by André Alexis
– I wonder, said the professor, if we could talk a little more
about what Southern Ontario has meant for your work.
Mr. Stephens did not look away from me.
– I’d be happy to, he said. But could we do it later? I’d like to
talk to Alfred for a little while. Do you mind?
– Not at all, said the professor. I’m most interested in what
you two have to say.
– Yes, said Mr. Stephens, but for now I’d like a few minutes
alone with Alfred. Just the two of us. I hope you understand. I
feel like he and I have been through something similar, something
I need to talk about with him. We’ll talk about anything you like
later, Professor.
– I understand perfectly, said Professor Bruno.
I’m not sure he did understand – nor could he hide his disap-
pointment – but we left him in the living room, sitting on a couch
whose side table held a bottle of Scotch, a pitcher of ice water,
and a cup of coffee. Hanging on the wall behind the couch was a
large framed painting of a black umbrella.
– That painting was commissioned by my father, Mr. Stephens
said, in honour of his father, the inventor.
– It’s marvellous, said Professor Bruno. A fitting tribute.
– Thank you, said Mr. Stephens. It’s one of the few I like.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “few,’ until we went out to the
coach house he’d built for himself. There, in what I first took to
be a large garage, there were some twenty or thirty paintings of
umbrellas. The walls were crowded with them and those that
weren’t hanging were stacked against a wall.
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– My dad was a little ocd, said Mr. Stephens. He commis-
sioned a painting of an umbrella every year from the time he
inherited my granddad’s wealth until he died. I think they’re
ugly, but I can’t throw them away. My father cast no shadow in
this life. You know what I mean? These are the only things I
have of his.
The coach house was spacious. If it had been a garage, it
could easily have accommodated three cars. There were windows
in all four walls and stairs that led up to a loft. There were five
bookcases filled with works of poetry.
– I don’t write poetry anymore, said Mr. Stephens, but I still
love to read it.
Against one wall, beneath the painting of a red umbrella, there
was a wooden table on which a candle, a squat block of white, sat.
Mr. Stephens used a match to light it, and the place soon smelled
of vanilla. There were three more objects on the table: a square of
writing paper, a square of white paper on which there was a grain
of something, and a dead mouse. He asked me to sit in the chair
facing the mouse and, though it made me uncomfortable to see
the poor creature curled up as if sleeping, I sat down.
– I don’t believe in miracles, said Mr. Stephens, but there are
things I don’t understand. And I want to tell you some of them,
for your own protection.
The town of Feversham had been sacred ground for centuries.
The Indigenous people who knew about it long before it was
“Feversham” left no written record. The clearing they’d made was
rediscovered by settlers in the 1800s, but it didn’t become an
“acknowledged secret” until sometime in 1957, when a man named
Robert van den Bosch began carving a road to the clearing by
himself. People thought him insane, but men and women have
been coming to it since then.
– I’m sure Reverend Crosbie told you all you need to know
about it, said Mr. Stephens. But there are things she doesn’t know
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because she’s never had a vision. The biggest thing she doesn’t
know is that there are two kinds of visionaries: some who receive
visions and some who are given more. I know which kind you are
already, but I’d like you to do me a favour. You see those three
things in front of you? Touch them for me, would you? When you
touch the paper, think of fire. When you touch the grain of sand,
think of a beach. When you touch the mouse, do what you did in
Seaforth. Once you’ve done that, I’ll tell you my story.
I did what I was asked, but in reverse order. I put my hand on
the mouse, and after a moment I could feel it moving. When I
opened my hand, it climbed into my palm as if for protection, its
heart beating so quickly it almost made my own heart race.
– I’ll take that from you, said Mr. Stephens.
He cupped the little creature in his hands and let it loose in
his yard.
– Go on, he said. Do the sand.
I put my hand over the grain of sand and waited. But nothing
happened. I then put my hand on the piece of paper and, again,
nothing happened.
– Isn’t it strange? said Mr. Stephens. Look.
He put his hand over the grain of sand, then lifted it so I
could see the sand had multiplied. There was now a clump of
sand, its many grains indistinguishable from the first.
– I feel like I’m dreaming, I said.
– Don’t we all, said Mr. Stephens.
– What about the piece of paper? I asked.
– Oh, he said, I can’t do anything with that. The last man I
saw set paper on fire lives in Toronto, like you. His name’s Ray
Stasiulis. Do you know him?
When I said I didn’t, Mr. Stephens sat down on the other
side of the table from me.
– It’s not that I think you know everyone in Toronto, he said.
