Communion

by Graeme Gibson

  Clearly he must acknowledge the animal’s fear, he must reassure it with everything at his disposal: he must talk gently, explain that they’re going to drive north to a field by an empty road, an opening in the bush, a frozen stream perhaps; he must reach in, scratch with his fingers between the yellow eyes, grab the coarse hair at its neck. Outside in the yard a black and white tomcat stares into a small tree full of sparrows. Felix hears their idiot voices: he remembers, there are wicker travelling cages in the front of the shop and probably a blanket in the cupboard . . .

  He doesn’t stop under the bridge or even pause at the top of the hill, he hardly notices the foul stream, he walks on the sidewalk to her door and because the light is on, he rings her bell. He’s never done it before.

  He hardly knows her, this is the first time he’s been in her apartment, he’s drinking her scotch, smoking her cigarettes: sitting across from her, pale eyes, she doesn’t move, he believes she stops him when he tries to leave, listening to her records and telling her incredible things about himself, telling her: “Once upon a time when I was much younger, it was in Ottawa I think, it must have been in Ottawa and everything was so much simpler, I had a parrot, a green and yellow parrot with scarlet on its shoulders. His name was Harold. He could bark like two dogs at the same time but he refused to talk, he screamed and whistled and barked incessantly, they go crazy you know; he was a gross and vicious bird: everything he ate turned to shit immediately so I gave him to the zoo . . . ” Does he tell her of the pain he senses in the raw meat and membranes of his chest? Why is he telling her this, has he actually said it? “I’ve never encountered a situation in my own life where I could have behaved differently, everything that has happened, or not happened to me, because of me, all of it has been inescapable.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I believe it.”

  “That isn’t good enough.” They listen to the music. “I believe all kinds of things but I don’t let them make any difference . . . Why do you make everything so difficult for yourself?”

  Getting up from the chair, asking her: “May I touch you? I have to touch you,” kneeling in front of her, taking her face in his hands, she watches him: the muscles along her jaw are tense, her light eyes do not give him anything. He kisses her forehead. Her hands, resting along her thighs, do not move. Returning to the chair, that’s all he wanted, that’s all he wants . . .

  No it isn’t.

  She says “I was at a party Saturday night, maybe fifteen . . . all old friends except for a few of us, we were strangers, almost strangers. It’s weird. I was really horny, I’d have gone with anybody, I mean it, man or woman, it couldn’t have mattered less . . . Still she doesn’t move. There’s a scratch on the record: they hear its predictable tick, and then . . . tick . . . and then . . . The muscles in her body tense under his hands. He wonders if maybe he does make things difficult for himself, he’d like to believe that; it would suggest there was another way . . . She says: “I was at a party Saturday night, maybe fifteen . . . all old friends except for a few of us, we were strangers, almost strangers. It’s weird.” There are fresh cut flowers by the piano. Everything is clean, the room is clean, it smells of wax. “All of us together in this guy’s house and the basic emotion was hatred, all of us felt it one way or another. There wasn’t any reason, it just happened. Like, it could have been, you know, friendship . . . nostalgia, but it was hatred.” They look at each other and he is uncomfortable.

  “But why not? It’s just as human.” Her hand moves to push back strands of her hair: the white face is strangely delicate. What is it that he wants from her? “Everybody tried to be nice because they knew, we explained and apologized, backed away from scenes . . . ”

  “I need to lie down with you,” to hold somebody.

  “Just a minute . . . No matter how we tried it had to break out somewhere.” He goes to stand by the window. Shadows at the end of her garden, the sound of a train on the bridge. Everything is dirty, seedy from winter. His hands have no strength. Her voice is matter-of-fact: “I don’t know why I did it . . . when he said goodnight I hit him across the mouth with my hand . . . why would I do that? I didn’t know him, I hadn’t even spoken to him . . . ” He turns from the window, raises his hand as if he has something to say and discovers that he doesn’t. He stops in mid-gesture. Immediately it’s clear that she’s seen him, she expects him to continue, she waits . . . “Why would I do that?”

  He left early to beat the traffic but it didn’t work, he’s never seen so many cars: caked with salt and dirt they creep, wait . . . As he approaches the expressway traffic thins out, they begin to move faster, Felix cuts from one lane to the other, he curses stupid drivers, air bursts at the windows and the husky shifts in its cage unhappily: he switches on the wipers because transports, speeding cars hurl dirty water on his windshield, his hands are sweating, he holds the wheel lightly and doesn’t think.

