Mrs. Wichwar was very, very old. How old exactly, I couldn’t tell you and neither could Bettina Wichwar because she didn’t really know. A long time ago she had known her exact age, a number firmly planted and ever changing in the middle of beautifully decorated cakes. She knew that number and kept count of it with every passing year, until one particular day, she forgot.
Quite contrary to popular belief, forgetting doesn’t happen slowly, the remnant bits and pieces gradually fading. No, that is called remembering the forgotten where the slivers of memory are still present at the back of the mind. When you remember a small bit, the remaining part of the puzzle slowly reveals itself as the lost pieces come together.
Forgetting, however, happens differently. It happens all of a sudden as if you knew it one day and the next day you didn’t. On that particular day, it seemed to Mrs. Wichwar as if she simply forgot her age, but it didn’t matter that she did because no one was around to remind her. Her friends, the ones who had attended every single party, and even the ones who had been to a few, were long dead and gone. Bettina was almost like a living skeleton, and she looked it too. Frail, wrinkled, skin and bone, with big bright blue eyes, it was hard to tell the difference between herself and an otherworldly alien.
The truth is that Betty Wichwar didn’t belong. Not in her neighbourhood, not in her world, and not in the era of her time. Her house was her refuge, sanctuary and a direct extension of her sense of self, which expanded itself as a pervading atmospheric presence. Almost like a ghost, Betty was still among the living but she might as well have been dead. Nobody came to visit, and she rested alone in her little bubble, isolated and at the same time, preserved in the conclave of her secure dwelling.
Until one day, there was a rat-a-tat. A rat-tat-tat. An another. Yet another, and another and another. A dainty hand on the door, small creeping toes and tiny feet padding across the floor. Enough to awaken Bettina from her slumber, enough to make her wonder. The stranger let themselves in, the door had been unlocked since ages but the house had been hidden to thieves who barely noticed it, just as they barely noticed the old lady inside.
‘Who is there?’ quavered Bettina standing up, and dropping her wooden stick with a clatter. ‘Is it you Benjamin? That silly cat, always getting himself into trouble.’ Bettina had a cat named Benjamin, but she had forgotten that he was dead. He had chased a mockingjay out the door, up a tree and never returned. Perhaps she chose to forget this memory due to its unpleasant nature but retained the pleasant memories of her pet. Perhaps she simply forgot without intending to.
‘Grandmother,’ began a voice so young, so fresh and delicate, it reminded Bettina of her shiny new porcelain tea set, the one that was painted with pink leaves and bluebells. One particular teacup had chipped around the edges, and the voice reminded her of it, chippy, shrill but small. She searched for a face to place the sound, and her eyes focused onto the cheery, smiling face of a young girl dressed in a white frock with a bright yellow ribbon tied around her waist.
She looked like a delicious white cake with yellow frosting, the kind that Bettina had had on her 19th birthday, and suddenly she remembered.
She recalled that she was a 192 years old.
‘Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, I’m Alice your greatest grand-daughter,’ gushed the girl, her voice tinkling like gently falling china, every single syllable crashing to the ground and simultaneously rising in crescendo.
‘Dear dear, what in god’s name are you doing here, Alice?’ wondered Bettina aloud.
‘I have a school project, you see, and very much need your help,’ Alice chimed, her cheeks turning rosy in earnest. ‘I’ve got to draw a chart of my family tree, and mother said you were the oldest of our lot,' she said this really fast like a choo-choo train, the kind that runs on steam and coal.
‘Would you like a choo-choo train to play with?’ said Grandma, ‘I believe it’s in our attic.’
‘I’ve never played with one before, but first I have a question to ask for my project.’
‘Ask away, m’dear....'
‘Very well, then, how old are you Grandma?’
‘Well, I believe I am 192 years old,’ said Bettina, amazed at her own age, ‘Why didn’t your mother come to visit?’
‘She says she visited last week,’ began Alice, ‘She said you fell asleep.’And yet again, Bettina had fallen asleep, a short nap in between questions.
Alice watched her peaceful face, gently sleeping, the wrinkles forming different lines as she breathed in and out. She watched a while, mesmerized by the transient shapes on her skin like rivers that branched out into tributaries and distributaries. She tried to recall the difference between the two, her teacher had specifically mentioned, but she couldn’t and gave up.
Her mother had said she would pick her up in half-hour. Alice was quite bored without her flatscreen T.V, and her brother’s smartphone. She decided to give the choo-choo train a chance. She glanced around the pale, dark curtained interiors, and noticed a rickety set of stairs that wound its way to the top. Slowly she made her way up to the attic, each step trembling under her weight. She was sure her big, burly brother would never have safely made it to the top, and was happy that there was someplace she could go that he couldn’t. She would tease him about it later.
