The Memory Artists Part 20

7.Have a sense of humour sense of humour because laughter helps to put things in a more positive perspective. because laughter helps to put things in a more positive perspective.

8.Focus on and enjoy what your mother can still do rather than lament over what is lost.

9.Try to depend more on OTHER RELATIONs.h.i.+PS for love and support.

10.Draw upon the Higher Power Higher Power, which is available to you.

"Take a guess-which ones are mine?" JJ repeated.

"Well ... let's see. Seven and ten?"

JJ responded with a woofy laugh. "Bingo! You know what the Higher Power is?"

"G.o.d?"

"A belief in mystery, magic and miracles. The three m ms."

Noel's brain filled up with acres of sunny blue sky. "Thanks for this, both of you." Tears were rising, but he coaxed them back to their source. His arms ached to hug them both, but remained lifeless at his side. He reread number 9, drawn into the vortex of capitals, desperately hoping it was a hint, a kick under the table, a coded Valentine.

Chapter 14.

Noel & Samira (II) It was not a hint after all, Noel concluded, after scarcely seeing Samira for the next seven days. She pa.s.sed him in the hall with only a syllable or two, walked by him in Dr. Vorta's office with barely a nod. Not surprising, he thought. What a fool I was to expect anything more! It's always the same. In any case, it was all a big distraction. I've got better ways of occupying my brain.

To prove it to himself, Noel spent more and more time underground. He ignored pleas from his mother and JJ to come up for air, just as he ignored his Ten Commandments, which he decided were un.o.beyable. He drove himself harder and harder. He would sleep in his chair, rarely using his bed, for the mornings seemed years away from the night. Time was the enemy, the poison.37 And though he felt lonely, and out of joint, he also felt he was making progress. He was sure of it. And he was losing weight-an added benefit. And though he felt lonely, and out of joint, he also felt he was making progress. He was sure of it. And he was losing weight-an added benefit.

He was also starting to lose his mind, he strongly suspected one night. For inspiration and clues, he had begun combing through a book of mediaeval Arabian chemistry, as well as four versions of The Thousand and One Nights The Thousand and One Nights-including Galland's translation, a charred edition borrowed from JJ. After a day of frenzied speed-reading, thinking himself into a stupor, he snapped the books shut. "That's it," he whispered to himself. "I've lost it ..."

He was sitting in his father's swivel chair, staring catatonically at a dirty-white wall that matched the interior of his head, when a percussive sound jostled him. A rhythm he had heard before. In a dream? Rat-a-tattat, rat-a-tat-tat. Softly. Then a m.u.f.fled, disembodied voice. "Noel?"

Deja vu, literally, in his mind. "Yes?" he said.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes ... of course. The door's unlocked."

"Can you open it?"

With his heart galloping, Noel sprang from his chair and yanked open the door. Samira, in a camisole and flared boot-cut pants, both black, was holding a tray against her bare midriff.

"Come in, sorry. Here, let me take that ... Sorry, Sam, I was just ... in the clouds. As usual."

"JJ made them for you. Brain food." Samira set the tray down, kissed Noel on both cheeks, giving him a gentle hug in the process.

The contact, only the fleetest touch of skin and hair, aroused Noel from his catatonia like a branding iron. "Thanks. I mean, not for the ... I mean for that too, but, you know ..." He nodded at the plate of salmon sandwiches encircled by walnuts, carrots and grape tomatoes. "I appreciate it ..." He could still feel her kiss-prints burning on his flesh. And especially the ... well, keeping my mom company."

"That's JJ's department, not mine, I have to admit. I haven't been around much these past few days. It's crunch time at school."

Noel took a breath, his first in a while. "I understand." He lifted his gaze from the tray to her face. She was radiant, a vision of beauty. The way she used to look!

"What a great lab this is! JJ gave me the grand tour the other day, I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. You're ... welcome to come down. Anytime you want."

"Thanks." Samira looked away, at the rows of chemicals, trying to conceal her shock at how awful Noel looked. Pallor of a corpse, JJ was right. "Well, bon appet.i.t bon appet.i.t. I'll let you eat in peace. And then maybe you should ... you know, take a break. I mean, after you've done what you have to do ..."

"I've finished. For the day. My mind's shot. I don't suppose ... no, never mind."

