by André Alexis
perpetually clutching, while the hair between knuckles and joints
was thick. Added to that, they shook uncontrolledly.
I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never seen a “laying on of
hands,’ as Professor Bruno later called it. I took Maury’s right
hand between my own hands as if I were incubating it. Then,
with his hand lying in the palm of mine, I made clockwise circles
around his joints and knuckles with my thumb and index finger.
I did the same with his left hand, but by the time I had his left
hand in mine, the man was quietly crying, tears falling from his
face while he sniffled.
When I was done, the swelling on both of his hands had
gone down and he could make and unmake a fist with no pain.
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Still in tears, he took my right hand, kissed it and held it to him,
and croaked the words
– God bless you! God bless you!
over and over until I took my hand away.
– Well, that’s extraordinary, said Professor Bruno.
After their initial enthusiasm, everyone else kept quiet. They
moved away from me. Then, one of the men in ponytails spoke.
– What in the fuck did I just see? he said.
I imagine all of those in Tims were just as unnerved. And,
finding the whole thing unbearably strange, I forcefully shep-
herded Professor Bruno out of the place while Maury talked
about how like a sunny day it was not to feel pain.
We drove on across Southern Ontario – grey road, green or un-
greening fields, woods bisected by grey roads – without much
talk. For once, Professor Bruno seemed more confused by what
had happened than I was. It looked as if he were desperately
thinking Seaforth through. My own thoughts and feelings were
too jumbled to share. I was both proud and horrified, doubtful
and certain.
We were at Mitchell when Professor Bruno said
– What did you do to that man, Alfie?
– I think I cured his arthritis, I said.
– But you know that’s unlikely, don’t you? I’ve been thinking
it over and I think it’s more likely the power of suggestion. The
man himself asked if you were a healer. He was desperate for
one. And when I foolishly said you were a healer, he believed it
wholeheartedly! He couldn’t have believed it more. So, when
you touched his hands – and let me just say that was a magnifi-
cent performance! as dramatic as if you’d really been a healer! –
but when you touched his hands, Alfie, he did all the work. He
cured himself. His brain manufactured its own analgesic and –
voila! – he was cured. I feel for the poor man because by now he
must be in terrible pain. Without the relief your presence gave
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him, he’ll suffer like hell. But that’s not your doing. Not your
doing at all! Besides, you couldn’t have been kinder. Your mother
would be proud!
– I’m sure you’re right, Professor. But I did feel a kind of
current go between us.
– That just shows you were under your own spell, Alfie. And
good for you! The more you believe a thing, the more others’ll
believe it. Now, who’d have thought young Alfred Homer, son of
a pastor, would make a good confidence man? Not me! But I think
you saved our skin back there. I don’t know what those people
would have done to us. Especially the two in ponytails. If that old
man hadn’t cured himself, we’d have been in real trouble.
I said nothing. I was still trying to work things out for myself.
Despite my feeling that some kind of current had passed between
Maury and me, I thought the professor’s explanation was likely
right. Maury had more or less cured himself. But the professor
seemed to take my silence as a challenge to his idea. He sounded
peeved when he said
– You don’t really believe you can cure people, do you? Just
like that?
– No, I said, I’m sure you’re right.
After that, neither of us spoke until we got into Barrow, a
while later. Our silence added to the strangeness of the day. I’d
never seen – or is it heard? – Professor Bruno keep so deliber-
ately quiet for so long. Under normal circumstances, I’d have
prompted him for conversation. But the idea that I’d kept some-
one from pain – just the possibility of it – was overwhelming. I
wanted to know for certain if what I’d done for Maury had been
a fluke or if I’d been granted a new talent, some kind of enhanced
sympathy – which is what it had felt like when I’d held Maury’s
hands in mine.
The little I knew about Barrow came from a novel I’d read
called Pastoral. I don’t remember much of the story. It was about
women fighting over a man, and a priest struggling with himself.
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I’d read it out of curiosity, mostly. It had been recommended to
me for the way the author describes the countryside, the flora in
particular. In fact, I’d enjoyed the book for that reason. And I
thought of Pastoral when we drove into Barrow, because the first
thing I noticed, just after the town sign, was a ditch overrun by
thistles, a plant poignantly described in the novel – their bright
purple tufts distracting from their thorns.
I’ve always thought thistles wonderful for the come-hither/go-
away-ness of them, furiously flirting with bees while daring
anything else to touch them. I’ve been stung by their thorns a
dozen times in my life – mostly by accident, falling on them
while playing in fields – but it never turned me against them.
I’ve never found them anything but fascinating.
