Читать книгу Days by Moonlight - Andre Alexis - Страница 6

In August 2017, I was eating an egg and cress sandwich when Professor Bruno called to ask if I’d help him in his travels through Southern Ontario. I love watercress (Nasturtium officinale). It’s delicious and it reminds me of my mother’s garden. So, I was already in a fair mood.

Professor Bruno had been a friend of my father’s. He was a kind man, one I’d known since I was a child. It would have been difficult to turn him down. The fact that his invitation came on the anniversary of my parents’ death – a terrible accident on the 401 – made it doubly hard to refuse. I would take my yearly vacation from the lab and spend part of it with the professor, one of the many mourners who’d wished me well at my parents’ funeral.

– I’m sure you find your parents’ friends beyond boring, he’d said, but I hope you’ll look in on me from time to time. It’d be lovely to keep in touch.

– Yes, I’d said.

And a year later, I was happy to show him that I’d meant it, that I was glad to keep in touch.

Professor Bruno proposed that we spend two or three days driving through the land on which the poet John Skennen had lived, the land about which Skennen had written, the land that had created the artist. The professor had spent years writing a ‘literary account’ of Skennen. He had all the basic facts, he said. He knew enough about the man’s life to get a solid grip on the poetry. What he wanted from our trip were ‘touches’: a few colourful details, any anecdotes he might glean from people who’d known Skennen at different stages of his life.

– You never know, he said, where you’ll find a detail, the detail, that’ll illuminate a work.

– So, we’re looking for light, I said, teasing him.

– Not just any light, my boy, he answered. We’re looking for the correct light.

My duties: I’d carry the professor’s bags, help him transcribe any interviews he did, and serve as his driver. In exchange, he insisted on paying my expenses – hotels, incidentals – and promised that I’d have time to do some botanical research. I wasn’t happy about his paying my expenses. I make more than I can spend at Alpha Labs. Besides, he was doing me a favour, giving me an excuse to leave Toronto for a few days, a few days away from a city that was, at times, oppressive because I knew it too well.

But I could tell he was disappointed when I said I’d pay for myself. So, I relented.

– Thank you, I said. I’m grateful for the time away.

I was grateful for another reason, too: I’d recently heard about a plant called five fingers (Oniaten grandiflora) that was said to have fantastic medicinal properties – the ability to cure jaundice, for instance. Professor Bruno planned to visit Feversham, a town on the outskirts of which there was a field of Oniaten. So a friend of mine had heard tell anyway. I didn’t believe that a plant with such qualities would be as little-known as Oniaten and I didn’t quite believe my friend, a fellow lab tech with a strange sense of humour. But the professor’s visit to Feversham would give me a chance to wander around outdoors – something that always makes me happy – while looking for a specimen of the plant.

Besides, I was sure Professor Bruno would be amusing company.

I’d be on vacation. I’d have an excuse to play at being the botanist I trained to be. I’d be distracted from my grief – my twin griefs – and we’d be visiting Southern Ontario, the countryside: the woods, fields, and farms I find calming and wonderful. If I worried about anything, it was that I didn’t know the poet Professor Bruno was writing about, John Skennen. The professor didn’t mind my ignorance, though.

– Alfie, he said, by the end of our trip you’ll know as much about Skennen as anyone. He’s a bit of a mystery.

– How so? I asked.

– Actually, Professor Bruno answered, it might be better to say he was a mystery. He stopped publishing twenty years ago. No one’s seen him or heard from him since. Can you imagine? The talent of an angel. Gone! Like that!

As I’m sure he knew it would, his enthusiasm encouraged me from my torpor.

The professor was almost as tall as I am – six feet – but he stooped slightly. He had a full head of hair but his hair was like a contradiction: thick and youthful but white as cornstarch. He’d kept himself in good shape. He would walk for blocks – briskly, without stopping, despite his arthritis. And he looked debonair, always smiling. Not one of those big, broad smiles. A small smile, ironical. His smile made me feel as if we shared a secret. I’d felt this way about him since I was a child. His only flaw – and it wasn’t so much a flaw as an occasionally misguided effort to be helpful – was that he would sometimes speak of things so learnèd my mind would fog up while listening to him. I’d never stop listening, but the professor’s enthusiasm alone wasn’t enough to help me with things like hermeneutics or the Freudian unconscious.

I had five days – from Wednesday to Sunday – to get ready. This was relatively short notice for work, but more than enough time to pack a few days’ clothes. Not that anyone at the lab minded my going. In the year since my parents died and, yet more grief, the months since Anne decided we should not grow old together, I’d accumulated seven weeks’ worth of overtime. Management at Alpha was probably relieved to grant me a few workdays along with my regular vacation. It was more difficult deciding what to do with the time before we left than it was getting days off.

In so far as I know myself, I’d say I’m cheerful and even-tempered. I like other people and I’ve always been sociable. The death of my parents certainly changed me. Though I knew their going would come – my father had often warned me that they would not be with me always – I felt as if I’d had no time to prepare for it. Anne’s leaving had been almost as difficult, and it was more recent. I still turned to her side of the bed in the morning, anticipating her warmth, still found strands of her hair on my clothes.

The bewildering thing about grief, for me, is how difficult it makes the world to navigate. Home itself becomes foreign territory, though everything around you is familiar. For some time, none of the things I loved – trees, music, the novels of P. G. Wodehouse – had had any meaning, as if all of them had flaws through which darkness came. So, it really was a relief when Professor Bruno asked me to accompany him through Southern Ontario and a relief that I wanted to be around others again, wanted to see past my shrunken world.

