The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [104]
March 30. A major and minor relapse. My wonder drug may not be so wonderful. Not performing as I hoped it would. Dr. Vorta extremely sceptical. “Lucid intermissions are not uncommon,” he says. I’ve thought of something else, a simple fix, but won’t say anything now because I don’t want to jinx it.
April 1. Good signs the past two days. Including this morning. While reading the newspaper at breakfast, Mom told me she has totally recovered, remembers everything and is going back to teaching full-time. April Fool’s, she added.
April 3. Think I’ve found it. A memory pill I’ve provisionally called Nepenthe-Amaranth-56. 43 It’ll need months—years—of animal testing and development, but I will not wait. We have neither months nor years to spare.
April 5. Finally got hold of Norval. And even asked him about The Alpha Bet. On target, he said. I asked what letter he was on. “None of your business. But if you must know—the plural letter. A bit of a stumbling block, that.” The plural letter! Is that possible? With a deadline in 5 weeks. Is he stalling because he’s in love with Samira? I didn’t ask, naturally. In any case, I’ve more important things to worry about.
April 6. Mom in a great mood all day, Sam in a bad. JJ as joyful as ever. More later. Still madly tinkering.
April 9. My mind feeling viscous and slow, like mucilage. No, more like the motor of a car that’s been to Mexico and back—no stops, 24-hour ignition. So today took a break—for the first time in 2 months, Nor and I met for our matinée. While waiting for the film to start he made a strange confession. Indirectly. JJ, it seems, has been “pestering” him for a couple of Top Ten Lists (poetry—one in English, one in French, no particular order). He wouldn’t reveal his French list, but—astonishingly—he gave me his English:
Rochester, “Song” (“Love a woman? You’re an ass!”)
Larkin, “Aubade” and “The Old Fools”
Lord Byron, “Don Juan” and “Darkness”
Delmore Schwartz, “Calmly we walk through this April’s day”
Donne, “Go Catch a Falling Star” or “Woman’s Constancy”
MacNeice, “Sunlight on the Garden”
Dante Rossetti, “Without You”
Dowson, “Cynara”
Fair enough. Except for the fact they’re weren’t all Decadent or Symbolist, no real surprises—except for the last two or three. Laments for dead lovers.44 Which is what his novel is about, more or less. And there was a strange look on his face when he mentioned them, as if he were trying to confide in me. Must get to the bottom of this. But not now—have more important things to do.
April 10. Can’t focus. Completely blocked. So spent the day at the McLennan library memorising passages of Arabic literature and language. Why? Because last week at the lab Samira seemed dazzled by Norval’s “knowledge” of Arabic (which is three bloody phrases at most, two of them lewd). Pathetic, I know. But I had to get my head out of the dungeon anyway.
Dr. Vorta called after supper. He wants to do a “revolutionary” experiment on me, with a trans-magnetic stimulator of his own invention. It sounds a bit dangerous to me, but I trust him. He said it’s to study my synaesthesia, but when I told Norval about it over the phone, he said the experiment was designed to eliminate it! Which naturally I don’t want—I’m afraid my memory could go along with it.
April 15. Mom’s excited—next month Norval’s going to try to get on one of her favourite shows, Tip of Your Tongue. (I refused.) She can hardly wait. It’s a horrible show really—amateurish sets, fake applause, a Vegas emcee with a toupée and girdle, etc. The studio’s in Montreal North, in an industrial plaza. It’s considered camp by university students, maybe because it comes on Friday at midnight and has the odd “X-rated” question. The top prize, in any case, is fifty grand. But no one has gone all the way yet, which is unusual for a show that’s been on the air for two years. They’ve made the final rounds extraordinarily