It was noon when I parked across the street from the main
square, a village green with a statue, park benches, and a flower
garden full of yellow tulips. Having time to kill before Mr.
Stephens came home, we ate at Ari’s Charred Grill, a diner that
looked like diners everywhere: booths, tables at the back, a sit-
down counter with swivelling stools. It also felt the way diners
feel: homey, because the grill smelled of cooking hamburger, and
homey because you could dress almost any way you liked and be
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welcome, but also strange, because you could never be sure how
friendly the patrons actually were.
Ari’s was run by a man whose name was – no surprise –
Aristotle. He was short, dumpling-shaped, bald, and he seemed
to dislike Professor Bruno on sight. But he seemed to like me,
also on sight. He brought us a complimentary tomato soup with
macaroni, suggested we try the pork souvlaki, and then asked if
I happened to be a healer.
– Oh! You think Ari is genius! he said when he saw the look
on my face.
It turned out, though, that his brother Dimos had been in
Seaforth and had witnessed what I’d done at Tim’s. Ari had
guessed – a little wildly – that I was the “Black healer,” but the
fact that he’d rightly guessed pleased him no end.
– You have lots of money, he said, but you don’t have to
spend it here! You eat f
or free if you help with my dogs.
Whereas in previous towns, we’d been mistaken for other
people, the professor and I, it now felt as if I’d been mistaken for
myself. Professor Bruno came to my defence.
– He’s not doing that healing thing now, he said. He’s
eating lunch.
– You I don’t listen to, said Ari. You are manager.
He pretended to spit on the floor.
– Like vampire, he said. Only reason I let you stay is him. So,
don’t get nosy!
The diner was quiet. Anyone who wasn’t already looking at
us turned to get a look. Ari put up his hand.
– But you eat first, he said to me. First you eat!
I hadn’t ordered much: a hamburger and a glass of water. The
professor had, “in a moment of nostalgia,’ ordered a grilled cheese
sandwich. But while he got what he’d asked for, I got a hamburger,
pork souvlaki, orange juice, coffee, and a Greek salad – lettuce
with feta crumbled on it, olive oil, olives, tomato slices. It would
have been too much for me even at my hungriest, but I made an
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effort to finish all of it, believing as I do – as my parents taught
me – that food is as much a privilege as it is a right.
When I’d eaten as much as I could, Ari himself cleared the
dishes from our table and snapped his fingers. Almost immedi-
ately, his wife brought a box to our table. In the box were two
small dogs that looked nearly dead, though one of them growled
as if to prove me wrong. I suppose, at some point, they had both
been beautiful animals: Italian Greyhounds.
– We had accidents, Ari said.
When he took the dogs out, I could see what he meant. One
of them had been run over by a car. Its back legs were flattened.
As he lifted it from the box, it cried out raised, its head slightly,
too tired to do anything more, and lay on the tabletop, as still as
if it meant to escape further detection. The other was in worse
shape. No one knew what had happened – a fight of some sort,
it seemed, and most likely with another dog. One of its ears was
bitten almost off and it was still bleeding from the head. Ari put
down a white towel before putting the dogs gently on the table.
Ari’s wife said
– Patina’s been in an accident and Pietra got into a fight.
Please do something.
Now all the patrons were crowded around. I was even more
intimidated than I’d been in Seaforth. Having taken the box off
the table, Ari sat across from me and smiled. His wife sat beside
him, Professor Bruno having been relegated to the sidelines. I
could feel a collective desire for something.
– What do you want me to do? I asked.
– Make them better, said Ari’s wife.
– I don’t know if I can, I said.
– Oh, like my cousin says, he’s modest. You touch dogs. See
what happens.
Out of the blue. Those words came to me then, as I looked at
the creatures before me. I felt a rush of sympathy for both of
them. I also wondered if I could lessen their suffering, if I was
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capable of it. This was the moment to see what I could do, to see
if Seaforth had been a lucky coincidence: me touching Maury’s
hands while Maury’s belief in me eased his pain. If I helped these
dogs, it would be proof that I’d changed in Feversham, changed
in some fundamental way.
I started with Patina. Stroking her back with one hand, I touched
the places where she’d been run over with the other. It was imme-
diately as if a current passed through the back part of her body,
the part that had been crushed. Her back legs kicked out. Then, no
doubt as shocked as I was, she got up, bit me so that my hand
bled, jumped down from the table, and, making her way among
the legs of the spectators, ran out the back of the diner.
I barely noticed I’d been bitten. I concentrated on Pietra. I
touched her head, stroked her neck, and – this was the uncanny
moment – somehow healed her ear so that, if you didn’t know it
had been almost bitten through, you’d never have guessed it had
been bitten at all. She got up in less of a state than Patina had.