We’d leave Toronto on the twentieth and in the days that followed the professor hoped to visit Whitchurch-Stouffville, Concord, Nobleton, Coulson’s Hill, Feversham: places where he’d arranged to meet people who’d known John Skennen, places where John Skennen had been seen, places that were important to Skennen’s poetry. I packed pants, shirts, underwear, and a mustard-coloured jacket. I thought of my mother, as I took the things she always reminded me to take: toothpaste, a toothbrush, and deodorant. I also brought my pencils, a sharpener, a kneaded eraser, and a sketchbook in which I planned to draw some of the plants I saw on our way.

Professor Bruno was surprised by my drawings.

– I had no idea you were a Leonardo, Alfie! I welcome the noble intrusions of Art!

– But I’m not an artist, I said.

It’s something else that compels me to draw. I’ve been doing it since I was ten. Twenty-three years. I could not imagine a life without pencils, pens, inks, erasers, and sketches.

My mother used to say

– The world doesn’t exist until you draw it, Alfie!

She was only teasing, but she was right, in a way. I feel as if the books I’ve filled with drawings are my journals. They hold my life and memories. The past rushes back whenever I open one of my sketchbooks. I remember where I was, the sensations I felt, the mood I was in – all at a glance. My first drawing was of a four-leaf clover I saw in the schoolyard at Davisville. The clover, which I’d heard brought good luck, was a kind of ‘mixed signal.’ I found it just before John Smith punched me in the face and I punched him back. Then again, John and I have been close friends since Grade 6, a year after I drew the clover. I’m not a mystical person, but I think of it this way: I’m drawn to flowers, herbs, and weeds, some of which I draw over and over. I feel a connection to them and, in drawing them, I allow them the place in my life they were meant to have. On the other hand, my love for plants is fairly straightforward, too. I’m attracted to their lines and curves, their structure and colour, their complex simplicity. These were the things that inspired my studies in botany, for which I’ve never had even a moment’s regret.

Before we left, I bought the McClelland & Stewart edition of John Skennen’s collected poems. I thought it might be helpful to Professor Bruno if I knew at least a little about Skennen’s work. I was surprised by what I found. There were any number of love poems, some of them difficult for me to read without thinking about Anne. And there were more philosophical poems, some of which you could call light. But, overall, the poetry was gloomier than I’d expected. I couldn’t see Professor Bruno in it. Of course, this could be because the first poem I read, the one that made the deepest impression, ‘Rabbit and the Rabbits,’ was from what the professor called Skennen’s ‘melancholy period,’ just before he stopped publishing. In fact, it was the last poem in his final collection:

Strange to see struggle but not what’s struggled with –

wire round your throat, head caught like a wintry

birth. White as your mother’s haunches, bloody specks

when the rifle butt breaks your neck – a careless

wind busy sweeping. Trees in rumpled linens.

We who’ve killed you talk rosemary and onions

while somewhere underground your family scarpers,

running from the lumpish beings above.

Scarpering still, they’re carrying their jitters

through my nights – along narrows, around dungeon

corners – whiskering my dreams, their endless warrens,

coming on like regret, vicious and remorseless –

quick, quicker than memory in some respects.

Caught but uncatchable, they rise unpredictably –

digging up strange lands, hard soil, dark pitch.

The poem was well done, I guess, but I felt like I understood why he’d abandoned poetry: Skennen’s talent hadn’t brought him much happiness at all.

– Ah! said Professor Bruno. Now, there you’re wrong, Alfie! To begin with, the object of poetry isn’t the happiness or sadness of the poet. Artists do what they do because they’re compelled. It’s therapy that makes the patient feel much worse before it makes them feel better. If they ever manage to feel better at all! But the other thing to remember, Alfie, is that the psyche wants what it wants. You and I, untalented mortals as we are, live for sunshine. We live for the light! But the true Artist is different. For all we know, darkness may have been what Skennen needed. It may have been the very thing to bring him relief. Then again, it’s damned hard to tell with poets. I’ve met my fair share, Alfie, and I wonder if any of them can distinguish between happy and unhappy.

The first town we visited was Whitchurch-Stouffville. We left early Monday morning, sun up and bright, the sky a light blue, the land its late-summer self: hot but forgiving. I’ve always loved driving in Southern Ontario, and as, that first day, we’d planned to visit two towns that are close to each other – Whitchurch-Stouffville and Concord – we were not pressed for time. I avoided the highways (the 400s) and drove instead along country roads (38, 29, etc.) that go up and down and take you past farm fields, villages, and towns.

So many things made our setting out pleasant: the smell of the land, the way cows or horses will sometimes stare at you as you pass, the farmhouses that look like broken old faces. Then, too, Professor Bruno seemed to know everything about every inch of countryside. As we drove, it was like the past and the present intertwined. He’d point out this place where, for instance, a farmer’s cow had drowned in a pool of oil (1865) or that one where a bishop had taken a tumble down a hill (1903) which thereafter was known as Collar Bone Mound.

I loved the professor’s stories, but then, I find it comforting to know that others have been somewhere before me. I’m not a Speke or a Bartram, not an intrepid explorer. But I do have a sense of adventure. I like to imagine I’m seeing things that those before me missed. I cherish little details. I’ve always been this way. My father, Doctor of Divinity as he was, liked to say that paying attention is a way of being devout. God had taken the trouble to put a spur on the ant’s tibia. It was right to notice and admire His delicate work.

– Why, my mother used to say, are you giving your son excuses to be idle?

But we never considered attention idleness, my father and I, and it seemed to me, as I travelled with Professor Bruno, that the stories he told, coming as they did from paying attention – listening, not looking – were proof of devoutness, and I took great pleasure in them.

– I love hearing the old stories, I said.

– Yes, Professor Bruno said, it’s good to remember that a place is more than earth and ground. It’s all that earth and ground make possible! All the stories and imaginings. Goethe says: ‘Wer den Dichter will verstehen muss in Dichters Lande gehen!’ If you want to understand the poet, you’ve got to go to the poet’s country. He’s not wrong, not wrong at all! But I say if you want to understand a country, then you’ve got to go to the poets and artists, to the ones who refashion the world and make it live for their fellows. And where do these poets draw their inspiration? From earth, ground, stories, dreams, language, and history. That’s what a place is, Alfie. It feeds off us while we feed off it. It’s a bit of a paradox, you know, like context giving context to a context, but there you have it.

