by André Alexis
(Willows were for both of them a source of fascination. Though he knew better, Majnoun had always thought the trees were a subtle kind of animal, deceptive and imperious. To the very end, part of him still believed it. He could not contemplate the swaying branches without wishing to bite them. Minus the desire to bite, Nira felt something similar. For her the trees were like mammoths in leaf: ancient, slow, the last of something imperial, though of course they were not. They were only trees.)
Perfect understanding between beings is no guarantor of happiness. To perfectly understand another’s madness, for instance, is to be mad oneself. The veil that separates earthly beings is, at times, a tragic barrier, but it is also, at times, a great kindness. In fact, the only beings to achieve ‘perfect mutual understanding’ are the gods. For the gods, any emotion or state of mind – madness, anger, bitterness, etc. – is pleasurable, so understanding is neither here nor there. Hermes knew all this. As the god of translators, he was also the god of mistranslation and misunderstanding. It was he who, in a manner of speaking, muddied waters that became too clear or clarified those that had grown murky. But if there was ever a being who could be made happy by the gift of understanding, it was Majnoun. The more Majnoun understood of Nira, the more grateful he was that he had returned to what was now, undoubtedly, his home.
Two years passed.
As he grew older and more statesmanlike, Majnoun came to appreciate Nira in the best way possible: through the things that she loved. Her films, for instance. How deeply she admired Cléo from 5 to 7, Days of Heaven and Tokyo Story! Tokyo Story above all. One afternoon, Nira sat with him and they watched the movie together. It was the first time Majnoun had watched any film all the way through. It wasn’t that he was not interested in films. It was that he could not stand to see so many distant worlds without being able to smell them. Worlds were not real without their odours, so movies and paintings were inevitably a disappointment. But Nira so loved Tokyo Story that he sat still for the two hours it took to watch it.
When the movie was over, it took a moment for Nira to regain her composure. As always, she was moved to tears when Setsuko Hara cries.
– Did you like it? she asked at last.
– Yes, said Majnoun.
– You didn’t think it was too long? Some people find it boring.
– It was not boring, said Majnoun, but it was strange. The people were always looking away to where you couldn’t see. The whole time, I thought there was something coming. Then at the end, it was death that came.
It touched Nira that Majnoun could appreciate something she cherished. But there were aspects of the film that Majnoun found difficult to interpret, despite Hermes’s gift. To begin with, there was the general absence of dogs. When, somewhere toward the middle of the film, four dogs ran across the screen, responding to the whistled call of their master, Majnoun was immediately alert. So, it was something of a disappointment that the dogs were never seen again. But then, somewhere toward the end of the film, a man whistles for dogs who are not shown. First, the one who whistles is invisible. Then, it’s the ones who are called. These two moments, unexplained, seemed to Majnoun like a metaphysical puzzle at the heart of the film.
Also intriguing was all the bowing. The association of height and status did not, of course, faze him. If anything, it made the Japanese seem noble. But where were the ones who made themselves big? That was the question. With so many people bowing down, it seemed to Majnoun like a competition amongst the low to see who could be lowest. In which case, discretion was strength, a paradox that Majnoun found almost as compelling as the film’s relative absence of dogs.
In the end, it occurred to Majnoun that the two mysteries might be related. Dogs being capable of bowing much lower than humans, it perhaps followed that, in Tokyo Story, the dogs were a mysterious power it was forbidden to show too often, that a glimpse of them was all the discreet filmmakers had allowed themselves. Understandably, this idea contributed to Majnoun’s affection for the film.
It was even more interesting to read Nira’s favourite books. There was more time to think about things. Nira read Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park to him over the space of a month, aloud in the late afternoons before Miguel came home from work. Of these two, Mansfield Park was the one that troubled Majnoun most. It seemed to him almost frightening in its rage for order, like a manual for masters.
When they’d finished reading it, Majnoun said
– Nira, do you like fucking?
(Fucking was one of Miguel’s words. Nira had never spoken it.)
When she’d recovered from her surprise at the question, Nira said
– Where did that come from, Maj?
– I was thinking about Fanny Price, said Majnoun. She loves Edmund but she disapproves of fucking, doesn’t she?
– It’s impossible to say. As I see it, Fanny thinks there’s a right time and place for everything. But, to answer your question, I prefer making love. Look … this is a very personal matter, Maj, but there are times when I miss Miguel and I like being with him and I like when being with him turns into something more. It’s slow and it takes time. If you only saw the last part, you might think there’s no difference between making love and fucking, but there is for me. But then there are other times when I really just want him inside me and it’s almost as if it doesn’t matter that it’s Miguel, but it does matter.
– I see, said Majnoun
but here, too, his understanding of the human situation – as opposed to his understanding of Nira – was coloured by his lack of familiarity with certain rituals. He himself had never ‘made love,’ nor could he imagine wishing to.
