The Memory Artists

  “Well, thanks, but I … I hardly …”

  “You did. Now can we see your lab?”

  Noel sighed. He was afraid they’d be up all night if he agreed. “Tomorrow? Aren’t you … exhausted after a day like this?”

  “I only need four hours. I’m usually too excited to sleep. I need less sleep than Edison. Did you know that according to a recent study, those that sleep less than the sacred eight actually live longer?”

  “I didn’t know that. I guess I’m going to live a long time.”

  “Hey Noel, why did the man run around his bed?”

  Noel paused. “Uh, let me see. Because he wanted to catch up on his sleep?”

  “Yes! You heard that one? Shall we take a gander at the lab now?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Do you think we can make some stink bombs or laughing gas or cannon crackers?”

  Noel laughed, remembering the days with his father when they made all three. “Why not?”

  “You know, now that I think of it, we should ask Sam for her help too.”

  “Samira? She’s an actress … I mean she’s an expert in literature, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a woman. She’ll know what to do. She’ll know how to help your mom.”

  “Well, fine, I’m sure she … could be very helpful. But I doubt if she’d—”

  “Is Sam fly or what? Is she slammin’?”

  Noel paused, wondering whether he’d misheard. What language was that? “I’m sorry?”

  “Sam. Is she hot or what? Is she not swoonworthy?”

  “Oh. Yes, I … I suppose she is. Swoonworthy.”

  “Don’t tell her I said this, Noel, but I think she’s got a crush on you. Just a hunch I got …”

  To Noel the word “crush” was like a blast from a stun gun, or the tremor of an earthquake. He was stupended. Impossible, he thought, JJ’s got things totally backwards. But what if. Yes, what if …

  “Can I ask you a question, Noel? Why does your mom have such a huge house?” JJ scrutinised his new best friend, his facial transformations. “Noel? You with me? Noel?” He was headed for another upper thunder point, but Noel saw it coming.

  “Sorry, I …” Noel struggled to tear his thoughts from Samira. “The house … it’s a long story.” Impossible, I couldn’t have heard him right ... “My dad … he’s the one who wanted it. He used to drive by it all the time. And then my mom inherited some money and they decided they wanted a big house. ‘To fill it up with children,’ Mom said. But it didn’t work out that way. And then after my father died she wanted to ‘fill it up with orphans.’ But it was too late. The adoption agencies were looking for couples. Plus she was into her forties by then.”

  “That’s very kind, very generous of her. She must be a sweetheart— like my mom. And like Samira—she told me she wants to adopt because she doesn’t think she can have kids of her own.”

  “Really? She said that? When, tonight?”

  JJ put his hand over his mouth. “I don’t think I was supposed to tell anybody.”

  “Don’t worry, I—”

  “But didn’t I see a ‘For Sale’ sign outside? You guys moving?”

  “Yeah, we … we can’t make the payments, the remortgage payments.”

  “Oh bummage. But you guys must be rolling, you live in Outremont! These ceilings must be eighteen feet high!”

  “Well, we were … rolling, kind of, after my grandmother died. But the money’s long gone. Med school was expensive and then … renovations, and now the memory potions I’m making, and the new lab equipment. Plus my mom lost some of it on … well, bad investments, shall we say, and we had lots of debts before that. Because of me. I’ve been a lifelong drain—”

  “Take the sign down.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You want to stay here?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Take the sign down. We’ll find a way. I’m great at finding money, plus I’ll move in for a few days, if it’s OK with you and your mom. And pay rent. And sell off some of my kits …”

  “No, really, JJ, that’s absolutely not necessary … I mean you can move in for a while, as long as you want, but I can’t expect … Where are you going?”

  JJ was heading for the door. “How do you open this thing?”

  “A then Z. Twice.”

  “Got it. First, the sign comes down. Then we go down and check out your lab.”

  JJ stayed the next fifty-two days. Gradually, Noel began to spend less and less time with his mother—only an hour or two a day for meals—and more and more time in the lab. He also saw less of Norval; they took turns cancelling their weekly matinée. As for Samira, he saw her once leaving the Psych building, but she barely acknowledged him. So much for the “crush,” thought Noel.

