The Memory Artists

  “Anyone want some of this?” asked Norval, before taking a drink, not his first of the day, from a zinc flask of rye. “You may need it.” As he wiped his mouth with his hand, noises came from behind: first a dog barking, then what sounded like muffled voices. He looked back but saw no one. He took another hit before rejoining the others.

  The three approached the run-down but not ruined gatehouse, the original structure of which was charming and fairy-taleish with its conical roof and twin turrets, but which a series of additions had rendered unshapely and asymmetrical, like a house drawn by a young child. They passed a tumbledown carport, which sheltered a 1950s hearse on cinder blocks, then a large maple tree whose trunk and lower limbs had been painted pale blue. A patch of snow beneath it bore two yellow j’s inscribed in urine-writing. As the two men inspected the engraving, Samira pointed to a figure standing next to a smoking mound: a panda-ish man sporting one of those hats that dads wear fishing, a monstrously oversized wool sweater that had seen—on his or someone else’s shoulders—better days, a dandelion scarf, fat-pants with leg pockets, and furry brown boots that looked like hooves.

  When Samira smiled and waved he became animated, dropping his shovel and windmilling his arms. As they drew closer they noticed rings round his eyes, as if he had just smoked his way through a kilo of weed. His face was lined, more with laugh lines than worry wrinkles, and fringed with gelled stick-up hair, boy-band hair, and a preliminary scenario for a goatee.

  “Welcome partiers!” he shouted, oversalivating. “Welcome to my crib, you’re the first to arrive!” He took Samira’s hand and chivalrously kissed it. He began a playful sparring with Norval, but Norval told him to stop. As he was affectionately clapping Noel on the back, a dog began to bark. Furiously this time. They all paused to listen.

  “That’s Merlin the Second,” said JJ. “He’s a stray. He warns me when people approach. Hey Nor, what dog loves to take baths?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What dog loves to take baths? A shampoodle.”

  “Right.”

  “Why did the poor dog chase his own tail? He was trying to make both ends meet. What do you get when …”

  “Please,” said Norval. “Our sides can only take so much heaving.”

  “ … when you cross a sheepdog with a rose?”

  “Let’s see. A collie-flower?”

  “Yes! Who can resist dog jokes, eh? Come.”

  They followed JJ to the door, which he opened and held for them. “Enter. Make yourselves at home. Don’t worry about your boots. Have a look around.”

  They did as bid, stepping over the worn threshold, and were surprised at what they saw.

  “Let me take your coat. If it’s OK with you guys, we’ll wait a few minutes for the others to arrive. Hope I have enough room for everybody!”

  The visitors remained mute as they took in some of the objects in the room: a cigar-store Indian, a stuffed cat, two tennis presses and a buggy whip hanging from nine-inch nails, a set of shoetrees resting on a suction bath mat—and other accoutrements signalling mental derangement. In the background was the sound of two black-andwhite televisions broadcasting in two different languages.

  “Nor, every time I see you I’m like, amazed,” said JJ. “You know who you look like?”

  Norval said that he did.

  “You look a bit like Byron! And so do you, Noel. Although Noel looks more like Émile Nelligan.21 Samira, I meant to ask you last week. Is that a Greek name?”

  “Arabic.”

  “Really? It is true what they say? About the jihad?”

  “What do they say?”

  “That a man who dies while on jihad will be able to have sexual intercourse with seventy perpetual virgins in heaven?”

  Samira smiled. “Well, it’s based on a verse from the Hadith, but it’s a literal translation that’s not … you know, embraced by many people—”

  “Arabs,” said Norval, shaking his head, “were once in the vanguard of civilisation. What the hell happened?”

  “You French were too,” Samira countered. “What the hell happened?”

