No Relation (23 page)

As compelling as it was, I interrupted his colour commentary.

“Um, Professor, I’m quite sure that it’s time for us to leave now,” I said.

The nice security guard said nothing, but nodded his agreement and then swept his hand toward the door, showing us the way out.

“Really, Hem, I’m just starting to feel something. Let’s give it a few more minutes, shall we.”

Of course, his eyes were still closed, and he rocked gently, his hands now raised above him, perhaps to catch more spiritual transmissions, but I really don’t know. My
DMV
flashback returned with a vengeance, skipping directly to the security guard–assisted climax.

“Um, James, I really do think it’s time we took our leave.”

I hoped Professor Moriarty had not yet emptied his mind to the point where rational thought was compromised. I took his arm and we moved toward the door.

“Thanks so much,” I said to the guard.

“My pleasure, sir,” he replied, bringing to life the cliché of the polite Canadian.

By this time, James, roused from his reverie, had instantly caught up with the more concrete developments outside of his mind.

“Yes, many thanks, indeed, sir,” James said and bowed slightly to the guard.

“Well, were you receiving any Hemingway vibes while you were inside?” James asked when we’d made it safely out to the sidewalk again.

“No, not that I’m aware of, but my hunger pangs may have been impairing my spectral sensors.”

“Perhaps because the original building was demolished to make way for this less than spectacular architectural offering, contact with Mr. Hemingway is no longer possible at this site. You may well have better luck in your own hotel room.”

“I think our work here is done,” I said. “How about we head to our second stop?”

“Capital idea. And I think we can buy a copy of today’s
Toronto Star
in the subway. You should at least read the newspaper that employed Hemingway.”

Just before we left, I asked a young woman walking along King Street if she would mind taking our photo standing together in front the Royal Bank of Canada building. True to its billing as a friendly city, she gladly agreed. In fact, she invited us out to dinner, though we politely declined, given our tight schedule. As she lined us up for the shot, I noticed the security guard eyeing us through the glass, still smiling.

Five subway stops north left us at the major Toronto intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets. We walked a couple more blocks north and then a few to the west and found ourselves in the middle of Yorkville, a very tony shopping district. Eventually we made our way to, yes, Hemingway’s Restaurant and Bar, on Cumberland Street. When James and I were planning the trip, we’d decided we couldn’t pass up visiting this establishment. Perhaps we should have done a bit more investigation.

Don’t misunderstand me. Housed in a modern building with a lovely outdoor patio, it was a very nice place with friendly staff,
great food, and a seemingly endless selection of alcoholic beverages, many of which we tried. But to call the restaurant’s link with Hemingway tenuous was to endow the word with far more substance than it really deserved. In fact, the positioning statement for the restaurant, emblazoned on coasters, napkins, and the sign out front, was “Little New Zealand in Yorkville.” I’m not sure Ernest Hemingway ever made it to New Zealand. It seemed that the restaurant’s only tie to Hemingway was that the writer once roamed the streets of Yorkville in the twenties. We stayed anyway.

“I have concluded that you and I have had different experiences living with famous names,” said James. “I concede that the burden you have borne has been greater than mine. I’m convinced of it.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, the vodka and orange juice starting to close the fuzzy curtains in my brain.

James raised his single malt scotch, Balvenie it was, and looked through the amber liquid.

“You see, young Hem, your famous name is universally famous. Very few sentient beings, at least in the Western world, are unfamiliar with Ernest Hemingway. He is recognized perhaps as much as any other human being in history, with the possible exception of the Pope, the Queen of England, Adolf Hitler, and Elvis Presley. While a considerably smaller number will have actually read any of Hemingway’s words, virtually everyone can identify him as one of the great writers of this, or any other, century. Are you with me thus far?”

“Yes, very few fair-minded observers could disagree,” I replied. “Carry on.”

“My own name is famous, too. In fact, as I observed to our friendly Delta check-in chap, among a very select and much smaller population, its fame would rival that of Hemingway’s. But the point is, the share of the world’s population that has ever heard of Professor James Moriarty, let alone knows who he is and his particular place in the history of letters, is minuscule compared with those who instantly place Hemingway in the pantheon of literature. Our respective levels of
namefame
, as our friend Jesse Owens might put it, are on completely different planes.”

“I’m not certain how planes suddenly came into the discussion, but through what singular series of events did you come by your name, anyway?” I asked. “I’ve been seriously curious about that ever since you showed up at the Y that night.”

I tend to pronounce the phonetic sound
s
as
sh
when I’ve had a few drinks, or when I’m doing my very bad Sean Connery impression. “Certain” becomes “shertain.” “Suddenly” become “shuddenly.” In this instance, I was not doing Sean Connery. James didn’t seem to notice.

“My parents were not well educated. My father was a miner in the north of England and my mother did what women of that era did. She kept the house, raised the children, and left the light on so my father didn’t break his neck on the stairs after returning from the pub, almost every night. Neither were avid readers. In fact, I’m not clear on whether my father actually
could read. I know my mother could, but it didn’t occupy much of her spare time. Frankly, she had very little time to herself.”

