Right, Subra puts in. Mommy’s always running off, so we have to tie her up to force her to hold still.
…and I’d given my consent. ‘You’re insatiable,’ he said — and I nodded, for it was true. I had a consuming desire to know the adult world in all its unadulterated splendour. The intervals between blows varied in length, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes — and since I never knew when they’d fall I couldn’t prepare for them and they kept taking me by surprise. Usually Josh aimed fairly well and the lashes fell on my buttocks, where they didn’t hurt too much, but sometimes they fell on my upper thighs or lower back and the pain was excruciating. It must have been after one of those poorly aimed blows that I let out a scream that changed my life forever.
In other words, it’s all my fault.
Of course, Subra says. What isn’t?
Everything that ensued was the result of that one scream. Disturbed by what he thought he’d heard, my father detached himself from his mistress’s body in Room 418, burst through the connecting door into Room 416, registered the scene at a glance and went berserk. Striding over to poor, disoriented, detumescent Joshua, he grabbed the belt from his hands and started using it to deliver wild blows to the psychiatrist’s head and body, all the while shouting at the top of his lungs, thereby drawing the attention of the chambermaids appointed to clean the fourth floor of our three-star hotel, who rang the reception, who called the police. Because I was wearing a blindfold, I didn’t actually see any of this, merely grasped it thanks to my acute sense of hearing and my gift for deduction. Charged with statutory rape, the two scientists spent the day in police custody, while Sylvie and I were transferred to a facility for juvenile delinquents. Thanks to the intervention of the prestigious Mind and Brain conference organisers, we all got released the next day — but that didn’t prevent the British government from kicking us out of the country the day after that. By the time we landed in Montreal, our story was on the front page of the Gazette. The publicity was to have two dire consequences — it destroyed my father’s last remaining hopes of having a successful career, and precipitated my mother’s decision to return to her native Australia.
You don’t say, murmurs Subra almost inaudibly. The front page of the Gazette!
Rena leaves the museum, shattered.
Belvedere
Nightmarish crossing of the Ponte Vecchio. Ingrid and Simon cling to one another; the crowd is so dense that she loses sight of them for a few minutes and fears that one of them must have fainted.
Why, in Simon’s eyes, was it not all right for Josh to hit me with his belt but all right for him to hit Rowan with his? I mean, maybe there’s something intrinsically edifying and instructive about having one’s naked bottom strapped, maybe it teaches bad little boys not to set fire to the curtains in their bedroom, what it teaches pretty young girls I don’t know yet but I’m sure I’ll find out someday — maybe we should all just spend our time whipping each other to prove our love?
Having reached the far side of the Arno safe and sound, they order sandwiches in a snack-bar on the Borgo San Jacopo.
Ingrid wonders why all the stalls on the bridge sell exactly the same thing — silver jewellery. ‘I don’t get it,’ she says. ‘Such close competition just doesn’t seem like a good idea — that way none of them can make a profit!’
Rack her brains as she might, Rena is unable to come up with an answer to this important question.
‘How about a little digestive rest?’ Simon suggests.
They find a perfect bench in the sun to rest on in the Giardini di Boboli, but then Simon and Ingrid decide to use this moment to bring Rena up to date on the medical history of one of their friends in Montreal. The woman’s illness spreads, gradually infecting the landscape in front of them; Rena knows that in her memory, every detail of this magical moment — the pond, the water-lilies, the bronze statue of Neptune bursting up from the fountain brandishing his trident, his body greened with age and moisture but still magnificently muscular and manly — will forever be tainted by the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
She can take no more. On the improbable pretext of wishing to photograph the flowerbeds, she gets up and heads for the Forte de Belvedere, ascending the hill alone in long, swift strides.
Why am I so averse to talking about illness? It’s not illness itself I object to (Fabrice’s kidney failure taught me to respect the body, and its countless forms of strength and weakness, once and for all) — no, what sets my teeth on edge is making illness the main topic of conversation, forcing people to listen to tales of woe they can neither respond to nor escape from. That’s why I never talk about my own health problems. In fact I have none…
Apart from insomnia, Subra interrupts.
True. The bane of my existence, these past few years. After I hit forty, it started getting so bad I couldn’t hide it anymore. When Thierno spent nights at my place, it worried him to see me get up at noon, pale and haggard, with purple rings beneath my eyes. ‘You know, Mom,’ he said at last, ‘there are cures for insomnia.’ ‘Thanks but no thanks. Seen enough shrinks to last me a lifetime.’ ‘I’m not talking about analysis, I’m talking about acupuncture.’ ‘Wha…?’ ‘You heard me.’
He went on to tell me that the mother of his piano teacher Pierre Matheron had studied acupuncture in Indonesia. Her fees were reasonable, he said, her office close by, and her talent considerable. ‘Seriously,’ he wound up, laying a hand on mine, ‘you should give it a try.’
Touched by my son’s solicitude, telling myself it wouldn’t hurt to try, I called Dr Matheron’s office and set up an appointment.
One of the best decisions you ever made, whispers Subra.
The doctor shook my hand warmly as she ushered me into her office. In her mid-fifties at the time, she was a smallish woman with a reassuringly sturdy build and laughing hazel eyes. But it was her face that set me instantly at ease — a broad face framed in blonde hair liberally mixed with white; a good, crinkly face with high cheekbones and a surprisingly pointed nose; a face that freely admitted to having smiled and frowned millions of times.
Taking out a form, she asked me the usual questions: medical history, date and place of birth…‘Ah, you’re Canadian.’ I was bracing myself for the inevitable That’s funny, you don’t have a Canadian accent — such a charming accent it is, too! — a double insult for the Québecois, who prefer not to be called Canadian and consider (as do many French provincials) that if anyone has an accent, and a ridiculous one at that, it’s the Parisians — but Dr Matheron said nothing of the sort. I deduced that she wasn’t a native French speaker herself, which endeared her to me even more. I have a marked preference for people who are split — bi’s and ambi’s of all sorts. That’s why I live in the neighbourhood of Belleville, where bilingualism is the rule and not the exception, where you know that behind every face in the street is a brain teeming with sentences, quotes, expressions, songs and proverbs in French and another language, whether Chinese or Arabic, Turkish or Kurdish, German, English or Cambodian. I have no patience for people who think they know who they are just because they were born somewhere. ‘What about yourself?’ I asked Kerstin Matheron with my usual impertinence. ‘Swedish,’ she replied.