The Memory Artists Part 8

"Are you sure he's OK? I mean, he looks ..."

"He needs a bit of sleep, that's all."

" ... crushed, depressed, heading towards a crash. He's got that dark look on his face. I've seen the symptoms before. He seems so ... grave. In the three times I've seen him at the lab he's not smiled once. Does he ever laugh? Does he have a sense of humour, is he witty?"

"Noel couldn't concoct something amusing to say given a month's notice."

"Is he ... all there? Mentally, I mean?"

"Noel Burun? Are you kidding? Do you know his pedigree? Related on one side to Lord Byron himself, and on the other to a long line of Scots physicians. Noel's superhuman, he can visualise things with painterly awareness, summon things you or I would never be able to summon given a hundred lifetimes, things never seen in the wildest visions of a witches' Sabbath. Don't be fooled by Noel-he has the mind and imagination of a master artist, or master scientist. He's a fluke of f.u.c.king nature, a psychomnemonic wonder, with almost unhuman eidetic powers."

"I thought you said there weren't any geniuses left."

"He's the last. You should bear his children."

Samira laughed. "So does he belong to any, you know, organisations, like Mensa or ..."

"Mensa? You've got got to be kidding. A self-congratulating club of w.a.n.kers who don't have the intelligence not to be a member. Games of three-dimensional Scrabble and a cup of Ovaltine-Noel's beyond that c.r.a.p. He's in another dimension." to be kidding. A self-congratulating club of w.a.n.kers who don't have the intelligence not to be a member. Games of three-dimensional Scrabble and a cup of Ovaltine-Noel's beyond that c.r.a.p. He's in another dimension."

"What did you mean by 'eidetic powers'?"

"A photographic memory, preternaturally vivid and persistent. With self-generating links and catalytic images that sp.a.w.n other memories, right back to his suckling hours. He's a hypermnesiac hypermnesiac-he doesn't forget a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. He's like Proust, like Proust squared. He's got a million megabytes of memory, a million emotions and sensations and images and G.o.d knows what else to draw on.17 He's not there yet, but he'll be a great writer one day, greater than Proust. Or perhaps a visionary artistpoet like Rossetti or Blake. Mark my words." He's not there yet, but he'll be a great writer one day, greater than Proust. Or perhaps a visionary artistpoet like Rossetti or Blake. Mark my words."

"I never know when you're joking. Are you now?"

"Never felt less inclined to. What's the most important material for an artist?"

"According to Proust? Memories?"

"Infancy. Which most of us forget entirely. When a young child sees, for the first time, a rainbow in the mist of a cras.h.i.+ng wave, a trompe l'oeil trompe l'oeil wheel turning backwards, a 'ghostly galleon' behind clouds, wheel turning backwards, a 'ghostly galleon' behind clouds, that that is when a great poem or great painting or great symphony is born. On a subconscious level, naturally. So it becomes a question of finding, of recapturing that pure moment of pure sensation, that ..." is when a great poem or great painting or great symphony is born. On a subconscious level, naturally. So it becomes a question of finding, of recapturing that pure moment of pure sensation, that ..."

"So what's stopping-"

"... that vividness and anarchy of an infant's vision. What I'm referring to is the infinity infinity of childhood." of childhood."

"The essence of innocence itself."

"When an infant sees the world he doesn't fear it, he marvels marvels at it. When he's older it just fills him with anxiety, dread. Why? Because of death, an awareness of death. But Noel can still summon that primordial vision, those prelapsarian colours-if he sets his mind to it. It's all there, intact, in Noel's mental kitchen. If he breaks the shackles, he could be another Rousseau, at it. When he's older it just fills him with anxiety, dread. Why? Because of death, an awareness of death. But Noel can still summon that primordial vision, those prelapsarian colours-if he sets his mind to it. It's all there, intact, in Noel's mental kitchen. If he breaks the shackles, he could be another Rousseau,18 for Christ's sake." for Christ's sake."

"Rousseau? Great. The man who put all five of his children into foundling hospitals."

"Or Baudelaire, who thought that genius was no more than childhood recaptured at will, with an adult's means to express it."

"Would another a.n.a.logy be the music of our youth? Which we never forget? Because it's the only music that ever really reached us, touched our soul? I mean, old people never never listen to new music, they reject it all, they return perpetually to the music of their innocent, impressionable youth. Lullabies, children's songs, teenage music. Is that the sort of thing we're talking about?" listen to new music, they reject it all, they return perpetually to the music of their innocent, impressionable youth. Lullabies, children's songs, teenage music. Is that the sort of thing we're talking about?"

Norval stubbed out his cigarette. "No."

Samira nodded. "Right. So what are the 'shackles' you mentioned? What's stopping Noel from being a great artist?"

"A weak motor and broken rudder. And like every failure he spends an hour worrying for every minute doing. But he'll get there eventually."

"What does he worry about?"

"You name it. He worried the first time he had s.h.i.+t stains in his diapers. He then ground his teeth in his sleep so savagely it took three orthodontists to fix them. Now he worries about his weight. And his mind. Just like Byron, who had two fears, of getting fat and going mad- and who was sometimes both."19 Samira fell into a thoughtful silence. "Noel seems too ... sensitive, too melancholic, to be able to ..."

"Melancholy's good for art. Look at Proust. He wrote a la recherche du temps perdu a la recherche du temps perdu while lying in bed, in a chronic state of depression." while lying in bed, in a chronic state of depression."

"... to be able to deal with life. He seems monstrously sad-I think he's the saddest man I've ever seen. Even the word 'sad' seems inadequate. There's something broken in him, something completely shattered, crushed."

"As most geniuses are. They see the flaws, the deadly disorder in the machine."

