Chapter One

1

This happened on december 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you.

And it will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you.

That's what I'm here to tell you.



We had come home. "Home" meaning an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Early evening, maybe eight o'clock. We discussed whether to go out or eat in. I said we could stay in, I would build a fire.

The fire was the point.

In California we heated our houses by building fires. In Malibu we built fires even on summer evenings, because the fog came in. Fires said we were home, we had drawn the circle, we were safe through the night.

I built the fire. I drew the circle.

I have no memory of what I meant to have for dinner.



Memory stops. The frame freezes. You'll find that's something that happens.

I warned you. I'm telling you what you need to know.

You see me on this stage, you sit next to me on a plane, you run into me at dinner, you know what happened to me.

You don't want to think it could happen to you.

That's why I'm here.



John was in his office. I got him a drink. He sat down by the fire to read. He was reading a bound galley of David Fromkin's Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? I set the table in the living room, where we could see the fire.



I must have noticed that later. The name of the book. I eventually read it myself, but found no clues.



Wait. I was telling you what happened.



He wanted a second drink. I got it. He asked if I had used single-malt scotch for t