The Return of Noire
Michael Bullock

Michael Bullock has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Polish... Anais Nin called his work "exactly what I wish for: a liberating expansion of what is reality." He founded the poetry magazine Oasis, has been associate editor of Prism international, board member of Canadian Fiction, and contributes to the major literary journals in Canada and worldwide. Sono Nis and Melmoth/Third Eye are his present publishers, issuing such unusual collections as Randolph Cranstone and the Pursuing River, Green Beginning Black Ending, The Man With Flowers Through His Hands, and Prisoner of the Rain. The present ghost story was in his first collection Sixteen Stories as They Happened and recently in the complete Noire tales, The Story of Noire.

Last time I saw Noire she was lying dead in Tokyo, yet there she was now sitting in a deck chair in Hyde Park, London.
Somewhat surprised I went up to her and said, "Hullo, Noire, is that you?"
"Hullo," she said. "Of course, who else could it be?"
"Well, no one I suppose," I said, "but last time I saw you, you were in Tokyo."
"So were you."
"Yes, true, but then I can still get around and I didn't think you could."
"On the contrary. I'm not limited by time and space the way you are. I've been through the door, as you know, and now I can go anywhere."
I looked at her open-mouthed for a second, and then found myself gazing at an empty chair. I drew up another chair and sat down in it beside the one Noire had been occupying; then I pulled out my sandwiches and began to eat my lunch -- the reason I had come into the park in the first place.
As I chewed away at my black bread and salami I gazed around at the trees and the people, but especially at the trees, because they were greener than I remembered them.
"Well," said Noire, who was now sitting beside me again, "what have you been doing since I last saw you?"
"I've been teaching Creative Writing in an American university. I sold a couple of stories about you to an international magazine the university published, so they asked me to come over and help teach the students how to write."
"Were they good stories?"
"I don't know whether they were good. They were true."
"What are you doing now?"
"Well, actually I'm here to see my publisher, but I'm about to go away again and do the same sort of thing in Canada. But I'm in some trouble. Since you died I can't write any more stories. They don't happen to me."
"Oh, that's terrible. What can we do about it? How can I help you?"
"I don't know if you can help me. I mean, now you've been through the door. Will it be the same? For instance, there were things we used to do together that meant a lot to me -- it was like putting my roots in the earth and drawing up the water; but now -- all of a sudden there may be no one between me and the mattress!"
"Yes, that could happen. I don't come and go entirely as I please."
I shook my head despondently, gazing down at the grass. By the time I looked up the chair beside me was empty again.
I took a slip of paper from my pocket and wrote this down. I skimmed through what I had written and thought to myself: "Perhaps I stand a chance." Noire still existed, that was one point in my favor; but her existence existed on such a plane of uncertainty that I was unsure how much I could rely on it as a foundation upon which to write.
I was due to leave for Vancouver next day -- should I go?
Obviously, the laws of geography did not bound Noire's existence, but what did determine it? Was she destined to continue to be in places where she had previously been, or did my presence play some part in determining her being? I thought about it deeply and came to the conclusion that the second hypothesis was the more likely -- or was this mere wishful thinking and a gross exaggeration of my creative powers? Time would tell, and in the meantime I decided to go to Vancouver; the reasons for not going seemed too tenuous and unreliable. Perhaps I could re-create Noire even in an environment totally alien to her.
