Chapter III
Recall
When Abelard had first arrived for the interview he was immediately drawn to the wall sized windows at one side of the large lobby area.
The receptionist didn’t normally look up from his glossy magazines but did take notice when he heard the familiar bonk, much louder than usual, like the sound from a giant guitar. The really big guy had knocked his broad forehead against the cool thermal pane, rather harder than would have another, as he tried to take in as much as he could of the vast porch, forty floors below, onto which the building was disgorging its contents. He only glared at the receptionist’s disdainful stare, made a mental note to harm him at the first opportunity and returned to his musings. Only one small thing, he reflected, made him unlike the tiny people scurrying about the business of acquiring ever more; he alone had no apparently useful memories to help him manoeuvre through the infinite subtleties which layered even the simplest exchanges between people.
The fluid crowd evolved into familiar patterns. Those that herded together in lumpy groups his savvy eye told him were prey. Around these clusters the predators hovered, always alert to even the smallest opportunity. His own kind. It’s not that he felt any immediate bond with the hunters or a sly pleasure that he would have much upon which to feed. He was merely, without apparent emotion, observing what was, what he had lived all his life, the one no believed.
He didn’t spare much thought for the impending interview as he had been assured it would be a mere formality, which was fortunate as he didn’t have much in the way of memories to prepare him for such things. In truth, he didn’t have much in the way of memories to guide him in most matters since those on which he most relied, he has been assured, were all pure fabrications. But he knew better, and would keep in mind the practical truths which had early on been imparted to him and had very successfully guided him all his presumably imaginary life.
He was barely ten when the priest in a moment of spirited honesty confided to him, “my lad, our partnership, the sacred one negotiated between my people and your people, is the foundation of our success. There are but a few simple rules you must unfailingly follow.” The lascivious agent of Rome, having once been brought to heel by the determined boy, paused for a moment when he saw consternation darkening his charge’s stern features and quickly thought to add, “do not fret, you will find in these prescriptions nothing onerous.” He waited a moment for the scowl to disappear from the child’s expressive face. “As long as we keep it that way you can lie with your neighbour’s wife and covet his ass, you can kill, you can steal and you can be untruthful, all these transgressions very quickly leading you to riches and power. As regards honouring your parents, pride and you know the rest, only if convenient.” But the drunken haze had not entirely fogged up this stout cleric’s good senses.
He did assure his by now perceptibly astonished charge that there was still a God, and in the Almighty’s view he would be deemed a sinner and even he, his noble lineage notwithstanding, would need the intercession of the priest’s fine institution to acquire the keys to paradise. When the time came he would also, like everyone else, have to expiate for all his earthly and all too human lapses and generously endow Mother Church. Indeed, the leering ecclesiastic suggested, when grown to manhood, he should not leave such matters to the very last moment, given the hazards of the violent life he would be leading, but take every opportunity to keep his repentance ledger in good balance. However, for this priest, his clever attempt to make of himself the indispensable lubricant for Abelard to pass through the eye of the proverbial needle did not quite work out.
As it happened, some years later when Abelard’s career as a captain was in full flourish, this particular man of the cloth, who had so shaped his life strategies, did himself become bothersome and had to be put to the sword. But that was a very long time ago, at least in Abelard’s false memories. In his own defence he does recall that this venal servant of God was entirely deserving of his end - a debaucher, fornicator and, worst of all, a French sympathizer. Odd as it may seem, in this make-believe world things were attractively different. Everything had a comfortable certainty, a preordination, so to speak. Do unto others before they did unto you and be sure to make peace with the Almighty just before passing on. Follow this simple formula and a choice spot for Abelard at the court of eternal joy was practically guaranteed, not to belittle the great pleasures he would moreover extract while still trapped in his mortal coil. No matter the butchery, the thievery, even the blasphemy, a legacy to Mother Church and all would be forgiven. Not that the basic rules had changed much since then, only the institutions with which he would be in partnership were now mostly extra-ecclesiastical.
Tearing his gaze from the circling creatures in the busy plaza and lifting it towards the heavens on this limpid, balmy spring noontime, he took a moment to muse on something that had caught his attention earlier in the day. It seemed a fine touchstone for his personal situation and he had put it aside for later mulling. A hornpipe voice had screamed from his tuner, claiming to represent Moral Society. The early morning harangue was greatly agitated and spared no adjectives or found no admonishment too out of place, aiming to convince the worried listeners that turning the clock back to the good old days was the only tonic to a suppurating, divine wrath.
Abelard was not convinced. Save for the inevitable setbacks and disappointments the past was a very good place indeed, at least for him it had been so. But was the past really better? Judging from the limited experiences to which his mind did have legitimate access, the wonderful memories from his past notwithstanding, it seems to him that the present is so much better. In the past the code was simple, he took what he wanted from the weaker, he meted out swift justice to those with whom he failed to agree and in the process handsomely enriched himself. He didn’t, like many of his peers, expressly seek out violence but brought it to bear with ruthless determination whenever the need arose and that, he recalled, was more often than not. But to his mind, despite his brilliant past successes, there is no contest. Today, yes wonderful, splendid today, things are hugely superior. The rules are still more or less the same, not as much direct violence, a little more complicated, but the spirit is unchanged and the rewards are incomparably fabulous.