I’m sure the professor was right. But I remember his stories more than I do some of the towns and grounds we passed through, their buildings and streets. Whitchurch-Stouffville, for instance. By the time we got there, we were both happy to be out in the sun and away from the city. So, it’s possible I was distracted. But the town itself, the Stouffville part, was like any number of towns in the area. It had a Chinese restaurant and a business of some sort housed behind a red-brick facade. That’s about it. In trying to recall its streets, I find I’m not sure I haven’t got it confused with Concord or Nobleton. In fact, there are buildings in my memory of Stouffville that, I’m almost certain, belong elsewhere.

We were there so Professor Bruno could talk to John Skennen’s aunt, Moira Stephens, the last of Skennen’s relatives who’d known him when he was young. Her house was at the bottom of a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. The house wasn’t unusual – single storey, its front porch coming away, slightly, a few of the black tiles from its roof scattered on the front lawn – but it was painted light green. The colour shimmered and the smell of paint was strong. We were met at the door by a young woman whose hair was, in streaks, blue. She was tall and willowy. She didn’t smile, exactly, but she politely said

– What do youse want?

– Ah, said Professor Bruno. We’re here to speak to Mrs. Stephens about her nephew. I’m Professor Morgan Bruno and this is my travel companion, Alfred Homer.

– You’re from the university? said the woman. Good to see youse! I don’t think youse are going to get much out of Gram. She hasn’t been herself lately, eh? But it’s your own time youse are killing. Didn’t you say something about a few bucks for the inconvenience?

– You must be Roberta, Professor Bruno said. I’m happy to make a contribution to your well-being.

He gave her a ten-dollar bill. She folded the bill, tucked it into her brassiere, and led us to a living room where there was a fuzzy yellow sofa whose cushions had worn down in places so that, here and there, hernias of white foam came through. There were two wooden chairs facing the sofa and, beside the entrance to the room, a faux-elephant-foot umbrella holder that held an umbrella and what seemed to be a walking stick. The room had an interesting smell, unexpectedly herbal. It smelled of basil. After a longish while, Roberta led poor Mrs. Stephens in. I say ‘poor Mrs. Stephens’ not to be unkind but because the woman looked tired and it didn’t seem as if she wanted to be there. She was wearing a pink terry-cloth robe – strange, because it was almost as warm in the living room as it had been outside. Her grey hair, wet and sparse, must have been hastily done because you could still see the grooves the comb’s teeth had left in it. She had white bedroom slippers on her feet.

– She just got up, said Roberta.

For a while, it didn’t look like Mrs. Stephens would say anything. She frowned when Professor Bruno introduced himself. Then she stared at him when he asked questions about her nephew.

– When did you last see John? the professor asked. Did he ever talk to you about his poetry? Is it true that the last place anyone saw him was in Feversham?

Mrs. Stephens was provoked by the mention of Feversham. Her answer was almost a complaint.

– I don’t know anything about that, she said. No one’s supposed to know about that.

She moved her chair in Professor Bruno’s direction.

– Why do you want to know about it? she asked.

Inspired by her sudden interest, Professor Bruno was suddenly exuberant.

– I love your nephew’s work, he said. I’ve studied John’s poems for years. I think he may be our greatest poet. Our secret Akhmatova! Our hidden Hölderlin! It was time someone wrote a literary biography – more about the work than the man, but still … I’m looking for a few details from John’s life. Things to illuminate the poetry. I’ll leave the real biography to a real biographer.

Mrs. Stephens moved closer to him, her left shoulder raised to cushion her tilted head, but she didn’t say anything. So, Professor Bruno went on.

– John’s a wonderful poet, he said. I’m not saying he needs a biography so the poetry can be understood. His work’s clear as Waterford Crystal. But I think my work brings out facets of the poetry and illuminates some of the obscurities. Not all of them! A poem needs its obscurities!

Mrs. Stephens moved her chair closer, little by little, as if she didn’t have the strength to draw close at once. It seemed she wanted to hear Professor Bruno talk about her nephew. But then she inched her chair past him, pulled the umbrella (bright orange) out of the elephant’s foot, and hit him with it. The blow was a surprise. Mrs. Stephens moved so quickly for an older woman. She caught Professor Bruno on the cheek with the umbrella’s nib and drew blood. Before I could come to the professor’s rescue – before he could defend himself – the umbrella opened on its own, an angry frilled lizard, and Mrs. Stephens started to cry. The sound of her crying was strange: the bleating of a kid but softer and more lilting and with long pauses as she drew breath.

When she could manage to speak, she cried out

– Don’t you dare talk about him!

At these words, Roberta came in to see what was wrong. Finding her grandmother distraught, she tried to calm her. She wiped her grandmother’s face with a tea towel and said

– There, there, Gram!

And added

– I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with Uncle John.

– It’s too much, said her grandmother. Don’t you talk about him, either.

– I should of warned youse, said Roberta. Gram sometimes gets skittish.

She helped her quaking grandmother from the room, returning after a few minutes to say:

– She gets this way when she thinks about Uncle John, eh. Why don’t youse come back tomorrow? She’s not always like this. It’s just sometimes she’s sensitive about it, like no one’s supposed to say Uncle John’s name. She’s got a heart of gold. Give you her last clean undies, most days. But she doesn’t like to talk about certain things, poor Gram.

I thought it would be cruel to disturb Mrs. Stephens again, especially as she was sensitive about the one subject that interested Professor Bruno. But the professor, not wanting to disappoint Roberta, agreed to consider returning once we’d visited the other places on our itinerary. He held out a ten-dollar bill.

