Nancy Huston - Infrared

She doesn’t tell them this statue is in fact a copy. Who knows if they’ll have the time and energy to visit the original at the Accademia?

A young man goes by, selling postcards. One is a close-up of David ’s genitals.

Ingrid giggles. ‘I promised to buy a postcard of this statue for our friend David in Montreal,’ she says. ‘But being a minister, he probably wouldn’t appreciate this one, tee, hee, hee! Right, Dad? Oh, no, I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t bring this card home to our David, aren’t you, Dad?’

Finding her own joke irresistible, she repeats it several times. Inwardly, Rena rolls her eyes heavenward.

Then she finds herself tormented by questions again. How do I know my approach to David is right and Ingrid’s wrong? Who has the ability to judge? Based on what criteria?

One thing’s for sure, Subra says. Ingrid’s having more fun in Florence than you are.

Il Duce

They drift back through the Centro Storico in silence. Approaching the Piazza della Repubblica, they hear festive noises — drum roll, circus music, salvos of laughter — what’s going on?

They decide to check it out.

It’s a clown. A clown who, though imitating Charlie Chaplin, is missing Chaplin’s humility, self-irony and truculence (missing Chaplin, in other words).

With imperious gestures—’You! Come here!’—the clown picks a young boy out of the crowd.

The boy shakes his head, trying to resist, but his mother gives him a little shove. ‘Go ahead, little one. Don’t be shy.’ Reluctantly, the child enters the arena.

The clown gives him orders, punctuated by deafening blows of his whistle. By obeying every time, the child makes a fool of himself.

‘Come here!’ the clown says, again and again, his tone of voice more furious by the minute. ‘Sit down! No, stand up! Turn around!’

The boy does his desperate best to comply.

‘Go away, I told you — are you deaf or what? Come back here!’

The child reels. ‘Fine, son,’ his mother beams. ‘You did just fine.’

The clown struts and swaggers. Ingrid joins the crowd in applauding him.

Rena is nauseous. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says.

‘What’s wrong?’ asks Ingrid.

‘I never liked Mussolini.’

‘Come off it, Rena. This has nothing to do with fascism.’

‘It does so.’

‘It’s getting late, maybe we should be on our way?’ says Simon, who can’t bear any form of conflict between his daughter and his wife.

The true source of Rena’s nausea, though, is in her brain, her distant memories, much too close for comfort.

‘Do you remember Matthew Varick?’ she asks her father as they head for the Hotel Guelfa.

‘Sure,’ he replies. ‘What reminded you of him?’

‘No, nothing, he just flitted through my brain, I don’t know why.’

You do, though, Subra says. Tell me…

Dr Varick was a colleague of my father’s at the university. He had an autistic son named Matthew; the boy’s mother had either died or flown the coop, in any case she wasn’t in the picture. Dr Varick had been offered a sabbatical in Europe, and since hospitality was one of the values of Simon’s Jewish upbringing he cared about preserving, he suggested Matthew come and live with us for a few months, under his scientific observation and Lucille’s care.

How did the rest of the family feel about the idea? Well, Ms Lisa Heyward gave her consent, provided that it didn’t keep her from putting in her seventy-hour week at court; my brother was already off at boarding-school and didn’t care a whit; as for me…no one asked my opinion. And so it was that in September 1973, Matthew Varick moved in with us. I hated his guts from the minute I saw him. He was twelve, just a year younger than I was. He was a plump albino with ginger-coloured hair and eyelashes. Unnaturally pale beneath a thick sprinkle of freckles, his face and neck flamed crimson whenever he blushed, which was often. For no good reason I could see, he walked on tiptoe. Matthew was an unusually gifted autistic child, virtually an extraterrestrial — he had an IQ of 180, was obsessed with astronomy, and did mathematical calculations at lightning speed. He spoke incessantly in a high, thin voice, making the same exclamations over and over again, blinking his pale lashes, waving and flicking his fingers in the air — especially when he was scared, which was often. Over breakfast, the only meal the Greenblatt family took together, his excitement and volubility made conversation next to impossible, but Lisa’s mind was elsewhere and Simon found Matthew’s behaviour fascinating. I was the one who had to put up with him day after day, from after school till bedtime. Since his room was directly beneath mine, I’d hear him chattering to himself as I tried to concentrate on my homework and it would drive me up the wall.

One evening when everyone else was out, I strode into Matthew’s bedroom, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up to my room. Fuming with rage, I brandished my skipping rope under his nose, pointed to a roll of Scotch tape on my desk, and said, ‘If you don’t shut up right this minute, I’ll bind you hand and foot and tape your mouth shut. Do you hear me?’ Matthew blushed and gulped and started shaking like a leaf.

Never had my words had such a powerful effect on another person. I found it thrilling. I wanted more. ‘S.T.A.R.,’ I went on. ‘Scotch Tape And Rope. That’s what’s in store for you if you don’t shut up. Now get out of here!’—and, so saying, I shoved him out into the hallway. He stood there gesticulating and blushing, so frightened he couldn’t budge. Then he peed his pants. The piss puddled around his feet on the hardwood floor and I told him to clean it up…But just as he was filling a basin with water at the kitchen sink, Lucille burst in and gave him the dressing-down of his life.

In the course of the ensuing months, I whispered the word S.T.A.R. to Matthew on an almost daily basis and it never failed to scare him out of his wits. I got a huge kick out of watching his cheeks go from white to red in the space of a…

Rena retches.

Remembering this story in detail between the Piazza della Repubblica and the Via Guelfa has brought her to the verge of vomiting.

Piccoli problemi

Alone at last in Room 25, she listens to the messages that have accumulated on her mobile since the day before — a good dozen of them, including two from Patrice Schroeder, her employer at On the Fringe, and three (the only ones she cares about) from Aziz.

‘Call me back.’ ‘Rena, please call me back.’ ‘Rena, what the hell is going on? Will you call me back, please? Make it snappy.’

She puts the call through, undressing as she does so. ‘My love.’

‘About time!’

There’s something odd about Aziz’s voice, a tone she’s never heard before. Inwardly, she steels herself to hear bad news.

‘Is anything wrong? You’re shaking, love.’

Often, as he approaches orgasm, Aziz’s whole body starts to shake. But she can tell that right now he’s trembling not with pleasure but with rage, reactivating the stammer that had plagued him throughout childhood.

‘All hell is b-b-b-breaking loose here, Rena. Have you been following what’s going on?’

‘No, I haven’t had a second to watch the news.’

Spluttering and stuttering, Aziz quotes to her the French government’s latest outrageous remarks about the projects north of Paris, a neighbourhood they both know well since Aziz was born there, his mother and sisters still live there, and Rena has done numerous reportages in the area. Rena listens closely, but finds it hard to connect his words with what she’s currently enduring in Florence.