Nancy Huston - Infrared

Burned into her retina: the primal scene, the primordial scene, the primitive scene.

The marble sculptor holds the marble body. The living sculptor holds the marble body. The living sculptor holds the living body. Furious, the sculptor strikes the marble body. Pygmalion dances with Galatea. I dance with your friend. Donatello kisses Mary Magdalene. You kiss my friend. Mary Magdalene weeps at Jesus’s feet. Camille Claudel weeps at Rodin’s feet. Rodin sculpts Camille Claudel. Your friend kisses me. Your friend strikes the marble body. I weep at your friend’s feet. Furious, you strike your friend.

I was sixteen now, and Sylvie must have been pushing twenty. Simon Greenblatt — who, though he hadn’t yet completed his thesis, had managed to publish a couple of valid articles on the medical uses of LSD — and Joshua Walters, who now ran the psychiatric ward of his hospital, had been invited to London for a conference on Mind and Brain. It so happened the dates of the conference coincided with my Easter holiday.

Why didn’t I go with them? ‘It would be a great chance for our Rena to discover Europe!’ Simon exclaimed. And Lisa walked right into his trap. I don’t really know how to explain my mother’s blindness except by saying that she was preoccupied with her work, her struggle, the daunting problems of all the Québecoises who filed into her office seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, knocked up, drugged, infected with syphilis, abused by family members or raped by strangers. Simon told his wife only as much of the truth as he figured she could digest: the conference organisers had reserved two hotel rooms for him and Joshua, each of which contained a double and a single bed; they could easily share one of the rooms and leave me the other one; the only remaining expense would be my plane ticket — it was well worth it! Absent-mindedly, Lisa must have given her consent. She must have smiled, written out a cheque for the plane ticket, and trotted off to plead at court.

Sylvie met up with us at Mirabel Airport. The money for her ticket had been forked out by Joshua (a detail we all, for some reason, found hilarious). Standing together at a counter in the airport bar, we raised our glasses in a toast — my, weren’t we clever!

While the men attended and delivered lectures, Sylvie and I spent two euphoric days criss-crossing the city of London in search of bargains. And at night…Well, under cover of night-time, many things come to pass that no one can judge or comprehend…I have no idea what went on between Simon and Sylvie in Room 418, nor do I recall the exact progression of events between Joshua and myself in Room 416; it must have been fairly swift, though, because by the morning of the third day I found myself strapped to the bed with ropes brought especially from Montreal — naked, naturally, spread-eagled and blindfolded — while, standing behind me, also naked, Joshua whipped me with his belt. I knew quite well why the good doctor was treating me like this, knew it was nothing personal — he’d told me all about his childhood…

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…