The Memory Police

by Yoko Ogawa

  I told R every detail of what had happened that night. Once I opened my mouth, things came tumbling out one after the other and I couldn’t stop myself. The difficulty we’d had pulling the cart, the red glow on the playground equipment in the park, the hat that had fallen in the mud, the ruined library, the bird…But no matter how long I talked, I couldn’t help feeling that I was leaving out the most important thing—whatever that was. He listened attentively to every word.

  When at last I grew tired of talking, I heaved a deep sigh and looked up. He seemed to be staring far into the distance. Behind him I could see the empty plate that had held his dinner, with a single pea remaining in the middle. The books that had escaped the flames were neatly arranged on the shelf above.

  “I suppose a great deal has changed in the outside world since I’ve been here,” he said as he gently stroked my hair. I could feel his voice filling the space between our bodies.

  “Does my hair have an odd smell?” I asked him.

  “Odd how?”

  “Like spices.”

  “No, it has a wonderful smell, like shampoo.” He ran his fingers through it.

  “I’m glad,” I murmured.

  Then he read aloud my story about the typist. To me, it sounded like a fairy tale from a distant land.

  * * *

  . . .

  “Does it tire you out to be doing something you’re not used to?” asked the old man as he arranged the teapot and cups on the table. He was wearing the sweater I had given him over a thick shirt, with wool slippers on his feet.

  “No, everyone is very nice to me,” I told him, “and I’m enjoying the work.”

  We were meeting for tea on the boat for the first time in a while. What’s more, we were having pancakes. I had found eggs and honey, both great rarities, and we cooked together. We divided the batter in thirds and made three cakes, one of which I’d wrapped in a napkin to take to R.

  Don, who had been dozing under the sofa, must have smelled the pancakes, since he appeared suddenly and began to nudge the tablecloth with his muzzle.

  “Typing is hard, but I enjoy practicing. As soon as your fingers start to move, a sentence appears almost effortlessly—it’s like magic.” The old man poured the honey over the pancakes, careful not to waste a single drop.

  “And the business seems to be going well. Herbs grow in the least bit of soil, and you can harvest them even with all this snow. Food is so hard to get that people are selling half-rotten meat and vegetables, and everyone wants something fragrant to kill the smell—so my coworkers are expecting big bonuses.”

  “That’s good,” said the old man as he lifted the lid on the pot to see whether the tea had finished steeping.

  We chatted about this and that as we sipped our tea, laughed at Don’s antics, and slowly ate the pancakes. Cutting just one bite at a time, we let it dissolve on our tongues in order to appreciate every bit of the sweetness, and as the remaining pieces of pancake grew smaller, so did the size of the bites we cut.

  We each gave a bite to Don, who inhaled them with no thought for their sweet flavor and then stood looking at us expectantly, as though unwilling to believe that there was nothing more.

  Light poured in through the windows, bright enough to make you think spring might be just around the corner. The sea was calm, and the boat, which was usually creaking as it rocked on the waves, was quiet. The great pile of snow melting on the dock shone in the sunlight.

  When we’d finished eating, the old man went to find the music box hidden in the bathroom. He set it on the table and we listened together. As always, it faithfully repeated its tune, over and over. We stopped chatting, sat up straight, and closed our eyes. I had no idea where or how one was supposed to listen to a music box, but I had decided arbitrarily that closing my eyes would enhance the effect R had hoped it would induce in us.

  The melody that flowed from the box was simple but pure and sweet. That much I could feel. But I had no confidence that it would be able to check the exhaustion that was overtaking my soul. Because once it had been sucked beneath the surface of that bottomless swamp, it left no trace at all, no ripple, no fleck of foam.

  Don, too, eyed the music box with some interest. Each time we would rewind the mechanism and the music would start again, his ears would twitch and he would back away, belly pressed to the floor. It seemed as though he was barely able to contain his curiosity, but when I picked it up and held it in front of his nose, he ran for cover between the old man’s legs.

  “How has your…novel been going?” he asked, after finally closing the lid of the music box. Even pronouncing the word had apparently become difficult for him.

  “I’m trying,” I told him, “but it’s not going very well.”

  “It’s difficult when something has disappeared. To tell the truth, I feel a kind of emptiness every time I wind the spring on this box. I try to tell myself that this time I might discover something new, but I’m always disappointed. Still, it’s a precious present so I force myself to wind it up again.”

  “I know. I put a fresh sheet of paper on my desk, but no matter how long I stare at it nothing comes to me. I don’t know where I am or where I want to go…as though I’m lost in a thick fog. Then I tell myself I’ll find a way around it and I turn to my machine and just start typing. I have a typewriter I borrowed from work on my desk. They are beautiful things, when you look at them. Complex yet delicate, quite lovely. Just like a musical instrument. Which is why I listen for the sound the levers make as they move the keys, hoping for something that will connect to my novel…but nothing seems to help.”

  “Those terrible flames would paralyze anyone—it seemed like the whole island was burning…”

  “I thought I could hear the sound of my memory burning that night.”

