Erased From Memory

by Diana O'Hehir

  This scares me. “Of course it’s dangerous, Scott. It’s dangerous for him; I know that; he’s got this old fluffy mind; who knows what’s going to push it over or bury him completely or wreak some irreversible harm. Oh, damn, damn.”

  I sit down on the bench. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have let him come here, knew it was a lousy idea, but he wanted it so much, and I just said, okay, okay . . .”

  “Ed has different ideas at different times. About what he wants.”

  “Oh, come on. He wants to feel useful. That’s his thing these days. Feeling useful.”

  “Well, I guess he was useful on this; Egon was hovering around, saying, ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ and making that hand wave he does, and Ed was talking in that funny monotone people get when the stage magician puts them under . . .”

  “Talking about what?”

  “Egyptian poetry; I couldn’t exactly get it; he was chanting. Middle Kingdom stuff, I think. And then something or other that really bothered Egon; he yelled out, ‘Wake up, Ed, wake up.’ Real bad. You’re supposed to wake the subject slowly.”

  “Did it upset Daddy?”

  “Sure it upset him. He flailed around and almost fell off the couch. Egon got so involved in patting him and smoothing him—‘Oh, my, oh, dear,’ he was saying—that he didn’t see me there and I sloped off. But I guess your dad was okay; he was at dinner later; he looked okay.”

  “Okay is not okay. Scott, you’re supposed to be a friend. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Who says I’m a friend? Is it safe to have friends around here? Anyway, I am telling you now.”

  We walk a few feet before I say, “And you didn’t hear what Daddy said? The thing that set Egon off?”

  Scott’s tone is guarded. He says no. Maybe it’s because he keeps his face turned away that I think he’s lying.

  I wait a minute and then announce, surprised at how firm my voice sounds, because I’m feeling awful, “We’re leaving. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “A good idea.”

  He adds, “Yeah, a good idea. Sorry you got into this. Not really your affair.

  “Oh, hell,” he adds this with extra intensity, as if the coda is, It’s my affair and I’m stuck with it . . . “I’ll be sorry to have you leave. Can I come visit?”

  “Sure.” I say this automatically because I’m thinking about how to persuade Daddy to come with me, and knowing that it will be difficult. But when I think about Scott visiting me at the Manor, I find that yes, that would be okay. Good, in fact. “Sure, come anytime. The work I do there isn’t that fascinating. I can always rip myself loose.”

  He and I are walking in the museum garden. He’s looking at me sideways. “Daughter, dear, I am guessing. Something troubles you.”

  Oh, nuts.

  “Perhaps you should not let it trouble you.”

  Oh, yes, I should.

  “I have found that the worker who worries while he is attempting a delicate job . . .”

  “Daddy”—I can’t stand any more of this—“it’s time to leave here. To leave the museum. To go back to the Manor.”

  He is equable. “I will miss you.”

  “You have to come, too. You’re needed back at the Manor.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “They count on you, dear.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “They miss you at the Manor.”

  “Not much.”

  “They talk about you a lot.”

  Sometimes I think my dad’s Alzheimer’s is partly under his control. He can summon it up when he needs it. Now, for instance, he decides to have some short-term memory problems. “Manor? You are going back to a manor? What manor would that be?”

  I don’t waste time on this. “We’ve been here a long time.”

  “Yes. Very profitable.”

  “Both of us have had a nice holiday.”

  “I have not had a holiday. I’ve been working.”

  “Now it’s time to return.”

  “You may come back here to visit.”

  We stop, side by side on the gravel path, with our faces turned toward each other. I say, “Oh, sweetheart.”

  “Yes,” he agrees cheerfully. “I am your sweetheart.”

  “Let’s walk down the hill,” I say. And off we go, cheerful, synchronized.

  My dad is a very good walker.

  I must say, this stay at the Scholars’ Institute has improved his physical condition.

  The museum lands stretch out on both sides of the main building.