– Please take this for your troubles, he said.

Roberta refused.

– No, she said. We can’t take more till you get your first money’s worth. Come back when youse are done your rounds. Gram’ll be feeling better by then.

Professor Bruno wanted to go on to our next town straight away. He’d found the episode with Mrs. Stephens embarrassing and wanted to put it out of mind. But I stopped at the walk-in clinic in Stouffville for a bandage and disinfectant. Mrs. Stephens hadn’t done much damage, but there was blood on the professor’s cheek and I’d have felt terrible if his cut got infected.

As it turned out, going to the clinic was, inadvertently, one of the most helpful things we did, not because the professor was in danger but because a sympathetic attendant at the clinic, Karen Kelly by name, unexpectedly pointed us to new details about Mr. Skennen.

– Mrs. Stephens doesn’t know any more about John Skennen than I do, she said. I mean, maybe she did at one time, but the poor lady hasn’t been right in the head for years. I’m not surprised she stabbed you with an umbrella. But if you want to find out about John Skennen, you should talk to my mom. She went out with him in high school.

Professor Bruno was warily enthusiastic.

– This is wonderful, he said. A real find. And to think we have an umbrella to thank for it!

Ms. Kelly’s mother, Kathryn, was a surprising fount of information. She’d kept high school photos of John Skennen and seemed to remember every detail of their time together. And yet, there was little in what she remembered that you’d call remarkable. Mr. Skennen seemed to have been a normal young man, in the throes of first love – they would love each other forever, he wrote, and she was more beautiful than words could express, and he would spend his life making her happy. Except that he took poetry seriously, that he aspired to be a poet and actually became one, Skennen was not unusual.

It was strange to hear the love-elation I’d recently felt so nakedly expressed in the letters of a seventeen-year-old. It made me wonder if love, whenever it hits you, is always the same. Like the young Skennen, I couldn’t help thinking about my ‘beloved.’ But, unlike him, I could no longer revel in the longing my thoughts of Anne brought.

Professor Bruno kept Mrs. Kelly talking for two hours and was rewarded by the discovery of a poem John Skennen had written as a seventeen-year-old. The poem was in one of the letters Mrs. Kelly had kept. She wouldn’t tell us anything about its meaning, but she allowed me to transcribe it:

Ticking tocks

taking clocks

before they

hurt me,

Train, unhinged,

is what I bid

toward me,

Sheet of earth,

I let you go

above me

And limestone grey

is what I taught

to love me

Listening to Mrs. Kelly’s memories also brought my parents to mind. What must it have been like for them, young and in love, both God-fearing, as they called it, both wanting to get out of Chatham, Ontario? They’d met in their teens, right around the same age as Kathryn Kelly and John Skennen, but their love had flourished and lived on to the end of their lives. How rare that seemed to me now.

Maybe because I had my parents in mind, it occurred to me that the young man in Mrs. Kelly’s photos looked like Professor Bruno or that Professor Bruno looked like the young man: same thick hair, same strong chin, and, in one photo, the same complicit smile. The resemblance was so obvious that both Mrs. Kelly and the professor admitted it. It made me wonder if Mrs. Stephens had mistaken the professor for her nephew.

– But then why would she hit me? asked Professor Bruno. Wouldn’t she be happy to see her nephew?

– You know, said Mrs. Kelly, I haven’t spoken to John since we broke up, but there must be a reason he changed his name from Stephens.

– I suppose that’s true, said the professor. And Skennen is the Ojibwe word for peace. I’ve always wondered if he ever found it.

– Oh, I don’t think John ever found peace, said Mrs. Kelly. So few of us do, on this side of the lawn. Anyway, if his aunt didn’t beat him with an umbrella, it would be one of the few things she didn’t use. That generation liked to hit.

While we were in her home, Mrs. Kelly made sure we had lemonade – a clear lemonade with mint leaves crushed in it – and that we were comfortable and that the air conditioner was not too cold for us. Her kindness struck me. Though her living room was cool as a larder, it was still welcoming, because she was herself so generous.

Sometime later, Professor Bruno spoke of his admiration for Mrs. Kelly’s beauty. I must have looked at him as if I weren’t convinced. Mrs. Kelly was in her sixties, maternal in my eyes. The joints of her fingers were slightly knobby. She was thin but big-breasted so that her body looked weighed down. Her face had, I think, once been what’s called ‘beautiful,’ but it was now gaunt and a little intimidating.

– Was she beautiful? I asked.

Professor Bruno was annoyed.

– No, she wasn’t beautiful. She is beautiful. Her spirit is as warm as a sauna. And I mean a good sauna. Not one of those overheated contraptions where you can’t breathe. I’m surprised at you, Alfie, observant as you are! You know spirit is as important to beauty as physical appearance, don’t you? There’s a difference between a leaf on a tree and one that’s dead, isn’t there?

– Yes, I said, but dead leaves are beautiful, too, aren’t they?

Professor Bruno took a dark leather pouch out from somewhere in his suitcase. Our vicinity immediately smelled of moist and sweet tobacco, like tar, cinnamon, and oranges. He took out a brown pipe and, after he’d filled the pipe and lit his tobacco, he said

– I wonder what you mean by beautiful. Dead things aren’t as beautiful as living ones. I mean, you can’t be interested only in surfaces, can you? It’d be a great mistake if you were. I understand you artists and your natures mortes. You’re fascinated by geometry. But all those still lifes with their skulls and flowers can’t touch a well-done portrait or a vivid landscape. And do you know why? Because with still lifes you don’t have to capture the spirit that animates a person or a place. It’s an easier job, isn’t it? I wonder if you know the story of Apelles, the Greek painter? He was drawing a horse, a running horse, and he’d got the painting’s background and the horse itself perfectly. The work was going to be his greatest, except for one thing. The only detail he couldn’t get right – a small detail – was the froth coming off the horse’s mouth. For months, he tried everything – every brush, every way to apply paint. And despite all his skill, he couldn’t get the froth right, and the fact that he couldn’t get it right ruined the painting for him! His greatest painting! Ruined! Out of frustration, he took a sponge he’d been using and threw it at the canvas. It hit the painting at exactly the right place and got exactly the right effect: the froth on the mouth of the horse! I’m sure you’ve heard the story, Alfie, but people don’t talk about the lesson in it. The living and spontaneous in the work of Art – the horse’s froth – can only be caught by the living and spontaneous in the artist. True beauty, Alfie, perfection in Art, has spirit as its object and as its subject and as its substance. Do you see?