"What?"

"You ... you wouldn't like a drink, would you?"

"I'd love one."

"Really? Great. Here, sit down. No, this chair's more comfortable. I've got something that JJ distilled. A Newfoundland recipe."

Samira laughed as she sat down. "Screech? Thank G.o.d for JJ."

"Amen." Noel opened the bottom drawer of a battered wooden filing cabinet and pulled out a bottle with a skull and crossbones on the label. He filled two beakers to the halfway point, held out one to Samira.

"Thanks.[image] Health and happiness." She clinked her beaker against his then took a sip. "Hey, that's not ... as bad as I thought it would be." Health and happiness." She clinked her beaker against his then took a sip. "Hey, that's not ... as bad as I thought it would be."

Noel laughed. And then grimaced as the rum and G.o.d knows what else burned down his chest like lava.

It was Samira's turn to laugh. "The last time we had a drink I ended up falling asleep on your bed. Which I forgot to apologise for."

"My fault entirely. I was ... away much too long."

"When you left, I think it was my turn to ask some personal questions."

"You've got a good memory." Noel took another sip, cautiously. "Fire away."

"I wanted to ask you about ..." Samira paused as she noticed the books on the table. "Is this ... The Thousand and One Nights The Thousand and One Nights?" She picked up one of the volumes and opened it. "A really old edition. Beautiful." She smiled. "So is this what you've been up to all day?"

"No, I ... just ... wanted to check something out." He took the book from her. "So what did you want to ask me about?"

She took another sip from her beaker. "About the colours in your head, your synaesthesia. I never knew it existed until I met you, or rather until Norval told me about it. I mean, I know what it is in poetry because we studied it at school. But what is it ... you know, what happens inside your brain? Do a lot of people have it?"

Noel reached for his gla.s.s. The sensations he had felt not five minutes before-numbness, fogginess, sluggishness-were all converted into their opposites. His mental horizon was clear, cloudless; he was floating in something close to pure happiness. And it wasn't only from the bathtub rum. He smiled, something he hadn't done in a while. "It depends on who you talk to. Some researchers put it at one in two thousand, others at one in twenty thousand. But we all have it-we're all synaesthetes for the first three months of our lives. But we forget this, of course. Infantile amnesia."

"Norval says you can remember your natal hour."

"Norval would would say something like that. If it's sounds good he'll say it." say something like that. If it's sounds good he'll say it."

"He also predicts you'll be a great artist one day."

"He also predicts the winners of horse races. Not very well."

"Does he think you'll be a great artist because his favourite authors- Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Nabokov-all had synaesthesia?"

"Probably. But great art like that is definitely out of my league. So is mediocre art, for that matter."

Samira held Noel's eye for a full quarter of a minute, until he looked away. "Are there any great scientists who had it?"

"Richard Feynman, for one."

Samira laughed. "You're kidding. I just read an article on him-in a section of the paper I never read, even while listening to my mom on the phone. There was a long long delay in the metro. A suicide jump, I think. He was into quantum mechanics, right? In the sixties?" delay in the metro. A suicide jump, I think. He was into quantum mechanics, right? In the sixties?"

Noel nodded. "My father liked him because of his ... range. Because he wasn't your average boring scientist, as you probably know. He wrote on science and religion, on the role of beauty in scientific knowledge, on gambling odds. He cracked uncrackable safes, played bongo drums for a ballet ..."

"Painted a nude female bullfighter."

Noel smiled. "Right. My father once had a drink with him. In Queens."

"Are you serious? Wow, a brush with greatness. I'm just trying to remember ... Didn't he have some famous last words?"

"'I'd hate to die twice-it's so boring.'"

Samira burst out laughing. "That's it. Almost as good as Dylan Thomas's."

"Really? What were his?"

"'Seventeen whiskeys. A record, I think.'"

It was Noel's turn to laugh. "What number are we we on?" He held up the bottle then poured. on?" He held up the bottle then poured.

"Three-we've a ways to go." She swivelled in her chair, put her feet up. "So I can see why your father liked Feynman. Maybe one day you'll be like him."

Noel gazed at Samira's dark brown ankle boots, at the criss-cross of laces wound through b.u.t.ton hooks. "There's no' a s...o...b..ll's chance in h.e.l.l of that happening, as my mother would say."