It’s that people with these gifts often find each other. I mean,
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without looking. I met Ray while I was dead drunk on the
Danforth one night. I can’t remember anything about the night,
except I met Ray and that was before I went to Feversham. There
must be some reason behind all this. There’s got to be some
reason I can do this and you can do that and some people can
set things on fire. But if there is, I can’t figure it out.
– It does seem like a miracle, I said.
– It does, I admit it. But to call it a miracle I’d have to believe
in God and I don’t. I believe the universe is beyond reason and I
accept that. But if God were behind all this, I’d say God is less
God than an agent of chaos. Like a randomizer. What else would
you call these contraventions of the laws of physics?
– Are there many people who can do this? I asked.
– A handful, he said. But you’re the first of your kind I’ve
seen for twenty years. Most of the people who’re changed are
fire starters. Do you know, Alfred? That mouse was dead for two
days. At least two days. I found it in one of our traps two days
ago and I kept it because I’d heard you’d had a vision and I
wondered if you’d been changed. And now that I see that you
have been, I can’t tell you this enough: keep this to yourself. I
mean, from now on, keep it to yourself.
Mr. Stephens put his hand on the pile of sand and it grew.
– I suppose I should be grateful for this ability, he said.
But I find it more complicated than anything else. I�
��ve had to
hide my nature.
Much of what he’d told us at his daughter’s house had been
what you could call true. He had been devastated by the loss of
Carson Michaels. And he’d spent a year or so in mourning,
unconcerned with his mental or physical well-being. He had been
rescued, if you could call it that, by a man named Kit who’d
apparently snatched him from the clutches of evil. (On the night
in question, he’d been drunk out of his mind. So, he couldn’t
vouch for the truth of the possessed pig, etc.) And, after venturing
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into the clearing in Feversham, he had hallucinated: a woman
touching his shoulder, an offer to find his beloved, the prospect
of abandoning poetry.
His life had changed after that vision in Feversham, yes, but
not because of it, no.
Leaving Feversham, he’d decided to go to London, where his
mother lived. Reverend Crosbie had driven him to Collingwood,
given him bus fare, and made him a ham sandwich for the trip. It
should have been a dull journey, five hours of country window-
licking. But the man beside him – large, American, and diabetic
– warned him that, because of his diabetes and the fact he’d left
his food in his suitcase in the belly of the bus, he might begin to
act irrationally. Not fifteen minutes after the warning, the man
began to talk out loud about his aunt Patty and her big muff. The
American seemed to find the word muf f hilarious – his aunt was
a guitarist in a Go-Go’s cover band and the “Big Muff π” was one
of her effects pedals – but his hilarity seemed unnatural. Distress
came through. It was like sitting beside someone who was losing
his battle with sanity.
Mr. Stephens had been saving the ham sandwich for himself,
but to refuse it to a diabetic would have been cruel. Reaching
into the paper bag, Reverend Crosbie had given him, he found
there were two sandwiches. Which was just as well because the
man beside him snatched one of them and, hands shaking, bolted
it down. His shaking stopped at once but he asked if he could
have another sandwich. Not for right now but for somewhere
between Barrie and Toronto when, he just knew, he’d be hungry
again. Feeling sorry for the man, Stephens reached into the bag
and found that, no, Reverend Crosbie had in fact left him three
sandwiches. He gave one of these to his neighbour and, this
time, counted the sandwiches left: one.
When, somewhere around Hamilton, he decided to eat,
Stephens found he had two sandwiches left, the one he’d taken
from the bag and one left in it. He took this second sandwich out
200
and found there was another in the bag. He took out eleven sand-
wiches before he accepted that something was very strange.
– I’ve got to be honest, said Mr. Stephens, this thing fright-
ened the hell out of me.
In other words, he was in the same state I’d been in at the
Tims in Seaforth: convinced that there was something wrong with
the universe or something wrong with him. For the hour it took
him to reach London, he examined the paper sack Reverend Cros-
bie had given him, convinced there was some flaw in it that would
explain what had happened. He didn’t touch the sandwiches. He
threw everything out at the bus depot in London.
– Do you know London? Mr. Stephens asked. It’s the dullest
city on earth, but it’s home. I know my way around without having
to think about it. Not that I was thinking when I got home. I was
so hungry, I went to a Chinese food place across from the depot.
A buffet with chicken balls and lemon sauce. That kind of thing.
I’d filled my plate and sat down but there was no salt in the
shaker. Almost no salt. I shook the shaker out in my palm, just to
see how much there was. A few grains came out and then they
multiplied and multiplied, and, in a few seconds, my palm was
so full of salt that the grains were falling onto the table!
