Masquerade Read Online Free Page A

cheeks rounder. "But it is ironic, non, that many people wish they could forget their past, while you seek so valiantly to remember yours."
    At that moment a small, quick man with bushy hair and beetle brows bustled into her hospital room, a clipboard and manila folder tucked under his arm. "I am Dr. Gervais. Dr. St. Clair asked—" He stopped and blinked at the inspector. "You have a visitor."
    "Inspector Claude Armand." He smoothly produced his identification.
    "You are here to question the patient?" The doctor blinked at him again, with a certain vagueness in his expression.
    "And you are here to examine her." The inspector smiled, but as usual, the smile didn't reach his eyes. "You have no objection to my sitting in, do you?"
    The doctor seemed momentarily taken aback by the request, then lifted his shoulders in a brief, indifferent shrug. "You may stay or go, as you wish." With that settled, he turned and introduced himself to her again. "Dr. St. Clair tells me the injury to your head has caused a defect in your memory."
    "A defect—that's an understatement, Doctor. I don't remember anything. Not my name, my address, or my family—assuming I have one."
    "Hmmm," he said, as if he found her response most interesting, then flicked a hand in her direction. "Please make yourself comfortable, and we will talk about this."
    "In other words, lie down on the couch," she murmured dryly.
    He gave her a startled look, then glanced around the room. "There is no couch," he said, then the curious frown that had pulled his heavy brows together cleared in a dawning realization. "Ahh, you make a joke. It is good you have retained your sense of humor"
    "It is one of the few things I've retained." Avoiding the bed, she crossed to a chair and sat down, conscious of the inspector standing quietly to one side, silently listening, observing.
    The doctor sat himself down in the other chair and crossed his legs at the knee, one foot swinging in a nervous rhythm as he arranged the clipboard on his lap and opened the manila folder to leaf through the papers inside. "Shall we begin?" he said.
    After thirty minutes, during which he tested her current memory retention, asked numerous general-knowledge questions, and questioned her extensively about her past, specifically her religion, her patience was exhausted.
    During a lull, she demanded, "What are we accomplishing with all this, Doctor?"
    He gave her a look that seemed to say the answer was obvious. "I am attempting to determine the extent of your memory impairment. Amnesia has many causes and takes many forms—senility, alcoholism, electroconvulsive therapy, acute encephalitis, brain trauma. ... In severe cases, amnesia symptoms primarily stem from damage to such brain structures as the mammillary bodies, circumscribed parts of the thalamus, and—"
    She broke in, shaking her head in confusion. "You are being too technical, Doctor."
    "My apologies." There was a quick bob of his bushy head. "My initial findings tell me that you have what we call traumatic amnesia, as a result of the concussion you suffered. This is a common aftereffect of a severe head injury."
    "But when will my memory return?"
    "That is impossible to say. It could be today, tomorrow, next week, next month." He leaned back in the chair and pulled thoughtfully at a thick eyebrow. "It will probably return gradually, with pieces of your past coming back to you—perhaps in chronological order, from the most recent, or perhaps haphazardly, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that finally fit together."
    "But it isn't permanent?"
    "There have been cases where the patient has never recovered his memory, but they are rare." He hesitated, then added, "However, it is altogether possible that you may never remember the events that immediately preceded your injury."
    "In other words, I might not remember the identity or description of the man I was seen struggling with,' she concluded.  
    "Correct."
    "You haven't said