The dog. He snatched up the stone and swung it threateningly above his head.
But the dog was gone.
Greer climbed to his feet, hugging the muddy stone to his shirt, and turned slowly around in a circle. The clouds were twisting sluggishly, the green fields running smoothly out to merge with the sky, the church commanding the height. But there was no trace of a dog. Anywhere.
Although he had not been drinking nearly as much as was usual for him, Greer recalled his doctor’s warnings about alcoholic psychosis and wondered whether any of this had actually happened. He drew up categories in his mind – this he would accept as real and this he wouldn’t. The corpse was probably real because he could not recall a dead child in Chekhov. The black dog was probably not real because of the schwarzen Hund in Faust. Terrified, he went no further, left it at that.
Roland was innocent of modesty. Greer relished the way he was never shy of making himself the hero of his own stories. Greer’s favourite was the one about the bicycle. Madox claimed he could ride a bicycle. Before the accident he had been the youngest kid on his street to ride a two-wheeler and after he got out of hospital he had a goal – to ride again. For six years his mother helped him, outfitted him in elbow pads and a hockey helmet and spent summers running up and down their suburban street, holding his bicycle upright while he fought to achieve a precarious balance.
It was a scandal on the block. Neighbours complained to his father. “Ted, it was ninety-two degrees today and humid. Humid. You’ve got to tell her to quit or she’s going to have a heart attack out there on the street. The wife says she can’t stand to look out the window any more. And the kid falls. Lots of times he falls. He’s going to get himself hurt.”
So far, so good. The writer part of Greer approved of the telling details, the hockey helmet, elbow pads, concerned neighbours, humidity. Where Greer believed Roland went wrong was in his failure to explain how he could pedal a bike with his legs in braces. Still, that was the critic speaking. Greer, the friend, still loved to hear him tell it. He would say, “Give us the one about the bicycle again, Easy Rider,” and Roland would willingly oblige, always climaxing the story with the unassisted, joyous sweep down a twilit street, bicycle flying through an autumn evening, scattering fallen leaves while Roland whooped his delight and his mother did an impromptu jig on the sidewalk in honour of his recovery of solo flight.
By now, Jack, realizing it was hopeless, had given up even the pretence of trying to write. As a result, he found himself spending more and more time in Roland’s company, often filling the long hours of the day by assisting him in the library. While they sorted and shelved books, Roland talked excitedly about his plans. There was nothing new in this. But the insistent, urgent way he spoke was new, as if he was trying to reassure himself, as well as convince Greer.
Something else was new. Greer started to drop hints about himself and his past. On several occasions he even casually mentioned her name: Miriam. With Roland, who was a stranger to their history, he could do this because her name signalled nothing, set off no warning bells. To speak of her in this off-hand fashion helped Greer feel she was somehow a normal, everyday feature of his life, simply there. And that released in him a quiet, calm affection for her memory that had been impossible to experience whenever he spoke of her with anyone who had known them together, in the old days, and knew the score.
Mostly, though, it was Roland who talked, more and more often going obsessively over old ground. The doctors had thought he wouldn’t last the night – but look at him now. Nobody had thought he could come so far. He had a degree in history, he could ride a bike, he had learned Latin. The rest went unsaid – that he would become a monk. Even though the decision wasn’t his to make but the abbot’s.
It was obvious the uncertainty was playing on his nerves.
“I’m not going to give him much longer,” he said one afternoon over solitaire.
“Who?” said Greer.
“The abbot.”
“You ask me,” Jack said, “no news is good news.”
“How long does he think he can keep me dangling?” Roland pleaded. Greer avoided his eyes and shrugged.
Two days after this, Greer missed Roland at breakfast. He didn’t think anything of it, but later that morning when he dropped by to give his friend a hand he was surprised to find the door of the library locked. Assuming that Roland must be ill, Greer didn’t look in on him so he wouldn’t disturb him if he were resting. Instead, he returned to his own room and found Brother Ambrose waiting there with a request that he accompany him to the office of the abbot.