What was interesting to him was how much humans relied on their imaginations. Not just for amusement but for fundamental things as well. He preferred to allow his body to think for him. Or he had in the old days before he’d changed. Now that he was somewhere between dog and human, he was curious about the imagination. Had he not been (as Nira called it) ‘neutered,’ he thought he might at least have tried to ‘make love’ to another dog. But then again, it would have been difficult to know where to start. Bitches in heat – the very smell of them an indescribably pleasing derangement – wanted fucking. There was no place for what Nira called ‘seduction.’ He briefly considered if bringing food to a bitch out of heat might put her in heat, but why would he bother? He was certainly not what Nira called ‘heterosexual,’ but neither was he homosexual or even bisexual. There were times when he was aroused in the presence of other dogs or humans or plush toys, for that matter, and he would mount them or rub against them if he could. On that score, he certainly made no distinction between bitches and non-bitches. As had happened after they’d watched Tokyo Story, Majnoun was left with a kind of pleasing puzzlement when they’d finished reading Mansfield Park.
In the end, it surprised Majnoun to discover that works of art – Tokyo Story, Mansfield Park, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, and so on – were not understandable in the way people were. These works were, it seemed, created to evade understanding while inviting it. He came to love this aspect of the human, which was, of course, an aspect of Nira.
Nira’s and Majnoun’s path to understanding was mutually taken. Nira learned what was important to Majnoun as he learned what was important to her. Their journeys were quite different, however. To begin with, there were no artefacts for her to consider. No films or books that Majnoun loved. No music. Moreover, there was an asymmetry in their sensory capacities. Majnoun’s vision was not as keen as hers, but he noticed things she did not: squirrels, for instance. Majnoun could detect their slightest movement, were the creatures up in the trees or somewhere in the distance. His sense of smell was astounding. He could tell whether or not she had put shadow benny in her stewed chicken. And his sense of taste was just as impressive. Finally, his hearing was more acute than hers. He could hear higher pitches than she could, naturally. But he interpreted sounds differently as well. Nira had always heard that Bach’s music (amon
g her favourites) was loved by all animals. Not by Majnoun it wasn’t. Not at all. For Majnoun, Bach’s music was like having needles prick you from the inside. He preferred Wagner – whose music Nira disliked– and he loved Anton Bruckner.
– Do dogs have stories? Nira asked him one day.
– Of course, said Majnoun.
– Oh, Maj! said Nira. Please tell me one.
Majnoun agreed and began:
– There is the smell of bitch, but I am before a wall. The smell is strong and I am going mad. I can’t eat. I can’t drink. The wall is too thick to knock down and it goes for miles in this direction and for miles in that direction. I dig under and I dig and I dig. The master cannot see my digging so I dig until there is air beneath the wall and the smell of bitch is stronger than it was before. I call to the bitch but there is no answer. But there is air beneath the wall. Should I go on digging? I don’t know, but I dig even though I can smell the master’s food from his house. The smell of bitch is stronger and stronger. I call out, but now I am hungry.
Here Majnoun stopped.
– Is that it? asked Nira.
– Yes, said Majnoun. Do you not like it?
– Well, it’s … different, said Nira. But it doesn’t really have an ending.
– It has a very moving ending, said Majnoun. Is it not sad to be caught between desires?
By degrees, the distance between Nira and Majnoun narrowed until each could anticipate what the other wanted. Nira could tell when exactly Majnoun wished to eat or go for a walk. Majnoun knew when it was time to leave Nira alone, when it was time to comfort her, when it was time to sit quietly by her side. By degrees, they had less use for words or English.
One morning, they discovered that they’d dreamed of the same field, the same clouds, the same house in the distance – wooden with a red-brick chimney. They had dreamed of the same squirrels and rabbits. They had drunk from the same clear stream. There was only one difference: when Nira, in her dream, looked into the water, she saw Majnoun’s face reflected back at her, while Majnoun, in his, saw Nira’s face where his should have been. The fact of this shared dream was so moving to Nira that, ever after, she refused to allow anyone – even Miguel – to refer to Majnoun as ‘her’ dog.
– I’m as much his as he’s mine, she’d insist.
Her friends – and her husband – thought this an annoying eccentricity. Majnoun knew what she meant – that she was not his master – and he was grateful. But in his heart he felt as if he did belong to her, in the sense that he was a part of Nira and she a part of him.
What neither could have known was that their shared and simple dream was a harbinger of disaster. They had now grown so close that Atropos, the Fate who cuts the thread of a mortal’s life, could not tell their threads apart. Majnoun’s time to die had come – he was fairly old, for a dog – but she could not cut his thread without the risk of cutting Nira’s.
The work of the three sisters – Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos – is generally straightforward. The first spins the thread of a life. The second draws out the length of thread each being will have. The third cuts the thread and ends that being’s time on earth. It often happens that life threads are intertwined – most commonly, the lives of husbands and wives, which is why they often die together or close together in time. And, in fact, Nira’s and Miguel’s threads were almost as closely intertwined as Nira’s and Majnoun’s. Though Nira and Miguel were meant to live longer than Majnoun, the threads of all three lives were so wound up, so similar in hew and thickness, that Atropos was not certain whose life would end if she used her scissors.
She complained bitterly to Zeus that one or more of the gods must have interfered with the mortals because it was unnatural that she could not properly end a life she was meant to end. Zeus, who disliked the Fates and avoided speaking with them, was unmoved.