  “Ah. We are going to look at the trains,” my father says in a voice of discovery. “I was out here last night with that lady. The one with the belt.”

  Bunny. I wish Bunny wouldn’t try to get chummy with my father.

  “Trains appeal to the curious personality,” he announces. “These are the only trains in these parts.”

  I say, “They have trains near the Manor, too.” He pays no attention.

  These trains are Southern Pacific, like most of the ones in California. They don’t carry passengers anymore, but there are still beautiful long freights and engines with satisfying whistles. The freights seem to come by about twice a day, but I’ve never tried to clock them. Maybe I should; he’s acting so interested.

  I remind myself of our main topic. “Tomorrow,” I say, in a tone of high conspiracy, “I’ll help you pack your suitcase.”

  No answer to that. He looks at the trains. “I think I know a song about a lonesome whistle.”

  A string of freights is parked on the siding: several orange-painted, old-fashioned, wooden SP cars, the ones with the sliding doors, and a chain of flat cars piled with containers waiting to be transferred onto long-distance trucks. Plus, near the end, a couple of refrigerator cars, bright white and waterproof-looking.

  Daddy gives a satisfied sigh and settles down on the bank. He rests his feet on a rock and links his arms around his knees. “I like to think about where they are going.”

  Sometimes he sounds perfectly okay at the start of a conversation and then veers off suddenly when your attention is deflected.

  “This one would not be going into Constantinople. It is too late in the day. That is a very tiring journey. Sometimes you have to stand up the whole way.”

  Constantinople is the old name for Istanbul and is in Turkey, and my mother is supposed to be there. Is it good or bad that he perhaps thinks of her?

  We’re facing a refrigerator car on which someone has been very busy with spray paint. A name, which may be Jay, or Fay or Tay or maybe it’s a tag, JAY or whatever, has been done several times in that angular script they like. I wonder if the angles are to keep the spray paint from dripping too much.

  There are some designs, too. Squiggles and lines and loops, in blue and black paint.

  My father, also, is looking at the refrigerator car. He leans forward. Finally he says, “Aha.”

  He likes to say “Aha.” People don’t say that anymore.

  “Someone has drawn me an ankh.”

  After he points and I apply myself, I can see that, yes, some of the squiggles and loops resolve themselves, perhaps, into an ankh, the two loops, the knot, the middle stem.

  It’s a pleasing design. Continuity, integrity, enclosure, fulfillment. I can understand it becoming a symbol for life.

  Rita wrote a paper on the ankh-sandal theory, which I read when I went through her computer files. She thought the ankh was originally based on a sandal-strap design. A sandal is basic and close to the earth, but I don’t really buy the idea that the sandal strap is the model. For one thing, sandals weren’t that universal in ancient Egypt. Most people just went barefoot. Sandals were restricted to the upper classes, and the ancient Egyptians were too practical to think that eternal life belonged to the rich alone.

  “How very nice,” my father says, “of someone to imprint an ankh on this railroad car. It shows up well, doesn’t it? And some of the other designs, which appear at first to be mostly writing, well, when
you stare at them long enough, you can see that they also contain ankhs.

  “It seems very fitting to have the ankh on a railroad car.

  “The railroad gives one a wonderful feeling of freedom and escape, don’t you agree? And the ankh—eternal life—what is more emblematic of escape?

  “The ankh is so important, daughter. But of course, it must be approached cautiously, like any universal symbol.

  “I told that friend of mine. But he didn’t listen. Not much. Not usually. Not very often. I am so very sorry.”

  “Daddy,” I say, “are you talking about Mr. Broussard?”

  “Who? What are you saying, dear?”

  “Mr. Broussard, the trustee. He died with the ankh in his mouth.”

  “Ah.”

  “You told him something?”

  “Ah.”

  “You told him he couldn’t do something?”

  “Many people talk to many people, dear.”

  “But you did talk to him.”

  “Talk to him, dear? Why, of course I talked to him. A strange bird who bred in the Delta marsh / Having made its nest beside the people / what-will-be being hidden according as one says . . .”