The abbot turned out to be a wisp of a man with greying sandy-coloured hair like a shock of November grass, and a parchment complexion. Inviting Greer to take a seat, the abbot settled himself fussily, chair creaking.
“How’s the writing going, Mr. Greer?” he asked as a conversation-opener.
“It’s going,” said Greer.
“You understand – I get so little time to read – it’s difficult to keep up.” An apology for being unfamiliar with Greer’s work.
“Of course,” said Greer.
“But Trollope,” said the abbot. “I have a weakness for Trollope. The clerical novels,” he qualified.
Greer nodded.
“And you, Mr. Greer,” he inquired politely, “you have a favourite writer?”
“Chekhov.”
“Ah,” said the abbot and stared off into space, palms pressed together in a prayerful attitude. “I have the greatest respect for your profession, Mr. Greer. Writing. You can touch so many people, do so much good.”
Not bloody likely, thought Greer.
“But, as you have probably guessed, I didn’t ask you here to discuss writing – no, something else entirely,” said the abbot, abruptly becoming business-like.
“Yes?”
“Several of the brothers have noted that you are a special friend of Roland Madox.” He waited for confirmation.
Greer didn’t care for the adjective “special.” It sounded like an accusation of immorality. “A friend, yes,” he said.
“Then I would like to ask you a favour,” said the abbot.
“What kind of favour?”
“I understand you have a car?”
“Yes.”
“As you may imagine, none of us here owns a car. If you could drive Roland to the city tomorrow to catch his flight, it would be most appreciated. Of course, the abbey would be glad to recompense you for gas and incidentals.” He hesitated delicately. “And having a friend see him safely off – it would ease our minds.”
“Roland didn’t say anything to me about going anywhere,” said Greer, mildly alarmed.
“We felt it best that he leave immediately. I have been in touch with his father and he has purchased Roland a ticket home to Winnipeg. It will be waiting for him at the airport.”
“I don’t understand why you’re banishing him,” said Greer. “Don’t you have any idea what this means to him?”
“You may not be aware of it, Mr. Greer, but in the last five years Roland has made at least six attempts to be admitted to monasteries across the country. None would accept him.” The abbot shook his head sadly. “He is a troubled young man.”
“More remarkable than troubled,” said Greer.
The abbot scrutinized Greer shrewdly for a moment. “You’re angry with me, Mr. Greer,” he said. “But perhaps you don’t know all the facts of the case.”
“I didn’t realize it was being treated as a case,” snapped Greer.
Overlooking this, the abbot continued in a patient voice. “This is the second time Roland has been with us. The first time was two years ago when the old abbot was still alive. It was not a happy experience for all concerned. I do not know what he has said to you, but I allowed him to return only on the understanding that he would not be considered for admission to the Order. That was made unequivocally clear. It was done as a favour to his father. He hoped that if Roland was provided with som
e small job he could manage, it might prove helpful to him. Mr. Madox is a layman of some standing in the Church, well respected. However, I may have made an error of judgment in obliging him.”
Greer was confused. “But Roland’s father isn’t a Catholic,” he protested. “Roland told me himself he converted to Roman Catholicism against his parents’ wishes when he was at university.”
“You see what I mean?” said the abbot. “Roland was born a Catholic. But that does not suggest the spirit of independence he likes to project. So he altered the facts to conform to his picture of himself. Mr. Greer, not everything is quite as Roland portrays it. Yesterday he was in my office, demanding I come to a decision about admitting him to the Order.” The abbot paused. “It was in the nature of an ultimatum. Now he knew when he came here there was no possibility of my accepting him. Yet when I reminded him of this he seemed astonished, as if I had gone back on my word. He made threats.”
“Threats?”
“Threats,” repeated the abbot enigmatically. He took a deep breath. “At present he is very angry and wants nothing to do with any of us – the religious, I mean. It would be difficult for any of us to accompany him. You see our problem. But if someone he likes and trusts could take him to the airport, it would be most helpful. Would you be so kind as to do us this favour, Mr. Greer?”
“When’s his flight?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, five-thirty. Air Canada Flight 183,” said the abbot.