As I drove to the airport I wondered when I should see her again; not on the journey to the airport, I was sure -- indeed, I hoped, because her appearance now, in present company, would have caused me some embarrassment. On the plane, perhaps? But where would she sit, since all the seats were pretty certain to be occupied?...
Indeed they were, and as we sailed along above the clouds looking out at a sun that seemed now to be sinking, now rising, the only place I could conceive of seeing her would have been perched on the wing outside -- but remembering her love of comfort, this seemed to me most unlikely and it certainly did not happen.
In any case, there was no sign of her by the time we touched down at Vancouver nor was she waiting to greet me as I came out of Customs. I called a taxi, asked advice as to a suitable hotel and had myself taken there.
The reception desk was in the hands of a lady who seemed to be of Chinese origin. After she had commented on how "extremely British" I sounded, I felt justified in enquiring whether she was a native of Vancouver or had come from outside.
"I'm from Hong Kong," she replied.
"How very interesting," said Noire, standing beside me. "That's where I come from."
There followed an interchange of reminiscences between the two women about the home from which they were both so far.
After some five minutes of this, Noire and I took the lift to my suite on the first floor. During the brief ascent I trembled with trepidation over the possible difficulties and disappointments that might lie ahead.
To my enormous satisfaction and relief, however, my fears proved absolutely groundless and I passed a night of almost supernatural delight, suggesting to me that Noire had only been teasing when she told me she was not in full control of her coming and going. When I woke in the morning I found myself once more alone, and I breakfasted alone, gazing out at the waters of English Bay sparkling in the early September sunshine.
After breakfast I strolled along the path that runs between the trees of Stanley Park on its right and the rock-covered, timber-strewn beach on its left.
After I had walked for about a quarter of an hour, I dropped down onto the beach, seated myself on a water-whitened tree trunk and gazed out across the sea, thinking to myself that I must be looking in the direction of Tokyo.
"Yes," said Noire, sitting beside me. "That's the route to the East. It's a long way, but it's a direct flight from here. You should make it when the time comes to leave -- you're almost halfway there already."
For half an hour or more we chatted in the most intimate and affectionate manner, free from all feeling of constraint. In our usual way, we discussed possible voyages and Noire revealed to me her plan to stay with her brother in Brazil. I suppressed a pang of jealousy -- or was it hurt pride at tills intimation of the independence of Noire's existence from my creative power? -- and also refrained from enquiring whether this would be a visit of minutes, weeks, or months; but I made a mental note to investigate the possibility of stopping off at Rio de Janeiro on my way home or elsewhere.
A few days later I was taking a class in Creative Writing, when I instanced the Japanese haiku as the supreme example of brevity and concision hi poetry. "Quite right," called out Noire from the back row. "There's nothing to touch it in that respect." As the class was meeting for the first time, not everyone knew everyone else -- perhaps, that was why no one showed any surprise at Noire's sudden appearance from nowhere. In any case, the rest of the period passed uneventfully and without any further intervention from Noire, although she remained present -- possibly because I carefully kept the theme of Japanese poetry running through my general remarks on poetry and specific comments on the work read out by members of the class.
After the class I strolled with Noire to the Nitobe Japanese Memorial Tea Garden on campus and spent some little while wandering round it in the late afternoon sunshine. Noire confessed that she felt more at home here than anywhere else she had recently been. I noted this statement with interest -- convinced that I should find her here at any time her absence became too prolonged.
The moment we walked out through the bamboo gate, she was no longer with me.

