The Forgetting Place (13 page)

August 25, 2006

T
hey sat in silence in the backseat as the cab merged onto the G.W. Parkway and wound its way through the midday traffic toward Reagan National Airport. The temperature had already reached 98 degrees today, and Jason was sweating, the taxi's lackluster air-conditioning offering much noise but little respite from the metropolitan area's notorious summer humidity. Their driver chattered away on his cell phone in a language Jason didn't recognize, and next to him Amir sat with his face turned toward the closed window and the Arlington National Cemetery beyond. It was an hour-and-forty-minute flight to Montreal, then almost seven hours overnight to London and another four and a half to Beirut. Amir would be gone for two weeks, attending his mother's funeral and spending time with relatives he'd never met—but there was something ominous in his silence, and Jason couldn't help but wonder if he would ever come back.

Jason had tried to comfort him, to be present during his grief, but the body he'd held seemed very distant from the person within. And why not? To lose one's mother was a devastating
thing, but for her to die on the other side of the world in a country ravaged by war was something else entirely. “I should've been there,” Amir had whispered last night in the darkness of their bedroom. In his mind, Jason pictured the missile descending from the sky, the deafening explosion and
whomp
of the blast as the concrete building where she'd lived was reduced to fire, rubble, and the unrecognizable remnants of what had been scores of human beings a moment before.

“If you'd been there,” Jason responded, “you would have died as well.”

“Yes,” he replied, the inflection of his voice acknowledging the fact but not retreating from his assertion.

“You're returning on the eighth?” Jason asked now as the driver took the exit for the airport.

Amir glanced over at him. “Yeah,” he said before turning his attention back to the window. There was little reassurance in the answer.

A minute later the cabbie eased the car up to the curb near a sign designating departures for Air Canada. Amir pulled the latch and was out the door before the vehicle came to a complete stop. Jason and the driver followed suit, staying close to the car to accommodate the line of traffic squeezing by on their left.
Too many people,
Jason thought randomly as he stepped to the curb, joining Amir. The cabbie popped the trunk to retrieve the suitcase.

Jason placed a hand on his partner's forearm. “I'm so sorry.”

Amir turned his face to study him. There was a hardness in his eyes that Jason had never seen before. “It's part of life there,” he said, “something my people are forced to endure. Living here in this country, you will never know what that's like.”

“No, I . . . I suppose not.”

The driver placed the luggage on the curb beside them, then turned and got back into the car.

“Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?” Jason asked. “I could—”

“No.” Amir reached down for the suitcase's handle, brought it up in a snap.

“Are you angry with me?” Jason asked. “Have I done something to—”

“No,” he said, and his face softened then, his features transitioning back into the person Jason loved. “You haven't done anything wrong, and I'm not angry with you. It's just that . . .” He swiveled his head to look at the people moving all around them. Then his eyes were back on Jason. “It's just that I have to go bury my mother now.”

“Okay,” Jason said, and leaned into him, wrapping his arms around him for a moment before letting go. “Come back safe.”

Amir nodded. “I'll try.” He turned and walked through the gaping mouth of the terminal's sliding glass doors.

Jason watched until the doors closed once again.

W
hen I returned to work the next day, my perception of Menaker and the people there had taken on a surreal quality, as if I were an actress in a play where everyone knew their lines but me. The groundskeeper, Kendrick Jones, gave me a smile and a wink with his good eye as I made my way up the front walkway. “Dr. Shields,” he greeted me. His expression was friendly—amicable—and yet I had the feeling he was recalling an inside joke between the two of us, one I'd long since forgotten. I wanted to stop and ask why he was smiling like that, to have him chuckle as he recounted some humorous interaction we'd once shared. But I was afraid my question would be met with only a perplexed look. “Jus' sayin' good morning, Dr. Shields,” he would tell me, and I would feel like a fool for asking.

Across the open stretch of grass to my left, I caught a glimpse of Dr. Wagner heading up the front steps of the administrative building about two hundred yards away. He turned his head as he reached the top, glancing back across the yard. I wasn't certain if he saw me or not, but his head quickly whipped back around as he pushed open the front door and disappeared inside.

I continued up the walkway and entered the main
clinical building, whose egg-white walls had long since faded to the stained yellow of an old man's teeth. In the hallway leading to the activity room, I encountered Paul Drevel, one of the orderlies. He acknowledged me with a nod. “Beautiful morning, isn't it?” he offered, and I agreed with him in a voice that sounded a bit forced and wooden, even to my own ears. “Anything special on the agenda today?” I asked him, but he shook his head
nah, same old, same old
.

I've always liked Paul. His casual, unassuming demeanor puts the patients at ease. On weekends, when things are slow at the hospital, he often brings in his guitar and plays in the common area, his soft, steady voice filling the room until the walls seem to melt away into the background. During the space of that time, it's easy to forget that we're all here in Menaker, serving our own private sentences. In the wake of all I'd learned over the past forty-eight hours, I felt that I needed someone I could trust—someone on the inside—who could look out for Jason and watch my back as well. If there was anyone here who could not be compromised, it was Paul.

