'Tamara, I think you began to forget things ... in the cathedral.' Danlo said this with all the gentleness he could find.
'Did Thomas Rane tell you this?'
'Yes,' he said, bowing his head, lying. 'Master Rane said that you remember being alone in the cathedral.'
She took a deep breath before saying, 'Sometimes, after I'd completed a contract, when I was too tired to skate home, I liked going to the cathedral. Late at night when no one was there. Bardo had arranged with the godlings to let me in whenever I wanted. It was a good place to think, to be with myself. I remember lying on one of the rugs, looking up at the windows. Which was quite unusual, because I never allowed myself to fall asleep there – I always sat when I meditated, you know. I remember looking at the new window Bardo had put in, the one where the Ringess has his head broken open and dies his first death. That horrible window. And suddenly, I couldn't remember how I'd come there. I had a sense of missing time – it's the most horrible thing, like dying a little, in parts. Then, when I tried to remember other things, going back, there was nothing. All these parts. All these moments that should have been there. That I knew had been there. And I couldn't remember. I think I panicked, after that. I couldn't catch my breath and I was so dizzy I could hardly stand up. For a while, I forgot who I was. No, I don't mean I couldn't remember things, about myself – in a way, I had too many memories. But I had no sense of myself. Of why I existed, why I was even alive. I think that's when I started skating the streets. I couldn't go home, don't you see? I didn't want to be around anything familiar until I found out who I really am.'
Danlo met her eyes, then, and he wanted to tell her that she was Tamara Ten Ashtoreth, his betrothed, his joy, the woman with whom he would someday create many children. He wanted to tell her many things, but he just looked at her, and he clenched his jaws, and he said nothing.
'If ever I'd resolved to record my memories,' she said, 'after I'd been alone on the streets, there was no more possibility of that. It's too bad that Hanuman didn't find me before the virus did its work – something might have been preserved.'
Danlo found his lip between his teeth, and he had an urge to bite at it until he tasted blood. But then he said, 'Tamara, this virus– '
'This virus,' she interrupted, 'was such a bizarre chance. Who ever dreams of such things happening? It was just fate, I suppose. Everyone has her own fate.'
Yes, he thought, fate. Her fate intertwined with his, and his fate joined with Hanuman's. He was certain then that the memory virus had not touched her brain. It was a killed virus, as harmless as any inoculation; Hanuman had murdered these little bits of protein and DNA solely to create inside her particular antibodies. Detectable antibodies. Hanuman knew that when she began forgetting, virologists would examine her for the existence of the Catavan Fever. They would find the antibodies, and they would presume she had been infected. No one would suspect that she had been tricked beneath a cleansing heaume. People would pity her as just another victim of the virus – along with Yang li Yang and Chanoth Chen Ciceron.
As Danlo looked at Tamara, at the way she searched his eyes for pieces to the puzzle of her own fate, he knew that Hanuman's destruction of Lord Ciceron was the least of his objectives. In truth, it was little more than a diversion concealing his deeper purposes.
Why, Hanu, why?
Because, he thought, because Tamara dreaded and mistrusted Hanuman – therefore he had cleansed her of her fears. Tamara had the respect of the highest of courtesans, and so Hanuman had disfigured her mind so that she would not speak to the Mother against Hanuman or the Way of Ringess. Hanuman still hoped to win over the Society – this was the first of his hidden plans.
Looking past Tamara at the snowflakes breaking against the dark window, Danlo said, 'I cannot believe in fate. You are still ... who you are. Nothing has changed.'
Truly, he thought, she seemed much the same as the Tamara he had loved. He knew that Hanuman had not wanted to destroy her – only certain of her memories. This was the second part of his plan, to remove from her mind any thought or image of Danlo. Truly, Hanuman loved her too, and he had continued loving her since the night of Bardo's joyance. He still hoped to make a contract with her, and more, to preserve the best part of her for himself.
'The memory virus,' he said, 'cannot have touched your deepest self.'
'I wish that were true.'
'You have only forgotten ... a few things that have happened.'
'Parts of my life, Pilot.'
'But these parts could be remade.'
For a moment, her face brightened, and she said, 'It's kind of you to say that. I must have loved this kindness in you.'
'It was more than that,' he said.