She licked my hand where I was bleeding, before Ari’s wife took
her and held her as if she were a child.
Everybody now looked at me. I looked at Professor Bruno.
– We’ve got to be going, said Professor Bruno. We’ve got an
appointment.
A thin, older woman, alarmed and puzzled, said
– How did you do that?
But Ari, who’d been quietly watching, told her to be quiet.
– He has somewhere to go, he should go. But we wash
hands first.
By which he meant that they would wash my hands. The
woman asked again
– How did you do that?
Ari pushed her aside, not gently, and told her to shut her
mouth. Evidently, he felt a similar dislike for her as he’d felt for
the professor. He returned to our table with soap and warm water,
clean towels and bandages. Nor would he let me clean my own
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hands. He took each one in turn, washed it, dried it. He dressed
the one the dog had bitten with bandages. When this ritual was
done, people began to talk, all of them all at once, it seemed. It
was now that Professor Bruno proved his concern for me.
– That’s enough! he said. My son’s done everything you asked.
Get out of the way and let us go!
I think it must have been his tone: loud, forceful, parental. It
calmed people down. And when Ari looked as if he were going
to interrupt, the professor said
– How dare you keep him here, sir! He’s done enough for
you. Get out of our way.
Taking me by the elbow, he moved me through the crowd.
When we were at the door, Ari said
– What about grilled cheese?
– Your dogs paid for it, said Professor Bruno.
I have no idea what Ari’s reaction was. I was amazed at what
I’d done. A number of people followed us out of the diner, but
the professor, who’d taken me by the arm, led me directly to the
car, and, once I’d got behind the wheel, slammed the door after
me. We drove off in the direction of John Stephens’s home. But
when we got there, the professor again put his hand on my arm
– this time, to hold me back.
– All right, Alfred, he said. I want you to tell me what’s going
on. This isn’t normal. What are you doing?
– I’m healing things, I said.
– I can see you’re healing things, Alfie, but how? Those dogs
were in horrible shape. How did you heal them?
I couldn’t answer him, but that didn’t stop the professor from
trying to find an answer for himself.
– It’s mass hypnosis, he said. It can’t be anything else. Don’t
you think so, Alfie? Otherwise what we have is miracles and, to
be honest, I don’t believe in miracles.
– I don’t know what you mean, Professor. Do you mean I
didn’t help those dogs?
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– That’s exactly w
hat I mean! You’ve found a way to convince
us all – even the dogs! – that you’ve healed them. But once the
spell is broken, the dogs will discover that they’re still horribly
wounded and that’ll be the end of that. Everything will go back
to normal.
– But one of them ran out of the diner, I said. It couldn’t
have done that before.
– Such is the power of suggestion, said Professor Bruno.
Our minds are our supplest instruments. Supplest and most
powerful. Those dogs thought they were cured. So, they acted
like it, at least for now. I bet you they’ll be half-dead again before
we leave town. That’s the answer, Alfie. I’m sure of it! This was
all suggestion! Very impressive, though. Very impressive.
Having reassured himself that the world was as he thought it,
Professor Bruno stepped out of the car, leaving me to wonder
what the extent of my capacities might be. I believed him – or
wanted to believe him – when he said that the healing was done
by suggestion. It was still strange that I’d suddenly learned how
to convince a man his arthritis was cured, to convince dogs that
they hadn’t been run over or hadn’t been bitten. But “suggestion”
was such a reasonable way around the unreasonable that it was
difficult to dismiss. Then again, for Professor Bruno, almost
everything had to do with mind, with thought. Even truth –
which he didn’t think humans could reach by argument – was a
thing of the mind to him. So, of course, he’d reduce this healing
to psychology. I wasn’t ready to disbelieve him, but I wasn’t
convinced by his words.
We got to Mr. Stephens’s house before two, but he was home
already. He answered the door and invited us in.
– It’s nice to see you again, Professor, he said as he shook
Professor Bruno’s hand.
He didn’t shake my hand. He looked at my face and then
hugged me. From that moment, it was clear we wouldn’t be speak-
ing of John Skennen. Mr. Stephens, too, had heard about the
195
incident in Seaforth. Ari’s wife, a friend of Mrs. Stephens, had
called to tell her what had happened in Seaforth and at Ari’s,
and Mrs. Stephens had then told her own husband.
– It’s amazing how quickly news travels through these small
towns, said Professor Bruno.
– You’re right about that, said Mr. Stephens. You can’t fart in
Bright’s Grove without everyone for two counties knowing about it.
