My shoulders jerk and my eyelids open and I’m confused. A wooden shape comes to my mind, a twisted sculpture with a head, a knot for an eye.
A splash of red. The flash of a metal watchstrap. The sensation of an elusive memory.
The room is dark. My feet kick but there’s a constraint that frustrates them. I listen. I am alone and nothing is moving.
I lie flat, also not moving, but the noise of traffic outside disturbs me. Among the night’s clatter there are gear changes, low belches of exhaust, and the clanks of doors. Somehow I believe the sound which had penetrated my sleep and brought back that memory was different, lighter. Now my face burns and my eyes blink and there is a tickle low in my throat. The sliver of memory I hold is not enough but it’s proof that I had forgotten something. My hands are clammy. Something I should not have forgotten. How could I have forgotten? And what was it? I strain and wait for a clue from the traffic.
The sound of a bicycle’s bell, innocent, jars among the engine baritones.
She died. And I had forgotten. I wonder how I could have.
The traffic intensifies, and close to me, as if on the path outside my window, a bell trills again. And I remember more. And my face burns hotter. How could I have allowed myself to forget her?
She is cycling, as am I. I see that image clearly. She’d borne shopping so voluminous it was as if she’d forgotten that she’d come on a bicycle. And we exchanged our burdens. My carved sculpture, an acquisition I believe, rather than a gift, not heavy, but two feet long and unwieldy, she secured in her wicker basket and stabilised with a hand whenever it threatened to overbalance on a bend. I in turn filled my front-wheel saddlebags and both rear pannier sacks with her shopping. Tins and bottles, bulging in stretched plastic, and then weighing down the tyres of my already struggling bicycle, hindering my progress.
She cycled ahead. As we climbed a gentle slope, the gap between us increased, as I fought to keep my bike stable, as I braked for inattentive pedestrians, as I wobbled forward again, heavy and uncertain.
My eyes were down, searching for potholes, when it happened.
Or had I seen it?
I cannot quite remember. I think I heard her bell, shrill but short. One second she was ahead of me, vertical, then the bicycle skittered from under her legs into the road and she tumbled to the ground. A man, in the street, ran from her. Had he stepped into her path, oblivious to bicycles, and had she reacted and lost control? Or had he done something?
I lie here and search my memory. I am conscious that my blanket is heavy and hot. My sheets scratch, too much starch perhaps in the last wash, and are tight over my sweating feet. The gaps in my memory at first refuse to fill and I kick at my sheets. Then I see something: my feet pedalling, the road travelling underneath me, my shoes electric blue.
She was on the ground as I neared, not moving, and the front wheel and basket lay across her legs. Ahead, the man still ran, holding an object cradled against his chest. Was it my sculpture, as I couldn’t see it beside her? What a thing to be thinking about, a voice shouted in my head, but he was fleeing and I pedalled after him. I remember as I cycled glancing back at her and seeing that someone was next to her, holding her, looking after her. But is this a true memory, or something I created after the event, to make myself feel better, because I did not go immediately to her?
From that question, I recognise that part of me does not trust my memory. There is more than the elusiveness, the slipperiness, the hunt for details. What I see, what I think I remember, may not even be true? How, how, can I tell?
The sculpture was special, a rarity that completed a collection... an ornament used in a boy’s initiation rite in the forests of … a small ethnic group, an offshoot of the Kpelle. From Guinea.
How did I remember that?
I did not catch the man. He crossed the street and disappeared, into the row of shops, and I, still slowed by the heavy bicycle and maybe, maybe, but I question that, slowed by worrying about her, by thinking of turning back… and I lost sight of him.
When I returned, there was someone with her, a figure, but not the original Samaritan – I realise I cannot recall whether either had been male or female; I just see a hand stretched to touch her, the shimmer of a silvery watch strap, somewhere the colour red, and possibly a blue. This new someone, this grey-haired person with a strong chin, is sombre and does not look up from her.
It had been minutes at most since the fall but she was dead. I remember being confused at … the how of it: How was her death possible when she had not been moving fast? Like me, she had been slowed by the slope. And I wondered about my chasing the man, reacting to the possible theft of my sculpture. Might my presence by her side have saved her?
I wonder that again now and the blanket is heavy and hot.
If you are there at someone’s death, you have a duty to remember them, especially if you knew them.
I exhale heavily and my chest flattens and pulls my shoulders inwards. Inhaling after, I don’t notice the same intensity. Had I been holding my breath?
A heavy vehicle passes outside, accompanied by brief light at the window and the lingering sound of a black taxicab’s diesel engine. The traffic that woke me and brought her back to my consciousness is now sabotaging my concentration. My eyes squeeze shut.
