Prisms, page 15
“Let’s get you to the bathroom, alright?”
Gramma’s arm, skin soft and loose, felt fragile when Selvin tugged her to her feet. Like he might accidentally pull her shoulder from its socket. Once she was standing, she could walk on her own. A bloom of yellow stained the back of her dressing gown.
“Didn’t Miss Lydia come by? I’ll get you a fresh smock, Gramma. You’d better give yourself a bit of a wipe-down.”
“You’re so sweet, Roberto.” Her voice creaked like the front door as she shuffled to the bathroom. “I’m lucky to have a husband who cooks, even after a day fishing. Maybe after dinner we look at the box.”
“I can’t find the box. You must have hid it away.”
“Our treasure. Gotta keep it safe.”
No matter how many times he asked about it, searched for it, Selvin couldn’t find Gramma’s treasure box. He had no idea what it contained. Jewelry. Land deeds. Hopefully not some old shark fin gone to dust. Selvin rifled through a stack of cotton dresses, faded pink and blue and red flowers sprinkled over, and chose the one that smelled the freshest. Lydia, their neighbor, had promised to get Gramma to the bathroom at least once today, but she was waiting on a cleaning job for one of the new hotels. She had her little ones to support now her husband had gone off to work the cruise ships and never come back. Selvin should have checked with her before heading to the docks.
“Here you go, Gramma. Put this on. I’ll get Miss Lydia to give you a shower tomorrow.”
His gramma stood in the middle of the bathroom, dress in a puddle on the floor. The rolls and wrinkles of her old flesh used to disturb him. He remembered when those chicken legs were strung with muscle and she’d stride down the street, off to the shop for rice, off to the bar to herd her grandson home. He remembered when her neck was long and graceful, strong from holding buckets of patty de carne on her head. She’d carry them down at lunch to the canal workers, or the laborers constructing yet another tech lab for the extranjeros. Chinese, Indians, Saudis. Cheaper to conduct your research and development on the Miskito Coast, and fewer regulations. Now, in her, he saw what he would become. He was just passing time until he sat in that same rocker, piss running down his leg, eyes cloudy as a storm front coming in from the southwest.
“Hello? Mister Selvin?” A woman called from the road. “It’s Jill Mah from this morning. They told me at the docks how to find you.”
Selvin stepped out onto the porch, wiping his hands with a dish-towel. He couldn’t say no to another tour. “Ah, Doctor Jill. You want to go out on the boat again? Maybe do some snorkeling?”
She had a large black case at her feet, her forehead beaded with sweat from lugging it along the road. “Can I come up?”
Selvin rattled down the stairs and hefted the case. It weighed about as much as a good-sized grouper. “I’ll make some coffee. I told you, mi abuela isn’t so sharp no more. She might not have any stories for you.”
“I would love some coffee.” Jill smiled, her eyes sparking with the dying sun. “I’m hoping we can help each other.”
They pulled kitchen chairs out to the porch so they could sit and enjoy the night air with Gramma.
Jill sipped her coffee. “Mm. Not instant. This is wonderful.” She held the cup so it steamed her face, inhaling.
“I keep it for special times. It’s an honor to have a great scientist in my home. I appreciate you trying to help Gramma.” Selvin would have offered her dinner, but rice and canned sardines was hardly a proper meal for a guest.
Gramma rocked with her eyes closed. The device from the black case clasped her head, slivers of black wire burrowed through white hair. When the probes with their diamond tipped needles slipped under her skin, Selvin had flinched, but Gramma just smiled, uneasy at all the attention. Lights flashed from a clear plastic box Doctor Jill had set on the floor—red, then yellow, then blue, and every color between. A stuttering rainbow.
Selvin was nervous the neighbors would come asking what they were doing to his poor abuela, but it was worse to imagine this doctor woman inside his run-down shack with its loose floor-boards and stink of rot. When he was a boy the house had seemed bright, always freshly-painted, starched curtains luffing in the sea breeze. Now when the sun blazed in it baked cracks on the table, stole color even from the plastic dishes.