Greer got to his feet. “All right,” he said. At that moment, he felt sad and injured and angry, a little like the father asked to remove from school the boy of whom he is so proud.
As Greer drove, he glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, metal machinery sheds, dull-red granaries, farmhouses with big satellite dishes in their front yards stuttering by. Meanwhile Roland was in a passion, body jerking and twitching in the seatbelt. “Justice is all I asked,” he said bitterly, for what seemed to Greer the thousandth time. “Justice. Who did Christ hold his arms out to if not the crippled and the blind? And now the Church turns its back on us.”
Greer felt sorry for him, sorrier than he could say. He had tried to take the line with Roland that he was well out of it, look what he had been saved from – chastity, poverty, obedience. Who needed it? But Roland wasn’t buying it, nor was Greer exactly surprised. In his experience, of all slighted parties, the refused were the least responsive to reason. Maybe because refusal so intimately connected injury with humiliation. It isn’t an easy thing to swallow, the news that someone doesn’t want you. Greer had found that out with Miriam.
They arrived in the city with nearly three and a half hours to spare before Roland’s flight was scheduled to leave. It was Jack’s plan to mark his friend’s departure by treating him to a farewell lunch. Greer wasn’t certain of the ins and outs, the rights and wrongs of it, but he knew Roland felt genuinely betrayed at being given the push by the abbot. The least somebody could do in this situation was to give him a proper send-off. The restaurant Greer chose for this was the Golden Wok – on the recommendation of Diane – who provided him with directions to find it. The Golden Wok turned out to be an establishment more upscale than the type Greer usually frequented, the decor insistently bellowing “Chinese Experience” – brass gongs, plaster lions, kites, ornamental screens, a multitude of fire-breathing dragons. Early Shanghai Whore-house, Greer thought, surveying the scene.
They had arrived late for lunch and the dining room was almost empty. As Jack and Roland were escorted to a table, they passed the only other diners, a large party of what appeared to be office workers marking some festivity, perhaps the birthday or retirement of a co-worker. Each of the ladies had a pastel-coloured cocktail – a grasshopper, brown cow, or daiquiri – set in front of them and were having a high old time noisily joking and cutting-up in front of their indulgently smiling male bosses. But as he and Roland went by, the noise of clattering cutlery nervously subsided and the shrill, high-pitched laughter died.
Roland paused, shifted his crutches as if to move on, reconsidered, swept the uneasy gathering with a long cool stare and said, “You’re all wondering, no doubt. I’m Jim Morrison – the Lizard King.”
If there was anything Jack Greer hated, it was public embarrassments. “Jesus Christ,” he said angrily, trailing after Roland as he lurched haughtily to their table on his crutches. “What was the point of that?”
“I detected a certain morbid curiosity,” said Roland. “I tried to satisfy it.”
Greer was at a loss how to respond. All he managed to do was mumble, “Jesus Christ.”
“Any guesses as to why I prefer a monastery?” asked Roland.
Behind him Greer could feel a distinct chill of disapproval, hostile whispers. Someone said, “A person expects to be able to go out and have a nice time and enjoy yourself. We’re supposed to accommodate those people – but what effort do they make to accommodate us?”
Greer partly blamed himself for the incident. Christ, how could he have been so stupid, bringing Madox into a place like this! That’s all Roland needed, another humiliation. Why hadn’t he taken him to a drive-in where they could have eaten in the privacy of the car, rather than this hang out for the blue-suit crowd?
Perhaps his discomfort made him try too hard. He insisted on ordering too many dishes, dismissing Roland’s protests with, “A taste from each then. We’ll have a taste from each. And besides, what do you care? I’m paying.” He called for a pitcher of beer and proposed a toast. “To your future,” he said, lifting his glass. It was, on reflection, ill-advised because once they drank, the unspoken question hung between them. What was Roland’s future?
Roland tried to answer. “There are monasteries all over the States,” he said. “Dominicans in Vermont, Cistercians in Kentucky, lots more. I’ll keep knocking on doors. I’ll keep trying. You’ve got to keep trying.”
