The Memory Thief

By Matt Mills · Estimated Reading Time: 15 Minutes

If you are ever walking in the streets of Seghol, past the bazaar on Daghesh Street where they sell shrunken heads in baskets and tell your fortune in exchange for copper coins, you may spot an old blind man sitting in the mouth of an alley. He will be fanning himself in the heat of the day, a tin cup perched on his knee. His white eyes will watch the crowds, as if he alone can see into their souls. 

When you see him, you will find yourself drawn to him. You will make your way over, and he will raise his head before you have said a word. He will smile and say, “A tale for five qibbuts?”

And you, being intrigued, will drop the little coin in the cup. It will clang against the bottom, and at the sound the old man will bow his head low and say the begadkephat in humble thanks. When the traditional prayer has passed through his lips, he will raise his head and look toward the west where that great desert the Taw swallows men alive, and a breeze will go through the silver wisps of his hair.

Then he will laugh, and he will tell you this story.

✷

Many years ago, in the city of Holem, which is across the yawning Taw, there was a man with a very peculiar skill: he could remove memories. He ran a shop in a dirty alleyway, out of sight, and whenever someone had something they wished to forget, they would come to him: mothers whose children had died, spurned lovers with broken hearts, soldiers haunted by the war. One by one they would come through his door, and he would sit them in his chair and, making careful incisions in their skull, remove a little piece of something from inside: sometimes the size of a sunflower seed, sometimes the size of an acorn. They would give him a bag of silver coins and he would take the memory—seed-sized or acorn-sized—and put it in a box in his cellar, where it could not bother anyone anymore. 

For this reason, he was called the Memory Healer.

One day, two men pushed open the door of the Memory Healer’s little shop. The Memory Healer looked up to greet them, but when he saw their bronze breastplates and long spears, his face went white. They were soldiers of the king. 

This made the Memory Healer very afraid for he was operating with no papers or permits.

The soldiers took him to the center of the city. There, rising up above the bustling marketplace, were high stone walls adorned with crimson banners, glistening with morning dew. Under the big archway they went, through the outer courtyard until they passed through another, smaller wall and came into a lush garden. Despite his fear, the Memory Healer could not help but be amazed: in all his life, living as he did on the edge of the desert, he had never seen so much green.

In the midst of the garden was a man. He was very old and very tall, with broad shoulders and a long gray beard. He was pouring water onto a bed of roses with a silver watering can; the water went down onto the petals and was sucked up by the greedy earth. On the man’s head was a gold circlet encrusted with a ruby scarab. It was the king of Holem.

“I hear you perform some curious wizardry,” said the king.

The Memory Healer tried to keep his voice from shaking. “Is there a memory you wish for me to remove, my king?”

But the king laughed, a raspy, rheumatic laugh. He raised a hand dotted with liver spots and pointed. There, on the other side of the garden, was a young man reclining on a seat of cushions, surrounded by peacocks. He was skeletal, like a withered fruit left to dry overnight in the sand, and was dressed head to toe in royal crimson. Gloves covered his hands and slippers his feet. Only his face was exposed, and it was horrifying to behold: the flesh had been eaten away, the bones of his jaw protruding and visible.

When the Memory Healer saw this monstrosity, he recoiled. But the young man only smiled, his lips curving over exposed bone.

“I’m really quite sorry about this,” the young man said.

“Be silent, my son,” said the king. “What you see before you, Healer, is the great secret of my kingdom and my great shame: my son the prince is a cripple and a leper.”

The Memory Healer stared in amazement. He had heard rumors, it was true, passed on in whispers in the taverns and the alleyways. But he had not given them any credibility.

“My son can hardly leave his bed,” the king said. “Doctors attend to him night and day. But the worst thing of all is this: he will never know the thrill of riding horseback across the plain to meet his foe, nor the spray of a waterfall on his face, nor brush of fingertips on his cheek.” The king’s black eyes shone. “I would like for you to give him these memories.”

The Memory Healer was shocked. “My king, I don’t know how to do that.”

“Don’t be a fool. My spies have reported to me that you have hundreds of memories stored away in that cellar of yours.”

“All bad memories, my king. Drowned children and adultery and nightmares; nothing that will benefit your son.”

The king frowned. He turned and beckoned an aide over to him. They talked for a long time. On the couch of cushions, the prince held out seeds in his gloved hand for the peacocks and smiled a weak smile at the Memory Healer.

