by André Alexis
colour away as they passed, leaving only the idea of blue.
How strange, I thought, that only hours before, wild beasts had
chased me to Clare’s cottage. It didn’t seem possible that I’d almost
been torn to shreds in what now felt like a sacred grove. As if the
world agreed with me, when I looked back toward Clare’s cottage,
it was gone – shrouded by mist, my dangerous night erased.
As I passed the willows and left the clearing, I finally saw
another being, someone in the distance. Between us was the well-
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kept road. Above us the blue of the sky had returned. The sunlight
was brighter. The leaves of the trees were exactly the green of the
grass. The morning had a limited palette – blue, yellow, green,
brown – but this limitation corresponded to my own. My mind
was as limited as the morning’s. I could take in the physical
world, but when, for instance, I was reminded of a poem by John
Skennen, it came back to me in only vaguely meaningful form.
As I approached the path, I saw that the person I’d seen was
a man and he was wiping the stones on the ground. I greeted him
but he didn’t even look up. He was intent on what he was doing,
all of his labour given to the task he believed in. I remember
being impressed by his devotion. More: I could feel the depth of
his devotion, as if I myself were a believer keeping the path clean
for others. Feeling this, there came such a flood of emotion that
the rest of the way to Reverend Crosbie’s was like a deepening
revelation, the approach of something undeniable, something
beyond interpretation. I finally felt, I think, the love that my
father used to speak of, a love for creation itself, whether you
believed in God or not. That is, as I walked into Feversham I felt
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increasing joy until I was overwhelmed, the love within me meet-
ing the love I felt from the world around me. I was accounted for
and taken in, taken in so completely that there was no longer any
need for me to be a self. The boundary between Alfred Homer
and the world was erased. There was no revelation or communion.
There was, instead, a blissful fading away of my self as I walked.
And when this feeling had lasted for what seemed an eternity,
I woke in Reverend Crosbie’s guest room with the reverend
herself in a chair beside me, her hand on my shoulder.
– You’re back, she said. Are you hungry?
Hearing the word hungry, I was fully awake and I was Alfred
Homer again, and I was famished.
– I’m not surprised, said Reverend Crosbie. You haven’t eaten
in three days.
Before this journey to Feversham, I’d have said I had no religious
impulses. The religious was my father’s domain. All my life, until
he died, Pastor Homer tried to teach me about the things that
meant most to him: God, Love, the sacredness of fidelity, the
near insignificance of the human in the great scheme of things.
I’d listened, of course, because my father was a kind man and I
loved him. But I never felt as if his language (“gospels,’ “saints,’
“Jesus of Nazareth,’ etc.) belonged to me.
After what happened in the clearing, I was still (mostly) irre-
ligious. But I felt irreligious in a different way. Having experienced
what I did, it seemed to me that religion – its language, biblical
advice, sacred ritual, and so on – was insignificant to the universe.
I now felt that the universe is and that one is and that sermons,
prayers, and vows were all an outdated way of pointing to depths
you could not reach. Whereas previously I’d accepted that what
my father did was necessary, I was now unsure. Pastor Homer’s
church seemed to me like an abandoned train station, weeds
growing up through the sunken platform, tiles from the station
roof scattered about, a haven for rats and garter snakes.
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Also: I wasn’t sure that the vision I’d had and the dissolving
I’d felt weren’t purely personal things, the products of my own
brain and chemistry. If that were the case, what was the point of
bringing God into it? Better to treat it as a private matter. Better
to try, like John Stephens had, to understand what I’d meant to
tell myself. It couldn’t be that the whole episode was random,
could it? Yes, maybe. But even if the vision of a woman and
wolves had been a spasm of the mind, there was still the oneness
I’d felt, the dissolution. I’d never felt anything like it. I’d never
felt anything so true. And, as I lay in Reverend Crosbie’s guest
room, I came to think that maybe, after all, I had had an inkling
of the divine, an inkling of the thing my father had spent his life
pointing to.
In light of my dumbfounding, I was glad Professor Bruno and
I stayed in Feversham until the following day, the day after I was
pulled from the clearing. We decided to stay because Reverend
Crosbie wanted to know all the details of my experience. And,
hearing about her interest, Professor Bruno decided that he, too,
had questions for me. I’d gone through something similar to what
John Skennen had gone through. Maybe there was some insight
to be gained from my experience.
So, I became Professor Bruno’s subject.
I found it difficult to talk about what I’d been through because
I found it impossible to say when my hallucinations had begun.
One minute I was a certain Alfred Homer and the next I was
eating Oniaten with a lycanthrope. In fact, immediately following
my return to consciousness, I had more questions for Reverend
Crosbie and the professor than they had for me.
