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you learn Vigintees?”

  “I don’t remember. I have amnesia.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Wilson said with palpable disbelief. The questions continued.

  A second man came in and both men started yelling at John. They were unimpressed when John said, “If I didn’t have amnesia, Arthur wouldn’t need to warn me.”

  Wilson replied, “He may have thought you had amnesia, but that doesn’t mean you actually have it.” At this point, John wondered if Wilson attended law school.

  They tried different wording and different approaches. John answered everything, but it didn’t help. He told them freely about everything in his life, but his memories only going back to the hospital made the material very sparse. He refrained from telling them the extent of his deductions about himself or others. They didn’t need to know why he wanted to know about cars or that John guessed that Wilson’s parents were well educated. Didn’t police want the facts, as in “Just the facts, ma'am.” What was that from? Dragnet? When was that show? The 1950’s? How come he knew that? He wasn’t old enough to remember.

  The shouted questions were stressful, and though he was not under arrest and was only concealing his thoughts, not material facts, he was having trouble keeping from attempting to leave.

  ***

  Linda wasn’t worried about John at first, though Tom’s comments made it plain he was. The YouTube recording was all over the news and John’s knowledge of the language certainly made him a person of interest. A tray table with “HIJ” scratched on it had been discovered and leaked, allowing commentators a discussion of possible interpretations to add to the non-news. Linda couldn’t believe those letters were meant to stand for the Hiroshima airport. After three minutes on that possibility, Tom turned off the TV in disgust, since Linda showed him the online dictionary’s entries, which contained only eleven words starting with HIJ and six of them had “hijack” as their root.

  They discussed their father, agreeing that it was unlikely he was dead. The hijackers would just have brought down the plane if they wanted him dead.

  “But I don’t like him being in the hands of anyone that ruthless,” said Linda.

  “Me neither, but we can’t do anything for him.”

  Nothing beyond what two governments were doing, Linda thought. Although the plane was U.S., the Australian government participated in the recovery efforts because so many of their citizens were on the flight.

  When the FBI called John’s landline, Tom took the phone call on speaker. The caller identified himself and reported that John Graham was being voluntarily questioned, and was fine.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tom asked. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  Linda shook her head. She knew John was fine, because he was still within range and not distressed. Tom didn’t push his point, but helped her clean the apartment. Although the setting was different, the actions were familiar and reassuring to both of them.

  They talked about their father, with an unspoken agreement to avoid the past tense, except for events that were actually in the past.

  “Dad took us swimming a lot,” Linda said at one point.

  “No, that was Mom. I was on the swim team for a few summers and he never was there for meets. It was always Mom.”

  Linda nodded as the vague memories returned of being bored at Tom’s meets. Dad never attended Tom’s meets. In fact, he was never there on weekends for several years. That seemed odd, because he was around on weekends shortly before Mom died.

  “I’m too old to say life is unfair. I know it’s unfair, but losing both Mom and Dad in mysterious ways is really unfair,” Tom said.

  “That sounds like John talking,” Linda said, although she agreed with Tom’s comment. Mom disappeared ten years ago, and she thought she was over it. Maybe she would never really get over it. If Dad didn’t come home, would she ever get over his disappearance?

  No, she told herself. She wasn’t going there. Dad was alive somewhere, and somehow he would get home.

  Later, Linda realized the link to John changed. He was no longer comfortable, but in mild distress. “John needs help.”

  Tom had been slouching in the desk chair, but he abruptly sat up straight. “What’s he feeling?”

  “He’s uncomfortable and concerned. It’s nothing horrible, but he is a little frightened.”

  “What can we do? I mean, you can find him, but can we do anything?”

  “There are three groups who might support him,” Linda said, holding up a finger. “The press.”

  “They might just as easily want to hang him,” Tom interrupted.

  She nodded and continued, holding up a second finger. “The families of the children he saved at the school . . .”<
br />
  She paused to let him jump in. Tom had some ideas about how to get a hold of the families. When they agreed that Tom should do that, he asked, “What was your third idea?”

  “Eric Schwartz.”

  “He turned John in!”