  “I knew a Greek girl in school,” said JJ, who seemed not to have heard this exchange. “You’re as beautiful as her, I met her at summer camp when I was thirteen, she had hairy legs. I was in love with her, we were never apart as teenagers, in fact I’m still in love with her. She was the thief of my virginity. I learned how to be a hippy from her. She was a bona fide hippy, even though her parents were rich. She ran away from home and grew cabbages in a farmer’s field …”

  Calm down, Samira wanted to say, you’re like my mother’s neurotic Chihuahua. Calm down little guy, Norval wanted to say, you’ve had way too many chocolate bars. Noel had no wish to say anything: like faulty reception across the stormiest of airwaves, JJ’s chatter was not coming in; the blunt and boxy shapes, which gave him little trouble in the lab, were now a train wreck of tangled, dirty-white cracks, pops, bangs.

  “So it didn’t work out?” said Samira. “With the Greek girl?”

  “No, her parents took her to Switzerland for six months in the hope she’d meet someone else.”

  “And did she?”

  “No. But when she got back to Quebec she did. A member of Les Beaux Gars.”

  “A rock band?”

  “Biker gang. But I have a feeling she’ll come back to me. I saw her at a summer-camp reunion. She ignored me. But I’ll wait as long as it takes— forever, if necessary, till the stars turn cold. I have a feeling we’ll end our days together, that it’ll all twist together, her fate and mine. If not, perhaps there’ll be a reunion in eternity, where love stays unchanged. Be back in a jiff, I got to change out of these clothes. You can watch TV while I’m gone. The Olympics! We’re kicking ass, eh? It’s believer-fever, it’s fandemonium!”

  After JJ disappeared into his bedroom, the three guests stared at each other, slack-jawed. Norval shifted his gaze to the room’s walls, papered for the third or fourth time decades before, with outlined patterns coloured in here and there with wax crayon. Noel examined oddly positioned paintings—covering cracks or holes, he assumed—which depicted the innocence of children, the benevolence of the old, the purity of lovers, the cohesion of families. Samira was drawn to the room’s centrepiece: the large, weather-beaten cigar-store Indian, with a stuffed cat at its feet. The Indian, JJ revealed later, was his grandfather’s and the cat his grandmother’s. And the paintings were creations of his youth, he further explained, adding that he had been guided by numbers.

  “This place is … amazing!” said Samira, struggling to find the right words. “It … smokes!”

  Noel, glancing from object to object, was struggling to take it all in. There was a feeling in the house of everything coming apart at once. Norval thought he had entered a home for the crazed.

  “It’s … it’s like a museum!” Samira exclaimed. “Look at this!” She pointed to an old clock with a golden face showing the phases of the moon and conjunctions of the planets. “And this!” Beside the clock was an antique spyglass of tarnished brass. “And this!” Everyone looked up at a chandelier above her, originally a gasolier that had been converted to electric light in the twenties. There were still gas jets and fittings all over the house, as if JJ planned to return to gas lighting if electricity didn’t catch on.

  “Are we looking at a neurological deficit here?” asked Norval. “Is JJ crazed, permanently or periodically?”22

  “Shh,” Samira whispered. “He’s a sweetheart. If you say one single word against him, one single sarcasm … well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Or not do. I think this place is fabulous.”

  Norval screwed his heel into the floorboard, causing the wood to powder away. “It’s seen better days,” he said.

  “So have you.”

  Norval sniffed left and right. “What is that mephitic odour?” His nose led him to the defeated carpet and sagging sofa. “Bordello perfume and …”

  “Dog piss?” Noel suggested.
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  “Formula?”

  “K9P.”

  “Shh,” whispered Samira again. “Come on, you guys, behave. He might hear you. What’s your problem anyway? Cleanliness is as bad as godliness. Hey, look at this.” Samira nodded towards a ceiling-high bookcase made of red bricks and particle board, with uneven rows of files and books. Large green albarellos served as bookends.

  Norval and Samira began examining the spines. The top rows included Natural Alchemy, Medical Underground, Fringe Medicine, Metaphysical Medicine, Renegade Medicine, Clandestine Laboratories, Granddad’s Wonderful Book of Chemistry, Holistic Approach in Ancient Medicine, Necromancy for Dumbies, Acupuncture for Dumbies, Hypnosis for Salesmen, Colour Healing, Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists and Laughter Therapy Is No Joke. On the sagging middle shelves were volumes of Frontier Science and Psychology Tomorrow, piled corkscrew-wise, as well as joke anthologies, a shoebox of letters with a heart on top, a half-dozen books by Émile Vorta, and a scrapbook with the doctor’s name on the cover.