'I'm sure you have many traits that anyone would love. You're so– '
Danlo rubbed his eyes and shook his head. 'It was not just a matter of us loving certain traits in each other. It was more – there was something between us, imaklana, this love magic that is instantaneous. Eternal, too.'
'Are you speaking of falling into love? It's always so dangerous, to fall.'
'Dangerous, yes. But also halla.'
'Halla?'
'Have you forgotten ... this word?'
'It would seem so.'
'Halla is ... the interconnectedness of things. The secret fire that all things share.'
'No, I don't remember.'
He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, 'Halla los ni manse li devani ki-charara li pelafi nis uta purushu.'
'I don't remember this language at all.'
He touched her hand, and he said, 'Halla is the man and woman who light the blessed fire inside each other.'
'Oh, no,' she said. She pulled her hand away from him and dried her palm on the side of her robe. 'It's just this burning we must avoid.'
'But loving another ... there is nothing more blessed than this, yes?'
'But falling,' she said, 'isn't really love for another. It's only love of love. Of the state of being in love.'
'Love is ... love,' he said. He did not want to admit that he understood the distinction she was making.
'It's curious, but my mother used to warn me against falling. Falling into "love drunkenness" as she called it. It's like drinking yourself into blindness: when you fall, you can't see anything. You don't even want to see what's inside the other. All that matters is being near each other. Together, being aflame.'
With his forefinger, he touched the line of her jaw where the skin had been badly frostbitten. He said, 'It might be hard for you to hear this but... I am still drunk with this fire.'
'Yes, I know.'
'But not blindly drunk,' he said. 'It has never been like that between us. We could always see ... each other.'
'Do I see the same man now that I used to know before I fell ill?'
'Yes,' he said. 'I am still myself.'
'But do I see you differently?'
'I do not know – what do you see?'
'Just a few moments ago, in your eyes, so much hatred. And despair. I don't think I could ever bear to be close to this kind of despair.'
He closed his eyes, sorting through images of all the tragedies he had seen during his life. Then he looked at her and said, 'Everyone has the capacity for despair.'
'Perhaps they do,' she said. 'I know I do. Which is why it's difficult seeing you like this – in you, it's all so desperate. So total.'
Again, he moved to touch her, but she stepped backward and shook her head.
'Please,' he said.
'I'm afraid, Pilot.'
'No, no,' he whispered.
'I'm afraid of you.'
There was a stab of pain just above his eye, the place where his headaches always came, suddenly, as lightning Wakes up a sleeping city at night. He pushed the palm of his hand against his head, and he understood the third and final of Hanuman's purposes, the end toward which all his schemes had pointed. He, himself – Danlo the Wild – was this end. Hanuman wished to give him the most precious of gifts. He wanted to share with Danlo a part[2] his soul, to make him see, to burn into Danlo's brain the wound that will not heal. Out of love, out of hate, out of his twisted compassion, he had annihilated the best parts of Tamara's memory. He had done this terrible deed because he wanted Danlo to suffer the universe the way it really was.
Hanu, Hanu, no.
He heard himself murmuring, 'No, no, no,' and he wanted to touch Tamara's fingers, her hair, her dark eyes which were filling up with tears. But he could hardly move because he suddenly lost his wind; it was as if a mallet or flying elbow had caught him in the soft spot beneath his heart muscle, knocking his breath away. He staggered, then threw out his hand to steady himself. He stood with his head bent down, trying to get his breathing right, and the weight of his hand fell hard against the tea table. There was light then, a blinding white light that flashed from the chatoy finish and filled the room. Tamara gasped at its intensity, and she flung her hands over her face and turned her head away. He squinted and shielded his eyes; he might have been an infant left alone on the frozen sea, a lost manchild looking beyond the ice's dazzling light for any sign or hope of rescue. And then he was a child again, and his vision fell off toward an infinite horizon. He was two years old, almost, and he stood alone on the burial grounds above the cave. He stood on the hard, squeaking snow totally alone, and that was strange because Haidar, Choclo and Chandra – the whole of the Devaki tribe – were gathered all around him. In the centre of the circle that his people made, on a bier of whalebone and white shagshay fur, lay the body of his favourite brother, Arri. During the night Arri had died of a belly fever; now he lay here beneath the harsh blue sky, naked and alone. A short time ago Chandra had anointed him with a rank-smelling seal oil so that the whole of his little brown body shined like polished wood. Arctic poppies, red-orange like the sun, had