  North on the airport road. The animal’s body curling in on itself behind him. It whimpers as if dreaming. Small factories on either side of the road and ugly subdivisions. Indian Line to highway 50. He turns on the radio. Across from the race track a tree full of starlings, thousands of them crowded in its spiky branches, their mottled bodies ragged in the wind. He can hear them as he passes.

  Into the Humber River valley at Bolton, rising north-west to Palgrave where the snow begins again, west on 9 to Ballycroy, villages year after year in drifted snow: a woman in Palgrave raped and murdered in her bedroom, within months another, in another town and her eight-year-old daughter heard it. He turns on his lights and smokes another cigarette.

  Orangeville, then north through Camilla with the pale headlights of approaching cars, Primrose, Horning’s Mills, driving back into winter, the sky grows pale, then dark between metallic clouds and the horizon. Farms are farther apart now, their front doors sealed for winter and trees crowd to the highway’s edge; the beams of his headlights thicken with blowing snow. The dog hasn’t made a sound for over an hour. He’ll turn from the highway, he’ll drive on concession roads to a place he knows, past an empty farmhouse with one apple tree, he’s been in the house, he’s heard her snowboots on the stairs, heard their voices echoing through its rooms . . .

  The highway has been rising imperceptibly from the lakeshore, he doesn’t know how far, perhaps a thousand feet, so that after he leaves it the road lurches unpredictably into ravines, hills swell beneath him, he knows the land drops sharply to Georgian Bay just beyond a particular clearing by a heavy stand of evergreens. He turns halfway to the dog, he speaks to it. There’s no response, at least he doesn’t hear anything and it’s too dark to see: he begins to talk, he explains, encourages, rhythmically the wipers thump, he’s driving automatically, he knows what he’s doing, he’s soothing the dog, he’s turning left, in a little while he’ll turn right again: he passes houses without lights clustered at crossroads. The hills become longer, steeper, until he reaches the plateau: the wind is blowing from west to east across the road, they pass the farm, he can’t tell if it’s still empty, it hasn’t mattered for a long time, he hardly looks at it. He continues past the shell of a building, an abandoned schoolhouse, perhaps it’s a deconsecrated church. One wall has crumbled away, the roof has gone, the windows are empty and snow drifts high on the inner walls. He stops the car and turns off the engine. He zips the coat tightly under his chin, he pulls his woollen hat down over his ears, puts on his leather mitts and gets out. The wind abates. Fine particles of snow lift from the edge of drifts above the road, they powder his cheeks as he stands, but even that ceases; an immense stillness engulfs him, pale stars emerge in the evening sky, the field shimmers between them and the trees. Eventually he walks around the car and opens the door.

  The husky is unwilling to come out of its cage. Felix understands that, the animal’s confused, disoriented by the drive, it needs to be reassured. Dragging the cage, manoeuvring it out the door is
n’t easy, but he manages: short of breath, almost impatient, he explains everything: when the cage is out he lowers it to the road and undoes the wicker door. The dog doesn’t move. Perhaps it’s dead, that’s unlikely. Maybe it’s sick. He gets down on his knees to peer inside but it’s too dark, he can’t see a thing. He’s suddenly afraid to put his hand in and he doesn’t have a flashlight; he straightens and leans against the car. If he upended the cage he could shake the son-of-a-bitch out onto the road. That’s a possibility: at least it’s something he might be able to do. Standing against the car he closes his eyes; the dog should appreciate, at least understand that its freedom is being restored, it should, no matter how cautiously, he recognizes that suspicion is natural and therefore desirable, it should at least poke its fucking head out of the cage, it should see what Felix has done, is doing . . .

  Maybe he’s expecting too much too soon: opening his eyes he avoids looking at the cage, perhaps it needs a little time, he stares emptily into the sky. Insubstantial clouds. Time passes. He waits with his face upturned until his neck begins to hurt. Then he slowly tilts his face forward, lowering his gaze, the sky is endless, the tops of trees against the stars, their brute mass without detail and then the field, the snowbank and the cage. But no dog. Trying to contain increasing vertigo, Felix hunches to the ground, his voice is desperate, begging . . .

  Dragging the cage beside the car. The footing is treacherous, there are ruts, tracks of cars beneath drifted snow, he slides grotesquely but he doesn’t fall, he’s pulling the cage to a spot directly in front of the car, about thirty feet along the road. It’s one thing to do. He goes to the car, turns on the headlights and returns in their glare with his shadow huge and broken on the snow. He crouches to open the cage again, he shifts to avoid the shadow, he doesn’t know what to expect: the white body curls away from him. The head is buried in a corner. He speaks to it purposefully, he demands obedience, is rewarded by a sound, he’s sure there was a sound, he orders it from the cage, it appears the dog is trying to move, there’s tension in its limbs, Felix commands more forcefully, he snarls it lurches trying to turn, it falls, he hears the warning rattle in its throat, can see the gathering spasms . . .

