The Rhythm of Memory by Alyson Richman Page A

Samuel through a thick Baltimore accent. “But believe me, if you are truly interested in psychiatry, you will reach down and reflect on your own life and the reasons behind all of your choices. In the end, it will make you a better doctor, I assure you.”
    At first, it was hard for Samuel to talk about his childhood. There were events that he had pushed out of his memory, such as the time when he was nine and had returned home hungry from school. Having been unable to find one of the maids, he went in search of his mother only to find her slicing small lacerations into her wrists.
    The family villa in Miraflores was not particularly large. Its grandest feature was the spiral stairwell that began in the modest vestibule and wrapped to the second-floor landing, where the family bedchambers were hidden behind heavy teak doors. Down the long corridor to the left was Samuel’s parents’ room; he had walked there quietly, thinking that perhaps his mother, who often slept during the afternoon, was asleep.
    He remembered that he found the door ajar, that he pushed it open quietly, careful not to disturb his mother’s slumber. But he did not find her in her tall, canopied bed as he imagined, but rather at her dressing stand. Her robe carelessly off one shoulder, her back bent like an archer’s bow over a pair of frail, shaking hands.
    In his memory, he sees her in profile. She, in front of her rosewood vanity, the three-paneled mirror reflecting her in akaleidoscope of angles. Her black hair, now lined with silver, piled behind a pink scarf that is wrapped tightly around her small, delicate head.
    He realizes now, as he withdraws into his memory, that he has always believed that his mother was the most beautiful creature. That he could accept her mental deterioration far more easily than the waning of her physical charms. She would always be that beautiful Frenchwoman in his mind, with perfect lipstick—the one with the black velvet suit and the white satin cuffs. Not the one dependent on sleeping pills, not the one who now wore oversize housecoats. The one of Paris, long ago.
    But now, the memory of his standing at the threshold and seeing his mother’s spine twisting beneath the satin robe like the brittle branch of an ancient oak tree, her perfume bottles scattered over the tabletop and the drawers in disarray, returned.
    “What did you see?” the therapist asks Samuel.
    “I didn’t see anything until she turned around and looked at me. Her face was all streaked with running makeup, her breast only barely covered by the quilted collar of her robe. In one hand, I saw Father’s razor blade. In the other, I saw a small river of blood running from her wrist.
    “I don’t believe she was trying to kill herself, I think she was only trying to release her pain.”
    Samuel winced. “I remember that when the doctor came, he bandaged Mother up and sedated her. I overheard him speaking with Father, telling him that the family was lucky this time, that she was trying to signal for help.”
    “And did she receive help?”
    Samuel was quiet for a few moments. The vinyl sofa was beginning to feel sticky beneath him. The therapy was exhausting him.
    “No.” He paused and let out a deep sigh. “Father believedthat this kind of ‘help’ was better kept between the family and the servants. He was afraid of the stigma it might bring upon the family.”
    The doctor wiggled his pencil in the air. “How does your father feel about your decision to go into psychiatric medicine?”
    “He’s indifferent, I suppose.”
    “Indifferent?”
    “Well, our relationship has been strained since my mother passed away. Since I didn’t join my two brothers in the family business back in Peru, I think he feels there is little he can talk to me about.
    “I don’t want to make textiles and worry about whether a shipment is going to arrive on time or production costs are on schedule,” Samuel said as he readjusted himself on the couch. “I