What, I wondered, had my experience looked like from the
outside?
– Well, said Reverend Crosbie, you walked into the clearing
with thirty pilgrims and you passed out.
– Yes, said Professor Bruno, you fell right into the apples, as
the French say. You barely got past the willows.
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– It wasn’t just you, said Reverend Crosbie. A number of
pilgrims fell where you did.
– How many? I asked.
– Two or three, said Reverend Crosbie.
– Four or five, said Professor Bruno.
The rest of the pilgrims walked on and prayed, leaving those
who’d passed out where they were.
– You know, said Reverend Crosbie, I’ve been to the clearing
most days I’ve been here. I’ve wished for what happened to you
to happen to me. I’ve even wondered if there’s something wrong
with me. But in your case, Alfred, I’d say there’s something right
with you. God found you fit to commune with.
– But that depends, said Professor Bruno, on whether this
vision has anything at all to do with this god of yours, dear lady.
It’s possible that young Alfie here was influenced by all the talk
about Feversham. It’s no surprise people are always having
visions at Lourdes, because they’re always talking about visions
in Lourdes. It’s auto-suggestion. Alfie had a vision, of course he
did, but
there’s no need to turn him into a prophet, you know.
– Yes, said Reverend Crosbie, I agree. But the reason for a
vision is less important than the vision itself, eh? And its conse-
quences. Isaac Newton was as loopy as a crazy man, but we take
his vision of a mechanistic universe seriously, don’t we?
Professor Bruno looked at her as if seeing an old friend for the
first time in a while. I could almost feel his admiration and surprise.
– Dear Reverend Crosbie, he said, we’re in complete agreement.
If they were in complete agreement, that must have been the
only time they were, at least while Professor Bruno and I were in
Feversham. It wasn’t a matter of discord or dislike. I’m sure the
professor admired Reverend Crosbie as much as I did. She
reminded us both of my father. But although Professor Bruno
and Reverend Crosbie were people who loved ideas, they used
them very differently. I feel a little guilty saying this, but I do
think that ideas mattered more to Reverend Crosbie. She did
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not want to mislead anyone, so she was careful with her argu-
ments. For Professor Bruno, on the other hand, the whole busi-
ness – ideas and arguments – was part of a game in which we
humans can’t help being misled, because thought itself is mislead-
ing. Truth, for him, was like a miracle that happened despite us.
It’s no surprise, then, that the only time one of them got angry, it
was Reverend Crosbie getting angry at the professor.
A further un-surprise: the point over which they argued most
was the meaning of my vision.
For Professor Bruno, it was all a psychological matter. As far
as he was concerned, the episode with Clare – the terror and
distress – was a way of punishing myself for my earthy desires.
But then, having proved myself faithful to a woman I love (Anne),
I allowed myself to experience an ecstasy greater than the physical
pleasure I might have had with Clare.
– I don’t want to embarrass you, my boy, but this vision you
had is obviously psychosexual. Just think about the hand you
ate! You and this Clare woman sitting at a table – just you and
Clare – and what are you doing? You’re eating a hand. You’re
symbolically depriving yourselves of one of the means we all
have of giving ourselves sexual pleasure: manustupration.
Although Professor Bruno found the “arena” of my visions
“obvious” – the arena being the psychosexual – he had kind
words to say about my use of symbols. Wolves, hands, salad,
shoes, painted moons. He found the whole array of symbols
wonderful. He was especially taken by the moons, which, he said,
likely pointed to a hidden, mysterious aspect of myself. The
professor wondered if the point of my vision wasn’t to tell myself
that I was homosexual.
– But I don’t think I am homosexual, I said.
– Really? he asked. Don’t you think it’s significant that you
denied yourself any desire for Clare, the woman, but then had
your most ecstatic moment after seeing a man wiping moisture
off the road?
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To be polite, I told him that I saw his point. But my feelings
on awakening in the clearing hadn’t been sexual. And the sexual
feelings I had experienced had been for Anne, with whom I had
actually made love, in real life.
– Oh, he said, the real world has no place here. What you
experienced wasn’t real. It was symbolic.
– You mean I’m symbolically homosexual? I asked.
– I think all the signs point to it, he answered.
– But what does that mean? asked Reverend Crosbie.
– I think it means, said Professor Bruno, that on some deep
level, Alfie here is ashamed of the desire he feels for women, and
this entire episode may be his way of admitting to himself his
longing for men.
Reverend Crosbie said
– Do you really think that’s likely?
