The Memory Book (3 page)

THREE

“You must tell me more about this Alex Graphic, or whatever it’s called. Please, Rhymes With.” We were still in my room. Or, maybe, we were here again and time had slipped by. The sun was lower, the lighting in the room was different.

“The term is
alexia sine agraphia.
It’s Latin. Alexia is the inability to read because of a brain injury. You know that.”

“What about the rest of it?
Sine
means without. I remember that much high-school Latin.”

“Without
agraphia:
without not being able to write.”

“Too many negatives. Does that mean I
can
or I
can’t
write?”

“You can still write normally. I did tell you that it was a rare condition.”

“What the hell use is it to be able to write if I can’t read what I’ve written?”

“We didn’t make up the rules to afflict you, Mr. Cooperman. The act of reading and that of writing are not identical functions. Often when people lose one, they lose the other. But not in your case.” Rhymes With was speaking
just above a whisper. She wasn’t finding this easy and I wasn’t making it any easier for her.

I suppose it should have felt like she had given me half my life back again, but it didn’t. Reading was Shakespeare and Hawthorne, Whitman and Poe. Not to mention Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald, or Christie, Rendell, and James. Writing was only me. Not much competition there. I promised Rhymes With that we would have another chat later on. I could see that she was relieved to get away.

It was a sunny room. I couldn’t complain about that. The suspended white curtains diffused the light coming from the windows so that both beds in the room got an equal share. The curtains even gave the impression of a breeze, of summer outings and tents pitched above a trout stream. This impression was muted by the panel of electrical outlets and receptacles for jacks and hoses above the beds. There was a bathroom somewhere and cupboards. The door to the hall was always open. The corridor beyond was usually lively with sounds of rubbersoled shoes and the tires of wheelchairs and gurneys.

Visits from the doctors were rare, and we made much of them. Doctors were the celebrities of the corridor. You could hear them coming. You could hear their voices as they made their way from room to room. The musical chatter of the nursing station was muted when the spoor of physician was in the air. When they were on the floor, theirs was the only buzz. Even the elevators’ pinging seemed to stop. The doctors moved from bed to bed in a
tight military formation. Every patient was given a dole of cheer before the phalanx moved on and the normal sounds of the day returned.

When dinner came on its rattling tray that night, I could still remember the morning’s conversation with my nurse. Her news still had me reeling. I kept checking the accuracy of what she said against every scrap of paper at my command. If this was some kind of plot, it was a devilishly thorough one: not a scrap of printed paper contained printed words I could decipher. From
The Globe and Mail
to
Time
magazine. Maybe I should check out the books and papers in some of the other rooms. I’d thought of that in the morning, but had done nothing about it. I seemed to be suffering from a wounded initiative as well as what that scrap of Latin indicated. At the same time, I didn’t feel so physically weak any more.

Dinner was roast mutton with gravy. The taste was fine, although I wondered whether the meat and the gravy had ever met before coming together on my plate. When I caught a glimpse of Rhymes With as she hurried down the central corridor, I was mildly irritated to see that she had a life quite separate and distinct from looking after me. I thought over what she had told me. I knew that she was a resource person and that I’d be foolish not to listen to her. I was also wondering where my depression had gone. I’d felt it brewing earlier, but it hadn’t grown any bigger than a shy belch that wouldn’t come out. I used to be able to brew a better storm than that over an empty cigarette pack. That was back in my smoking days. Now I
could get into a panic about faulty mechanical pencils and conversations about computers.

I ate my meal with my legs over the side of my bed. Feet on the ground. That’s me: Cooperman with his game well in hand, ready to rediscover the world.

This wasn’t the full extent of my efforts. First, I discovered the curtain, suspended beside my bed, masked the fact that I wasn’t alone in this room. I had a roommate. True, I had been aware in the distant marches of my consciousness that there were sounds coming from behind the curtain. Snores, mostly, and occasionally the buzz of visitors. He grinned at me once, but didn’t speak. Same thing the next time.

