Lost Past (5 page)

             
Later, when they talked it over, Linda said, “At least she’s not kicking us out immediately.”

             
“She may not accept the fact that he’s dead,” Tom replied.

             
“I don’t. Not yet, at least.”

             
“He was always a realist and would want us to accept it. I mean, they found bodies. No one could have survived the crash. Remember how he was about Mom? He told us there was no hope,” Tom said.

             
“That was weeks later,” Linda protested. It was years later that she understood more of why her father didn’t believe her mother left voluntarily. The
morning
she disappeared, they made love, and once he thought about it when Linda could read his
thoughts. Linda knew her father believed that they had a solid marriage based both on companionship and sex. Linda felt she was intruding by knowing about the sex, but she couldn’t turn off her telepathy.

             
“You mean you think he could be alive? Do you have a connection?”

             
“No, but that’s only good for a few miles at best.”

             
Sensing people was pretty constant, if they were within range, but actually reading them was limited to a few minutes a day, and the only people whose minds she could read were Tom, John, and Dad
.

CHAPTER
5

             
John found time to replace his cell phone. He reported his confiscated phone as lost, and arranged a new password for his voice mail on his landline. John was surprised at himself for automatically agreeing to let Linda and Tom stay with him. John tried to analyze why he did so. His apartment was small, and two guests seemed excessive, but John thought it natural they come. Tom slept on the floor in John’s bedroom on an air mattress he brought. Linda had the couch. In consideration of his recent injuries, both Tom and Linda vetoed John’s suggestion that he give up the bed to one of them. 

             
It felt right to have Tom and Linda with him, and John expected to object to the crowding, but didn’t. He didn’t understand why he didn’t resent the intrusion. He found he actually preferred them to be there than for him to be alone. It was not as if they gave him comfort, because he was comforting them.

             
Linda and Tom fielded a number of condolence phone calls from friends and calls from reporters. Some reporters called John as well, although he refused to give them any information. The next morning, they read the various articles about the crash and watched it on the news.

             
Cara called, saying abruptly, “There’s something on YouTube you should look at. I’ve emailed you the link.” She hung up before he could respond.

             
YouTube had a copy of a satellite phone call recorded during the plane crash. The passenger called a friend and let voicemail record the call. Much of it was unclear, but John had no trouble identifying the language in the background as
Vigintees
. There was a voice-over of a passenger saying four men boarded the airplane in midair and took a man off the plane.

             
While
Tom and Linda
questioned
if
this was fake, they
recognized Arthur’s voice. Their attention quickly returned to the recording. Linda reached over and replayed the interrupted section.

             
After it finished, Tom said, “It’s Dad, but I don’t know what language he’s speaking.”

             
Linda turned to John and asked, “What are they saying?”

             
John was surprised at Linda’s question, but clearly, Tom wasn’t. How did she know he understood, and why wasn’t Tom surprised she knew? He decided to ignore his own questions and answer Linda’s. “They are telling him to come with them and he is refusing. He wanted them to save all the passengers.”

             
Linda asked, “What language is it?”

             
“I don’t know the word in English. I don’t know anything about it, I just understand it.”

             
John’s phone went off and caller ID identified Eric Schwartz. “I am going to deliver Arthur’s message to the FBI,” Eric said. “I didn’t erase it. Actually, I never erase any messages.”

             
“Of course,” John replied. “If you send them to me, I’ll translate.”

             
After telling Tom and Linda about Eric’s phone call, realizing he was disobeying Arthur’s warning, he said, “Your father told me I should continue acting as I had been, rather than behave naturally. I don’t have a clue as to how he knew I wasn’t acting naturally, but I apparently gave him some information about my past.”

             
“You’re going to tell the government everything?” Tom asked him.

             
“Yes. I’ve told you and I’ll tell them.”

             
“And you don’t have any secrets from us?” Tom asked, with a glance at Linda.

             
“All my secrets are so well hidden that I don’t know them myself,” John replied wryly.

             
The authorities arrived less than two hours later, and took John to a very secure-looking building. After descending to a subfloor and going down a corridor, John was escorted into a room obviously designed for interviews, with a window that was mirrored on his side.
He was
left alone in the room with Special Agent Wilson who wa
s seated at a table and didn’t
rise on his entrance. “I would like you to listen to something,” he said in the pleasant baritone he remembered from his hospital interview. Wilson pressed a button on a recorder and Arthur Saunders’ voice was heard in the background.

             
“Can you translate it?” Wilson asked.

             
“Yes,” John answered promptly. He made his decision hours ago. “The first speaker says, ‘
What
are you doing? You’re killing people.’ Can I hear the recording again?”