She reached the top landing, and took in a deep breath. And another deep one, partly because she was weary, and partly because she was astounded with what she saw. All sorts of strange objects, and fascinating instruments lay littered around in boxed cartons. She approached the one closest to her, and slowly lifted up the silver drape covering it. A cloud of dust jumped out at her, and she stepped back, coughing a little. She watched the light catch the tiniest speckled spots, and turn them golden. Fascinated, she watched them weave a dancing pattern in the air, almost as if they were telling her an ancient story.
Alice looked down at the object below. It was shaped like a silver tulip with a small wooden button, and rested on a black box. She pressed the button and soft music began to play, the notes rippling the settling dust. She felt it before she heard it, the tiny hairs on her arm rising up in applause, her heart seeming to grow in size with every burgeoning note. She abruptly turned it off, not because she didn’t enjoy it, but because of the strangeness of the feeling. She needn’t be afraid of it she knew. It wasn’t unfriendly but it was unknown and hence something to be feared.
Little did she know that when a memory becomes ancient, it turns into magic! Magical feelings are always strange. Each of these things around her had a story to tell, a mystery to be solved, and a secret that only each knew and kept hidden inside of them.
A memory is a strange organism, a living breathing thing that is subject to change similar to the creature that makes it. It is a fascinating thing that our memories transform each time we revisit them, forever changing our lived realities. The magic of a memory gives an object new life but also death, slowly consuming it till it turns to dust. The memory still lingers in the atmosphere long after the disintegration of its protective casing, floating as an idea or a feeling, part of a massive cloud of remembered pasts and imagined futures.
Creeping around, she began to explore, putting her tiny hand into the nooks and crevices of the antiquated treasure trove she had mistakenly stumbled upon. She didn’t know how long she spent there, it could have been minutes, it could have been years.
Time tends to stop in a living breathing memory.
‘Alice! ALICE!’ her mother’s voice carried upstairs, a faint jolt back to earth, a reminder of reality. ‘Where are you girl?’
Alice instantly stood upright. She must not let anyone know. This was her magical place, and she wanted to keep it hidden, preserved in the back of her mind. There was something familiar in the unfamiliarity, a strange sense of belonging and she didn’t want to share it. She grabbed the thing closest to her, a beautiful necklace and ran downstairs, promising that she would be back.
‘Where have you been, Alice?’ her mother started, and Alice shrugged her shoulders. They said goodbye to grandma, and soon they were on their way.
Alice heaved a sigh of relief. Her mother never visited that place again, and neither did Alice.
Grandma Wichwar died peacefully in her sleep the very next week, and the house was sold. Alice didn’t know to whom and she didn’t even know where, so she never did go back there, but she did remember.
Clutching the necklace in her little fingers she hid it in her pocket, her very first secret from the adults. Later in her room, she placed it around her neck. From far it looked like an ordinary gold necklace, but when you peeked in closer it told you a secret. Beautiful tiny gold sculpted leaves cradled a majestic flower at the centre of which rested the ticking heart of an antique clock. Two rabbits stood on either side.
Alice loved it, and wore it wherever she went.
Sometimes she pressed it close to her heart, and it told her its story. The two rabbits had been the very best of friends, and were playing a game of hide and seek. Sometimes she joined in too.
One time, her mother gave her a new pendant, a sweet little owl in the hole of a tree. Her mother used to wear it and she passed it on to her daughter, but the owl’s story didn’t have a secret, the wonder of a fresh discovery and Alice didn’t like it.
She wondered if the rabbits were guardians of the magical flower, whose nectar had the elixir to everlasting life. Or perhaps they were archenemies waiting to steal the heart of the forest. The different possibilities excited her, and the mystery of the necklace continued to enchant her.
As Alice grew older, the bits and pieces slowly came together, and then she finally remembered. They were lovers, separated by space and their love was preserved in time symbolizing the clock.
The memory had been somebody else’s, and then her great-great-great-great grandmother’s, and now it was Alice’s. The memory was Alice, and Alice was the memory. As soon as Alice remembered, she forgot, she forgot all about the pendant. The memory had come of age, and so had Alice.
As we said before, forgetting happens differently. It happens all of a sudden, as if you knew it one day and the next day you didn’t. The mystery had been solved, the memory was of no more use, and neither was the object in which it was stored.
Alice had moved on.
The necklace lay there in a box, a thick layer of dust collected over it, but the memory remained hoping to be remembered.
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