Even for those destined to be prey, like the little creatures below, huddled together for safety, the present, he had little doubt, was a hugely better deal than the past when people like him would regularly murder the powerless, in very large numbers, as a reliable way to memo the enemy.
He wasn’t terribly fussed that The Society was still operating, had already tried to kill him and would probably make more attempts. Something to do with his past which, in any event, no one believed. Certainly connected to the little cross he no longer had about his neck when he was revived by Felicity and Oliver. He would be on his guard. Child’s play in contrast to the hazards he endlessly faced in those false memories.
That humans had faithfully remained to this day as craven and grasping, untrustworthy and duplicitous as he recalled did not in the least mystify him. He had somehow always felt that venality was a human instinct as permanent as the need to eat and sleep, two things which seem to have found fertile ground in which to flourish. Indeed, he suspected, modern man’s demented consumption of food must surely be driving Mother Church to distraction, what with the fat, rather than the meek who would soon be inheriting the earth. The triumph of Sloth and Gluttony, the irresistible handmaidens of uninhibited self-interest, seemed to him to be complete. He felt secure that all was as it should be and he had no need to alter how he had always approached the pursuit of success.
Not everyone agreed with his world view. That morning, laying out to Felicity his strategy for the interview, she had shown her usual patience with his ‘dumb vision’ of human behaviour. “No, my dearest Abelard, the pursuit of rational self interest is not the norm. How do you explain with such a simple notion that people do stupid things like engage in unn
ecessary violence, self-destruct through envy, vengeful obsession and pride? Of course, you have no good answer, because most people are emotional, not rational. And your supposed experiences during the Hundred Years war are not real. They are made up. They are there only as a placeholder while you figure out what happened and who you were before you lost your memory. Good luck. I have to run.” A passionate embrace and she was gone to fill another day.
Abelard felt that these were not at all good objections, but was unable to put into compelling words what he knew with iron conviction to be basic human nature. He understood that she was confusing the means different people used to attain that which they saw serving their self-interest with the basic motivation to self-interest. Not everyone was equally skilled in its pursuit. Some still relied on the always popular quick recourse to violence, while others, like that clever Machiavelli fellow he had read about, could bring to bear huge intellectual resources to so much more efficiently fulfill all that which served their self-interest. He resolved, for the hundredth time, to avoid this topic with Felicity.
Although the substance remains as true as ever, Abelard understood that the wicked priest’s lessons had by now become a bit frayed about the edges. Eternal rewards and divine retribution can no longer be counted on. All he’s got now to help him make important decisions about the future are a handful of probabilities and a growing crowd of neuroscientists telling him that even his very thoughts are no more than the ramblings of a machine destined to shut down and that’s it. Attractive as the simple world he remembers might be, he could see why this should be better for him. If there is no eternal afterlife he no longer has the nagging worry about when to repent and change his ways. He can happily debauch, butcher, thieve and blaspheme to his very last breath, with no more consequence than if he were to lead a saintly life, such as the one his therapist has been trying to treat him into for almost a year now. Poor woman, she will fail, for Abelard is but human and so impelled to self-interest, which he knows is best served in a more modern version of the ways revealed to him by the iniquitous cleric.
Four or five more sessions with the psychiatrist and his promise to Felicity is fulfilled. Then he shall be stamped ‘cured’ and be able to shed all the fantasies which he has been harbouring in place of a real memory. Only he still doesn’t have even a nanosecond of what are supposed to be his genuine recollections and he doubts very much the rubbish that passes for therapy will make the difference when it does come finally to an end.
He remains as self-confident of his roots as he had been four years earlier. Felicity and her experts have utterly failed to convince him that things are not as they appear. But, no matter. He will easily get along as he is because, to his good fortune, when he looks about him at the world as it is he does not see any great difference in substance from the world he remembers. These are the same human beings he recalls, only they get around a lot faster than he did, they keep in touch over much larger distances than he could ever have imagined and they have devised devilishly clever ways to kill each other unimaginably quickly and in astoundingly large numbers.
He must be patient with Felicity. As soon as he has the resources available he will be able to prove, once and for all, to himself and to her, which way lies the past and the future. He had already asked Felicity, who seems to have an unlimited wherewithal at her disposal, for help but all he received was a severe admonishment for clinging to dead end delusions.
For him there was nothing unusual about his recollections – cruelty, torture, casual death, the lives of most worth less than a Twinkie bar. He was little troubled that those close to him would recoil at these horrors. After all, he didn’t care much for most other human beings, perhaps for none. This he was not yet sure about. What did annoy him, though only a little, was that they also pitied him for his amnesia; a sorely misplaced sentiment. He knew that wherever might be the truth he would always be one step ahead of the crowd. It had something to do with his past, something which endowed him with an intimate feel for man and his insatiable cravings. He was very good at the games other humans played and he pursued them always with ardour, despite his muddled memories. He was terribly grateful for their utter predictability. Whatever he had learned about the species in his non-existent past seems not to have lost any of its value.