The Memory Artists (32 page)

January 7. Mom walked into the lab as I was kneeling on the floor, picking up pieces of a dropped Erlenmeyer. After looking this way and that, examining all the chemicals and apparatus, she bit her lip, obviously struggling with her emotions. Mom was never one to cry a lot, but now she’s doing it almost daily. But this time she kept her composure. She told me, quite sternly, that I was spending too much time in the lab, just as I did when I was a boy, just as my father used to do. She said at this rate I’d never find a girl, never get married.

At bedtime, with this in mind, I recited a poem from the 1890s by Constance Naden, to see if Mom would laugh (she didn’t), and to see if she would remember reading it to me (she did):

I was a youth of studious mind,

Fair Science my mistress kind,

Which held me with attraction chemic;

No germs of Love attacked my heart,

Secured as by Pasteurian art

Against that fatal epidemic.

When my daily task was o’er

I dreamed of H
₂
SO
₄

Whilst stealing through my slumbers placid

Came Iodine, with violet fumes

And Sulphur, with its yellow blooms

And whiffs of Hydrochloric Acid …

After I told Mom the name of the poet for the second time, she said, That’s right, you just told me. I guess that little madman inside my head, Al Zeimer, needed to know again.

After she fell asleep I returned to the lab, where I sat, head in hands, thinking about the little madman inside her, the turner of the kaleidoscope. Where did you come from? And why? A creaking sound, as if in answer, made me jump. In her white gossamer nightgown, Mom shimmered through the unlocked door like a ghost. She gave me a big kiss, thanked me for staying with her, said she loved me and would be lost without me. She then slipped away without another word.

January 10. I was talking to Mom tonight, repeating something she had not remembered from five minutes before, and for some reason got close to her ear to say it, as if this would make the message stick. In mid-sentence I stopped, suddenly thinking of the “memory holes” from Orwell’s 1984, the slits or openings scattered throughout the rooms and corridors of all the buildings. You simply had to lift up a flap and drop an item in and it would be “whirled away on a current of warm air to enormous furnaces hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.” They were part of a scheme to control the past, to control all records and all human memories—so as to control the future. As I was speaking into Mom’s ear, I began to see her memory loss as a war inside her, a dystopian war with enemy soldiers rampaging through the ventricles of her brain, committing acts of sabotage, snipping this and torching that, controlling her by erasing or distorting her memories—so as to control her future. And I realised that my mission was to annihilate these enemy soldiers—with chemical warfare, biological warfare, whatever it takes.

But do
I
have what it takes? The brains? The courage? For there is fear to conquer too, not of defeat—the odds are so absurdly stacked against me—or even the memory of past defeats, but of friendly fire, of killing the patient with the cure, of the death in ambush that lies in every pill.

January 12. My mother’s decline can be measured in acrosses and downs. When she was well, hooked on crosswords in the Globe and Mail, she could do them by leaps and bounds, in unwavering ink capitals. Then I noticed the occasional phantom row—written in invisible ink I madly hoped—then more white squares than capitals, then an orphan word pencilled in here and there with many more around it erased, and finally nothing at all, the newspaper unopened ...

January 14. Mom’s been up and down, mostly down, sinking as if from a slow leak. Over the past year, none of Vorta’s “smart” drugs—and none of mine—have stopped the plunge, including:

So will now try my own combinations, my own counterpoisons. But first I’ll have to make some domestic changes—it’s simply impossible to look after my mom and work in the lab at the same time.

January 16, 3:20 a.m. Thermometer in the garden wavering around 20 below. And the power has been off for almost six hours. Put a thick Mennonite quilt on Mom, lit 3 candles and read silently as she slept. A story about Ra, the Egyptian sun god who loses his memory and lives forever in a senile haze …

January 18. Some good news, finally. A message on the answering machine from Mrs. Holtzberger from Home Care, saying that my “application for a subsidised day nurse has been approved.” As for the “other issues,” they have all been “ironed out at a higher level.” By Dr. Vorta, as it turns out! How nice to have friends in high places. Phoned Sancha immediately to see if she was still available. She is. And seems happy to come back. She starts next week.