I stopped in the hallway and put a hand on his elbow. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Paul looked down at my hand. When his eyes rose to meet mine, he did not look surprised—almost as if he'd been waiting for me to ask.

I led him back down the hall, turned left at the next intersection, continuing until we came to the closed door of a conference room used for evening rounds. It would be empty now and a reasonable place for us to speak in private, but when I placed a hand on the knob it was locked.

“Do you mind?” I asked, gesturing at the door, knowing Paul
had a key to the room. He wasn't supposed to, but he did. Except for the physician offices—and maybe even those—there wasn't a locked room at Menaker that Paul did not have access to. It was a little project he'd been working on over the years, amassing those keys, and we all pretended we didn't know about it, although everyone on the medical staff did. I don't know why he started the collection in the first place. Perhaps he figured he might need it someday. Or maybe it was something he did for his own amusement and satisfaction—a little defiance in the face of strict policies and procedures. But mostly I think it was about control, an illusion we all like to cling to when we can.

Paul reached into his pocket, brought out a set of colored keys, pausing only long enough to glance over his shoulder to ensure we were alone, and had the door open in less time than it would've taken for me to recite my own name. As soon as we were through its threshold, he flipped on the light and closed the door behind us.

I let out a breath, enjoying the quiet privacy of the room. For the moment, as far as I could tell, we were not being watched.

I took a seat at the long table in the center of the room, inviting him to do the same. “How long have we known each other, Paul?”

“Long enough, Lise,” he said, lowering himself into a chair. “What's troubling you?”

“You know I've been treating Jason Edwards.”

He nodded, but his eyes looked wary.

“Dr. Wagner ever mention him to you? Ever bring him up in conversation?”

Paul shifted in his seat, running his fingers along the smooth contour of the table. “What do you mean?”

“He tell you why Jason's here?”

“I'm not involved in those types of conversations,” Paul replied.

“But you know this place and the patients here better than any of us.” I tried to catch his eyes, but he was looking down at his hands now. “And yet you don't know much about Jason Edwards, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Does that strike you as odd?”

He said nothing—still wouldn't look at me.
Was I making a mistake in coming to him, making myself more vulnerable instead of less?
Still, who else could I trust?

“I'm going to tell you something,” I pressed on, “that I want you to keep between the two of us. Do you think you can do that?”

“Depends on what it is,” he replied. “I could get in trouble just for letting you in here. I'm not supposed to—”

“You're not supposed to have keys to every locked door in this facility. I know. But I don't care about that. None of us do. What I care about is the safety of these patients, and I know you do, too. That's why I'm confiding in you. Because I trust that your heart's in the right place.”

He looked up at me, finally. His face was guarded, but there was something in his eyes—
Was it empathy? Pity?
—that tipped the scales, convinced me I could trust him. I took a breath and told him as much as I dared.

“Jason doesn't belong here,” I said. “Believe me when I tell you the circumstances are complicated, but in a way it doesn't matter. Because right now what he needs most is protection. There are certain people—dangerous individuals—who may be coming for him.”

“You should talk to Dr. Wagner about this.”

“No,” I responded, shaking my head. “I can't trust Dr. Wagner. I think they've already gotten to him.”

“Who are we talking about here?”

I hesitated, not knowing what to say. “I don't know for sure,” I told him, which was close enough to the truth. “But they're powerful enough to make someone disappear. I don't want that to happen to Jason.”

Paul studied me cautiously, and I waited for him to laugh or tell me I was crazy. I sat there and watched hope dangle from a fishing line over a river, waited for something to leap from the current and snatch it away from me in the turn of a thin second. In the hall outside, I could hear the muffled conversation of two nurses as they passed, their voices hushed and secretive.

“What do you want me to do?” Paul asked. His voice sounded small and unprotected, reminding me that he too had something to lose—that
he too
could become a target if he got in the way. If anything happened to him, I would bear the weight of that responsibility for the rest of my life.

“I want you to keep your eyes open, to watch out for Jason and to make sure he remains safe here. I don't know if anyone will come for him, but if they do . . .”

He sat across from me, as still as the furniture. I reached into my pocket, removed a slip of paper, and handed it to him. On it was written the contact numbers for Linder and Remy.

“If anyone comes for him, if anything happens,” I told him, “I want you to call one of these numbers right away. You make that call, and help will come running.”

“And until they get here?” he asked.

It was what worried me the most as well.

“Do what you can,” I said. “Don't let them take him.”

“Because if they do?” he asked, although I think he already knew the answer.

I exhaled slowly, the tension in my muscles refusing to loosen. “If they do,” I replied, “then we may never see him again.”

