by André Alexis
them, he looked pensive. And, as if answering a question, he said
– Well, after all, the soul has no gender.
– Oh, said Michael, we make no assumptions about the soul.
This is a museum of sex, not religion. And it isn’t the soul that
copulates. Our various bodies do that.
Then, looking at me, Michael asked
– Are you all right?
– I’m feeling overwhelmed, I said. I’m going to go sit down
for a while. You two go on. I’ll catch up later.
And I left them on their own.
Unfortunately, I had to pass the fourth diorama on the way
out. It was a scene in a forest – a thickening of birches and
spruce like a wooded haven in the distance. There was a well-
trod path that led from the front of the diorama – where the
viewer stood – toward the trees at the back. To the sides of the
path: trodden grasses, white-headed clover, and a smattering of
purple-tufted thistles. Lying on the path in front of the viewer: a
bloodied body, one of its arms struggling or instinctively pulling
at the ground in order to escape the grizzly bear that had just
mauled it. The grizzly – which was extremely realistic – was up
on its hind legs facing the viewer. And as the viewer approached
the diorama, the bear roared, its jaws agape so one could see its
bloody teeth.
The effect was to put the looker suddenly and without warning
in loco praedae: in the place of the grizzly’s prey. So realistically
was this done that one could not help backing away. On stepping
back, however, the viewer tripped a mechanism and the bear in
the diorama lunged forward, its growl pure nature – loud and
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ferocious, the thud of its paw against the glass powerful enough
to shake the diorama.
When I’d recovered from my distress, Michael and Professor
Bruno had caught up to me. Both were smiling, no doubt admiring
the diorama and, maybe, amused by the effect it had had on me.
Still stunned, I told Michael I couldn’t see how this diorama had
come to be in a museum devoted to sexuality. Nothing about
being killed by a bear struck me as erotic.
– Many people say this, said Michael. But the connection
between arousal and danger is well documented. We know for a
fact that all sorts of animals, when facing death, become aroused.
And humans regularly court danger while having intercourse.
Couples mate on rooftops, while driving cars, on planes, in Ferris
wheels. God knows where. For my money, this is the most sensual
of the dioramas.
Professor Bruno nodded in agreement.
– This is very true, he said. And just think, Alfie, we live in a
world where people dress up as wild animals to have pleasure. I
find this diorama quite convincing.
I saw the professor’s point, but I simply could not accept that
an enraged and marauding grizzly could be taken as an adjunct to
pleasure. I’d mistaken the realistic representation of a grizzly for a
real one and I’d been frightened, but even knowing that there was
no danger, I felt uncomfortable standing in front of the diorama.
This and my discomfort with the museum itself was too much. I
let the professor and Michael discuss the nature of sexual fantasy
on their own. I left the room, looking for a way out of the museum.
Leaving the room with the dioramas, I followed a wall-painted
arrow that pointed to my left. Above this arrow were the words
“The Instruments/Les Instruments.’ Beneath the arrow it said,
“This Way Out.’ Which is to say, I had to go through another
gallery to get out of the place.
“The Instruments/Les Instruments” was in a space as large as
the one I’d left, though it seemed smaller because there were no
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dioramas. I tried to avoid looking closely at anything as I passed
through the room, but what I did see resembled a work of concep-
tual art more than it did a museum exhibit. Along all four walls,
there was a latticework of white squares – hundreds of white
squares, each of which held one object, each object lit by its own
tiny light: bananas, melons, and dildos on the top shelves, followed
by more modest “dilators” and “recipients” (false vaginas, plastic
fish heads), which were in turn followed by smaller things. What
those smaller things were, I can’t say, because I kept my eyes on
the door as I made my way to what I hoped was the last exit.
But it wasn’t. The third exit was through the museum’s book-
store, a well-lit space on whose walls hung posters from previous
exhibits. Despite my desire to leave the museum, I couldn’t help
admiring the images. The least one could say was that most made
you wonder about the exhibits they advertised. For instance, the
professor and I had apparently just missed a show called
PIERRE TRUDEAU: ANGEL OF THE EROTIC
whose poster was a painting of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s face. The
former prime minister looked out, smiling kindly. But his image
gave nothing away about the show’s content.
After leafing through a pricey book called Custard, Twigs, and
Berries, I went to the foyer, sat on its marble bench, and, for the
hour it took before Professor Bruno came out, I tried to make
sense of my feelings: my unease. I assumed it had nothing to do
with sex itself. Having been born in a time when it’s increasingly
difficult not to know that humans have peculiar ideas of what
constitutes sexual pleasure, I wasn’t offended by what I’d seen. It
is simply a fact that some of my contemporaries find motorcycles
arousing: motorcycles, monocles, the smell of bleach, rubber
gloves, cheese graters, maple leaves, and so on, endlessly. I also
assumed it had nothing to do with the way the information was
presented. I love taxonomy and I take pleasure in small variations.
