Part 22 (1/2)
”Really? That's where Nabokov taught. While writing his autobiography.”39 ”And Lolita Lolita.”
”We used to live down there-in New York State, I mean. Long Island. I was there until the second grade. I'd love to go back one day ...” Letters and numbers began percolating inside Noel's skull: the chiselled Baskerville capitals of BABYLON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BABYLON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, the pebbled black plastic 22 on his cla.s.sroom door, the sinistral chalk letters of Miss Schonborn ... Noel rubbed his eyes, refocused. ”Ever been there?”
”Long Island? Once. I went to see an Islanders game.”
Cards began to fly from the pack, bouncing off Noel's inner walls: dog-eared cards of Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier and Bobby Nystrom, Clark Gillies and Butch Goring ... Their stats, as in a centrifuge, began to spin and scatter. He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyeb.a.l.l.s, hard. ”So ... what'd you study? At Cornell.”
”Well, my father had this master plan. He thought I should study marketing, so I could help expand the family business. He owned a restaurant in Lachine.”
”Which one?”
”Le Tapis Magique.”
”You're kidding! That restaurant by the water, near Saul Bellow's old neighbourhood? That's an inst.i.tution.”
”Maybe I served you.”
”No, I've never been there.” Noel ran his fingers up and down the skull-and-crossbones label on the bottle. ”So you got your MBA?”
Samira shook her head. ”I was totally totally not interested in business, so after a semester of boredom-of pain-I switched over to the arts. Without telling my father, who hated ... impractical things.” not interested in business, so after a semester of boredom-of pain-I switched over to the arts. Without telling my father, who hated ... impractical things.”
”What'd you take?”
”Impractical things. English lit, astronomy, psychology, art history. Oh, and theatre arts.”
”Which is how you got the film part?”
”Not really, no. My roommate happened to see a poster on campus, some film production company looking for an 'Arabic-American teenager.'”
”So you went for an audition.”
”To this day, I have no idea why. It's not something I ever wanted to do, at least not professionally. I guess I went because I had almost no money, and was tired of taking orders from the a.s.sistant manager of Wendy's. Next thing I knew I was flying to Venice.”
”Where you met Stirling Trevanne.”
”Yeah. Whose real name is Lionel Lifschitz. An a.s.shole, as it turned out, like all my boyfriends, but breathtakingly handsome-as his teenage fans kept reminding me. Daily. Anyway, after the shooting I moved out of my apartment, took a bus to New York and the red-eye to LA.” The vertical city to the horizontal one, she recalled thinking, a tremor of excitement running through her as she gazed on each from the sky.
”To live with him,” said Noel.
Samira sighed. ”Yeah. Then the film comes out-and the s.h.i.+t hits the fan. The film's a mega-hit, critically at least, wins awards in Venice and Berlin, Stirling loses his mind, my father has a ma.s.sive coronary.”
”Are you serious? Your father had a heart attack?”
”While watching the film.”
”My G.o.d. And he ... Is he better now?”
”No, he died. I went back for the funeral, and my mother guilted me out the whole time, saying that I'd killed him, that the nude scene in the movie killed him. She'd walk around the house holding his s.h.i.+rts to her breast, weeping for hours. Especially when I was there to see it. Must be her Jewish blood. Anyway, it was a terrible time for me, I just had to get out of there. So I went back to Santa Monica.”
”To Stirling.”
”Yes, who was beginning to act strange.”
”I ... I read about that, about him giving names to his furniture and kitchen appliances. After the accident. What happened exactly?”
”Well, he was a vegetarian, right? Which is fine. So was I, more or less. Except he became more and more radical, obsessive, evangelical. He'd take forever in the health-food stores, pestering the staff, peppering them with questions about the labels, the packaging materials, how and when the fruit was delivered to the store, carping about this and that, you name it. If the salesperson didn't have an answer, there'd be h.e.l.l to pay. Insults, threats to have him fired ... The veins on his neck would just bulge. If the food was touching paper or Saran wrap, he wouldn't buy it. He'd comb the racks with crystals that checked the 'life force' of foods, or with Geiger counters or ray-guns that buzzed and beeped. I'm not kidding. The man was insane. He was a raw-foodist. The only thing he'd eat was fruit and vegetables-but only if they'd been picked less than fifteen minutes before he ate them. Which cut down on his choices, n'est-ce pas n'est-ce pas? And he wouldn't chop a vegetable, because it would destroy its 'etheric field.' Or eat out of pots and pans, because they were contaminated by 'fleshy vibrations.' So he nibbled on alfalfa sprouts, umebos.h.i.+ plums, quinoa seeds ... He ended up looking like Gandhi after a fast. His big aspiration was to become a Breatharian.”
”Which is ...?”
”People who fast and live on pure air. Anyway, if you ever confronted him about not eating he'd just say he was going through a 'purge, a cleansing process.' He'd faint from time to time-from protein deficiency, I guess. And then he had the big accident, cras.h.i.+ng his Ferrari into a hairdressing salon, which I guess you read about.”
”Is that how it happened? He pa.s.sed out while driving? And how is he now?”
”No idea. When he got out of the hospital I left him for good.”
”Probably wise.”
”Yeah, except I've not been lucky in my choice of men since then either. Norval included.”
Noel jumped, at least on the inside, but strained not to show it. ”So you ... never went back to acting?”
Samira shook her head. ”No, I went back to Ithaca, to school, which my film money paid for more or less, without having to go back to Wendy's.”
”And did your mother ever ... you know, chill? Did she realise your father's death had nothing to do with you? Am I asking too many questions?”
”No. It's nice to get some. Especially after being with Norval. No, my mom's still blaming me, tormenting me, living in the past. The house is like a museum, a shrine-with a stopped clock marking the time my father died. An Arabic tradition, she says. And she sold the restaurant.”
Noel looked down, dolefully, at the floor. ”That's a shame, that's so ...” He let the sentence trail, the right word not coming. ”So now you're studying psychology? I mean, art therapy?”
”Just started this year.”
”Is that why you went to see Dr. Rheaume after you were ... drugged? She's one of your teachers, right?”
”Yeah. In fact, she and her husband-Dr. Ravens croft-were there that night. It was an Art Therapy party, a get-acquainted kind of thing.”
Noel nodded. He'd been to one of those. ”Charles Ravenscroft? He's her husband? I didn't know that. So what happened exactly? That's a stupid question, you can't remember.”
”I really can't, I just ... blacked out. One minute I was drinking cranberry c.o.c.ktails and the next I was feeling dizzy and disoriented, seeing everything in multiple images. And losing control of my movements.”
”Was Dr. Rheaume there when it happened? Did she know who could've done it, who could've spiked your drink?”
”Yeah, she and her husband were both there, just about to leave. In fact, they're the ones who drove me home. But she hasn't a clue who could've done it. She insisted I report it to the police. In fact, she took me there herself. She and Charles.”
”So the police ... Dr. Vorta also did some tests, right?”
”Yeah, but only because he paid me. It was Norval's idea. Vorta took blood and urine samples and then turned on a tape recorder for some article he's writing. Then enlisted me in an amnesia study.”