I told R every detail of what had happened that night. Once I opened my mouth, things came tumbling out one after the other and I couldn’t stop myself. The difficulty we’d had pulling the cart, the red glow on the playground equipment in the park, the hat that had fallen in the mud, the ruined library, the bird… But no matter how long I talked, I couldn’t help feeling that I was leaving out the most important thing—whatever that was. He listened attentively to every word.
When at last I grew tired of talking, I heaved a deep sigh and looked up. He seemed to be staring far into the distance. Behind him I could see the empty plate that had held his dinner, with a single pea remaining in the middle. The books that had escaped the flames were neatly arranged on the shelf above.
“I suppose a great deal has changed in the outside world since I’ve been here,” he said as he gently stroked my hair. I could feel his voice filling the space between our bodies.
“Does my hair have an odd smell?” I asked him.
“Odd how?”
“Like spices.”
“No, it has a wonderful smell, like shampoo.” He ran his fingers through it.
“I’m glad,” I murmured.
Then he read aloud my story about the typist. To me, it sounded like a fairy tale from a distant land.
“Does it tire you out to be doing something you’re not used to?” asked the old man as he arranged the teapot and cups on the table. He was wearing the sweater I had given him over a thick shirt, with wool slippers on his feet.
“No, everyone is very nice to me,” I told him, “and I’m enjoying the work.”
We were meeting for tea on the boat for the first time in a while. What’s more, we were having pancakes. I had found eggs and honey, both great rarities, and we cooked together. We divided the batter in thirds and made three cakes, one of which I’d wrapped in a napkin to take to R.
Don, who had been dozing under the sofa, must have smelled the pancakes, since he appeared suddenly and began to nudge the tablecloth with his muzzle.
“Typing is hard, but I enjoy practicing. As soon as your fingers start to move, a sentence appears almost effortlessly—it’s like magic.” The old man poured the honey over the pancakes, careful not to waste a single drop.
“And the business seems to be going well. Herbs grow in the least bit of soil, and you can harvest them even with all this snow. Food is so hard to get that people are selling half-rotten meat and vegetables, and everyone wants something fragrant to kill the smell—so my coworkers are expecting big bonuses.”
“That’s good,” said the old man as he lifted the lid on the pot to see whether the tea had finished steeping.
We chatted about this and that as we sipped our tea, laughed at Don’s antics, and slowly ate the pancakes. Cutting just one bite at a time, we let it dissolve on our tongues in order to appreciate every bit of the sweetness, and as the remaining pieces of pancake grew smaller, so did the size of the bites we cut.
We each gave a bite to Don, who inhaled them with no thought for their sweet flavor and then stood looking at us expectantly, as though unwilling to believe that there was nothing more.
Light poured in through the windows, bright enough to make you think spring might be just around the corner. The sea was calm, and the boat, which was usually creaking as it rocked on the waves, was quiet. The great pile of snow melting on the dock shone in the sunlight.
When we’d finished eating, the old man went to find the music box hidden in the bathroom. He set it on the table and we listened together. As always, it faithfully repeated its tune, over and over. We stopped chatting, sat up straight, and closed our eyes. I had no idea where or how one was supposed to listen to a music box, but I had decided arbitrarily that closing my eyes would enhance the effect R had hoped it would induce in us.
The melody that flowed from the box was simple but pure and sweet. That much I could feel. But I had no confidence that it would be able to check the exhaustion that was overtaking my soul. Because once it had been sucked beneath the surface of that bottomless swamp, it left no trace at all, no ripple, no fleck of foam.
Don, too, eyed the music box with some interest. Each time we would rewind the mechanism and the music would start again, his ears would twitch and he would back away, belly pressed to the floor. It seemed as though he was barely able to contain his curiosity, but when I picked it up and held it in front of his nose, he ran for cover between the old man’s legs.
“How has your… novel been going?” he asked, after finally closing the lid of the music box. Even pronouncing the word had apparently become difficult for him.
“I’m trying,” I told him, “but it’s not going very well.”
“It’s difficult when something has disappeared. To tell the truth, I feel a kind of emptiness every time I wind the spring on this box. I try to tell myself that this time I might discover something new, but I’m always disappointed. Still, it’s a precious present so I force myself to wind it up again.”
“I know. I put a fresh sheet of paper on my desk, but no matter how long I stare at it nothing comes to me. I don’t know where I am or where I want to go… as though I’m lost in a thick fog. Then I tell myself I’ll find a way around it and I turn to my machine and just start typing. I have a typewriter I borrowed from work on my desk. They are beautiful things, when you look at them. Complex yet delicate, quite lovely. Just like a musical instrument. Which is why I listen for the sound the levers make as they move the keys, hoping for something that will connect to my novel… but nothing seems to help.”
“Those terrible flames would paralyze anyone—it seemed like the whole island was burning…”
“I thought I could hear the sound of my memory burning that night.”
Don gave a little yawn. We hadn’t realized it, but he had been moving a bit at a time to keep himself in the warm rays of the sun.
We could hear the voices of children in the distance; no doubt they were delighted by the first nice day in a long time. Some men in work clothes were playing catch in front of the warehouse on the dock.
“Still…,” I continued, “why do you suppose I thought of writing a story about a typist? I’d barely ever used a typewriter or had any friends who were typists. It’s strange.”
“Is it possible to write about something in a novel even if you’ve never experienced it?” The old man looked a bit skeptical.
“I suppose it is. Even if you haven’t seen or heard about something, it seems you can just imagine it and then write it down. It doesn’t have to be exactly like the real thing; it’s apparently all right to make things up or even lie. At least that’s what R says.”
“Even lie?”
The old man man’s eyebrows twitched, as though he was growing more and more confused.
“That’s right. Apparently no one blames you for lying in a novel. You can make up the story out of nothing, starting from zero. You write about something you can’t see as though you can see it. You make up something that doesn’t exist just by using words. That’s why R says we shouldn’t give up, even if our memories disappear.”
I tapped my fork on my empty plate. Don seemed to be dozing, his head resting on his front paws. Their break over, the men who had been playing catch walked back toward the warehouse, their gloves dangling in their hands.
“I’m not sure whether I should be asking this,” the old man said after staring at the sea for a moment. “But you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”