  “Eric did what he thought was right,” Linda replied. “John would approve, he always encouraged us to obey the rules. I think Eric’ll do what’s right again, especially if I approach him through that fellow resident that is so attracted to John. You know, the feline woman who is so graceful.”

  “Do you have her number? Do you remember her name?”

  “John called her Cara,” she said. “I bet she’s in his address book.”

  “In his computer? We can’t snoop.”

  “I can.” She walked over and opened up the laptop, ignoring Tom’s surprise. She realized Tom didn’t know the extent of her computer knowledge or the details of her summer job, which was both educational and classified. He knew she sat all day in front of a computer, but he never connected it to the courses she took in Arabic.

  She was almost disappointed when she found John’s accounts weren’t password protected. When she found his work-related email, she sent out an email in John’s name to everyone in John’s address book: This is Linda Saunders writing from John Graham’s email account. The FBI took him and has been holding him for ten hours. In view of his recent injuries, I believe pressure should be put on them to release him. She gave her cell phone number.

  “I’ll find out where he’s held, you get in touch with those parents.” She left.

  ***

  It being after eleven p.m., John was tired, emotionally from answering questions and physically from being up so long after the trauma of the bomb. He saw Wilson was also tired, but concealing it well. John, wondering how long they would keep it up, neither asked for a lawyer nor requested to leave, hoping his cooperation would stand him in good stead. More than that, he hoped they would eventually get tired of hearing “I don’t know.”

  Wilson received a brief message and left the room. When John returned, Wilson said, “How the hell did the Saunders children know where you are?”

  He could have responded, “I don’t know,” since he certainly had practice using that sentence, but surprise made him blurt out, “They’re here?”

  “Yes, with a crowd of protestors. There aren’t very many of them, but the press has come to watch. Also there are phone calls from dozens of doctors, thinking you are going to join your friend Arthur Saunders in winning a Nobel Prize. Several of them are here.” Wilson continued unhappily, “I would like to know how they found you. Hell, I’m not getting anything more from you.”

  “Caller ID from the phone call?” John replied. “Besides, all they needed to do was to find some likely building and bring people to it. It would call just as much attention to it as if they actually found where I was. They just got lucky.”

  “That seems unlikely,” Wilson replied sourly. “You’re free to go.”

  Wilson’s skepticism about John’s explanation made John realize that he didn’t believe it either.

  John gave Linda and Tom brief hugs at the entrance to the building. He was amused to note that he apparently didn’t hug them, although it was not hard to figure out why. A single man living with teenagers not related to him had to be very careful of physical contact.

  John went from person to person in the small crowd, thanking them for their support. Linda and Tom hovered protectively, and he allowed people to assume he was returning with them. He arranged his circle of greetings so that the last person he talked to was Eric, who looked both guilty and defiant. “Dr. Schwartz.”

  “I’m sorry, John, I had to tell them.”

  “Of course you did, Eric,” John said. He didn’t know whether he called Eric Schwartz by his first or last name, but he didn’t want to be in the subservient position. “I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

  Ignoring the reporters holding microphones up to him, he said to Eric, “Drive me home.”

  “I drove several people here.” He was less protesting than stating a fact.

  “Who?”

  “Cara, Jun, and Pedro. “ John knew Cara of course, and Eric indicated who the two others were. Jun was a tall Asian male and Pedro a short Hispanic.

  “All psychiatric residents?”

  “Jun finished his residency two years ago.”

  “That’s okay, if we all can fit in the car.” He turned to Tom and Linda. “Thanks for this. We’ll talk when I get back.” Tom was clearly surprised at John’s dictating to Eric, but Linda had an enigmatic smile on her face, when she and Tom turned and left. He didn’t understand either reaction, but filed them away as things to think about.

  Eric tried to apologize again when they were settled in his SUV. John cut him off, and Eric, his boss, meekly allowed himself to be cut off. John turned and surveyed the back seat, wryly observing their collective shock. Apparently, he didn’t order Eric around.