  “God, no spine-faking here,” said Norval. “It’s all shit.”

  “No, it’s not.” Samira pointed to the bottom shelf, which included works by Saint-Exupéry, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, Antoine Galland, Ulrich Boner23 and John Creasey.

  At the opposite end of the room, where Noel was now foraging, were higgledy-piggledy mounds of computer and electronic equipment of modest manufacture: not IBM or Mac or Toshiba, but Capital, Cicero, Apex; not Sony, Panasonic or JVD, but Yorx, Citizen, Claretone. Two no-brand televisions, connected to automotive stereo speakers, showed two different Winter Olympic events in two different languages. One had a story about some French figure-skating judge, the other an interview with a Canadian athlete, which Noel turned up:

  “So how do you feel? You must be disappointed.”

  “Not everyone can medal, eh? I’m happy just to be here.”

  “Right. But you came sixty-eighth.”

  “I’m here for the experience. To meet the other athletes. Watch their events now that mine’s over. Just relax for the rest of the week.”

  “You don’t feel disappointed?”

  “I’m happy just to be here.”

  “So this is like a junket for you, a joyride?”

  “I’m here for the experience. I hope to build on this for the next Olympics.”

  “But you’re forty-three.”

  “I’m happy just to be here.”

  “Anybody else show up while I was changing?” asked JJ as he emerged from his bedroom wearing a T-shirt that said THE RIGHT CHEMISTRY, filthier than the one it replaced. “I’ve invited some mega-watt scientists, including Dr. Ravenscroft and Dr. Rhéaume—and of course Dr. Vorta. I’m his number-one fan, eh? I keep a scrapbook on him. And you know what? He’s the one responsible for us meeting in the first place!”

  “Think we could have a glass of that red?” Norval nodded towards the table.

  “I haven’t done the dishes for a while.”

  “I’ll drink it out of the bottle.”

  “Will a paper cup do?”

  “Fine.”

  “Or plastic?”

  “Goatskin, anything.”

  “Would you like some wine, Samira? How about you, Noel?”

  “Noel is a temperance expert,” said Norval. “I’ll have his glass. Didn’t you mention something about absinthe and/or laudanum in your invitation?”

  “I’m saving that for later. I’ll just pour Noel a taste. Here you go, Noel, Sam. I’d like to propose a toast to the world’s greatest scientist, Dr. Émile Vorta!”

  They clinked plastic cups, with the exception of Norval, who was already pouring himself another.

  “Today is a magic day,” said JJ, wiping his wet chin with his T-shirt. “In five minutes we’ll be experiencing something that won’t happen again in our lifetime.”

  To anyone else, the stretch of silence that followed might have been seen as disturbing indifference. Not to JJ. “Yup, a magic moment is about to occur …”

  “Really?” said Samira, like an actress suddenly remembering her lines. “What won’t happen in our lifetime?”

  “At two minutes past eight, the clock will read in perfect symmetry. It will say 20:02, 20/02, 2002. It’s only happened twice before in history and will only happen one other time, in 2112. It’s a thing of mathematical beauty—and a palindrome! And that’s why we’re meeting tonight, that’s why we’re inaugurating our club tonight, at this time! It’s a palindromic moment!”

  They all clinked cups again with the exception of Norval, who was blankly watching an interview with a British ski-jumper. His attention was diverted to three pump-like contraptions standing beside the television. He picked up one of them. “Uh, JJ?”

  “Yes? You’d like to know what those are for?”

  “I would, actually. But first I’d like to point out that today is the second of February.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Your ‘palindromic moment’ will not occur until the twentieth.”

  With a worried look, JJ began writing in the air with his pointer finger. “Oh my God! You’re right. I’m a blithering idiot!”

  “Maleesh,” Samira said comfortingly, her hand on his shoulder. “I got confused too. Why don’t we just make tonight a kind of … dry run, test flight. We’ll hold the official inauguration on the twentieth.”

  “Yes!” said JJ. “What a great—”

  “You were going to tell me what these are,” said Norval, still clutching one of the pumps.

