FSF, December 2008 Page 4

  "But they don't seem all that unhappy,” I said.

  "No, they're not unhappy, but it's like they're dazed. You saw that, right?"

  I admitted they seemed a little drifty, but more pleased than sad or alarmed.

  "Bunch of walking lobotomies."

  We talked for a while in her office, getting acquainted, about where we'd been and what we'd done, and we talked about Faber (whom I pretended to only have heard of). As we talked about those things, I noticed in the parts of her life she didn't remember some things that to me seemed very memorable. To wit: The name of her first husband, the name of her first husband's son by a previous marriage (whom she had raised since he was six!), and finally, the origin of a six-inch long scar on her upper arm. Frankly, I do not understand these lapses of memory about the boy and the scar, although forgetting the name of a previous spouse does not seem all that peculiar; there could be psychological reasons.

  Before drawing great big conclusions, when I left Claire (after promising to visit again in the undistant future), I collected extra data. I made it a point to be ultra friendly to half a dozen other people that afternoon, asked them questions about themselves, and similarly, without going into the boring details of it, it seemed to me they all had their lapses. So as I meandered back to the White House and my presidential friend, these are the conclusions I drew:

  1. People's memories had lost information.

  2. The lost information seems mainly to be the people's names who vanished and any memories associated with those people (which was a lot of stuff).

  3. Faber's cryptic remarks about people forgetting those who vanished led me to believe that he is distinctly responsible.

  How does he do these things??? And most troublesomely, I had to face what was staring me in the face, namely that people didn't seem to mind these things that had happened. Friends and family vanished, their memories were wiped away, the histories of their lives were yanked away overnight, and THEY LIKED IT, like a bunch of pod people! And apparently I was the only one (besides Faber) who knew all this. I was in a quandary. I felt disconcertedness and indeterminate emotions.

  * * * *

  I just came right out with it. “How do you do these things, Mr. President? Especially the memories."

  I never could get over how he looked just exactly like someone's slightly-out-of-it uncle—never ill-tempered, wagging and nodding his head just a little too much, and having this voice that would be perfect for recording children's stories. That's how he came across, even when he explained about making millions of people disappear, and that's how he was now.

  "Well, Quentin, I'd love to tell you how I do it, but truthfully I don't really know how it works. I do know how to do what I want to do, but how it actually happens...? Not my field.” Big shrug. “I'm sure you use things every day, and you don't know how they work. Car, microwave, your digestive system...."

  He had me there.

  "But,” I said, “you are making the memories vanish."

  "Well, yes. It's for the best. It really is."

  "How far are you going to go with that? You could make us all idiots."

  He cocked his head and gave me a wry grin. “We better hope I remember to turn it off in time.” Faber had made a second funny, and it was quite a bit scary.

  * * * *

  For the next week, I walked the neighborhoods, sometimes going three or four miles one direction or another, while I talked to people about who they knew but didn't see anymore. What did I find? Well, as my Dad would say, before he died, “Jesus H. I. J. K. Ryst."

  To summarize, I will reproduce one conversation that, as far as I'm concerned, just about sums up the state of affairs. One evening during this time, I found a note I'd once written with AnnaJanina's name and phone number on it that Faber hadn't made disappear yet. So I called her parents one evening when I unexpectedly found a phone that worked. I must in all honesty, however, state at the beginning that AnnaJanina was pretty vague in my memory and I no longer had much feeling about her. I put the phone on “Record” so I know this is exactly how it went:

  Her mother, Mrs. Miller, answered. “Why, yes, Quentin, how good to hear from you. Of course I remember you."

  "How is AnnaJanina doing these days?"

  "AnnaJanina.... Well ... she's not around."

  "Do you know where she is, Mrs. Miller?"

  "Let's see.... You know she was here not too long ago. Let me think.” There was a big pause. “You know, she must not have told me."

  "Mrs. Miller, I wanted to get AnnaJanina a present for her birthday—do you know what date that is?” I thought that was very sly of me.

