His visit to the Kent farm went along extremely unexpected lines. He drove
there and was immediately pulled into a time warp where this journey was an
endlessly repeated path of a weighed pendulum, destined to repeat the
simple harmonic motion in a perfect world. Sense memory took over again as
he had not to refer to his navigation system even once and found himself in
the dusty yard before a cheerful yellow building. It felt like the house of
his best friend.
The sound of his car driving up had evidently drawn the attention of the occupants of the house, for as he approached the screen door swung open and a red-haired woman stepped out.
'Lex!' She looked happy to see him and then her face expressed chagrin, trepidation-a myriad of complicated expressions he could not even begin to understand.
'Mrs. Kent.'
'Ccome in. Clark is out gathering the cows, he will be back shortly.'
She ushered him into the small kitchen, and here too, the familiarity hit him like a bludgeon-the proximity of the walls and the ceiling, womblike and not claustrophobic, the feeling of sheer size and ineptitude that he had never felt save in his fathers presence . (Until he was six, when he had discovered that he could solve in his head what took his father a calculator and two henchmen to do. It was only math, but it was symbolic.) It came back here-- not only the Oedipal frisson, but the sheer backdrop of time built on the basis of memory, and the unassailable conviction that this place and its occupants marked several fundamental tiers in the edifice of his being. But now that tower teetered, lacking the cement of a cohesive linear narrative.
'Sit down, Lex. You like pie with milk.' The suffixed interrogative was suppressed but he could hear its virtual lilt, don't you?
She started bustling about getting the pie and the milk, the unspoken question poisoning the air between them. How much do you remember? Are we going to continue this game where you do not know me, but pretend that you do, and I know that you don't know me but pretend that I don't? Her silence was an entreaty, a plea to the god of awkward situations, but he did not come to her rescue. Instead, there was the sound of loud, stomping feet on the boards outside and the door opened to admit the tall, awkward form of a young Adonis.
'Lex!' said the boy, pleasure and warm surprise written all over his face. And then apprehension clouded the open wonder and made itself in to a sullen barricade of pretence. Lex felt the shift as a physical blow, an immense plunging sense of unresolved betrayal. I thought better of you, trusted you, and yet there were no facts to back up the accusations that raged somewhere in his brain. If only time would stop, if only his breath would go back to the ease of normality, if only.then he would know why he felt so lost and little in this little farmhouse before a farm boy and his mother.
An insignificant farm boy who had been his best friend, though his father hinted at a relationship that went beyond the platonic.
He took the plunge: 'Mrs. Kent, Clark-there is no use in pretending. You know who I am, I am afraid I cannot say the same about you. I do not know the exact sequence of events myself, but I presume you know I have been under treatment at a sanitarium, and to preserve my sanity, I have been deprived of my short-term memory. I do not know you, and yet I know you played an important part in my life.'
He turned to the woman 'I know instinctively I can trust you. Will you help me please. help me to get a hold on who I am. What I am?'
'Oh! Lex!' she melted 'of course. Your father told us to keep up the pretence for your own good. Of course we will help you. Sit down. You do like milk and you love this apple and cinnamon pie.' He basked in the warmth of maternal concern naturally and easily, as if this cosseting was the most inevitable thing in the world.
Clark sat down before him on the small table, 'Its ok, Lex. You are a great guy.'a mischievous grin 'with a liking for killing meter maid's cars, but otherwise quite sound.'
'Clark!' The redhead slapped her son's shoulder in mock anger and the atmosphere in the kitchen sweetened and blossomed into something precious, and thought Lex, worth remembering.
He landed in Geneva very early the next morning, having crossed on the Concorde. Ten 'o'clock found him driving swiftly up the mountains to Larosee, the valleys and lakes being swept behind by his impatient climb. The winter snows were thick on the mountains, and the pine scented air bore the unsubtle tang of memory as he drove relentlessly on, the sun in his eyes, his leather clad hands dueling with the curves of the narrow road with practiced ease. Presently the road swept up a swift shoulder and then descended into a slight valley crooked between the immense sweep of a much taller slope. Here, nestled from all but the fiercest of winds, lay the small village of Larosee. A few chalets built around an old square and a squat-steepled church formed the village that had originally planted itself in the lee of the chateau built on the craggy cliffs above.