  “I believe I have information about psychiatry that I haven’t given you,” John said. “I don’t know why or even what it is, but I would like to spend tomorrow finding out what you know and then tell you everything I know beyond that. I must have had reasons for not telling you. I don’t know what they were, but in case it was an issue of safety, I want to tell you everything I can very quickly. It is possible that someone doesn’t want this information to get out. If that is the case, you may be in danger.” He saw no need to bring up the plane hijacking, because they all knew about it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Cara said. John realized she was ignoring the danger because she supported John, not because she considered the risks and believed them to be worth the gain.

  “It is not ridiculous. If you don’t want to take the risk, assuming there is a risk, you should say so now.”

  “I’m in,” said Cara, too promptly to have thought it over. Jun and Pedro also chimed in with their concurrence, after brief pauses.

  “I didn’t expect you to stay out,” John said. “However, I want recordings of what I say distributed as widely as possible, as quickly as possible. You can’t keep a secret if thousands of people have it in their computers. I want you to prepare for sending the information to a large number people. I don’t just mean the Internet. They may be able to stop that. I don’t even want to know what you are doing. What I don’t know, I can’t betray.”

  When John returned to his apartment, Tom was in the shower. Linda apologized for going into his computer. He waved it aside. “I want you both to leave tomorrow and go back to school. You aren’t really accomplishing anything by staying here. If there is any news, it will reach you anywhere.”

  “That’s not why you want us to leave,” Linda said.

  How did she know? John wondered. “No. I’m going to do something that is against your father’s advice. I have a feeling it might be dangerous. I am going to tell Eric and the others everything I know about psychiatry. I may not get another chance. I am not sure why I kept it a secret, but…”

  “You didn’t,” Linda interrupted.

  “What?” John said.

  “You didn’t keep it a secret. You let people figure out what was going on and copy what you were doing.”

  “I could hardly not cure patients.”

  “Of course you could, if it was important to you. Also, you could persuade people it wasn’t what you did, but, oh, coincidence, or how the patients reacted to you. But you weren’t a resident for six months before you had a following. You steered them to watch what you were doing.” She wasn’t speculating, John realized; she was confident of what she said.

  John stared at Linda. “I didn’t tell you…”

  “Of course not. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

  John’s body demanded rest, but his mind wouldn’t let him sleep. Somewhere in his mind was knowledge of his past. He went through a list of things he would do if he were trying to obtain the information from a patient. He reminde
d himself that dreams were sometimes revealing and therefore sleep should help. He also wondered about Linda. He didn’t think he taught her how to read people, yet how did she read him?

  John dreamed about aliens. They were a little less than five feet tall and were a light bluish gray. Some of them had faces that made sense. The ears were just entry holes and the nose was on the back of the head near the top. Others were missing a mouth and thin. The ones with mouths varied from very thin to very fat. Their two arms were more like tentacles without discernable joints. The legs were concealed under clothing, but the feet were almost like flippers. In his dream, he felt respect, even worship, but no repulsion.

  The dream was so vivid that he felt it must mean something. When he tried to come up with a name for these aliens, he had no word in English, but in Vigintees, they were the Plict.

  Eric emailed him the three papers he published, as well as the draft of one he was working on. After Tom and Linda left, John read them with increasing disappointment. He was shocked at what they contained, not because they were innovative, but because in his mind, they weren’t. Was psychiatry that primitive? How was it that John knew more than Eric?

  Judging from a couple of hours on the Internet, apparently it was. He was unfamiliar with some of the psychiatric drugs used. It wasn’t until it occurred to him that he should look up their chemical formulas that he might have a better idea of what was going on. He translated the formulas into Vigintees and that made it easier for him to understand them. Most of them meant nothing to him. Two popular drugs seemed right, but he couldn’t find certain drugs he was searching for. Lacrasices, which was used for schizophrenia, didn’t appear to be available.

  It was afternoon before John went to the hospital. He was bombarded with friendly greetings from everyone from the head of the hospital to members of the janitorial staff. He politely told people that no, he had not recovered his memory, but he hoped that being on familiar ground would be helpful.

  Eric asked him to stop in his office for a few minutes. The office had a large rosewood desk whose surface contained only a couple of pictures, a cup of pens, a stapler, and a computer. Psychiatric texts lined the walls, as well as his degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins. John barely glanced at the degrees but picked up the one of the pictures.