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An extra leaf, an unusual shade of flower, stamens of improbable
length, etc.: all these details move me.
And yet, the collision of sex and taxonomy was at the heart
of my unease. The museum was disturbing in its institutional
desire for inclusivity, a desire that had turned the sexual into a
thing that could be dealt with alphanumerically. Seeing the nota-
tions on the glass of the dioramas, I’d felt the tyranny of the
specific. If every instance of the sexual could be plotted, turned
to symbols, catalogued, and boxed, could the emotions behind
our couplings and caresses also be assigned a symbol? Could
the museum place a “Λ” beside certain notations, so that some
were performed with love (Λ) and some without (−Λ)?
At the thought of this, it was as if Anne had left me again. Or,
rather, it was as if she came back and then left. I had, as I sat there,
a vivid memory of her. We’d been walking together along Kingston
Road when she showed me the steps down to Glen Stewart Park,
not far from where she lived. It was summer, my first time in that
green place, and I was enchanted by everything: the broad wooden
s
teps, the plank railing, the steep decline into the ravine, the
sound of the stream running through it. We were happy then,
and she turned to me, smiling, tucking a strand of light-brown
hair behind her ear and then kissing me, for no reason but pleasure
in the moment, knowing the pleasure was shared, taking pleasure
in the knowing, before we walked through the park, past houses
that were like modest mansions in some secret England.
As the memory overwhelmed me, I sat on the marble bench
in the Museum of Sex, feeling as devastated as if she’d just told
me – told me again – that she thought she loved someone else,
that she was sorry but we couldn’t go on, that it was her fault not
mine, that our stars were misaligned, that I shouldn’t call because
it was no use talking until she knew what she wanted, until I
knew how I felt, until we’d both had a chance to heal.
Painful as the moment was, however, release from my unhap-
piness came soon after. As I wondered about the connection
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between love and fleshy mechanics, I thought of the story Mr.
Henderson had told us about John Skennen and Carson
Michaels. Though the story sounded fanciful – more legend
than fact – I found, as I sat in the foyer, that I preferred the
story’s invention (its dishonesty, even) to the catalogue of
couplings and preferences housed in the museum. I preferred
the myths of intimacy to the facts of it. Professor Bruno had
speculated that Madame Madeg’s love for Baillie was evident in
her punishment of John Skennen. Long after Madeg’s proximity
to Baillie, her feelings for the man were still strong. That idea
brought me peace. Love was not just a superfluous part of what
bodies did, it was in the moments before and after the mechanics
as well. We were in the Canadian Museum of Sex not the Cana-
dian Museum of Love, after all. This simple and obvious realiza-
tion brought with it a more complicated puzzle: if we find love
with someone, as I had with Anne, was it possible to lose it when
that person was gone? Or did it, rather, stay within us: a perpetual
gift, an inexhaustible resource?
I was reminded of a poem by John Skennen:
A blue heron rose this morning from White Lake –
wings pulling at air, dangling feet encumbrances,
until it caught an updraft and was still
having found its daily elegance in flight.
Restless predator gone the lake unrippled
soothing the stump from which the bird had flown
setting cattails and reeds quietly rocking
shaking the birches and alders – their leaves.
O Canada, O my country
for whom am I meant to keep this love?
A list of things. But a list behind which there’s something
irreducible. On first reading the poem, I thought Skennen had
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been confused about which of his partners he was meant to love
and I’d found it strange that he’d ask his country’s help to decide.
But when I thought about it in the museum, it struck me that
Skennen’s feelings were caught in the web of things he’d listed:
herons, birches, cattails, alders, and leaves. The world – people
and things – brings us to love but it is not love itself. I might
have said those very words about my parents and Anne, that
they had brought me to love, that they were not love itself. That
they were gone from me could not spoil what they’d given.
Obvious though this idea might have been to others, it was a
revelation to me. So much so, that I began to feel as if our journey
– mine and the professor’s – was not to help Professor Bruno
but to help me, Alfred Homer. It briefly felt as if all were meant
for me, as if I’d generated everything in order to tell myself this
small thing. Then again, I suppose every traveller feels this,
because, in the end, every journey has a special – not general –
meaning, a meaning particular to each traveller. A strange idea:
that the professor was there to help me, not the other way around.
Just as I was thinking about him, Professor Bruno came out
of the museum. He was red-faced.
