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‘But that’s it?’
‘It’s important,’ he says. ‘Don’t underestimate it, Christine.’

I don’t say anything. I take a sip of my drink and look around the café. It is almost empty. 

There are voices from a small kitchen at the back, the occasional rattle as the water in an urn reaches boiling point, the noise of children playing in the distance. 

It is difficult to believe that this place is so close to my home and yet I have no memory of ever being here before.

‘You say we’ve been meeting for a few weeks,’ I say to Dr Nash. ‘So what have we been doing?’

‘Do you remember anything of our previous sessions? Anything at all?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Nothing. As far as I know I am meeting you for the first time today.’

‘Forgive me asking,’ he says. ‘As I said, you have flashes of memory, sometimes. It seems you know more on some days than on others.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘I have no memory of ever meeting you before, or of what happened yesterday, or the day before, or last year, for that matter. 

‘Yet I can remember some things from years ago. My childhood. My mother. I remember being at university, just. 

‘I don’t understand how these old memories could have survived when everything else has been wiped clean.’

He nods throughout my question. I don’t doubt he has heard it before. Possibly I ask the same thing every week. Possibly we have exactly the same conversation.

‘Memory is a complex thing,’ he says. ‘Human beings have a short-term memory that can store facts and information for about a minute or so, but also a long-term memory. 

‘Here we can store huge quantities of information, and retain it for a seemingly indefinite length of time. 

‘We now know that these two functions seem to be controlled by different parts of the brain, with some neural connections between them. 

'There is also a part of the brain which seems to be responsible for taking short-term, transient memories and coding them as long-term memories for recall much later.’

He speaks easily, quickly, as if he is now on solid territory. I would have been like that once, I suppose; sure of myself.

本书更多英文有声读物中英对照同步视频请至www.smuxzlk.com