by André Alexis
died from blood loss, his left hand useless without the right, so
that he could not even heal himself. And then, most of the gang
members, used to a recklessness that came from knowing they
would not die, were wiped out by their rivals.
– It’s hard to imagine the callousness, said Mr. Stephens.
The idea of taking a severed hand and rubbing it over your
wounds in the hope it will heal you. Honestly, humans are strange.
To make matters worse, Jordan was buried without his right hand,
because – according to the rumours – the rival gang members
kept it in a jar somewhere as a souvenir. So, you see … I don’t
want to alarm you, Alfred, but you should be careful, from now
on, about who you help and who knows you can help.
– You mean I should avoid helping people?
– No, Alfred, I think it’s wrong not to do good when you can.
But you’ve got to be stealthy with the irrational, stealthy the way
artists and priests can be. You do the work so that the work eclipses
you. When Geraint Jordan let everyone know what he could do, it
became about him, even though he didn’t mean it to. In the end, I
think it’s about learning where and how to do what you can.
Stephens himself taught himself to control his desires. He
ate at deliberately specific times, training his body to crave food
only at 6:52 a.m., 11:03 a.m., 2:36 p.m., and 7:49 p.m. Outside of
those times, he allowed himself only water. He avoided restaurants
and malls. And, after a while, he abandoned poetry or, rather, he
gave up publication. He still wrote it. He had countless notebooks
filled with poems. But he did not want to draw any attention to
himself, even the meagre attention poetry gets. This was also why
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he’d had his family, friends, and colleagues tell stories about him:
to throw anyone who might be interested off his trail.
– I had to learn not to want, said Mr. Stephens. You’ll have to
learn to avoid helplessly helping. You see what I mean? But until
you learn that, try not to let people see what you can do. It could
be dangerous.
– What about those who already know?
– Yes, well, there’s nothing you can do about that. They can’t
un-know what they’ve seen. But if you’re out of their lives for
long enough and if you don’t do anything to jog their memories,
you should be okay in a few months. Tomorrow morning, why
don’t you leave early? Around five. That way no one’s likely to
see you go.
I thanked him then, for the wisdom in his and Ms. Ranevsky-
Bush’s stories. And I agreed it would be best if Professor Bruno
and I left early the next morning.
– I wish you luck, he said. I was going to say it’ll be a new
world for you, but the world is always new. Something is always
coming or going. When I was your age, I loved the idea that
artists strive to make things new. But as I’ve grown, Alfred, the
thing I want is for things to stay the same, at least till we’ve had
time to see them for what they are. It’s only with that kind of
perspective that you can act for good in the world.
It occurred to me, as he spoke these last words, that there was
something he hadn’t mentioned, something we hadn’t spoken about.
– If you don’t mind my asking, I said, what happened to
Carson Michaels? I mean, what happened to your love for her?
Did you ever get over it?
Mr. Stephens looked at me then, and smiled.
– No, he said. I’ve never gotten over it. I’ll love her till the
day I die. But I don’t need her with me anymore. I love my wife
and my daughter. They’re the most precious things to me on
earth, but the feelings I had for Carson are within me and I keep
them safe, if you know what I mean.
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– You mean you don’t feel pain when you think about her?
– The way you feel pain? No, I don’t feel that kind of pain
anymore. Carson made it clear that she wouldn’t see me, and
for years she wouldn’t. But she’d loved me and when she was
able to forgive me for what I’d done, we saw each other again.
Ten years later. We’d changed. Her life had gone on without me
and mine had gone on without her. It isn’t that I got over
anything. It’s that there wasn’t anything to get over anymore. I
felt such grief when she left me. I could barely live with myself.
But now I wonder if that grief wasn’t the precious thing. It’s
because of that grieving – the trauma of it – that the Carson I
love is part of who I’ve become. Do you know, I still think of
her as she was when we first met. Sometimes I even feel the
feelings I had for her. That’s the thing about grief – it keeps its
sources clean.
As he’d spoken about Carson, John Stephen had unwittingly
multiplied the grains of sand before him. There was a small dune
before him, four inches tall. He sighed as he rose from the table.
– It’ll happen to you, too, Alfred. You’ll see. Grief is a gift, if
you survive it.
We returned to the living room, where Professor Bruno was
slowly pacing the floor.
– Welcome back! said the professor. Welcome back! You
must have had a fabulous confab, eh?
– I hope you weren’t bored, said Mr. Stephens.
– Oh, there’s no need to worry about that, sir. I’m never bored
when I’ve got time to think. And I’ve been thinking about you
two. What an extraordinary coincidence that you’ve both had
visions. But I’ve been wondering if you noticed anything strange
after your vision, John.
