Page 21 of Hunter

“What did we do?”

He shook his head. “I can’t answer your questions. All I know is that remembering you gives me—feelings. Like when a little of the music drifts into my mind.”

“What kind of music?”

“With many instruments. Complex. Blending. Trumpets. Cellos. The music swells and dies down.”

“A symphony?”

“Maybe.”

She watched the play of emotions on his face as he stood very still, staring into space. “Before you came here, the music was the most vivid. But with you, it is even stronger.”

She tried to imagine the deprivation of being cut off from her past—of snatching at bits of memory or making them up to fill a black void in her mind. Was he cursed with complete amnesia except for a few sensory memories? Or did he recall basic facts about history and other subjects?

“Who was president before John Kennedy?” she asked.

“Dwight Eisenhower. The first president was George Washington. The second was John Adams. The third—”

“You know all of them?”

“Yes.”

Few people could come up with the whole list. Amazed, she came up with a more difficult question. “Can you name the countries on the continent of Africa?”

He began to tick them off, until she stopped him again. She didn’t know many of the places he’d named.

She switched from geography to biology—to a question she could answer herself. “What’s a Coleoptera?”

“An order of insects that includes beetles and weevils, the largest ordinal group in the animal kingdom.”

“Where were you born?” she threw into the list.

He hesitated for several seconds, then shook his head.

“Can you multiply forty-two by three hundred and seven in your head?” she asked quickly

“Yes.”

She flirted with a little grin as she realized the question was too literal. “What’s the answer?”

“Twelve thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four.”

Without pencil and paper, she’d have to take his word for it. Instead, she made up a word problem. “And if one man digging a ditch can complete the project in six days, how long will it take three men to do the job?”

“Two days.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Why? That was an easy question. Ask me about rowboats going down the river at five miles an hour when the current is moving at six miles an hour in the opposite direction.”

She laughed. “I always hated that kind of problem.”

“I like math.”

“You have math classes?”

“Yes.”

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