Title: Mystery of Memory

Author: Kate, k4writer02

Rating: PG

Summary: Monica Wilkins wonders what a myth, an owl, and an otter have to with her unhappiness. DH spoilers abound in the author's note, if not in the story.

Memory: Etymology. Greek. mnemonikos "of or pertaining to memory," from mnemon (gen. mnemonos) "remembering, mindful," from mnasthai "remember," from ProtoIndoEuropean base men- "to think" (see mind (n.)).

"Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it." -Georges Duhamel

Monica Wilkins looks out the window of her Sydney home, longing for something she can't name. She's been living here, in New South Wales, for the better part of a year, and yet she feels less comfortable now than she did on that hazy day in August when she and Wendell arrived.

They'd been dreaming of Australia all their married lives—almost two decades. All those long years in England, cleaning teeth and filling cavities and spoiling the cat, they'd dreamed of it, of the sun and informality and kangaroos and magnificent opera house and beaches and aborigines.

Seven months ago, her mind had been full—bursting, actually—with trivia about her new home. She'd known the population and average rainfall and crops and exports of Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and New South Wales. She'd known them as though she'd read a tour book and memorized it, like she knew the royal succession of the British monarchy from 1066 to present.

She absently strokes the enormous orange cat they brought from England, the one who seems disdainful of them, and who has so thoroughly terrorized birds and small reptiles that none venture into the apartment courtyard. He tolerates her caresses, especially in her pensive moments, but spends more time sitting in puddles of sun and bathing himself.

It had taken Monica months to notice that the dream of Australia wasn't living up to the reality. There'd been a long period of hazy, delirious, uncritical bliss. When she remembers those days, it's like remembering the sense of well being she had the first time she breathed a lungful of laughing gas. She'd been drunk on the sun and the wine and the sense that dreams did come true.

Melancholy had stolen up to her at odd moments, till that pleasant haze had cleared from her eyes.

The first event that had shocked her out of her happy fog was innocuous enough—their cat, bandy-legged, with a flat face, had hunted down an owl—a peculiar one, that even to her clouded eyes looked more English than Australian. The cat had seemed savage, hardly a tame thing at all, as it scattered feathers and bones across their threshold. She'd scolded the cat—Garfield had been its original name—and the neighbors had been frowning at the blood on the walls.

Disturbed in ways she couldn't explain by the cat's savagery, she'd taken a walk to a park, not far from a branch of the public library. A chattering child—a girl in a blue jumper—had been pulling a wagon, piled with books. There'd been a few picture books, but more books of facts, written to a young adult.

The girl was speaking to her mother (or maybe her nanny, or sister, or aunt, but probably her mother) about wombats and marsupials and kangaroos and asking approximately a million questions. Monica watched the mother fielding the girl's questions and enthusiasm and she felt her eyes stinging. The scene was familiar and yet strange, like an out-of-focus photograph.

She sat down in the middle of the park, eyes watering, till Wendell and the cat appeared. The cat was quite clearly leading her husband—it had cleaned the gore off its face, and it looked oddly self-satisfied, tail waving like a banner.

"... but the gods gave no more children to Helenonce she had borne her first and only child, the lovelyHermione, with the beauty of Aphrodite the golden." [Homer, Odyssey 4.13

After that, Monica watched for the girl with the wagon of books. She started haunting the library, and though she didn't think she'd ever been a bookish woman, she recognized more books than she didn't, but vaguely. She knew that she'd seen them before, or remembered odd snatches of words, no more.

She read myths, which felt like old friends. She found herself half obsessed with Helen, Menelaus, the exile in Troy, and Helen's daughter. She was most interested in Helen's daughter, but found it almost impossible to remember the girl's name. Instead, she thought of her as the daughter, the abandoned girl raised more by a madwoman than by her own mother.

This is how Monica tells the story—Helen was beautiful, so beautiful she was dangerous. Her father married her off to Menelaus, who was rich and powerful and a bit stupid. Helen gave Menelaus a daughter. For nine years, or maybe eleven, they were happy, even though there were no more children.

And then Paris, the prince of Troy, visited their court. Helen left Sparta with him, and people have tried to figure out why for several thousand years.

"For either by will of Fate and decision of the gods and vote of Necessity did she do what she did, or by force reduced or by words seduced or by love possessed." – Gorgias, Encomium of Helen

Monica likes Gorgias best. He reminds the audience that if Helen were raped, then Paris, not Helen, was to blame. He ends up crediting words—words that worked like a spell, an enchantment, upon the queen, so that she could not help but follow Paris. That's what the speech is really about—about how using words skillfully is an art.

