ood morning, Mr. Papp."
"Ms. Zoe."
"How good of you to come."
"More so than any other morning?" He downed the pills.
"Just came for my fix."
"And is the medication working?"
"Some. No fits, at least."
"Any side effects?"
"Still want to puke at times, but I can stand it."
"Sleeping?"
"No. That all?"
"Oh, please, sit down."
He did.
"You have that Father Confessor look, Ms. Zoe. I warn you, it's
been seven years since my last confession. How's your stamina?"
"I merely want to ask you how your chess class went with Marcy.
Did you find her a competent student?"
"Too soon to tell. She's quick enough. Retention is the
question."
"I don't think she'll disappoint you there."
"Good memory?"
"For the most part, yes."
"But not always."
"No. She does forget sometimes."
"Memory is a funny mechanism—'fickle.' For instance, Marcy
asked me yesterday about a chess term she'd heard somewhere. She had no idea what it
meant. But it jogged my memory so much I've been up with it half the night."
"I don't think I…"
"No, you couldn't; I'll explain. It concerned a famous
championship. After Marcy left I reconstructed one of its best-known games, and before I
knew what happened I'd played all twenty. Odd, isn't it, how the tiniest fragment will
reactivate whole episodes? How's your memory, Ms. Zoe?"
"Sometimes I think more feeble and fickle, certainly compared to
one like yours. Do you remember everything, or just those things in which you're
interested?"
"It's all accessible. You'd be surprised what I can pull, even
from the cradle. Very Oedipal. I shouldn't say 'all,' though. There are a few impressions
I suspect 'lurk un-retrieved.' It's like they're waiting for me to find some novel means of
understanding, as if they're so removed from my immediate experience that nothing I
ordinarily envision describes them. I think forgetting certain dreams is a similar
phenomenon. If something totally unfamiliar happens in our sleep, something that defies
associations, chances are we'll lose it once awake—the result of being programmed by
a literal reality."
"You've apparently thought about this a great deal."
"Of course. When your mind is the repository for every piddling
bit of information, it's natural to wonder how and why. Are you familiar with
categorization?"
"If you mean the mind's ability to store and classify things,
yes."
"I guess that's apt. In some of my exhibitions I play as many as
ten games simultaneously. Each one merely occupies its own niche in my head. I just skip
from board to board, making the respective moves. It's a terrific stunt. Tends to mystify
the uninitiated. But actually, it's no big deal. Everybody can do it to an extent. Marcy,
for example."
"Oh?"
"You said she forgets selectively."
"Did I?"
"Her mind obviously is categorizing. Anything she chooses not to
remember, she stores in a special niche—the one with the gatekeeper."