“It will only take another hour. The device is recording every facet of your grandmother’s memory. It’s funny how the brain stores a piece here and a piece there. Dementia erodes the pathways that allow us to bring those pieces together. Recollect.” Jill spoke quietly but with a jittering enthusiasm. “The facets of memory—long-term, short-term, conscious, unconscious, procedural, episodic—most of it is still there. My computer can shuffle through, organize them.”
“Incredible. I’m surprised they put so much money into helping old people.” Selvin pondered what lost memories Gramma might recall. The location of her treasure box was locked somewhere in her brain. He pictured her memory like a deck of cards scattered on the floor, or a shattered window, cracks weaving through glass, turning the outside world into confused fragments.
Doctor Jill’s voice flattened, her pleasure draining away. “Our backers don’t want to restore memories. They want to take them. Interrogation has never been a reliable way to get information. Torture leads to false memories. Drugs distort facts. This way the military gets exactly what the subject has seen and done—altered only by the lens of their perception.”
“Ah. Well.” Selvin didn’t know how to respond. It sounded more humane than what the police in his barrio did. Beat a guy or refuse him food until he returned what he stole. “But it won’t hurt Gramma?”
“No.” Jill smiled again, but sadly. “She’ll feel happy, for a time anyways.”
Selvin took a pair of Canadian tourists, mother and son, out for the morning in a borrowed hover boat. No traditional dugout for these two. He’d have to pay half his take to Raphael, but some money was better than none while he waited for Doctor Jill to process Gramma’s memories. The computer took time. It had to sort through all those little memory fragments, fuse them together into groups, then they could be recalled as complete episodes. Making movies from an old lady’s past.
“Mister Selvin. What kind of fish is that?” A chubby woman, head fully encased in a snorkel mask, bobbed in the turquoise water near the diving deck. Her voice gurgled through the mask’s built-in respirator.
A coating of pollu-block turned her skin oyster-slick and formed gummy ridges in the folds of her neck. The block and the mask kept contaminants from going in or out, protecting her and the fragile re-growth of the sea-grass pasture where turtles once lived.
He looked where she pointed, and for a moment his heart raced. A dark triangle rose from the water, moving their way. Then he recognized it.
“Not a fish. Just a deep-sea drone caught in the current. They use them to inspect the canal.” Selvin grabbed his boat hook and dragged the drone over. It wore the stamp of its corporate owner. Perhaps they’d slip him a few bucks for its return.
The mother-son duo hauled themselves up into the boat and peeled off their pollu-block, leaving it in drifts around the cockpit. Shimmering heaps of molted glass.
“Amazing. We saw two schools of fish.” The woman wound her hair up in a towel.
Selvin smiled and nodded. “Back before the canal, these waters had so many fish we called it the aquarium. I’m not a fisherman, so that’s no exaggeration. You’re lucky you saw some today.”
“But you can still catch sea bass around here? We had fresh ceviche for dinner last night.”
“That comes from the farms up north. They bring it down fast, so I guess it’s fresh.”
“My son saw a grouper.” She patted the boy’s head. The kid gripped the gunwale and leaned over the side, spitting into the water and watching it swirl away. “I hear they can live more than a hundred years.”
Selvin chuckled. “Fisherman, he always tells stories. Scientists say no more than fifty years. One was confirmed at thirty-seven, that’s still plenty old.”
The woman scowled and stuck out her lips, looking much like the fish her son claimed to have seen. “You said you’re not a fisherman. I’d rather take the traditional view, that there are two-hundred-year-old fish. People who’ve been fishing for generations know a lot more than your scientists, anyways.”
She draped a sarong over her shoulders and sat on the foredeck, a washed-out Buddha content in her proclamation.
Traditional knowledge. Selvin started the engine and the boat lifted off the water. Another one who’d rather hear Gramma’s crazy stories than the truth.
Selvin looked up at the mirrored glass building as Doctor Jill Mah, dressed in her white lab coat, held a side door open and helped Gramma inside.
“Thank you for coming, Miss Tamara. Hot day, isn’t it?” Doctor Jill waited for Selvin to step into the artificially cooled storage room. “Thank you for bringing her, Mister Selvin. The only way to do this is in the lab.”
She led them down a long white hallway. Gramma shuffled in her slippers, pulled at the sleeves of her cardigan. He’d tried to cram her feet into some proper shoes, but she kicked them off, complaining they pinched her toes. At least she’d let him fix her hair back into a smooth knot.