I got up and went to the bathroom—a two-piece unit of heavy-duty porcelain. At first I thought it included a tub, but that must have been in some earlier room: there was no place to hide one here. There were printed signs attached to the wall to instruct patients in the use of the equipment: the correct form for flushing, I suppose, or the proper way to dispose of used paper towels. Not being able to read the words, I flushed the old-fashioned way without attracting attention.

Someone had unpacked my toiletries. They stood on display for the approval of my roommate, the cleaners, and nursing staff. I examined what was there. Did I stand here yesterday? Was I just as bewildered the day before? I picked up one bottle after another without recognizing the proper use of any of them. Was this toothpaste or shaving cream? Was this mouthwash, aftershave, or hair
tonic? Smelling the contents helped solve the mysteries, but I know that at least once I cleaned my teeth with hair gel. I was bewildered by my bewilderment. I was next door to helpless. I couldn’t read “PUSH” on a revolving door. After feeling braced a few minutes earlier, I now felt beaten, and went back to bed.

“W-w-w-what did you think of the … the … the stuff that they put on the meat, Benny?” It was my roommate.

“The gravy?”

“Yeah, the …
gravy.”

“It seemed innocent enough. Didn’t you like it?” I got out of bed and pulled back the curtain between us.

“It … it … it was self-elf … effacing. Tried to keep its … its orig … orig … origins a secret. The meat was lamb, I think, but the … the …”

“Gravy.”

“The g-g-gravy could have come from anything: old suitcases, discarded wallets, road-k-k-k-kill.”

“It didn’t seem so bad.”

“Ah! Spoken like a … a … newcomer! You’ll change your t-t-tune when you’re closer to graduation.”

My roommate was tall and skinny lying down. I didn’t recall seeing him standing. A wheelchair was parked next to his bed. Maybe that was the reason. His greying hair was short-cropped, which gave him a military bearing. He managed to look dapper in his hospital gown, a trick I never learned.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“About s-s-s-sixt-t-teen weeks. Valentine’s Day. I’m n-n-near the end. I’ll be back f-f-f-for out-patient help l-l-later. They’ve got a separate s-section for that.” He took a bite from a cookie and offered me one. “You’ve got a nice … nice … family. They come a-a-almost every … every … d-d-
day
.
”

“I don’t remember.” I took a cookie and nibbled on it.

“Y-y-your father, M-M-Manny, p-p-p-plays cards w-w-with me. Sophie brought me candy. Nice p-p-p-people.”

“Yeah. I guess I’ll have to learn to appreciate them better.” I didn’t understand the cynical tone in my voice. Maybe I thought that they should have stood between me and the accident. What did they have to do with it? Cooperman, get real!

“Did you f-f-f-finish your cookies at lunch?”

“Which ones were they?”

“Woolly. Th-th-that’s the coconut. Blast it, how is it I can say ‘coconut’ b-b-but not simple words?”

“Don’t sweat it. I can understand you fine. We’re both in the same boat. I can’t
read
but I can
write
. I’m going to mix up oranges and apples too. That’s what they tell me. Not that I’ve seen much fresh fruit in here. The thing I can’t understand is that both of us are taking it all so calmly. Why aren’t we banging on the walls and sending out an SOS?”

“I th-th-think we’ve blown the p-p-p-p-protest valve too. M-m-m-makes for peace and qui-qui-qui-quiet.”

“Is it something put in the food?”

“No, it’s … j-j-just our wire-wire-wiring, Benny.”

My neighbour had a laptop computer cradled in his lap, the first I’d ever seen in a real lap. I tried to remember my earlier conversations with him, but couldn’t. He knew my name and seemed to be on a first-name basis with both my parents. I asked him, but he didn’t remember what day I’d been put into this room or if I had said anything odd in my sleep.

“Y-y-you s-s-sleep most of the d-d-day,” he said with a trace of envy. “Like a m-mole.”

His eyes had a baleful look, which I cured, turning the frown to a grin, by carrying the rest of my dessert cookies across the space between us. He thanked me and set to the business of serious munching.

Walking back to my bed, I tried telling my brain to find any scrap of what had happened to me since I was admitted. There was nothing there. At the same time, this room and the people in the corridors all seemed familiar enough. I could accept that I had been here for some time. I didn’t feel like a newcomer. I vaguely knew what lay beyond the turn in the corridors at both ends of the floor.

