Part 8 (2/2)
”Started?”
”On The Alpha Bet The Alpha Bet.”
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At the breakfast table the following afternoon Samira asked, ”Are you ever going to ask any questions about me? Like who I am, for example?”
Norval didn't look up from his mail, which included the Nillennium Club Newsletter. Nillennium Club Newsletter. ”Wasn't on today's planner, no.” ”Wasn't on today's planner, no.”
Samira repressed a smile. ”You're incorrigible, mad. Not to mention a son of a b.i.t.c.h.”
”You must know my mother.” Norval folded up the newsletter, emptied his third cup of espresso, then stood.
”You must have some redeeming qualities,” said Samira.
”No, none whatsoever.”
”What does Noel see in you?”
”Ask him. Listen, I'm off to the Schubert. Be back by four.”
”The Schubert? The Piscine Piscine Schubert?” How out of character, she thought. ”You swim?” Schubert?” How out of character, she thought. ”You swim?”
”Daily. It's a dress rehearsal.”
”A dress rehearsal? For what, a play?”
”Death. I plan to end my days in water.”
”You're not serious.”
”I've heard there's a clarity of memory that drowning people have. Which might relate to our first immersion-in amniotic fluid or the shock of baptism ... not something you Arabs would ever feel, I suppose. Anyway, as you're drowning it seems there's this detonation of memories, crystal-clear memories from the first plunge to the last.”
Samira shook her head. ”I still can't figure out when you're kidding and when you're not.” Or quoting from one of your lectures. ”Isn't air the final resting place of the soul?”
”We're more water than air-it's our origin and destination.”
”You write fiction, don't you? I saw a book on the shelf with your name on it. A novel?”
”Some have called it that.”
”What's it about? What ... kind of novel is it?”
”Well, I felt that Joyce didn't go far enough in Finnegans Wake Finnegans Wake. That he held back. This was an attempt to take it one step further.”
”Very funny. You're French, right? From France?”
”Right.”
”Then why do you sound like some depraved British ... viscount or something?”
”The depravity comes naturally, the accent from a string of indifferent British public schools. Where I was sent-or rather exiled-by my wh.o.r.e of a mother.”
”Why do you say she ... Why did she send you to England?”
Norval sighed as he pulled out his watch, opened the lid. ”Because she wanted me out of the way. Because I'd been pestering her for years to let me go there. Because my favourite authors at the time were Baudelaire and Rimbaud. I knew that Baudelaire had learned English as a young boy, and went on to translate Poe, and that Rimbaud had lived in London as a teenager, where he wrote his best stuff. So if I had to be exiled, if I had to go to boarding school, England was where I wanted to go. It all made sense-in my convoluted logic of youth. My mother, in any case, was happy to send me there. With my father's money, of course.”
”But why would your mother ... why would she want to 'exile' you?”
”Because she wanted to fornicate in private, without having to lock me inside my room for hours. Because our shouting matches were upsetting the neighbours. Because she thought I was going to poison her.”
”Were you?”
”I toyed with the idea.”
Samira looked deeply into Norval's eyes, trying to determine whether they mirrored truth or falsehood. She couldn't decide. ”So ... tell me more about her, about your mother. Is she-”
”My mother? My mother is a sack of excrement.” Norval lit up another cigarette. ”A l.u.s.tful she-a.s.s.” He blew a stream of smoke into Samira's face. ”Do you want me to bring you anything back? Any addictions to appease?”
”No, I ... I should really go ... somewhere else. I'm taking your bed.”
”One of them.”
”I mean, I could ... stay a bit longer.”
”There's a wad of bills in my desk drawer, if you're short.”
What do you expect in return? Samira wondered. ”Thanks, but ...”
”Did you get one of these?” From his inside coat pocket Norval extracted a white card with florid silver letters, like a wedding script.
”What's that?”
”The 'laudanum and absinthe readings.' Yelle's party.”
”Right, I forgot, at the lab ... JJ mentioned something about it.”
”You going?”
”Well, I ... wasn't planning on it, no. I mean, I just met the guy and I'm not really into drugs anymore.”
”No loss. I can't see him serving any real drugs. Worse, he's planning on reading poems.”
”And? What's wrong with that?”
”Poems should never be read in public.”
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