The Memory Artists (12 page)

May 2. My matinée day with Norval (Tati’s Jour de Fête). Mom freaked when I told her the Bath Lady would be staying with her all afternoon. “I hate that sexpot and I hate this Norval creature!”

In the audience was someone who works for Dr. Vorta, an eccentric gentleman named Jean-Jacques Yelle (“JJ”). When Norval saw him he ducked down in his chair, but too late—JJ spotted us both and came bounding over to sit beside us. A white candy cigarette was hanging out his mouth and he was wearing pink socks. He’s a really nice guy, smiles a lot, but I sometimes have trouble with his voice, which has the cracking quality of an adolescent. When the film started Norval told him to go back to his seat.

After the movie I discovered that Norval is an absolutely merciless judge of his mother. Most of the people I know, in fact, complain about their parents— the way I complained about my mom when I was a teenager. But the fact is, without any bias at all, she
was
is one of the most beautiful women in the world, inside and out. The most selfless person I’ve ever met. Do women like her still exist today or is that a thing of the past?

May 8. We watched a video this afternoon: House of Mirth. Mom had told me that she wanted a “matinée—like you have with your boyfriend, whatever his name is. Be careful of him, by the way, because he carries a knife.” She’s never met Norval (and never will). She then told me that my cousin Rita got married and that we should have gone to the wedding “at St. Rose’s.” Three times she told me this, and three times I agreed with her, although I don’t have a cousin named Rita. And St. Rose’s is not a church, but a building not far from where we used to live in Long Island, on Route 110 in Farmingdale. It’s derelict now, its windows smashed and roof long gone. It used to be a home for wayward girls.

May 11. Had another all-nighter. First at 2:15 and then at 4:30 Mom woke me with her trusty lamp. How is it that she loses everything but her bloody Australian Hunter’s Lamp? When I shouted at her, ordered her back to bed, she said, “This is not working out. You’re impossible to live with.” She stormed off and slammed her bedroom door. I tossed and turned for half an hour, then went to her bedroom, where I got her another blanket, as she seemed to be shivering. I said I was sorry, but she just stared silently at me, her face empty of expression, looking like a waxwork model of herself.

May 19. Tonight I made tuna tartare with roast tomatoes, which I didn’t think was all that bad. But at the end of the meal Mom said she couldn’t “understand why this place keeps serving this junk. Hard as a rock. You could’ve soled your boots with it.”

May 24. Mom didn’t get up until 4:40 in the afternoon. Three times I tried to wake her, but no go. When she finally did get up she claimed it was my fault she slept so late. “I sleep a lot better when you’re not here playing your bloody music,” she said. I replied that I only play classical music (which she used to like) and never when she’s sleeping. She looked at me and said, “I sleep a lot better when you’re not here playing your bloody music.”

May 29. Mom was in a foul mood today, again. Among other things, she accused me of “ripping off” her stuff, including her shower cap. She then concluded a long and scattered tirade by saying that I should “fire the bloody postman for not bringing the bloody post every day.”

June 12. Been trying to stay out of the sphere of Mom’s anger the last few days, without much success. Dead tired all day, worse than usual, could barely move. Seem to have forgotten how to sleep. On a video I got from the Canadian Alzheimer’s Association, a woman said that when she was taking care of her husband she didn’t sleep for three years.

June 15. Mom wandered again tonight, turning on lights in room after room. Wearing a poppy on her nightgown. In June.

June 21. Summer solstice, longest day of the year. Found almost $3000 in Mom’s drawer, in twenty-dollar bills. When I redeposited it at the bank, the teller told me that last year Mom had been going to the bank every day to make withdrawals. When I asked the teller why she didn’t report it, she said she did, to the manager, who reported it to her brother-in-law in New York. Also found an envelope containing forty-eight Super 7 lottery tickets, which I just finished checking out on the Internet. Won 10 dollars and 2 free tickets.

July 2. The burglar alarm woke me up last night, at midnight. I jumped out of bed and scrambled downstairs in my boxers. Before I could shut the alarm off, there was loud knocking at the front door. I didn’t know what to do, with the alarm still going, so I turned the outside light on, looked out the window and saw … Mom, elegantly dressed in a pin-stripe business suit. I let her in and then shut the alarm off. By then the Étoile Security people were calling to see if everything was OK. I was shaking when I told the guy what had happened— and almost couldn’t remember our password! After I hung up Mom explained that she was on her way to school and had come back because she’d forgotten her notes.

July 15. Mom is now registered with the Alzheimer’s Wanderers Program, and wears an ID chain.

August 20. Been busy renovating. I changed the dead bolts on the front door and the kitchen door to double key locks. I also papered over the doors. And made lots of other changes around the house. Dr. Vorta gave me some ideas, the Bath Lady gave me others. But I’m too tired to write about it.

