The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  “Excuse me?” Simioni said.

  “I keep executives from getting so drunk they get rolled by prostitutes or reveal trade secrets to foreign competitors.”

  Simioni crossed his arms. “You do any industrial health and safety work?”

  Kanan’s smile was brief and wry. “I’m a babysitter.”

  Jo and Simioni exchanged a glance, puzzled. The possibilities were numerous and awful and none of them made immediate sense. A blow to the head. Viral encephalitis. Brain surgery performed with a Black & Decker drill. Tapeworm larvae burrowing into Kanan’s brain.

  Jo forcibly ignored that image. Kanan’s eyes were bright. He was handsome and lucid and in deep trouble.

  “You’re saying something’s wrong with me?” he said.

  “Something serious, yes,” Jo said.

  Simioni held out the MRI photos. As Kanan examined them, his face paled.

  There was little point breaking it to him gently. There would never be a good time to explain things to him—anything—ever again. Whatever he learned, he could never assimilate. He could only be reminded of it, endlessly. A melody poured through Jo’s thoughts. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Strip My Mind.”

  Simioni asked Kanan a list of questions. Fever? Drinking unfiltered water or eating suspect food from a Zimbabwean food stall? No, no, and no.

  Kanan stared relentlessly at the images. “I’ve never heard of this.”

  “It’s extremely rare,” Jo said. “Did anything strange happen on your business trip? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  “No.” He looked up. “What’s the treatment?”

  “We’re working on that,” Simioni said.

  Kanan’s voice sharpened. “Don’t you know?”

  “We won’t even have a chance to treat it unless we can figure out what’s causing it.”

  Kanan looked rigid, like a spring pressed down, ready to blow. “Prognosis?”

  “The part of your brain that processes information and sends it to long-term storage is damaged,” Jo said. “It means information won’t be transferred to memory. It will slough off.”

  He jabbed a finger at the MRI printout. “You’re saying this part of my brain is being scratched out.” He drew a breath. “Erased.”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Like I’m looking through a camera viewfinder but can’t click the shutter,” Kanan said. “Am I going to become a vegetable?”

  She held on to his gaze. “No.”

  “I’m gonna end up staring out the window drooling?”

  “Not at all,” Simioni said.

  Kanan’s gaze lengthened. Simioni continued explaining things, but Jo knew that Kanan heard none of it. His head and heart were stuck at the screeching red letters that had just been scrawled across his life. Mind wipe.

  Jo touched Kanan’s hand. “You have some kind of brain trauma. That’s all we know.”

  She gauged his pulse. It was fast and strong. He was wearing a denim shirt over a brown T-shirt. The logo on the T-shirt said FADE TO CLEAR. Kanan saw her reading it.

  “My kid’s garage band. They got a dozen shirts made in the Haight.” He blinked. Though he looked calm, he was breathing rapidly. “Find out what’s wrong with me. Fix it.”

  “We’re trying,” Jo said. “But it’s doing damage right now, and that damage is not the kind that can be repaired.”

  Simioni’s pager went off. “Have to go.” He crossed his arms. “Mr. Kanan, we’re doing everything we can. Hang in there.”

  He left. Kanan watched the door close.

  “None of this makes sense. I remember everything. Ian David Kanan. Age thirty-five. Blood type A-positive.”

  He reeled off his address, date of birth, driver’s license and Social Security numbers. “I broke my arm at summer camp when I was eight. I took Misty to the senior prom. I work at Chira-Sayf. I can recite the security code to open the door to the lab there.”

  “What time is it?” Jo said.

  He looked bemused. “I don’t know, dinnertime?”

  “Twelve thirty P.M.”

  Kanan looked out the window. The noon sun was fighting the rain clouds. The sight took him aback.

  “How did you get here?” Jo said.

  “I guess—I drove.”

  “Ambulance.”

  He frowned in confusion and surprise.

  Jo lowered her voice. “In the ambulance, I told you about the head injury. You said, ‘They’ll say it was self-inflicted.’”

