The Fifth Profession (31 page)

“Of course,” Savage said. “You just explained short-term memory doesn't last.”

“But where does short term end and
long
term begin? And how can we be sure that long-term memory truly endures? The basic issue is the limitation of consciousness. We're capable of knowing we remember only
if
we remember. We can't be aware of something we've forgotten ….Describe the future.”

“I can't. The future doesn't exist,” Savage said.

“No more than the past, though memory gives us the illusion the past does exist—in our minds. It's my opinion that our memories don't remain permanent after they're encoded. I believe our memories are constantly changing, details being altered, added, and subtracted. In effect, we each create a version of the past. The discrepancies are usually insignificant. After all, what difference does it make if Max and I saw that movie together or separately? But on occasion, the discrepancies are critical. Max once had a neurotic female patient who as a child had repeatedly been abused by her father. She'd sublimated her nightmarish memories and imagined an idyllic youth with a gentle, loving father. To cure her neuroses, Max had to teach her to discard her false memory and recognize the horrors she'd experienced.”

“False memory,” Savage said.
“Jamais vu.
But
our
false memory isn't caused by psychological problems. Our brain scans suggest someone surgically altered our ability to remember. Is that possible?”

“If you mean, would
I
be able to do it, the answer is no, and I'm not aware of any other neurosurgeon who could do it, either. But is it
possible?
Yes. Theoretically. Though even if I
knew
how to do it, I wouldn't. It's called psychosurgery. It alters your personality, and except for a few procedures— an excision of brain tissue to prevent an epileptic from having seizures, or a lobotomy to stop self-destructive impulses—it isn't ethical.”

“But how, in theory, would you do it?”
Rachel asked.

Santizo looked reluctant.

“Please.”

“I pride myself on being curious, but sometimes, against my nature, I've refused to investigate intriguing cerebral phenomena. When necessary, I've inserted electrodes into the brains of my patients. I've asked them to describe what they sensed.”

“Wait,” Akira said. “How could they describe the effects if their brains were exposed? They'd be unconscious.”

“Ah,” Santizo said. “I take too much for granted. I skip too many steps. I'm too used to dealing with fellow neurosurgeons. Obviously you think exposing the brain is the same as exposing the heart. I'll emphasize a former remark. The brain—our sense receptor—does not
itself
have a sense receptor. It doesn't feel pain. Using a local anesthetic to prevent the skull from transmitting pain, I can remove a portion of bone and expose the great mystery. Inserting an electrode into the brain, I can make the patient smell oranges that don't exist. I can make the patient hear music from his childhood. I can make him taste apples. I can make him have an orgasm. I can manipulate his sense receptors until he's convinced he's on a sailboat, the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, hearing waves crash, skirting Australia's Great Barrier Reef—a vacation he experienced years before.”

“But would he remember the illusions you caused?” Rachel asked.

“Of course. Just as he'd remember the true vivid event, the operation.”

“So that explains what happened,” Savage said.

“To you and your friend? Not at all,” Santizo said. “What I've just described is an activation of the patient's memory by means of an electronic stimulation to various neurons. But
you
have memories of events that apparently …”

“Never happened,” Akira said. “So why do we remember them?”

“I told you, it's only a theory,” Santizo said. “But if I expose the left temporal lobe of your brain …and if I stimulate your neurons with electrodes … if I describe in detail what you're supposed to remember, perhaps show you films or even have actors dramatize the fictional events …if I administer amphetamines to encourage the learning process … and when I'm finished, if I use the electrode to scar selected neurons, to impair your memory of the operation …you'll remember what never happened and forget what
did
happen.”

“We've been
brainwashed?”