Finally, the king said: “Very well. We will subsidize your new endeavor.”

“My new endeavor, my lord?”

“The crown is prepared to offer 10,000 qibbuts a month in exchange for memories for my son.”

Now, the Memory Healer was not a particularly greedy man. But when he heard the number the garden changed before his eyes: with money like that, he could have a garden of his own. He could grow fruit and flowers and sit in the cool while everyone else went about in the dust and hid from the noonday sun.

Thus, it came about that: for the next several months, whenever a client came to the Memory Healer’s shop to have a bad memory removed, the Memory Healer took a good one as well.

It started small: a sunrise, a kiss. But soon his confidence grew, and with it his pride: he attempted more and more daring extractions, and soon he was removing wedding celebrations, the birth of children, nights of swimming in lagoons and sleeping out in the desert under the stars. 

And in the court of the king, he began to be known as something else altogether: they called him the Memory Maker.

This went on for a year. Within a few months, the Memory Maker had boarded up his old, dusty shop and moved to a prime location across the marketplace from the palace, with high turrets and a little courtyard where he brought soil and seeds. He even purchased a little silver watering can of his own.

Then, one day, the king fell ill. He was ill for forty nights. On the forty-first night, he died. And on that very evening, as all of Holem went into mourning, two strangers came through the Memory Maker’s door. 

They were not king’s guards. Nor were they his usual clientele. No, their eyes were sharp, and they wore strange clothes and had sand in their hair, like they had ridden the length and breadth of the Taw itself.

“Good evening,” said one. “You are the Memory Maker, yes?”

The Memory Maker’s chest tightened. No one called him that outside the palace; he had been careful to keep his services to the prince secret, careful not to let his illicit practices be discovered.

“I don’t know what you mean, good sir. I am but a humble healer.”

“Do you take us for fools? We have spies inside the palace; we know what you can do.”

Then the Memory Maker asked: “Who are you?”

“We are from Seghol.”

When the Memory Maker heard the name of that place, that kingdom across the desert that was ever Holem’s enemy, he became afraid. “What do you want with me? I am not a soldier.”

“Perhaps not. But you have been equipping the prince for war all the same.”

“I have done no such thing!”

“Indeed, you have. You have been putting thoughts of lust and glory in his head, knowledge of battlefields and foreign lands he never would have possessed apart from your craft. You have been molding him into the image of his father, that warmonger and tyrant.”

They spat on the floor, and the Memory Maker flinched. All of Holem was in mourning, and these men—these foreigners—had the gall to dishonor the king in this way? Yet the Memory Maker knew they judged rightly: despite the wails that were going up from every corner of the city, the people of Holem had not loved their king. He had been a man of many thirsts, who had taxed them dry, who had seized their daughters for his officers, who had sent their sons off to die in his bloody wars.

“Why have you come?”

“To convince you to undo your work: you have put these memories in the prince’s head. We want you to take them back.”

“Take them back?”

“And not these only: all of them. We want you to open up his head and scoop out everything inside so that nothing is left.”

He stared at them. “You would leave Holem without a king.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot. They will know it was me. They will find me and they will kill me.”

But they shook their heads. “When the deed is done, meet us at the far end of the city. We will escort you across that great, cruel wasteland, the Taw, until you are safe in Seghol, where you will live the rest of your life as the richest man in the land.”

“The richest?”

“Indeed. We are prepared to pay four million qibbuts for this service to the throne of Seghol.”

Now, the Memory Maker was not a particularly greedy man. But when he heard the number, his shop was transformed around him: he saw himself not in a tidy little storefront, but in a palace, with servants and guards and musicians. He could cease his practice altogether: he could be a man of influence, of power.

Thus, that very night he went to the palace. When he came to the quarters of the prince, he found him weeping.

“Memory Maker!” cried the prince when he saw him. “You have given me battles, and adventure, and love affairs. You have given me feeling in my legs and wind on my skin. But now you must become the Healer once again. You must take this awful night from me.”

The Memory Maker was surprised. “I did not think you bore any great love for your father.”

“My father was a wicked man. He despised me, it is true. But it is precisely for this reason that you must take this memory from me, for now that he is gone, I know I will never have the chance to win his approval.”

The Memory Maker’s heart went into his throat. “Lie back, good prince, and sleep. When you awake, you will remember nothing.”