Lex drove his car into the cobbled village street and entered the log and wattle building that served as hostelry, village shop and post office.
Swinging open the old fashioned door with the polished brass knocker he stepped into the warm, scrubbed interior, with the rich smells of ripening cheeses of subtle flavor, chocolate, burning cedar and wood polish, all mingled into the distinctive olfactory signature of Larosee, and Lex at fourteen, somehow incontrovertibly mixed together, spanning both time and space.
He was greeted by a little brown lady wearing a denim jacket with a dozen large batches proclaiming her allegiance to everything from Peace and Love to the Metropolis Sharks. He had barely come to terms with the incongruity when the old lady spoke from behind her seat in the area designated as post office.
'Bonjour monsieur!' she spoke cheerfully, peering at him from bright blue eyes. 'Bonjour Madame, he started carefully, but then decided caution would be useless in the situation, and started his carefully deduced speech. 'Je suis a la recherché d'un chocolat tres partiulier.qui est fait avee des pignons.'
He looked for the smallest reaction from the old lady, and her next words were promising. 'Oh! Dans ce cas j' appelle Madame Fischer! C'est elle la speciliste en matiere de chocolat.' she nodded cheerfully at him. Before he could question her further on the whereabouts of the famed Madame Fischer, he heard footsteps behind him, and turned around to see a tall woman dressed casually in jeans and roll neck jumper. She addressed him without preamble, obviously having been listening to his exchange with the old woman.
'Puis fi savoir qui vous etes? Ca chocolat est fabrique en nombre limite pour nos tres bons cliens.' she spoke in a strict no-nonsense voice, curiously reminding him of the matron at the chateau atop this very mountain
' Un ami de Metropolis.M.Pennyfeather.'
Before he could continue, she said suspiciously 'Vous n'avez pas l'air Amerecain.'
'Oui, en efet f'ai eu la chance de faire mes etudes dans les environs.'
'Il y a de nombreuses ecoles-chalet dans les pasages.' she said dismissively.
'Oui,' he said, his voice completely concealing the triumph within, 'oui, e'est vrai mais l'une d'entre elles est un chateau.'
'This is an unexpected surprise. Celine Fischer at your service. Pray come into the back.' She led him into a cheerful, oak-beamed, low-ceilinged parlor, where raged a blazing fire and closed the door behind him. When she had settled him into a comfortable armchair before the fire, she fetched her laptop and put it aside on the low table between them.
'I had certainly not expected to see you in person, Mr. Luthor. Our understanding was that our dealings would be completely secret.I cannot understand why you would like to compromise our arrangement in this fashion.'
Lex smiled at the woman before him; the object of his trans-Atlantic quest. 'I am delighted to make your acquaintance too, Ms Fischer.' said Lex. 'Let me assure you that whatever eventuality I had imagined would overtake me so that I had arranged this backup measure, is nothing on the situation I find myself in. I presume there was a procedure to follow for me to initiate contact. But Ms Fischer, I will make no secret of the fact that I have lost all recollection of this arrangement due to significant short-term memory loss. Therefore I had to trust to instinct and my previous memories of Switzerland to try and find you.'
'The world of high finance is a small one, Mr. Luthor, and believe me, I would be much more skeptical of your claim except that some small rumors regarding your .indisposition have found their way even to our small consultancy.' She looked at him keenly. 'The stock market certainly missed your' she paused and smiled, 'your volatile presence, and that with your correct knowledge of one of our identification sequences impels me to believe you.' She leaned forward and snapped open the laptop lying between them.