– But doesn’t all Art have some of this spirit in it? I asked.

– Most works of Art, he answered, don’t have enough of it to justify their existence!

– So then, are you mostly disappointed by Art, Professor?

– Oh no, he said, not at all. I live for a perfection I’ll never find! That’s the human condition in a nutshell, isn’t it?

I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m not any kind of artist. Far from it. And, where plants are concerned, I’ve always been happy with surfaces. The idea of perfection or even ‘true beauty’ had never occurred to me because I’ve always enjoyed what’s there in front of me. I’ve never thought that’s a perfect lilac or here’s the true beauty of celery. In the same way, I wouldn’t have said Mrs. Kelly was beautiful any more than I’d have said she was ugly. She was as I found her. In the end, I had no experience with separating the spirit from the thing. I wasn’t even sure what the professor meant by ‘spirit,’ but I believed he was on to something, and it pleased me to think that one day I might understand what he was talking about.

We drove toward Concord along gravel roads. We were going to see one of John Skennen’s childhood friends, Ron Brady. Mr. Brady lived on the outskirts of town on a farm, or what seemed once to have been a farm: a dilapidated barn, a stone farmhouse, fields overrun by weeds – Queen Anne’s lace, mostly, the land smelling of sour carrots – the property delimited by fencing whose posts and struts were silverfish-grey.

We didn’t see any dogs as we drove onto Mr. Brady’s land, but his first words to us were

– Didn’t the dogs greet you?

– Which dogs? asked Professor Bruno.

– My dogs, of course, he answered.

Mr. Brady was tall. His hair looked as if it had been dyed black. Recently dyed, I’d have said, because although he was in his sixties – his skin pale, the backs of his hands with faint spots on them – the hair on his head was an almost lustrous dark. In fact, Mr. Brady’s hair had something defiant about it, as if it were a wig meant to challenge your conceptions of him, whatever they might be.

– It’s nice to meet you, he said. Can I get you some tea?

Before we could say yes or no, he’d called his son into the room.

– Two teas, Dougal! he said.

Dougal didn’t seem happy to be called away from what he’d been doing. He hesitated, then grumbled a few words I didn’t quite hear. But Mr. Brady repeated

– Two teas for our guests, son.

And Dougal – a man in his forties, judging by the look of him – went from the room and came almost immediately back with two cups of tea, as if he’d made them in anticipation of the asking. This efficiency wasn’t the most striking thing about him, though. Dougal was missing fingers on both of his hands. On one, half the thumb and the pinky were missing. On the other, the top of his ring finger was gone. Apropos of his son’s missing fingers, Mr. Brady said

– That’s what it means to live on a farm. It’s a lazy man who still has all his fingers, is what I say.

He held up his own hands so we could see the places where fingers – or parts of them – had been.

– If the machines don’t get you, the dogs will, he said.

Professor Bruno was impressed.

– That’s nicely put, he said.

– I’m quoting Virgil, said Mr. Brady. A free translation I made of ‘The Georgics.’

As well as being John Skennen’s friend, Mr. Brady had been a poet in his own right.

– I didn’t start out wanting to be a farmer, he said. That was my dad’s business. Me and John, we wanted to be in a rock ’n’ roll band when we were kids. Then he started writing words for songs and, next thing you know, we’re reading Thomas Wyatt and all these guys who wrote madrigals. We were … what? Eleven? Twelve? But I can still remember some of them – Pastime with good company I love and shall until I die grudge who lust but none deny so God be pleased thus live will I …

– That’s by Henry the Eighth! said Professor Bruno.

– Yeah, I guess it might be, Mr. Brady answered, but I don’t remember the names as much as the poems. Strange, eh? For me, poems are like people’s faces: I always remember faces even when I don’t remember names.

– Was John always a good poet? asked Professor Bruno.

– Oh, yeah. Always. But maybe that isn’t the way to put it. John could have been good at anything he wanted. But the poet thing came to him and he lived it from the moment it hit him. All his poems weren’t good but they were always poems, you know what I mean? I wrote poems as bad as his and maybe a few just as good, but the mask never fit me. Not that being a farmer really fits me, either. But I’m okay with how it doesn’t fit. You understand?

I think Professor Bruno understood. He nodded and said yes. But I didn’t understand at all. Did John Skennen choose to be a poet or was he born a poet? I didn’t want to get in the way of two men talking poetry, but I was curious. So, I asked Mr. Brady what he’d meant.

– It’s a hard thing to explain, he answered. John liked to say poetry chose him, and I know what he meant. But it was more like playing at something you’re good at. He was a natural.

– But you said he was good at a lot of things, didn’t you?

– Nice to be around people who pay attention, said Mr. Brady. But I’m not sure I can say it any other way. It’s got to do with destiny and if you believe certain people were made for certain things. John wasn’t any happier being a poet than he would have been anything else. He was born unhappy. But he accepted poetry was his destiny, so all this talk about whether he was any good had nothing to do with it, as far as he was concerned. Even if he’d been a bad poet, he was destined to be a poet and he knew it the way you know where your hands are in the dark. Do you believe you’re destined for something, son? If you do, I hope it’s something you’re good at.