             
“Just a minute.” Wilson stepped out of the room and seconds later, another man entered with him. He was introduced simply as Kowalski, but John quickly surmised he was a linguist. Kowalski was probably only a half a dozen years older than Wilson, whom John guessed to be about thirty, but where Wilson moved with the grace and strength of someone who worked out regularly, Kowalski moved as little as possible and acted like getting out of a chair was the most exercise he ever did. They made an odd couple, with Kowalski’s pale flabbiness and long unkempt hair contrasting sharply with Wilson’s muscled body, dark brown skin, and shaved head.

             
After finishing with the brief translation of the satellite phone call, Wilson played the recording of Arthur’s phoned warning, which John translated. Kowalski and John analyzed the translation word for word. He gave a translation of each word and discussed tense, case, and rules of grammar. Kowalsk
i
said at one point, “I notice you don’t pronounce the words the same way as Saunders did. Why?”

             
“He has a thick accent.”

             
“And you don’t?”

             
“I don’t think so.”

             
“You don’t know?” asked Kowalski skeptically.

             
“Why don’t we break for lunch?” Wilson interrupted before John could reply.

             
John was amused at Wilson’s interruption. They had obviously agreed not to antagonize him as long as he was cooperating. Kowalski forgot and Wilson reminded him.

             
Kowalski and Wilson started a desultory conversation about sports. John realized he didn’t have the slightest interest in sports, and participated only when directly addressed. They went from the Rave
ns to the Redskins to the National
s and were now on the Capitols when John interrupted.

             
“After we finish eating, let me show you the writing.”

             
“You write the language!” Kowalski was mildly interested in sports, but this got him excited.

             
They spent the afternoon on
Vigintees
.  At the prodding of Kowalski, John gave an extensive vocabulary and recorded the translation of hundreds of words and phrases. The linguist asked John if he knew any words in
Vigintees
that he didn’t know in English. John said, “
Lacrasices
.”

             
“What does it mean?”

             
“It’s a chemical. A drug.”

             
“What is it used for?”

             
“Schizophrenia.”

             
“Any other words you don’t know in English?”

             
“I can’t think of any.” After John said it, other words came to mind. Schizophrenia didn’t have a single name in
Vigintees
; it had four names. He was pretty certain that it wasn’t ignorance of English that made him not know the translations. He decided not to correct his original statement.

             
At one point, someone came in with a list of phrases for John to translate, and he was amused at the change of direction. Kowalski wanted to know the language, but someone clearly wanted to know how to speak in a hostile situation. “Drop yo
ur weapons” and “Hands up” weren’
t part of normal conversation.

             
John was concerned that Linda and Tom would worry about his continued absence, his emotional ties overcoming his total loss of any memory. When he took out his cell phone to call Linda, Wilson put his hand over John’s phone. When John looked at Wilson, he shook his head. 

             
John pushed the phone aside, wanting to call, feeling he should obey Wilson. When Wilson said, “No calls,” John relaxed, content to obey, knowing he had the strength to resist. Wilson spoke with authority in a melodic baritone, but the voice spoiled it. John realized he was used to obeying gestures, which puzzled him.

             
“Linda and Tom will worry,” John said, knowing Wilson knew this, and wanted to test his goodwill.

             
“I’ll have them called,” Wilson said. While John put away the phone, he was tempted to comment that a call from a stranger would hardly be reassuring. He felt he learned something important about himself when he obeyed gestures more naturally than words, but he had no idea what it meant.

             
The linguist left and John was left alone with Wilson. “Where do these
Vigintees
live?”

             
“I don’t know.”

             
“How do you know the language?”

             
“I don’t know,” John repeated.

             
“Can you tell us anything about the technology they used to pull a passenger off a flight in mid-air?”

             
“No.”

             
“Where did you learn
Vigintees
?”

             
“I don’t remember. I have amnesia.”

             
“Yeah. Sure,” Wilson said with palpable disbelief. The questions continued.

             
A second man came in and both men started yelling at John. They were unimpressed when John said, “If I didn’t have amnesia, Arthur wouldn’t need to warn me.”

             
Wilson replied, “He may have thought you had amnesia, but that doesn’t mean you actually have it.” At this point, John wondered if Wilson attended law school.

             
They tried different wording and different approaches. John answered everything, but it didn’t help. He told them freely about everything in his life, but his memories only going back to the hospital made the material very sparse. He refrained from telling them the extent of his deductions about himself or others. They didn’t need to know why he
wanted to know about cars or that John guessed that Wilson’s parents were well educated. Didn’t police want the facts, as in “Just the facts, ma'am.” What was that from?
Dragnet
? When was that show?
The 1950’s?
How come he knew that? He wasn’t old enough to remember. 

             
The shouted questions were stressful, and though he was not under arrest and was only concealing his thoughts, not material facts, he was having trouble keeping from attempting to leave.

***