Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

The man’s speech is precise. His accent is difficult to locate. Jasper’s mind scrambles to gain traction. He gestures at the others. ‘Did you freeze my friends like that? Will they be okay?’

‘It’s called “psychosedation”.’ Esther Little speaks with a buzzing Australian twang. ‘They’ll be fine. Unlike you –’ she frowns at a spot on Jasper’s brow ‘– unless you undergo surgery. Soon.’

A young woman enters with a wheelchair. ‘Xi Lo’s suasioning like a flame-thrower out there. If you don’t want reports of a mass delusion in the New York Times tomorrow, we have to go.’

‘Pardon the bluntness, Jasper,’ says Marinus, ‘but your choices are clear and stark. Stay and die when “Knock Knock” gets free of his temporary straitjacket or come with us and, if you’re lucky, live.’

A continuum of Jasper’s recent past flies by, viewed from an impossible train, hurtling through sharp images and blurry tunnels. Here’s the band boarding the aeroplane at Heathrow Airport to fly to New York; here’s Dean confronting Guus de Zoet and Maarten; here’s the band at Fungus Hut, discussing vocals for ‘Absent Friend’. Most scenes Jasper forgot ever forgetting. Here’s the jumble and smell of Berwick Street market near Elf’s flat; here’s a cherry-red Triumph sports car overtaking the Beast on a downhill stretch lined with orchards; here’s Jasper’s audition for Archie Kinnock’s Blues Cadillac, two Christmases ago. Memories glimpsed from this backwards-flying Memory Train are imbued with smell, taste, touch, sound and moods: here is the dining room at Rijksdorp sanatorium, infused with the aroma of soup and herring. Jasper himself appears in none of them. A camera can’t photograph itself … except in mirrors, which I avoid. Upon reaching Rijksdorp, the memories decelerate; day and night pulse light and dark like a slowing strobe light. Here’s Jasper’s room, up at the top of the house. An owl hoots. Blustery sunlight shivers on the ceiling. Benign on the outside, malign on the inside. The Mongolian is describing his containment of Knock Knock. It’s a void I’ve cut around your guest. His padded cell, if you like. Slow blur. The early morning regresses into darkness and nothing … until it’s the night before, when the Mongolian explained how he could isolate Knock Knock and buy Jasper a few years’ peace. Now it’s the day before the night. Now it’s the episode at the shore, where the Mongolian announced himself to Jasper, waist high in the North Sea with a rucksack full of pebbles … Then the Memory Train picks up speed again and travels back through Jasper’s months as a psychiatric patient; his guitar classes, lots of Dr Galavazi …

… and it dawns on Jasper that if he isn’t controlling this train, someone else must be, and that someone else must be here.

Jasper mind-speaks, Who are you?

Only Marinus , replies a familiar voice, here in Jasper’s mind . I didn’t want to startle you.

I don’t remember leaving the Ghepardo.

Esther put you under psychosedation , the doctor mind-answers . There was, and is, no time to waste.

Where are we? Why am I seeing these memories?

Marinus’s pause may contain a sigh. Imagine trying to explain satellite technology to a mule-driver in fifth-century Italy. You – your body – are at 119A, our redoubt in Manhattan. You’re in a secure upstairs room, on a futon, in an induced coma . You’re safe. For now.

The news alarms Jasper. Will I be alright?

That depends on what we find. We’re currently inside your brain, in your mnemo-parallax. It connects your cerebellum with your hippocampus and functions as a lifelong memory archive.

Did you just say, checks Jasper: you are inside my brain?

Incorporeally, yes. My body is on a futon three feet from yours. Esther can transverse standing. I have to lie down.

This is a lot to take in , mind-replies Jasper.

Try, Mule-driver. Try. Meanwhile, look at the pictures.

The mnemo-parallax shows autumn at Rijksdorp giving way to summer. Fallen leaves fly up to twigs, attach themselves and blush from brown to red to orange to green.

Everything’s happening backwards.

You’re re-experiencing your memories in reverse. We’re rewinding.

Why is everything sharper than my usual memories?

Marinus extends the analogy. The mnemo-parallax is a master-tape. Full, 4D, multi-sensory, stereo-surround Technicolor. Regular memories are court-room sketches, elaborated and eroded at every viewing .

Summer at Rijksdorp turns to spring. A fox darts backwards through the dappled shadows.

You could get lost in here for ever and never come out , thinks Jasper. Speech and thought appear to be equal. Where’s Knock Knock?

In a jury-rigged brig that won’t hold for long. He is furious and dangerous.

Can you make a secure cell for him? mind-asks Jasper.

Alas, the Mongolian’s procedure was a one-time only solution. There’s not enough spare mass in the brain to do it twice.

How long do I have before Knock Knock’s free again?

Hours , replies Marinus. Hence the urgency.

In the mnemo-parallax, puddles launch droplets of rain up to twigs and clouds. Tulips shrink into their bulbs.

Jasper asks, What are we looking for?

We’re sifting the proximate circadian cycles for data on Knock Knock. I’ ve read Dr Galavazi’s reports on ‘Patient JZ’, but that information passed through filters. Your mnemo-parallax is the primary source. When did you first see his face?

My last day at Ely. Seven years earlier. Knock Knock was in the mirror in the wardrobe in my room.

Then let’s take a look. The Memory Train picks up speed. Jasper glimpses patients at Rijksdorp unrolling a snowman out of existence. He asks, How did you ‘psycho-sedate’ everyone back at the Ghepardo? How are you doing all this?

A branch of applied metaphysics called psychosoterica.

Jasper considers the word. It sounds like quack science.

Our fifth-century mule-driver would not know the words ‘orbital velocity’. Does his ignorance mean that aeronautics is quack science?

No , admits Jasper. Psychosoterica. What is it?

The devil’s box of tricks, to some. To others, it’s an arsenal. To us, it’s an evolving discipline.

You keep saying ‘us’ . Jasper sees his first year at Rijksdorp passing by at a backwards canter. Who are ‘us’?

We are Horology , replies Marinus.

Jasper’s heard of the word. Clockmaking?

In recent decades, yes. Words evolve. In the past a horologist studied time itself. Look, here’s you arriving at Rijksdorp …

Jasper sees a six-years-younger Dr Galavazi. Rijksdorp recedes through its gates, viewed at night from Grootvader Wim’s Jaguar. Formaggio is in the car, too. The car appears to drives backwards to Hook of Holland port in thirty seconds, as night gives way to evening. I feel like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, says Jasper.

I’m not as jolly as the Ghost of Christmas Past, believe me.

The SS Arnhem crosses the North Sea towards the morning. A stomachful of vomit flies up from the waves into Formaggio’s mouth, and Formaggio rushes backwards to the lounge.

The day before this , says Jasper. The morning before.

Fast as flight, the ferry arrives at Harwich, a car travels across Norfolk to Ely, night swallows the day and sixteen-year-old Jasper is back in the bedroom he shares with Formaggio. The knock-knock-knock-knock-knocking speeds into a rapid-fire buzz. Go slow here , Jasper tells Marinus. It happened any second …