“No,” Santizo said. “ ‘Brainwashed’ is a crude expression that originated during the Korean War and is used to describe the process by which a prisoner can be forced to surrender deeply held political convictions. The methodology originated in the USSR, based upon Pavlov's theories of stimulus and response. Subject a prisoner to relentless pain, break his spirit, then offer him a reward if he'll agree to denounce the country he loves. Well, as we know, a few soldiers did succumb. The miracle is that more did not. Especially when psychosuggestive drugs are added to Pavlov's theory of conditioning. But if you've seen newsreels from the fifties, you know that prisoners who were conditioned always
looked
as if they'd been conditioned. Gaunt features. Shaky hands. Glazed eyes. Their confession of war crimes wasn't convincing. You two show none of those symptoms. You're frightened, yes. But you're functional. What's more, no attitudinal changes seem to have occurred. Your identity remains intact. You're still determined to protect. No, you haven't been conditioned. Your problem isn't directed toward the future. It's not anything you might have been programmed to do. It's what happened to you in the
past.
Or what
didn't
happen. And what
really
happened that you don't recall.”

“Then why was this done to us?” Savage asked.

“Why? The only answer I can suggest—”

The phone rang. Santizo picked it up. “Hello?” He suddenly listened intensely, his face becoming more grave. “I'll be there at once.”

He set down the phone. “An emergency. I'm due in OR right away.” Standing, he turned toward a wall of bookshelves. “Here. Some standard texts. Young's
Programs of the Brain,
Baddeley's
The Psychology of Memory,
Horn's
Memory, Imprinting, and the Brain.
Study them. Call my secretary tomorrow. She'll arrange a time for us to meet again. I really have to go.”

As Santizo hurried toward the door, Akira surged from his chair. “But you started to tell us why you thought—”

“You were given false memories?” Santizo pivoted. “No. I can't imagine. What I meant to say was the only person who'd know is whoever performed the procedure.”

6

They managed to get a room in a hotel near the hospital. The setting sun was obscured by smog. After ordering room service—fish and rice for Akira, steak and fries for Savage and Rachel—they each took a book and read in silence.

When their food arrived, they used the distraction of what Savage called “refueling” to talk.

“The medical terms are difficult for me to interpret,” Akira said. “My knowledge of English, I'm embarrassed to confess, has limitations.”

“No,” Rachel said, “your English is perfect. For what it's worth, these medical terms might as well be Japanese to me.”

“I appreciate the compliment. You're very gracious.
Arigato,”
Akira said. “That means …?”

“Thank you.”

“And what should I say in return? What's the equivalent of ….?”

“ ‘You're welcome’? I'll make it simple.
Domo arigato.
A rough translation—‘thank
you
very much.’ “

“Exactly,” Rachel said.
“Domo arigato.”

Akira smiled, despite his melancholy eyes.

“Well,” Savage said, “while the two of you are having a cultural exchange—”

“Don't get grumpy,” Rachel told him.

Savage studied her,
admired
her, and couldn't help smiling. “I guess that's how I sound. But I
think
I understand a part of this book, and it scares me.”

Rachel and Akira came to attention.

“Memory's more complicated than I realized. Not just that no one's really sure how the neurons in our brain store information. But what about the implication of what it
means
to be able to remember?
That's
what scares me.” Savage's head throbbed. “We think of memory as a mental record of the past. The trouble is the past, by definition, doesn't exist. It's a phantom of what used to be the present. And it isn't just what happened a year ago, last month, or yesterday. It's twenty minutes ago. It's an
instant
ago. What I'm saying is already in the past, in our memories.”

Rachel and Akira waited.

“This book has a theory that when we see an apple fall from a tree, when we hear it land, when we pick it up, smell it, and taste it, we're not experiencing those sensations simultaneously with the events. There's a time lag—let's say a millionth of a second—before the sense impulses reach the brain. By the time we register the taste of the apple, what we think is the present is actually the past. That lag would explain
déjà vu.
We enter a room and feel eerily convinced we've been there before, though we haven't. Why? Because of the millionth of a second it takes the brain to receive a transmission from the eyes and tell us what we're seeing. If the two hemispheres of the brain are temporarily out of sync, one side of the brain receives the transmission slightly before the other. We see the room
twice.
We think the sensation happened before
because it did
Not in the distant past, however. Instead, a fraction of an instant before, one side of the brain received what the other side later received.”

