Like a candle extinguishing, the image blows away, the curtains close. My eyes dart down. Each knuckle is white from where they have gripped the glass. When I look up, the man opposite is staring.
‘What happened?’ he says.
I inhale, check my location. The scent of Black Eyes is still in my nose, my mouth as if he had really been here. I try to push the fear to one side and, slowly, set down the glass and wring my hands together once then twice. ‘I remembered something,’ I say after a moment.
‘Something real?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Is this a frequent occurrence?’
I hesitate. Does he already know? I decide to tell him the truth. ‘Yes.’
The man looks at my hands then turns his head and opens some photocopied files.
My eyes scan the pages on his lap. Data. Information. Facts, real facts, all black and white, clear, no grey, no in-betweens or hidden meanings. The thought of it must centre me, because, before I know it, the information in my head is coming out of my mouth.
‘Photocopying machines originated in 1440,’ I say, my eyes on the pages in his hands.
He glances up. ‘Pardon?’
‘Photocopiers-they emerged after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440.’ I exhale. My brain simply contains too much information. Sometimes it spills over.
‘Gutenberg’s Bible,’ I continue, ‘was the first to be published in volume.’ I stop, wait, but the man does not respond. He is staring again, his eyes narrowed, two blue slits. My leg begins to jig as a familiar tightness in my chest spreads. To stop it, I count. One, two, three, four…At five, I look to the window. The muslin curtains billow. The iron bars guard the panes. Below, three buses pass, wheezing, coughing out noise, fumes. I turn and touch the back of my neck where my hairline skims my skull. Sweat trickles past my collar.
‘It is warm in here,’ I say. ‘Is there a fan we can use?’
The man lowers the page. ‘I’m told your ability to retain information is second to none.’ His eyes narrow. ‘Your IQ-it is high.’ He consults his papers and looks back to me. ‘One hundred and eighty-one.’
I do not move. None of this information is available.
‘It’s my job to research patients,’ he continues, as if reading my mind. He leans forward. ‘I know a lot about you.’ He pauses. ‘For example, you like to religiously record data in your notebook.’
My eyes dart to a cloth bag slung over my chair.
‘How do you know about my notebook?’
He stays there, blinking, only sitting back when I shift in my seat. My pulse accelerates.
‘It’s in your file, of course,’ he says finally. He flashes a smile and returns his gaze to his paperwork.
I keep very still, clock ticking, curtains drifting. Is he telling me the truth? His scent, the sweat of his skin, smells of mint, like toothpaste. A hard knot forming in my stomach, I realise the man reminds me of Black Eyes. The thought causes the silent spark in me to ignite again, flashing at me to run far away from here, but if I left now, if I refused to talk, to cooperate, who would that help? Me? Him? I know nothing about this man. Nothing. No details, no facts. I am beginning to wonder if I have made a mistake.
The man sets down his pen and, as he slips his notes under a file to his left, a photograph floats out. I peer down and watch it fall; my breathing almost stops.
It is the head of the priest.
Before he was murdered.
The man crouches and picks up the photograph, the image of the head hanging from his fingers. We watch it, the two of us, bystanders. A breeze picks up from the window and the head swings back and forth. We say nothing. Outside, traffic hums, buses hack up smog. And still the photo sways. The skull, the bones, the flesh. The priest, alive. Not dead. Not splattered in blood and entrails. Not with eyes frozen wide, cold. But living, breathing, warm. I shiver; the man does not flinch.
After a moment, he slips the photograph back into the file, and I let out a long breath. Smoothing down my hair, I watch the man’s fingers as they stack paperwork. Long, tanned fingers. And it makes me think: where is he from? Why is he here, in this country? When this meeting was arranged, I did not know what would happen. I am still unsure.