  Most days Noel would work from late morning to 4 a.m., which included trips to McGill’s Health Sciences Library, memorising JJ’s natural therapy books (the sections relating to the brain), and working and consulting with Dr. Vorta. At least four hours a day he would have company downstairs: labouring on a rickety bridge table with his reconditioned computers, JJ now shared Noel’s equipment, patiently preparing his homeopathic elixirs and admixtures, grey-matter elevators and memory escalators.

  Like his mother, JJ related things more than once, not out of forgetfulness but out of a child’s excitement at reliving, at sharing, cherished moments of the past. This never bothered Noel.

  JJ also liked to whistle. At first Noel found his meandering strains— usually “Yellow Bird” or improvisational and keyless variations— distracting, but after a while he found it oddly comforting. He also got used to his habit of playing tunes on his teeth with a pencil, and of slurping every liquid, including herbal teas, through a straw. Nor did Noel mind when JJ urinated in the laundry-room sink, rising on his toes, glancing furtively this way and that. None of this bothered Noel because he was starting to make progress, real progress, and JJ seemed to be a part of that.

  What he did mind was JJ’s grunts as he listened, on his headphones, to his mother’s Hits from the Sixties box set. Without Noel knowing it, JJ repeated three in particular, over and over, perhaps for luck: “Do You Believe in Magic?”, “Love Potion #9” and “Magic Carpet Ride.” Also for luck, with Noel very much knowing it, JJ wore his bubblegum-pink socks in the lab, day after day.

  After four and a half weeks of toil and quest, on the first Sunday in March, Noel got a flash of inspiration, a glimmer of supranormal insight. He was at Mount Royal Cemetery, watching cloud-shadows sweep across the fields, when a rustling sound distracted him, a squirrel or bird perhaps, foraging in graveyard grass. He turned and saw a shaft of sunlight illuminating, ever so briefly, the chiselled letters of his father’s headstone. Back home, he scrambled up to the attic for books from his childhood, then flew down the stairs like a five-year-old at Christmas. For the rest of the day he worked in the basement, alone.

  Around nine, JJ came down with a tray of sandwiches. “Your mom made these for you. You must be famished.”

  With a magnifying glass Noel was examining prismatic beads and globules frothing inside an Erlenmeyer. He replied with a grunt.

  “Hey Noel. Two travellers are crossing a desert. What would they live on if their food ran out?”

  “Just a sec.”

  “They’d live on the sandwiches there.”

  Satisfied with the colour change in the emulsion, Noel lowered the flame beneath it with fingers blackened by chemicals. He replaced the magnifying glass in its sheath, copied some entries into a notebook.

  “They’d live on the sand which is there,” JJ repeated.

  Noel looked up from his notebook. “Is that tuna? Good, I could use some brain food. I’m trying to make a leap here …” Of imagination, he nearly added. He felt it as though it were a new sense, arriving late, like wisdom teeth.

  “What are you up to?”

  Noel nodded towards the flask. “Pyridoxal phosphate.”

  “Cool.” JJ
leaned over and examined the billowing liquid. “What’s that?”

  “It’s … well, involved in the synthesis of two neurotransmitters—serotonin and norepinephrine. There’s something about it in my dad’s notes.”

  “Very cool. Everything on track?”

  “I think so. How about you, JJ? How are things going?”

  “Rollin’. All four tyres pumped.” He grinned, gleamed.

  JJ was always gleaming—his very blood must be high-gloss, a special glaze or lacquer. Which protected him from things like loneliness or boredom or depression, which allowed him to go through life with a smile on his face, to see life as a treasure hunt and the world as Aladdin’s cave. “Do things ever go badly for you, JJ?” said Noel, between mouthfuls of white tuna. “Are you ever unhappy?”

  The question made JJ shrug. “I guess I’m hardwired for happiness. Every day there’s something new and magical in life. Although I have to admit I’d go back to my childhood in a second. The past is safe ...” JJ let the sentence trail. “I remember one time after a baseball game—”

  “You were carried on your teammates’ shoulders, I know. But as an adult do you never get sad or depressed? What about … I don’t know, after losing family members or … friends?”