  He didn’t reply, but instead took out his phone. “Excuse me. I need to call my wife.”

  “Look at your dialed calls register.”

  He thumbed the keypad. He saw the dozens of calls he’d made and looked for a second like he’d been hit between the eyes with a rock. Jo let silence settle on the room.

  “Who’s going to say your injury is self-inflicted, Ian? And why?”

  He stuck his phone in his pocket and turned toward the door. “I need to leave.”

  Jo stepped firmly into his path. “What happened to you?”

  He stopped, but just barely. “Please excuse me. But I’m going now.”

  “What happened overseas? How did you get those gouges in your arm? Tell me. Because I can still section you. And the cops won’t hesitate to arrest you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re a spitfire. Ever been a drill sergeant?”

  “I didn’t need to be. I’m mean enough to keep soldiers in line without having to pull rank.” She hoped that never got back to the man in her life. “Now tell me—what happened to you?”

  Kanan’s face tightened, and for a moment she thought he was going to bat her aside. Then the sad mixture of pain and irony spread across his face. “The real question is, what’s going to happen to me?”

  Her shoulders inched down. “You’re going to stay the same person. This won’t affect your intelligence or personality. It won’t affect your existing memories. It won’t erase any of the knowledge and skills you have.”

  “I’ll still be able to drive a car and skin a deer.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll know everybody? I’ll still recognize them?”

  “Yes. This isn’t dementia. It’s not Alzheimer’s.”

  “But my brain won’t record.”

  “In essence, no.”

  “So it’s all live performance. Nothing goes into long-term storage. I have no hard drive.”

  He didn’t cry. He merely put his phone away. “That other doctor”—he glanced at the door, indicating the departed Simioni—“he split so you’d stay and have to explain it to me.”

  “I’m a shrink. I’m supposed to be good at handling—”

  “People whose lives have been destroyed?”

  “Yes.”

  He held still for a moment and let out a low nonlaugh. “Thumbs-up for honesty. What do you do—you’re a lone ranger, riding around committing wackos on the fly?”

  “I’m a forensic psychiatrist. And I’m on call for emergencies, such as the one you had at the airport today.”

  “Forensic ...”

  “That doesn’t mean I work CSI. It means psychiatric work that intersects with the law.”

  “Did I break any laws today?” he said.

  “The cops think so.”

  She told him about tackling Officer Paterson on the plane and being Tasered. It was all news to him.

  “They out there waiting to arrest me?” he said.

  “They’re out there. I’ve deterred them from arresting you for now.”

  “I don’t feel like I’m forgetting anything.”

  “What do you feel is happening?”

  He eased a glance at her. “You sure sound like a shrink.”

  She spread her hands and shrugged.

  He exhaled. “It’s just going to dissolve, isn’t it? Everything I see and hear. This conversation. The future.” He looked out the window. A splinter of sunlight cut silver across his face. “I’m going to live in a continuous present.
”

  Jo thought about it. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

  “Will I remember big things? Who’s president? An asteroid smashing into the earth?”

  He wouldn’t remember being elected president. Every moment would be fresh, every experience new, every person he met a stranger.

  “What do I do? How do I cope?”

  “You’ll need to work out strategies to help remind yourself where you are, where you’re going, where you’ve just been. Notes. Photos. A PDA. Keep a camera, pen, and paper with you.”

  “I won’t be able to work, will I? Or be by myself. I’ll need . . . a babysitter.” He ran a hand across his forehead. “To tell me if I’ve brushed my teeth and wiped my own goddamned ass.”

  Quick as a whip, he swung an arm and upended the bedside table. The phone crashed to the floor with a sick ringing sound. Jo held still. Her hearing felt all at once ten times more acute. She seemed to hear dust swirling on the air and Kanan’s heart thundering in his chest. The door was six feet to her left. She got ready to jump if he turned on her.

  Tentatively she raised a hand. “Ian, your wife isn’t home. Does she—”

  “How do you know she’s not home?”

  He pulled out his phone and yet again speed-dialed his home number. Jo crossed to him, hands up, and gestured for him to hand the phone to her.

