“I don’t know if you can call it progress. It’s more like a whim. And tomorrow, I may be unable to write anything.”
“No, don’t say that. The stories have begun to stir again.”
“I wonder if you’re right. I don’t expect much, but what do they mean? I have no idea. They make no sense to me.”
“The meaning isn’t important. What matters is the story hidden deep in the words. You’re at the point now where you’re trying to extract that story. Your soul is trying to bring back the things it lost in the disappearances.”
He went on encouraging me. In all likelihood he was telling me lies, unwilling to hurt me further and deepen the damage done by the old man’s death, but I didn’t care. If he was willing to be kind to me, the reason didn’t matter.
Still without feeling the sense of a story, I continued to put together strings of words, one line each night.
The size and balance of my characters gradually improved, but my hand still shook when it came time to select a word.
“That’s wonderful! You’re doing fine.” R took each piece of paper and added it to the pile.
The first disappearance since the death of the old man. I lay in bed collecting my wits, trying to determine the nature of the thing that no longer existed. It was quiet outside, no sign that the neighbors were stirring. Which might mean that it was something relatively insignificant. I tried to get up, but I felt as though dense air had coiled around my body. Weak sunlight filtered in through the curtains, promising a gray day. Perhaps another heavy snowfall. I should get out of the house early and catch the seven o’clock tram. There were always delays on the day of a disappearance.
I pulled back the quilt and made a bizarre discovery—something was stuck fast to my hip. And no matter how much I pulled or pushed or twisted, it would not come off, just as though it had been welded to me.
“What in the world?” I said, gripping the pillow with frustration. I had the feeling I would fall out of the bed if I didn’t hold on to something. At the slightest movement, the thing attached to my hips threw my body off balance.
I held still, my face against the pillow, trying to calm myself. A chilly sensation lingered in my hands from where I’d touched whatever it was that was attached to me a moment earlier. Had I come down with some sort of disease? Perhaps an enormous tumor had developed overnight? How could I get to the hospital with this sort of affliction? I glanced down again at my body, which was still stretched out in the same position on the bed.
Since I couldn’t remain where I was indefinitely, I decided to get up and get dressed. First, I put my weight on my right leg and slowly sat up. But as I did, the thing fell with a heavy thud and I was thrown to the floor. I fell against the wastebasket, knocking it over and spilling the contents, but I managed to crawl to the dresser and pull out a sweater and some pants.
The sweater went on easily. The problem was the pants, which seemed to have two openings. Once I’d slid my right leg into one of them, I had no idea what to do with the other. The thing was still there on my hip, as though it were looking at me, waiting for something. I wasn’t exactly afraid of it, but it did seem somehow rather ominous. But the more I studied it, the more I realized that it had a shape that would exactly fit the other opening in my pants. The right length, the right thickness, it was perfect. I tried taking it in both hands and putting it into the opening. It was heavy and difficult to work with, but after some time, just as I’d imagined, it slid neatly into the pants. As though someone had measured it in advance.
It was then I finally realized what had disappeared: my left leg.
I had trouble getting down the stairs without falling. Holding on to the railing, I had to drag the thing—my disappeared leg—one step at a time. Outside, the snow piled up on the ground made things even more difficult. Fortunately, however, after hesitating for a moment, I had decided to put a shoe on my left foot as well.
The neighbors were gradually beginning to gather in the street outside. They all seemed to be wondering how to deal with their own bodies, as though fearful that the least motion would cause them pain. Some walked holding on to walls or fences, others moved in family groups, using one another’s shoulders for support, and some, like the former hatmaker, were using umbrellas or other objects as crutches.
“How can this be happening?” murmured someone, and there were nods of agreement. It was the first disappearance of this sort, and we were at a loss, unable to imagine what might happen next.
“A lot of unexpected things have disappeared, but never anything as shocking as this,” said the woman who lived across the street. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“Nothing at all. That’s the point. It’s just one more cavity that has opened up on the island. How is it any different from the others?” said the old man in the house next to mine who worked at city hall.
“But something isn’t right about this. My body feels as though it’s gone to pieces and won’t go back together again.” This time it was the hatmaker, who was digging in the snow with the tip of his umbrella.
“You’ll get used to it. It may be a bit tricky at first, but that’s been true for other disappearances as well. It takes time to get accustomed, but there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I guess I’m actually lucky,” laughed the old woman who lived two houses down the street. “Half the arthritis in my knees is gone!” I could manage no more than a faint smile.
As we talked, from time to time each of us glanced down at our left leg. Would the cold creeping up from the snow bring feeling back to it? Perhaps this was all a mistake… Or so the vaguely hopeful expressions on our faces seemed to suggest.
“I wonder,” I said, screwing up the courage to ask the question that had been on my mind for some time. “How can we get rid of them?”
The man from the mayor’s office let out a low moan, the old woman with knee trouble sniffed, and the woman across the street spun the handle of her umbrella. But no one said anything for a moment. Perhaps they were considering the problem, or perhaps they were simply waiting for someone else to say something.
At that moment we saw three members of the Memory Police come toward us from the other end of the street. We moved closer together on the sidewalk to get out of their way. What would they do if they found us here, still in possession of our legs?
They were out on patrol, dressed in their usual uniforms. The first thing I did was look at their left legs. I could see they were intact, so I felt somewhat relieved. If the Memory Police didn’t know how to get rid of their legs, they could hardly blame us for still having ours. But they were walking with their usual even gait, perfectly in balance, as though the disappearance had caused them no difficulty—as though they had been training for just this eventuality.
When they had passed by and we were sure they were out of sight, the hatmaker spoke up.
“I suppose there’s no need for us to get rid of our legs, then.”
“You’re right. No need to get out the saw just yet…”
“Burning, burying, washing away, abandoning—I guess for some things, there’s just no appropriate way.”
“Though I imagine they’ll come up with one soon enough.”
“Maybe they’ll just fall off by themselves, like leaves from a tree.”