'Now, if you could touch the screen of this laptop to identify your fingerprint?' Lex touched his thumb to the screen, which immediately beeped into blessed activity.
Celine looked at the screen and then relaxed in to her chair.
'Now Mr. Luthor, what would you have me do for you?'
The sound of his car driving up had evidently drawn the attention of the occupants of the house, for as he approached the screen door swung open and a red-haired woman stepped out.
'Lex!' She looked happy to see him and then her face expressed chagrin, trepidation-a myriad of complicated expressions he could not even begin to understand.
'Mrs. Kent.'
'Ccome in. Clark is out gathering the cows, he will be back shortly.'
She ushered him into the small kitchen, and here too, the familiarity hit him like a bludgeon-the proximity of the walls and the ceiling, womblike and not claustrophobic, the feeling of sheer size and ineptitude that he had never felt save in his fathers presence . (Until he was six, when he had discovered that he could solve in his head what took his father a calculator and two henchmen to do. It was only math, but it was symbolic.) It came back here-- not only the Oedipal frisson, but the sheer backdrop of time built on the basis of memory, and the unassailable conviction that this place and its occupants marked several fundamental tiers in the edifice of his being. But now that tower teetered, lacking the cement of a cohesive linear narrative.
'Sit down, Lex. You like pie with milk.' The suffixed interrogative was suppressed but he could hear its virtual lilt, don't you?
She started bustling about getting the pie and the milk, the unspoken question poisoning the air between them. How much do you remember? Are we going to continue this game where you do not know me, but pretend that you do, and I know that you don't know me but pretend that I don't? Her silence was an entreaty, a plea to the god of awkward situations, but he did not come to her rescue. Instead, there was the sound of loud, stomping feet on the boards outside and the door opened to admit the tall, awkward form of a young Adonis.
'Lex!' said the boy, pleasure and warm surprise written all over his face. And then apprehension clouded the open wonder and made itself in to a sullen barricade of pretence. Lex felt the shift as a physical blow, an immense plunging sense of unresolved betrayal. I thought better of you, trusted you, and yet there were no facts to back up the accusations that raged somewhere in his brain. If only time would stop, if only his breath would go back to the ease of normality, if only.then he would know why he felt so lost and little in this little farmhouse before a farm boy and his mother.
An insignificant farm boy who had been his best friend, though his father hinted at a relationship that went beyond the platonic.
He took the plunge: 'Mrs. Kent, Clark-there is no use in pretending. You know who I am, I am afraid I cannot say the same about you. I do not know the exact sequence of events myself, but I presume you know I have been under treatment at a sanitarium, and to preserve my sanity, I have been deprived of my short-term memory. I do not know you, and yet I know you played an important part in my life.'
He turned to the woman 'I know instinctively I can trust you. Will you help me please. help me to get a hold on who I am. What I am?'
'Oh! Lex!' she melted 'of course. Your father told us to keep up the pretence for your own good. Of course we will help you. Sit down. You do like milk and you love this apple and cinnamon pie.' He basked in the warmth of maternal concern naturally and easily, as if this cosseting was the most inevitable thing in the world.
Clark sat down before him on the small table, 'Its ok, Lex. You are a great guy.'a mischievous grin 'with a liking for killing meter maid's cars, but otherwise quite sound.'
'Clark!' The redhead slapped her son's shoulder in mock anger and the atmosphere in the kitchen sweetened and blossomed into something precious, and thought Lex, worth remembering.
He landed in Geneva very early the next morning, having crossed on the Concorde. Ten 'o'clock found him driving swiftly up the mountains to Larosee, the valleys and lakes being swept behind by his impatient climb. The winter snows were thick on the mountains, and the pine scented air bore the unsubtle tang of memory as he drove relentlessly on, the sun in his eyes, his leather clad hands dueling with the curves of the narrow road with practiced ease. Presently the road swept up a swift shoulder and then descended into a slight valley crooked between the immense sweep of a much taller slope. Here, nestled from all but the fiercest of winds, lay the small village of Larosee. A few chalets built around an old square and a squat-steepled church formed the village that had originally planted itself in the lee of the chateau built on the craggy cliffs above.
