The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [139]
“All right, here’s your first question! Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century poet-astronomer from Persia, is best known for a collection of epigrammatic quatrains, one hundred and one in all, called the Rubáiyát. For twenty-five thousand dollars, recite the 74th quatrain.”
A murmur went through the audience as I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to block everything out while trawling my memory. I saw my mother’s face—so much younger!—then heard her voice …
“Noel? Are you with me? Shall I repeat the question?”
“‘Yesterday this day’s Madness did prepare; / To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair: / Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why: / Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.’”
Jack pored over his card, raised his head, and with grave disappointment said, “Noel, I’m sorry but … I’m a very slow reader. I’ve now read every word on my card and have to inform you that … you’re wrro … right! You’re absolutely right! Are you loving this, audience? Were human beings meant to be this entertained?”
APPLAUSE sign.
“All right. Moving up the ladder. Second question, for thirty-five thousand dollars. In The Arabian Nights, also known as The One Thousand and One Nights, there’s a story entitled ‘The Tale of the Hashish Eater,’ in which a man makes a bit of a spectacle of himself. For thirty-five grand, can you recite the relevant passage?”
I closed my eyes again. This one was easy. JJ had shown it to me the night before. “‘They were pointing out to each other his naked zabb, which stood up in the air as far as was humanly possible, as great as that of an ass or an elephant. Some of them poured pitchers of cold water over this column.’”
Jack Lafontaine looked down at his card, up at the audience, then sideways at Dr. Vorta. “I don’t know about the ass, but Noel certainly has the memory of an elephant!”
APPLAUSE sign.
“All right, excellent … Oh, do you hear that drum roll? It can mean only one thing. The final question. Will Noel be able to stave off execution once more, like Scheherazade? Did I pronounce that right, Doctor? How are the nerves now, Noel?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Lafontaine, I’m nervous. But the shades of your voice are quite comforting—they’re soft and silvery-white, like potassium.”
“They … are? Well, thank you for that, Noel, that’s very kind. Am I blushing? I hope our producer is listening—you hear that? He likes the silverywhite shades of my voice! All right, enough of that. I don’t know if you can feel the tension at home, but in the studio you can cut it with a knife—or should I say, a scimitar! We’ve arrived at the moment of truth. Are you ready, Noel? Again, in The One Thousand and One Nights, in a tale called ‘Al-Rashid and the Fart,’ a very peculiar cure is recommended to a traveller. For fifty thousand dollars, name the ingredients of this cure.”
This rang no bells, none whatsoever. Did JJ show me that passage, when I wasn’t listening? Did my mom ever read me that story? I waited for the words and colours to unsilt themselves …
“Ahem. Uh, Noel? Are you with us? Time’s running out …”
I tried to focus, but on what? I could feel my head getting hotter and hotter, my alpha waves crashing into each other, my search engine overheating … I looked down, distracted by something moving—my shaking hands. I couldn’t even bring them together to wring them. Around my wrist, I noticed for the first time, was JJ’s canine transponder. Was the answer there? Was Norval signalling me? I looked closer. The display was blank.
“I’m going to need an answer in the next ten seconds, my friend, or you leave with zero. Fifty thousand loons on the line …”
A hailstorm of numbers struck me as time extracted the seconds: 10 x 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year; 10 x 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation in the spectral transition of cesium-133 …
“Noel, I’m afraid we’ll have to …”
Cesium. Soft white metal; symbol Cs; atomic number 55, atomic weight 132.91 … A fierce light hit me hard, but from behind,