  Don gave a little yawn. We hadn’t realized it, but he had been moving a bit at a time to keep himself in the warm rays of the sun.

  We could hear the voices of children in the distance; no doubt they were delighted by the first nice day in a long time. Some men in work clothes were playing catch in front of the warehouse on the dock.

  “Still…,” I continued, “why do you suppose I thought of writing a story about a typist? I’d barely ever used a typewriter or had any friends who were typists. It’s strange.”

  “Is it possible to write about something in a novel even if you’ve never experienced it?” The old man looked a bit skeptical.

  “I suppose it is. Even if you haven’t seen or heard about something, it seems you can just imagine it and then write it down. It doesn’t have to be exactly like the real thing; it’s apparently all right to make things up or even lie. At least that’s what R says.”

  “Even lie?”

  The old man man’s eyebrows twitched, as though he was growing more and more confused.

  “That’s right. Apparently no one blames you for lying in a novel. You can make up the story out of nothing, starting from zero. You write about something you can’t see as though you can see it. You make up something that doesn’t exist just by using words. That’s why R says we shouldn’t give up, even if our memories disappear.”

  I tapped my fork on my empty plate. Don seemed to be dozing, his head resting on his front paws. Their break over, the men who had been playing catch walked back toward the warehouse, their gloves dangling in their hands.

  “I’m not sure whether I should be asking this,” the old man said after staring at the sea for a moment. “But you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Unsure how to answer, I reached down and put my arms around Don’s neck. The dog’s eyes opened with annoyance, and he let out a sound, half cough and half burp. Then he slipped out of my embrace, ran once around the cabin, and came back to the same sunny spot.

  “I suppose,” I said, my tone intentionally ambiguous. “But do you think he’ll ev
er be able to come out of hiding? Do you think he’ll be able to see his wife and child again? I doubt it. I think he’ll be able to live only in the hidden room. His soul is too dense. If he comes out, he’ll dissolve into pieces, like a deep-sea fish pulled to the surface too quickly. I suppose my job is to go on holding him here at the bottom of the sea.”

  “I understand,” the old man said, nodding, his eyes staring at his hands.

  Don, apparently hoping to nap a bit more, rubbed his paws on his jaw and then stretched out with a satisfied air.

  Just then, a terrible noise rumbled through the heavens. We hopped up instinctively and braced our hands on the table. Don jumped to his feet.

  The boat began to rock violently. The dresser, the dish cabinet, the radio, the lamp, the pendulum clock—everything in the cabin crashed down around us.

  “Earthquake!” the old man cried.

  When the shaking stopped and I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw amid the debris was Don, hiding under the couch, trembling with fear.

  “It’s all right,” I told him. “Come here.”

  I pushed aside the drawers that had fallen from the dresser and the toppled lamp and pulled him to me through the narrow space.

  “Are you all right?” I called to the old man. The room was so completely ruined that it was impossible to tell where he had been sitting just a moment before. Don began barking, as though he, too, were calling the old man.

  “Yes, I’m here,” I heard him say, after what seemed a long time. His voice was weak.

  He was trapped under the dish cabinet and covered with shards from the shattered plates. His face was bloody.

  “Are you all right?” I asked again. I tried lifting the cabinet, but it wouldn’t budge, and I was afraid I might hurt him.

  “Don’t worry about me. Get away as fast as you can.” His voice was barely audible under the rubble.

  “Don’t be silly. I can’t leave you here.”

  “But you have to. The tsunami will come.”

  “Tsunami?…What do you mean?”

  “A huge wave that comes from beyond the horizon. They come after an earthquake. If you stay, you’ll be caught up in it.”

  “I don’t understand, but I’m not leaving without you.”

  He waved the fingers of his one visible hand, as if to urge me on my way. I tried again to lift the cabinet, but I couldn’t move it more than a few inches. Don watched us with a worried look.

  “It may hurt, but you have to try to crawl out as soon as I move the cabinet.” I said this as much to reassure myself as to explain my plan. A piece of glass had torn my stocking and cut my knee. There was blood everywhere, but I felt no pain. “I’ll tell you when, and then you move. I’m sure we can get you out of here.”

  “Please, you have to leave me…”

  “Don’t say that! I’m not leaving without you,” I yelled, almost angry with him for giving up so easily. I saw the pole and hook that had once been used to pull open the skylight in the cabin and it occurred to me to force it under the cabinet and use it as a lever.

  “One, two, three!” I called. The cabinet moved a bit more this time. I heard a creaking sound—from the trembling earth or the cabinet…or perhaps from my back?—but I paid no attention and continued to push on the pole with all my might. “All right, one more time. One, two, three!”

  The old man’s left shoulder and ear came into view. And just then the boat began to roll again. Not as violently as before, but I lost my balance and gripped the pole to avoid falling.

  “Is that the…tsunami?”

  “No, a tsunami is much worse than that.”

  “We’d better hurry,” I said.

  No doubt wanting to help, Don bit the sleeve of the old man’s sweater and began to tug at it.

