CHAPTER IX

In search of a rapid cure, the man of altered oneirism reacts with a sharp complaint. A panicking sound torn from a knot lying in ambush in his solar plexus. This pain, he gives over to the suffocating atmosphere of the living room.

Lying on his stomach, the divan serving as a compress; as if by prognosis, his tear glands, activated by the anticipation of painful trials darkening his love life, make him shed a few tears. Bitterness is approaching.

Nielle would do everything in her power to evade the dreamer’s desires. No longer to be seen. In his dreams, he had carried her to the skies. She would lay him bare. — He transcended her. She would crush him. Simple for her: she would blind him with a false absence.

As unpredictable as the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, ironically, Nielle had formulated her declaration of war through that equivocal innuendo when mentioning the work offered by Damien. This undesirable and disturbing visit from the nonconformist he had always been proved to be the drop that made the vase overflow, the extra mouthful before nausea. Nielle could bear no more. The attempts at recovery ended in failure.

Like a sect becoming official, a clan formed. No religious, human or political goals; the sole objective: to destroy the morale of the opposing troop… Easy and ridiculous target: a single infantryman. Damien, the soldier without aplomb.

Strategically favoured. The advantage of being more numerous and of walking over the head of the tenant below assured the muse’s clan its chances of victory. Their weapons: verbal bombs, fierce independence, prejudices, spy-mania, staging and abstruse behaviours. Innocently, the most cruelly murderous of all: systematically preventing any encounter between the dreamer and his source of energy, Nielle herself.

For all defence, Damien took advantage of these frail shields: semi-naïveté, excessive altruism and a placebo, … drug use when necessary. His resources: his imagination and his love for the enemy general.

He was not unaware that a poisoned sword hung above his soul. Out of heroism? Out of passion? He would go all the way!

— Nielle! Where are you? … God, why is she hiding like this? — After all these hours spent listening to her live, how does she dare make me believe she is not up there?

She lives there! She speaks there, walks there, eats there, screws there. She leaves her place, comes back to it and moves about without my even glimpsing her shadow dragging itself in a corner?

She has even treated herself to an unlisted telephone number. "

Damien had the intuition that some intrigues were being plotted. Yet he possessed no tangible proof. Everything concerning Nielle became impalpable, to the point of panic. Regularly there returned, like hooked-together questions trotting through his head like wild horses exhausted after a race of terror.

— I hear her steps; she still lives above… So why does Mia lie to me? — Why has that individual, Marc, whom she consulted for her collaboration, not come back to pick up his mail, after morbidly flattering himself as the one she had chosen to do so? — Lou Jobim and his boarder Carlos deny seeing her regularly. How is it that I hear them visiting the two sisters almost daily? — By what means could Bruce Brouillette have learned the name of the young student the cook is lodging? …"

Each time, cutting short these questions that slipped away… in single file, he tried to cast a positive eye upon his increased problems, reflecting on a quick solution to re-establish contact with Nielle. Distractedly, as if he had only his surroundings to inspire him, he glanced all around. For a few seconds, his gaze remained fixed on his outdated sound system.

— Music! Music! " he cried.

Without delay, he moved toward his record collection, nervously searching through the few titles of which it was composed. Still more nervously, from a sleeve with damaged edges, he withdrew one of the most characteristic records of his love for the muse. Placing the microgroove delicately on the turntable as in an act of ablution, he set down upon it the still-balanced mechanical arm, to which time had fused an old needle so worn that it scraped the grooves more than it sounded them out. From the speakers that spat the first grouchy threads rose a few short guitar chords by way of introduction, then Cat Stevens’s voice followed: "I'm looking for a hard headed woman. One who will take me for myself…"

Selfishly keeping his thoughts to himself, so as to conceal the trick, he savoured the first words of a symphony of love messages he would send her. Like the details of a last stand, waged for love, they would fly toward his neighbour’s subconscious until she could no longer bend the authenticity of his feelings.

— I love you, hard-headed woman. You will not be able to prevent me from communicating my emotions to you, and if it was through a Cat Stevens song that I managed to speak to you the first time, now it is through him again that I approach you. His songs move you because personal signified meanings have become embedded in them? You will see my image dislodge them! As for the problems, as for the remorse that may besiege my conscience, they will have no force, no impact. My body and my mind, my life, are exhausting themselves to feed culture, so why may I not enslave it to conquer you, muse? "

From then on, Damien would correspond with Nielle in a synthetic manner by means of those plastic words, frequent letters and outlandish initiatives…

The next day, at the first glimmers of daylight, certain that no one would see him; without emitting the slightest sigh, he left his home. Near the staircase, on the asphalt, with red spray paint, he protected with a heart what he had written in the preceding instants… (I love you, “Hard Headed Woman!”)