  "Oh no, I don't know that. I don't remember I ever asked her. Do you want me to get back to you on that?"

  She hadn't asked her? Her daughter? Creepiness entered the conversation.

  "No, never mind. One last thing, Mrs. Miller. How did you feel when AnnaJanina left? Were you sad?"

  "Sad? Oh no. She just moved on, you know. People do that these days."

  At that point, I couldn't help myself. “Mrs. Miller, AnnaJanina is your daughter!” I exclaimed. “And you don't know when her birthday is?!"

  "Oh no, Quentin. I have no daughter. AnnaJanina is a nice young woman I knew for a while. We did a few things together, but I didn't know her all that well."

  "Thanks Mrs. Miller,” I said. I hung up fast and got the great big box of don't-lose-your-mind shakes. It took me a good hour to settle down.

  That Faber was into details. It wasn't right that Mrs. Miller couldn't even remember her daughter. At that very moment it occurred to me that although I had no particular feelings for her, I remembered when AnnaJanina and I met, what we did then, first time we kissed, little day-trips we took, when she borrowed that thousand dollars from me, a lot of stuff. Except, when I thought about it, I had a hard time remembering what she looked like. So Faber, for whatever reason, had only done a partial wipe on me.

  During this time, I also saw Claire several times, and each time I saw her she was a little more agitated and each time quite a bit angrier. She would storm around her office and out in the corridor, holding her head and shouting about how we were all losing our minds or something. Her main theory was that there was an airborne virus that made us all crazy so that we imagined there used to be people here who never existed. She was also on to the memory loss thing. She thought President Faber had a major case of whatever it was.

  "Look at this!” She was outraged again.

  She shoved a sheet of newsprint at me. It had the Washington Post banner, but there was only one story on the page, which Claire wrote:

  No News Today: Nothing Happening

  by Claire Kronski

  Once again, there is nothing to report.

  Communications with other parts of the country and the world are erratic, but what we hear is that nothing is happening anyplace else either.

  Suspension of publication of this newspaper has become highly probable.

  Please let us know of anything that might be of interest to our readers. (Hand-delivered items only.)

  Feel free to draw on the rest of this page.

  "And look at this! Here! I had a picture here!” She pointed to a corner of her desk. “But I can't remember who it was! Look, see! You can see in the dust where it was! Do I have children? I don't remember! Do I even have a [f-word] address?! As far as I know, I live in this cubicle! This is not [f-word] right!” Claire became a bit coarse when she got wound up. She could be very expressive.

  Her office neighbor rolled around the corner in his chair. He looked as unrattled as I could imagine a person could ever look. “Hi,” he said. “I'm Chuck. It's a reality slippage,” he said without emotion and with a lot of nodding. “It explains everything. Reality slippage.” Then he rolled away.

  "[Really bad word]!” Claire shouted and threw something against the wall where it did not break. “I don't want to die with my brains vacuumed out! I worked for those memories! They're mine!”
She was crying now.

  I put my arms around her for a minute and it was at that point that I noticed there was no longer any dust-image of the missing picture frame on the corner of her desk and neither one of us had touched it. I didn't tell Claire this.

  That Faber was definitely into details. If he weren't so weird and like someone's charming old uncle, I could see how a person in my position might think Faber was God, or something, to do the things he did. But I didn't think that. Out on the campaign trail I'd heard him flush the toilet too many times during the night for him to be a deity.

  Whatever he was, it was time for more chitchat with the Prez.

  There he was, behind the same stacks of folders, the grin on his face, a plate of finger foods under his chin. He was looking positively robust. It went about like this:

  "Mr. President."

  "Quentin. It's always good to see you."

  "Mr. President, I've been talking to people, and I think you've been dialing down their memories too far. A lady told me that she had spent her life working for her memories, and she was really indignant about not having them anymore. I think you should rethink what you're doing."

  "Well, if we take it down a little further, she won't remember she had memories."

