Sunlit Shadow Dance (33 page)

She could not begin to imagine why she was
seeing a book, actually diary, that had parts written about her. It
was not written by her, she knew this writing belonged to someone
else, an unknown man she thought. She also knew the lovely French
script was written by another woman.

The strange thing was that if she tried to
see this other book more clearly it would fade and drift out of her
mind. But if she looked at the book in front of her, its images
were overlaid with sharp images of the other diary.

At last she was finished and went to make
herself a cup of tea, her head feeling overloaded with so many
images. As she sipped her tea the jumble of pictures left her mind
and only the ones of the book she had photographed today remained.
It felt a relief to get her mind back under her control
again.

She looked at the clock. It was lunch time
and she was hungry. Her Gran and the children should be home soon
and Vic would wake hungry too. She set to work to make up
sandwiches for the others when they arrived. As she worked the
phone rang and it startled her out of her reverie.

It was her mother,
saying,
“I
have just met the Arabic Professor over our lunch break. He tells
me the language of your book is not Arabic but it has some
similarities. He thinks it may be in a language from the Indian
subcontinent, something like a Kashmiri script. He is unable to
work it out though he can guess the odd word. However he had a long
standing Kashmiri friend in Wokingham who has offered to have a
look. He rang this friend while I was there and the friend has
offered to meet me and you mid-morning tomorrow.

“
So I have blocked out the
morning for this if it suits you to come. If Gran is there I will
ask her to mind the children again. This man would like to see the
original as well as the copied images. He said that if he can look
carefully at the cover and binding it will help him to know exactly
where it is from and the period when it was written.”

Next morning
, about 9:30 when the morning
traffic rush had died down, they set out. It was seven miles to
Wokingham. In less than half an hour they were coming into this
lovely old town. It felt achingly familiar to Susan, but this was
no surprise, she had probably been here many times in her lost
memory period.

They met an elderly Indian looking man who
introduced himself. As they waited for coffees he reverently
unwrapped the book from its covering.

“
Ah, it is beautiful, as I
thought it is written in Kashmiri. It is a variant that is a
different from the regular script. But I can read most words and,
with a bit of practice and research, I will be able to transcribe
it for you.

“
It is a book which has been
written in over several generations. It covers at least two hundred
years. It contains some religious tracts, but also family stories.
The last part describes the journey of a young man who left his
home and family and travelled to a faraway land, bringing camels
with him.

“
It will take me a couple months
to work my way through it but I would be honored to do this task if
you will allow me. Could you tell me as to how you came by this
book?”

Susan described its history,
handed down over generations through a part aboriginal family in
Alice Springs, with an understanding that it had originally being
owned by an Afghan Camele
er who brought it to Australia.

“
That is all I know, except that
this Afghan man was my husband’s great grandfather. His Uncle has
told me the book is to go to my husband and one day be passed on to
our children to keep the old man’s memory alive. So, this Uncle
would like to know what it says, the story of his ancestor, so he
can pass this on too, the story to go along with the
book.

“
So I am happy for you to do
this but I would ask you to take care of it. It is the only
surviving piece of family history of that man.”

As she spoke these words she
knew it was a silly request. The reverent way in which this man
handled this book
meant he gave it a value far higher than she had
perceived.

He nodded. “But of course, it is a very
precious object and I will take great care. I understand you have
photographed the pages. I will work off those images but I would
still value having the original as I work. Sometimes it may help my
understanding to hold it and look at it more closely.”

So it was agreed, he would copy the memory
card images onto his computer and she would retain a copy as well.
Each week he would send her a letter with a copy of the pages that
he had translated. She and her husband could read this story as it
unfolded and send a copy back to Vic’s Uncle.

It was now almost lunch time
and Susan’s mother needed to go, as she had an afternoon
appointment at the University. So
, after shaking hands and thanking the man
profusely for his help, they started to drive out of town,
following a different road to the one they had come in
on.

As they le
ft the shops of the town behind
an industrial building came alongside them. Something buried deep
in Susan’s mind screamed out. “Stop,” she said.

Puzzled her mother pulled to the side of
the road. “What is it?”

Susan said to her
mother,
“There is something inside there I need to get. I left it
here before. It is inside a locked box.”

She could feel herself tugged towards the
building, it was here, she knew it; the diary she had seen. She
walked off without reply, leaving her mother in the car. He mother
parked the car and followed her.

She found the front entrance and let herself
in. A middle aged man came to the counter to help, “Yes, how may I
assist?”

The words came out unbidden, “It is Locked
Box 972532, I need to open it and retrieve the contents. The
security code is 679013.”

The man looked up his list, wrote down the
numbers she had given then nodded. As he went to speak Susan’s
mother joined them, so he paused until she was alongside as
well.

The man said, “That box was in use with
that security code for two years, until a bit over a year ago.
However at the end of that rental period the owner had not returned
to collect it. So its contents were removed. It is now in use again
with a different security code.”

Susan felt panic flood into her
mind,
It
could not be possible that the contents were gone, she wanted, no
she needed to see the diary that she knew was inside.

She calmed herself. “Do you know what has
happened to the contents since they were removed?”