Returning home in the same manner…, he did not care about the probable reaction of the owners, who, in any case, recognised him as an original, a fellow a little too “far out”. A harmless freak. Above all, he did not miss the gossip this veiled happening would provoke. Visualising his muse reading the graffiti, her stupefaction condensed into dazed amazement, fulfilled him.

***

Offering a better foundation for the appearance of these memories as they transfigure themselves, the dreamopath auditions Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony_ "Ta, ta, ta, … Ta!" _ The Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan’s directing hands begins…; death knocks!

Simultaneously, a start of light in the already darkened sky. A flash of lightning! … For the space of a laconic reverie, the heavens take root in the alma mater. Thunder, for its part, subtly fixes its relief in the sighs of the symphony.

A victim disoriented by an exponential surge of his memory, he mistrusts the flashbacks of the great upheaval. In the foetal position, sheltered in one of the corners of the narrow room, he is afraid. The fear of physically reliving those unstoppable recalls momentarily withers his intentions. His hands serve as improvised refuges.

No longer remember! … In vain! It is too late. The actors are in place in that viscous scene which is his brain. The setting is unchanged, memories can be touched. Perception differs, but form and substance remain the same, for the past is imperishable. Voices radiate from his grounded dreams; at first infinitely faint, they then arrive with a great reinforcement of storms and musical violence…

Damien no longer worked. Without Nielle, art lost its meaning. He squandered his time in the humble hope of glimpsing his muse. At the slightest step, muffled or not, on the stairs, he promptly headed toward his first sentry box, his bedroom window. From there, he virtually monitored the entrances and exits. When there was no longer a living soul above him, he tirelessly posted himself at those other observation points, the living-room window or the one in his studio. From there, still imperceptible, his sentinel’s task widened onto a panorama encompassing the Street of Glorious Peace, its park and De Maisonneuve Boulevard.

In his idle times, he wrote letters addressed to Nielle or composed poems inspired by her. Since he claimed to have no talent for writing, he reworked or reformulated them for long hours. On a whim, he selected and handpicked those that sparkled among the results. Then he slipped them into Nielle’s mailbox. Circumspect, he waited for the postman to pass, to make sure his words were collected with the rest of the mail addressed to the third-floor tenant.

But he also reflected on other avenues that might lead him toward Nielle. Thus he suspected that a friendly connection with Carlos would prove useful. He therefore monitored the movements of the student, Lou Jobim’s boarder.

On the last day of November, Damien caught sight of Carlos walking along a path that could be called sinuous, then he went to meet him and spoke to him. Had the student not informed him that he was returning from a literature class, Damien would have believed it was rather a course in oenology, so strongly did his opposite number smell of alcohol. The dreamer felt uneasy, almost troubled by the fumes, but the fellow in front of him represented a chance to reconnect with his muse.

Subtly intuitive, he accompanied Carlos to his door. The same entrance as Nielle. The same vestibule. Unexpected suggestion, unhoped-for by Damien: Lou’s boarder invited him in.

— Hey! Artist. How about we have a drink together? I’ve got a bottle of red at my place!

— I’m not imposing?

— No! No! Come on, come in! "

It was the first time he had set foot in the lodging adjoining Nielle’s. After a brief discussion revolving around everything and nothing, Carlos raised the subject of his university courses.

— Did I tell you I study literature at UQAM? … Do you want me to read you one of my poems?!

— It’s just that I am not in a position to appreciate…

— One of my literature professors told me it’s rotten. But he knows nothing! … Listen instead… "The world is shit! Everything is shit! … It pisses me off!" So! How do you like that?

— Uh! …"

Mute with astonishment, Damien did not dare give his true opinion, telling himself on the one hand that he found the vein adipose, and on the other, that if the world had required the services of a navel, Carlos would be able to fill the void. But he judged that if he informed him of his nausea upon hearing such horror, his chances of reconciliation with Nielle would diminish considerably. So he thought he should use more diplomacy…

— Hum! … I think your professor went a little strong in his criticism. Hum! … Is this a first draft? …"

Surprised by this last question, the scatological poet tried to slip away.

— You’ll excuse me if I throw you out, but I have to get back to my shitty classes. SHIT! "

Flash of wit. The third floor offered itself open-heartedly. Perceiving an opportunity that might take a very long time to recur, Damien made a sustained request to the boarder.

— Tell me, Carlos, … there is no one at Nielle and Mia’s right now, is there? … Your apartments communicate and there is neither lock nor padlock, isn’t that so? … Besides, I see that the doors of each of the two lodgings are wide open… and…

— Come on! Get to the point!

— Uh! … I have a confession to make… I love Nielle, and visiting the place where she lives would please me very much. I have already been there, but it was quite a while ago…! I beg you, just a few minutes! "

Sudden softening caused by his liver pressing him to sleep off his wine? Carlos agreed to the dreamer’s moving plea, though Damien had consumed only one glass.

