“I keep a list of all the jobs I’ve been on.”
She took the notebook back from her friend and looked over the page. Her confusion grew as she scanned the list. At least three dozen locations were written down, some of which she remembered, but far more she did not. She looked for Piazza Mattei, and sure enough, she had cataloged the fountain and the piazza shortly after she had moved permanently to Rome.
“I walk through that piazza every single day. Why is it so hard for me to remember that fountain?” Felix said after Aidahad confirmed her suspicion. “Or for you to do so, for that matter. I mean, you practically live next doorandyou studied it.”
“Why would they have removed it?” Aida asked. “Why can’t I remember most of the places on my list?”
Neither of them had an answer.
The first location listed seemed especially baffling. “There was a Goethe museum in Rome?”
Felix raised an eyebrow at her. “There was? Are you sure about that? It seems odd there would be a museum here for a German writer.”
The date next to the name was a few weeks after Aida had begun working for MODA. She wracked her brain, trying to remember what she had done when she first came to Rome. She could picture herself moving into the palazzo, meeting the staff, and all of Trista’s weirdness, but now that she looked back, there was no recollection of her first assignment. She vaguely recalled making recordings on the tape recorder, and that she and Trista had trudged across town for a few jobs, but she couldn’t recall much more. She’d never had memory issues before... What on earth was happening?
Aida took her phone back out and looked back through her calendar. All the days before the last six months were blank. Her stomach churning, she hastily powered down the phone and returned to the list in her portfolio.
Most of the locations and items were unfamiliar, but she could still recall some of them. And as the dates became more recent, the more Aida’s memory seemed to fill in the gaps. “Dear god. I think I understand. The locations are disappearing.” She found a pen in her bag and added an explanation at the top of the list about locations disappearing so the next time she looked at it she would remember. “But why are we forgetting about them?”
“I need a drink.” Felix nudged her toward the door. “I ordered us sushi while I was waiting for you.” He led her through his apartment to the interior courtyard of the building and his little patio. She followed, her mind clouded by their discovery.
Felix deposited a bottle of wine on the table before them.
“There must be some sort of explanation,” Felix said as he poured the wine.
“Do you remember any of these?” Aida read the list to him, including the dates she’d visited the locations.
He listened intently, his lips pursing as he concentrated. “Some of them. The most recent. Some of the othersseemlike they should be familiar, but I can’t really pull any information out of this poor broken head of mine. Like this one, the Palio di Siena horse race. I feel like I should know what that is. I’ve been to Siena many times—my cousin lives there. I used to go there every July when I was young. But I don’t remember anything about a horse race.”
The food arrived and they tucked in. In between mouthfuls of maki, they tried to remember other locations on Aida’s list. Felix searched Google for some of the names and came up with either scant information or entries that were very old, highlighting the history of a location or item that no longer seemed to exist.
Aida had an idea. “Do you keep records of all the tours you give?”
Felix nodded. “Of course.”
“Even the ones you do for MODA? The tours you took Johannes on?”
Felix lit up. “Yes! I do. Especially for MODA. I have to do a lot of research before each visit, and I keep fairly extensive records of all the details.” He was already scrolling through his phone.
Aida sipped at her wine while he searched for the information. Finally, he looked up. “This is fucked up. There are a bunch of folders in my digital storage, but nothing in them.” He scrolled through his phone a little more. “It’s only the ones related to MODA. The folders are still there, but they’re empty—like someone wiped the contents but left the shell behind.” He frowned at the screen. “Some still have names but reading them feels... off. It’s the same feeling as when I try to think about the Palio di Siena. I know I worked on these, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about them.”
“Tell me the names, and I’ll add them to my list. At least my records seem to be staying intact. I wonder why though. If your files are vanishing, why isn’t my list?”
Together, they went through Felix’s folder names. None of them rang a bell for Aida. As he read them aloud—Pantheon Fountain, Barcaccia, Trajan’s Column—his expression tightened. He pressed his fingers to his temple, eyes narrowing as if trying to pull something from the depths of his mind.
“I feel like I should know these,” he muttered. “Like I can almost see them, but—” He shook his head. “It’s like grabbing at smoke.”
They Googled a few. Most came up empty. Trajan’s Column had results, but it was long closed after a terrorist attack had toppled the ancient monument four years ago.
“All of them... gone.”
“I don’t like this,” Felix said.
“What on earth could be happening?” Aida whispered. A chill ran down her spine.
“We’ve talked about this before, I think.” His brow was furrowed in thought. “About things you’ve researched closing. Like the earthquake in Val d’Orcia that destroyed the church.”
“Oh, yes, we did talk about that.” Aida could easily recall the littlechiesaand its Madonna over the altar, as well as the conversation she’d had with Mo there. “Why can I remember that but not these other things? None of this makes sense.”