He held up his hand with the missing fingers.

– Then again, he said, someone’s got to be the farmer with missing fingers, a dead wife, and an ungrateful son.

From the kitchen, evidently listening, Dougal shouted

– I’m not ungrateful!

– It’s a fascinating idea, said Professor Bruno. Did John believe in destiny?

– Yes, he did, said Mr. Brady. That he did, for sure. He used to say he knew how he was going to die as clearly as how he was going to live.

– You think he’s dead? asked Professor Bruno. No one’s ever told me for certain he was dead.

– Oh, said Mr. Brady. I know John’s dead the same way you know when someone’s left a room. You can’t be as close as we were without there being some kind of connection. I’ll tell you what, I even know the minute he died. It was in the days when my wife was still alive and she was in the kitchen cooking. And I was in the living room here, watching TV. I can even tell you what I was watching: Kojak, the show with buddy who’s like a cue ball. And all of a sudden Marjory says, ‘Answer the door!’ Now why in the heck am I going to answer the door when there’s no one there? I’m right near the door. She’s all the way in the kitchen. There’s no point me getting up. But she says it again – ‘Answer the door!’ – and I’m thinking, ‘Well, maybe I was listening to Kojak a little too loud.’ You understand? So, I get up and open the door. And it’s like I thought, no one there. I was about to curse the old lady when I turn around and right where I was sitting – that’s where John’s sitting. I just assumed he and Marjory were playing a game on me. So, I start talking to him like it’s no big deal. I haven’t seen him for years, but I’m not going to be the one that cracks. But he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there looking at me. And I’m getting kind of irritated, but at the same time I know something’s wrong. Then he looks at me and points to his watch. And I can see it’s nine-twenty. Makes the hairs on my arm stand up, just remembering.

Mr. Brady pulled up his sleeve and, from where I was sitting – a few feet away – I could see the hairs on his arm standing up on goosebumps.

– What happened then? Professor Bruno asked.

– I don’t know, Mr. Brady answered. The dogs started barking. I must have looked away for a second. When I looked back, John wasn’t there anymore.

– But how do you know that’s the moment he died? the professor asked.

– Well, I’ll tell you. When we were kids we were both a little obsessed with death – the way kids are – and we both swore that whoever died first, he’d come back and tell the other what death was like. I guess the dogs must have interrupted him, but I knew what John meant when he showed me the time. It wasn’t something I could get wrong.

– But am I right, the professor asked, that he disappeared?

– You’re very right, said Mr. Brady. But I hope you’re not looking for him.

– Why?, I asked.

Mr. Brady smiled.

– It’s bad luck, he said. Listen, people around here believe all sorts of things. When John died, he just disappeared. So, you can imagine the rumours. For a while there, it was so bad you couldn’t read poetry in Simcoe County without someone making the sign of the cross if they heard you. To ward off the devil. It was mostly in fun, but John’s become a bad omen.

– We’re not looking for him, Professor Bruno said. Heavens, I don’t know what I’d do if we found him. I’m interested in his poetry. I’m a critic, mostly. I only want a few biographical details. Enough for human interest. And it’s more difficult to get those if the subject’s around. So, no, we’re not looking for him.

– John used some of his life in his poems, said Mr. Brady. A bio’s not useless. But the important thing was always the poetry. Listen, I’m glad there’s interest in his work. I thought poetry’d died out. The young don’t know enough about it to keep the traditions alive.

These last words seemed to have been said pointedly. I thought Mr. Brady was talking about my generation when he mentioned the young. And I was about to say he was right, when I noticed Dougal had come into the room and it occurred to me that Mr. Brady’s words – though they were directed at ‘the young’ – were likely meant for his son. Dougal must have thought so, too, because he said

– Stop saying that! Just because we write differently doesn’t mean we don’t know the traditions. You’re so proud of your stupid stuff: The cow, the old cow, she is dead; it sleeps well, the hornèd head! To hell with that. I know as much about poetry as you!

– Oh? What poetry do you know? Mr. Brady asked. Teach me.

Dougal sneered.

– Roses are red, violets are blue. You wretched bastard, fuck you!

– There, said Mr. Brady. You just proved my point. Your insult doesn’t even scan.

Father and son were suddenly angry, both of them red-faced.

We had come at the wrong time, the professor and I. We’d interrupted an argument that now flared up again. Our visit was like the time between a match being struck and its cap catching fire. Professor Bruno must have thought so, too. We stood up at the same moment.

– You should apologize, Mr. Brady said to Dougal. You wouldn’t want these people thinking you were raised in a barn.

– Why should I apologize for you being a bastard? Dougal answered.

I thought then that it would be polite to leave father and son to work things out. I couldn’t imagine speaking to my father as Dougal had spoken to his, but neither could I imagine my father expressing such scorn for me. I excused myself and went out the front door. I assumed Professor Bruno was right behind me. But I was wrong.

As I stepped out the door, the sun was bright and the air was clear. It was warm, but I felt a cool breeze. Not a squamish but something like the opposite of a sirocco: a cool wind from the west. It was also quiet. So quiet that, as I walked to the car, I heard nothing. No wind, no call, no birdsong. Not even the three large white Argentine mastiffs that came up behind me.

How impressive they were! Their movements were so coordinated, it was as if the three dogs were one. That I heard them at all, in the end, was their doing. One of them growled, low and menacing. And when, frightened, I turned to face them, they growled in a more suggestive way. I had two impressions simultaneously: that the dogs were being cautious, lest Mr. Brady be alerted to their plans, and that I was being told to run. It was a strange moment, but I didn’t have much time to think about its strangeness. I had a second to consider whether I should try to pet one of them.

