The Memory Artists (45 page)

Inside my head, round and round as if caught in a sandstorm, feather-edged aubergine beads reeled with centripetal force. I closed my eyes, let my head sway gently to and fro, slowed my brain to the brink of vegetabledom.

“Noel? I said what would you like to do? Noel? Are you all right? Nerves getting to you?”

The voice was small, like the sound from someone else’s walkman. “No, I … I’d like to continue please, Mr. Lafontaine.” My own voice had a quaver—I could hear it myself. “Thank you.”

“Excellent stuff. All right, on the subject of Arabic literature, we are now ready for the first of three sealed questions. I’ve been assured by Dr. Émile Volta, the world-famous neurologist, that he’s concocted some real ballbusters … shit.”

“Cut!” said the fuzzy-haired boy. “Start again from ‘I’ve been assured.’”

“I’ve been assured by Dr. Émile Volta, the world-famous neurologist, that he’s concocted some real brain-busters this week, so we’ll find out in the next few minutes if Noel’s brain can be busted. Are you ready, sir?”

I nodded, wiped my face with a Kleenex. I felt so hot I thought I could smell burning flesh. Off camera, I’d just chewed on some betel leaves with lime, which JJ had given me. Voices were now much bigger in my ear, as if I were wearing headphones.

“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, like a rabbit punch. I squinted out at the audience, but couldn’t see a thing! And the voice I just heard—it was in black-and-white … I turned to the quizmaster, but it was like looking through night-vision goggles: his face had a milky grey glow and his eyes were missing.

“… acht, sieben, sechs …”

Is that Dr. Vorta? In a countdown? I turned to the audience again, and this time saw the blurred image of my mother, as if through tears, the way I saw her when my father died. Head bent, eyes shut, fists clenched. I can’t let her down!

“ … drei, zwei …”

Someone from the audience was walking towards the stage … Heliodora Locke!

Words filled the air, and I suddenly realised they came from my lips: “‘Take three ounces of the breath of the wind, three ounces of the rays of the sun and three of the rays of the moon …’”

“Continue.”

“‘Mix them carefully in a bottomless mortar and expose them to the air for three months. For a further three months pound the mixture, then pour it into a shallow bowl with holes in the bottom.’”

Dr. Vorta looked down at his card. Was he nodding or shaking his head?

“What is Youssef Islam’s former name?”

“What?” I must have misheard—that’s got nothing to do with the subject. Do I win the money or not?

“What is Youssef Islam’s former name?”

My brain was splitting, my mouth empty of saliva, I couldn’t form words. I looked around for water. My glass was empty. “Cat Stevens,” I rasped.

“Which of the following words are not of Arabic descent: alchemy, assassin,alcohol, scarlet, checkmate, zenith?”

“But … they all are.”

“What is the etymology of the second word mentioned?”

“I … I don’t understand. ‘Assassin’ comes from an Arabic word for a consumer of hashish.”

“Who wrote the novel Zabibah and the King?”

A light was now shining in my face. My mother’s hunter’s lamp. Held by Dr. Vorta. “Saddam Hussein.”

“Who wrote
The Village is the Village, the Land is the Land, the Suicide of the Spaceman and Other Stories?”

“Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.”

“Who is the father of Arab chemistry? And where and when did he die?”

“Jabir ibn Hayyan. Kufah, Iraq. 815.”

“Who is Persia’s ‘Prince of Physicians’ and what was his legacy?”

“Avicenna. His
Canon of Medicine
is the most famous single book in the history of medicine, in both East and West.”

“How many synapses are in the brain?”

“But what’s that got to do with—”

“How many synapses are in the brain?”

I once asked my dad this same question. What was his answer? “There are as many synapses in the brain as there are stars in the sky.”

“Correct. The inventor of the television—please put your answer in the form of a question.”

I lowered my head, put my hand over my eyes. “Who is Vladimir Zworykin?”

“The goddess of memory, and mother of the Muses.”

“Who is Mnemosyne?”

“An audio question coming up. I want you to tell me the name of the composer and piece.”

I listened to the first two bars. Key of D. “Stephen Foster. ‘Swanee River.’”

“Do you have, or have you ever had, sexual fantasies with regard to your mother?”

“No.”

“Correct. Have you had with Samira Darwish?”

“Yes.”

APPLAUSE sign.

“When you were one and a half, what was the colour of your bib? Was it (a) green; (b) white; (c) yellow; or (d) red?”

“It was none of those colours.”

“Correct.”

“Dr. Vorta, why are you asking me these questions? They have nothing to do with—”

“We’re going to keep going until you miss one.”

“But … why? You’re going to ask an impossible question, an unanswerable question …”

“Using the Nato alphabet, spell and then define ‘olibanum.’”

“What? This isn’t a spelling bee.”

“You were the Quebec champion in ’79, were you not?”

“Yes, but … we were never asked to define the word.”

“Spell and define ‘oh-LIB-anum.’”

“Olibanum: Oscar, Lima, India, Bravo, Alpha, November, Uniform, Mike. It was used in Arabia as an embalming agent. It’s also called frankincense.”

“Correct. Do you know who committed the two acts of arson?”

“No.”

“Do you think it was me?”

“No.”

“Do you think it was your mother?”

“No.”

“She has lit fires before.”

“It wasn’t her, all right?”

“Then who was it?”

“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