As everyone departed to leave me with Franklin and Loretta, I hurried at once to the nearest library shelves to scan the titles of the volumes. “The wonderful Mr. Dickens!” I exclaimed. “You have all his works.Great Expectations. How could anyone resist a story when the lead character is introduced with such an opening. ‘My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.’ And every word thereafter is wonderful until the exquisite final paragraph.”
I turned to them, so excited by the wealth of knowledge and entertainment shelved around us that I was strangely warm and felt as if my face must be shining. They regarded me with bewilderment. Loretta said, “You loved the book so much you memorized the opening paragraph? How long ago was this?”
“Oh, years and years. And this!” I slid a finger down the spine ofA Tale of Two Cities. “It’s a great deal darker than the other but every bit as fabulous in its own way. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light—”
Franklin interrupted my recitation, which was understandable because I’d hardly begun what is one of the longest first sentences of any novel. “You memorize every opening or just those of Dickens?”
“He’s the best, I think. I mean over his entire body of work. There are no stinkers. But there are so many great stories just here in theDsection.” I drew their attention toTwo Years Before the Mastby Mr. Richard Henry Dana. “‘Chapter One: Departure. The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brigPilgrim, onher voyage from Boston, round Cape Horn, to the western coast of North America.’”
“Have you read this?” Loretta asked, pointing toThe Three Musketeersby Mr. Alexandre Dumas. I said of course I had, that it was a thrilling and often humorous tale. She plucked it from the shelf, opened it, and flipped past the preface to the beginning of the story. “The first chapter has a title.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Sorry I called you ma’am.” I recited the chapter title, “‘The Three Gifts of M. d’Artagnan the Elder.’” As I remembered the joy of that novel, I rushed into another recitation. “‘On the first Monday of the month of April, 1626, the market town of Meung, in which the author of theRomance of the Rosewas born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it.’”
Loretta looked at Franklin, and during a long moment of silence he returned her stare. If I had to describe their mutual expression with one word, I could not do so, but I can say that it seemed to me they were both surprised and confused, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. Franklin asked, “How many novels have you read, would you say? Fifty? Sixty?”
“No, no,” I said. “Hundreds. Remember, Loretta, I was four when I readThe Wind in the Willows. You can read a great many books in thirteen years when you have nothing to do all day but sit on a stage, trying not to see the marks gaping at you.”
“Hundreds?” Franklin said. “You’ve committed to memory, word for word, the openings of hundreds of novels?”
“Yes, but—”
“The effort required would be enormous.”
I was so transported by the thought of exploring the many books in the collection that I did not recognize their astonishment for what it was. I thought they were just surprised and approving that I, in spite of my disabilities and lifelong isolation, had attained an admirableknowledge of literature through self-education. “It’s no big deal, no effort. Just reading and retaining like anyone does if they love books.”
As I continued to read the spines of the volumes before me, the rhythm of my heart kept pace with my growing eagerness to seize the opportunities they offered. I continued to fail to properly register Franklin and Loretta’s amazement. Loretta said, “Honey, do you mean ... are you saying that ... that you can quote every page of every book you’ve ever read?” Still focused on the titles of the worlds that waited to be explored, I said yes, every book, just as they could do, as anyone could do.
Franklin tookGreat Expectationsfrom its shelf and opened it and said, “Chapter Nineteen. Do you remember Chapter Nineteen?”
I turned to him, assuming he had not read the novel—else why would he have to refer to the page to check the accuracy of my memory when he could rely on his own? I said, “Of course it’s Pip speaking. The entire book is written from his point of view. ‘Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay heaviest on my mind was the consideration that—”
Interrupting the game by flipping perhaps a hundred pages ahead, Franklin said, “Chapter Twenty-Eight.”
“Oh, that follows the sad chapter where Joe comes to London to see Pip at Barnard’s Hotel. Dear Joe. And Pip behaving badly toward him. ‘Chapter Twenty-Eight. It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first flow of my repentance it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe’s.’”
Franklin closed the book, and his hand shook as he tried to return it to its place between two other volumes by Dickens.
“God in Heaven,” Loretta said. “How could so much be memorized and recalled word for word years later?”
“Oh, I didn’t need to struggle to memorize anything. Just like you, like anyone, reading a book is knowing it forever. I’m no different. At least not that way.”
Neither of them had been speechless before, but they seemed to be having trouble finding words. Then Loretta said, “Come sit down with us, sweetheart.” She led the way to a sofa, and I sat between them, and she said, “Have you never shared this with anyone before? Surely you have.”
“Shared what?” I asked.
Franklin said, “That you have such an amazing capacity for memorization.”
“No, like I said, it’s not memorizing. It’s just reading. Like anyone who loves books. Anyway, who would I talk with about books? Captain Farnam had no interest in them. Until you, Captain was the only one I knew well enough to converse with at length, and we never talked much. He didn’t really think of me as a person. I was just an asset. As he put it, I was his ‘best chance for early retirement.’ He gave me food, a bed. He stole books for me. But he always kept his distance, kept to himself, because he found me repulsive. When he was drunk, he said I was disgusting. That was okay, because I found him disgusting, too. I didn’t have any patience for his guff. He was never not a pitchman, everything a con and all of it boring.”
Loretta put her arm around me, and her voice was thick with emotion. “I thought I understood, but I wasn’t close. Even with the others in the carnival, there was no one. You’ve always been alone.”
“Not really. I had the books I’d read, all the people in them, what they said, the things they did, the places they went. They were all real to me. You know how it is. Even when Captain didn’t get me new books, I had all the old ones, even after he took them away from me and threw them out, I had them, you know. I could live in them againand again. I had friends in them. I was part of them, those worlds. You know how it is.”
“That’s just it,” Franklin said. “We don’t know, Alida. Loretta and I remember books, the stories, characters—but not the way you do. We can’t open them without holding them in our hands. We can’t summon one like a favorite dream, summon it in every vivid detail and live in it again. No one can. What you can do is ... amazing.”
“Even that isn’t an adequate word,” Loretta said. “What you can do, this power of yours, is awesome, otherworldly.”
They regarded me as though I was the deepest of mysteries, as though I was stranger than they had realized, stranger than they had imagined anyone could be. I was small and had vulnerabilities, but I also hadthis, which I thought was an ability common to everyone, but which evidently was unique to me. I knew too well how uniqueness can scare people into erecting barriers. Desire and despair overcame me in equal measure—a sudden desperate determination to hold fast to the life I’d had with them for such a short time, matched by the despondency that follows close upon the sense that hope is quickly slipping away. My voice broke as I said, “It’s not a power, not a power over others. It’s just a talent. You know all about talent, making movies. Even if I’m the only one in the world who can do it, then it’s just maybe a gift ... a gift to make it easier to be what else I am. This doesn’t make me a freak twice over, not twice over, it just doesn’t.”
