The Memory Artists

  “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. 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 whore 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 lustful she-ass.” 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.”

  Samira frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re meant to be spoken, and besides—”

  “Poetry is a lonely pleasure, a solitary art. You don’t want other people distracting you, you don’t want others reading poetry in ways you wouldn’t. The way to make poetry ridiculous and effete is to read it in public. T.S. Eliot, for example, should never have recorded his poems for the world.”

  Samira laughed. “Or given us Cats.”

  “Authors should be read and not heard. If you doubt that, go and hear Margaret Atwood.”

  “Nonsense. How about Dylan Thomas’s readings? Or Charles Dickens? Or Mark Twain?”

  “There have been exceptions.” Norval paused, eyeing Samira intently, as if he had just noticed an undervalued piece in an antique shop. “You sound like you’re a student of literature.”

  “I believe that’s almost a personal question. The first since the elevator, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Do you want a job?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Teaching.”

  Samira laughed. “I’ve only got a general BA. A shaky one, at that.”

  “We’ll cook up some degrees for you, along with some publications and references.”

  “No, I don’t think I could possibly—”

  “What school did you go to?”

  “Cornell.”

  “Perfect. What was your field?”

  “I didn’t have one.”

  “What fiction do you like? What century?”

  “Well, right now I’m sort of into the Female Gothic …”

  “Really? Like Anne Radcliffe? You like that sort of thing? Terrifying adventures in lonely castles?”

  Samira sighed. “There’s more to Anne Radcliffe than just—”

  “Terrified girl flees, pursued by ghosts and lecherous monks. Caught, she then escapes, is caught again and escapes, is caught again and escapes.”

  Samira smiled, despite herself. “There’s more to Anne Radcliffe than just—”

  “That’s settled, then. You’ll give a couple of courses on the Gothic novel.”

  “But how can you just—”

  “Because I’ve been having intercourse with the director since the day she hired me. Three years ago. Which is the only reason I’ve not yet been sacked. Well, maybe not the only reason. If my tenure were revoked, there’d be a revolt from the student union.”

  Samira rolled her raven eyes. “And why is that?”

  “I give all my students an A, and no assignments.”

  “And sexual edification, I presume?”

  “If requested.”

  “But what’s all this got to do with—”

  “Blorenge begins his sabbatical next semester. I’ll tell the director I’ve got a kick-ass replacement. And since Blorenge will be spending his sabbatical in a detox centre, or perhaps in sex-offender therapy, it could end up being permanent.”

  Samira stopped to think about all this. “Sex-offender therapy?”

  “The women’s swim team caught him hiding in a locker, looking through the vents, in onanistic ferment. So you want the job or not?”

  Samira shook her head. “No. I’m not qualified to teach literature. And besides, I’ve moved on.”

  “To what?”

  “Art therapy.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Norval again fished out his pocket watch. “Maasalaama.”

  “Can I ask you one more question before you leave?”

  “If it’s the last.”

  “What’s that staircase for?” Samira pointed. “That one, that goes nowhere.”

  Norval hesitated, took a final drag from his cigarette. “Unmotivated steps.”

  “I’m sorry?” Wasn’t that the name of his novel?

  “In architecture they’re known as unmotivated steps. They do nothing, they have no destination. They’re a reminder.”

  “A reminder of what?” She looked at Norval and knew he wouldn’t answer: his mind was a kingdom to him, a kingdom never invaded. “I mean, it’s none of my business, you don’t have to tell me …”

  Norval was already turning the doorhandle. “Glad you feel that way.”

  “Wait, Norval, don’t go. You’re not serious about … you know, what you said before, about ending your days in water and … all that? I mean, anytime soon?”

  “Perfectly serious. After Z, I’m dead.”

  Chapter 10

  “JJY”

  The Cemetery Gatehouse was all that was left of the Yelle family fortune. Gaétan Yelle, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, had made his money manufacturing tobacconist goods, but his son Jean-Jacques was not cut out for the smokeware business and eventually sold it.
After his wife died he spent most of his legacy on horses at Bluebonnets or bingo at Église St–Ambroise, although he did make one rather strange investment: along with a partner, he bought Le Cimetière Mont-Royal. He ended up selling this too, except for the gatehouse, a mock Gothic structure of wood and stone, where he lived the last twelve years of his life, a happy widower, in the company of his happy son Jean-Jacques Jr, whom everyone called JJ.

