The Remembering Read Online Free PDF

apartment.
    “Koki,” I said, “Koki, do you hear the music?”
    Before he knew what he was doing, Koki raised his head and smiled. I could see every one of his stained teeth and even smell his breath from across the table. “Yes, mister,” Koki said. “She likes the music, hello.” A second later he realized what he had done and it scared him. His smile dropped instantly. He bent his head down and resumed his frozen stare at the chessboard, rocking back and forth and moaning slightly.
    “Who is ‘she,’ Koki?” I asked. “You said ‘she.’ Who is ‘she’?” I asked again, but I knew I wasn’t going to get any more responses. Koki had retreated completely into himself and the chessboard.
    Somehow, I had to find a way to gain Koki’s conscious awareness of me without frightening him away. I had to become real in his world, not he in mine. As I thought about the problem, I listened closely to the music. I hadn’t heard it in years, but I knew the piece. It was one of Solomon’s favorite symphonies—Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, the work Mahler himself originally titled Aus dem Leben eines Einsamen , “from the life of a lonely-one.” I thought back to the many times in Carolina’s home when Solomon would play the symphony on the phonograph while we were reading or doing other things, such as playing chess. And then it hit me! There might be a unique way to break through to Koki’s world. It was a long shot, but I remembered something Solomon had shown me one rainy day when we were listening to Mahler and I was beating him soundly in a game of chess. I had him down to six pieces. Solomon slowly surveyed his remaining pieces, laughed to himself, and then proceeded to checkmate me in six lightning-quick, seemingly irrational moves. I asked him how he had done it and he said Emanual Lasker, the great German champion, had shown him a series of moves, an endgame progression that he called the “Davidsstern,” or Star of David. Solomon said the progression would only work in a particular situation and it would probably only work one time against a grandmaster because a grandmaster would never forget the progression once he had seen it. I looked down at the positions of my six remaining pieces on the chessboard. I was in luck. Each piece was in the exact position Solomon’s had been. Six crazy, unlikely moves later, I glanced up at Koki. I cleared my throat and said the magic word—“Checkmate.”
    Koki stopped rocking. He was drooling and his eyeglasses had slipped down his nose, but he didn’t wipe his chin or push up his glasses. He only stared at the chessboard. He showed no emotion or expression on his face or in his eyes. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down blankly, as if he had simply come to the end of a long sentence and there was nothing left to read. The Fleur-du-Mal had told me that ever since Koki was a boy, since he first learned the rules of the game, he had never been checkmated. Somewhere behind the stone wall, Mahler’s symphony began the second movement. Koki raised his head and looked directly into my eyes. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t afraid.
    “Hello, Koki,” I said. “My name is Z.”
    Koki was about to reply when all the electric lamps in the great room went dark and behind the stone wall the music stopped playing. Electricity to the shiro had been cut again. We still had light in the great room, but very little. I looked around and only two candles were burning in the wall lamps. Ten seconds later the door to the Fleur-du-Mal’s private chambers burst open and the Fleur-du-Mal stormed into the great room. Mumbling and cursing in French, he walked over to a long table against the wall and found a box of candles. Methodically he proceeded to light every wall lamp in the room. Then he walked over to where Koki was sitting and stood behind him, stroking his hair gently from behind. “Tu me peles le jone,” he said in a low, bitter voice. Koki