"Great Scottish accent! Almost as good as Norval's."

"Right."

Samira traced her finger round the lip of the beaker. "You've made quite an impression on JJ. He says you're a genius."

"JJ has kind words for everybody-it takes some getting used to. But there's more to genius than having a good memory." Noel's mind began to stray, but he corralled it. "The funny thing, about Feynman I mean, is that I got some ideas about memory loss-about memory being physical particles-after looking at a Feynman diagram in my dad's notes."

"What's a Feynman diagram?"

"Well, briefly, it's a graphic method of representing the interactions of elementary particles, a way of calculating the processes that occur, for instance, between electrons and photons. One axis, for example the horizontal axis, is chosen to represent s.p.a.ce, while the other represents time. Straight lines are used to depict fermions-particles with halfintegral values of intrinsic angular momentum, or spin, and wavy lines are used for bosons-particles with integral values of spin, such as photons ..."

"This is the brief explanation, right?"

"Sorry, I ... I'm not a very good storyteller. Or teacher. I always lose people."

"No, no, it's ... it's my fault. Entirely. Go on."

"I'll get to the point. Descartes, as I'm sure you know, famously divided the world into two parts-'extended things,' i.e., the physical world, and 'thinking things,' i.e., the mind. So the brain for him has two kinds of material-mental material, in which the thought exists, and physical material, which is where the memory is stored. So ever since Descartes philosophers and scientists have debated whether the human mind will ever be knowable."

"Because if it's not physical, how can you study it?"

"Exactly. But now, the standard view of neuroscience is that when we have a new thought, or a new memory, our brain has physically changed physically changed. With the formation of engrams, memory-traces. So the mind doesn't exist beyond that-beyond the grey mush, the nerve spaghetti of the brain- and therefore memory is a biological process that can be manipulated like anything else. And not only can you manipulate it, you can improve it."

"With a memory pill, for example."

Noel smiled. "Precisely."

"So Descartes was wrong. But what's Feynman got to do with all this?"

"Well, we still have to understand the interaction between the mental-the thought or new memory forming-and the physical. How do the two influence each other? Descartes thought that the pineal gland-via the eyes-was the point at which the two interacted, which is ridiculous, but now scientists think that the interaction happens at the quantum quantum level." level."

"Hence your studies of Feynman."

"Well, I'm ... not really at that level. And never will be."

"Noel, I'm sure you'll get there, and beyond. All you need is ... well, confidence. Or arrogance-the arrogance of Norval."

Noel managed a half-smile. "Yeah, I guess I could learn a few things from him."

"And JJ can show you a few things too."

"I know. He's good at re-routeing my thought patterns-at deingraining bad mental habits, if that's a word."

"Has he converted you to CAM? To 'neutraceuticals' instead of pharmaceuticals?"

"No. Big Pharma's bad, but the 'wellness' industry is worse. Unregulated and dishonest. Untested and unreliable. For the most part, anyway. But I'm trying to keep an open mind-it does have some things to offer. And I love JJ's enthusiasm, optimism, which rubs off."

A patch of silence followed, which neither person seemed to notice, let alone be uncomfortable with. Noel gazed up at the small bas.e.m.e.nt window, like a dungeon grate, and saw snowflakes dance and cling to the gla.s.s. Each one was worth an hour of study under the microscope, his father had told him, each one a map of divinity.

"I'm trying to remember," said Samira, her words slightly slurred, "how we got on to all this."

Noel s.h.i.+fted his gaze. "I'm the one who got us off track. You were asking about coloured hearing."

"Right, I wanted to know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Does it screw up your life? Would you ever want to get rid of it?"

"No, I wouldn't. Ever. I have trouble, in fact, conceiving of a world in which letters and sounds are neutral, clear, white, whatever. Sometimes I think those who don't have synaesthesia are missing out on something. Almost like being colour blind. I think all synaesthetes feel the same way. Mind you, we're not all the same-most have mild cases, which don't interfere with their everyday life, while a few have trouble functioning in society because of it, like some artists. And me."

"Did you ever try to get help? Did you ever see a psychiatrist or neurologist or-"

"Yeah, hordes of them. Dr. Vorta among them."

"Did he help?"