  "Sir! Don't! Why would you do that?"

  "To see how it would affect tangential parameters. I don't know everything. But she would be happier. I'm sure of that."

  I think I spluttered again. “You wouldn't really do it, sir!"

  "Do you know how many people are very, very satisfied with themselves, regardless of what pathetic tragedies they had turned their lives into? They're happy people now, Zen-like, and peaceful."

  "Zombies,you mean. They walk around like zombies with half their brains missing. Mr. President, please, as some kind of friend, could you not do this anymore?"

  Big shrug. “Not yet. Soon, but not yet. We have a bit more to go, Quentin."

  "How much more, sir?"

  "Observe and learn. Canape?"

  Cryptic, sphinxlike, perplexing, and conundrumatic.

  Sometimes I envy people who just lose it and go screaming out a window.

  I must've got impulsive. I think I was angrier than the above conversation might indicate. Anyway, I went out to the corridor where the Secret Service always prowled around, and I said to the nearest one, whose name tag ID'd him as Barry Olson, “How's it going?"

  "Another day, another dolor,” he said.

  "Can I borrow your gun?"

  "I thought you'd never ask.” A revealing comment. He handed it over.

  First, let me say that I did not want to do what I did.

  I put the gun under my coat and casually strolled back into the Oval Office.

  Faber looked up at me, the grin faltering a bit in his surprised expression.

  "Dammit!” he said, slapping the desk top with the flat of his hand.

  When I took the gun out and started to point it at him, it dissolved in my hand strangely. I say strangely because it more or less dissolved out of sight, yet for a few moments I could still feel it. Then, weirdly, its weight felt like it melted through my fingers.

  "Well,” he said. “Hm."

  "Are you going to make me disappear now?"

  "No. Game's over.” Then he stood up, then he said, “Time to go."

  "What game? Time to go where?"

  "When someone tries to kill me, game's over and it's time to go.” Faber did one of his big shrugs. “But it was a personal best."

  "Time to go?! Personal best?! After everything you did here? You wrecked this place! People don't remember half their lives!"

  "But they're happy. You people do pretty well with almost no memory. That's something you might want to remember for future reference.” He chuckled robustly about that and held out his hand for me to shake. He had on his Faber grin, and his teeth looked pretty good and he didn't look eighty years old. He did, however, smell of shrimp.

  "You're leaving,” I said.

  He nodded. “Soon as you shake my hand."

  "You're leaving and we get to clean up the mess?"

  "I keep telling you, you don't have to worry about it,” he said, hand still out, “Some questions just won't be answered to your satisfaction."

  What choice did I have? I shook his hand and it did that same funny disappearing-heavy-draining-away thing as the gun, and then I was standing there alone.

  * * * *

  Now I want to take just a moment and say that there is a good possibility that somewhere along the line I became mental and don't know about it. But, get this: the next thing that happened to me was I was on a park bench with a brown paper lunch bag beside me and a nice cheese and pickle sandwich in my hand.

  It was a pleasant day with sun, pigeons, and nice-looking women walking by, which I was busy actively appreciating. I should also emphasize that there were a lot of people around, and everything looked normal in the old-fashioned pre-Faber days. In fact, at that moment, I don't think I'd ever heard of Faber, although that is another one of those questions where I'm not going to get a satisfactory answer.

  Anyway, after a couple bites of the sandwich, this youngish middle-aged gentleman came up to me and sat down.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Denmore."

  "Yes?"

  "We've met before.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake, which, for whatever reason, I did.

  In that moment he shook my hand, I remembered it all—a six-month movie in two seconds flat. It was Faber who sat next to me, a young middle-aged Faber who was actually a little handsome.

  "No,” he said, “you're not crazy."

  "Mr. Faber?"

  Indeed, I felt crazy. Giving it second thoughts, I couldn't really tell if I had remembered those months out of a dream, or if they “actually” happened, in some way or other.