Lex drove his car into the cobbled village street and entered the log and wattle building that served as hostelry, village shop and post office.
Swinging open the old fashioned door with the polished brass knocker he stepped into the warm, scrubbed interior, with the rich smells of ripening cheeses of subtle flavor, chocolate, burning cedar and wood polish, all mingled into the distinctive olfactory signature of Larosee, and Lex at fourteen, somehow incontrovertibly mixed together, spanning both time and space.
He was greeted by a little brown lady wearing a denim jacket with a dozen large batches proclaiming her allegiance to everything from Peace and Love to the Metropolis Sharks. He had barely come to terms with the incongruity when the old lady spoke from behind her seat in the area designated as post office.
'Bonjour monsieur!' she spoke cheerfully, peering at him from bright blue eyes. 'Bonjour Madame, he started carefully, but then decided caution would be useless in the situation, and started his carefully deduced speech. 'Je suis a la recherché d'un chocolat tres partiulier.qui est fait avee des pignons.'
He looked for the smallest reaction from the old lady, and her next words were promising. 'Oh! Dans ce cas j' appelle Madame Fischer! C'est elle la speciliste en matiere de chocolat.' she nodded cheerfully at him. Before he could question her further on the whereabouts of the famed Madame Fischer, he heard footsteps behind him, and turned around to see a tall woman dressed casually in jeans and roll neck jumper. She addressed him without preamble, obviously having been listening to his exchange with the old woman.
'Puis fi savoir qui vous etes? Ca chocolat est fabrique en nombre limite pour nos tres bons cliens.' she spoke in a strict no-nonsense voice, curiously reminding him of the matron at the chateau atop this very mountain
' Un ami de Metropolis.M.Pennyfeather.'
Before he could continue, she said suspiciously 'Vous n'avez pas l'air Amerecain.'
'Oui, en efet f'ai eu la chance de faire mes etudes dans les environs.'
'Il y a de nombreuses ecoles-chalet dans les pasages.' she said dismissively.
'Oui,' he said, his voice completely concealing the triumph within, 'oui, e'est vrai mais l'une d'entre elles est un chateau.'
'This is an unexpected surprise. Celine Fischer at your service. Pray come into the back.' She led him into a cheerful, oak-beamed, low-ceilinged parlor, where raged a blazing fire and closed the door behind him. When she had settled him into a comfortable armchair before the fire, she fetched her laptop and put it aside on the low table between them.
'I had certainly not expected to see you in person, Mr. Luthor. Our understanding was that our dealings would be completely secret.I cannot understand why you would like to compromise our arrangement in this fashion.'
Lex smiled at the woman before him; the object of his trans-Atlantic quest. 'I am delighted to make your acquaintance too, Ms Fischer.' said Lex. 'Let me assure you that whatever eventuality I had imagined would overtake me so that I had arranged this backup measure, is nothing on the situation I find myself in. I presume there was a procedure to follow for me to initiate contact. But Ms Fischer, I will make no secret of the fact that I have lost all recollection of this arrangement due to significant short-term memory loss. Therefore I had to trust to instinct and my previous memories of Switzerland to try and find you.'
'The world of high finance is a small one, Mr. Luthor, and believe me, I would be much more skeptical of your claim except that some small rumors regarding your .indisposition have found their way even to our small consultancy.' She looked at him keenly. 'The stock market certainly missed your' she paused and smiled, 'your volatile presence, and that with your correct knowledge of one of our identification sequences impels me to believe you.' She leaned forward and snapped open the laptop lying between them.
'Now, if you could touch the screen of this laptop to identify your fingerprint?' Lex touched his thumb to the screen, which immediately beeped into blessed activity.
Celine looked at the screen and then relaxed in to her chair.
'Now Mr. Luthor, what would you have me do for you?'