August 22. Dr. Vorta gave me a list of ways of keeping Mom active, mentally and physically, and more changes that should be made in the house itself. As for treatment, he says there are essentially 4 drugs to treat Alzheimer’s. And they’re not terribly effective—at best, they mitigate symptoms. I’ve already tried two: Exelon (rivastigmine) and Reminyl (galantamine, first derived from the bulbs of snowdrops and narcissi). Both modulate the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. But neither stops the progression of the disease, and there are side-effects: nausea and vomiting, stomach cramps and headaches, diarrhoea, dizziness, fatigue, insomnia, loss of appetite …

September 21. Autumn equinox. Been trying two new anti-aging neuro drugs over the past few days (neither available in Canada—thank you, Dr. Vorta!). One is Centrophenoxine (Lucidril), a carboxyl-linked dimer (two molecules linked to a C=O group by a –O- connection) of p-chloro-phenoxyacetic acid and DMAE (DiMethylAminoEthanol). The other is Hydergine (Ergoloid Mesylates), a mixture of alkaloids that come from a fungus (ergot) that grows on rye. One of them seems to be working, in any case, because first at dinner and then at bedtime, Mom was astonishingly clear.

“What poem shall I read tonight?” Noel asked his mother. She had been particularly lucid that night, especially at the dinner table, going on at length about one of her favourite books,
The Golden Bough
. She was now in bed, ready for her bedtime story.

“I don’t want a poem tonight,” she said. “I want to hear about the Struldbrugs. Because I think I’m turning into one.”

“The Struldbrugs?” Noel repeated, in amazement. Even his own brain took some time to retrieve this name. “From
Gulliver’s Travels
?”

“Where else?”

His mother used to read this novel to him, at Noel’s insistence, almost every night for six months, from May 14 to November 11, 1977. As much as the book, he loved the colours of his mother’s voice and the ambrosial scent of her skin: lily-of-the-valley with a whisper of lime.

“You’re not turning into a Struldbrug, Mom. They’re immortal.”

“They’re old and demented, you mean. Can you tell me the story, Noel dear?”

“I’m not sure I can remember it all. I may have to get the book, although I haven’t seen it in a while. It may be in the attic.”

“It’s from the Voyage to Luggnagg.”

“Is it?”

“Are you losing your memory, Noel?”

“No, I just … I’ll give it a shot. It’s murky, though. And there might be a few bits missing:

The Struldbrugs commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old, after which by degrees they grew melancholy and dejected. When they came to fourscore years, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but uncapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions …

They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common traditions than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.

As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support … “

Noel opened his eyes as the words became garbled, like portions of a video erased or recorded over. “Here it gets blurred, Mom. Then it goes:

At ninety they lose their teeth and hair, they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite … In talking they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the same reason they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

The language of this country being always upon the flux, the Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another, neither are they able after two hundred years to hold any conversation with their neighbours the mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country …”

Noel stopped when he realised he’d lost his audience. He bent towards his sleeping mother’s face—so pale, so lifeless—as if to hear some last word. Swift’s days ended in memory-crippled dementia he recalled as he drew closer, felt her breath mingle with his.

October 4. Tonight we watched a documentary on actor Christopher Reeve and his battle to recover from his spine injury. Mom said she hoped with all her heart that he was still around when they found a cure. “Do you think they’ll find a cure?” she asked, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I’ll never know what happened to him, because I’ll be dead before him. Or have lost my mind.” “Mom,” I replied, with my arm round her shoulder, “you’ll both be cured—I know it, I have a gut feeling. I bet you’ll both be cured in the same year! That’s my prediction. You can beat this, don’t give up. Use Superman as inspiration.” (Superman! The TV actor became an alcoholic and put a bullet in his head; the movie actor became a quadriplegic after falling off a horse.)

October 15. I’ve asked the Bath Lady to come in four days instead of two and she agreed. This will give me more time for myself, but just about exhaust what’s left of our savings. I’ll deal with it later.

October 31. Hallowe’en. In the afternoon, Mom and I cleaned. As I vacuumed she dusted furiously, really getting into it. She then got out the broom and began riding it like a witch, which made us both laugh. Five minutes later she was slouched in a chair in an unlit room, morosely watching TV, switching from one game show to another.

November 2. We’re running out of money. Prescription drugs are supposed to be free after out-of-pocket expenses of $68.50 a month. But for some reason (either a computer error or Mom forgot to pay the annual premium) they’ve cut us off from the plan. Aricept alone costs $158.50 a month. Now wondering if I should ask Dr. Vorta for a loan. Or Norval?

November 3. Had to let the Bath Lady go, which wasn’t pleasant.

November 11. Today Mom was shivering all day; I had to crank up the heat even higher. It felt like Calcutta. Anxious to know why Mom is sleeping 18 hours a day. Death practice? Which drug is responsible?

November 17. Five minutes ago, instead of me reading Mom a nighttime poem, she had one for me (shockingly):