"I have this feeling that if someone close to him dies, or if he's rejected by a woman-"

"He's been rejected by women all his life. At first they find him cute and put up with his tongue-tied confusion and mind of many colours, but soon find him unmanageably weird. 'Rigid, mechanical and emotionally dissociated' is how Vorta describes him in a file I ... came across."

"Really? That's not what I would've thought. I thought he'd be ... well, oversensitive emotionally, dangerously oversensitive. Someone who would never get over, never forget a death or a rejection."

"Forget? Noel can't forget anything, can't block out anything. His memories haunt him forever. One of the things he can't stop reliving, in lurid detail, is his father's suicide."

"Oh, G.o.d ..."

"His wife was having an affair with Vorta. He found out, drove his car into a water-filled quarry."

"Are you serious? Is that what happened?"

"It's possible. Anyway, don't think Noel's problem is a woman or a broken heart. Oh, no. Noel never goes out with women."

Samira paused. "He prefers men?"

"There may be the odd scuff mark on the closet door. But what I meant was that he doesn't go out with women because he already has one. He's already in love with a woman."

Samira nodded reflectively, but said nothing.

"I might as well tell you," said Norval. "The news will be out soon enough. Noel's been living with a dark secret for years, ever since his father drowned himself. It involves a Scotswoman of fabulous wealth and Deneuvean beauty."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"A perverse pa.s.sion-with a Greek precedent."

"Not Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex ..." ..."

"And a French precedent as well. After his father died, Baudelaire and his mother lived together in what he admitted was a 'period of pa.s.sionate love,' a 'verdant paradise' in which she was 'solely and completely' his own. It's a bit like that for Noel and his mother."

"Are you making all this up?"

"About Baudelaire? Absolutely not."

"About Noel."

"Shall we get started?"

"Started?"

"On The Alpha Bet The Alpha Bet."

[image]

At the breakfast table the following afternoon Samira asked, "Are you ever going to ask any questions about me? Like who I am, for example?"

Norval didn't look up from his mail, which included the Nillennium Club Newsletter. Nillennium Club Newsletter. "Wasn't on today's planner, no." "Wasn't on today's planner, no."

Samira repressed a smile. "You're incorrigible, mad. Not to mention a son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"You must know my mother." Norval folded up the newsletter, emptied his third cup of espresso, then stood.

"You must have some redeeming qualities," said Samira.

"No, none whatsoever."

"What does Noel see in you?"

"Ask him. Listen, I'm off to the Schubert. Be back by four."

"The Schubert? The Piscine Piscine Schubert?" How out of character, she thought. "You swim?" Schubert?" How out of character, she thought. "You swim?"

"Daily. It's a dress rehearsal."

"A dress rehearsal? For what, a play?"

"Death. I plan to end my days in water."

"You're not serious."

"I've heard there's a clarity of memory that drowning people have. Which might relate to our first immersion-in amniotic fluid or the shock of baptism ... not something you Arabs would ever feel, I suppose. Anyway, as you're drowning it seems there's this detonation of memories, crystal-clear memories from the first plunge to the last."

Samira shook her head. "I still can't figure out when you're kidding and when you're not." Or quoting from one of your lectures. "Isn't air the final resting place of the soul?"

"We're more water than air-it's our origin and destination."

"You write fiction, don't you? I saw a book on the shelf with your name on it. A novel?"

"Some have called it that."

"What's it about? What ... kind of novel is it?"

"Well, I felt that Joyce didn't go far enough in Finnegans Wake Finnegans Wake. That he held back. This was an attempt to take it one step further."

"Very funny. You're French, right? From France?"

"Right."

"Then why do you sound like some depraved British ... viscount or something?"

"The depravity comes naturally, the accent from a string of indifferent British public schools. Where I was sent-or rather exiled-by my wh.o.r.e of a mother."

"Why do you say she ... Why did she send you to England?"

Norval sighed as he pulled out his watch, opened the lid. "Because she wanted me out of the way. Because I'd been pestering her for years to let me go there. Because my favourite authors at the time were Baudelaire and Rimbaud. I knew that Baudelaire had learned English as a young boy, and went on to translate Poe, and that Rimbaud had lived in London as a teenager, where he wrote his best stuff. So if I had to be exiled, if I had to go to boarding school, England was where I wanted to go. It all made sense-in my convoluted logic of youth. My mother, in any case, was happy to send me there. With my father's money, of course."

"But why would your mother ... why would she want to 'exile' you?"

"Because she wanted to fornicate in private, without having to lock me inside my room for hours. Because our shouting matches were upsetting the neighbours. Because she thought I was going to poison her."

"Were you?"

"I toyed with the idea."

Samira looked deeply into Norval's eyes, trying to determine whether they mirrored truth or falsehood. She couldn't decide. "So ... tell me more about her, about your mother. Is she-"

"My mother? My mother is a sack of excrement." Norval lit up another cigarette. "A l.u.s.tful she-a.s.s." He blew a stream of smoke into Samira's face. "Do you want me to bring you anything back? Any addictions to appease?"

"No, I ... I should really go ... somewhere else. I'm taking your bed."

"One of them."

"I mean, I could ... stay a bit longer."

"There's a wad of bills in my desk drawer, if you're short."

What do you expect in return? Samira wondered. "Thanks, but ..."

"Did you get one of these?" From his inside coat pocket Norval extracted a white card with florid silver letters, like a wedding script.

"What's that?"

"The 'laudanum and absinthe readings.' Yelle's party."

"Right, I forgot, at the lab ... JJ mentioned something about it."

"You going?"

"Well, I ... wasn't planning on it, no. I mean, I just met the guy and I'm not really into drugs anymore."

"No loss. I can't see him serving any real drugs. Worse, he's planning on reading poems."

"And? What's wrong with that?"

"Poems should never be read in public."