– My, my, my, he said. What an institution! I don’t think I’ve
ever seen anything like it. What did you think? I loved it! I’d say
this is one place where our tax dollars are well spent! And I’m
not ashamed to say I was quite aroused. At times, quite aroused.
On an unrelated note, Alfie, we’re going to Marsville.
Without meaning to challenge him, I said
– I thought we were going to Feversham.
He frowned, but only for a moment.
– Je te vois venir , Alfie! he said. Yes, all right, I am wary of
meeting John Skennen, so I’m wary of Feversham, too. I admit it.
But you’ve got to understand, my boy, that in my mind and in all
the work I’ve done, John Skennen is an artist and a brilliant
thinker. I’d hate to have that image of him destroyed by facts.
You see? The real Skennen could just as easily kill my version of
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him as improve it! And I don’t mind saying I think my version of
the man and his work is better than any real version could be.
I’m not a coward, Alfie. I can face reality. But we old people know
the cost of that confrontation more than you youngsters! I didn’t
know I’d feel this way when we started out, but there you have it.
I do feel this way. We’ll go to Feversham, don’t worry. But it’ll be
tomorrow. Not today. For today, I’ve made arrangements with
Michael to visit Michael’s home in Marsville. Such a pleasant
person! And so witty! Like finding an ounce of gold. We couldn’t
not go! Anyway, I’m sure you don’t mind. I’m very happy about it
myself. Very happy.
– Are we going to spend the night in Marsville? I asked.
– I’m not sure where we’ll spend the night. We’ll see how it
goes. Michael’s invited us for supper, but we’ll be eating after
six, once Michael finishes work. And it would be good for us to
take our time, get to know Michael and Michael’s roommate.
– Michael’s roommate?
– Oh, yes. Michael’s roommate will let us in. We can wait at
their house.
As we drove to Marsville, the professor was almost chatty.
– You should have stayed for the other exhibits, he said. I
can’t tell you how interesting it all was. Did you at least see the
Canadian Construction? Now that was fascinating! It’s a program
that allows you to create a Canadian lover. Imagine that! You
choose from a set of characteristics: mouths, eyes, accents, vocab-
ularies, the works! But all the aspects on offer are typically Cana-
dian, based on the population we have. There’s a large percentage
of European characteristics on offer, of course: brown hair, freck-
les, that sort of thing. So, if you want a Malaysian accent, you
have to ask for it, and the program might refuse, based on how
many Malaysian accents have been asked for that week. So, it’s a
surprise what you end up with. Very surprising. The program
<
br /> creates a hologram that can talk! I’m not ashamed to say I was
pleased with my hologram. Very lifelike. But Michael pointed
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out that my hologram looked exactly like Michael. That was an
embarrassing moment, Alfie, but … I went with it, as young people
say. And, after all, Michael is very attractive. I don’t mind saying
that if I were younger and if I could tell Michael’s gender, I’d be
fit for an adventure. I really would.
This was more information than I needed. But I didn’t want
him to think I disapproved.
– Why does Michael’s gender matter? I asked. Couldn’t you
have an adventure, anyway?
– Now, there, Alfie, is where you’re one up on me, he said. It’s
too late for the old professor! I’ve spent seventy years getting
used to a certain kind of plumbing. I’m too old to take things as
I find them. I need them as I’m used to them.
My question gave him something to reflect on, I think. He kept
quiet for a while, looking out his window at the late summer fields
– the land faded, the sky as if unwillingly blue, the bale-ready hay
lying out like a yellowish carpet. I worried that I’d saddened him,
but, when I looked over at him, the professor was smiling.
– Maybe I shouldn’t make assumptions, he said.
A mysterious sentence. I couldn’t tell if he was referring to
assumptions about Michael, assumptions about himself, or
assumptions about life in general. But I agreed with him, nodding
in an understanding way, and we continued along the Orangeville-
Fergus Road with nothing but flat fields, outcroppings of trees,
and the occasional farmhouse to distract us.
The directions to Michael’s home were vague – “Turn right at
13th Line” – but they were enough. The house wasn’t far from the
main road and it was painted white – white and blue, rather, the
window frames being indigo. To the left of the front door, there
was a patch of bat’s delight ( Asclepias onterica) – dark green leaves,
crimson “bars” (transverse pistils), the plants at full height touching
the aprons of the windows on the first floor.
(The first time I ever saw bat’s delight was at the Musical
Gardens in Toronto. There was a patch of it on a hillock facing
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the lake, its crimson pistils vivid. But the plant is best seen in
early evening. Asclepius onterica is a natural calmative for bats,
