“Memory problems are pretty common at our age,” Michel said gently. “Especially events in the middle distance, so to speak. There are exercises that help.”
“It’s not a muscle.”
“I know. But the power of recollection seems to strengthen with use. And the act of remembering apparently strengthens the memories themselves. It makes sense when you think about it. Synapses physically reinforced or replaced, that sort of thing.”
“But then, if you can’t face what you remember— oh Michel—” She took in a big unsteady breath. “They said— Marina said that Frank had murdered John. She said it to the others when she thought I couldn’t hear, said it as if it was something they all knew!” She clutched him by the shoulder, squeezed as if she could rip the truth out of him with her claws. “Tell me the truth, Michel! Is it true? Is that what you all think happened?”
Michel shook his head. “No one knows what happened.”
“I was there! I was in Nicosia that night and they weren’t! I was with Frank when it happened! He had no idea, I swear!”
Michel squinted, uncertain, and she said; “Don’t look like that!”
“I’m not, Maya, I’m not. I don’t mean anything by it. I have to tell you everything I’ve heard, and I’m trying to remember myself. There have been rumors— all kinds of rumors!— about what happened that night. It’s true, some say Frank was— involved. Or connected to the Saudis who killed John. That he met with the one who died later the next day, and so on.”
Maya began to weep harder. She bent over her clenched stomach and put her face on Michel’s shoulder, her ribs heaving. “I can’t stand it. If I don’t know what happened . . . how can I remember? How can I even think of them?”
Michel held her, soothed her with his embrace. He squeezed the muscles of her back, over and over. “Ah, Maya.”
After a long time she sat up, went to the sink and washed her face in cold water, avoiding the mirror’s gaze. She returned to the bed and sat, utterly despondent, a seeping blackness in every muscle.
Michel took her hand again. “I wonder if it might not help to know. Or at least, to know as much as you can. To investigate, you know. To read about John and Frank. There are books now, of course. And to ask the other people who were in Nicosia, particularly the Arabs who saw Selim el-Hayil before he died. That kind of thing. It would give you a kind of control, you see. It wouldn’t be remembering exactly, but it wouldn’t be forgetting either. Those aren’t the only two alternatives, strange as it may seem. We have to assume our past, you see? We have to make it a part of what we are now, by an act of the imagination. It’s a creative thing, an active thing. It’s not a simple process. But I know you, and you are always better when you are active, when you have a little control.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she said. “I can’t stand not to know, but I’m afraid to know. I don’t want to know. Especially if it’s true.”
“See how you feel about it,” Michel suggested. “Try it and see. Given that both alternatives are painful, it might be you prefer action to the alternative.”
“Well.” She sniffed, took a single glance across the room. From the room on the other side of the mirror, an ax murderer stared out at her. “My God I am so ugly,” she said, revulsion making her nauseated to the verge of vomiting.
Michel stood, went to the mirror. “There is a thing called body dysmorphic disorder,” he said. “It’s related to obsessive-compulsive disorders, and to depression. I’ve noticed signs of it in you for a long time now.”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Ah. Well, it’s a treatable problem.”
“Birthdays?”
“Body dysmorphic disorder.”
“I won’t take drugs.”
He put a towel over the mirror, turned to look at her. “What do you mean? It may be a simple lack of serotonin. A biochemical insufficiency. A disease. Nothing to be ashamed of in that. We all take drugs. Clomipramine is very helpful for this problem.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And no mirrors.”
“I’m not a child!” she snarled. “I know what I look like!” She leaped up and tore the towel off the mirror. Insane reptile vulture, pterodactylic, ferocious— it was impressive, in a way.
Michel shrugged. He had a little smile on his face, which she wanted to punch, or kiss. He liked lizards.
She shook her head to clear it. “Well. Take action, you say.” She thought about it. “I certainly prefer action to the alternative, in the current situation we’re in.” She told him about the news from the south, and her proposal to the others. “They make me so angry. They’re just waiting for disaster to strike again. All but Sax, and he is a loose cannon with all his sabotages, consulting with no one but these fools he has— we have to do something coordinated!”