  “Well, I was sad when papa met his Maker in ‘97, and when Jesus welcomed maman to heaven in ‘91, and when my girlfriend dumped me in ‘86. Of course I miss them. But I’m grateful for the time I spent with them. You see, no one can take that happiness away from me. It’s mine, for ever and ever. I still have that love, inside me. I carry it around wherever I go. It lives on in memory.”

  Noel nodded, swallowed. “And those three times are the only times you’ve been unhappy?”

  “There’s been other times. But heh! If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Under the snow lies summer, remember. If everything was perfect, we’d appreciate nothing.” JJ poked one of his nostrils with his finger, causing Noel to look away. “When life zigs, zag!”

  Noel smiled, his mind drifting to something Norval had said about JJ, about his “fatal penchant for potted wisdom.” But this was not a bad quality, Noel decided, and certainly not fatal. JJ lived his life by adages such as these, and they were worth living by. In a state of abstraction Noel gazed at his guest’s attire: a fire-engine-red bathrobe with a toothbrush sticking out of one pocket, a cell phone out of the other.

  “Do I look fat in this?” said JJ.

  “No … not at all, I was just—”

  “I know. I took one of your toothbrushes. Your new purple one, I hope you don’t mind. But you’ve got so many … I mean, it’s none of my business, but why do you have so many? Do you sell them?”

  Those with small heads are fourteen times more likely to develop AD, Noel recalled as he gazed at JJ’s huge head … He pushed pause, rewound an inner audio tape. Why so many toothbrushes? For Noel and synaesthetes like him, the answer was obvious. Because each day’s a different colour. Monday, for example, is dirty yellow, like smoker’s fingers; Tuesday a shade of orangey red, like paprika; Wednesday the rich blue of a Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia bottle; Thursday …

  “Earth to Noel, come in please, Earth to Noel …”

  Noel watched his friend’s lips move for two or three seconds. “Sorry, I … I guess I just like variety—it’s one of the things that stops me from going mad. Or madder.”

  “I hear you. Variety’s the condiment of existence, eh?”

  Noel eyed JJ’s bathrobe again; the sash was slowly loosening its grip round his waist. “Listen, I should let you go …”

  “Yeah, I have to shake a tower.”

  “You have to … take a shower.”

  “And then I have to fake a moan call.”

  “You have to … make a phone call.”

  JJ exploded into laughter. “I’ve got tons of them. Do you want to hear more?”

  “Another time?”

  “Time? Time wounds all heels.”

  “Right.”

  “Your mom loves these. They slay her. Laughter’s good therapy, eh? Especially in Montreal. It massages the vital organs, it’s a form of internal jogging. Neurobics. He who laughs, lasts.”

  Noel’s forehead puckered. “Especially in Montreal? Because of … what? The Just For Laughs Festival?”

  “No. What’s the city’s most famous street?”

  “Saint Lawrence Boulevard?”

  “What river’s the city on?”

  “The Saint Lawrence.”

  “And who was Saint Lawrence?”

  “Uh … a martyr of some sort?”

  “The saint of laughter. He died laughing. In the third century. While he was being roasted to death on a gridiron, he asked to be turned over, saying that he was underdone on the other side. Now that’s a sense of humour, that’s laughter therapy at its finest.”

  Here JJ’s cell went off. He paused to read a text message.

  “Great. It’s in. An extract from red-wine fermentation called ANOX. It’s from Switzerland. It’s for your mom. A source of red-wine polyphenols, which have a much bigger effect than either red wine or red wine powder on the inhibition of platelet aggregation in vitro.”

  Noel nodded as he rolled these words over in his head. “JJ, you’re a quick learner. Very quick. Thanks. We’ll certainly try it. How much do I owe you?”

  “Nada. A guy owed me a favour. No hay problema.”

  “But I’ll pay—”

  “Oh, before I forget. I’ve been doing some experimenting—on myself. So far so good. You want a clear, razor-sharp brain for your research? Don’t pleasure yourself in the morning or afternoon or evening. If you have to do it—and I’m not saying you do, I’m just advising you based on my research—do it only late at night, just before going to sleep. Otherwise, it saps your strength, fogs your brain. It’s the curse of Onan.”