– Well, yes, said Mr. Stephens. I told you about it already,
remember?
– No, no, said the professor. I mean, did you do strange things,
like Alfie here? Did you make people better?
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– No, Mr. Stephens answered. But I’ve spoken to others who
thought they could. I wish I could say any of it was true. But in
the cases I know, it was temporary delusion. Mind over matter
for a while.
– Aha! said the professor. Just what I thought! I hope you
told him about your delusion, Alfie!
– Yes, I did, I said. But I already thought you were right,
Professor. I really did.
I could see, then, all the tension leave Professor Bruno’s body.
He embraced me.
– My dear boy, he said. I can’t tell you how worried I was.
Since your parents have gone, I’ve felt a responsibility for you. I
asked you to come on this journey just to be sure you were all
right. And I have to tell you … for a moment there, I thought
you’d lost it.
– He seems fine to me, said Mr. Stephens.
– It’s a relief! said Professor Bruno. A great relief! We can
turn our attention back to you and John Skennen, without guilt!
– I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you, Mr. Stephens
said. My friend, Father Penn, is coming for dinner tonight. We
have a few hours before he gets here. Ask me anything you like.
But our journe
y’s purpose – to learn about John Skennen –
had been accomplished. The questions Professor Bruno asked
Mr. Stephens were variants of those he’d asked him already,
questions that served only to bolster the professor’s ideas about
John Skennen. After a while, it felt as if the professor’s mind was
wandering, and I felt guilty, thinking his worries about me were
the distraction.
Finally, Mr. Stephens said:
– You know, Professor, I can honestly say that you know
more about John Skennen than I do. You know his poems better,
that’s for sure.
It was at that moment that Professor Bruno accepted he’d got
all that he wanted. I was happy for him, of course, but by then I
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was distracted, too. Mr. Stephens’s story about Geraint Jordan
had stuck in my imagination along with the thought that I might
be able to raise people from the dead. The idea of raising the
dead was repulsive, but the question of whether I could or
couldn’t do it was not.
The most surprising thing about Father Thomas Penn – for me,
at least – was his Blackness. His skin was darker than mine. But
Mr. Stephens had introduced him as the model for Father
Christopher Pennant, a character in Pastoral. I did not remember
Father Pennant being Black, a detail that would have stuck in
my mind.
– I’m not surprised you’re surprised, said Father Penn. The
book wasn’t faithful to reality.
– I don’t know why it should have been, said Mr. Stephens.
It was a novel.
– I know, said Father Penn. But there were things in it that
were true to life, and that’s what I find annoying. It’s like the
author couldn’t choose between fantasy and reality.
– Now, there you’re being unkind, said Professor Bruno.
Whatever makes it into a book is fantasy, as far as I’m concerned.
Or, at least, it has to be treated that way.
– I don’t agree, said Father Penn. It makes no sense treating
Isaac Newton’s Principia as fantasy. Newton gets some things
wrong, but it’s a brilliant basis for thinking about the world and
it’s still useful as an example of how our predecessors thought.
Anyway, Newton’s not trying to muddy the waters. He believed
what he wrote, and it’s our job to understand what he’s saying,
why he’s saying it, and why he believes it. With fiction though.
Who knows what the writer believes? And it only makes it harder
to know what the writer thinks when some parts of a novel are
true and some parts false.
– Heavens! said Professor Bruno. You’re the second religious
type who’s thrown Newton in my face lately. But, Father, no
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book is entirely true or entirely false. That’s why I prefer fiction.
It’s open about being mixed. It encourages you to use your
instincts and find your own way. So, let’s say that anything that
makes it into a book – any kind of book – is speculation. Some
of it’s useful. Some of it’s entertaining. And some of it’s too
drab to be either.
– So, you don’t care for truth? asked Father Penn.
– I do! I do! said Professor Bruno. But I’d prefer to call it the
demonstrably useful.
– If that’s the definition, said Mr. Stephens, then what we
call lies are closer to what you call truth. They’re more demon-
strably useful than truth ever is.
– No, sir. You won’t catch me out that way! said Professor
Bruno. Lies are useful to a minority. Truth is indiscriminately
useful!
– You know, said Mr. Stephens, these arguments always end
at John Stuart Mill or Hitler. Useful in general or useful to one.
It’s tyranny either way.
The supper, made by Mr. Stephens, had been good: lamb,
mint jelly, mashed potatoes, honeyed carrots, and string beans.