Several times recently Noire has spent the night with me and I am glad to say that her durability in this respect leaves nothing to be desired, so that my initial anxieties have now been almost entirely allayed. On the other hand, she is always gone by the time I wake up in the morning. The one exception to this so far was the last time she stayed overnight, when she had breakfast with me and did not disappear until the last cup of coffee had been drunk and it was time to do the washing up. Could this have been connected with the fact that I had planned to eat for breakfast some of the wafer-thin, green seaweed biscuits a friend has sent from Tokyo? They have a curious flavor I am not altogether sure I like, but if they prove to be successful Noire bait they will be worth ordering regularly.

Up to now Noire's performance had impressed me only by virtue of her geographical mobility; I am beginning to feel that it is time she displayed some other exceptional powers -- otherwise her unusual situation would appear to present only limited advantages.

This afternoon I drove out to a point by the Fraser River delta, parked my car in one of the few places where parking is permitted, and embarked on a precipitous and scrambling descent down through the huge trees toward the water. As I made my way cautiously down the steep declivity, clinging to branches and bushes as I went, I attempted to identify die various trees and shrubs between which I was passing. I realized that a great many were unknown to me, and it crossed my mind that the vegetation bore a resemblance -- which may have been more apparent than real -- to that which I had seen in many Japanese films. I thought particularly of The Burmese Harp. As this recollection entered my mind I heard a few notes on some stringed instrument high above my head. I looked up -- and there was Noire perched in the topmost branches of a tall pine, holding a musical instrument of obviously oriental character.
I waved. Noire waved back. "Come on down," I said. "All right," she replied and came floating down, landing gently beside me on the steep path.
"I'm trying to get down to the shore," I told her, "so I can walk along the banks of the Fraser River delta and look at the log booms floating out on the deep water."
"You'll find it difficult," she said. "You'll find that the foreshore along the delta is nothing but wet mud covered in twigs and you'll keep sinking in."
"Oh, well," I said, "let's have a try."
We scrambled on down and finally, after clambering over a huge fallen tree; we jumped down onto the foreshore.
I thrust a stick into the ground opposite the point at which the path ended, so that we should find it on our way back, and we set off to the left along the delta. But after only some twenty yards or so I had to admit that Noire had been right and that it was virtually impossible for me to walk on this soaking wet soil. We therefore turned back and walked along the sandy beach in the direction of English Bay and, ultimately, the open sea.
On our left lay the vast log booms looking simultaneously peaceful and menacing, like huge landing craft lying temporarily at anchor. The beach itself, with the seawater lapping restlessly against it, was a fantastic jumble of boulders, enormous logs that had broken loose from the booms and become stranded, and gigantic trees that had fallen from the bank and lay in attitudes of contorted abandon, sometimes clutching large rocks in the embrace of their twisted roots. In some instances trees with their roots still in the soil had fallen forward and were leaning out over the water, so that it was possible to climb out along them and gaze down into the salty depths. The whole place appeared to my unaccustomed eye almost unearthly -- like the now proverbial landscape of the moon.
We walked on along the foreshore for perhaps an hour, clambering over or crawling under trees and tree roots most of the time, occasionally stopping to sit on a rock or a tree trunk and rest and gaze out along the sparkling pathway made by the sun, now quite low in the sky, on the rippling sea.
Feeling that it was time to head back for the car, but not wanting to retrace our steps, I kept an eye on the steep wooded bank to our right in search of an alternative path. Eventually I saw a small stream emerging from along the tall trees and thick bushes.
I suggested to Noire that we should try to use this for our ascent and she agreed.
I scrambled up first to explore the possibilities, only to took up and see Noire some yards ahead of me gliding over the steep, uneven ground like a hovercraft over a calm sea.
As I puffed and panted my way up, frequently scratching myself on the salmonberry canes that grew in some profusion alongside the stream, I felt a certain resentful envy of Noire's effortless powers of locomotion. Nevertheless I, too, eventually reached the top after what seemed like at least a quarter of an hour's climb, and the two of us walked out through the bushes and onto the road.
We set off to the right to walk to my parked car, myself still panting for breath and with aching legs, Noire as fresh as though she had merely stepped up out of a roadway onto a curb.
I was looking forward to sitting down in the car and resting my indeed very weary legs, but it was a long walk. When we finally reached the car I put my hand in my pocket for the key -- but no key. With a sensation of horror I realized that 1 had locked the door from the outside, without withdrawing the key from the ignition. There it was, looking completely innocent and yet at this moment the object of my bitterest hatred. In my rage and frustration I felt a violent impulse to leap onto the hood and kick in the window -- when Noire opened the door from inside and said sweetly: "Anything wrong?"
"No, no," I replied airily, "no, everything's fine." We drove off in the direction of Chancellor Boulevard and home, but as we passed the Japanese Memorial Tea Garden Noire was no longer with me. I felt that without a doubt I should find her in the garden and debated with myself whether to stop the car and join her. But I was hot and sweaty and tired and evening was beginning to fall with a consequent drop in the temperature. If I were to sit or saunter about in the Japanese Garden I should stand a very good chance of catching a cold, I thought. No, it would be much more sensible to go straight home, have a hot bath, and then write up this account-of the latest incident in the story of Noire in Vancouver -- which I have done.