Selvin wore his Sunday best and carried his father’s stained old straw church hat. He’d even splashed on aftershave. Miss Lydia hadn’t had time to bathe Gramma, what with her new job. Selvin tried to ignore the yeasty smell that trailed behind the old woman, and the fear that she might wet herself, or worse. Gramma hadn’t slept well last night, banging around, angry because Roberto wasn’t home yet from the bar. Selvin lay in bed and let her run herself down. No use tangling with an angry wife.
“In here.” Jill opened another door, then glanced up and down the hall. “I filed your waiver and got clearance for this, but my supervisors are used to keeping a lid on things. It’s instinct, even though it’s not top-secret anymore. They’ve already started manufacturing and using the tech in the field. They’re pulling the plug on this project and sending me to the lab in China soon. The lure of possible revenue from alternate applications, that’s why they let me continue testing.”
A wall of lights and screens with rolling chairs set at workstations lined one side of the high-ceilinged room. Jill took Gramma’s hand and led her to the middle of the lab where a large white reclining chair with a number of appendages was fixed to the floor.
Selvin picked at a fleck of gecko dung on his hat brim, then stopped, not wanting it to flake off on the pristine white tiles. “You want Gramma in that chair, I’m guessing.”
“She’ll be comfortable. This procedure will be pleasurable for her, I guarantee it.”
“Here, Gramma. The doctor wants you to sit.” Selvin patted the smooth leather seat. “A real cozy chair she’s got for you.”
“Where are you going to sit, Roberto? I feel bad the only one getting the royal treatment.” Gramma slid back into the chair, grasping the padded arms and letting her head fall against the head rest.
“Who’s Roberto?” Jill whispered. She pulled one appendage over-top the chair.
“That’s mi abuelo. Best leave her to her mistakes. She gets pretty upset if I correct her.”
“Okay, Miss Tamara, we’re going to hook up these wires. Like last time. It won’t hurt.”
Strands wriggled down from what looked like a shower head, and settled on Gramma’s scalp, then slipped under her skin.
She smiled at Selvin and Jill. “I’ll make my rondon today with the fish you bring home. The kids are looking too thin. We need to fatten them up.”
Jill rolled two chairs over. “Lights.” The overhead lights dimmed. “Begin first memory in sequence.”
A hatch slid open in the ceiling and a pyramid of glass descended into the room. Beams of blue-white flowed, and colors refracted throughout the room, bright particles that swirled like firebugs.
Low, steady buzzing sounded all around, followed by insect chirps, then the rattling croak of a frog. A steady beat grew louder, louder, joined by voices raised in celebration and song, the slap of bare feet, the clap of hands.
Jill leaned close to Selvin. “Your grandmother will remember it all. The smells, touch, tastes, sights, and sounds. Relive it. Without being hooked up, our experience is more limited.”
The swirling colors shivered and surged together, resolving into a three-dimensional scene. A young man, dressed in a red sequined vest and an orange skull cap, hands a blur of movement over the drum he clutched between his knees. He stared at Gramma, he smiled a wide smile. The young man was in sharp focus, everything else fuzzy—the town’s people gathered to watch, the other drummers, the town square strung with bright flags that snapped in the breeze.
“Roberto.” Gramma sighed and reached up one hand to touch the apparition.
On either side of Gramma, girls danced in the haze of her periphery. Their skirts swirled up and down, and they pulsed their hips to the beat and shook their braids. Roberto’s gaze on Gramma didn’t waver. For him she was the only dancer.
“Happy memories are often the first to go. So they are the ones I wanted her to have.” Jill watched Gramma. “This is the first time she saw him, according to the data.”
“Yes.” A wave of melancholy swept over Selvin. He’d never known this man, except through Gramma’s stories. “He’d just come back from working the cruise ships. Had money saved. Enough for a boat and a wife. Everyone said the sharks would return, and with a boat he’d have plenty to support a family.”
“Shhh. Listen.” Jill placed a hand on Selvin’s arm, her fingers cool and soft.
“You sure can shake it, girl. If you can cook rice ’n beans as good as my mama, I’m gonna have to marry you.”
