False Memory: pp. 327-375 (Minus the Ahriman parts)

After leaving Dr. Ahriman's office, Dusty and Martie go down to the car.  He asks her about the book.  Martie has no recollection of where she got it.  When he hands it to her, she doesn’t open it.  When he asks her what it is about, all she can do is recite her usual canned phrases, “Entertaining plot, colorful characters.  I’m enjoying it.”  As she keeps repeating the same thing, she begins recognize she is just reciting canned phrases and has no idea what she is talking about.  This is a classic case of Getting Too Close, the ideal opportunity for her to have a mini-blackout just like Susan's and then have an irresistible urge to change the subject.  Later, Dusty could tell her about her odd behavior, and she could be alarmed because exactly the same thing happened to Susan when she asked Susan how she knew Eric was having an affair.  If I wanted to put in just one other case of a blackout like Susan's, this would be it.  Of course, that would require a break in the progression of the plot, some sort of diversion after Martie insisted on changing the subject, but we could get back to it later.

Instead, Dusty tells her the book is about brainwashing, something Martie clearly did not know.  Dusty then says it was about a soldier named Raymond Shaw, and Martie says, “I’m listening.”  Unlike Skeet, though, she only goes into a trance for a few seconds.  When Dusty doesn’t know the haiku, she snaps right back.  Dusty convinces her of what his happening by saying “Raymond Shaw” again and putting a candy in her mouth before she snaps back.  When she sees the name written or speaks it, she shivers with a strange unease but does not go into a trance.  But seeing the name does not break its power; she still goes into a trance when Dusty speaks it.  Needless to say, Dusty notices a marked difference between  Skeet's reaction and Martie's.  He describes Skeet as "loosey-goosey, babbling about the rules, upset with me because I wasn't operating him correctly."  He considers Martie to be "tighter."  This seems to suggest that he thinks Martie is operating the way the program is supposed to work, while Skeet is malfunctioning.  This turns out to be true and, unlike some other oddities, to be adequately explained.  Whether it is something Dusty should have recognized is hard to tell.

Dusty tells Martie about Skeet’s odd episode in the clinic and she tells him about Susan’s phantom rapist.  And Susan still isn’t answering her phone.  After picking up a book of haiku from the foreman, they head to Susan’s house and, of course, find her dead in the bathtub, with decomposition accelerated by the heat of the water.  Imagine if we had not been told what happened the night before.  Suppose we just knew about Susan’s phantom rapist, and that she was about to catch him on video.  Then she stops answering her phone and turns up dead by apparent suicide.  Wouldn’t the suspense be a lot stronger than if we knew everything that had happened.   They call the police, tell them about Susan’s agoraphobia, but leave out the phantom rapist and Martie’s autophobia.  The police have no doubt it is a suicide, express sympathy to Martie, and recommend Dusty take her to a bar for a few drinks.  (Again with the alcohol!  And it is definitely being used as a coping mechanism, not just a beverage).

They go to a bistro, have two beers and dinner, and talk about brainwashing and haiku.  Dusty makes the argument that Susan was programmed to commit suicide.  His argument rests on the eerie parallels between what is happening to them and what happened in The Manchurian Candidate.  Needless to say, this requires the assumption that what The Manchurian Candidate describes is actually possible.  It is not.  A nice touch occurs when Dusty also gives as evidence that Dr. Ahriman thought it was incredible that both Martie and Susan would be stricken with such extreme phobias.  This, he proposes, is because Ahriman is trained to look for psychological cause and effect, not for brainwashing and programming.  He misses another golden opportunity that Koontz offered, but failed to follow up on.  Recall, when Ahriman left Susan’s apartment after ordering her suicide, he locked the door but could not engage the security chain.  He did not think the police would notice that detail.  Indeed, since Dusty and Martie opened the door, the police did not even think of it.  But Dusty could.  Using his photographic memory to recall that the chain was not engaged, he could ask Martie if Susan was always careful about the security chain. Martie would say yes.  Then Dusty could point out that it wasn’t engaged this time, meaning that someone must have been there.  But Koontz misses the opportunity.

