The Keeper of Memories

We were riding in the car when my husband excitedly pointed out the window, “That’s where Aunt Sylvia had her corset shop.” His head swivels: “And that’s where my mother bought chickens. It’s a tower block now but…. He pauses, “have I told you this before?”

Under my breath: “Only about a million times. And, may I add. with as little interest as the first time.”

But if he had been traveling with one of his brothers and said this a whole kaleidoscopic street filled with red felt-hatted women carrying string bags stuffed with potatoes and briskets and spring greens and saucepan hawkers, cigarettes dangling at the edge of their lips, bellowing out their wares and Syvia with her bright red lipstick and swelling breasts. Everything would miraculously appear before their eyes.

Of course as a child I didn’t realize the real potential of someone who shared your childhood as the keepers of memories, Not the memories like where you were when Kennedy was shot. Nor the memes that people send around. Nor the terrible ones. Not even the ones your therapist is interested in. Stories that hardly figure in the history of the world but that in our history loomed large. It’s the tiny personal memories absolutely no one gives a damn about unless they shared them with you at the time. The private joke that only you get. The family language.

Your parents see you as they want to. Your children see you fully formed. But a sibling sees the conniving ally and enemy you really were, stealing change from your parents’ pockets and sneaking French fries and Archie comic books. They know the manipulative chocolate hog, the devious chore shirker, the whimpering pill refuser.

The keeper of memories, treacherous, seizing of attention and space. And solace in difficult times

Even as a kid I felt sorry for people who didn’t have a younger sibling. Of course  that was, after the initial shock of realising I wasn’t the only child in the world. Other kids would have to wait until school to realize the unique potential to torture another human being and not be taken to the International Court of Human Rights. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t contemplating evil...exactly. I never considered pulling the legs off flies or the wings off butterflies. It’s just as a child, it seemed more of a fun pastime, better even than owning a puppy or kitten.

The art though was to do it subtly. My little sister, who lacked a guile she later perfected, when out-witted would have a melt-down. In floods of tears she’d run to Mother and squeal on me.

Now herein lay the real skill, for the torture had to be purely psychological.  Unseen, shrewdly elusive. Take for example a tune she hated, just quietly hummed under your breath. I believe now-a-days it’s called a trigger. When questioned I could hold up my hands, open my big blue eyes wide and swear I did nothing. Which was true…sort of. And so I’d outwit her. Finally, totally frustrated, the poor thing was reduced to screaming that I had fat thighs (I did not!) or hitting me. Which made her the villain.

What I didn’t realise then was these were the golden times. The end of my sinister reign came swiftly when suddenly she had a growth spurt. Deftly she threw me to the ground, and I dissolved into a snivelling heap of humiliation.

These stories have been told by my sister to amuse her grandchildren, so I guess no permanent damage was done. I’ve often told them to my husband, who of course, looks at me blankly.

But the keeper of memories will actually taste the salty French fries burning hot from their wax-paper bag and feel the pounding heart of thieves as they rifle their parents coats pockets. They know the injustice of having to go to bed to the sound of rubber balls against brick walls in summer when other parents allowed their children to still play at 9pm.

Which is why the keeper of memories is important. I guess sometimes it makes you feel not alone.

(PS Note, in this photo she is making horns behind my head with her fingers)

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TURNING POINTS from Crowd-Writing

a book by Shelley Katz

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