I
t's time for us to speak frankly,” I said, closing the door behind me. Jason and I had entered Menaker's modest library, a room whose brown plaster walls were lined on three sides with cheap metal shelves hosting an assortment of used books, many of them tattered and missing large swaths of pages since they'd first been introduced to this place two decades ago. Most of the hospital's literature was donated by local libraries and a few semigenerous individuals wanting to rid their bookcases of titles they hadn't looked at since college. And the bindings—worn and nearing the end of their life spans when they'd first arrived—had reached a state of decrepitude surpassed only by the buildings themselves. They sagged on the shelves, leaning against one another for support, and were seldom held in human hands. One of two small tables in the room supported a computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard, their black wires descending like necrotic umbilical cords to the processor that rested on the carpeted floor beneath the right side of the table. Like everything else here it needed replacing, yet no one bothered to do so—perhaps because a pulse of electricity still flowed within its withered circuits, and like an old mongrel who can do little more than lie curled near the
hearth, gathering for comfort what heat it could in its final days, there was a tendency to simply let it be, knowing that sooner or later the life inside would wink out forever.

There was no one there but the two of us. Jason plopped himself down into the only chair comfortable enough for long spells of reading, and its cushions let out a soft, miserable wheeze that reminded me of the way my grandfather's labored breathing had sounded as he lay in a hospital bed he'd been trudging toward through sixty years of heavy smoking.

I pulled a plastic chair from beneath the second table, its rigid form pressing into my spine as I sat.

“I know what happened to you,” I said, “and I know why you're here.”

He looked at me, only half interested in what I had to say.

“I know that your sister works for the CIA, that she suspected Amir of plotting to bomb a D.C. Metro station. I know that she warned you and eventually confronted him in May of 2010, and that during that confrontation there was a struggle and Amir was killed in the process. I know you volunteered to take the blame, and that a short stay in a state psychiatric hospital was part of that deal.”

My words seemed to barely register with him, as if what I was saying held little relevance to his current situation.

“But,” I went on, “recent events have made the outside world more dangerous for you and your sister, and you were transferred here for your own protection.”

He said nothing.

“When's the last time you spoke with her?” I asked.

He remained quiet, his gaze turned in the direction of the bookshelf on his right.

“
Dammit, Jason!
You need to
talk
to me
.
” My words ricocheted off the walls of the library. I stood, walked across the room, turned to look at him once again.

“Look,” I said, forcing my voice into a calmer tone. “I know you're trying to protect her. I get that. But I want you to know that you can confide in me. You can trust me. I will help you in any way I can.”

“You don't know
how
to help me,” he said, his words barely more than a whisper. “You can't even help yourself.”

I stood there, not knowing how to respond.

“Am I in danger?” I asked him at last. “Is there anything else I should know?” I walked over to him, touched his shoulder. “Jason,” I said, and he looked up at me from where he sat. “Tell me what you think is going to happen. Will they come for us?”

He nodded, and the expression on his face was not fear or anxiety so much as resignation. “They always do.”

“They've come for you before?” I asked. “When you were at Eastern State Hospital?” I could feel the tiny hairs on my forearms rise.

He sighed, buried his face in his hands. I studied him, tried to imagine the things he'd been through.

“During one of our first conversations,” I reminded him, “when I asked about your sister, you told me, ‘She's been gone for five years now, and alive or dead, I don't think she's ever coming back.' What did you mean by that? Didn't she ever visit you during your time at Eastern State Hospital? Didn't you ever hear from her?”

He lifted his face toward mine, his eyes red and a little glassy. He looked muddled. Lost. The muscles of his shoulders and back bunched awkwardly, like an ill-fitting coat he'd forgotten to remove. When he spoke, his words were thick and sloppy.

“I can see her,” he said, “but she doesn't see me. Not really. Ever since the night Amir was killed . . . she's”—the features of his face drew together, a purse string cinching itself tight—“she's different now . . . like a ghost. I . . . I know she's there, but . . . I can't find her.” He turned a beseeching gaze up at me. “Do you understand?”

“I'm sure the incident with Amir affected her deeply,” I said, trying to offer something reassuring. “The guilt of taking his life—even if it was an act of self-defense—is not something I'd expect her to recover from easily. Seeing you might cause her to”—I sought for the right word—“disengage. Emotionally. It's a defense mechanism, you see? It doesn't mean she's abandoning you.”

He shook his head. “You don't know her the way I do.”

“No,” I agreed. “I don't.”

“I can't force you to see it through my eyes.”

I nodded. He was right, of course. I was trying to convince him of something I couldn't be certain of myself. She'd gone missing, after all. She could be anywhere. She could be dead.

“Well,
I'm
not going anywhere,” I told him. “I won't leave you.” It was the type of promise a parent makes to a child, the words well-meaning but naive, as if the world is theirs to control. As if they have every expectation of living forever.