They look through the haiku book for haiku that give them the same shiver “Raymond Shaw” gave Martie.  I don’t know how plausible that is, but given how implausible everything else in the novel is, we might as well do something to give our characters a clue.  Dusty finds one that gives him a shiver, but not in the same way.  Skeet’s “Clear Cascades” haiku is in there.  Dusty’s haiku matches his nightmare about the lightening and the heron, “Lightening gleams/and a night heron’s shriek/travels into the darkness.”  Martie’s is “Blown from the west/fallen leaves gather/in the east.”  That matches her nightmare.

Mahogany forest In Martie's nightmare, she and Susan are in a clearing in a forest of mahogany trees.  Martie has never seen mahogany trees before, but somehow knows what they are. Martie on a couch, Susan on an armchair.  Light streams in through a picture window.  A one-fanged snake bites her, but no one is alarmed.  Strange things happen.  Pop cans and sandwiches float in the air and get eaten, with no one visible to eat them.  Then a wind blows in from the western window, gathering up the fallen leaves and turning them into the Leaf Man who attacks Martie in her dream.  She is paralyzed, unable to run, and the leaves blow into her nose and mouth, choking her.  Dusty recognizes the snake as an IV bottle and the leaves as the contents, entering her body.  Neither of them recognize where Martie and Susan have been that has furniture and a large western window.  I know, more programming.

One haiku they do not find is the one Martie thought she read in the book, “Pine wind blowing hard/quick rain, torn wind paper/talking to itself.”  On the one hand, it’s an understandable decision.  If Martie actually read the poem she thought she read when she was seeing the scene that looked so much like Ahriman’s office, it might trip her suspicions.  On the other hand, it would be really good if Koontz somehow explained what the !@#$&* that strange sequence was supposed to mean.

All this time, Martie has been having little attacks of intensified fear every hour.  In fact, they occur exactly on the hour, with such regularity that they have to look a little suspicious.  Again, I get it that they don’t suspect Ahriman because they have been programmed not to.  But still, the regularity of the attacks just has to be suspicious and look pre-programmed.  Regular phobias just don’t act like that.  Imagine, once again, if the book had not told us any more than Dusty and Martie know.  Wouldn’t it strike the audience as odd and distinctly unnatural to have the anxiety attacks occur so regularly?  And wouldn’t there be something sinister about Dusty and Martie’s inability to see that as sinister?

They go home.  Valet the dog is glad to see them.  Closterman’s secretary has dropped off a copy of his latest book, Learning to Love Yourself.  Dusty sees something strange here.   Closterman doesn’t like Ahriman, so why the unsolicited gift?  In an epigraph before the first chapter is Ahriman’s favorite haiku.  This is enough to seem odd even to Dusty and Martie, brainwashed though they are.

I should add here that Ahriman is a great haiku aficionado.  It is his sole appealing trait.  Haiku holds such fascination for him that he often seems to think in haiku, composing one for every occasion and then grading himself on his work.  I am not a haiku aficionado and therefore am in no position to know whether a haiku is good or not.  One thing only is clear – Japanese poetry is clearly not as lavish as English poetry.  The simplicity of a haiku can be jarring to one who is accustomed to equating poetry with lavishness of language.  There is only so much lavishness you can fit into 17 syllables.  Some of Ahriman’s haikus make the attempt to capture the lavish nature of English poetry in a mere 17 syllables.  Others do not.  Incidentally, the novel will take a markedly anti-intellectual tone later on, but I don’t think Ahriman’s passion for haiku is supposed to that, in addition to other forms of villainy, he is also a pointy-headed intellectual snob.  I think it just reflects Dean Koontz fondness for haiku.

Dusty and Martie go upstairs to listen to Susan’s phone messages on the answering machine.  There are two messages from her.  One is her earlier message in which she called to ask Martie what she thought of the plan to videotape the phantom rapist.  The message doesn't actually mention videotape, though, just a call for help. Then comes her second message,  "It isn't Eric, Martie.  It's Ahriman.  I've got the bastard on videotape."  Shock! And suddenly they recognize all the clues were there all along.  


Imagine if Koontz had declined to reveal any more than Dusty and Martie knew.  Imagine if he had been a little more subtle in the clues he planted.  Then the reader would have the same reaction.  Shock!  And suddenly the reader recognizes the clues were there all along.