The narrator and the old man’s reaction shows how removed they are from things that have disappeared. The narrator wants to please R by remembering something, and even though she wants to do this so badly, she can’t, and this only emphasizes how difficult it is to reclaim memories once they’re gone. However, R’s attitude in this scene suggests that he thinks some memory loss—at least memory loss related to disappearances—can be overcome. This highlights his believe that there is an element of free will to forgetting and that the narrator and the old man don’t have to passively accept them.