Monica doubts that words, be they magical, rhetorical, or ever so persuasive, would compel a mother to forget a daughter, a quick-witted Hermione, even if the sophist says "But if it was speech which persuaded her and deceived her heart, not even to this is it difficult to make an answer and to banish blame as follows. Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity."

Perhaps Aphrodite played a part in it and Helen fell in love. Perhaps it was simply the fact that Paris was as beautiful as she was and she was bored of her rich husband. Perhaps he abducted her and maybe she chose to go. But across the wine-dark sea Helen sailed, all the way to Troy.

Menelaus and his brother mobilized an army, which fought for ten years. When they breached the city, Menelaus raised a sword to Helen, and threatened to kill her. But at the very last moment, he spared her. Some say he spared her because Aphrodite intervened on behalf of her favorite. The stories say Helen knelt in front of him—and they imply that Helen's kneeling and Aphrodite's art saved the queen's life.

Monica believes that Helen used her mouth for more than talking, but that what saved her was her pleading for their daughter's sake. Monica does not like Helen, or her idea of Helen. But she thinks the woman was probably cunning enough to invoke her maternal role, when it suited her.

Helen knew the consequences of abandoning her stodgy husband, and even if at first it happened because Paris's words intoxicated her, no woman can stay drunk on love for a man for ten years.

When Monica is feeling charitable, she sometimes chooses to believe that Aphrodite made Helen forget her daughter. She thinks that Helen did not choose to abandon her little girl, and that part of the love goddess's madness was to make Helen think of eros only, forgetting philia to family, nation, and husband.

But could a love goddess really corrupt a mother's love that thoroughly?

"This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own."

- Aristotle

How awful would it be, to have a mother who chose to leave you, just because of a few magical, persuasive words? How would you live with that, when you were raised by Clytemnestra, who so loved her daughter, Iphigenia, that she killed her husband because he sacrificed their daughter? When you lived your life with women who put children first, wouldn't you feel inadequate, that you couldn't make your mother love you that way? Wouldn't you feel like there was something wrong with you?

It probably went the other way too. Monica thinks that maybe that's why Helen could leave—maybe she didn't love her daughter like she thought she was supposed to. If that were true, she felt guilty that she didn't love her daughter enough. Over time, she may have resented the child for making her feel guilty. The pressure built until Paris offered her a way out. It wasn't just love and pretty words that he promised—it was a place where people would whisper about her beauty and pay attention to her, as they had when she was a bride in Sparta. It is very difficult to awe the people who know you best—familiarity breeds contempt, as that American observed. And people never have only one reason to do something.

As a girl, Helen had probably always been treated differently—that happens when you're a half-goddess and the most beautiful mortal ever seen. Monica imagines she was ostracized by the women because they were jealous and made assumptions about her based on the ways that men treated her. And Helen lived up (or down) to their expectations. Monica knows this still happens; beautiful women, powerful women, smart women, and especially ambitious women can be enemies to one another.

And Helen didn't help herself. Monica can't imagine a woman that beautiful going out of her way to be kind or to make friends. She probably enjoyed all the admiration and attention—even got a thrill out of being the object of envy. She didn't have to be sweet, didn't have to be selfless. She enjoyed a privileged position in her father's home, where she attracted wealth. And later, in her husband's household, those bad habits continued—her looks, not her personality, were her meal ticket. She could charm a stranger well enough, but not those who knew her best. She did not know how to be selfless, didn't know how to live with comparisons between her aging beauty and her daughter's potential.

Would it be worse to be abandoned, or to live with the fact that you had abandoned your only child, a bright, shining girl?

And what became of Hermione?

"In my childhood I had no mother; my father was ever in the wars—though the two were not dead, I was reft of both." [Ovid, Heroides 8.89

Stories vary. Monica thinks that Hermione was an angry little girl, forever afraid of being abandoned, forever being traded between homes. Her father had promised her to Orestes, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son, her cousin, when they were children. Yet during the war, Menelaus pledged her to Achilles' son, Neoptolemus.

Clytemnestra, Helen's sister and Orestes' mother, murdered her husband shortly after his return from Troy. Accounts vary as to why—some say Clytemnestra wanted to keep the power she'd had in her husband's absence, and others that he hated the new concubine. Monica knows it is because Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia, his daughter, for wind to sail to Troy. The bereaved mother took her revenge, and then Agamemnon's son did what was called for—Orestes killed his father's killer. And he was tormented by the Furies for matricide. And, being under a curse, he was even denied his bride.

