The Centre of the World

On Sunday afternoon, Victoria wanted to go to Filthy McNasty’s pub for a free lunch.

The name itself was off putting, and as Sunday has become my official day of rest, the only day where I am guaranteed, if not sleep, a day of reading my homework, the idea was not tempting. But, as girls are pack animals, on Sunday afternoon I was dragged to Dublin Street, sulking, and thinking about my half-finished essay lying in wait on my computer.

Filthy McNasty’s is…filthy. The air smells of alcohol, and everything is dark and unsettling, but as we stepped inside a woman behind the bar said, “Through those doors there,” and we saw a door painted an unusual shade of green, a bit darker than sea green, which read The Secret Garden. This led us to a second, classier bar, where we met a girl named Tuesday who is in our English classes.

When Victoria and Hannah had eaten, and I had gotten over my sulking fit, we went to Saint George’s Market. Down the road from City Hall, it is really a large garage sale that runs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It hosts some of my favorite craftmakers, like Kawaii Candy Couture, who makes some of the most darling earrings and necklaces, all based off of books. When we went she had a matching set of blue teacup earrings and bracelet, which I wanted so much; but I’m running low on funds, and had to look away. We did end up buying a display cake though that was going for 5 pound, and made plans to eat it later.

Sunday ritual includes two things for certain: That Hannah and I will go to 10.30 Mass, and that at 9.00 we will watch Downton Abbey, usually with Mel or Fiona, a Chinese girl and a Northern Irish native, respectively. And so at 8.40 I was setting up in the common room with plates, bowls, and spoons, texting Victoria to come and meet us for cake and Downton, and trying to be as pleasant and accommodating as possible to make up for my disagreeableness that afternoon. (I had finished writing my essay, which really improved my mood.) Hannah and Fiona arrived, and Victoria texted me back that she would be Skyping her family, so to have cake without her.

After Downton, I knew that Interview with a Vampire would be on, and I asked Fiona and Hannah to watch it with me. Fiona had to go do homework, but Hannah agreed, and we opened our box of cake. It was chocolate, with some red icing on top; in the spirit of Halloween it was supposed to be a Murdered Cake. “You’ll love Interview,” I told Hannah, “I’ve read the book, and it was pretty good, and I love the movie.”

I was trying to hype myself up. Saturday night Victoria had made me watch Storm Troopers with them, which is basically a story about how alien bugs kill everybody in very gruesome and dramatic ways, and I had had to find a Drink bucket to keep on hand, just in case I threw up my dinner. They had thought, at the time, that it was hilariously funny (I thought it was an ingenious use of a Drink bucket, which is usually used to carry alcohol home from the store—a bit like brown bags in the States). Now I wanted to show that I was perfectly all right with blood, thank you, and prove something.

The only problem is, either I have never seen Interview with a Vampire, or the one I have seen is edited.

There was a lot of blood, and nudity, and things I really had no idea were in this movie at all, and by the end of it Hannah and I were so disgusted and nauseous we had to throw the rest of our slices of cake away and give the rest to Victoria. (It had been stale anyway.) Our friend Mel had popped up halfway through, and so then we had to explain certain subtexts, which was really very complicated.

The next morning I had Anthropology and 18^th Century Literature, and I was restless throughout the whole of it. I had the feeling of wriggling with anticipation for something I couldn’t quite put a name to, and started doodling plans to visit the Globe Theatre in London with Tuesday’s help.

After class, Hannah said she wanted to go to No Alibis, our local bookstore, to see if her new Derek Landy book was in. So we went, and David, who owns the store stopped us as we were walking in and said, “Do you guys want to see a programme about Monte Cristo?”

This week, as well as next week I believe, is the Ulster Bank Festival at Queen’s. This means that, since Monday, there has been a talk every day by a famous artist or musician or writer; it also means that there is a giant gray space-tent in the middle of the Lanyon Building’s lawn. No Alibis has had posters for these events in the store windows, and one of them had been about the Count of Monte Cristo, which I had noticed and been interested in, because I have read the book and I adored it.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Great. We’re trying to fill up seats. I’ll give youse the phone number to call, and a code for free tickets.” And he whipped out a permanent marker and wrote the necessary information on a bookmark, which I took for safekeeping.

Hannah got her books, and we went to Starbucks for autumn-themed drinks, then meandered slowly to the School of English Social Space, where there was to be a party for exchange students later that evening. “Would you want to go?” I asked her, talking about Monte Cristo.

“Yeah. It’s free.”

Ever since I had seen workmen putting up The White Room (the gray space-tent) I had wanted to be in on the action. There is an entire booklet about the festival, but most of the events cost money, or are far away; the free ones are sandwiched in between, and for some reason I do not seem to be getting the e-mails everyone else gets about upcoming events. This talk was my chance to be a part of something, and I was desperate to go. We resolved to call the box office after the party.