James paused for a moment to take a draw on his single malt.

“Moriarty is not that uncommon a name in the part of England from which I hail. Neither is James uncommon. In fact, had Conan Doyle never created Sherlock Holmes, the name James Moriarty would strike the mind and the ear as wholly natural, commonplace, and ordinary.

“My poor parents simply had no knowledge of literature’s most infamous and diabolical villain. It was well beyond their ken. It was eventually brought to their attention when I was about four years old. They were amused, and not at all concerned. By then, it was too late anyway.”

“So who is the fictional Professor Moriarty? I really haven’t read many of the Sherlock stories.”

“Shame on you, Hem,” he chided. “It is some of the very best writing you’ll ever read. As for Professor James Moriarty, well, simply put, he is evil incarnate. There are many famous villains in literature, but none as bereft of mercy yet blessed with intelligence as he. The sophistication, reach, and complexity of his demonic vision have no equal in life or literature. Mercifully, he exists only in Conan Doyle’s writing, and not nearly as often as his malevolent presence might suggest. Moriarty and his criminal hegemony appear in only two of the sixty Holmes stories and are fleetingly referenced in only five others. Yet he casts a pall over the entire Holmes canon.”

“He sounds like a lovely guy,” I said. “But there is also a similarity in our plights. We have some common ground that most of the others in our little group don’t share, except perhaps Marie Antoinette.”

“I await enlightenment,” James replied.

“Well, I carry the name of a famous writer, yet I want nothing else than to be a writer myself, as masochistic as that sounds. You bear the name of a notorious character from the pages of the most famous detective stories in history. Yet you have immersed yourself in the world of Sherlock Holmes and dream of being invited to join the ranks of … what are they called again?”

“The Baker Street Irregulars.”

“Right, the most respected organization dedicated to understanding and honouring the world of Sherlock Holmes. So, whereas many people living with famous names run from the world of their namesake to escape their burden, you and I, on the other hand, have run directly into the big bright light.”

The silence that greeted my comment eventually caused me to look over at James. He was staring at me, faintly nodding his head. I couldn’t see any smoke issuing from his ears, but he was clearly deep in thought. The silence endured a little longer.

“That, dear boy, is an utterly fascinating insight sprung from a very thoughtful and fertile mind.”

“Ah, but it’s a fine line that separates a fertile from a febrile mind, don’t you think?” I asked rhetorically.

I downed the last of my screwdrivers in one chug. I knew it was
my last, because I no longer had feeling in my lips. What I didn’t know was how many had come before it. It was time to go.

“One final question,” I said. “Do you think James Bond could defeat Professor Moriarty?” I asked.

“I’m afraid, dear boy, that you have just crossed over to the febrile side of the line.”

Yes, it was definitely time to go.

Despite the previous night, I was awake at 6:45 the following morning. I’d forgotten to close the curtains so the morning light was doing what morning light does in such circumstances. My head was a little heavy, but not nearly as foggy as I expected it would be. It was very quiet. The room was wonderful. I had just passed an entire night in the very room Ernest Hemingway occupied so many years ago. He not only occupied this room, he wrote here, made love to Hadley here, read here, ached for Paris here. He
lived
here. And now I had lived here, for one night. And I’d done it in the fashion Hemingway was said to have spent far too many of his nights. I drank too much, stumbled home, and flopped. And now, the morning after, as it was so often for him, it was time to write.

I grabbed my laptop and placed it very gently on the writing table, as if the famous furniture might be offended supporting anything other than a Moleskine notebook and a sharpened pencil, or perhaps an ancient Underwood. A freestanding, framed photo
of Hemingway eyed me from the corner of the table. I sat down in the chair, as he had nearly a century before, and slid myself into position, as he surely had. I turned on the vintage reading lamp, as he had. I placed my fingers on the keyboard, as he had on his typewriter. Then, awash in the history of the moment, I sat there for forty-five minutes straight, my best intentions and desires falling away, and wrote not a single word. Not one. It was not that the exorcism was failing, I told myself. It was just too soon. It was not yet time.

I surrendered and signed onto the Clarion’s Wi-Fi network, not something Hemingway ever would have done. I grazed the Internet and researched a revised schedule for the day ahead before I was to cab it back out to the airport for my overnighter to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

“I have a plan for today that departs somewhat from what we originally mapped out,” I said as we finished breakfast.

“What have you got in mind?” said James. “I want to make sure we get to the Connable house, where the man initially lived when he arrived in Toronto.”

“Professor, let’s be logical about this. I’ve just spent an entire night and early morning in Hemingway’s room. I sat at the very table at which he wrote. I’ve been closer to him here than I could be almost anywhere. I really think there’s little to be gained by standing on the sidewalk staring at a house that
Hemingway lived in for a very short time and didn’t even like. I spent the night in Hemingway’s room. Everything else pales.”

I told him my idea, and after a gentle debate, James acquiesced. I made a couple of quick calls while James went to check out. Then we were off. As luck would have it, the walk from the Clarion to the Toronto Reference Library consumed all of eleven minutes. A member of the library’s staff met us at the front counter and gave us directions to a gallery in another part of the building.