Oubliette

  “I’m starting to reconsider. Something strange is going on and it’s not just the plague.” Antoine set his cup aside and sighed. “I’ve promised to help Dymphna save some of her archives by hiding copies of them.”

  “Hide them where, since you’re so sure your apartment isn’t secure? You’re making no sense. You know that, right?”

  Antoine considered how to explain. “It looks that way because there isn’t an obvious pattern to it all. I’m still trying to put the pieces together. A lot of the information that’s going missing is small stuff that doesn’t really matter. Some of it’s historical, other times it’s just a building name. No overall theme, but it’s obviously important to someone, or why would they bother checking up on me last night?” Since Rafa made no comment, he went on. “It’s almost like someone’s testing the waters, trying to see if anyone will notice these little changes and make a fuss.”

  “Or else they’re playing a practical joke of some kind.”

  “It’s a pretty elaborate joke,” Antoine pointed out.

  Rafa shrugged. “It also could just be that you and Dymphna are having memory errors. A lot of people are these days. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I know what I saw,” Antoine said testily. “When she starts giving me some documents for safekeeping, you’ll see it too.”

  “I’ll withhold judgment until then. Seeing is believing, you know.” Rafa went into the kitchen and rustled around in a cabinet. “You hungry?”

  “Sure, what you got?”

  With a Cheshire cat grin, Rafa held up a red box.

  “Lucky Charms? Are you serious, man? That stuff is nothing but sugar and preservatives, totally against the Everett Blair rules.”

  “That’s what makes it so good.” He filled a bowl and handed it to Antoine. “A little milk and a spoon, and you’ll be ready to face the day, spies, missing history and all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Antoine had a scheduled meeting with Rory that afternoon and arrived to find her in an agitated state, pacing and picking at a loose button on her silk blouse. From time to time she would stop and take a deep breath as if she could will herself back to a state of calm, but then she would begin pacing again.

  “It’s that book she’s writing with her friends,” Sylvia whispered to Antoine, pulling him away from the doorway of Rory’s craft room so they could talk privately.

  “Remembering Our Time?”

  “Yes, the R.O.T. book,” Sylvia said. “Leona Schuber added a story about Ms. Tennenbaum’s brother and it’s got her upset.”

  Antoine gave Sylvia a look. “Please tell me her brother didn’t drown at summer camp, too.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “No, thank goodness, but they aren’t on speaking terms. Her brother cut all ties to the family decades ago and she’s never quite gotten over it. The amnesia was helping with that, but then Leona wrote that story...”

  “I’ll go talk to her.” He stepped into the room and Rory stopped pacing. It took her a moment to figure out who he was, but then she graced him with a beatific smile. “I knew you’d come. You have a letter for me, don’t you?”

  Antoine frowned in bewilderment. This, of all things, he hadn’t anticipated. “A letter?”

  “Yes, from my brother Charles. You have it in your bag, right?” She pointed to his satchel. “Neither rain nor sleet nor snow…”

  Before he could speak, he felt Sylvia’s hand on his elbow. “She doesn’t remember who you are. She thinks you’re the post man,” she murmured.

  “I’m starting to gather that.”

  “Don’t take it personally. She spent half of yesterday thinking I was her fourth grade teacher.”

  Rory hadn’t heard their whispered conversation but she frowned nevertheless. “Sylvia, make him give me the letter.”

  Sylvia turned to Antoine, not sure what to do next. For his part, Antoine didn’t know either, but he remembered how well a little lie had helped her with Jimmy. He fumbled in his satchel. “I do have a letter for you, Ms. Tennenbaum, but I’m under strict instructions to read it to you aloud.”

  This didn’t faze Rory in the slightest, and she sat down.

  Antoine pulled a random piece of paper out of his satchel. “My dear sister, I have heard that you are upset by my long absence. I apologize profusely for any pain or worry I’ve caused you.” He darted a glance at Rory. Her pleased smile was all the encouragement he needed to continue. “My silence was never about you. I love you dearly as both a sister and a friend. I will call you on the twelfth and I hope we can make amends. Love, Charles.”

