Memories
By Jim Getz
Mina Riti had been sitting on the hard olive chair in the interrogation room with its hard olive tile walls for exactly 23 minutes and 47 seconds when a beefy woman in standard FBI or CIA or other acronym attire pushed through the door, threw a manila file on the table in front of her, then sat across from her.
“I’m Agent Ferris. They told you why you’re here?”
Mina recognized the standard drill. She was tired of it. All she wanted was to get home to snuggle with her cat, Rashi. She leaned back, crossed her arms and then her legs at the ankles, and looked up at the olive ceiling. “I don’t recall.”
“Funny,” Ferris said, picking up the file and flipping through it. “They say you can read minds.”
“’They’ don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Ferris held the file open to a photograph of a man face down on a sidewalk, a pool of blood formed by his side. She slid the photo across the table. “Then how did you help Boston PD find the shooter in this one? That’s you, behind the lamppost, right? You couldn’t have possibly seen everything from your angle.”
Mina looked up again, and away. “I’m assuming they already told you, and your memory is fine.”
Ferris read from the file. “Witness says she got impressions from other witnesses at the scene. Witness says when others view a traumatic event, she picks up the imprints once they have formed into memories. Witness picked up imprint from 9-year-old girl who saw the sniper, and then from the sniper. Girl remembered black baseball cap. Sniper remembered he needed cigarettes from his favorite 7-Eleven.”
“Well,” Mina replied. “Now I need a cigarette.”
Ferris jerked her thumb toward the red-and-white “No Smoking” sign behind her.
“Gee,” Mina snarked. “I forgot.”
“You seem to think this is funny, but I assure you ..”
“Look!” Mina cut her off. “They already solved the crime, so what do you need me for? Who the hell are you?”
Ferris relented, softened her tone. “FBI. Counter-terrorism unit. We need one more memory from that day.”
Mina sprung from her chair, began pacing rapidly across the olive linoleum. “There are no other memories from that day!” Her voice began rising toward a shriek. “I told them everything!”
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A male agent thrust open the door, but Ferris held up her hand. He nodded and backed out.
“Mina, it’s important. It’ll be OK.” Ferris hesitated on the next sentence, then gambled and went for it. “We can offer you protection if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Mina stopped pacing, put her hands on the back of her chair. “Didn’t your Boston buddies tell you the whole story? It’s not in your … dossier … on me?”
Ferris remained silent.
“So you do know then. That every time I recall someone else’s memory, I lose one of my own. But you don’t care. None of you do.”
“Mina,” Ferris said steadily. “We need the final memories of the victim. We know he was a courier for people who had nuclear bomb parts, but he never carried documents. He kept it all in his head. And the shooter still won’t talk.”
“It doesn’t work that way, always,” Mina said, suddenly calm. “In death, sometimes it’s the old ‘life flashing before his eyes’ thing. He could’ve been remembering his childhood. Or an ex-lover. Or his favorite trip. Or his regrets.”
“Those bomb parts could be in this city, right now,” Ferris said quietly. “Or the bomb.”
Mina sat back down, suddenly very tired. “OK.” She closed her eyes. “Give me a minute.”
To Ferris, the seconds felt like hours.
“834 Amsterdam Avenue,” Mina said, her eyes still closed. “He’s with his best friend. As a boy. In the basement, with red — no, orange — curtain on the basement windows. But … it’s very strong. It’s not just in the past. It was very much in the present. Then …” her voice drifted off. “It goes black.”
The male agent pushed into the room again. Ferris swiveled in her chair to address him. “You got that? Get a team over there now. Worry about the warrant later.” He rushed out as fast as he had burst in.
Ferris swiveled back. “Thanks. I hope it pans out.”
“It will. I have zero doubt.” Annoyed Mina, assertive Mina, had returned. “I’m going now. Don’t try to stop me — or I’ll tell your superior about one of your memories.”
Ferris flushed, then rose and opened the door. “You are, of course, free to go.”
Minutes later, back out on the street, Mina let the tears flow. She knew she had to get home to her cat. If only she could remember his name.
— JUNE 2023
