“You know the way you can remember every detail of a song that you listened to over and over as a kid or a teenager on the radio? ....every pause —even a jingle of a bell of a Christmas song all the way back from childhood....? How you can go for years without ever hearing it even once and then —someone plays it.... and you remember the whole thing all by heart....?” I turn to look at him with his profile to me, “....Jörn.... ? —you know what I mean?”
“Yes....” he says and then glances at me
“So .... why.... ? I mean....”
“Why don’t you remember how to play your piece?” he finishes what I started to say
“I mean, I won two awards, Jörn, which means I had to play that piece over and over! You’d think— I mean .... I remember .... I do—sometimes....sometimes....I mean, I can remember .... sort of—like—I can hear it ....echoing in my mind.... like it’s right there on the edge of my memory .... when I’m waking up from.... a dream....a bad dream ....I can never remember—”
He glances at me again but only just taking a moment away from watching the road before looking back.
After another long moment in silence he says,
“I think we both know why that is. It’s not so unusual. It shouldn’t seem so to you,” he says
“How do you mean?”
Shrugging,
“you have a degree in psychology....” and here he pauses again looking ahead at the darkened highway before us, then makes a thoughtful sound from within his throat as he pauses to say, “well then—you would have studied about repressed memory.... it’s not so unusual given what —you went through in your childhood.”
And I think maybe it is the tone I hear in his voice as he says this that catches me off guard....as it should have been obvious to me but— now, hearing it in his voice
And now ....I welcome the car’s darkness as I think. And turn to look out into the cover of night with the reassurance of the warmth that falls with the weight of my hair and search in the obscure noir shades of night ....where lies escape.
Where lies escape.
It lays and it hides
and hides truth, even though it can set you free
After another silence he says,
“I think it would come back to you. Once you heard it again. Duva.... and I think your old psychiatrist Dr. Rothschild had begun to .... ”
I find this seems to make me only anxious as I suspect he is right.... as I know what we both know.... there is and has always been a reason for the codes. the rhymes. the Easter eggs of emotions. the dictionary, with its trail of crumbs. and it was never just about Cold War secrets to the one who lost those crumbs
“but Jörn—we might not have that luxury for such a chancy occurrence.... I mean—I think I realize now that .... you need the evidence of the safe—I mean.... to prove you are not some double-crossing terrorist—that the safe they think the other guys have is not the real one and the one down in the underground ....is — and so by opening the real one....would solve a lot of problems, right?”
“Well....” he concedes, still looking ahead at the road, “that isn’t what I’ve been counting on—not altogether. I’ve been working on another angle.... something I’ll tell you about later —but, I have other evidence. And I’m not exactly ready to hand over that safe just yet....” and I hear something else in his voice
and only confirming concerns of what —exactly—we are heading back to
“so....” and then I think of something else suddenly, “Jörn— remember last summer?” I ask, “that really hot day? ....we were out hiking, do you remember that day? and I got dizzy?— and then I passed out —but....I think— weren’t we talking about the safe—? yes.... we were—and wasn’t that when you told me —it was back in Sweden?—wasn’t it? What was it you said?.... something.... what was it? —like.... you were really angry, I remember— and you were saying how this was to do with your case —and— you felt it wasn’t for them to take it and that it should belong here with you but.... you know, it just doesn’t make sense—and it didn’t to me at the time either....I mean— so.... What was the real reason you didn’t want your government to have the safe?”
When I search his profile now in the darkness of the truck I see the smallest tension in his jaw and then that slight flair of his nostrils as he grips the steering wheel and sort of smiles —or.... is it a grimace?
“It wasn’t that exactly....” he says
“Then what? Because you implied it—you said something like ....I don’t remember now....”
Only he seems to withdraw himself and only stare straight ahead so I decide to let it go
But it is almost when I have forgotten my question that he says,
“it is that I didn’t want it to get in the wrong person’s possession.... I knew it was safer to get it away from there then to allow it to end up in the wrong hands.”
and suddenly I realize,
“So, you mean—you think there’s a mole?”
With a quick glance at me he says,
“I do....”
“....and you know who it is, don’t you?”
“Yes.... and .... right now he’s very near.”
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