Most stories agree that Hermione married Neoptolemus, since her cousin was under a curse. She survived a time as a barren wife, while Neoptolemus's mistress bore him three sons. Some say that the jealousy made her mad. Monica chooses to believe that Hermione was not mad, but hurt. And she insists that things end happily, because Orestes—who had been cured of the curse—found her and rescued her from the loveless situation.

Beautiful Hermione left her husband for the man she loved, as her mother Helen had done. But there was no war over Hermione. She lived out her days happily with the man she had grown up with. And even though her lover had done terrible things, betrayed his family and abandoned Hermione (so much abandonment, Monica thinks), they were able to be happy. She preferred life with a murderer to life with an unfaithful hero.

Monica knows there is no lesson in the tale for her life—she is not a beauty, like Helen. She has only Wendell, not a handsome suitor in sight, enticing her to abandon this dentist she doesn't always recognize. She is childless. She will always be childless.

But she finds herself regretting the child's pain. Poor, abandoned Hermione.

Funny though, when she pictures the story, Monica doesn't envision a beautiful child, even though all the books say that Helen's daughter resembled her golden mother. When Monica pictures Hermione abandoned, she pictures a girl with frizzy hair and a fierce look of concentration. Not unlike her own frown, actually. But Monica can never focus on the girl's face long enough to remember it clearly—it is on a train, whooshing away from her.

When she thinks about it too long or too hard, the thoughts slip away, rather like otters diving from the visible world to the hidden depths. The thoughts surface frequently, like the otters. They cannot live without air, and the memories cannot stay completely out of her conscious mind. But when Monica tries to take action to grab the thoughts or the moods, to study them closely, they dart under water and out of her reach, too fast to grab hold.

The only things she knows are above water, so even though she catches glimpses, the thoughts, like the otters diving into the water, are too slick, sleek, and graceful to catch. It's all a mad thought, since otters live on every continent EXCEPT Australia. So she cannot fathom why she thinks of them so often.

Just as inexplicably, she finds herself looking for owls. Ever since the cat—Cook-thanks, Wendell renamed him, because he's so fat, and he always bows a little when they serve him a dish of cream or can of tuna—murdered the owl, she has watched for the birds. In England, she never thought twice about the birds that flew in the night. But here, she scans for them, day and night. What's more, she sees them, even in daylight. She reads books about Australian owls, and keeps a tally of which she has seen, and when, and where. Wendell finds the little scraps of paper wrapped up in an envelope. He looks troubled, but asks no questions.

This has become a pattern—increasingly, Monica and Wendell are living separate lives, kept company by their private thoughts. She cannot ever remember being so lonely. When they were first married, ever so many years ago, they talked constantly. She can't think what they talked about—dentistry? Music? The cinema? Traveling to Australia, most likely.

And babies. She thinks she must have talked often of babies, and wanting to have one. Why did she stop thinking of it? Why did she stop talking of it?

When her mind drifts there, she often finds herself lost, until Wendell or a patient calls her back to herself. It's disturbing to realize that she can lose fifteen minutes or a half an hour in a reverie that she doesn't even notice or remember.

And yet she worries the vague thoughts and fuzzy memories like a child with a loose tooth, like a teenager picking at scabs. It doesn't help heal it, but she simply cannot leave it alone.

She remembers most when she does not charge at the memory directly, but rather sidles up to it. Monica's never been good at indirection, so it's easier still when she's had some wine, and her thoughts connect illogically.

She becomes very fond of the wines in Australia, and thank heavens she's found something about the country to praise. She's beginning to have difficulty bearing the sun and the opposite weather. Christmas was the middle of summer and she wept for nearly an hour when she heard "White Christmas" on the wireless.

Monica doesn't think she used to cry like this. She doesn't remember—add it to the list.

She knows Wendell is suffering too, but he doesn't share his inner life with her. He works at her side, eats at her table, and even sleeps in the same bed. But they are about as connected as boats, traveling side by side without communicating.

They used to be able to talk about anything. Now, they talk about the cat. And dentistry. And how happy they are, that they are living their dreams.

The melancholy moments are striking harder and faster and deeper now. Monica is trying to make a list of clues, thinking that seeing it on paper will help her. She has consumed most of a bottle of Chardonnay, and is thinking well for this particular task, which means illogically.