– I’m not sure, said Professor Bruno. Maybe I’m being too
aggressively Freudian. It’s part of my training. But you can’t deny
the element of shame in there. Then again, it could be more of a
class-based shame, a Marxist vision. That was part of my training,
too. I wrote my master’s on Louis Althusser. So … the way Alfie,
in this vision, manages not to exploit Clare and the way he finds
pleasure in being one with the collective. There are certainly
Marxist avenues we could explore. But what’s your take on this,
my dear Reverend Crosbie?
Reverend Crosbie expressed sympathy for a Marxist inter-
pretation. She wasn’t Marxist herself, but she believed in
absolute equality before the Lord. So, some version of the “human
collective” had always appealed to her, whether it was Marxist
or Christian, Buddhist or Keynesian. But, as concerned my
vision, she was hesitant to contradict Professor Bruno. She
agreed that, of course, some degree of shame had played a part.
But the detail that mattered to her most was the fact that, in my
vision, I hadn’t been attacked by the wolves.
– I think it’s because I didn’t desire Clare, I said.
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– Yes, she answered, and that’s an interesting point. But what
if the reason they didn’t attack you is that you were filled with
desire, one of the purest feelings, and the wolves took you for
one of their own? There are religions where wolves are sacred,
you know. In Norse mythology, the wolf Fenrir is a god. And the
Egyptians painted Anubis, god of the underworld, as a wolf …
– Your bible doesn’t much care for wolves, though, does it?
Professor Bruno said.
– I know that, said Reverend Crosbie, but we’re talking about
symbols, aren’t we? And wolves sometimes do represent God.
– They represent the devil, too, said the professor.
– Yes, said Reverend Crosbie. And the Devil is a fallen angel.
In mythology, gods and devils are often taken for each other. It’s
an important distinction, but, as people say, it’s a wise man who
can tell God from Satan. To me it simply makes sense that once
Alfred is accepted by the wolves – and even finds himself sleeping
outdoors like a wolf – he experiences the oneness that erases
the line between the human and the divine.
– But what about the hands, then? asked the professor. What
do the hands mean?
– Well, said Reverend Crosbie, I don’t think everything has to
have a meaning, do you? It’s important to know what has meaning
and what doesn’t. But hands are a symbol of God, you know. It
could be that when Alfred was eating a hand, he was taking in a
divine characteristic. Catholics eat the body of Christ, don’t they?
Professor Bruno scratched his chin.
– I’m not sure there’s ever respite from meaning, he said. All
things tend to mean something.
– There must be respite from meaning, eventually, said
Reverend Crosbie. I can’t imagine an afterworld of calculus.
– My dear lady, said the professor, if you can imagine an<
br />
afterworld at all, you’re imagining pure calculus.
I hadn’t been any more or less convinced by Reverend Cros-
bie’s interpretation of my vision than I had been by Professor
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Bruno’s. I thought about it, though. I looked up at the sky through
the guest room window. There was a sinuous column of smoke,
like a pokey cobra ascending from a barbecue down the road.
– Reverend Crosbie, I said, do you think God is a civilizing
influence or does God call us to wilderness?
Professor Bruno jumped in.
– Ah, he said, now there’s a good question! God is an unim-
peachable call to wilderness, Alfie. As soon as you hear the word
God, you should think forest!
– I really don’t think that’s true, said Reverend Crosbie. When
you’re in the wilderness, a person might think about God, so as
not to despair. I believe civilization is one of the gifts we get
from the Lord.
– Well, there I think you’re wrong, my dear Reverend Crosbie.
Of all the ideas humans have come up with, civilization is one of
frailest. All is illusion except wilderness!
– I don’t think I’m wrong and it’s rude of you to say so. You
have no more idea than I do about God.
– My dear Reverend Crosbie, you’ve winged me! You’ve shot
me down! I didn’t mean to be rude! I shouldn’t have said you were
wrong but I couldn’t help myself. Before there were civilizations,
there was wilderness. When civilizations crumble, there’ll be wilder-
ness. If there’s a God and if you’re going to associate this God
with something, it should be with the wild, not with civilization.
– But that’s not the question! God is in the wild and the
civilized. The question was whether God is a civilizing influence
or a call to wilderness. At the very least, God gives humans a
sense of order, a sense that we are not the centre of the universe.
With order comes civilization. It may be a frail idea, but when
you think of God, you don’t think of going into the wild and
killing things, do you?
– You said yourself, dear lady, that Fenrir was a god. When I
think about Fenrir, I certainly think about going into the wild
and killing things.
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– Please don’t call me “dear lady,’ said Reverend Crosbie. It’s
condescending. Fenrir is an aspect of God. Fenrir is a version of
God the destroyer because God is also a destroyer.
