Over the next days, I took taxis to the post office, to the pharmacy, to the bank. I bought some new notebooks, some practical shoes that seemed light and durable enough for the Tamil Nadu heat. I printed photos from the machine at the pharmacy. Rachel and me on the porch swing. Charlie and Rachel picking some berries at the edge of the property. The birthday party and Charlie’s look of surprise.
I am not angry with you, Charlie; please don’t be angry at me. If I don’t get away from here, I will never be myself again. I hope you understand. I left copies of the photos along with a scribbled note on the kitchen table. I took a taxi to the Burlington airport. By the time Charlie got home from work on that Tuesday evening, I was already in London. And then Chennai. And now here.
There have been some difficult phone calls. Charlie called Susan, furious with her for letting me take this risk. He has threatened to come fetch me, put me back on the next plane to the States, but his words are fueled by worry more than action. Susan, in turn, was livid that I had kept so many details of my health secret from her. Rachel is the only one who has talked to me with patience and understanding in her voice. She knew I needed to leave, she said, though she never thought I’d journey quite so far away so fast. For now, at least, they are all leaving me be, and I am sure to check in with each of them at least once a week so that they know I am alive and well and hard at work.
I live on a quiet, dusty street in the old French Quarter of Pondicherry. In fact, I live above a French-language bookstore, and from my open windows I can hear the owner speaking in her lilting and lovely French to the few customers who come by each day. Here is a view from my building.
And here is another one. The city is “resurfacing the road,” but these piles haven’t been touched in days.
There is so little in my room. I have a bed with a mosquito net, and a desk and wardrobe. There is a small bathroom in the hallway that I share with my landlady’s cousin’s family. There is a bucket on the floor and a little spigot. I fill the bucket with cold, silty water and dump it over my head each morning and each night before bed. The water is always cool and startling, but it is also a relief. I am limited to five buckets a day.
My notebooks and pens cover the small desk and I have several photographs on the windowsill. Boston, the road stretching from Charlie’s house. And one of Rachel, me, and Charlie. It is an old picture, taken when we all lived in Rachel’s house. We are young and smiling and I like to think of us this way. I don’t know who took the picture. It looks like autumn is just beginning. We are all wearing light sweaters and I can tell we must have been growing a little chilly as the image was snapped. It is a beautiful picture: the light just turning into shadow, a tree’s leaves superimposed on our shoulders. I don’t remember this day, but I can feel it. It cools me off when the afternoons grow hot and the ceiling fan’s irregular motions do terribly little to offset the dusty heat coming in through the windows.
I am taking care of myself. I wear a hat and sunglasses and lots of sunscreen every time I leave the house. I always remember to tell my landlady, who lives next door, where I am going and when I will return. She often has me sit with her and share a sweet or some tea. She is happy to look after me and worry about me and I am happy to let her. She has a big family and they occasionally invite me over to eat with them, but I also spend time at my favorite restaurant on the corner, where I can order French dishes like bouillabaisse and feel the strange collision of times and places in this small city.
I have a to-do list on my wall to remind me of the small and larger things of my day-to-day. I have my own codes.
• 7:00 a.m.: Morning meds 1 × F, 1½ × P.
• 8:00 – 11:00: Interviews if possible before the heat of the day kicks in.
• 12:00: Lunch meds 1 × D, 2 × T.
• 12:00 – 2:00: Nap. Get out of the sun. Drink something cold.
• 2:00 – 4:00: Write.
• 4:00: Afternoon meds 1 × F.
• 5:00 – 7:00: Evening interviews if possible.
• 9:00: Night meds: 1 × P, 1 × D.
I keep a map with me at all times so that I never lose my way. Or if I have to I can point to the X on the map that shows my house, and a stranger can take me home. There is an emergency contact card in my purse, laminated, in Hindi, Tamil, and English. I have a copy in my apartment too.
In an emergency, please contact Champa Gopolam, landlady and friend: 91 413 222 6591
Other contacts: Susan Halloway +1 2125557896
Charlie Scott +1 8024328933
Rachel Haves +1 6173238211
My other contacts:
At Auroville: Pierre Dessain 91 413 652 001
Gayathri Jayaraman 91 413 652 786
Susan’s contacts for me:
Fixer: Sunil Nair 91 222 652 1295
Driver: Arun Rangan 91 222 652 9982
Photographer: Michael Tillman 91 222 433 9854
There are mornings when I wake up terrified. I look around my room, and everything in my mind jumbles. I have to step slowly out of bed, my feet planted first on the cold marble, before I stand. I count to ten, to twenty, sometimes to five hundred. I am in India, I tell myself once I sit at my desk. I am in Pondicherry. I look over my notes. I am doing a story on Auroville. Susan, now that she’s talking to me again, thinks a whole book could come out of this project. The mother gurus of India. The photographer will come to join me in a few weeks. Michael. There are many Michaels in the world, but I wonder if this one might match the photo I used to keep in my pocket, the one that now acts as a bookmark in my travel guide.