I think of the missing sculpture and do not see it on the road next to her. But I am not sure now that I was looking for it once I was beside her. My eyes were on her. Were they not? For a moment I consider the unwieldy figure – could the running man have been innocent and the sculpture itself the culprit, its wobbling demand on her attention contributing to her plunge? Should I have refused to let her take it? Had she offered or had I asked?
Something in that strong jaw niggles, an itch in my brain. And the watchstrap – a diver’s watch? I’d given my nephew Daniel a diver’s watch once. But Daniel hadn’t had grey hair. Not then. I don’t know if he has grey hair now.
I don’t remember if she had a watch. She probably did but I remember so little about her, other than that she had taken charge of the sculpture, and had fallen. Had died.
I consider how rarely I think of her now, the memory of that day pushed away, so far away that it has become fuzzy and uncertain, perhaps one part of my brain protecting another, shielding me from guilt. Details are blurred, and pieces are missing. The years have made the memory dreamlike. Perhaps even some details are later fabrications of my protective brain. What can I trust?
I can still see the sculpture clearly – a wooden figure, bowed and partially squatting, and from the top of its etched hair the sculpture continuing upwards to another form, a skull-like head, and all of it in a middle-brown wood with its grain vertical and one knot forming an eye. Unpolished, that I can remember too. A ritual object, still smelling of woodsmoke and animal fat from an initiation. It had been used to give a youth a soul, to make him a full man.
I had given Daniel the watch for his eighteenth.
What else do I know about the sculpture? Maybe that will help me remember.
It wasn’t the only one I possessed. I see a wall of shelves, glass display cases, books on the subject, perhaps a niche in the shelf prepared for this special sculpture. Where had I obtained it, how had I found it? I don’t know. But it was with me that day. And that it was not by her side as she died. I am almost certain. Or is that my brain protecting me again?
I remember the sculpture so well. But … as I dig into the memory of that day, I realise that now I cannot remember her face.
I’m ashamed about that, about seeing the sculpture more clearly than I see her.
Why had we been doing each other favours? I believe that I did not know her well: she was not a relative, or a close friend – maybe a colleague encountered on a weekend? – but I should be able to picture her face. Blood I remember, red on the side of her forehead, but more than that, no.
My forehead is burning too now. Then I am disturbed again by the traffic outside my window, this time by headlight beams, fog-combat bright, roaming along my walls as their vehicle manoeuvres outside, the gear changes and engine sounds audible, a driver endeavouring to park. A ray of light enters and reflects off the mirror, lighting the room, and I briefly see an empty fireplace and above it a deep mantel, perfect to display a sculpture or a framed photo. It is however bare. This brings a vague sense of relief.
The light has also briefly caught the silver doorknob and I remember that I have a second room, where I spend my days, a room with shelves of books. But no wooden sculptures. Not anymore. Is there a connection? To her?
How could I have forgotten? How?
I close my eyes again and try to recall her face. It does not come. All I have is the smell of diesel exhaust. My tongue moves, restless in my mouth. There are more important questions. What year was it? Where did it occur? How did I meet her? And above all, what was her name?
I tug at my sheets and blanket, try to pull them free from where they are wedged under the mattress. There may be answers in the next room. There should be. There must…
My arms are too weak. The blanket will not move. It even resists my turning onto my side. How can I be so frail? I used to cycle. My feet kick again but the blanket refuses to loosen.
My head can move, and I look left, then right. A weak reddish glow, dangling near my shoulder. A button, for emergencies. For a nurse or a carer. I could push it, get help to take me to the other room.
It is night. They wouldn’t take me. They’d be upset with me for calling them for something like a lost memory...
I don’t want them to know about a lost memory.
I’ll go in the morning. I’ll remember to go.
I stare at the door, which promises answers, remember the glint of light on the doorknob. White light flashing through the room. The silver watchstrap. Daniel.
The girl, the woman, had been his friend.
I remember now. Not her name, no, but that Daniel had blamed me, blamed my love of sculptures.
I wonder if he does have grey hair now like the figure in my memory.
The traffic is silent outside and the night dark but lights, red and blue, pass through my curtains and hint at shapes both outside and within, to my room and to the corner of my bed, to the mirror opposite and the empty mantel. My room is dark and nothing is moving and I listen.
Carsten ten Brink (he/him) is a writer, artist and photographer. He was born in Germany and raised in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom. He lives in London and studied at the University of Cambridge. He has traveled widely, including time assisting local academics in Asia and Latin America as a volunteer conservationist, archaeologist or vulcanologist. Stories have recently been shortlisted and/or published by The Coalition, Fish Publishing, the FlashFlood, Jerry Jazz Magazine and The Write Launch. He is currently editing a political novel and working toward a collection of short stories.
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