  It was ringing. She took it and showed him the call register. His face fell.

  He was quiet a moment. “I need to go.”

  “Not yet. Does your wife have a cell phone? Can you call her at work? How about family, friends?”

  Instead of answering, Kanan looked out the window. In the sunlight his pale eyes seemed to shine white.

  “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

  Ain’t we all, honey. “There’s no evidence this condition is terminal.”

  “Spare me, doc. Even if I keep breathing, it doesn’t matter.” He touched two fingers to the side of his head and tapped, like he was pointing a gun at himself. “I’m over. Five minutes at a stretch, that’s all I’ll remember, isn’t it?”

  “Likely.”

  “You’re really gonna be shrinky about this, aren’t you? Stand there waiting for me to unload. Fine—I’ve been shrunk before, several times, and I’m not crazy. So listen to me,” he said. “Even if I’m not cold in the ground, I’m losing myself. The Reaper’s here to collect, while I’m still walking. It’s a harvest.”

  Stormy light angled across the hospital room. Jo held still, taking in Kanan’s body language. He seemed calm—but calm like a high-running river, where smooth water covered nasty rocks below. His composure was covering rage. It was covering confusion and fear, and more. He was holding something back.

  “Ian, tell me what happened in Africa.”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong with you?”

  White gaze. It was like looking into the heart of a diamond. Clear, hard, and absolutely lifeless.

  “What’s causing this problem?” she said.

  He held absolutely still for a long beat. “I’ve been poisoned.”

  “With what?”

  “Get me a piece of paper and a pen.”

  She opened her backpack, took out a notebook and tossed it to him. “Pen’s in the spiral binding. Start writing.”

  He did.

  “How were you poisoned? Accident?” Jo said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe not?”

  He looked up at her. For a second his eyes dimmed, as though a crack of pain had gone through him. “Maybe not.”

  “List all the people who might even conceivably wish you harm.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Why not?” She raised an eyebrow. “Because you know who poisoned you? Or because you poisoned yourself?”

  In the hall outside, two paramedics strode past, pushing a stretcher on which a patient lay screaming. Kanan turned at the sound, pen poised above the notebook.

  “Ian?”

  He turned back to her, eyes clear. “Is this an E.R.? Did something happen, Doctor . . .” He read her I.D. “Beckett?”

  6

  The light was patchy, silver through clouds. The shadows in the room deepened and stretched, like the moment. Jo took the notebook from Kanan and showed him what he had written. Jo Beckett. Forensic shrink.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  She found an indelible marker in her satchel. “Let me see your arm. Unbutton your sleeve.”

  He rolled up his right sleeve and held out his forearm. She turned it palm-up and wrote Severe memory loss. I cannot form new memories. “You’re going to need a medic alert bracelet, but this will do for now.” She handed him the pen. “If there’s anything else you need urgently to remember, write it now.”

  He was going to need a lot more. A camera. A constant companion. He stared at the words, stunned.

  “You have a brain injury. You told me you might have been poisoned. I need to know how, and with what,” Jo said.

  He put a hand against the side of his head. Closed his eyes and doubled over.

  “Ian?”

  He bolted for the trash can. He grabbed it, bent over, and vomited.

  Behind her the door opened and Rick Simioni came in. He saw Kanan hunched over the trash can and headed toward him.

  Kanan straightened. Catching sight of Simioni, he whirled. “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Simioni, the neurologist.”

  In the open doorway, a woman stood watching. She had the shine of varnished wood. A willow, hewn and bright. Her limbs were tan and sinewy, her hair a sleek caramel flow. Her eyes, hot with shock, were pinned on Kanan.

  “Ian.” Her voice was choked.

  Kanan straightened and put his hand against the wall, bracing himself. Though his head hung low and he looked pale with nausea, his colorless eyes met hers.

  Simioni put a hand on Kanan’s elbow. “Sit down. Come on.”

  “In a minute,” Kanan said.

  The woman crossed the room to him. She raised a hand and tentatively, tenderly, touched his chest.