And so the Memory Maker took everything from the prince. Every memory of his father, every memory he had falsely implanted, and everything else. He left only scraps, until the prince’s mind was like an empty room, swept and locked.

After that night, when they whispered his name in the taverns and alleyways, they called him the Memory Thief.

Filled with guilt and fear, the Memory Thief hurried back to his home across the marketplace. He took all the money from his safe that he could carry, stuffing his pack with clothes and a bedroll, leaving behind all the memories in his cellar…all, that is, but the memories belonging to the prince. These memories weighed him down, packed tightly in a wooden box, heavy in his satchel. All this he took and, locking his door, fled to the edge of town.

There, on the outskirts of the city, was a small well. It served as the final outpost before the desert, the last sanctuary before the vastness of the Taw. The Memory Thief waited there for a long time, looking out into the dark sands. There were no marketplace sounds here, no din of hagglers and camels wafting past his window, no laughing babies or clinking spears of the king’s guard. There was only the wind and the creaking echo of the bucket inside the well. The Memory Thief shivered.

Finally, from behind him, he heard the sound of hooves. They came wrapped in turbans and cloaks, dressed for a long journey: the men from Seghol. 

But they were not alone: leading them, dressed in haggard traveler’s tunic, was a woman. There was a sword on her belt, and she was guiding a fourth horse, saddled and riderless. When they approached, she reigned them in and frowned.

“You are the Thief?”

The Memory Thief nodded. “I am.”

“Show me the memories.”

The Memory Thief fumbled about in his pack, producing the wooden box. The woman took it and opened it. She pulled out a single chunk of memory, acorn-sized, holding it up to inspect it in the light of the moon. Then she nodded and handed the box to one of the men, who tucked it out of sight.

“You have done well. Come: we ride across the desert. Your reward is waiting for you on the other side.”

And so they plunged into the Taw, that great abyss of light and heat. They traveled by night and slept by day, hiding from the face of the sun inside their bedrolls. They went in silence: the rhythm of hoofbeats puncturing the sand became a refrain in their ears. The Memory Thief kept his eyes fixed downward, watching the ground pass under him and feeling the tough hair of the horse’s mane. He was unable to look up, for when he did he saw the Taw, eternal and formless, stretching from horizon to horizon, filled with nothing. Then he thought of the prince and became dizzy.

Days and nights slipped by. They kept riding. On and on they went, until all else was forgotten. 

Finally, one morning at dawn, the Memory Thief was watching the smoke from the dying campfire when the woman looked up at him.

“Tomorrow we arrive in Seghol,” she said.

Warmth and relief spread into the Memory Thief’s limbs. The numbing repetition of hooves and the desert air had been seeping even into his dreams, but at the words he dared to hope.

Through the campfire smoke, the woman was watching him. Her eyes were dark and clear.

“Tell me, Memory Thief,” she said. “When we come to the city and the reward is yours, what will you do with this money?”

The Memory Thief licked his cracked lips. Ever since entering the Taw, the promised reward had ceased to rule his mind: but now, here at the end, he let his thoughts creep forward again and he found his old thirst.

“I will live in a palace and eat all the fine foods I desire,” he said. “I will have a harem and a hundred children and I will never work again. I will travel all over the world and speak with kings and philosophers and become the most learned man in history.”

The woman nodded. “That is well and good. But you know better than anyone that you will not keep these things forever. Look around you.”

She raised her hands to the vast space. But the Memory Thief did not look. He did not want to. He could feel the sloping dunes watching him, like giants in the night.

“In this place, time and reality are jarred loose. They roll like tumbleweeds, pushed here and there by the winds, until one day they break apart and are consumed. So too will age and death come for you, Thief. They will drain the memories from your skull the way the sands of the Taw drain the moisture from the air. One day, you will lose everything you have collected.”

The Memory Thief was silent for a long moment. Then, in defiance, he said: “Then I will help the poor and give to the needy. I will build schools and hospitals. I will write books and make ten thousand copies. I will become a powerful king and conquer a hundred kingdoms. I will scatter seeds that will take root in the memories of others, that I might be remembered forever.”

As he said it, the wind picked up. He felt it crawling over his skin, under his cloak and inside his turban. It was cold.

“And when those memories fade?” said the woman, her voice quiet. “When your children die? When your kingdoms and monuments crumble and your books are lost? When the sun goes out and all the world becomes dark and cold and humanity itself is snuffed from existence? Who will remember you when there is no one left to remember?”

