It was a trivial exchange, but one that made Lareen look sharply at me.
'Had you forgotten?' she said.
'Yes . . . but it doesn't matter.'
Suddenly, Lareen was smiling, and this in itself was so welcome a change that I smiled too, without understanding.
'What's funny?'' I said.
'I was beginning to think we had made you into a superman. It's good to know you can he absent- minded.'
Seri leaned over the table and kissed me on the cheek.
'Congratulations,' she said. 'Welcome back.'
I stared at them both, feeling aggressive. They were exchanging glances, as if they had been waiting for me to do something like this.
'Have you set me up for this?' I said to Seri.
She laughed, but it was happily. 'It just means you're normal again. You can forget.'
For some reason I felt sulky about this; I was a domestic pet that had learned a trick, or a child who could dress himself. Later, though, I understood better. To be able to forget--or rather, to be able to remember selectively--is an attribute of normal memory. While I was learning voraciously, accumulating facts, remembering everything, I was abnormal. Once I began to forget, I became fallible. I recalled my restlessness of the past few days, and I knew that my capacity for learning was nearly full.
After the meal we returned to the chalet, and Lareen collected her papers.
'I'll recommend your discharge soon, Peter,' she said. 'Perhaps by the end of the week.'
I watched her sort her papers into a neat pile, and slip them into her folder. She put the typewritten pages into her bag.
'I'll be back in the morning,' she said to Seri. 'I think you can tell Peter the truth about his illness.'
The two women exchanged smiles, and again I felt that paranoia. The sense that they knew more about me than I did was grating on me.
As soon as Lareen had left, I said: 'Now what did that mean?'
'Calm down, Peter. It's very simple.'
'You've been keeping things back from me.' And more, which I could not say: the constant awareness of the contradictions. 'Wh don't you just tell me the truth?'
'Because the truth is never clear-cut.'
Before I could contest that she told me quickly about the treatment: I had won a lottery, and the clinic had changed me so that I would live forever.
I received this information without questioning it; I had no scepticism against which to test it, and anyway it was secondary to my real interest.
From the revelatory manner in which Seri spoke, I was expecting something that might explain her contradictions . . . but nothing came.
As far as my inner universe was concerned I had learned nothing.
By not telling me this before, the two women had been indirectly lying.
How could I even know what _other_ omissions and evasions there were?
I said: 'Seri, you've got to tell me the truth.'
'I have done.'
'There's nothing else you should tell me?'
'What else is there?'
'How the devil do I know?'
'Don't lose your temper.'
'Is that like being absent-minded? If I get angry, does that make me less than perfect? If so, I'm going to be doing it much more often.'
'Peter, you're an athanasian now. Doesn't that mean anything to you?'
'Not really, no.'
'It means that one day I'm going to die, but that you never will. That almost anyone you meet will die before you do. You'll live forever.'
'I thought we'd agreed I was less than perfect.'
'Oh, you're just being stupid now!'
She pushed past me and went out on to the verandah. I heard her walking to and fro on the wooden boards, but then she slumped into one of the chairs.
I suppose, in spite of my resistance to the idea, that I was psychologically child-like still, because I was incapable of keeping my anger.
A few moments later, full of contrition, I went out to her and put my arms around her shoulders. Seri was stiff