— OK! … But don’t tell anyone. It’s not my place…! If Lou learns about this, I’ll have to move. You know he lodges me for free. — Fine! Go on, visit! "

It was obvious from Carlos’s attitude that the cook held him under his yoke and that he feared committing the slightest breach of conduct. Carlos, the alcoholic scatological poet, was not a bad sort, but obliged to articulate like a puppet under Lou’s hands, he seemed to lose much of that latitude, that mad freedom required by student life.

Delight! … The precious moment came. Damien strove to keep all his lucidity at the expense of his joy, photographing and noting everything mentally.

(-"A simple sweep of the gaze at the entrance to Nielle’s lair allows me to verify its divisions and establish part of its contents as if it were the list of a treasure.

To the left, comfortably furnishing the living room, a love seat in natural tones runs along the wall. (There! For long hours, we would discuss our future, her past and mine; while caressing, while kissing the physical witnesses of our respective spiritual evolutions: our two bodies discovering one another, insatiably mad for each other.) Closer to the door stands a rustic bookcase of varnished boards and stacked bricks; the titles of the books indicate a wide variety of subjects. (There, consulting, reading these volumes, both of us would make the astonishing discovery that the first wonder of the world resides in the initial human dream.) Finally, a few very healthy plants, hung or judiciously placed, dominate a sound system, simple but more recent than mine. (There, with refinement, I would demonstrate to her that I too favour, among my knowledge of classical music, a few compositions: "What would you say, Nielle, if we listened to Handel’s "Messiah"? … Unless you would prefer Purcell’s "Odes to St Cecilia", or his "King Arthur"? … or Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", BWV 565. "

A certain originality in the decoration flirts with the eye and the imagination. In the wall separating the living room from the bedroom, a large opening had been made, preserving almost only a single horizontal low wall; like an inner window abusing invitations that would, if the occasion arose, be integrated into the premises of troubling alcoves. My muse’s area of rest or carnal ebullition (…depending on the sweet case…) is humbly furnished with a chest of drawers on which lie a manicure kit and a hairbrush. As for her bed, its lines are simple without being modern. It is covered with white satin sheets. (There, we…! ). If Nielle’s living room duplicates mine just below, her bedroom reigns over my studio…)

— Hurry up! I don’t have only that to do, letting you visit. " Carlos sneered, temporarily interrupting Damien’s erotic fantasies.

(Pivoting to the right…, the kitchen. A stained-wood set, composed of a round table and four chairs, shines with a finish recalling walnut. (I remember sitting there on that famous evening of a certain fifth of July. I was completely stoned; but if Nielle had said: "Yes!"?) The appliances are also the same, stove and refrigerator in a very dark brown. A small white shelf completes the kitchen’s few cupboards; on the upper shelf, a few small plants, on the lower ones a few kitchen accessories without the slightest stain. Near the rear exit, as if stifling one another in a territorial battle, a small counter and a sink, as tiny as mine.)

Sketching a foolish smile to reassure his host, who feared the sudden return of one of the two sisters, Damien, in a tone so detached that it gave him a deadpan air, confessed to his new neighbour:

— You see that little sink, Carlos? … You could never guess, but I often have the impression that Nielle and I wash our dishes at the same time. Even though we each live in our own lodgings, I imagine living with her. I once even broke a plate by dropping it on the floor, believing Nielle was angry with me because she was saying nothing to me. "

Noticing the impatience taking hold of the student, Damien restricted his lucubration, then set foot on the threshold of the last room.

Another bookcase, built in the same way as the one in the living room. Except that it dresses the whole wall. The subjects of these books are less varied; they deal mainly with history. At the centre, as if to make less aseptic the setting offered there, an oblong braided rug warms its aspect. In this kingdom of reflection of my beautiful erudite woman, overlooking my bedroom, just beneath the window, stands a work desk. (Does she settle there to write her journal, which would relate my efforts at conquest…?)

Retracing his steps, the visitor noticed, through the half-open door of the toilet, that there was nothing particular to report. Except for the smallness, the impeccable cleanliness and those feminine things that were missing from his environment of provoked bachelorhood.

Turning his head from right to left, then in the opposite motion as if for a final tracking shot, in a final memorisation, he felt waves of negative value assaulting him. It was merely a green plant. Momentarily, a feeling of sadness enveloped Damien’s exultation. He wondered what was happening to Nielle, her reactions; when quite simply a young chlorophytum, a spider plant shoot, loathed him, the unconditional admirer.