Then the largest dog rushed me, biting my upper thigh so that, had I been even slightly better endowed, I’d have lost part of my penis. I was lucky in another way, too. Though the dog bit me and it hurt, the other dogs did not at first join the fray. They waited, I guess, to see the damage their companion could inflict. Also, I was bleeding but the dog had caught more of my pants than my flesh, so that a great swatch of fabric was torn away when it shook its head. I thought then that running was my best option. And despite my wounds, I did very well. I reached the car. If I’d had the keys to the car in my hand, I’m almost certain I’d have escaped further bites. I jumped onto the hood of the car, followed closely by the dog who’d bitten me, and there it bit me again, catching an expanse of my jacket before I slid off the hood and ran for the fences. This fired the other dogs up. All three now came after me and, in a manner of speaking, they lost their inhibitions, growling and snarling like they were out for blood. Which, to be fair, they got. One of them caught the leg of my pants, and I fell on ground covered by Queen Anne’s lace, the smell of it like carrots, of course, along with something indefinable but poisonous and alive.

Maybe because I thought I was about to die, I felt quite cheerful. Not that I wanted to die, but that I had been given a last look at a world I loved: the countryside I’d visited with my parents when my father gave his guest sermons at churches in the area. Everything around me was wonderful, from the raw blue sky to the dark earth I’d disturbed in falling, from the snarls of the dogs to the sensation of their breath on my skin. I was bitten on the arms and legs a few more times before I heard Mr. Brady call, as if from far away:

– Laelaps! Chester! Melba! Leave it!

I take it the dogs were well-trained because, at the sound of their names, they eventually stopped biting me. One of them held on to my arm awhile, as if caught with food in its mouth and, ashamed to be seen eating, was unsure whether to spit out what it had or go on chewing. But they all retreated, running to Mr. Brady as if looking for some sort of reward.

My pants and jacket were badly torn and I was bleeding, but I didn’t think I was in danger, reassured as I was by the reactions of the Bradys and Professor Bruno. None of them seemed at all concerned about my injuries. The first thing Dougal said as he helped me up from the ground was

– You’re okay. It’s not that bad.

And although I was in pain, I was grateful for his words. Mr. Brady then said

– I don’t know what got into them. They’ve never done anything like this before.

As if seconding Mr. Brady’s point, the three dogs sat up with their pink tongues lolling, looking amiable. Professor Bruno said

– I’ve seen worse wounds than these, Alfie, but I guess you’d better change your clothes.

– I think I should go to the hospital, I answered.

– Why? asked Mr. Brady. You’ve only got a few scratches!

I thought he might be worried that I was angry at him or his dogs, so I said it was only a precaution.

– I suppose caution’s a good idea, said Mr. Brady, but you couldn’t get me into one of the hospitals around here if I wasn’t dying. I don’t trust them.

I thanked him for the warning, but I clung to the idea of having my wounds tended. And, after hasty farewells, we were off, Professor Bruno and I, on one of the most uncertain rides I’ve ever taken.

I was uncomfortable in my wet clothes. In places, my shirt and pants clung to me like a second skin. I was in pain because some of the dogs’ bites had been deep and burned when I moved, as if the saliva were a toxin. Then, too, I felt light-headed and I forgot to ask directions to the nearest hospital. I should not have been driving. But, maybe because I was in shock, I’d accepted the idea that I wasn’t badly hurt and, besides, Professor Bruno could not drive. So, it was up to me, in any case.

Professor Bruno must have realized that I was not in a proper state of mind when I (unintentionally) ran through my first stop sign. It seems I ran through a number of them, and the professor was amused by this afterwards, but at the time it must have been harrowing. He sat beside me with a crooked smile on his face, his briefcase in his arms like a flotation device. Also, while trying to stay calm or trying to keep me calm, he began to tell me about Nature. It was mostly about shores and stars, but I admired his composure, his repeated efforts to keep me focused.

But then he got stuck on the difference between the Latin word Natura and the Greek word Phusis. The distinction was something he’d taken from a German theologian. Both words are translated as ‘Nature’ but, according to the theologian, the Greeks made no distinction between the human and the natural worlds, while the Romans viewed themselves as separate from Nature. I remember all this clearly, not because it was interesting but because (at least in my mind) Professor Bruno kept repeating the words Natura and Phusis as if they had some special force. He shouted the word Natura, for instance, as I drove through a stop sign and crossed the median.

Under normal circumstances, I doubt I’d have understood a thing. But, despite my light-headedness, the professor’s words did reach me. They may even have kept me awake. Because, as I drove, I became convinced there really was no difference between myself and the world drifting by – ochre farm fields, greyish telephone poles, pale blue sky, trees in clumps of four or five, yellow signs showing where intersections were hidden.

At times, I felt such exhilaration that I imagined I could not die. And I drove on with little more than a vague feeling I was heading north, as we went past Strange, Happy Valley, Kettleby, and Ansnorveldt. I had never had such a strong sense that – as my father might have said – I was dust and my return to dust would be a great arrival as much as it would a departure. I felt indistinct from the ground on which we were driving.

It’s a wonder we survived the half-hour drive.

Another wonder is how I ended up in an emergency ward in East Gwillimbury. I held on to consciousness just long enough to get us to a hospital. But I must have passed out as soon as we reached the parking lot of Our Lady of Mercy Health Centre. The professor later told me he thought we were lucky to reach the place. And I agreed. It would have been terrible if I’d passed out somewhere along the road. It felt, though, as if I had been guided to East Gwillimbury – an otherworldly feeling, a feeling made stranger by my coming to on a gurney, blood flowing into me from a sack suspended on a transfusion stand. I was more or less naked under a sheet. They’d left my socks on.

Our Lady of Mercy unnerved me. Because I have a fear of hospitals. Because, when I was a child, I spent months in Toronto Western watching my mother go through chemotherapy. Because the look and smell of hospitals remind me of being scalded by boiling water. I have no good memories of hospitals, and Our Lady of Mercy was not much different from others I’ve been in.