I have a calendar on the wall with the dates x-ed off. I have been here for one month. The calendar has told me that I have been to the clinic twice. My notes tell me that I have had at least one seizure. I fell down on my way home. There is an ugly scratch on my cheek and a bruise at my temple, still yellowish green, and there are stitches underneath my chin. Champa took me to the doctors and has been scolding me since we returned. You are not from here, she says. You don’t know this kind of heat. You must stay inside in the afternoons. The doctors can refill my prescriptions here. No one else knows about my misfiring brain or my seizures. I stare at my face in the mirror, sometimes for minutes on end. It is not vanity. I am trying to remember myself.
I am keeping my hair short and I bought myself some bright skirts and tunics at the shop down the street. My clothes from Vermont have stayed packed in my suitcase. Every water bottle I buy has a different label on it, and I am collecting them, fastening them together with tape. I will cover my desk with this plastic tablecloth. It will keep the dust at bay. It is very dusty here and dry and my ankles are always filthy.
I think about Charlie and Rachel. I think about their worry, and there are times I am sorry that I left so abruptly and hurt them all over again. Charlie will think that I’m crazy for doing this, that I am killing myself with my stupidity. Rachel might understand my decisions better, even though she would have counseled me against this too. How can I explain it to them? I could tell them that I was tired of listening to other people tell me who I was, but I was also tired of what people refused to share with me. I could tell them that I was tired of feeling guilty and watched over and cared for. I could tell them I didn’t know how to live the way I was living in Charlie’s house, stuck on a couch in a living room with the seasons changing outside without me. I’m not sure I know how to live here either, but I prefer feeling frightened or uncertain to feeling nothing at all.
I would like them to understand that I was trying to give us all a gift. Without me there, they could both settle into their lives again, be in each other’s company without me always being the focus of concern and worry and, yes, anger as well. Leaving was selfish, but it was for their happiness too.
Perhaps you can forgive me, Charlie, and you, also, Rachel. I don’t think I’ll be coming home. For now, I am going to stay put in this small room. Soon I will send you some pictures and you will see that I am doing fine. Maybe without y
ou I’ll be forced to remember things on my own. I’ll be able to tell you my versions then. I don’t want you to worry. There is so much to see here. I see myself and I see you. When I close my eyes, we are all sitting on a porch, laughing. The air is golden, the way it is in this afternoon light.
Acknowledgments
When I first started thinking about writing this book, my mother welcomed my questions about her own memory loss and told me once how strange it was to have to borrow other people’s memories. Her words became the kernel of my novel’s central questions. It is my hope that this book honors her courage and good humor, her generosity and kindness, her resilience and intelligence. I miss her and feel grateful for her every single day.
I am also grateful to the family, friends, teachers, and readers who have encouraged me over many years and many drafts. I want to thank Sox Serizawa for always being my first and most trusted reader. Her insights, her thoughtful questions, and her conversation motivate and challenge me. I am also grateful to the support I received at the University of Missouri from the excellent friends and fellow writers I was lucky to meet in Columbia, and particularly from Trudy Lewis, Marly Swick, Sam Cohen, Andy Hoberek, and Carsten Strathausen, all of whom helped guide my writing and research. Thanks also to Dan Chaon and Melanie Rae Thon, who offered feedback to early pages of the book. And to the many friends and colleagues from Boston to Potsdam to Denver, thank you.
Christopher Vyce is not only a tireless and trustworthy agent but also a generous, smart, and loyal friend. Thank you to the Harvard Book Store for bringing us together many years ago. I have been grateful for the support of the wonderful people at Algonquin Books, especially my editor Chuck Adams. I also feel lucky for Rachel Careau’s meticulous eye and for Brunson Hoole and Brooke Csuka’s dedicated work. I’d also like to thank the Hawaii Pacific Review and Locomotive for publishing excerpts from this novel in their pages.
My family is my heart and my memory. Dad and Greg help me remember all of the most important things; I rely on their memories as much as on my own to know the ground I stand on and to trust it. Thank you to Greg for bringing Erin, Nora, and Sam into my life. My world feels bigger and more hopeful with them in it. I am grateful to the Buck-Abels—Spike, Carolee, Nina, Scott, Piper, and Charlie—for their good cheer and kindness. And I would be a lost cause without the ever adventurous, the ever smiling, the ever imaginative Will Buck, who makes anything and everything seem possible.
Joanna Luloff is the author of a story collection, The Beach at Galle Road, a Barnes & Noble Discover selection. She lives in Denver, where she teaches at the University of Colorado.
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Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
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a division of
Workman Publishing
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© 2018 by Joanna Luloff.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
eISBN 978-1-56512-837-0
Remind Me Again What Happened Page 21