  “Good night, JJ.”

  Chapter 12

  Noel & Samira (I)

  When Noel checked on his mother that night he found her in her nightgown and tennis shoes, packing her bags. There were two grey Samsonite suitcases on the bed, and she was now sitting on a third, trying to get it to close. She turned to look at her son, her face scarlet from exertion. “I know money’s tight,” she said. “I know I’m a burden.”

  A red horeshoe began to pulsate inside Noel’s brain: the PET scan image of his mother’s shrinking hippocampus. “Let me help you with that bag. They can be a real bugger sometimes.” One step forward, two steps back. Why is nothing bloody working?

  “They don’t work … like they used to.”

  After removing a pair of winter boots and two umbrellas, he closed the case and snapped it shut. “Who said money was tight, Mom? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “Him. That man.”

  “JJ?”

  His mother shrugged.

  “If he did, he’s mistaken. We’re rolling. Here, shall I put these … in a better spot? Ready for the morning?”

  His mother stared straight ahead, worry creasing her forehead, as Noel pulled each piece of luggage off the bed and placed them by the door. The sheets, he noticed, were coiled and mangled, as though she had been wrestling with some powerful force. Her husband? The feel of the empty half of the bed, he knew, still tortured her. Alzheimer’s hadn’t changed that.

  “How about a bedtime story, Mom? Or a game of cards?”

  His mother’s expression softened. She raised the twisted sheets, slipped under them, tennis shoes and all. “A story.”

  Near the end of Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose” his mother’s eyes began to flutter and close. She would always awaken if he paused at this critical point, so he carried on to the end. He then watched her slide deeper and deeper into sleep, that dry-run for death, feeling in turn worried, spent, scared.

  Noel was asleep himself, slouched in his mother’s armchair, when he thought he heard someone knocking—softly, unsurely—at the front door. JJ? No, JJ was asleep upstairs. He could
hear his donkey-snore through the floor boards. What time is it? One thirty? In the mists of sleep he rose from the chair and crossed the room, to the dotted Swiss curtains of the front window. He drew them back and saw a night coloured yellow by street lamps and mounds of snow built by snowploughs. On the driveway, parked at an odd angle, was JJ’s humpbacked car, which a midnight blizzard had painted white. At the end of the street he glimpsed the beacon of a taxi as it fishtailed around a corner. He craned his neck to see the caller at the door, but saw only a knapsack and the arm of a coat, a soldierly charcoal-and-black coat of the kind worn by … Norval. He returned to his mother’s side, pulled a woollen blanket up to her chin, glanced in her oval mirror. I look horrible, he thought, a geriatric version of myself. He edged towards the door, gently closed it behind him. He took off his shoes and began to creep down the stairs.

  What in God’s name is Norval doing here? At one-thirty in the morning. Should I let him in? Mom, JJ and Norval—not a good mix. Noel punched in letters, unbolted the front door, peered outside.

  It was Norval’s coat all right, but Norval wasn’t inside it. It cloaked a smaller figure, a woman’s figure. She was sitting on the front step, on a large courier bag, with a canvas knapsack beside her.

  “Salaam.”

  It was only one word but he recognised the colours immediately. He gave a gasp and his heart began to rev—at one hundred, one fifty …

  “Sorry, Noel. I know it’s late. I was passing by, I saw a light … JJ said you worked late …”

  … two hundred beats a minute.

  “Can I come in?”

  Noel nodded, mechanically, like a bobble-head doll.

  “Sorry for the intrusion, Noel, it’s not like me. I’ve got a few … problems, temporary problems …”

  Noel inhaled deeply, willing himself to calm down. Had he learned nothing from Norval? He took in another lungful of frozen air before closing the door behind them. “Can I … take your coat?”

  Samira hesitated before slowly unbuttoning it. “JJ told me everything. About your mom, I mean. I’ll help you guys out if you think I can. Sorry I took so long to tell you that, I’ve been … busy.”