The party was grand. Tuesday was there, and we got to chat with her and several other students, including a Spaniard named Ruben. He had his nose and ears pierced twice, and his tongue too, which made him look very interesting, but he was extremely nice and social when we started talking about languages and courses. When he found out I had taken two years of Spanish classes he started quizzing me, asking me to translate the things he said, and so I would reply back to him in mangled, terrible Spanish, Donde esta el bano, me llamo Rebekah, me gusta la playa, and he would nod. I felt as if I had passed a test. Ruben actually speaks at least three languages, and I was sufficiently awed. I can limp well enough in Spanish to say the things I really need (like directions to the bathroom and how to order food) but his grasp on English was astounding.

After the party we called the box office, but it had closed for the night, and the internet was being stubborn and refusing to cake our promo code, so we decided to try again in the morning.

Tuesdays are very probably my favorite day of the week. I get to sleep in, and at about noon I go to free lunch with Hannah. Today, however, the line was too long, and so we ended up eating at The House Pub instead.

The House Pub was nice, because it was classy and Victorian in an understated way; and because they had decorated the entire place for Halloween with fake cobwebs and a little skeleton dressed in a tuxedo, holding a rose. Hannah ordered cod, and I got a hamburger. I am pleased to say I ate the entire thing, even the bun (which is unusual for me—as my mum) and the hamburger itself, which does not sound impressive until I tell you that there were vegetables hidden inside the meat—and I became aware of it about halfway through eating it. Hannah applauded, and said I was growing up.

“I want to go to Build-A-Bear for my birthday,” I told her. I am never going to grow up.

“That is completely different.”

“How?”

She didn’t answer, so I quizzed her on what she wanted for her birthday. Hannah turns 21 on November 10, and I turn 20 on Thanksgiving. Because 21 is a big deal in America, I’m trying to throw her a great party, BUT SHE IS NOT BEING HELPFUL. However, chances are that we will be in Scotland for her actual birthday, which is kind of an epic celebration in itself.

After lunch I called the box office and then went to the library and worked on my novel and did some last-minute homework for Creative Writing. Ciaran went to New York this weekend, and so he “forgot” to send us our required readings, just for the pleasure of bragging—at least, that was my take on it, as I was jealous to the extreme.

We’ve started to move into poetry, which is distressing for me because I am not a poet and with a few exceptions do not even care to read poetry. Ciaran started us off simply, though, on the haiku, and the first thing he asked us was whether or not we researched it.

I had not. I looked through my notes and saw no indication that I was supposed to have looked it up. It didn’t matter. Haiku has been stuffed down my throat since 3^rd grade. If I didn’t know it by the back of my hand by now…I deserved to go back to elementary school. I closed my eyes and briefly ran through my memory, searching for scraps of poetry, and sure enough, I found at least four Basho poems I had memorised freshman year of high school for Mrs. Stubbs’ English class.

Ciaran had grilled the class when I opened my eyes again, and found himself satisfied with our knowledge. He gave us a very skewed version of the Haiku, and then told us not to worry about the 5-7-5 format, which seemed a wee bit too much like heresy to me, but I played with my pen and ignored it.

“I’m going to do something now,” he said then, “and you’ve all got to write a haiku about it.”

I panicked, and he pulled out a little black box from his briefcase, and put together a wooden flute. Oh, fudge, I’ve got to start writing.

He played a song, and I scribbled down these lines:

A wooden flute’s song

In a room full of students

Taking careful notes

Which is not class, but there you have it. Of course, just as I had written it he finished and gave us fifteen minutes to write, so I ended up writing four other poems out of boredom. The girl sitting next to me was struggling to write on the spot; she kept writing words down and then scratching them out.

Ciaran came back in the room, and he started going through the room, writing our poems down on the board and critiquing them. Some he deemed too flowery, and cut down so that there were only five words in it. Some he added to.

One of my favorite poems was by a boy named Aaron, and originally it went like this:

Among the branched trees

Men move in the undergrowth

The shrubs are trampled

When Ciaran got done it with, the poem read like this:

Among the trees

Men move

Trampling

Which is not a proper Haiku, not really, and Aaron’s really sensitive about his stuff, and I don’t think Ciaran’s quite caught on yet. I keep wanting to take Aaron out of the classroom and sitting him down and having a Writing Centre Tutor chat with him—not because he isn’t a brilliant writer, understand, but because he is, because he could be, but I don’t think Ciaran’s way of fixing our things resonates with him as well.

Next he moved on to Shannon’s piece, which was deeply philosophical, and he didn’t understand, and so by the time he got to me I was sweating. I read him the poem, and the first thing he did was laugh, and say, “Thank you, Bekah, for your pun.”

What?!?! What pun?!?!

“Does anyone see the pun?” No hands went up. “Song and notes. Like a song has notes! Clever, Bekah.”

