Part 33 (1/2)
”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!”
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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 Sc.r.a.pbook [image]
(November 22/02) [image]
(January 20/03) [image]
(January 20/03) [image]
(January 21/03) [image]
(February 14/03) [image]
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(November 11/03) [image]
(November 13/03) [image]
(December 1/03) [image]
(August 24/04) [image]
Chapter 24.
Noel's Diary (IV) January 5, 2004. How does it go again? ”The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” I can't remember who said that-it'll come to me-but he or she was right. It goes back to what JJ said about intelligence of the brain vs. intelligence of the heart ...
And it goes back to what my father said about poets freeing those feelings we keep locked in the heart. I was never really sure, to be honest, what feelings he was referring to. Which ones have to be set free, and why? My mother gave me an answer: what we're all really seeking is the freedom to give ourselves away. To stop maniacally holding on to ourselves, to escape from the jail of living solely and vainly for our own sake. This is the treasure, I think, buried in the pent heart.
Omar Bradley. (I just asked my mom.) January 6. Large snowflakes swirl. ”They're plucking geese in heaven,” my mother told me when I was four, outside our bay window in Babylon. She zipped up my woollen coat of double blue, which she herself had knitted, and set me down in the snow with a small shovel. ”Your grandmother used to say that,” she added, her hair of rich reddish-gold grazing my cheek as she wound my scarf tight. That memory is solid, but almost all others are delicate and fugitive, like the white flakes that now vanish as they kiss the gla.s.s.
This will be my final entry.
My mother has turned back into the person she once was, worth more to me than winning the world's praise, more than winning a million lotteries. She said I was welcome to stay with her, but I think it's time to move on. There is someone new in her life, and there is someone new in mine. ”Ask her to marry you,” my mother whispered at the airport.
I never wanted wealth or fame, never sought either. Like the ancient Greeks I simply combined, in a novel way, work that others had done before me. I saw previously overlooked patterns, made ”irrational” connections, saw beauty, nothing more. And this would never have happened without the compa.s.s and charts of my father, the witchery of my grandmother, the flighty optimism of JJ and grounding pessimism of Norval. Without Samira, my muse and mind's balm, who proved that darts of gold can come of chemistry; without my mother, whose love for me-and need-lifted me to a higher plane of existence, turning me into a knight, a magician, a fool, unblinding me to the miracle.
Chapter 25.
Ghostwriter's Epilogue The doc.u.mentation and anecdotal information runs out here.60 Regrettably, we have neither Henry Burun's lab notes from 1978 nor his son's from 2002, which contain key details regarding the evolution and synthesis of the ”memory pill.” These notes were thought to be in the possession of Dr. Vorta, who was attempting to secure drug patents before he died. These doc.u.ments have never been found. Regrettably, we have neither Henry Burun's lab notes from 1978 nor his son's from 2002, which contain key details regarding the evolution and synthesis of the ”memory pill.” These notes were thought to be in the possession of Dr. Vorta, who was attempting to secure drug patents before he died. These doc.u.ments have never been found.
Dr. Vorta was undeniably a brilliant neuroscientist; he was not, as Norval Blaquiere contended, a jealous mentor trying to undercut a brighter protege. Nor was he a ”quack.” With the exception of A-1001, all his discoveries were verifiably his own. All his awards, save those for A-1001, were earned. Over the course of his career, however, Dr. Vorta made several enemies-his wife among them-who were determined to discredit him. The last decade of his life was spent trying to ward off a series of accusations, including medical malpractice, criminal negligence and insider trading.
In the early 1990s, for example, Dr. Vorta developed a promising drug for treating early-onset Alzheimer's, but Food and Drug Canada (FDC) withheld approval from the company he was working with (Memoria Drugs) because of shortcomings in its clinical trials. It later emerged that he sold his shares in this firm just before the FDC's decision was published. Dr. Vorta was subpoenaed for insider trading but not charged.
In the mid-1990s, charges that Vorta put pressure on the Chief Scientist at the FDC to greenlight or fast-track drug approval were dropped for lack of evidence.
In the late 1990s, Dr. Vorta was accused in the press of receiving kickbacks from corporations sponsoring psychomnemonic research, as well as excessive fees to refer patients to clinical trials; a money trail allegedly led back to two European drug companies, an instant-coffee manufacturer and an investment firm, Helvetia Capital Management.
In 2002, following allegations from an anonymous ”whistleblower” that Dr. Vorta's students wrote many of his articles, the Experimental Psychology Department of the University of Quebec conducted ”a full investigation.” The unanimous conclusion, announced on November 4, 2002: ”total exoneration.”