This story could -- I hope will -- go on indefinitely. For me it is a constant source of delightful surprises; for the reader, however, I fear that it may become monotonous, since I consider it unlikely that any events which are basically new in kind will occur, at least so long as I remain in Vancouver. I have now established certain essential facts concerning Noire's abilities! I have a rough idea of the sorts of factors that cause her appearance, I have assured myself of her nocturnal durability, and I have ascertained that even when materialized she is not subject to the laws of gravity. With this fundamental knowledge I feel that I can look forward to a delightful few months and possibly years.
At this point, therefore, I shall ask the reader to withdraw and leave me to the undisturbed enjoyment of the situation that I have outlined. Should any development of striking interest take place, he/she may rest assured that I shall not leave him/her ignorant of it for long.

How wrong I was. My optimistic prognostications have proved sadly mistaken. It began soon after I moved into my new apartment on the top floor of a high-rise block overlooking English Bay.
Noire ceased to appear anywhere but in the apartment, and then she behaved very strangely, walking from room to room with her nostrils quivering like a hound that has lost the scent. In between she_ spoke very little and kept looking at me as though asking me a question that never crossed her lips.
Then last night the blow finally fell. For the first time in a fortnight or so Noire came out of the apartment with me and I took her to supper at a restaurant in Chinatown. It was just like old times, so damn nostalgic that halfway through the meal we actually wept.
Afterward we drove back to the apartment. As we were making our way home it occurred to me that this was one of Noire's very longest manifestations. I hoped to God she was going to stay together for at least another hour or so.
When we entered the apartment Noire, who till then -- following our joint attack of nostalgia in the restaurant -- had been really most affectionate, suddenly changed. Once again she began to prowl about from room to room with her nostrils quivering. Finally she opened the door of the built-in cupboard in the entrance hall, reached up to the top shelf and took down -- a black lace mantilla left behind by another visitor. She held it to her nose, smelt the perfume it exhaled, replaced it on the shelf, gave me a deep and penetrating look -- and vanished.
This morning, after a restless night, I went for a walk in the sunshine along the beach. I thought I heard whispering behind me and looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there, or at least no one who could possibly have been whispering to me. This happened several times, until it occurred to me that it was the sea that was whispering. It was high tide and the water was washing up against the wall at the side of the path and flowing to and fro over logs and boulders.
Although I couldn't clearly distinguish what it was saying, it sounded to me like an accusation. I cursed the sea for its incessant nagging, but it continued unabated. Then, in my anger, I spat into it twice, but this made no difference either.
I therefore turned off from the seafront and plunged in among the huge trees, patches of marsh and streams of Stanley Park. As I walked along the trails, crossing bars of shadow and sunlight, I could still hear a soft, accusing whispering behind me, accompanied by the sound of very quiet footfalls, as though someone almost weightless whose feet barely touched the ground was following me. But there was never anyone there when I looked around.
I walked on for an hour or more, enjoying the beauties of the forest, but constantly perturbed by the sense of being accusingly followed.
Finally I could stand it no longer, looked for a trail leading back to the beach and home and strode along it as fast as I could, still pursued by almost silent footsteps.
Now, as I sit writing this down, my hair is standing on end at the back of my neck, upon which I can feel the gentle breath of someone I cannot see, who is leaning over my shoulder reading every word I set down on the paper.
I believe that I shall never see Noire again. Nor shall I ever be free from her watchful and accusing presence. Because I shall never make the sacrifice she demands: I shall never destroy the black lace mantilla.