  My father is quoting poetry now and that usually means he’s gone off into a world of his own, one that I can’t get him back from for ordinary conversation. When I ask what he told Mr. Broussard, he says he is tired and would like to go back to his hotel.

  And when I mention the Manor, he says “What-will-be is hidden. But the freedom is there. The freedom to escape is there.

  “O, freedom,” he says, surprising me. That has got to be a refrain from a song.

  Chapter 17

  The next morning I’m rehearsing arguments to get Daddy back to the Manor. I need you. Belle is counting on you. You can help me with check-in at night. Mrs. La Salle will be visiting; she’ll be heartbroken if . . .

  Et cetera, et cetera.

  I’m still rehashing this when a low-voiced commotion outside gets me to the door. It’s Rob. Oh, great. Rob, and also my dad. Rob, I do not need you right now.

  Rob is holding my father by the arm. He looks at me defensively. “I came to see him. Ed is a good friend. Of long standing. Carla, I have every right to visit my good friend.” He pushes his jaw forward.

  Daddy smiles. He doesn’t look defensive, but he looks peculiar. His hands and part of his suit and face are dusted with bright blue powder. He is extending what appears to be a pizza box. That, also, has blue powder on it.

  “Carla,” he says in a tone of discovery. “There you are. We couldn’t find you.”

  His pizza box rattles.

  “Someone has given me some attractive artifacts.”

  He marches into the room and plops the container down on my bed. He lifts the cover, emitting a spray of blue. The box does appear to have held pizza in its previous incarnation.

  Inside some little doodads are kicking around. I bend over and stare and finally identify these. A string of Egyptian beads, a carved fish, a carved ibis, a smaller unidentifiable bird (very blocky), and a representation of a seated figure, probably a monkey or baboon, chopped out of some kind of vivid blue stone. The stone has started to deteriorate and that’s what is making the blue dust storm. The clay beads have picked it up. The bead string ends in a clay cat; he is now an indigo cat.

  “Your father needs more supervision,” Rob says. “You should be watching him.”

  I’m struck with the awful thought that these are the items missing from the museum collection. Once again, here’s my dad in the middle. Being set up. I indulge in an imaginary plot where he’s accused of theft; the sheriff arrests him and he’s off to Innocente, this time with no reprieve.

  Daddy punctures this scenario by saying, “I wonder. I do not think I understand. Because, you know, I have looked at these objects. Carefully. And I do not think they are really ancient Egyptian. Except possibly some of the beads. It’s hard to tell with beads. Reproductions have their place, of course, but these aren’t even very good ones. I wonder what someone was trying to say?”

  He turns over the cat pendant in a gingerly fashion. “This cat, now, might be a real Egyptian artifact. Of course he’s very small. He is hard to see because he is covered with the blue dust.

  “And, well, I find it hard to believe.” He looks at his finger and thumb, which are now bright blue.

  “You see,” Rob says. “He needs supervision. That”—Rob seems to be pointing at the cat, but apparently it’s the blue dust he’s targeting—“that substance, Carla, is poison. This is serious.”

  My father speaks here. “Carla, I really think that this baboon, which is very badly carved, by the way—I really think . . . Well, there was a case where a Roman courtier . . . no, it was a papal emissary . . . there was a case, a famous case of poisoning that involved something. Something sent in a letter. This substance. Which is so beautiful. A striking and emphatic blue. But very bad for carving. And so prone to disintegration.” He wiggles his thumb and forefinger together and stares at them.

  “I do not understand,” he says. “The figure seems to be carved from a lump of copper sulfate. That is a very strong poison. Already, from touching these things my fingers have started to hurt . . .

  “There was a case once, sometime,” he finishes solemnly, looking down into the pizza box and then up at me.

  Rob, who has been jeeping around beside him, gets into action. “Ed, we must wash your hands, very carefully; come along now; careful, don’t touch anything else . . .” After that I hear his voice from my bathroom above the running water, “Did you touch your eyes? Your mouth? Did you lean over the box and inhale?”