Father Penn had brought dessert: a homemade, honey-vanilla ice
cream. The meal was followed by Scotch. The Scotch was followed
by more talk about literature, a subject I still knew nothing about,
despite having spent the last few days listening to talk about it.
Mrs. Stephens – Darlene – taught English. She had as much
to say about illusion and reality as the others. So, I was left to
myself until she said
– What do you think, Alfred?
By that point I was so far out of the conversation that I admit-
ted I wasn’t listening.
– But I was wondering, I said, if Father Penn ever resolved
his issues with God and Nature.
– My issues with God and Nature? said Father Penn. I don’t
have any issues with God and Nature.
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– But in Pastoral, don’t you struggle between God and Nature?
The three from Barrow – Mr. and Mrs. Stephens, Father
Penn – were suddenly amused.
– You have to remember that the priest in that book is not me,
said Father Penn. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no contradiction
between the word God and the word Nature. People forget that reli-
gion is a kind of language we use to express our sense of mystery.
It’s a way of giving coherence to thoughts and feelings that don’t
always cohere. It points to thoughts and feelings. You shouldn’t
take the word God literally. It doesn’t refer to a grey-haired man
sitting on a throne in the sky. It refers to metaphysical feelings we
all have at one time or another about our place in the universe. Just
like the word Nature refers to the thing scientists and philosophers
endlessly try to describe. Nobody knows the why and wherefore of
our universe, Alfred, but we have a variety of ways to talk about it.
And these ways sometimes compete with each other.
– That’s a lovely sentiment, said Professor Bruno, but people
behave differently if they’re interested in “God” as opposed to
“Nature.’ It’s a very different thing if you say “I don’t believe in
God” than if you say “I don’t believe in Nature.’ People might kill
you for one. They’d laugh at you for the other.
– That might be true, said Father Penn, but my point is that
I’ve never been conflicted about these words. The author of the
book described me as a nature-worshipping pagan because it
suited his novel. Very little about me in that novel is true.
Teasing him, Mrs. Stephens said
– Now, now, Tom. Tell the truth.
– Darlene is referring to the fact, said Father Penn, that when
the author knew me I was conflicted. But the conflict was between
the love I felt for a woman and my duties as a priest.
– Was the woman named Elizabeth? I asked.
– That’s exactly what her name is and everybody in town
knew who it referred to, including her husband. So, that book
caused me a great deal of embarrassment.
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– I really must read this novel, said Professor Bruno.
– I was in love with a married woman, said Father Penn. There
wasn’t much to do but suffer. I can’t think of Pastoral without
remembering the feelings I had.
> – I’m sorry for bringing it up, I said.
– You shouldn’t be sorry, he answered. The pain’s easier to
bear, these days. But it’s still strange to think that I and a woman
I love are in a novel by someone from Ottawa. The least he could
have done was give us a happy ending.
– But you’ve had a happy ending in real life, Tom, said Mr.
Stephens. Everyone in Barrow loves you, even Liz’s husband.
– My dear Father Penn, said Professor Bruno, how did you
get over your feelings for the woman?
– I was helped by something I overheard, said Father Penn. I
heard two people talking, and one of them happened to say some-
thing that felt like it was meant for me.
It was at a sheep shearing in Forest. Father Penn had been
invited to bless the first shearing of the year – the flock vulnerable
and confused, their fleeces in barrels. And he’d blessed the occa-
sion, though the ceremony had felt frankly pagan, what with the
maypole dances and the slaughter and barbecue of a young goat.
It was while eating a plate of burnt goat and green mint jelly that
he heard two men behind him speaking about meeting the loves
of their lives. One of them had married his and, of course, consid-
ered himself lucky. His friend hadn’t been so fortunate. He’d
been in a long, close relationship with a woman. They decided to
marry, and all was well until, at his own wedding reception, he
met the love of his life.
– And there was no question about it?
– None whatsoever.
Both he and the woman – the friend of a bridesmaid – knew
the moment they saw each other that it was more than a spark.
They spoke for all of fifteen minutes and neither had any doubt.
How his life might have turned out had he chosen to leave with
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his beloved, he would never know. Because, whatever his feelings,
the woman he was marrying was his closest friend and, being the
kind of man he was, there was no question he would cheat on
her. He would be faithful to his wife until the day he died.
– Did he ever tell his wife he’d met the love of his life?
– Of course not.
– But didn’t he suffer?
He told his friend:
– Yes, sometimes I do. But it is possible to do the right thing,
you know. And I’ve never really regretted a moment. Why should
I regret doing something that’s allowed me to respect my wife