  From as far back as he could remember, from the day he hit a basesloaded triple to win a Little League championship (though some said the ball was foul), everything had been happy for JJ. There had been happiness with his father, collecting novelty gags and formula jokes, building great bonfires of leaves and found furniture, bowling at Quilles Bec every Thursday night while describing his plans to make a fortune as an inventor. There had been happiness with his mother, who taught him how to make Chinese box kites and waxed leaf scrapbooks and French-silk pie, who introduced him to Mille Bornes and nonsense verse and stiltwalking, and who reminded him daily what a cute little boy he was. In Grade 3 there’d been happiness because Mademoiselle Proulx had liked him. He hadn’t applied himself, he hadn’t got good grades, and he’d once painted a picture of bare-naked women bowling, but still Mademoiselle Proulx liked him. Un bon petit garçon, she had written on his report card.

  JJ grew into a lubberly bear of a man, retaining the freckled face, orangey-red hair and teapot cheeks of his youth. As an adult, most of his time was spent trying to make money from his inventions and hobbies— herbs and magical potions, “fun” gadgets and commercial writing—via the Internet. For his dot.com company he bought a half-dozen earlynineties computers at a bankruptcy auction, which he repaired himself and which he continued to repair as they crashed one by one.

  Inside the once-opulent gatehouse, which had previously housed a gardener and his family, things tended to accrue: advertising leaflets he’d written himself, pieces of salvaged furniture and stereo equipment, stacks of natural therapy magazines, sacks of fertilizer, shoe and cereal boxes containing “special products,” and a kitchen midden that was rising daily.

  On the gravel path leading to the house, where crabgrass and dandelions accumulated in the summer and unploughed snow in the winter, his 1984 Dodge Aries (his birth sign) was parked. He had bought the car “for peanuts” from a New Brunswick firm called MUMMY’S YUMMY CHICKEN. On its sides, to cover up the logo and lettering, JJ spray-painted rustcoloured undercoating and affixed decals from places he had visited in the Maritime provinces and New England. To the car’s roof he attached large patches of canvas and blue plastic, held down with yards of rope and bungee cord, which made it look like he was transporting something of very irregular shape. Some speculated it was a kind of travelling puptent or rooftop bed, which JJ with an inscrutable smile would not deny. When he crossed the border into the States he was usually asked to remove the canvas and plastic sheets, which took a good quarter hour. What the border guards eventually found was a large red-and-yellow metal chicken, which had been welded to the roof.

  Although now an adult, JJ was bubbling with childlike glee on the day of his party. He had sent out fifty invitations. Where would he put them all? There were four kitchen chairs, a sagging sofa with urinous scent (a legacy from a family pet, an incontinent poodle), a winged armchair whose springs were gone (a legacy from his mother, who was plenteous), and five tip-up seats (a legacy from the Rialto cinema, uprooted by vandals). That should seat about, what, a baker’s dozen? Of course, there’s always the floor … He examined the floor and seemed surprised at what he saw: soiled industrial carpeting that made him wince when his nose got too near it. Too many Swanson dinners and soft drinks walked into the weave. When he attempted to roll the carpet up, some of the rubber underpad adhered to the floor, while the rest crumbled into a fine powder. He decided to leave the rug where it was. A good spray with Lysol should do the trick. He was on his way to the bathroom when a crashing sound startled him. He turned round to see what it was. Upside down on the floor was The Ice Bridge, a J.W. Morrice forgery that had fallen from the wall. Oh no, he thought. When a picture falls it means somebody’s going to die!

  JJ closed his eyes, made the sign of the cross, then continued on his way towards the bathroom. After rooting around in a jungle of products beneath the sink, and pausing to toss rancid items into an already full garbage pail, he found what he was seeking: an aerosol can of lemonscented Lysol. He pushed the nozzle. And pushed again. A few drops of liquid oozed out. What else is in here? Let’s see … a bottle of Aqua Velva with dust embedded in the oily glass, unused since his father’s last shave, and a vial of Fleur de la Passion by Duverné, the preferred scent of his mother. He went back into the living room where he sprinkled each of these onto the rug.

  To wash off the scents from his hands he returned to the bathroom, which was fitted with equipment that seemed to have been salvaged from a 1950s restaurant. There was a urinal, a sink with faucets of the watersaving design, a rotary dispenser filled with pink granulated powder, and a hand dryer with these instructions:

  SHAKE EXCESS WATER FROM HANDS.

  PUSH KNOB. STOPS AUTOMATICALLY.

  RUB HANDS LIGHTLY AND RAPIDLY.

  TURN LOUVRE UPWARD TO DRY FACE.

  At least this is what it had once said. Some of the words had been scratched off with a coin or knife:

  SHAKE

  KNOB.

  RUB LIGHTLY AND RAPIDLY.

  TURN UPWARD TO FACE.

