The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [105]
April 21. Still can’t focus in the lab. Totally zoned out. Had a good week in late March but the days since have been foggy and downhill.
April 23. With the hope of unblocking, met Norval again for the matinée. For Shakespeare’s birthday they were showing Brook’s King Lear. The last acts always hit me hard—too sad for words—but today they were simply crushing. I tried to stop the tears, tried to hide them from Norval, but couldn’t. It was these lines that got me going:
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night …
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not.
If you have poison for me, I will drink it …
April 27. Finally got a kind of clarity, a view from another realm, for twenty-six hours straight. Where there were walls there are now doors. Decided not to give up on the NA-56, even if Vorta and the leagued universe are against me. Made one small addition and one small subtraction, epiphanically, like a sacred sculptor. Result: it began to take on the faintest of scents … of green apple.
Chapter 16
Samira’s Diary
February 4/02
Left Norval today. Or rather, left his loft for other accommodations … I was a roommate in January, nothing more. We barely saw each other.
The few times we were together he ignored me, either reading or maniacally playing bow & arrows, or should I say “practising his archery.” With his Turkish & Mongol bows—made by some Hungarian “master bowyer” … Phoom, thwack, phoom, thwack … Usually in the bull’s eye, like Robin Hood. Or through an apple, like William Tell.45
The whole time I was in a period of chastity, and lust. Norval has this force field, this presence—like some being who’s visited heaven & hell & brought back the best of both. Worst of both? It was so frustrating being around him, listening but not being listened to, at the altar of his ego. He has a knack for making anything I say sound stupid far in advance of my saying it. I felt like a bug, something that could be stepped on without notice. I was an S, for God’s sake, nothing more! When I told him I wouldn’t be part of his vile game, wouldn’t be another name flamed, placed in the kill files, that was it. He never came on to me again. After that he just looked at me with subwayish blankness, listened to me as though he wouldn’t care if I hanged myself from his candelabra.
February 5
Now living with Ted, an old (Platonic) friend from high school. He’s a tech-crash victim who used to have money to burn. Already, after one day together, I think there could be problems. Among other things, he talks about mutual funds, endlessly.
I would’ve made love with Norval—if he’d cancelled the Bet. Because of what he said about killing himself after Z. I mean, if he’s remotely serious, then I can hardly help him on his way to Z, can I …
But maybe he’s simply out of my class—too much intelligence, too much beauty (his body would’ve satisfied the standards of Michelangelo himself). And what is my class? “Almost average” in his words.
February 6
Ted beginning to stare at me, continuously. In some cultures breasts are considered something for babies to be interested in, not grown men.
February 7
I know it’s stupid, self-destructive, but I just can’t stop thinking about Norval, hoping—for what? Love, affection? A phone call? Why am I so bloody duncical? Isn’t it only men who fall for physical beauty & are blind to everything else?
Stirling looked great, but in conversation seldom rose above the sound-bites expected of celebrities. After him I swore that actors & artists were out—they don’t know who the hell they