been scattered across his head, chest, and legs. Haidar and all the others were praying for Arri's spirit, putting voices to words and concepts that Danlo could not comprehend. After the prayers were finished, Haidar leaned against Choclo, weeping, and he spoke of how he had loved his oldest son. And all the time, Danlo stood close, listening, learning a strange new word, anasa. Anasa: loving and suffering – it was all the same thing, and somehow Danlo understood this. We love most fervidly that which is separate from ourselves, but being apart, we suffer. When his turn came to put fireflowers in his brother's hair and to say goodbye, Danlo fell across his cold body, clutching at him as if this were just another wrestling match that Arri had let him win. He was too young to understand that sometime, beyond years and seasons, their spirits would walk together on the other side of day. At last, Haidar had to prise his fingers away from Arri's arms. The air was so cold that the tears would have frozen in his eyes, if he could have kept them open. But his eyes were tightly closed and burning, and now he stood over the chatoy tea table with his head bowed down, unable to bear the blazing white light. He straightened up, then, and removed his hand from the table. The room was now dull and flat with washed-out colours; outside the window, snow was still falling. He looked at Tamara. Her eyes were wet and inflamed, and her chest was trembling. In another place and time, it would have been easy to console her, but now she crossed her arms over her breasts and stood as stiff and cold as an ice sculpture. He could not touch her, even though he burned to lace his fingers through her hair and kiss her head. At that moment, it was all he ever wanted to do. To love is to burn, he thought, anasa, and as long as lovers could be together, this burning was the sweetest pain in the universe. But if they were kept apart, it was pure flaming agony. Tamara, at least, had been spared this pain. (That is, she had been spared the consciousness of it.) But Hanuman had given him the gift of fire, and now and always he would burn for something impossible to ever hold.
'Tamara,' he said, 'this does not need to be.'
Moving very carefully not to touch the table, she sat back down in her chair and tried to smile at him. 'What has happened has happened. You can't change the past.'
'No, but I can remember it.'
'It might be better if you could forget.'
'No, it is just the opposite,' he said.
She must have seen a flash of hope in his eyes, for she asked, 'What do you mean?'
It is one of the ironies of existence that each human being, once in his life, will come to think thoughts which were once unthinkable. One day each of us will do the very thing he had thought impossible to do. Danlo stood with his knuckles pressed to his lips, and he burned with desperate dreams, so he said, 'There might be a way to remake your memories – have you considered this?'
'No, I won't consider false hopes,' she said.
'Every word you ever spoke to me,' he said, 'the temperature of your skin every time you touched me ... I cannot forget. It should be possible to copy these memories into a computer. And then to make an imprinting. There is a woman I know, an imprimatur who helped me when I first came to Neverness. She could help you.'
Tamara stared at him in disbelief, shaking her head. 'You want to cark your memories into my mind?'
'It would be a way ... to remember.'
'Are your memories that good?'
His memories, he thought, were flaming crimson. His memories were ten billion fiery jewels spinning in the centre of his mind. He looked at her and said, 'Thomas Rane has told me that my memory is nearly perfect.'
'Perfect for you, perhaps.'
'Tamara, I will– '
'If it were you who'd lost your memory,' she said, 'would you let someone cark you this way?'
'I... do not know.' In truth, he could not imagine parts and pieces of his memory simply vanishing. 'What else can we do?'
'But there's nothing to be done,' she said softly. 'Everything that you remember, the way that you remember things – these are your memories, not mine.'
He moved around the table, over to the window. The clary panes were rimed with frost, and he dragged his fingernail over them, etching and scraping, seemingly in random lines. It was only when he stepped back a pace and focused his eyes that he realized he had absent-mindedly cut out a picture of a silver thallow. It occurred to him then that Hanuman might have preserved the memories that he had cleansed from Tamara's brain. This was much more than a false hope. Why should Hanuman cast away something so valuable? Perhaps he had incorporated Tamara's memories into his Elder Eddas. Certainly he would want to know whatever secrets Tamara had discovered about him, Danlo the Wild. Hanuman collected knowledge and secrets the way some aficionados of art selfishly hoard rare paintings for their own pleasure – he might wish to gaze at the scenes he had stolen from Tamara's mind, again and again, in the privacy of whatever computer space they had been hidden.