On one piece of paper, she wrote "otter," and, on the back, in smaller letters, "memory". On another scrap of paper, she wrote "library" and "book wagon." On a third, "Helen's daughter." On a fourth, she writes "cat" and "owl." Garfield-Cook-thanks observes her clumsy handwriting. He seems to be considering eating the paper, so she pours wine into a dish for him. He sniffs it, laps it once or twice, and departs.

She taps her pencil, wondering whether she should write "Loneliness" or "Australia" or "Emigrant" or "Mother/Daughter" on the next piece of paper. What would be easiest to explain to Wendell, if he happened to come in? Finally, lips pursed, she chooses "Immigrants" and a small explanation "memorized dreams."

That's it, really, maybe. Maybe she's dissatisfied because Australia isn't living up to her dreams of it. But shouldn't she remember WHY she and Wendell wanted to come here? Or at least when that dream became something they shared? Shouldn't she want to be here, instead of hating the climate and the fact that the water drains counterclockwise? Shouldn't there be traces of a dream that are more alive than a list of facts?

She sips more wine, because it won't do to forget everything just yet.

She focuses on lining the papers up perfectly, and lets her thoughts drift. Right now, if her thoughts were otters, they would be floating right there on the surface, on their backs, cradling a shell or some part of dinner. She's planning to ferret out some piece of new knowledge to add to these cards. She's just added "train" and "bushy hair" to the card that says "Helen's daughter" when she drifts away into one of those disturbing periods of oblivion, the reverie she doesn't remember.

She might stay like that all night, but there's an owl at her window. Monica looks around, but the cat is nowhere to be seen. The owl scratches the glass and hoots at her. She shivers involuntarily. The animal is magnificent, with an impressive wing span and sharp beak. It scratches again, and she has a feeling that it is trying to communicate with her. It's the same feeling she has when Cookthanks cocks his head at her and tries to lead her somewhere.

Monica makes her way to the window slowly, like she's swimming through syrup, because her body does not want to cooperate with her. She wrestles the pane open, and then stands, looking at the perched owl. The poor thing is panting.

"Are you ill?" She asks it, still feeling like she's wandered out of her daily life.

The owl tilts its massive head, ruffles feathers and settles in a birdlike way.

"I guess not." Monica backs away (this is easier) and she fills a dish with water for the owl. She sets it down and the bird makes an odd sound. She'd say it was a sigh, if she were the kind of foolish woman who personified animals. Which she is not. Even if she does think of her mind as a river where otters frolic. "You better shoo. We've got a cat."

The owl lifts a leg toward her, and it's only then that she realizes there is something attached to the bird. Perhaps it was tagged by a university student? Monica has no words. But, since the bird seems to expect it and she is tipsy, she reaches out and unfastens some paper scroll from the bird's leg.

It is a piece of paper, and it has only one sentence. "I know who I am. Do you?"

Mystified, Monica stares at the owl. It bows at her and flies away, leaving her with a scrap of paper and a headache. Yet as she stares at the paper, certain letters fade, leaving "I o M i a k." The letters swim and she isn't sloshed enough for that to happen. The message becomes, "I am ok." Then, more letters fade, till she is left to stare at "I am."

And then, the letters fade, like they never were, and she is holding an empty piece of paper, staring out an open window into an Australian night, wondering if she imagined the whole incident.

She decides she should not drink anymore wine tonight, and she pours out the last of the bottle. She leaves the kitchen and enters the bedroom, where she lays beside her husband. The cat sits in the doorway , fur bristling.

If she did not know better, she would think it was chastising her.

An owl and an otter chase one another in her mind, until at last she falls into an uncomfortable sleep, broken by the sound of a train. She dreams of Helen's daughter, waving goodbye as her mad mother abandons her, seduced or compelled by magic words and forgetfulness and ugly resentment.

Monica turns over to watch Wendell snore.

She doesn't sleep.

Author's Note:

Rowling valorizes mothers and their devotion to their children throughout the HP series, and especially in DH. Harry is protected by Lily's love and sacrifice; Molly Weasley defeats an insane witch because Bellatrix threatens Ginny. Dumbledore's mother makes sacrifices to care for her daughter (does she ever). Petunia will follow Dudley anywhere, and even Narcissa Malfoy will sacrifice the Dark Lord's interests to get into the castle where Draco is. So with all these self-sacrificing, loving mothers, how is it possible for Hermione to banish hers to Australia? I know that "Obliviate" works because of her act of will, and because she wants to protect her parents, but I wonder if even a witch as strong as Hermione Granger could counteract the most powerful magic in Rowling's world—the power of a mother's love.

The quotes about Hermione, Helen's daughter, came from here:

http://homepage.