“But our problem isn't
déjà vu
—it's
jamais vu”
Akira said. “Why are you disturbed by what you just read?”

“Because I can't be sure of the present, let alone the past. Because there is no present, at least as far as my brain's concerned. Everything it tells me is a delayed reaction.”

“That may be true,” Rachel said. “But for practical purposes, even with the time lag, what we perceive might as well be the present. You've got a big enough problem without exaggerating it.”

“Am
I exaggerating? I'm scared because I thought I was struggling with false memories someone implanted in my brain six months ago. But
was
it six months ago? How do I know the operation didn't happen much more recently? How can I be sure of what occurred yesterday or even this morning?” Savage turned to Rachel. “In France, when you learned about our pseudonyms and the cover stories we had to invent, you said it seemed that everything about us was a lie. In a way I never imagined, maybe you're right. How many false memories do I have? How do I know who I am? How can I be sure that you and Akira are what you seem? Suppose you're actors hired to trick me and reinforce my delusions.”

“But obviously we're not,” Akira said. “We've been through too much together. Rachel's rescue. The escape in the helicopter. The ferry out of Greece. The vans that tried to intercept us in France.”

“My point is maybe
none
of it happened. My false memories might have begun
today.
My entire background—everything about me—might be a lie I'm not aware of! Did I ever meet Rachel's sister?
Is Graham really dead?”

“Keep thinking like that,” Akira said, “and you'll go crazy.”

“Right,” Savage said. “That's what I mean—I'm scared. I feel like I'm seeing through a haze, like the floor's unsteady, like I'm in an elevator that's falling. Total disorientation. I've based my identity on protecting people. But how can I protect
myself
from my
mind?”

Rachel put an arm around him. “You've got to believe we're not actors. We're all you have. Trust us.”

“Trust you? I don't even trust myself.”

7

That night, as Savage slept fitfully, assaulted by nightmares, he woke abruptly from a hand that caressed his cheek. Startled, he grabbed the hand and lunged upright on the sofa, prepared to defend himself.

He restrained his impulse. In the soft light from a lamp in a corner, he saw Rachel's worried face beside him. She was kneeling.

“What?” Savage scanned the room. “Where's Akira?”

“In the hallway. I asked him to leave us alone.”

“Why would—?”

“Because I asked him,” she repeated, her blond hair silhouetted by the dim light in the corner.

“No, why did you ask him to leave?”

“Because I need to be with you.”

“That still doesn't answer my—”

“Hush.” Rachel touched his lips. “You think too much. You ask too many questions.”

“It's
impossible
to ask too many questions.”

“But sometimes it's wiser not to ask any.”

Savage smelled her perfume. “I can't imagine—”

“Yes,” she said, “I know you can't. You've been a protector so long you're automatically suspicious. Questions are precautions. Answers are safety. And safety's your absolute value.” She touched his cheek. “It's been too many years since I told this to anyone.”

“Told?”

“I love you.”

Savage squirmed and brushed her hand away. “Don't be absurd.”

“That's what Kierkegaard says in
Fear and Trembling.
‘Abraham believed in God by virtue of the absurd.’ Faith is absurd.
So is love.
Because neither faith nor love makes sense. God might not exist and the person you love might betray you.”

“Say what you mean.”

“Since you entered my bedroom on Mykonos, you've treated me as if I meant everything to you. It's a rare experience. I can't help loving you, though I realize we're together only because you were hired to protect me. I ought to be smarter. I
shouldn't
love you. But I do…. By virtue of the absurd.”

“Pay attention to what Weinberg said. People under stress tend to identify with those they depend on for their safety.”

“Yes, I depend on you,” Rachel said. “And I identify with you. But more than anything, I want to make love with you.”

“No, I—”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“Damn it, hold still.”

As she kissed him, she released his belt.