  "I'm not Roger Allen Faber this time.” He leaned back and looked out across the street at the people and the shops. For reasons unknown, a little scuffle broke out between a couple of men over in front of a deli. A bystander shoved one of them to the sidewalk while most others scattered. A few kicks were exchanged. Faber made a “tsk” sound with a little head-shake.

  He turned toward me and gave me that familiar almost-grin. “I was so close,” he said. “Are you finished with that?” He nodded at my sandwich.

  I handed it over, with dread.

  "Mm. Tasty,” he said after the first bite, animatedly, unlike the other Faber. He gave my knee a little slap. “Know what, Quentin? I feel lucky. We're going to go at it a little different way this time. We'll try it as a major contender and do things more the regular way.” He rapidly consumed most of the sandwich, mmming several times in the process.

  What could I say? Remembering what was going to happen made me feel exceedingly grim.

  "Sir, what happens if you win?"

  "Major surprise.” He dropped the end of the sandwich into his mouth and continued to grin at me before he swallowed it whole, without chewing it once.

  He gave my shoulder a little one-hand shake. “Quentin, really, don't worry about a thing. You're in good hands."

  "What will you let me remember?"

  "You'll never remember you forgot anything. But you do get to be my Number One again. It's the rules."

  I just sat there, empty lunch bag in my lap, empty feeling all through me, with unspeakable knowledge, on a beautiful day.

  The daffodils were out.

  * * * *

  "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."

  —L.P. Hartley. The Go-Between

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: Books To Look For by Charles de Lint

  The Host, by Stephenie Meyer, Little, Brown, 2008, $25.99.

  What a pleasant surprise this book is. You could say that Meyer's fourth novel—her first for adults—eschews all the long-winded teen angst of her Young Adult Twilight series, but I think she simply had a different target audience, and so wrote a diffe
rent kind of a book. It's just as long, but instead of being filled with lengthy descriptions of the minutiae and drama of teenage romance, it explores adult relationships, friendship, and the morality of an alien invasion.

  When the novel opens, it's been years since the “Souls” (what the parasitic aliens call themselves) have invaded and taken over earth. The Souls are placed in a human host and take over the body while suppressing the human's mind. Our viewpoint character is a Soul named Wanderer who, when she wakes in the body of a young woman named Melanie, finds that her human host isn't so easily controlled.

  The aliens have conquered Earth, but there are still pockets of resistance—individuals and small groups of violent humans that still need to be assimilated into the greater Soul society. Melanie, we learn, along with her younger brother Jamie and lover Jared, have all been in hiding from the Souls. Though she's been captured, she'll do anything to protect and return to Jamie and Jared, and her sheer determination and strength of will allow her to resist Wanderer's complete control.

  Souls live forever unless their host body dies, and Wanderer is a rarity among Souls because she has lived on nine worlds. She's well-practiced in taking charge of her host, and though she's surprised by Melanie's resistance, she doesn't expect it to last. But then a funny thing happens. Through sharing Melanie's memories, Wanderer finds herself falling in love with Jared and wanting to protect Melanie's brother Jamie.

  What follows is a fascinating love triangle that gets even more complicated when Wanderer/Melanie meet another member of the resistance and he falls for her—the Wanderer personality, not Melanie.

  If you're familiar with the Twilight books, and then read what I've written above, you might think that this is a romance novel trying to disguise itself as sf, but you'd be wrong. Meyers is interested in human relationships, and does a fine job exploring them, but she also does an excellent job of setting up the aliens and then extrapolating what their presence means on Earth. The Host isn't watered-down sf; it's simply another take on it.

  I've read somewhere that Meyers doesn't read sf or horror, nor has she seen any genre films. While it begs the question as to why she writes in either genre, it does mean that she brings something different to the table. Her vampires and werewolves—and her aliens in this book—aren't different for the sake of being different (as a genre writer might attempt, staking out her own niche). They're different because she comes to them without the baggage of familiarity, approaching these tropes of our genre with a fresh eye that I find very engaging.