  My palms were red, my temples and teeth were throbbing, and my shoulders felt as though they were being pulled from their sockets, but still the cabinet did not move as much as I’d hoped. But as I continued to push, the old man’s body gradually came into view.

  I tried to keep the tsunami out of my mind, but somehow the word was stuck in my head. What was it? If the old man was frightened, it must be a terrible thing. A monster that lives at the bottom of the sea? Or some sort of force that was impossible to oppose, like the disappearances? I pushed even harder on the pole, hoping the physical effort would keep this fear at bay.

  As the old man’s right leg came into view, I fell over backward in relief. He immediately struggled to his feet.

  “All right, young lady,” he called. “We have to go!” I gathered Don in my arms and followed him.

  * * *

  . . .

  I don’t recall how we managed to escape the shattered boat or which way we went after we left the dock, but when we finally stopped to catch our breath, we found ourselves among the ruins of the library, halfway up the hill, surrounded by others who had also taken refuge from the earthquake. The weather, which had been magnificent, had turned gray and gloomy, and the sky threatened snow.

  “Are you injured?” asked the old man, turning to look at me.

  “No, I’m fine. But how are you? You’re all bloody.” I took a handkerchief from my pocket and began wiping his face.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just scratches.”

  “No, there’s blood coming out of your ear.” A thick, dark ooze trickled from his earlobe to his chin.

  “It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Just a cut.”

  “But what if it’s inside your ear…or your brain. It could be serious.”

  “No, no, it’s nothing. No need for you to worry.”

  He put his hand up to hide his ear, and just then we heard a rumbling in the distance and saw a white wall of water rushing toward the coast.

  “What is that?” I gasped, dropping the handkerchief.

  “The tsunami,” he said, his hand still clasped to his ear. The scene in front of us was transformed in an instant. It seemed as though the sea were being simultaneously drawn up into the sky and sucked down into a hole in the earth. The floodwaters mounted higher and higher, threatening to wash over the entire island, and the people around us began to wail and moan.

  The sea swallowed up the boat, washed over the seawall, and smashed the houses along the coastline. All this must have happened in a moment, but I had the impression that I was able to observe individual scenes, one at a time—the deck chair where the old man took his naps being carried away; a baseball abandoned on the docks being tossed on the waves; a red roof being folded like origami and sucked under the surging waters.

  When the wave at last subsided, Don was the first one to open his mouth. He leapt up on a stump, faced the sea, and howled long and low. Then, as if this were a signal, everyone began to move again, though slowly at first. Some headed back downhill. Others went in search of a phone or water. Some simply sat and cried.

  “Is it over?” I asked, gathering up my handkerchief.

  “Probably, yes,” said the old man. “But we should stay here a while yet, just to be sure.”

  We turned to look at each other…and found we were both in an awful state. The old man’s sweater was hanging in tatters, his hair was covered with dust, and he had lost both shoes. In his hands he held just one thing: the music box—totally unharmed despite all we had been through. For my part, the hook on my skirt had come loose, my stockings were in shreds, and the heel had come off one of my shoes.

  “Why did you bring the music box?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. It was under me when I was pinned by the cabinet, but I have no idea how I managed to get it here. Clutched in my hand, I suppose, or shoved in a pocket…”

  “I’m glad you were able to save something. The only thing I brought with me was Don.”

  “But Don is most important of all. An old man
like me doesn’t need much. I don’t mind that everything was washed away. And besides, the ferry itself had disappeared a long time ago.”

  He gazed out at the sea. The shoreline was buried in splintered wood and debris. Cars floated here and there. Farther out, the boat was knifing into the waves, sinking, bow down.

  “And I’m afraid we’ve lost R’s pancake,” I said.

  “I suppose so,” he answered, nodding.

  * * *

  . . .

  Some neighborhoods in the town were damaged as well. Walls had caved in and cracks had opened in the streets. Fires were burning. Emergency vehicles and the trucks of the Memory Police raced around us. And now, to make matters worse, it had started to snow.

  From the outside, my house seemed to have escaped with only minor damage; a few roof tiles had fallen and Don’s doghouse had toppled over. But things inside were far worse. Everything had been tossed from its place and lay strewn about at random—the pots and dishes, the telephone, the television, vases, newspapers, boxes of tissue…

  As soon as we’d tied Don in the yard, we hurried through the mess to the hidden room. Our greatest concern was to see how this little space, suspended between floors, had fared in the earthquake. I turned up the rug and tried to raise the trapdoor, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Hello! Can you hear us?” the old man called. After a moment, we heard a knock coming from the other side. And then R’s voice.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Are you all right?” I got down on the floor and called through the gap. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine. But how are you? I’ve been worried about both of you, but I can’t tell what’s going on out there. I’d just started to wonder what would happen to me if no one came back.”

  “We were on the boat when it struck. We were able to get away, but I’m afraid the boat sank.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe. I tried opening the door to get some idea of what happened, but it wouldn’t move.”

  “I’m going to try pulling on it again,” said the old man, coming over to examine the door. “Could you push from your side?” But the results were the same.