  Rory clasped her hands together in ecstasy. “This is wonderful! Sylvia, when is the twelfth?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, even better. I can hardly wait!” She jumped up and grabbed Antoine’s hand. “Thank you so, so much.” She turned to the housekeeper. “Sylvia, see that he gets a nice tip and a glass of lemonade.” Then with a little wave, she left the room, leaving Antoine and Sylvia staring at each other.

  “I think I’ll be okay without the tip,” Antoine finally said.

  “Maybe some lemonade though? It’s a hot day.”

  Antoine shook his head, not from refusal but at how easily he had once again fed his client a false memory, a false hope. Well, it was done now. “A glass of lemonade would be nice,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A few days later he went into the office for his weekly check-in to find his manager, Elaine, poring over a document which she slipped into a blue folder when he entered the room. “Thanks for being on time, as always,” she said. “We have a lot to talk about today. I’ve received a report from the Tennenbaums.”

  Antoine had just settled into his chair but now wished he could make an excuse and flee. Had Rory’s husband complained about him implanting false memories? She was so far gone that Antoine could plausibly argue that she confused herself and he had nothing to do with it. But what if it was Sylvia who had outed him? She said she supported his actions, but who knew what she really thought? She might be trying to curry favor with her boss by telling him secrets he wouldn’t have otherwise known.

  Elaine turned to her computer where she had the report open on her screen. “He says you’re on time to scheduled appointments and quick to answer emergency calls, which is nothing I didn’t expect.”

  If that was the best she could lead with, he must really be in trouble.

  “But what has really surprised the Tennenbaum family is how calm Rory is these days.”

  “Calm?”

  Elaine nodded and read aloud. “’We had resigned ourselves to the fact that her decline could not be stopped. But what we did not realize was that mental agitation did not have to be a part of that.’”

  Antoine held his breath.

  “He goes on to say that you restore her peace of mind, even though the memories you prompt don’t last long. ‘The past slips away again after he leaves, but her sense of serenity remains for days, as if she finds comfort in her memories, even though she can no longer retrieve them properly.’” Elaine turned away from the screen and picked up the blue folder she had been looking at previously. “You can read the full letter for yourself, if you like.” She handed it to Antoine with a smile. “You’ve done excellent work. David Tennenbaum is hard to please and Haley always found Rory to be a handful.”

  “She’s doesn’t mean to be difficult,” Antoine said diplomatically. “She’s just scared and confused, like they all are.”

  “There’s a little more to it than that,” Elaine said. She glanced at some notes she had written on a post-it. “You’ve inspired the family’s confidence, in spite of this being an opposite-gender prompting. I took a big risk placing you with her.”

  “I made sure Mrs. Tennenbaum’s housekeeper was nearby at all times.”

  “Wise move. I’d like to schedule a follow-up with you, myself, and some of the other managers to discuss best practices for situations like this. The plague is spreadin
g and there’s no cure on the immediate horizon. This probably won’t be the last time we have to resort to an opposite-gender client relationship in order to meet our commitments to our customers, and we’d like your input into how to best make that happen.”

  Antoine sat back, startled. Of all the possible outcomes, this was one he hadn’t seen coming. “I don’t feel like I did anything any other prompter wouldn’t have done, but sure, I’m happy to help.”

  Elaine looked pleased. “That’s terrific. You’ll get a meeting request on your calendar once we can find a day and time that works for everyone. And in the meantime,” her smile broadened. “Look for a bonus on your next check.”

  * * * *

  Antoine departed the Everett Blair offices with his mind reeling. The bonus was nice but he already earned more than he needed. What stunned him was how easily he had gotten away with feeding Rory false memories. Not only had he escaped punishment, but he had even been praised for the outcome. This broke all the rules and conjured up an array of possibilities that hadn’t previously occurred to him.

