The Memory Artists (8 page)

“Why don’t you watch TV until I get back?” said Noel.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t? Is the set broken?”

“Yes.”

Noel walked over and pushed in a plastic square. The box warmed to life. “No, it’s not, Mom. Look.”

“The shows are different now. They’re … broken. I can’t understand what’s going on. It’s all too much nowadays. The world goes too fast. And too far. What did your father call it?”

Here we go again, thought Noel. “Call what?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes you do. You’re just hiding it from me. As usual.”

“I am not hiding anything.”

“Yes you are.”

“‘Poetry is in the empyrean, TV in the pit’?”

“Not that one.”

“‘A TV is the Devil’s workshop’?”

“No. You know … I can never remember the name for anything in English. I can’t think of the
English
for the thing. For anything.”

“What is it in French?”

“I can’t remember.”

“I’ll be right back, Mom, just going to the bank. Don’t let anyone in while I’m gone. Do you promise?”

“I know what’s going on. Don’t think I don’t.”

“Nothing’s going on, Mom.”

“You don’t really want me here. I know money’s tight. You don’t have to draw me a map.”

After relocking the door, but not resetting the alarm or taking his pager, Noel walked four blocks to Prince de Tyr, a Lebanese slow-food on rue Laurier. While waiting to place his order he perspired prolifically under his down parka. I should’ve set the digital lock too, he said to himself, and reset the alarm, and taken … “
Le numéro deux, s’il vous plaît. Je reviens tout de suite
.”

Through discoloured snow and honking traffic, Noel made his way to and from a florist’s across the street—barely, as a black SUV the size of a destroyer nearly ripped off his ear with its wing mirror. Stop signs for Montrealers are mere suggestions, he reflected inside the restaurant while massaging his right temple. He then worried about his mother for forty-five minutes to Arabic music.

On the way back he invented omens. If the light ahead stayed green, his mother would get better, if he saw a black car, she wouldn’t … When he awkwardly opened the front door, his arms full of food and flowers, he sensed something different inside the house, something untoward. For he had seen a black car, and the light had changed to red.

“Mom! I’m back, I’ve got food! Phoenician food!”

“In here, dear!”

Noel walked into the living room. “I got menu number two, your favourite! Falalfel, baba ghanoush, stuffed vine leaves …”

He stopped when he saw someone official-looking, wearing glasses on a silver chain and giant clip-on earrings, sitting on the chair across from his mother. She had a clipboard on her lap and a body that flirted with immenseness. Oh no, not another salesperson. How the hell did she get in?

The woman introduced herself, her voice infecting Noel’s brain with bending otter-brown rectangles, which opened and closed like an accordion. Instead of returning her greeting, he turned on the stereo, slipped a silver disc into a tray: Scriabin’s
Poem of Ecstasy
. He then walked to the kitchen, set the food and flowers on the counter, opened the fridge and took out a jalapeño pepper.

“I’m sorry,” he said when he returned. “I was a bit distracted, Miss …”

“Mrs. Holtzberger. From Home Care.”

Weathering a tear-gas attack of perfume, Noel introduced himself. “I’m Noel, Mrs. Burun’s son.” He took a large bite out of the pepper, halving it, before shaking her hand. “How did you get in, Mrs. Holtzberger, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Well, I … your mother opened the door.”

“Right.”

The woman eyed the remains of the vegetable. “I’ve come to interview your mother to see if she qualifies.”

“Qualifies?”

“For assistance. For a day nurse. Two or three days a week to help your mom.”

“Right.” It was he himself who had filled out the application, six months before. To replace a nurse they couldn’t afford.

“I’m also here to check up on various reports that have been forwarded to our department—”

Noel tried to fight through the sound of Mrs. Holtzberger’s rectangles, as well as the image of her snow-and-rose complexion and stop-sign-red lipstick that went well beyond the boundaries of her mouth. What was she saying? Complaints from the neighbours? They’re chronic complainers. Yes, I know she’s been wandering but that’s all in the past. Yes, she has one now, she has a Medic Alert bracelet … I
know
she’s not wearing it now. We’ll find it, it’s here somewhere. The house is a mess? A bit of an exaggeration, that. But she doesn’t
want
to live anywhere else. She wants to live at home, with me. Plus she’s getting better, she really is. Yes, I understand perfectly …

“So if you don’t mind I’ll just begin the MMSE?”

Noel stooped to turn off Scriabin’s muted trombones. “She’s had several examinations already, Mrs. Holtzberger. In fact, her doctor is a world-famous neurologist. Émile Vorta—you may have heard of him.”

“It won’t take long. Nothing to worry about. Is that all right, Mrs. Burun? And may I call you Stella?”

Mrs. Burun’s lips were pursed tightly, as if she were on the brink of helpless laughter. She was recalling that time in Spain—was it Spain?—when Noel had tricked her into laughing for a photograph by doing a demented ballet leap. What’s it called? When you cross your legs back and forth …

“Perhaps you’d like to leave us for a few minutes, Mr. Burun?”

“No, I’ll … stay if you don’t mind.” Noel walked toward the front window.

“Very well. Mrs. Burun, my first question is this: What is the year? Mrs. Burun? Can you tell me what year it is?”

Was it Spain or … that other country? Mrs. Burun saw dark weathered bricks in a zigzag pattern, and long arcades. Turin? “
Entrechat
,” she murmured, smiling.

“I’m sorry? Mrs. Burun? Can you tell me what year it is?”

Mrs. Burun gazed straight ahead. Who
is
this woman? She appears to be waiting for me to say something …

“The year, Stella. Do you know what year it is?”

