These Cruel Things

*



Mural, Redfern, Sydney.


"Out of a distant past came a fragment of poetry I hadn't known I remembered and I hung on to it and recited it in my head, over and over. 'Build me a willow cabin at thy gate, and call upon my soul within the house..' I tried to concentrate on the syllables. 'Let the babbling gossips of the air cry out.' Inky fingers and the sun shining in thick, dissolving shafts through the windows. Surely they must come now. Surely. I walked back and forth, back and forth. The cold burned in my eyes, the horizon wavered and warped in the winter light. The sun was dipping towards the sea on its shallow arc. The waters rose and swelled as I watched, beads of spray riffling across the grey surface."
Nicci French, Losing You.

It wasn't at all possible, these cruel things that kept coming at him freak fold, shrieking like sirens, odd images of comfort not holding for a second. You can be one of us, you are one of us, just accept that things are better this way, the unprompted voice kept telling him. And all the time, all the time, his doubt was manifest, in the dark rumbling gums, the nights full of sounds, in the fires, gazing into the fires, in happy moments, water skiing by a lake as children. How could this possibly be true? How could you have possibly done that? Accepted them, enfolded them, let them run your life?

These were the ultimate lies, his own head kept telling him, thoughts that he immediately attempted to conceal. So he stared at the building, day after day, using his lunch hour, which he never normally took, to walk past the building from every angle possible. To keep wondering why he thought there had been another life. They must know he kept coming here. They clearly didn't care. They must think it was part of his healing. But every time he tried to access files, memories, records of any kind about the man now rotting in jail, he came up with the words: closed and confidential, amnesia granted, refer hospital guidelines.

That was it. No matter how much his pondering, that was it. He kept moving through the darkness trying to find a motive. All he found were strange memories of parties, intense conversations, friendships which had lasted only a night, callow youth, a fragile hold on life, smoking, lots of smoking, before tobacco had been banned altogether, amazing that it had ever been legal at all, craftsmen who wouldn't be able to smile as they carved out sacred images, fun scenes of houses full of people, clearly before the implants, there was too much laughter, and a soft knowing, we were blessed, we were the chosen, destiny had been placed on us.

Sheer nonsense, he heard himself muttered, as he turned, a week after he had begun the habit of visiting each day, away from the building, which still remained roped off by crime scene tape, and was otherwise entirely silent. No one came or went, no tradesmen, no forensic experts, no police, no security bureaucrats, nobody. There were don't with me for one second type guards around the building's perimeter, and that was that. He didn't try to speak to any of them; and not once did they ever acknowledge his presence. The only thing that ever changed was the damaged sign: The Centre for Social Policy. One day he arrived to discover it had been removed altogether.

There wasn't any sane way he could battle through the uncertainties that gathered in increasing number; every day a new level of doubt. He tried to remember his childhood, as a way of ensuring himself that he was a real person. Even that venture brought new alarm. He could remember running along the cliffs at Bungan with school friends, twins, the clear salt wind and the southern sun and the bright wheel of seagulls over sandstone cliffs, and that was it. He couldn't remember their names. He couldn't remember their faces. He couldn't remember the year they had been together at school, when they had run and jumped down the sand dunes, and showed each other their bits and soon afterwards told their parents, getting them all promptly into trouble.

It was then, walking away from the building yet again, that he became completely alarmed. It came slamming home to him in one instant, sallow realisation. He must be manufactured. He couldn't recall the faces of his parents. Desperately he tried to connect to their files, to research back from names on his birth certificate. None of it worked. He slipped through the booming chaos of China Town and back to the building in which he worked. He was surrounded by state of the art white light; computer screens, checked carpet. He slid into his seat, trying to act normal. Resumed shuffling the same bit of paper he had been shuffling when he left.

Do you remember your parents, when you were young? he asked a young woman sitting near him.
She looked up at him curiously.
Not really, she said. And then returned to her computer, as if it was not an unusual question.
Don't you think it would be normal to remember your parents? They must have been the most important people in the world to us.
She looked up again. Tanya he thought her name was; they came, they went, everybody was blazed out in the fierce office light, as if their shadows were entirely burnt away. She looked at him with her large, grey, attractive he noticed for the first time, eyes. Why are you asking these questions?
I don't know, he said. I just wonder why I can't remember anything about myself, but at the same time I know all this other stuff. I can tell you all of the names of the Japanese trade delegation to Canberra in May, 1972, but I can't remember the name of my parents.
It's the way things are meant to be, she said. You're not really meant to ask.
It's the implants, isn't it? He asked. It was the first time he had ever mentioned them to another person.
She nodded, then looked around to see if anyone was watching, and nodded again.
We shouldn't be talking like this, she said.
Why not? he asked.
You know why not, she said. Or at least you should know why not. Maybe that's why they keep sending you off to hospital.
How many times has it been? he asked.
Nine, she said. I've counted. I wish they wouldn't treat you the way they do. All you have to do is give in; or at least let them think you've given in. That's all it takes to live a comfortable life. They even let you have some of your memories back.
He looked at her in a kind of revelation horror; and had no idea what to say. He turned back to her computer. He could have sworn she was crying as she bent back over her keyboard.



Mural, Redfern, Sydney.

"Some were large, and on their decks were dogs chained to the sides, flowers in pots, chairs and tables, even ironic garden gnomes. They were made of iron and wood, painted in primary colours, and had gangplanks leading to the broad wooden jetties...on one of the barges, the couple had made pots to sell in the cafe; another made nut roasts, bean salads, carrot cakes.

"That was then. It had been many years since the boats had been lived in. The hippies and artists had moved away, the paint had peeled from the rusting, blistered hulls; the gangways had collapsed as the boats tipped from their moorings towards the green-grey mud on which they stood. Years of rain and wind had blasted through the cabins. Vandals had done the rest, thrown stones through the windows, ripped off steering whels and torn out seats, beds and tables, painted graffiti on the sodden decks, tipped rubbish into the holds."
Nicci French, Losing You.


Mural, Redfern, Sydney.