  “Inhale?” My father’s little voice makes this sound like a questionable activity.

  “Did you breathe in?”

  “Of course I breathed in.”

  Rob turns off the water. His voice rises. “Did you breathe in hard?”

  “Yes, I did. That’s what you do when you’re surprised. I was surprised.”

  Now Rob’s voice sounds clipped. “Ed, did you touch your hands to your mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.” By this time I am in the bathroom, staring at my father. He looks—I think I’m interpreting his expression accurately—pleased with himself. “I touched the baboon to my mouth. It is, you know, associated with Thoth, the scribe. But I didn’t taste it. Even though that’s what it said to do. It said, ‘O, taste, O, see!’ But I didn’t taste it. I started to, and then I didn’t.”

  Rob says, “Damn.”

  I ask, “What said, ‘O, taste’?” No one answers me.

  “Of course I knew it was poison,” Daddy says. “And poison shouldn’t count if it is knowledge or understanding. Because those are paramount. I understood that.

  “But still I decided not to. I just touched it to my lips, lightly. I felt that should do.”

  Rob says to me, “We’re going to the hospital. Get your billfold, or whatever. Goddamn it, Carly, what the hell; you’re supposed to be watching him.”

  I don’t waste any time protesting the unfairness of this. I find my billfold. I go down the hall and locate one of Daddy’s tweed jackets. And I’m the one who remembers to bring the pizza box along, wrapped in a plastic bag so as not to get more blue on anything.

  In the car I’m also the person who thinks to ask again about the message, “O, taste.”

  “Oh, that,” says my father. He sounds pleased. “It was on one of those strips. The kind you get in a cookie?

  “Printed,” he adds.

  A printed something like a Chinese cookie fortune. “Let me have it, dear.”

  He sounds amazed. “Why, I threw it away. It was completely blue. No use to anyone. I could read it that one time, but after that it was no use; it was too blue.

  “I threw it down the toilet,” he adds, squelching any ideas I have about reclaiming the slip and maybe learning something.

  Rob says, “Shit,” but
under his breath. He smashes some numbers into his cell phone and talks for a while to someone named Tallulah. “She’s there; she’s waiting,” he says as he hangs up. “It may not be too bad.”

  The hospital sits at the end of a cornfield in back of the far end of Main Street, on the opposite side of the street from the Best Western. There’s a nice stand of eucalyptus trees in front of the hospital.

  Rob lives in a building owned by the hospital, one of the old Conestoga houses divided into apartments. I spent time in Rob’s apartment when he and I were together. He’s close enough to the hospital to be able to walk across the cornfield to work. This used to strike me as cheating; it should be harder than that to get to work; most hospital employees live in Half Moon Bay.

  Of course, I don’t care about any of this now.

  North Coast is a medium-big hospital. It’s large enough to serve all of Del Oro County with its wide spread of artichoke and lettuce and garlic farms; it serves the guys that work on these farms, the folks that own the farms, the ambitious people who sometimes live in the county and commute to San Francisco. “Sure,” Rob says, “they got a poison control center, with all the pesticides we’re using? You betcha.”

  He steers us past the hospital reception desk, where he is greeted with, “Hey, Rob, can’t stay away, huh?” And down halls where people call out, “Rob, listen, I forgot to ask you . . .”

  He has my dad by the arm and tells him, “We’re on our way to see a real nice lady. She’ll talk to you about that poison.”

  “Copper sulfate,” my father says, “I knew not to eat it.”

  “Right. She’ll maybe take your picture. Maybe take a blood sample.”

  “I like having my picture taken.”

  Tallulah’s parents must have been romantics, to give her a name like that. But they produced a straightforward, cheerful woman with short brown hair. A lot of women doctors are the straightforward type. “Well, hi, Dr. Day,” she greets Daddy, “we got into some blue powder, did we?”