Also known as: Lyra Silvertongue (at my lectures), Noelle, Funeral Entrepreneur (at dinner), Tristram Shandy (her suggestion), Lucy Honeychurch (my mistake)
Occupation: One of Van D.’s versatile operatives, lent to me for my parents’ funeral. Young, agile and impartial, according to the catalogue.
First appears: Chapter 007
Status: Taking care of me. Personally. For as long as I need her.
Usually seen with: The most remote table in the restaurant.
Her philosophy of life, as far as I could reconstruct it
Noelle has no particular objection to lying when circumstances require it. A woman’s independence, she says, has to begin somewhere. She does not explain herself. She lets you exhaust yourself against the polished surface of her composure, then rolls her eyes, gets up, takes your hand and leads you to the table. Her stillness is the only thing about her I would swear to. Everything else, I suspect, she edits.
What I think she thinks of me
That I live in a state of permanent erotic agitation. She was right about that. Three years ago she sat through my lectures in Visceral Journalism under the name of a girl whose soul wanders around outside her body, and I compared her to Lucy Honeychurch. Apparently that was the unforgivable mistake. She stood me up and vanished. For three months I delivered every lecture hoping she would walk through the door. She thinks the episode left its mark on me. It did.
What I think of her
She is undoubtedly beautiful, but beauty has never been sufficient to explain the particular form of starvation she inspires in me. Light-brown hair, a tan that suggests ten uninterrupted months in Tenerife, green eyes, faceted, hypnotic. And yet, when I close my eyes, I cannot reconstruct her face. Her presence seems to interfere with the very faculty that might preserve it. She does not make me feel young, or old. She makes me feel inferior. Van D. sent her to arrange a funeral. I asked for a cemetery worthy of a sonnet. She didn’t so much as blink.
Things she said, which I remember differently
“I’ve been told to take care of you,” Noelle said over the phone. “Personally. For as long as you need me.”
“That wasn’t me. That was Lyra.”
“It’s more convenient, isn’t it? To blame her.”
“You actually think I’m here because I feel guilty?”
“I don’t have any particular objection to lying when circumstances require it. A woman’s independence has to begin somewhere.”
“Tristram Shandy.”
Andrei’s footnote: I told her that Christmas is personified by an overweight, red-faced gentleman with a beard. We got along atrociously. It was the most promising form of intimacy we had managed so far.
