I was restless to be leaving the clinic. I thought I was back to normal and was tired of being treated like a child. Lareen often angered me, with her pedantic insistence that my lessons continue; my sense of taste was developing here too, and I was resenting the fact that things were still being explained to me. Now that I could read I did not see why she could not merely give me the notes she worked from, nor let me read those typewritten sheets.
A breakthrough of sorts came with a paradox. One evening, while having dinner in the refectory with Lareen and Seri, I happened to mention I had lost the pen I had been using.
Seri said: "It's on the desk. I gave it to you this afternoon."
I remembered then, and said: "Yes, of course."
It was a trivial exchange, but one that made Lareen look sharply at me.
"Had you forgotten?" she said.
"Yes . . . but it doesn't matter."
Suddenly, Lareen was smiling, and this in itself was so welcome a change that I smiled too, without understanding.
"What's funny?'' I said.
"I was beginning to think we had made you into a superman. It's good to know you can he absent-minded."
Seri leaned over the table and kissed me on the cheek.
"Congratulations," she said. "Welcome back."
I stared at them both, feeling aggressive. They were exchanging glances, as if they had been waiting for me to do something like this.
"Have you set me up for this?" I said to Seri.
She laughed, but it was happily. "It just means you're normal again. You can forget."
For some reason I felt sulky about this; I was a domestic pet that had learned a trick, or a child who could dress himself. Later, though, I understood better. To be able to forget--or rather, to be able to remember selectively--is an attribute of normal memory. While I was learning voraciously, accumulating facts, remembering everything, I was abnormal. Once I began to forget, I became fallible. I recalled my restlessness of the past few days, and I knew that my capacity for learning was nearly full.
After the meal we returned to the chalet, and Lareen collected her papers.
"I'll recommend your discharge soon, Peter," she said. "Perhaps by the end of the week."
I watched her sort her papers into a neat pile, and slip them into her folder. She put the typewritten pages into her bag.
"I'll be back in the morning," she said to Seri. "I think you can tell Peter the truth about his illness."
The two women exchanged smiles, and again I felt that paranoia. The sense that they knew more about me than I did was grating on me.
As soon as Lareen had left, I said: "Now what did that mean?"
"Calm down, Peter. It's very simple."
"You've been keeping things back from me." And more, which I could not say: the constant awareness of the contradictions. "Wh don't you just tell me the truth?"
"Because the truth is never clear-cut."
Before I could contest that she told me quickly about the treatment: I had won a lottery, and the clinic had changed me so that I would live forever.
I received this information without questioning it; I had no scepticism against which to test it, and anyway it was secondary to my real interest.
From the revelatory manner in which Seri spoke, I was expecting something that might explain her contradictions . . . but nothing came.
As far as my inner universe was concerned I had learned nothing.
By not telling me this before, the two women had been indirectly lying.
How could I even know what _other_ omissions and evasions there were?
I said: "Seri, you've got to tell me the truth."
"I have done."
"There's nothing else you should tell me?"
"What else is there?"
"How the devil do I know?"
"Don't lose your temper."
"Is that like being absent-minded? If I get angry, does that make me less than perfect? If so, I'm going to be doing it much more often."
"Peter, you're an athanasian now. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Not really, no."
"It means that one day I'm going to die, but that you never will. That almost anyone you meet will die before you do. You'll live forever."
"I thought we'd agreed I was less than perfect."
"Oh, you're just being stupid now!"
She pushed past me and went out on to the verandah. I heard her walking to and fro on the wooden boards, but then she slumped into one of the chairs.
I suppose, in spite of my resistance to the idea, that I was psychologically child-like still, because I was incapable of keeping my anger.
A few moments later, full of contrition, I went out to her and put my arms around her shoulders. Seri was stiff with frustration at me and she resisted at first, but after a while she turned her head and nested her face against my shoulder. She said nothing. I listened to the night insects, and watched the flashing lights on the distant sea.
When her breathing had steadied, I said: "I'm sorry, Seri. I love you, and I've no reason to be angry with you."
"Don't say any more about it."
"I've got to, because I want to explain. All I can be is what you and Lareen have made me. I've no idea who I am on where I came from. If there's something you haven't shown me, or told me about, on given me to read, then I can never become that."
"But why should it make you angry?"
"Because it's frightening. If you've told me something untrue I've no power to resist it. If you've left something out I've no way of replacing it."
She drew away from me and sat facing me. The soft light from the window lit her face. She looked tired.
"The opposite is true, Peter."
"The opposite of what?"
"That we're keeping something from you. We've done everything we can to be honest with you, but it's been almost impossible."
"Why?"
"Just now . . . I told you that you've been made into an athanasian. You hardly reacted."
"It means nothing to me. I don't _feel_ I'm immortal. I am what you've made me believe I am."
"Then believe me about this. I was with you before you took the treatment, and we talked about now, about what would happen after the operation. How can I convince you? You didn't want the treatment because you were scared of losing your identity."
I suddenly had an insight into myself before this had happened: frightened of what might happen, frightened of this. Like those delirious images it was temptingly coherent. How much of him, myself, remained?
I said: "Does everyone go through this?"
"Yes, it's exactly the same. The athanasia treatment causes amnesia, and all the patients have to be rehabilitated afterwards. This is what Lareen does here, but your case has given her special problems. Before you came here you wrote an account of your life. I don't know why you wrote it, or when . . .
but you insisted that we use it as the basis for restoring your identity. It was all a rush, there was no time. The night before the operation I read your manuscript, and I found you hadn't written an autobiography at all! I don't know what you would call it. I suppose it's a novel, really."
"You say _I_ wrote this?"
"So you claimed. You said it was the only thing that told the truth about you, that you were defined by it."
"Is this manuscript typewritten?" I said.
"Yes. But you see, Lareen normally works with--"
"Is that the manuscript Lareen brings every morning?"
"Yes."
"Then why haven't I been allowed to read it?" Something I had written before my illness; a message to myself. I had to see it!
"It would only confuse you. It doesn't make sense . . . it's a sort of fantasy."
"But if I wrote it then surely I would understand it!"
"Peter, calm down." Seri turned away from me for a few seconds, but she reached back to take my hand. Her palm was moist. Then she said: "The manuscript, by itself, doesn't make sense. But we've been able to improvise.
While we were together, before you and I got to this island, you told me a few things about yourself, and the Lotterie has some details on file. There are a few clues in the manuscript. From all this we've pieced together your background, but it's not completely satisfactory."