The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [92]
“That can’t be easy,” she said finally. “Especially when you store memories you’d rather get rid of. Dark and oppressive memories …”
“Like the day I learned my father killed himself. When his boss and two cops came to the door. I replay that day, the colours and shapes, over in my brain almost every day. And some traumatic things that happened to me in school as well. But I’m hardly alone in that respect. That’s what psychiatrists are for. For people who can’t forget.”
“Is that why people are depressed? Because they can’t forget? Or have a hard time forgetting?”
“It’s hard to say which came first. Are people depressed because they can’t forget, can’t properly process and digest things? Or is it that they can’t properly process and digest because they’re depressed?”
“But thinking about bad things all the time, having unwanted memories continually coming to the surface—that leads to depression. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Right? What they used to call shell shock?”
“You know as much as I do.”
“I just learned that last week, in my art-therapy class. Have you ever tried to paint, by the way? As an outlet, a way of exorcising the demons of the past? Or write?”
Noel gazed up at the window again, watched the snow falling … the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling … See? There I go again, he thought. I’m capable only of remembering other people’s descriptions of nature, other people’s expressions of emotion. I’m like Christian in Cyrano, who never learned the language of sentiment, who had to get someone else to express …
“Uh, Noel?” For a second she was worried; he seemed on the verge of a seizure or something. “Noel?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Sorry, it’s … I was just … it’s something you’ll have to get used to, I’m afraid. Norval says it looks like I’m noddingoff on heroin. But it’s not as bad as it looks. What were you saying?”
“I asked if you’ve ever tried to write or paint or compose …”
“All of the above. Lots of times. But when I finally come up with something, I realise it’s something dredged from memory, recovered from … the black box.”
“But why is Norval so convinced that one day you’ll—”
“Norval doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I belong to a certain class of people who never accomplish anything, it’s as simple as that. Who try to make beautiful things, or beautiful discoveries, but can’t. Every line I write conjures up other lines, better lines, from other writers. Every image I paint, or song I write, conjures up better images from better painters, better music from better composers. Every scientific ‘discovery’ I make has already been discovered. So I decided long ago to stop beating at doors I’ll never enter.”
Samira felt another tug—or stab—at the heartstrings as the seconds ticked by. It wasn’t so much his words as his look of sadness. She waited until Noel lifted his gaze from the floor, which took a while.
“You can do anything, Noel, if you want it bad enough.”
Desire is creation. If you could measure desire, you could foretell achievement. His father told him that. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Can’t you combine the things in your memory, creatively, or use them as a base or … I don’t know, influence? I know you can. Don’t ever give up.”
Noel’s mind raced back to a certain game of Remembrance, when his father expressed this same thing …
“Noel? Can’t you combine things, combine imagination with memory?”
“No, I can’t even do that. I have trouble making new patterns, new combinations. My mind’s a museum, a library—not a debating hall, not a crucible.”
“Maybe you just need encouragement or someone to …” She let her sentence trail as she watched Noel’s expression cloud over, darken. “Noel?”
“Yes?”
“I know Norval’s your best friend, but I was wondering if you had someone else to… if you had a girlfriend, or if you go out with … you know, girls, women. I know that sounds stupid …”
The question caught Noel off guard, and it took him a while to frame a coherent reply. “Well, I really haven’t had time for women … I’ve spent most