The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [141]
“I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. So that means the game’s over, am I right?”
“Which game?”
“This game of … interrogation. The pumping, grilling, harassing that’s gone on for twenty-five—”
“Have you found a cure for Alzheimer’s?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that I intentionally gave your mother the disease?”
“No.”
“Is Norval a liar?”
“He exaggerates, but he does not lie.”
“Do you believe that his memory disorder has anything to do with my experiments?”
“What? What memory disorder?”
“Do you think I’m responsible for his suicide?”
“What suicide—”
“Do you think I’m responsible for your father’s suicide?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you in love with the Bath Lady?”
“No.”
“Are you in love with Samira?”
I hesitated, bit my lip, felt my face filling with blood. I glanced towards Samira, who was giving off these emanations—incandescent double, triple, quadruple outlines flowing around her—that dazzled my brain like flashes of the sun, leaving thousands of gold coins and dancing spangles within my eyes. I looked away, towards Dr. Vorta, whose sequinned face was changing into someone else’s. I covered my eyes. “Yes.”
“Yes?” asked Jack Lafontaine. “Are you sure? Do you want to reconsider? You can take the money and run. I’ll just pretend we never asked that question … No? Are you sure? Absolutely positive? Well, guess what. I have something to tell you. You’ve just won FIFTY GRAND! Let’s go insane for Noel Burun!”
APPLAUSE sign.
“All right, let’s pause to catch our breath. Wow! I hope you’ve enjoyed this … electrifying, one-of-a-kind performance, I know I have! Will there be another? Now that we’ve given away all our money, will there be another show?” Jack paused to hold up an oversized cheque. “Here you go, Noel. It’s all yours. Is that your girlfriend by the stage, waiting for you? Excellent stuff. Well, I’m sure she’ll find a way to spend this if you can’t! All right folks, when we come back we’ll welcome some new contestants, and a brand-new category. Whew! Don’t go away!”
Noel’s eyes opened slowly as Dr. Vorta unfastened the wires and removed the bonnet of what he facetiously called “the hair dryer.” When he heard the doctor’s voice, a cold jagged sensation traversed his body. It was like someone had thrown a switch and disconnected him. For the first time in his life, he saw no colours.59
Chapter 23
JJ’s Scrapbook
(November 22/02)
(January 20/03)
(January 20/03)
(January 21/03)
(February 14/03)
(November 11/03)
(November 13/03)
(December 1/03)
(August 24/04)
Chapter 24
Noel’s Diary (IV)
January 5, 2004. How does it go again? “The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” I can’t remember who said that—it’ll come to me—but he or she was right. It goes back to what JJ said about intelligence of the brain vs. intelligence of the heart …
And it goes back to what my father said about poets freeing those feelings we keep locked in the heart. I was never really sure, to be honest, what feelings he was referring to. Which ones have to be set free, and why? My mother gave me an answer: what we’re all really seeking is the freedom to give ourselves away. To stop maniacally holding on to ourselves, to escape from the jail of living solely and vainly for our own sake. This is the treasure, I think, buried in the pent heart.
Omar Bradley. (I just asked my mom.)
January 6. Large snowflakes swirl. “They’re plucking geese in heaven,” my mother told me when I was four, outside our bay window in Babylon. She zipped up my woollen coat of double blue, which she herself had knitted, and set me down in the snow with a small shovel. “Your grandmother used to say that,” she added, her hair of rich reddish-gold grazing my cheek as she wound my scarf tight. That memory is solid, but almost all others are delicate and fugitive, like the white flakes that now vanish as they kiss the glass.
This will be my final entry.
My mother has turned back into the person she once was, worth more to me than winning the world