  JJ chuckled as he blow-dried his hands. This still cracks me up, he thought. But is it a tad schoolboyish? Should I remove it, or spray-paint over it, before the guests arrive? No, it’s fine for now, I’ll do it tomorrow. He went to his bedroom, his hands slightly damp. A faded and threadbare patchwork quilt made by his mother was staple-gunned to the window frame, and the wallpaper—winged bear cubs with bows and arrows— was only half-installed, interrupted when his ex-girlfriend said her pregnancy was a false alarm. Film posters of his father’s, including Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and The Nutty Professor, with yellowed Scotch-tape marks across the corners, were tacked to the wall. I’d better clean up the place, he thought. Do a complete overhaul.

  With an old baby buggy, his own, JJ carted out plastic submarines, water guns, teddy bears, board games, joke books, and made a motley mound outside. He carried out items from his clothes closet, including his father’s perma-press pants and naphthalene-smelling cardigans. He paused to look through a shoe box of old letters: form-letter job rejections, angry threats from collection agencies, bills from Hydro-Québec and Gaz Métropolitain, a sheaf of parking tickets, letters from lawyers acting on behalf of Mount Royal Cemetery. In a plastic case was a Rowntree Cherry Blossom box, discarded by a girl named Solange. He first saw Solange coming out of the Villa Maria School for Girls, in a pleated skirt and jacket of subdued crimson, and he had tried to glimpse her leaving school every afternoon till the end of the year, nine months in all. His love for twelve-year-old Solange was like Dante’s for Beatrice. He got within twelve feet of her twice, exchanged a nod once, and thought about her for the rest of his life.

  The memory faded, but only slightly, when he met his first girlfriend. She was a Greek girl he encountered at a summer camp for underprivileged kids, where they both worked as counsellors. In the same shoe box were three letters from her. “My dearest JJ,” one began. “I love you more than yesterday, and less than tomorrow …”

  JJ cleared away pots of dead flowers and threw them, pots and all, onto the mound outside. He carried out piles of herbal magazines, some from the late eighties, and tossed these onto the heap as well. Tonight we’ll have a bonfire, he decided. I’ll greet my guests with an Eskimo bonfire! We’ll roast marshmallows! A marshy-roast! No, for heaven’s sake, what am I thinking? I’m turning over a new leaf, I’m no longer a child. But a marshmallow or two would be good now. He went to the cupboard and, through a window propped open by his mother’s corrective wooden spoon, tossed out miscellaneous bottles and boxes
, including a family-size can of petrified Quik and multi-packs of miniature cereal with the sugared ones removed. Some of the tins, covered in dust, came from dates before Best Before Dates. While eating the dregs of three plastic bags containing coconut, almonds and dried cranberries respectively, he spied a bag of marshmallows. Yes! I knew I had some! He reached into the bag and pulled out marshmallows as hard as golf balls. Through the window, left-handed, he threw these too onto the heap outside. “Goodbye youth!” he exclaimed. “Burn memories, burn!”

  The last bus of the day, the “Widows’ Shuttle,” was squeezing out the gate as Norval, Samira and Noel entered Mount Royal Cemetery. The wet windows of the bus were agleam with amber, the black silhouettes inside barely visible. The driver, unaccountably, honked his horn twice as he passed in the opposite direction.

  In the day’s last lighted hour they walked without words, foot-high packing-snow crunching beneath them and an enormous sunset—with apocalyptic reds and purples—above them. Following Samira’s lead, they paused to wipe the snow from various monuments and mausoleums, revealing memorials to Scots parentage, wealth or benevolent deeds, bravery in war or “good wives.” Some of the dead, Noel remarked, came from famous sunken ships like the Titanic or Lusitania. Others, Samira discovered, were famous themselves, like Anna Harriet Leonowens, immortalised in Anna and the King of Siam and The King and I. Others were infamous, Norval pointed out, like Alexander Armstrong English, who after a career in the British army became Canada’s itinerant hangman. And a vicious wife-beater.

  Fifty yards along a winding road, at a fork, was a signboard whose paint had been flaking off for decades. A pale red arrow pointed towards:

  LOGE DU PORTIER

  GATEHOUSE

  (PRIVATE)

  They followed the arrow and the mood of the cemetery gradually changed. The opulence of the Victorian section, with its intimations of immortality, gave way to humbler graves of immigrant, infant, soldier, pauper. After a quarter-mile or so, at a crumbling white statue of a naked child leaning against a skull, like a baby Hamlet, the trio saw smoke gyring into the sky. They passed a NO TRESPASSING sign nailed to a tree, then an ad hoc electrical box that looked like it was wired by an Indian,20 then a rusting boat of a car that appeared to be carrying a large boulder on its roof.