January 23. In my mailbox at the Psych Dept there was an invitation to a party next week from Jean-Jacques Yelle, who works for Dr. Vorta. Oddly, it’s scheduled to begin at precisely “8:02.” Not sure what it’s all about exactly, but of course I won’t go. I’m too busy, I don’t know him that well, and I don’t function at parties.

January 27. Am trying to get Mom to drink more coffee, instead of tea, because Dr. Vorta says there’s evidence it can prevent AD.
⁴⁰

February 3. Decided to go to JJ’s party after all—at Norval’s command. And what an evening! JJ’s like a mad apothecary—he has all kinds of magic kits and alchemical philtres and mystical herbs. Legal, apparently. He’s quite a character—I thought Norval was going to smother him with a cushion at one point but I think he quite likes him. Samira, I can tell, likes him too. Speaking of Samira, what can I say? She’s clever, charming, considerate, attractive. I dreamt about her all night long, I’m ashamed to admit, the same way I used to dream about Heliodora Locke … I’m sure Sam thinks I’m an idiot and feels sorry for me. But more later. Mom’s calling.

Right. Two things I didn’t mention: (1) As incredible as it may sound, JJ’s place was hit by an arsonist (!?). While we were all there, the four of us, under the influence of various substances. Not too much damage luckily, apart from smoke and water, although JJ’s cigar-store Indian was burnt to a crisp. He’s now staying with us, temporarily. JJ, not the Indian. (2) I made a discovery— Norval hasn’t made love with Samira! Not yet, anyway. I’m going to do something, I have a plan involving the Bath Lady … But more later. Mom’s calling again.

5:15 a.m. A radical downturn, a Lethean fall—Mom’s hit rock bottom. Wondering if she’ll ever resurface.

February 8. Been working with JJ in the lab. As a partner. Because I need him, I need his kind of mind. With no disrespect intended, he’s a kind of idiot savant, a celestial idealist who’s playing with a different set of marbles, which is what this project requires. He lets his whims and instincts lead him. He makes the big leap, the mad leap. I’m a literalist, a rationalist, with no feel or flair or intuition. Even though I’ve got a great memory for facts, I miss things, obvious connections. I’m blind to the miracle.

What’s more, JJ’s an angel of a man—kind, trusting, non-judgemental, always looking on the bright side (regarding my mom’s relapse, he said, “Sometimes a condition must worsen before bettering”). And he has a quality that means more to me than any other: loyalty. He’s set up a card table and computer beside my desk, so we share a lot of equipment. He usually talks all the time or whistles, but when he starts surfing or mixing herbal concoctions he shuts up. Sometimes there’ll be silence or near-silence for hours, apart from some occasional wind-breaking, or grunting if he’s on his headphones, after which we work together, compare notes … He’s interested in everything I do and I’m trying to learn from him, for he’s an unbiased, open-minded, knowledgeable man with a heart of Au.

February 9. JJ’s started on Mom’s insomnia and sundowning. I’ve taken her off Halderon and given her something JJ made, a frothy infusion he calls an “Earth Shake,” a hot brew of German camomile, skullcap, hops, vervain and tincture of wild oats that Mom actually liked. To me it tastes like steamed hay. Last night he gave her a biochemic tissue salt (potassium phosphate, triturated until soluble). And tonight, around ten, he gave her a long massage with mandarin oil, spending five minutes on each of the following reflexology points: 3, 4, 9, 17, 20, 52. (I know the numbers but not what they signify.)

February 10. Mom slept for ten hours! Which she so badly needed. And no wandering, no lamplighting.

February 11. Tonight JJ drew a bath with aromatic marjoram oil, which Mom loved and wouldn’t come out of until the water got cold. She now says she wants JJ to prepare her bath from now on, and doesn’t want the Bath Lady anymore! But I want to keep Sancha because … she starts with an S. But it’s probably too late. Won’t see Norval this week—he cancelled for Tuesday.

February 12. Quiet day. Nothing worth mentioning.