“But not right away,” cautioned Greer. “You’ll have a rest, catch your breath, won’t you, before you start this all over again?”
“A couple of days maybe,” said Roland. “Then the old man can buy me another plane ticket, or bus ticket, and see I get wherever I’m going. He owes me after this.”
“And where will you be going?” asked Greer.
“Wherever there’s a chance. I still have a long list of possibles to work through.”
“Tell me,” coaxed Greer. “Why did the abbot hustle you off so quickly? What did you do?”
Greer believed he saw Roland smile. “I told him that if he didn’t accept me I’d pick up where the accident left off twenty years ago. Douse myself in gasoline and set myself on fire. Like the Buddhist monks did in Vietnam. As an act of protest.”
“And he believed you? He didn’t know it was a joke?” said Greer.
Roland held out his empty glass to Greer. Jack filled it, topped up his own. He found Roland’s reluctance to answer disconcerting. “It was a joke, wasn’t it?” he demanded.
“Oh yes, a joke,” said Roland. “For the time being at least. But it’s always wise to reserve the right to the last laugh, isn’t it?”
The waiter arrived with their lunch, plate after plate of dumplings, Cantonese chow mein, Kung Po chicken, Szechwan shrimp, curried beef, ribs with black bean sauce. Both men welcomed this interruption of what had been verging on an uncomfortable conversation and dug into the food, exclaiming over the dishes, heaping their plates, pretending to argue over the division of the shrimp. Roland was even making a gallant attempt to manipulate the chopsticks in his claw. Finally, he tossed them aside, picked up a rib, and began to gnaw it. “It’s like the beer commercial. It doesn’t get any better than this, does it, Jackie?” he asked, mumbling around the bone.
“A subtle reminder,” said Greer, signalling the waiter to bring another pitcher. He had already exceeded his daily quota of booze, but this was different. This was his friend’s going-away party. Greer was beginning to feel better than he had in weeks, exhilarated like a kid on holiday. Today he need feel no gu
ilt for not writing, need not ask himself why he failed whenever he tried. For the first time he realized how the dreariness, the sameness, the regimentation of life in the monastery had been weighing on him. He was becoming a little giddy. So was Roland.
Green asked, “Did you hear the one about the absent-minded priest who put his hand in his pocket and said, ‘Plums, plums? When did I buy plums?’ ”
Roland began to giggle. He picked up his chopsticks, held them to his forehead, and waggled them like antennas. “Worker ant. Clerical division. Library,” he said.
Greer collapsed with laughter. Roland winked at him, cocked his head in the direction of the other table. Greer glanced over his shoulder. One of the daiquiri-drinkers was staring at them with an indignant, offended expression. She leaned over to her neighbour and said something. The other woman primly nodded her agreement.
The second pitcher had emptied in no time at all. Madox ordered more. “This one’s on me,” he said. “I ought to contribute something to the party. Besides my charming self.”
After the third pitcher arrived they went quiet, sat looking at their glasses. Suddenly Roland asked, “And you, Jack, what does the future hold for you?”
“More of the same, I suppose,” he replied evasively.
“You mean writing,” Roland prodded.
Greer shrugged.
“So what do you want to write next?”
Greer shifted on his chair. This talk of writing was turning his mood self-abusive and self-accusing, qualities which Miriam had deplored in him and which had never failed to infuriate and upset her. “I’ll tell you what I want to write,” said Greer with a bitter smile. “A Chekhov story. He left an outline for one he never got around to writing himself. It’s a natural for a guy like me. The story concerns a brown-noser, the son of a serf or small shopkeeper raised to respect rank, kiss priests’ hands, worship others’ ideas, play the hypocrite before God and his betters because he cannot forget his own insignificance. Anyway, that’s roughly the way Chekhov describes his character.” Greer paused. “Change a few details – the son of the serf business, kissing the priests’ hands – and Chekhov is describing Jack Greer. Except for one other difference. In Chekhov’s story the young man presses the bad blood out of himself one drop at a time until one morning he wakes up with human blood running in his veins. That’s the one essential difference between me and Chekhov’s character.”
Things As They Are? Page 22