  “Well, the one you got in your hand is an inside-out sherlock, that one there’s a purple flamer, and the other’s a standup double mushroom side lock.”

  Norval nodded. “Penis enlargers?”

  “Bongs. Hand-blown soft-glass pipes. Using the X-Tractor, the ultimate cold water extraction system.”

  Norval examined them further. “So I presume you have something interesting to fill them with? Is that what’s in those boxes over there?” He nodded towards a recess in the room, a kind of alcove.

  “Not exactly. Come, everyone, I’ll show you.”

  The three followed JJ to his special storeroom, the size of a walk-in closet, which contained an assortment of boxes stacked raggedly to the ceiling: Payless shoe boxes, Roi-Tan cigar boxes, Lucky Charms cereal boxes, perhaps fifty in all, most of them spray-painted and covered with magic marker hieroglyphs.

  “Are you a shoe salesman?” Samira asked.

  JJ laughed, a high-pitched yodel. “These boxes aren’t filled with shoes. Or cereal or cigars, for that matter. They’re special kits. Filled with … well, special things. This one’s called Top Dog. Canine steroids—you know, for frisbee championships? This one’s for nervous dogs: Doggie Paxil and K-9 Quaaludes. This one’s an appetite suppressant for dogs, this one contains a dog whistle and transponder so humans can hear it, this one contains funeral eye caps and hypno-coins, this one post-divorce pills, this one placebo Viagra …”

  Samira laughed, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “What’s in this one, with the skull and crossbones?”

  “Anthrax. Re-engineered. The bacterium’s been disabled to make it harmless, except to certain cancer cells. And this one contains black hellebore, or Christmas rose, also a poison.”

  “But …why do you have poisons?”

  “I got a deal off the Internet for the whole lot. E-bay. Roaming the Net is my hobby. I’m an internaut.”

  “And that one?” Samira pointed higher up, to a pea-green box with saffron stars.

  “Which one? Oh, that’s The Wedge. You got your wedge, your foam, your fill bottle, gloves, temp strip, hose clamp, swab.”

  “But what is it?”

  JJ took the box down, opened it up. “Well … I’m a bit embarrassed to say in female company.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “You place the wedge between your butt cheeks. I can demonstrate if you like.”

  Samira paused, finding the image in her head rather alarming. “No
t … necessary. But what’s it for?”

  “It’s a pass-the-piss-test,” said Norval, by the entrance, still turning one of the bongs over in his hands.

  “Exactly,” said JJ. “It allows you to pass someone else’s water—clean and at the correct temperature. Here’s another one, the Whizzinator 3000, which is synthetic. Comes with a very realistic prosthetic virile member, in lifelike skin tones—black, brown, Latino, tan, white. Uses only the best synthetic urine on the market. No batteries, no wires, no metal to set off alarms. It comes with organic heat pads to maintain body temperature.”

  Samira nodded. “You sell them to athletes, I imagine?”

  “Yeah, in fact a Canadian athlete who’s now in Salt Lake City bought three. A biathlete by the name of … but wait, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this! It’s also for anyone who might have trouble passing an employer’s test.”

  “Right.” Samira lifted the lid of an electric-blue box at eye-level. “And this one is …?”

  “A scrotal infusion kit.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know more.”

  “You got your wax, your catheter, saline solution, intravenous bag. Everything you need. Well, not you.”

  “Need for what?”

  “Scrotal inflation. You dip your scrotum in hot wax several times to relax it, inject a catheter into both sides of the testicles and fill them with a dripping saline solution from an intravenous bag. You can go up to two litres if you want. That’ll give you three days of monster balls—expanding anywhere from fifteen to twenty-two inches in circumference—before the solution is absorbed into the system and things get back to normal. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “But … why?”

  “Some gentlemen like the warm heavy feeling when they’re all puffed up. And deflation is good too, because there’s a constant tugging on the scrotum. So they say—I’ve never tried it. Plus it looks hot, it looks awesome.”

  “What’s this sack of powder for?” asked Norval, from a kneeling position, his nose stuck in the bag as if he were about to snort it.