  Prompting was sensitive work and often raised feelings of shame and anger in clients who weren’t used to being contradicted by a paid employee. Many workshops at Everett Blair were focused on training prompters how to manage negativity in their clients and how to defuse frustration from families and employers who often had unrealistic expectations. For a prompter to have a truly happy client was rare.

  But now Antoine could see a way around all that, and the solution was laughably simple: lie. Yes, everyone needed to stay connected with their past, but what did it hurt to soften the edges a little? It wasn’t as if the Rory Tennenbaums of the world were going to wake up cured one day, suffering the grief of realizing that no, their special loved one would not be calling tomorrow morning and would not be calling again, ever. If they couldn’t remember their past as it was, why not allow them the comfort of a benevolent lie or two?

  Of course this wasn’t the right way of looking at the problem, and he knew it. The idea was so tempting though, that later that day when a former mayor with jarring memory gaps asked about his cocker spaniel, Cherie, Antoine felt no qualms about saying that Cherie was at Rover Oaks, being groomed and pampered so that he could focus on his memory work. This answer pleased him so much that the former mayor showed marked improvement at crosswords that day.

  Intrigued and a little frightened at how easily the lies came, Antoine thought about calling Rafa to talk the matter out, but no, it was best that no one else at Everett Blair know what he was doing. That left Dymphna as his only resource, and since he hadn’t collected any materials from her in a while, he headed to the Ideson building.

  She was with a customer when he arrived, so he found a book about the Battle of San Jacinto and selected a quiet table in the Texas Room where he wasn’t likely to be disturbed. He found the writing style a little dense for his taste but he was thoroughly engrossed in a description of the verdant landscape near what was now a blighted eyesore of refineries when he heard someone approach. He looked up and it wasn’t Dymphna.

  “That’s an old book you’re reading.” The dark-eyed man was graying but looked fit and youthful. “I thought young people such as yourself usually read everything on their phones.”

  “Some sources aren’t available any other way but on paper,” Antoine pointed out.

  “True.” The man bent down so he could read the title on the spine. “Not enough people really appreciate the past. They think it’s boring. They think it never changes.”

  “Well, the past itself certainly doesn’t change,” Antoine said. “But interpretations change all the time.”

  “Yes.” The man looked off into the middle distance, considering. “Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if the past could sometimes change?” He looked at Antoine. “What if we could go back and fix some of the tragedies of previous generations? We might have a happier world.”

  Antoine didn’t know what to think of this odd sort of talk from a stranger. “I don’t know that I share your confidence,” he said. “We’d still have problems, just different ones.”

  “Hm.” The man pretended to consider, but before he could offer a rebuttal, he saw Dymphna heading their way. “It looks like you have a friend coming to see you,” he said. “Have a nice afternoon. I enjoyed our chat.”

  The man was walking away rapidly when Dymphna arrived at Antoine’s table. She frowned. “Who was that?”

  “I have no idea. He just wandered up and started saying how nice it would be if we could change the past.”

  “That’s a strange thing to say in an archive.” She gazed with renewed interest at his retreating figure.

  “I didn’t know what to make of it either,” Antoine said. “I thought because he seemed so familiar with this place that he was a regular or something.”

  Dymphna shook her head. “Never seen him before in my life, but now I wish I’d gotten a better look at him, in case he comes back.”

  For a moment Antoine thought she might go after him but instead she sat down, lowered her voice and pretended interest in his book. “I have some files ready for you. Did you park in the library garage?”

  He nodded, but only slightly, in case someone was watching their interaction.

  “Meet me in the north stairwell, basement level 2, in about fifteen minutes. Take your time. It’s better to keep me waiting than be followed.” She stood and flashed a cheery smile. “Enjoy the book and don’t forget to reshelf it. If you need copies of anything to take with you, just stop by my desk before you leave.”