“You don’t waste any time, do you?”
Strange to hear Gramma’s youthful voice, though her lips didn’t move. Strong, sure—pitched low so his grampa had to move in close. In her chair, Gramma took a deep breath, inhaling Roberto’s scent.
“Look at him. So young. My man.”
Roberto reached out, touched Gramma’s hand. “I just bought a house off the Avenida. You come see it. You’ll like it.”
“I know the place. It’s small for raising children.”
“Family should live tight. You let your children roam too far, they wander away.”
“You’re from around here, so you know my mama makes rice ’n beans better than any. And everyone comes begging when I make my patty.”
“Oh, girl. I been hearing about your patty. So, mi amour, I’ll come round tomorrow and pick up your things?”
A low, flirtatious laugh sounded from the memory, and Gramma’s laughter joined in, cracking, full of phlegm and pleasure.
“He sure was a terrible man. I married him the next week. Moved into that house and never left.”
“Ready for the next one, Miss Tamara?” Jill walked over to the wall of screens and lights.
“Oh, yes.”
Sounds and scene shifted. The click of dishes, ranchero music blaring from a radio, Gramma dancing around the kitchen of her bright, freshly painted wooden house, the floors trembling under her feet. Selvin blinked against the dizziness as, through Gramma’s eyes, the room spun and tilted.
“Mama, mama.” A boy called from outside, then thundered up the stairs, and threw open the door. He held a hook overhead, a finger-length curl of steel with a crescent-moon-shaped barb on the end. “We caught him. The same one pulled me in last week.”
“How you know that, Junior. You ask his name?”
“It was him. He had one eye poked out, the same eye, and this is Papa’s hook. He ties his line this way, and nobody else uses the old eighty-pound wire.” Junior stood straight and proud as his mother inspected the hook.
“Your papa’s a real traditionalist, that’s true. You bring me a fish?”
Roberto appeared in the doorway, a trio of six-pound mackerel dangling from one hand. “Would we forget to feed our women?”
“How many shark?”
“Two today. The buyer paid up front.” Roberto laid a bundle of bills on the table. “Two thousand cash.”
Gramma nodded, her expression stern. “That’ll cover the doctor bills. Report says the sea’s going up. If you can’t go out again this week, we gonna talk about those canal jobs.”
“Yes, boss.” Roberto grasped Gramma around her waist and pulled her close for a long kiss. Then he rested a hand on her belly. “You still got the morning sickness?”
“Something fierce. But it’ll pass.”
A flurry of steps up the stairs and Selvin’s aunties rushed in, white shirts, pleated skirts, patent shoes. Auntie Vanessa, who died at twenty-two giving birth to a stillborn child, threw her pack on the floor and punched Auntie Carol on the arm. Auntie Carol kicked back. In just a few weeks she would get hit by a car and die in hospital after draining all the family’s savings.
“Girls, don’t you bother your mama. Go wash up.”
Junior stepped forward, still holding the shark hook. “Mama. Here. Take the hook. It’s lucky, and you should have it.”
Gramma kissed Junior on the forehead and wrapped the hook in a napkin. “I’ll keep it in my special box, with the family treasure. It’ll be safe there.”
Selvin leaned forward in his chair. “That. Doctor Jill. Her box. I been looking for it. Maybe she remembers where she put it. She keeps asking for it. Gets real upset that it’s missing.”
The memory continued. Gramma cut up and grilled the mackerel. The family sat and devoured steaming bowls of coconut fish stew. The children cleaned up, then pulled the curtain over their sleep nook, giggles and excited whispers rose and fell in waves.
Gramma and Roberto sat on the porch, a bottle of rum and two glasses between them, hands reaching out now and then, for their drinks or for each other. Fingers brushed, then clasped as they waved to neighbors passing in the moonlit street.
Back inside, Roberto sang in the shower, and Gramma pulled the curtain across her sleep nook. She dragged out the bed and pried a plank loose. Debris covered the plastic bin she pulled free from the wall. When she opened it, Selvin took a quick breath. A stack of bills. Hundreds and hundreds. Some papers underneath. Something sparkled red in the lamplight. Still wrapped in its napkin, Gramma tucked the shark hook in, then hurried to get the bin back in the wall.