The Memory Thief stopped his ears. “Witch!” He cried. “You speak with the voice of the desert. No more! I will leave this terrible place and stay where there is laughter and green plants and cool water. Speak to me no more!”

“Very well.” The woman stood. She lifted her boot and trod on the fire, scattering its ashes, and the light went out. “But mark my words, Thief. There will come a day when your name will be forgotten.”

The next day, they came at last to Seghol. The Memory Thief’s beard and skin were caked with sand, his throat so dry that he could not make a sound, but when he beheld the high walls and waving blue banners of Seghol he could feel life stir within him. There were camels in the distance, and traders, and on the breeze he could hear the clamor of voices in the streets, could smell meat roasting on spits.

“Follow me,” said the woman. “And our pact will be fulfilled.”

So they came into the city. They watered their horses at a well and drank from the bucket, scooping out the dark water in ladles, like a rainstorm after a long drought. The Memory Thief thought it was better than anything he had ever tasted.

Inside the walls, they passed through markets and wound down dusty streets. There were children playing and clothes strung out to dry. On one corner a man was selling fruit in baskets. The Memory Thief took it all in as he followed the woman and the two men down alleyways, coming at last to a winding staircase. They went up it and came to a door. The woman pushed it open and beckoned him.

“Come,” she said.

The Memory Thief stepped through the door.

There was a chair in the middle of the room. Next to it was a workbench on which lay many long knives, some thick and others thin. The place had a smell like vinegar, and on the shelves were boxes filled with things like little rocks: some seed-sized, some acorn-sized.

Then the two men were on him. They grabbed his arms, wrestled him into the chair. He tried to fight, but the desert had sapped his strength: they pushed him down and held his arms behind him.

“What is the meaning of this?” shouted the Memory Thief.

“Did you think you were the only one in the world capable of such tricks?” said the woman.

At her words, a curtain parted in the back of the shop. Standing behind it was an old man. He was holding a little silver knife.

The Memory Thief trembled. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Don’t you know?” The woman cocked her head. “Can it be that you truly don’t recognize me?

“Madame, I have never seen you before in my life!”

“No, not in person. But perhaps in the prince’s mind.”

The Memory Thief’s eyes widened. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” There was a glint in her eyes. “I am the unwanted daughter of the dead king of Holem. I am his firstborn, offspring of a slave, the helpless lovechild he cast into the desert to die, cast out in favor of that leprous beast.” She drew herself up. “I am my father’s daughter. The rule of Holem is mine.”

The old man was standing over the Memory Thief now. Putting alcohol on a rag, he began to wipe the Memory Thief’s forehead.

“Wait!” cried the Thief. “I can help you. I would be a most valuable servant!”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it: your skill is unmatched. That’s why I’m not going to kill you.” She paused. “Yet I can’t let you walk around knowing what you know, can I?”

The knife pressed against his temple. Waiting.

The princess, the queen of Holem, leaned in. He could feel her breath on his face. It smelled like sand. “Don’t worry, Thief. I will put your memories someplace where they will be remembered for a hundred years.”

The knife went in, and the Memory Thief screamed.

✷

When the story is finished, the old man will bow his head. You will wait for a moment to see if he will speak again, but he will only be murmuring the begadkephat and shaking the coins in his little tin. At last you will clear your throat and ask, and then what?

The old man will look up. His eyes will be blank. 

And then time marched on, he will say.

Out in Daghesh Street, your traveling companions will be haggling with a vendor over little ivory carvings of elephants, stumbling through the words of the foreign language. You will be restless. Yet still you will linger, teetering on the edge of worlds.

Then you might ask him, a little indignant, if this story is true. But he will only laugh. What becomes of memories? he will say. What becomes of a life? Do they take root like trees? Do they bear fruit and have seedlings of their own? Or do they wither? Can they be given as gifts or can they be stolen? Can one man lose his own story and another claim it?

And if you ask him who he is and how he came to know this story, he will only grin a sly grin. Am I a thief? Am I a prince? Or am I merely a beggar in possession of stolen memories, some seed-sized and some acorn-sized? 

You will be distracted then: your companions are waving you over. You will take a step to leave, then, remembering, turn to ask the old man his name.

But by then he will have fallen asleep.

✷

Story by Matt Mills · Photo by Annie Spratt

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