There were panels of white Styrofoam on the ceiling above me. In a gap among the panels were tubes of fluorescent lighting, darkened where their pins entered their holders. The light from the tubes was inconsistent – white, yellowish, blue. I had time to notice all this because I was on my own for quite a while. I didn’t want to make a fuss but, after what felt like an hour, I finally called out.

– Can someone help me?

– Oh, a nurse answered, you’re awake!

The woman had a freckled face with high cheekbones and her hair was red. She seemed so surprised, I wondered if my regaining consciousness was an unexpected turn of events.

– You lost a lot of blood, she said, and since you’re here to have your tonsils out, we wanted to make sure your levels were good.

– Why are my tonsils being taken out? I asked.

– I guess there’s something wrong with them, she said. People don’t usually have them out otherwise.

I admitted this was true. But I expressed my reservations. I’d never been bothered by my tonsils.

– I think there’s been a mistake, I said. My tonsils haven’t given me trouble. I was bitten by dogs.

– Well, there you go, she answered. The dogs probably made your tonsils worse. That’s how trauma works sometimes. But your gurney being in this place means you’re ready for a tonsillectomy. We don’t tend to make mistakes about these things, you know.

– But the dogs didn’t get me by the throat, I said.

She said

– The doctors might have found you needed a tonsillectomy while they were treating your wounds. Wouldn’t it be better to have your tonsils out now, while you’re already a little injured?

– Could I see the doctor? I asked.

– I think it’s better we don’t disturb Dr. Flew while he’s getting ready to take your tonsils out. Don’t you agree?

She was polite, but I felt she’d been encouraged by my tone, maybe thinking I was unsure about my tonsils. We went back and forth like this, each of us expressing our side of the matter. And, to my surprise, I was suddenly engaged in a pitched battle of politeness, those kindly – but ferocious – skirmishes that are so common in our country: each side trying to polite the other into submission. I prefer these sorties to the open arguments that happen in the United States. But I felt that, the battle being for my tonsils, it was important that I win. So, I asked again and again if she was certain I’d been left in the right place, seeing as I did not want an operation if it could be avoided.

Finally, she said

– Mistakes do happen. I’ll look into it for you. Would you like that?

I was relieved and, thanks to the blood transfusion, I felt more or less myself again. The only things missing were my clothes or, at least, pyjamas so I could walk around. Without them, I was trapped on my gurney and, after a while, I fell asleep.

I woke when the nurses came for me. They were taking me to the operating room or, rather, to a place beside the operating room where the anesthesiologist would put me under.

– I don’t need an operation, I said. I was bitten by dogs, that’s all.

– You came in for a tonsillectomy, one of the nurses said. You can’t just change your mind.

I insisted there’d been a mistake. I tried to get up from the gurney, but, in the end, what saved me from a tonsillectomy was chance. My gurney passed by a public waiting area on its way to the operating room and, despite my distraction, I saw Professor Bruno reading a book. I called his name as loudly as I could and he heard me.

The nurses were just as suspicious of the professor’s words on behalf of my tonsils as they’d been of mine. But the weight of two testimonials must have instilled some doubt. So, they did a little digging around. They discovered then that my name was in fact Alfred Homer, as I’d repeatedly told them, not Arthur Helmers, and that they’d got my name wrong when I was admitted to the hospital. The other thing that saved me from a tonsillectomy was the discovery that Arthur Helmers had died from his infection.

– I told you it was serious, one of the nurses said.

For a moment, I wondered if they’d take my tonsils, anyway, as a precaution. But I was conveyed to a ward and, eventually, my suitcase was given to me.

I’d have liked to leave at once but there were papers to sign and apologies to be heard. At some point, I was famished because I hadn’t eaten for hours. So, when one of the nurses gave me a pomegranate she’d brought for her own dinner, I was grateful. More than that, her kindness struck me as a good omen. I was reminded of my father’s idea that the beginning of a trip casts its shadow forward, that it influences the trip itself. I remember thinking that, despite the small misunderstandings we’d encountered, the day had been a good one.

I could tell that Professor Bruno, who sat with me in the ward, was pleased I was out of danger.

– I hate to think what might have happened to you, dear boy, if we’d had an accident. I’m an old man. My death would have meant nothing. But you, Alfie, you still have your life in front of you. It would have been a tragedy.

His spirits were further lifted when I was discharged. He joked that the dogs we’d encountered were like Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of Hades, and thanked me for protecting him from them.

– The good news, he said, is that we’ve got past Cerberus. That’s a rare feat, Alfie. Only Hercules and Orpheus have done it! The bad news is that, from now on, we’ll be travelling through the underworld.

He smiled and patted my shoulder.

– God knows how we’ll get out, he said, but at least we’ll talk to the glorious dead!

I was on the edge of sleep again, the stress of nearly losing my tonsils having tired me out.

– We’re going to Hell? I asked.

– No, no, no, he said. The underworld is the domain of Hades, the unseen. No punishment involved! Unless you count an eternity of talk as punishment. Which I do not!

I wasn’t sure what to think about Hades or what to feel about it. I certainly wouldn’t have minded talking to the dead, to my mother and father, above all. I had so many questions to ask them, so many things I would have liked to tell them.

I closed my eyes while listening to the professor’s voice.

And I fell asleep while waiting for more paperwork, for the right paperwork to be brought to me. The hospital wanted official reassurance that I wasn’t angry, I suppose. And I wasn’t. I was grateful that nothing irreparable had been done to me. Despite my bites and bruises and the threat to my tonsils, the thing that had unnerved me most was Our Lady of Mercy, the hospital itself. Not just its clean surfaces and sceptic undertone but its banks of lights, long halls, and peach walls: endless passages to unpleasant rooms.