Ёко Огава - The Memory Police

When we had finished the chores, we lit the stove and ate waffles in the dining room. Perhaps because it had just been cleaned, the stove was slow to start and made a sputtering sound. The vapor trail of a jet was visible in the sky outside the window. A thin pillar of smoke rose from the smoldering leaves.

“Living here alone, I feel a little nervous when winter comes, so I’m truly grateful for your help. Which reminds me, I just finished knitting a sweater and I’d like you to try it on,” I said. After my first waffle, I went to get the gray Fair Isle sweater I had made for him. Surprised, he swallowed his tea noisily and reached out to take it with both hands.

“I’m always happy to help, but I’ve hardly done anything. This is too much, really.” But he immediately pulled off the old sweater he was wearing and wadded it up like a used towel. Then he slipped his arms into the new one with infinite care, as if it were delicate and might unravel at the slightest touch. “Oh my, how warm!” he said. “It’s so light I feel as though I’m going to float away.”

The sleeves were a little long and the collar a bit tight, but he didn’t seem to care. He ate another waffle, but he was so taken with the new sweater that he didn’t even notice when a bit of cream dribbled on his chin.

After supper, the old man put his pliers and his screwdriver, his sandpaper and his oilcan back in the toolbox attached to his bicycle, and he headed home to the boat.

Winter began in earnest the next day. Suddenly, you needed a coat when you went outside. There was ice on the river behind my house in the morning and fewer kinds of vegetables in the market.

I was hiding away at home, working on my new novel. This one was about a typist who loses her voice. She goes off in search of it, accompanied by her lover, a teacher at the typing school. She consults a speech therapist. Her boyfriend massages her throat and warms her tongue with his lips, and plays songs that the two of them had recorded long before. But her voice doesn’t come back. She communicates her feelings to him by typing. The clack-clack of the keys flows between them like music, and then…

I myself wasn’t sure what would happen next. The story seemed simple and pleasant enough, but I had a feeling it might take a frightening turn.

I was still working when, well past midnight, I thought I heard someone knocking on glass off in the distance. Setting down my pencil, I listened for a moment, but the only sound was the wind blowing outside. I went back to my manuscript, but before I had finished another line, I heard the rattling of glass again. Clack, clack, clack… A quiet, rhythmic sound.

I pulled back the curtain and looked out. The houses were dark and there was no sign of anyone in the street. Closing my eyes, I tried to hear where the sound was coming from, when I suddenly realized it was coming from the basement.

Since my mother’s death, I had rarely been down to her studio, and I generally kept the door locked. In fact, it had been so long since I’d needed the key that I’d forgotten exactly where I’d put it. It took me a few moments to remember, and then there was considerable rattling as I poked around in a drawer. At last I found the tin where I kept keys, but there was more noise as I opened it and located the rusty key on the ring. Somehow I felt like I should have been doing all this more quietly, but the knocking from the basement, even and patient, had pushed me to hurry.

At last I managed to open the door. I went down the stairs and turned on the light, and when I did I could see someone standing outside the door that led to the laundry area built out on the river. It hadn’t been used regularly since my grandmother’s time. My mother had occasionally washed her sculpting tools there, but even that was more than fifteen years ago.

The washing area was little more than a few square feet paved in brick, set into the riverbank. It was built up above the basement level, and from there one could walk down a few steps to the glass door at the back of the house. The river itself was only a few yards wide at this point, and my grandfather had built a small wooden bridge to the far bank—though it was now in a state of disrepair.

But why would someone be standing out there?

I turned that question over in my head as I considered what to do. Perhaps it was a burglar. No, a burglar wouldn’t knock. The knocking continued, measured and almost polite.

Screwing up my courage, I managed to call out, “Who’s there?”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s late. It’s Inui.”

When I opened the door, I found Professor Inui and his family standing outside. Inui, an old friend of my parents, taught in the dermatology department at the university hospital.

They certainly appeared to be in some kind of difficulty. “What’s happened?” I asked, ushering them inside. The sound of the river rushing nearby made the cold even more piercing.

“I’m so sorry to show up like this. I know it’s a terrible inconvenience…” The professor murmured apologies as they shuffled through the door. His wife wore no makeup, and her face was gaunt. Her eyes were damp, whether from the cold or with tears. Their daughter, who was perhaps fifteen years old, stood with her lips pressed tightly together, while her younger brother, who I remembered was eight, stared curiously around at the room. They clustered together in a group, holding on to one another. Mrs. Inui clutched her husband’s arm, which was wrapped around his daughter’s shoulders, while the children held hands. To complete the circle, the little boy held the hem of his mother’s coat with his other hand.

“It’s no trouble, really,” I told them. “But I’m amazed you made it across the bridge. Wasn’t it a bit scary? It’s on its last legs. And I don’t understand why you didn’t come to the front door. But you’re here now, and we should go up to the living room where it’s nice and warm.”

“You’re more than kind, but I’m afraid we have no time. And we should be as discreet as possible. We don’t want to attract attention.”

The professor sighed, and as if that were a signal, the four of them huddled still closer together.

They were wearing long, well-made coats, and their necks, hands, and feet—anyplace not covered by the coats—were bundled in warm woolens. They carried two bags each, one in each hand, larger or smaller depending on the size of the bearer. The bags appeared to be heavy.

Working quickly, I cleared my mother’s table and brought chairs for them to sit on. When their bags were arranged under the table, I waited to hear their story.

“It finally arrived,” the professor said, his fingers folded in front of him, as if he hoped to conceal his voice in the semicircle they formed.

“What did?” I asked, urging him on when he paused.

“A summons from the Memory Police.” His voice was calm.

“But why?”

“I’ve been ordered to present myself at the genetic analysis center. Tomorrow—no, this morning it is now—they’re coming to escort me there. I’ve been dismissed from my post at the university, and we’ve been ordered to vacate our faculty house. Our whole family is to move to the center.”

“But where is it?” I asked.

“I have no idea. No one seems to know where it is, what sort of building it’s in. But I can guess what they’re doing there. Officially, they’re conducting medical research, but in reality it’s simply a front for the Memory Police. And I suspect they want to use my research to identify people who are able to keep their memories.”

I remembered what R had told me. So it wasn’t just a rumor.