  “I sure will. Thank you.” Antoine bent his head back over the book and for ten painful minutes pretended to read about the movement of Mexican general Santa Anna’s troops across Texas. When he had finally given Dymphna sufficient time, he put the book away, went outside and down the block. The same street preacher as before was at the edge of the courtyard in front of the library, this time with an assistant who was handing out yellow fliers advertising Sunday worship services and weekday prayer sessions at the Christus Memory Temple. Antoine took a flier to avoid making a scene, and then tossed it in the nearest wastebasket after entering the sleek glass library. He took the elevator down a level, found the garage stairs and started down.

  The stairs were dim, gray and dusty, and his footsteps echoed in a way that made him think no one else could possibly be there. Maybe Dymphna had stood him up or worse, got waylaid by someone intent on stealing her archive copies and…doing what with them? How could it possibly matter after all these years whether Canary Islanders had ever settled in San Antonio, or where Houston’s old trolley tracks once lay? Maybe Rafa was right and this was all some sort of practical joke, or worse, just a fevered delusion.

  He rounded a corner and started down the next flight of stairs and saw Dymphna below, a bright pink satchel clutched close to her body. She gave a nervous start at his approach then visibly relaxed.

  “I was beginning to worry.”

  “You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

  She shook her head. “It just feels like it.” She set down her bag and fumbled inside. “Here you go.” She handed him three bulging manila folders.

  Antoine took the folders and stashed them in his own black leather messenger bag. “Why do I feel like we’re doing something illegal?”

  “Right?” Dymphna gave a wry grin. “It shouldn’t be so hard to save history in this day and age, but maybe times are changing. Sometimes I think we’re reverting as a species and the plague is just the first sign.”

  Antoine had never allowed himself to consider the larger implications of the amnesia disease, should it continue to progress unchecked. There were places one simply didn’t want to go. But now that the thought had been spoken aloud he had no choice but to ask himself where humanity would end up if the plague ran its course unabated throughout the population. At some point all higher knowledge would be lost. People would be like cave men once again, living by their wits on wh
at nourishment they could scavenge out of empty houses, fallow fields, and warehouses of rotting food. Civilization would return to zero. Full reset. Start the human race again and hope for a better outcome this time. “How long have you felt this way?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know when it started. I guess around the time I realized so many of my customers had forgotten the things they used to think were important. It changed them. Who are we without our memories? You’re on the front lines of this. Do you really think there’s any hope?”

  He looked into her dark troubled eyes and felt a sudden wash of pity. Even though he worked every day around amnesiacs, it was in the nature of prompters to feel themselves a race apart from the plague’s victims, improbably immune even as those around them succumbed. Dymphna, however, lived in the real world where she could tell herself no lies and couldn’t hide behind the little luxuries of rich clients, company cars and black tie galas. Her only hope of importance and perhaps immortality lay in saving the yellowing books and moldering newspapers of the past.

  “Of course there’s hope,” he told her. “Scientists are working on a cure. One of my friends is a prompter in the medical center and he tells me about it every day.”

  “They work on a cure for cancer every day, too,” she pointed out.

  Dymphna’s cynicism reminded him of Marie, the Lakota prompter he met the night of the gala. “We can’t give up. You’re a historian. You know this is bigger than we are.”

  She nodded. “It’s just hard sometimes. If it was only us,” she waved a hand to indicate all humanity, “that would be one thing. But even the books? This is the record we’re supposed to be leaving for future generations, and if it’s all a bunch of lies…”

  Antoine took her hand. “We’ll save the books. I promise.” Impulsively, he bent and kissed her, then just as quickly drew back. For a long moment neither said anything.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Dymphna finally said. “Didn’t have to stop, I mean.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t really meant to kiss her; it was a gesture of compassion, of pity. Antoine had no romantic feelings for Dymphna, and even if he did, he wasn’t like Rafa and some of his other prompter compatriots who took a hedonistic view of the plague, enjoying all of life’s pleasures while they were still capable of remembering them. To Antoine, the plague was no excuse for bad behavior. The feelings of a fellow human being weren’t to be trifled with. The look in Dymphna’s eyes made it clear that an explanation of some sort would be needed after his brief indiscretion. “I’m trying to avoid entanglements. The plague, the job…”