“The first duty of the Memory Police to enforce the disappearance.” The bird observatory is already in ruins, since the birds flew away never to return. The word “rose” will dissolve from memory the Memory Police will do a thorough search for all images and writings about roses and remove them. Days later, the rose gardens will be gone and no one will remember what existed on that piece of land. Some observe small ceremonies to mark the departure.
They throw them into the river or incinerate them at communal fires. “The breeze seemed to discriminate, choosing only the rose petals to scatter.” Without need of instruction, the islanders, “quiet, dazed”, dig up their rose bushes.
When morning arrives they find that red petals are inundating the river. For instance: one night, the inhabitants of the island feel a stirring, a realisation that something is leaving. In their lives, disappearances are continual. The novelist has one other trusted friend, an old man whom she has known since childhood. As the book opens, she has been working with her beloved editor, R, on a gentle love story between a typist and her teacher that takes a nightmarish turn. Our narrator is a novelist who has lost both her parents. B irds, roses, maps and calendars are among the objects that have been “disappeared” from an unnamed island.
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