The man shook his head. “No, but I can
find out. Generally we hold the contents for a further 12 months
before we dispose of them. However in some cases where the contents
are clearly valuable and we know that we can recover the cost if
needed we will hold them for longer.”

He picked up the phone and spoke a few
words. In another minute they were joined by a lady of similar age
who was introduced as the person who managed the recovered objects.
This lady brought them into an office and keyed the details into a
computer.

“
Yes,” she said, “I can
see what happened. The security box had two things inside, a book
that looked like an old diary and a pouch with some jewelry inside.
Our preliminary estimate was that the diary is of no particular
value but the jewelry is highly valuable. So we stored them in a
new secure storage compartment in the off limits area. It is our
policy to hold items of this value for five years before we
consider disposing of them.”

Susan could feel relief flooding into her.
She did not know why these things were important but she knew they
were. They were a vital part of her life from before and, even if
she could not remember them, she needed to have them back and see
what they told her.

She asked, “So are we able to collect them
now?”

The lady looked carefully at her, as if
assessing what to do. “Well there are two things to cover; one is
to confirm your entitlement to the objects. The second is to pay
the outstanding fees for their storage. You have confirmed you know
the security code, so that is a start. In addition at the time you
stored the objects we recorded your driver’s license number as an
independent way of confirming your identity should the need
arise.”

Now Susan felt flummoxed again, she had no
memory of a license.

She said,
“I don’t have my license with
me, do you need to see it.”

The lady shook her head.
“No just the number
will suffice.”

Unbidden the
n
umber came
into Susan’s head. She recited it and the lady wrote it down. It
was checked against a field on the computer screen.

“
Well that is all correct. So
there is just a matter of $300 pounds; that is for two further
years of storage fees and an additional charge for the removal and
storage in a new location.”

Her mother pulled out her credit card and
made the payment.

In a five minutes Susan was holding these
two objects in her hands.

Her mother looked at her, curious, “Do you
want to check the contents?”

Susan shook her head, “No I just want to
bring them home. I will look at them later.”

Her mother shrugged and they drove
home.

*

Susan sat alone in her room in the late
night. She had suppressed her desire to look at the diary and the
bag of stones that she had carried home. She knew it had been a
subject of conversation with her mother and father and her Gran who
had stayed for dinner, she had walked into the room as they were
talking and felt the conversation fall into a lull on her
entrance.

Finally her father had blurted out, “Your
Mum was just telling us about your visit to Wokingham today,
meeting the Kashmiri man and his kind offer to translate the book,
and also about your stop off at the storage place on the way home,
how you remembered that you had left things there before you went
away.”

He stopped there, waiting for
her to
say
something. A silence ensued. Finally, realizing she was being
ungracious, she said. “I don’t really remember what it is. But I
feel like I need to have a look with Vic before I show whatever it
is to others. He may be able to help me understand what it
means.

“
So I plan to bring it home
tomorrow on the train and then we can have a look together. Once we
do that I promise I will tell you about it.”

They all nodded but she could see a
disbelieving look on all faces. She felt bad. She could not
remember lying deliberately before. Doing it to these people, who
had been so wonderful to her, felt unworthy.

But she could not bear to open something
so significant and private with anyone else looking on, not even
Vic. This book was a story of the life she had lost. She must know
what it said, just she and only she, to begin with.

After that no one raised the
contents of the locked box any further. The night proceeded with
laughter and humor, entertaining the children as
he
r parents
and Gran told stories about here when she was little. Now they were
all gone to bed, the children in their own room, Vic lying in the
crib alongside her bed, sleeping soundly.

She sat on her bed with the
book in her hands, looking at a reddish brown cover with only “Mark
B”, handwritten, to distinguish it.
It was just as she had remembered it from
when she had photographed the other book. She knew that inside
would be the words of writing her mind had glimpsed.

She felt no real interest in
the stones in the cloth pouch. The lady had said they were jewels,
but they felt like
small stones to her. One day soon, when she had read the
book, she was happy to open the pouch and show the stones to
others. She did not care about them. If they were valuable, all the
better, but it was of minor importance. The story must come first.
She knew, with a deep clarity, that this was her story, the key to
unlocking a part of her mind. She held the book in her hands and
immersed herself in its presence. It had its own presence, the
essence of a vanished spirit, perhaps Mark B.

She kept holding the book and
let it fill her consciousness; it had its own
clear presence. As she thought
of it she felt it enter her mind, it had a face, half human, half
crocodile. She should have been frightened, as on the day when she
glimpsed the crocodile tearing at her children. But there was none
of that, just a faint regretful curiosity, wondering where this man
had gone.

Now his crocodile part dissolved and only
the man remained. It was a regular man’s face, weather beaten edges
and an eye crinkling smile, not quite handsome, but utterly
arresting. It looked into and captivated her soul.

With a pang of pain she knew she had
utterly and totally loved this man. His departure had been the most
devastating thing she had ever known. She loved Vic no less, but
the sense of the loss of this earlier love was so powerful and
poignant that it dwarfed all else in her mind. She could feel tears
trickling down her cheeks.