– A life must end, he said. It is your duty to cut the thread. Do your duty.
Spitefully, Atropos cut two of the three lives that were wound together, then added years to the one that was left by way of balance. Clotho and Lachesis giggled at her daring, but Atropos was too contemptuous to share in their laughter.
– King of the gods! she said to Lachesis. ‘Loud-mouthed fornicator’ is more like it. Let him just try to get back at me for this!
For a week, Nira and Miguel had been arguing about the dishes. Miguel always did them, but he did not, he felt, receive the credit he deserved.
To Majnoun, it was a strange argument. To begin with, Miguel never allowed Nira to do the dishes. He would insist that he was not some ‘male chauvinist’ who didn’t do housework, though in fact the dishes was all he did, where housework was concerned. Nira’s point was that she never got credit for doing the cleaning, the tidying and the cooking, but she never complained about that. As occasionally happened, Miguel alluded to her work – copy editing – with a certain contempt, as if it weren’t quite ‘work.’ Copy editing allowed her to stay at home, and some part of him resented this, given that he, a script editor for various programs at the TV Ontario, had to leave every morning. They argued about dishes, then housework, then work, then housework, then dishes, then housework, then work and so on. It was astounding, to Majnoun, that a runaround like that could go on for so long. More: although housework was the basis of an argument that flared up every six months or so, both were always as upset by the subject as if it were something new.
‘Housework’ was a strange concept in any case. As long as one didn’t shit in inconvenient places, where was the problem? As far as Majnoun was concerned, the real trouble was with the size of human dens and with the fastidiousness of primates. You would think, having as much space as they did, that they would simply move from one room to another when they wished, but their need for chemical smells and clean surfaces betrayed them. As for the dishes: what was the point of cleaning off the smells and tastes that clung to bowls, pots and plates? That was like scrubbing the best part away, then congratulating yourself for it. To think that poor Nira got so worked up about these things!
Though he did not like to intrude on what was, clearly, an episode in the struggle for dominance, it occurred to Majnoun that what Miguel and Nira needed was to spend time together, without him around, that a change of routine would do them good. Nira was sceptical. She and Miguel had never been ones for travel. They preferred things nearby: plays, movies or restaurants. Besides which, their happiest times had come when they were home. Nira had had enough of arguing with Miguel, however, and Miguel, not coincidentally, had had enough of arguing with her. So, when Nira suggested that they visit a few wineries together and spend two nights (Friday and Saturday) near Thirty Bench, Miguel agreed at once. Anything to end the bickering.
But who would take care of Majnoun?
Majnoun, who could open the fridge if he needed something, who did not mind if she put out a bag of dry ‘dog food,’ who shat in the toilet as humans did, who could get out of the house if there was fire or smoke, who could turn the backyard tap on and off if he needed water, shook his head. He wanted no strange company. Nira wasn’t comfortable with the idea of leaving him on his own. But Miguel – who assumed the dog would be locked safely inside – said
– Majnoun will be fine.
Behind him, Majnoun nodded in agreement, so that, despite her misgivings, Nira relented. Then, Friday came.
That morning, Nira and Majnoun went for a walk together. It had been some time since they’d been to High Park, because Majnoun – now ten – could not stand the proximity of other dogs and could not defend himself as well as he once could. They decided to walk in the park but away from the off-leash areas, going in through the iron-and-stone gate at High Park and Parkside. They were more or less alone, there being few people or dogs about. When they came to Centre Road, they followed it around the curve and up the hill, talking – for no particular reason – about the seasons. Nira mentioned that her favourite season was autumn. She loved the way the trees changed colour, the
cool weather, the coming of winter. Majnoun did not know that one could have a favourite season.
– You must like one more than the others, said Nira.
– I cannot think why, said Majnoun. I am never sure when the seasons begin and I like in between the seasons, too, and in between in between and in between in between in between.
Here, they both laughed. Not, as was sometimes the case, because Majnoun had been inadvertently amusing, but because he was teasing her.
– There should be a hundred seasons, said Majnoun.
– You’re right, said Nira
and she scratched the place behind his ear, which was a feeling that Majnoun loved.
They had walked for longer than usual, for an hour or more. They had left the park and strolled along Sorauren all the way to Pearson, where, though she didn’t like to indulge her cravings, Nira bought a carrot muffin at Mitzi’s and, as if to make Majnoun her accomplice, gave him some.
– It’s too sweet, said Majnoun.
– Yes, but it’s got carrots and, besides, we don’t eat them every day.
Once home, Nira had packed the little she needed: toiletries, makeup, a black dress, a change of underwear. Together, they had listened to part of La Clemenza di Tito. Time passed and Miguel returned home from work. Not half an hour later, Miguel and Nira were leaving. As Miguel took their suitcases to the car, Nira crouched to look Majnoun in the eyes, a thing that always made him uncomfortable.
– You’re sure you’ll be okay? she asked. I left the bag of dry food out, in case you get hungry. There’s more in the pantry. There’s steak in the fridge on the bottom shelf. I made sure the tap outside was oiled. You shouldn’t have any trouble if you get thirsty. Are you sure you’ll be okay?