Oh. That pun?

“Also, Bekah, thank you for your assonatical haiku. Where is the assonance in this poem, class?”

I didn’t know what assonance meant until five seconds ago.

The class threw out examples. Wooden=student. Wooden=flute. Room=full. Students=careful.

They have got to be making this up.

Ciaran stepped back and looked at it. “There’s not much wrong with it,” he said. “You’ve got the syllables down, ah woo-den flute’s song, da da da, good. Okay, Rebecca, you’re next.”

“Mine’s a bit of a letdown after that,” Rebecca confessed, and I looked at her like she was crazy.

It’s only Haiku. Something has to be wrong with it. I screwed up the order—Ciaran said he wanted me to set the place in the first line, then introduce a sound, and the last line would be the result of the sound…the first lines are switched. Aaron used the 5-7-5 system too. So did Shannon. Rebecca, don’t say things like that…

After class I hurried back to Elms and met Hannah to go to the book reading. The box office had told me we could buy our tickets there, and so we ran to the Great Hall, where there was a sign that read our programme had been moved to No Alibis. Luckily that wasn’t far, and we got there in time to talk to the woman selling tickets, give her our promotional code, and get in for free.

The bookshelves that are normally in the middle of the room were pushed against the walls, and there were chairs where they usually were. Hannah and I sat in front, and waited. I knew our author was American, but was confused by a British-sounding man who kept walking around as if this was his big night. The fact that he was dressed very nicely only confused me more. I pulled out my miniature moleskin and waited patiently. He turned out to be named Keith (I never caught his last name) and he is a History Professor at Queen’s University Belfast. He was working tonight as a sort of interviewer/interrogator of Tom Reiss, both asking him questions about his book, and trying to trick Tom into admitting he didn’t know an answer.

The event for the night was The Real Monte Cristo, which was a talk based off of American author Tom Reiss’ new book, The Black Count. That was all I knew at the time. Eventually everyone came into place, and sat down, and the talk began. 

 It was unusual to hear an American voice again, to hear Americanisms slipping into his everyday speech without hesitation. Today in class I said the phrase ballpark figure and it fell, flat, from my lips, as if some part of my brain had killed it just as it was making its way to sound. Wrong, my brain had said, and even as it hung there in the air I had wanted to stuff it back in my throat and say something else, anything else. Tom did not have that little editor tonight. He spoke the way that was natural to him, which caused confusion when Keith asked about Alexandre Dumas when he was “tiny.”

“Oh, he was never tiny, even as a child he was quite large—”

“Tiny, ah, I’m sorry, a child—”

“Oh, small. Small, tiny. Oh.”

“Yes. Small.”

Tom was a big man, with a five o’clock shadow and a pointed nose. He was very comfortable with us, using his chair as a prop for standing, and he used voices as he read aloud. Tom read one of the first chapters of his book, which begins how he began to research the author Alexandre Dumas, and how that led to his father, Alex Dumas, and how the search had taken him to France…Keith, meanwhile, sat pressed up, his legs underneath him. He had a copy of the book on his knee, with his notes on blank white paper above it and a pen poised in his hand. I, too, was scribbling down in my moleskine; I later remarked to Hannah that I must have looked like a reporter—or, at the very least, a very rude patron. 

 The entire thing was brilliant. David later said it was the best event of the festival so far—and, he assured us, he was not speaking out of any bias, even though No Alibis had hosted this particular programme. I loved it very much, but the recitation was scattered; I had to reach back into my mind and remember things I had forgotten. However, this also connected dots that had been hanging loosely in my brain, like constellations that made no particular shape. Tonight they suddenly blazed, and names I had not thought about in years reappeared, as vivid as ever.

Alexandre Dumas, famous for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo based his works largely off of his father, Alex Dumas, who had died when Alexandre was only four. Alex was born in Haiti, to a black woman and a white count, but even though he was considered legitimate, he kept his mother’s name and cut himself off from his father. He joined the army and quickly became a general and a superb tactician.  He met Napoleon, but the two did not get along; he could not love Napoleon as Napoleon wanted to be adored. Tom kept mentioning Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Josephine, black racism; he kept me busy with remembering. I do not know when I have been so grateful that I am a reader as I was tonight.

It took Tom Reiss seven years to write his book, and he visited several countries; the ones I remembered were France and Egypt. “I think of it as sort of recovering someone’s life, leave no stone unturned,” he said at the end, “I felt this sort of debt to the Dumas family…get him [General Dumas] fully resurrected in some way.”

After his talk, the audience asked profound questions; if this book has changed how he looks at the world, how it compared to his last book, The Oriental, what place he enjoyed visiting the most (France) and the least (Egypt).

“If nothing else,” Keith laughed, “this book has brought you to the centre of the world, here.” 

We all laughed.