When I’d climbed back into bed, I wondered why I bothered. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t have a fever. I wasn’t out of my mind. Then I got it: bed is a handy place to file people until you know what you want to do with them. In my pyjamas I was unlikely to get into the elevator, head out the front door and into traffic.

From my window, I could see the busy street, divided down the middle by a running island of flowerbeds and monuments to public figures. University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Still, every time I looked out the window, I expected to see Grantham’s Queenston Street. My body was in Toronto, but half of my mind was at home in Grantham.

Across the street and up a bit, I could see the brickand-cement shell of a hospital wing that was being demolished. Was it my imagination that informed me that the ruin had been taller earlier in the week, or was it just a safe inference? There wasn’t a lot I knew for sure. The old wing—bricks, mortar, and the steel frame still partly covered in cement—was solid while it lasted. Until both of us dissolved into a new stage of falling apart, we appeared stable enough. The feet I used to walk my cookies across to my roommate were recognizably my own feet. Maybe a little greyer or bluer than I remembered them—I blame that on my poor circulation after being flat on my back for all this time—but they were indisputably my own feet. The thoughts in my head also sounded like my own familiar voice. If the mind was my own, then all wasn’t lost.

I looked at my belongings stretched out on a low table to the right side of my bed, under the window. I recognized most of them, but others I had to pick up and handle before finding some past echo attac\hing them to me. A portable radio was out of place lying next to a familiar pair of sunglasses. The glasses were mine; the radio
wasn’t. Both facts I could deal with. I sat on the edge of my bed for a few minutes, wondering why it was that I got up and put my feet on the cold floor with such dispatch. After a few minutes thinking about it without success, I tried not thinking about it, with better luck.

Then, it hit me: if I had a brain injury and it wasn’t caused by a stroke, then it must have been a blow of some sort, a rap on the head. Was it that train I’d been dreaming about? What hit me? I looked around to see if Rhymes With was within hailing distance. No. I knew that I’d better calm myself or I’d go off the deep end again. I needed calmer thoughts. Think calm thoughts.

I remembered that the names of all the patients were printed in large letters outside our rooms. I slid into my slippers and examined the printed names from the hallway. It took only a moment or two to recognize and eliminate my own name, then I painfully sounded out the letters on the other sign:
“Fos,
no
Suc, Suc-hard,
no, the
c
and the
h
go together.” It took me a few minutes to decipher it, solving one letter after another. It wasn’t speed-reading, but it was a beginning. My roommate’s name was Jerry Suchard. By the time I had walked down the hall to the nursing station and back, refreshed my memory by looking at the name on the wall again, and then climbed back into bed, I could remember only the first name. I remembered struggling several times to recall my nurse’s name. I had to face it: names were going to be a continuing problem. I tried scribbling Jerry’s name on a scrap of paper so it would be handy when I needed it. My
inventiveness impressed me, even when the
aidemémoire
took me three minutes to decipher.

I had always had a horror of forgetting names. At the same time, I was always doing it. I could think of dozens of occasions where memory had failed in the middle of an introduction.

Now, of course, it wasn’t a matter of not remembering one name in a crowd. Now I could no longer remember
any
name. I was going to live in a world where friends, colleagues, and relatives looked their familiar selves, but their names were all crowded into the lock-up at the end of my tongue. An oubliette, in more ways than one.

The funny thing was that I wasn’t panicked. I didn’t rejoice and embrace it, naturally, but I wasn’t broken in half by it either. I’d get on; I’d manage. I’d never been heavy on the vocative before I got hit on the head. Now I had a good excuse, one that didn’t put a dunce cap on my pointed head anyway.

Maybe I dozed off for a while. When I was myself again, my roomie had company. She had a thick Hungarian accent; he called her by a name I’d never heard before. Listening in shamelessly, I learned that she had just returned from Europe, where air travel had been upset for days because of some political crisis that seemed to excite both of them. I made a mental note to try to find out what the trouble in the old country was, not that my mental notes were worth anything; my mind was made of Swiss cheese.