  Simioni waved Jo out of the room. “Give them a minute.”

  Jo stepped into the hallway with Simioni. The door to the room slowly swung shut. The young woman stepped close to Kanan and touched his cheek. Kanan’s eyes were unreadable. Relief, confusion, joy, despair—Jo couldn’t decipher his gaze. He took her hand from his face, clutching it tightly. The door clicked shut.

  Jo looked at Simioni quizzically.

  “That’s his wife,” he said. “She took the news badly.”

  “Where has she been for the past two hours?” Jo said.

  “I didn’t ask. You look like you’ve been jumped by the boogie man. Something new going on with Mr. Kanan?”

  “Bunch of somethings. Very weird.”

  Simioni looked at the closed door. He hesitated, and when he turned back to Jo he was frowning.

  “Add something to the weird list,” he said. “The airport cops collected his luggage and sent it over. He was traveling with some unusual souvenirs—a sword and a couple of daggers.”

  “What kind of sword?”

  He looked bemused. “That’s an odd question.”

  “Is it ceremonial, or an Olympic-sanctioned épée, or a broadsword he jousts with when he dresses up and goes to the Renaissance fair?”

  “It’s not covered in blood. And it’s old. Very. The . . . what do you call it, the handle—”

  “Hilt.”

  “—is elaborate. It has writing on it, old and worn down. In Arabic. Why do you want to know?”

  “He’s been in Africa and the Middle East. He says he’s a corporate babysitter, but he comes home with weaponry. He tells me he’s been poisoned and may have tried to commit suicide. And I have a four-hundred-year-old Japanese katana in my living room. If I hear somebody’s importing sharp objects, particularly a knife-and-sword combination, I want to make sure he’s not going to use th
em to commit hara-kiri.”

  The door to the E.R. room opened and Kanan’s wife walked out. She looked pale.

  Simioni walked over. “Mrs. Kanan—”

  “I can’t.” She raised a hand. “Can’t talk about . . .” Her face crimped and she put the back of her hand to her mouth, as if suppressing a scream.

  Ian Kanan’s wife was petite. Even wearing stack-heeled boots she was an inch shorter than Jo, and Jo wasn’t a giant. Her sleek flow of caramel hair conveyed athleticism and self-confidence. Her coat was white wool, fitted, stylish. Beneath it her black sweater was tight and her blue tartan skirt hugged her rear end. Aside from the corporate hair she looked like a high-fashion Glasgow punk.

  Voice shaking, she said, “Help him.”

  She turned and rushed down the hall.

  Jo and Simioni gave each other a look. The neurologist shook his head, indicating, Don’t make me be the one . . . as if he would play rock-paper-scissors with Jo to see who calmed her down.

  Jo went after her. “Mrs. Kanan.”

  Her voice seemed to hit the woman like a horsewhip. She broke into a jog and kept going.

  “Please wait,” Jo said. “We need your help.”

  The woman turned the corner. Jo followed and saw her at the junction of two hallways, looking around in confusion. She couldn’t tell whether the woman was shocked, horrified, or simply trying to hang on to her final seconds of normality before her organized and happy life disintegrated like wet paper.

  Jo put out her hand. “Jo Beckett, M.D.”

  Kanan’s wife hesitated a long second before she relented and shook. “Misty Kanan. Is it true? In five minutes he’ll forget I was here?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s crazy. He’s crazy. That’s what you’re saying. He’s losing his mind.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “His brain is shot full of holes. How does that not equal going insane?” She ran both hands over her cheeks. “Stop this thing. Fix it.”

  “We don’t know what it is.”

  “Give him drugs. Operate. Do something. Electric shock treatment. For God’s sake, something.”

  “We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. We need your help. We need you to get him to talk.”

  “He doesn’t want my help. He’s . . . God, that man. He wants to be strong. He’ll never admit to weakness.” She pressed her hands to the corners of her eyes. “Hypnotize him. You’re a psychiatrist—snap him out of it. Turn his memory back on.”