February 14. Inexplicably, Mom is becoming more and more silent so JJ is getting her to talk about her life through her photo albums. He seems to love imagining her past—he peppers her with questions about her childhood and then talks excitedly about his own. Yesterday he found an old tape in her bookcase, a recording my mom and I made of a “play” we’d written together called The Phantasmagorical Phantom of Firenza. We no longer have a reel-to-reel recorder to play it, so JJ went home and got his. And then actually played the damn thing. Speak, Memorex. Mom had written her part—a Florentine princess locked in a moated grange—and I had written mine: an occasionally invisible mediaeval knight-wizard who saves her with anachronistic weapons while using big words like “vagaries” and “vicissitudes.” Mom laughed and laughed, probably because JJ was rolling on the floor.

February 17. For his first ten days here, JJ spent almost the entire time in the lab, even eating sandwiches down there, which Mom prepares for him in Saran wrap and a lunch bag, like he’s going to school. He even drinks hot chocolate out of my old thermos. But now he spends most of his time upstairs—with Mom. Which is fantastic not only because she likes him a lot—she sometimes cries with laughter at his puns and cornballisms—but it gives me more time in the lab, uninterrupted and unworried.

February 18. I’ve taken the last two nights off. Tonight the three of us had Chinese take-out, rented Defending Your Life and Withnail and I, ate burnt popcorn and laughed uncontrollably—as we had the night before watching the same movies.

February 19. Mom got up early today, dressed herself elegantly, put on make-up, and was in a great mood all day. She looked totally refreshed—and energised, as if she were about to tango or belly dance at any second. JJ’s laughter therapy is obviously kicking in.

Haven’t seen Norval in a while. He’s cancelled two Tuesdays in a row—and today he just didn’t show up. When I phoned him he said he “forgot” we met on Tuesdays. Forgot?

Haven’t seen Samira in a while either.

20:02, 20/02, 2002. The palindromic moment has just passed, without fanfare. Everyone, including JJ, seems to have forgotten about it. And about a second meeting.

February 21. Mom was wandering at night again, with her trusty lamp, so JJ prepared something new for her: a maple sugar base with extracts of pennyroyal and rock mint, combined in a decoction of California poppy, Jamaican dogwood and Madagascan periwinkle.

What’s strange is that Mom takes whatever medicine JJ and I give her, unquestioningly, like a trusting child. I can only pray her trust is well placed …

February 24. There are starting to be extraordinary variations in my mother’s memory abilities. I’ll have to share the information with Dr. Vorta, see what he thinks.

February 26. No matinée today. Couldn’t reach Norval all week. He may be out of town. With Samira?

March 1. JJ’s memory for jokes seems near-infinite. So much lightness, so much laughter inside his brain—it must be what makes him so … the opposite of world-weary. Must ask Dr. Vorta about this.

At breakfast, between mouthfuls of Lucky Charms, he reeled off this one: “So I’m talking to this friend of mine and he goes, ‘Yup, I’m colour-blind to one colour.’ So I ask him what colour he’s blind to, and he goes, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet.’”

None of his jokes, I grant, are particularly funny (except in their unfunniness or delivery), and this one is no exception. But for some reason, after laughing politely this morning, I’ve been thinking about it all day. Perhaps because it points to a main difference, or divide, between science and art. Our “rational” side sees the humour of the punchline because it’s self-contradictory, absurd, at variance with common sense. Our “artistic” side, however, sees a vein of truth within it—regarding imaginary fears or invisible barriers—because paradox is the currency of poetry. But science has room for paradox as well, as Einstein will tell you. “Don’t be in thrall of reason,” my father once said, “or you’ll never invent anything, never be a great scientist. The pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness too, don’t forget.”

More later. Mom’s calling …

March 3. Something incredible just happened. Still not sure if I dreamt it. Samira Darwish arrived! Here at the house, well after midnight, out of the blue. The incredible part is that she’s now staying here. Heliodora Locke! She said just for one night but I’m hoping for one thousand and one. More later. The sun’s about to rise.

March 5. Spent this afternoon, in a daze, at the Osler Library, where Dr. Vorta had reserved some “Restricted” books for me, for on-site consultation only.

Turned out to be a blind alley. Or maybe I was distracted by … other things. Anyway, when I arrived home, a surprise awaited me. Samira and JJ had made some radical changes—improvements—to the house. Which Norval may have paid for (?!). Tried phoning him today, but no answer, not even from the answering machine. Beginning to worry.