On the other hand, this shock of vegetal origin drew his attention to three photos he had not noticed. Three slightly blurred snapshots, fixed to the wall with transparent tape, in which Nielle was photographed with Marc, her I-know-not-what, as well as Marc’s son. Damien admired the beauty, caught unawares in that atmosphere of serenity and ordinary happiness of a family meal…

Sniffing the persistence of dreams turned into satellites around the dreamer’s head, the student intervened.

— In which of those photos is she the most beautiful? … In your opinion? … Me, I don’t know! — Besides, she isn’t my type. I find Mia more attractive! I tried my luck, but those two girls are nothing but damn snobs! … Come on! Which of those photos…? "

Wanting to surprise Carlos in order to detect the motivation for this sudden interest, this too-humanitarian intention, he fixed upon a choice he believed astute.

— It is idiotic! … But I find Nielle absolutely ravishing in this shot, you see there, … she is yawning!

— Take it! Carry it off, I won’t say anything and she won’t even notice.

— No! Nielle would not like that. " he insisted, while transmitting by psychic means to the plant, the unsympathetic chlorophytum, his wonder at having come, at having visited Nielle’s apartment. Adding, to reassure the latter, that a theft, even disguised as charming larceny, would not intensify this joy impossible to hide.

— Fine, all right! We have to go, Damien. The visit is over. "

One last breath in that blessed place where everything made him happy. He drank in the slightest humidity; he devoured with his eyes, in one last glide, the most infinitesimal details; tasted the most minimal smells, even the finest. He imagined himself.

In a moment of inattention on the alcoholic poet’s part, he lowered his eyelids to begin already to conceive Nielle in her own spaces and to dream of her there better. In a more precise manner, with circumscribed images that would unfold in the accuracy indicated by his muse’s steps.

In this emphasis, he believed himself to be a paranormal character, a medium in trance, for it seemed natural to him to perceive and channel the thoughts Nielle had scattered; dusty feelings or ones just sufficiently forgotten, and waves losing speed. He auscultated this magical space in search of the hint of a pleasant word in his place of gentle echoes; which he did not hear. All Nielle’s lost reveries, he stored in his memory and would set them to work as soon as he returned home.

Detaching him from his oneiric cloud, Carlos sharply awakened the visitor in love.

— Hey! What are you doing? I told you I was in a hurry! But what are you cooking up again? …"

As if the supernatural were commonplace in his life. A whim. Damien answered in an esoteric language he judged accessible to Carlos…

— What is above will be what was below, and vice versa. The birds that perched below now fly above! … In fact, Carlos, … I am performing a very ordinary alchemical sublimation. Mentally, I am informing Nielle of my love, and tonight, upon her return, she will hear a whole string of: "I love you, Nielle! I love you! …"

— Tabarnak! You’re brainwashing her!? … You’re sowing subliminal propaganda!? "

Frightened, the student firmly believed in the psychic powers from which the artist might benefit. But fearing above all that Damien might cast a similar spell on him, going first, he promptly descended the inner staircase.

Damien followed him nonchalantly. Beatific, he carefully examined superb posters reproducing Loire châteaux and scenes of medieval courtly life, pinned to the old tapestry in the corridor. Projecting his thought back to that era of obscurantism, he swore, as if to convince himself, that even tortured by impalement, his troubadour body pierced and bloodied would not have restrained the gesture of loving by subjugating the obstinate subconscious of the noble lady. Nothing other than this Damienic mantra…

Slamming the door behind Damien and himself, Carlos checked repeatedly whether the latch was properly engaged. Whether the bolt was holding. He thus made sure that his guest would never return to the third floor. Continuing his dash down the outside staircase, he turned around and addressed, in a falsely honeyed voice, the dreamer who had only just had time to get out.

— Oh, before I leave you, I have a question to ask…

— Go ahead, Carlos, ask it!

— Was it you who wrote that graffiti in the courtyard, right there!? … The inscription "Hard Headed Woman" is meant for Nielle, isn’t it? …"

The author of the message could not take care to answer the first question. The student outbid him on discovering the redness of embarrassment on the artist’s face.

— What do you mean by that? … What is the innuendo of "H. H. W."? …

Trapped by this sagacious turn and constrained to whitewash this question sprinkled with an irony leading him to believe that Carlos’s largesse had been only its preamble, loitering in his ideas for a few seconds, he replied with no less simulated hesitation…

— … What do I mean? … The literal translation? … Or what should be drawn from it? … Hard-headed woman? …! … — Woman with a hard head. — Yes, that’s it…! I love you, stubborn woman!

— Ha! Ha! … And you say you love her. Well, then! There’s no point trying to understand artists. Come on, bye! "

A brief mocking smile, then Carlos went on his way, laughing at the top of his lungs.

Back in his solitude, Damien shuddered with fear at the distressing projection of a plausible reaction from Nielle during the inevitable report from the student spy. An unspeakable rage.