“The year? Oh, dear me. I would say … nineteen … we’re in the nineties but I …”

Mrs. Holtzberger wrote something down with a stubby pencil. “And what is the season?”

“Fall?”

Looking out the window, Noel sighed deeply. Through the frosted pane, black trees against the banking clouds swam before his eyes.

“What is the month?”

“October?”

“And the date?”

“Sunday?”

“Where are we? What country?”

“I don’t … Canada?”

“What city?”

“Aberdeen?”

“What she means is that she was born in Aberdeen,” said Noel. “The question was confusing.”

“Thank you, Mr. Burun, for the … supplementary information. But I’m afraid this test is for your mother only. Now, Mrs. Burun, what is the name of your street? Mrs. Burun?”

“Coppertree Lane?”

“I think she means that we
used
to live there,” said Noel. “In Babylon, Long Island. Where Rodney Dangerfield was—”

“And what room of the house are we in now, Mrs. Burun?”

“The dining room?”

Noel put his hands on the window sill, for support. He looked up at the dark winter sky and a freezing wind swept through him. She’s taking all the latest prescription drugs, he thought. State-of-the-goddamn-art.
Why
aren’t they working? Why is
nothing
working?

“I’m now going to give you three words to remember. And then I want you to repeat them to me. All right? Are you ready? Here are the three words: cucumber, lamp, nickel. Can you repeat those to me, Mrs. Burun? Cucumber, lamp, nickel.”

Stella screwed up her face in concentration. “Cucumber, lamp … I forget the rest. I’m terribly sorry. I’m not myself today, you see …”

“That’s all right, dear, you’re doing fine. I now have a rather tricky task for you. I want you to start from one hundred and count backwards, subtracting seven each time.”

A long silence unspun as the kitchen faucet dripped with a dead beat, like a clock marking off time, like a drum beating a dirge. Images of Europe returned. A funeral in … that city full of water. With blackly ribboned boats, or whatever they’re called, and someone beating a drum. She had thought of her husband as the sound grew louder, as the coffin floated by …

“Mrs. Burun?”

“Mrs. Holtzberger,” said Noel. “
I
can’t even bloody well count backwards by multiples of seven—”

“Mrs. Burun? Can you count backwards from one hundred, subtracting seven each time? No? OK, we’ll move on. Can you spell the word
radar
backwards? No? Can you recall the three words I asked you to remember earlier on?” Mrs. Holtzberger glanced at a watch that was embedded in the flesh of her wrist. “No? Do you enjoy life, Mrs. Burun?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“How do you feel about life?”

“I can’t say that I feel anything at all.” She wore a look of infinite sadness, resignation.

“She’s not been well the past couple of days,” said Noel. “Really. She’s got … the flu. A virulent avian strain. For that reason I’m going to have to ask you to come back and do this test another—”

“Mr. Burun, a repeat may be requested if the subject is overly anxious or upset but according to my guidelines—”

“We appreciate you coming, Mrs. Holtzberger. But I’m afraid my mother needs to rest right now …”

“Then I’ll just have to submit these incomplete test results,” she said animatedly, rolls of flesh shifting and wobbling on her neck. “Which may adversely affect your request for day help. And there’s another matter to be discussed. In private, if you don’t mind?”

“I’ve no secrets from my mother.”

“Very well. I have received reports, more than one, that your mother has been wandering around the neighbourhood, knocking on windows.”

“I … know of no such incidents.”

“Are you aware of an incident involving your mother’s cat?”

“Which … incident are you referring to?”

“Before you arrived, your mother explained that your neighbour killed her cat, maliciously.”

“He killed Morven,” said Stella.

Morven died of a tumour in 1991, Noel recalled. “That’s … correct,” he said.

“She also claimed your neighbour drowned Morven’s kittens in his hot tub.”

Noel sighed. “Alas.”

“And that he then suffocated the mother by locking it inside a suitcase.”

“I can show you the case,” said Noel. “With teeth and claw marks. I can get it if you like.”

Mrs. Holtzberger rolled her eyes. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Burun. But you will be hearing from us
very
soon. No, I’ll see myself out.”

A bad day, Noel said to himself as he put his mother to bed. Big deal, nothing to it—we all have bad days. Things will be better tomorrow …

Mrs. Burun blinked rapidly to quell tears, sensing she’d done something wrong, sensing she’d let her son down. “What’s wrong with me, Noel dear? I feel like something’s wrong but I don’t know what it is.”

He had heard this before, many times, yet he could barely stop himself from collapsing into tears. It was simply heartbreaking. “Don’t worry, Mom.” He smiled bravely. “Tomorrow’s another day. We’re in the twenty-first century—things are bound to get better. We’ll have a riot tomorrow, you wait and see. Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Mrs. Burun stopped crying, distracted by these words like a small child. In the cheval glass beside the bed Noel could see her reflection. He crossed the room and brought back a bouquet of flowers.

“Look what I got for you, Mom. Amaranth.”

His mother’s eyes sparkled as she smelled the flowers and caressed their petals.

“Remember when you read me ‘The Rose and the Amaranth’? From Aesop? The undying flower? No? Doesn’t matter. It was eons ago.” Into a juice glass he poured out a frog-green liquid from an unlabelled amber bottle. “Take a bit more of this, Mom. It should help.” And hopefully without side-effects. “I’ve got some new ideas, new tricks up my sleeve, you wait and see.” He watched his mother drink. “Oh, I almost forgot, something unbelievable happened. You’ll never guess who I met. Are you ready? Heliodora Locke. In Montreal of all places!”