Landslide

The time came when they cut the bandage from my face and eyes. A voice, a man’s voice I had heard before, said, ‘Now, take it easy. Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them.’

Obediently I closed my eyes tightly and heard the snip of the scissors as they clipped through the gauze. Fingers touched my eyelids and there was a whispered, ‘Seems to be all right.’ Someone was breathing into my face. The voice said, ‘All right; you can open them now.’

I opened my eyes to a darkened room. In front of me was the dim outline of a man. He said, ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

A white object swam into vision. I said, ‘Two.’

‘And how many now?’

‘Four.’

He gave a long, gusty sigh. ‘It looks as though you are going to have unimpaired vision after all. You’re a very lucky young man, Mr Grant.’

‘Grant?’

The man paused. ‘Your name is Grant, isn’t it?’

I thought about it for a long time and the man assumed I wasn’t going to answer him. He said, ‘Come now; if you are not Grant, then who are you?’

It is then they tell me that I screamed and they had to administer more drugs. I don’t remember screaming. All I remember is the awful blank feeling when I realized that I didn’t know who I was.

I have given the story of my rebirth in some detail. It is really astonishing that I lived those many weeks, conscious for a large part of the time, without ever worrying about my personal identity. But all that was explained afterwards by Susskind.

Dr Matthews, the skin specialist, was one of the team which was cobbling me together, and he was the first to realize that there was something more wrong with me than mere physical disability, so Susskind was added to the team. I never called him anything other than Susskind – that’s how he introduced himself – and he was never anything else than a good friend. I guess that’s what makes a good psychiatrist. When I was on my feet and moving around outside hospitals we used to go out and drink beer together. I don’t know if that’s a normal form of psychiatric treatment – I thought head-shrinkers stuck pretty firmly to the little padded seat at the head of the couch – but Susskind had his own ways and he turned out to be a good friend.

He came into the darkened room and looked at me. ‘I’m Susskind,’ he said abruptly. He looked about the room. ‘Dr Matthews says you can have more light. I think it’s a good idea.’ He walked to the window and drew the curtains. ‘Darkness is bad for the soul.’

He came back to the bed and stood looking down at me. He had a strong face with a firm jaw and a beak of a nose, but his eyes were incongruously soft and brown, like those of an intelligent ape. He made a curiously disarming gesture, and said, ‘Mind if I sit down?’

I shook my head so he hooked his foot on a chair and drew it closer. He sat down in a casual manner, his left ankle resting on his right knee, showing a large expanse of sock patterned jazzily and two inches of hairy leg. ‘How are you feeling?’

I shook my head.

‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?’ When I made no answer he said, ‘Look, boy, you seem to be in trouble. Now, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.’

I’d had a bad night, the worst in my life. For hours I had struggled with the problem – who am I? – and I was no nearer to finding out than when I started. I was worn out and frightened and in no mood to talk to anyone.

Susskind began to talk in a soft voice. I don’t remember everything he said that first time but he returned to the theme many times afterwards. It went something like this:

‘Everyone comes up against this problem some time in his life; he asks himself the fundamentally awkward question: ‘Who am I?’ There are many related questions, too, such as, ‘Why am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ To the uncaring the questioning comes late, perhaps only on the death-bed. To the thinking man this self-questioning comes sooner and has to be resolved in the agony of personal mental sweat.

‘Out of such self-questioning have come a lot of good things – and some not so good. Some of the people who have asked these questions of themselves have gone mad, others have become saints, but most of us come to a compromise. Out of these questions have arisen great religions. Philosophers have written too many books about them, books containing a lot of undiluted crap and a few grains of sense. Scientists have looked for the answers in the movement of atoms and the working of drugs. This is the problem which exercises all of us, every member of the human race, and if it doesn’t happen to an individual then that individual cannot be considered to be human.

‘Now, you’ve bumped up against this problem of personal identity head-on and in an acute form. You think that just because you can’t remember your name you’re a nothing. You’re wrong. The self does not exist in a name. A name is just a word, a form of description which we give ourselves – a mere matter of convenience. The self – that awareness in the midst of your being which you call I – is still there. If it weren’t, you’d be dead.

‘You also think that just because you can’t remember incidents in your past life your personal world has come to an end. Why should it? You’re still breathing; you’re still alive. Pretty soon you’ll be out of this hospital – a thinking, questioning man, eager to get on with what he has to do. Maybe we can do some reconstructions; the odds are that you’ll have all your memories back within days or weeks. Maybe it will take a bit longer. But I’m here to help you do it. Will you let me?’

I looked up at that stern face with the absurdly gentle eyes and whispered, ‘Thanks.’ Then, because I was very tired, I fell asleep and when I woke up again Susskind had gone.

But he came back next day. ‘Feeling better?’

‘Some.’

He sat down. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ He lit a cigarette, then looked at it distastefully. ‘I smoke too many of these damn’ things.’ He extended the pack. ‘Have one?’

‘I don’t use them.’

‘How do you know?’

I thought about that for fully five minutes while Susskind waited patiently without saying a word. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t smoke. I know it.’

‘Well, that’s a good start,’ he said with fierce satisfaction. ‘You know something about yourself. Now, what’s the first thing you remember?’

I said immediately, ‘Pain. Pain and floating. I was tied up, too.’

Susskind went into that in detail and when he had finished I thought I caught a hint of doubt in his expression, but I could have been wrong. He said, ‘Have you any idea how you got into this hospital?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was born here.’

He smiled. ‘At your age?’

‘I don’t know how old I am.’

‘To the best of our knowledge you’re twenty-three. You were involved in an auto accident. Have you any ideas about that?’

‘No.’

‘You know what an automobile is, though.’

‘Of course.’ I paused. ‘Where was the accident?’

‘On the road between Dawson Creek and Edmonton. You know where those places are?’

‘I know.’

Susskind stubbed out his cigarette. ‘These ash-trays are too damn’ small,’ he grumbled. He lit another cigarette. ‘Would you like to know a little more about yourself? It will be hearsay, not of your own personal knowledge, but it might help. Your name, for instance.’

I said, ‘Dr Matthews called me by the name of Grant.’

Susskind said carefully, ‘To the best of our knowledge that is your name. More fully, it is Robert Boyd Grant. Want to know anything else?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What was I doing? What was my job?’

‘You were a college student studying at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Remember anything about that?’

I shook my head.

He said suddenly, ‘What’s a mofette?’