In 2003, a number of scientists, including Dr. Hyalmar Tjarnqvist of Sweden's Karolinska Inst.i.tute, challenged some of Dr. Vorta's discoveries, in particular his claim to have placed an artificial memory in Noel Burun's hippocampus. Yolande Foisy, the Administrative Director of the Experimental Psychology Department and wife of Quebec's former Health Minister, oversaw two investigations. The unanimous conclusion from the ad hoc panel: ”complete endors.e.m.e.nt and corroboration” of Dr. Vorta's discoveries. His lab displayed ”scientific rigour and exemplary laboratory practices” and ”allegations to the contrary are unfounded.”
In December of that same year, after Dr. Vorta received his lifetime achievement award in Oslo, a University of Quebec colleague, Dr. Charles Ravenscroft, accused him of administering a substance (”Vortagon”) that induced Alzheimer's disease in at least two patients: Stella Burun and Norval Blaquiere. No proof of this accusation has yet been found.
That same month, with regard to the so-called ”date-rape video” shot at the Experimental Psychology Laboratory, Dr. Vorta was charged with administering a noxious substance to commit an indictable offence. But not with rape or s.e.xual a.s.sault, as there was no evidence to support either charge. At a disciplinary hearing of the College des medecins du Quebec, Dr. Vorta denied any involvement, but could not explain away the DNA evidence linking him to the crime. At a pre-trial criminal hearing, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to the Philippe Pinel Inst.i.tute in February of 2004.
A subsequent investigation by the a.s.sociation des neurologues du Quebec absolved him. Norval Blaquiere, who had shot the video with a hidden camera for his ”private investigation” of Dr. Vorta, demonstrated that the two individuals in lab coats, one wearing Vorta's coat, were actually Drs. Charles Ravenscroft and Isabelle Rheaume. Their voices, in a barely audible exchange involving the words ”excess” and ”palace of wisdom,” were identified by Noel Burun.
A preliminary hearing revealed that the couple was attempting to avenge ”past injustices”-including Dr. Ravenscroft's dismissal-by planting false evidence. Before driving Samira Darwish to the police and then home, they evidently decided-impulsively, and at the husband's instigation-to take her to Dr. Vorta's lab to plant incriminating DNA evidence and microscopic fibres. As their attorney pointed out, however, the couple did not administer the date-rape drug (the offender has yet to be found), and they did rescue Samira from a potentially more serious crime. In a plea bargain, they each received 18 months of probation, a $5,000 fine and 150 hours of community service at two a.s.sisted-living facilities on the island of Montreal.
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Stella Burun, who was destined for one of these facilities, made a full recovery and has returned to the cla.s.sroom, teaching history at a Montreal Cegep. She is currently dating a younger colleague in the department who has been in love with her for years: a widower with a ten-year-old daughter. The couple plan to get married in Aberdeen, Scotland in the summer of 2006.
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JJ Yelle's retreat into boyhood ended when he met his ex-girlfriend at Montreal's Greek Independence Day Parade. An ageing prost.i.tute, she had just come out of detox-”as if waking up from a nightmare after hibernating in h.e.l.l,” he remarked in an audio interview. They lived together for nine months but did not marry. After JJ helped her get back on her feet, financially and emotionally, she decided to go back to her biker boyfriend. Which did not unduly upset JJ, because he was then free to propose to Sancha Ribeiro, the Bath Lady. The couple now live on a hothouse farm in northern Vermont, where they are experimenting with a genetically modified hybrid of skunk cabbage and Oriental sa.s.safras, a healthy replacement for tobacco. Projected income in 2006, including patent earnings and seed money from R.J. Reynolds: $6.2 million. JJ is currently negotiating to purchase Mount Royal Cemetery.
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Norval Blaquiere never got to Z Z, never got beyond S S. Nor did he get beyond the first round of Tip of Your Tongue Tip of Your Tongue. After completing his twenty-six Sunday school cla.s.ses at the university chapel, and releasing his ”expose” on Dr. Vorta, Norval was hospitalised in early 2004 for short-term memory loss and brain-tumour-like symptoms, thought to be the result of ingesting experimental psychotropic drugs over an extended period-among them methaqualone (which produces excessive dreaming and amnesia), chloral hydrate and Vortagon, an applicationless drug suspected of triggering Alzheimer's disease. Norval's memory lapses were first noted by Noel Burun in a journal entry from October 24, 2003: ”What the Christ are you talking about?” said Norval. And I could see by the look in his eye-I'd seen the same in my mother's-that he really couldn't remember. ”What alphabet?”
After checking himself out of the Hopital Hotel-Dieu in the spring of 2004, Norval journeyed to Hucknall in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, where he stayed briefly at Mrs. Pettybone's B & B. On a cloudless Sat.u.r.day in mid-April, his body was found on the north sh.o.r.e of Byron's lake at Newstead Abbey, where Teresa had drowned herself twelve years before.