Mr. Stephens lost his appetite. The thing he felt wasn’t joy or
wonder. It was guilt, as if he’d committed a crime. Then, too,
there was the torment of his search for logical explanations. As
if reason would free him from guilt. He wondered if what he
thought had happened – the multiplying of ham sandwiches and
salt – had actually happened. Perhaps, he thought, he was still in
Feversham hallucinating or, perhaps, on a hospital gurney some-
where, delusional.
Two days after the incident with the salt shaker, he was visited
by a woman named Katerina Ranevsky-Bush. She was dressed in
sackcloth so thick it made him itchy to see it. Nor did she seem
to be wearing anything under it. But she had on expensive running
shoes. Her dark hair was as clean and neat as if she’d recently
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had it permed and she had a black-metal lunch box, the kind
construction workers carry. Mr. Stephens was not inclined to let
her in, especially as he was still trying to understand what had
happened to him.
She managed to put him at ease, though.
– I was in Feversham, she said. I spoke to Reverend Crosbie
and she told me where you were. Do you mind if I come in? I
might be able to help you.
And she did help him.
– She did almost the same thing for me that I’ve done for
you, he said.
In her lunch box, she had a dead dove, a square of paper, an
ashtray, and a grain of sand. His touch affected the sand, hers
brought the dove to life. The paper persisted, unburnt in its
ashtray. Naturally, he had questions. None of which she answered
to his satisfaction because Katerina believed in both God and
miracles and felt that the miraculous was as characteristic of life
as were sunsets or hazel eyes. She was practical about it, too. It
was her burden that she was a healer. She’d had to change her
life to accommodate this ability, to accommodate God’s will. He
would have to do the same. To that end, he should avoid thinking
of increase when touching things, unless he wanted to multiply
them. The best way to do that was to learn how not to want.
Whatever his spiritual beliefs, he’d have to live like a Buddhist.
Mr. Stephens said:
– Each of these gifts bring difficulties, Alfred. They all call
for control and stealth. You don’t want people to know about
this thing you can do. You’ll be tempted to use it to ease suffering.
And so you should, when the moment and circumstances are
right. I don’t think you should deny your gift, Alfred. But just
remember: as the story goes, people crucified the world’s most
famous healer.
– He brought people back from the dead, I said. Do you
mean I can do that, too?
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– Probably not, he answered. There are things I can’t multiply.
But think about it, Alfred. Do you really want to raise the dead?
Katerina didn’t want to tell me too much because she didn’t want
to interfere with God’s will. Her God ha
d given this gift to me.
That’s how she saw it, so whatever I was inclined to do was fine
by her. But she did tell me a cautionary tale, and that’s the thing
I want to pass on, and you should think about it because someday
you might want to pass it on, too.
Despite its placid exterior, Feversham is a hotbed of intrigue.
Not simply because the different sects each feel they have a
special claim to the clearing. But because the religious has a way
of calling the irreligious to it. It isn’t just that good and evil are
related, of course. They’re intertwined. Mr. Stephens thought of
it this way: for every Reverend Crosbie who means to do good
there is someone who means to do evil. Since 1957, when van
den Bosch made a road to the clearing, there have been those
who’ve sought to exploit it for their own good. And, really, it’s
almost difficult to blame the exploiters. Who wouldn’t want to
find someone to multiply food? Your catering service would be
top of the block. And, then, fire starting. Throughout time,
humans have had uses for fire.
– But your ability is the trickiest, Alfred. There are good people
who’d exploit you, use you to help the suffering. And there are bad
people who’d exploit you, to relieve their own suffering.
The worst case was of a healer named Geraint Jordan, who
was kidnapped by a gang in Toronto. The man was a saint, devout
before his vision in Feversham and tireless in helping others
after it. The gang in question held him in their safe house, where
he was expected to heal any gang members’ injuries. Jordan was
routinely beaten to keep him subservient. Naturally, this arrange-
ment was a boon to the gang members. They became fearless,
knowing their wounds, however severe, could be healed at a
touch: no doctors, no hospitals, no official records. But their
disdain for Jordan was almost pathological. They treated him like
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a pet with a useful talent, a pet they punished when it did not
perform as quickly as they wanted. Finally, it occurred to one of
the gang leaders that Jordan’s hands were special, not Jordan. So,
in a bold experiment, they cut off one of Jordan’s hands to bring
with them in their confrontation with a rival gang. This was, they
thought, the way to a healing they could exploit as soon as they
needed it. No surprise: this did not work out. Geraint Jordan
