False Memory

If he chose to do so, however, Ahriman could concoct for Susan a detailed history of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Many hours would be required to weave that lurid narrative through the tapestry of her real memories, but thereafter he could instruct her to believe in her lifelong victimization and gradually to “recover” those repressed traumas during her therapy sessions.

If her belief drove her to report her father to the police, and if they asked her to submit to a lie-detector test, she would respond to each question with unwavering conviction and precisely the correct shadings of emotion. Her respiration, blood pressure, pulse, and her galvanic skin response would convince any polygraph examiner that she was telling the truth, because she would be convinced that her vile accusations were indeed factual in every detail.

Ahriman had no intention of toying with her in that fashion. He had enjoyed that game with other subjects; but it bored him now.

“Look at me, Susan.”

She raised her head. Her eyes met his, and the doctor recalled a bit of verse by e. e. cummings: In your eyes there lives / a green egyptian noise.

“Next time,” he said, “I’ll bring my camcorder, and we’ll make another videotape. Do you remember the first one I shot of you?”

Susan shook her head.

“That’s because I’ve forbidden you to remember. You so debased yourself that any memory of it might have left you suicidal. I wasn’t ready for you to be suicidal yet.”

Her gaze slid away from him. She stared at the miniature ming tree in the pot atop the Biedermeier pedestal.

He said, “One more tape to remember you by. Next time. I’ve been giving my imagination a workout. You’ll be a very dirty girl next time, Susie. It’ll make the first tape look like Disney.”

Keeping a video record of his most outrageous puppetry was not wise. He stored this incriminating evidence — currently totaling 121 tapes — in a locked and well-hidden vault, although if the wrong people suspected its existence, they would tear his house apart board by board, stone by stone, until they found his archives.

He took the risk because he was at heart a sentimentalist, with a nostalgic yearning for days past, old friends, discarded toys.

Life is a train ride, and at the many stations along the route, people important to us debark, never to get aboard again, until by the end of our journey, we sit in a passenger car where most of the seats are empty. This truth saddens the doctor no less than it does other men and women who are given to reflection — although his sorrow is undeniably of a quality different from theirs.

“Look at me, Susan.”

She continued to stare at the potted plant on the pedestal.

“Don’t be willful. Look at your father now.”

Her tearful gaze flowed away from the lacy ming tree, and upon it she floated a plea to be allowed at least some small measure of dignity, which Dr. Ahriman noted, enjoyed, and disregarded.

Undoubtedly, one evening long after Susan Jagger is dead, the nostalgic doctor will think fondly of her, and will be overcome by a wistful desire to hear her musical voice again, to see her lovely face, to relive the many good times they had together. This is his weakness.

He will indulge himself, on that evening, by resorting to his video archives. He’ll be warmed and gladdened to see Susan engaged in acts so sordid, so squalid, that they transform her almost as dramatically as a lycanthrope is transformed in the fullness of the moon. In these wallows of obscenity, her radiant beauty dims sufficiently to allow the doctor to see clearly the essential animal that lives within her, the preevolutionary beast, groveling and yet cunning, fearful and yet fearsome, darkling in her heart.

Besides, even if he did not get so much pleasure from reviewing these home movies, he would maintain his videotape archives, because he is by nature an indefatigable collector. Room after room in his rambling house is dedicated to displays of the toys that he has so tirelessly acquired over the years: armies of toy soldiers; charming hand-painted, cast-iron cars; coin-operated mechanical banks; plastic playsets with thousands of miniature figures, from Roman gladiators to astronauts.

“Get up, girl.”

She rose from the bed.

“Turn.”

Slowly she turned, slowly for his examination.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I want more of you on tape for posterity. And perhaps a little blood next time, a minor bit of self-mutilation. In fact, bodily fluids in general could be the theme. Very messy, very degenerate. That should be fun. I’m sure that you agree.”

Again, she favored the ming tree over his eyes, but this was a passive disobedience, for she looked at him again when commanded to do so.

“If you think that will be fun, tell me so,” he insisted.

“Yes, Daddy. Fun.”

He instructed her to get on her knees, and she settled to the floor.

“Crawl to me, Susan.”