  Why does it terrify him?

  He scrabbles to his feet, he runs to the car and slams the door. He begins to cough, his chest explodes, his mouth fills with vomit, he opens the door and spits onto the road, he’s choked with rolling spasms in his chest and throat, the contents of his stomach burst from his mouth and nose. Perhaps he’s dying. It happens like this, explosions, treachery inside his head, everything silent, a spike of ice in his chest, the body’s puke dribbling from its nose . . .

  He gets out of the car to wash his face in the snow. Kneeling at the edge of the road he rubs until his skin hurts, then he dries it with his knitted hat: he bends to rinse his mouth, it takes more snow than he thought because it melts to almost nothing; he forces his head back, exposes his throat and gargles ineffectually. Spitting thick saliva beside his knee he reaches along his gums with his tongue for chunks of vomit. He spits again. Fresh snow in his mouth and his teeth begin to ache with the cold, he gargles again and spits. His knees are cold, his face is stinging but he doesn’t get up. The snowbank, from where he kneels, rises to meet the sky and since the car is behind him nothing but the stars has any form. They do not move. There are no clouds . . . for an instant there is no distance between objects, no objects, a consciousness, only an idea . . . gradually the impression of the icy night on his eyes, a noise in the distance, his knees melting the snow beneath him, the car cracks mechanically, contracting with the cold but that’s not it. He stands. He has the uneasy sense that something has happened, an emphasis has shifted in some way, nothing is certain: the trees, the sky remain the same, the field’s unchanged. It doesn’t make any sense. Supporting himself against the car he returns to its open door. A light breeze on his cheek, the whine of an engine carried from the highway: it sounds like a truck, he hears the farm dog. Shutting the door, he walks to the cage in the middle of the road and as he expected it’s empty: running easily among the trees, the tireless run of wild dogs, the wolf. He knows it’s too late, but he stares at the shadowy trees, searches the edge of the woods as if for a sign. There isn’t one of course; the landscape contains nothing, it might as well not be there . . .

  The dog is in the car. He discovers it when he opens the back door to replace the cage. The interior light goes on and there it is. Cowering on the floor, it stares at him from the corner of its eye. He doesn’t understand, why is it in the car? He says “You’ll have to get out of there,” he speaks formally: “get out now, out!” It stares at him. He crouches by the open door, he smells wet fur, leaning over the seat until he’s level with its breath. “If you don’t screw off they’ll get you, please go, they’ll take you to the university, they’ll cut you open, they’ll put wires and everything into your head.” It doesn’t understand. “Don’t you understand? they’re waiting to zap you, they’ll fry your goddamn brain.” Its breathing is light and rushed, how can he expect it to understand, what is there to understand? He’s come this far on his own.

  Very calm, without emotion, he walks around to the other side of the car, he opens the door and returns to the cage. There’s nothing to be said. He must simply force the animal from the car, close the doors and drive away. He can’t use the wicker cage as a prod; the space between the seats is too narrow, he must think of something else. All possibilities exist at the same time, in space like a tapestry: he can dismantle the cage and try to straighten one of the supports, he can find part of a fence, he can roll the spare wheel, there’s enough room, he can kick at the dog, push it out with his snowboots, it’s too bad he doesn’t have a ski-pole, the dog will resist, the fences in this part of the country are ideal, a tire iron or the jack, the spare wheel.

  He’s unwilling to hit the animal; he could injure it; unless everything else fails; he leans on the red metal jack, it presses cruelly into the sinews, bone and muscle, the whimpering grows in strength. They are both without anger. Felix bending into the car, forcing methodically, he doesn’t think, he has no sensation, the husky resists. It’s only a matter of time, it can’t win. Felix knows that. The only question is how much, what kind of pain will he have to inflict before the animal capitulates?

  Even when it’s finally on the road he can’t slam the door because, as he pushes its head out with the jack, it sticks a leg back in, he taps the leg carefully until it’s withdrawn, only to find another one, or the head again. He’s cold, his mouth tastes awful: he’d like to be in the city. It goes on and on. The dog breathing intently, whining in its chest, Felix pulling the door shut; why is he doing this? Eventually he succeeds. The husky is outside, it stands on its hind legs and paws at the window, he can hear it: he closes the other door and climbs into the front seat. He sits with his hands on the steering wheel, he doesn’t know how long he sits with his hands on the steering wheel. He’s trembling. The dog is at his window now, its paws scrabbling desperately, it barks suddenly, an abrupt explosive sound, it frightens him: it’s the first time he has heard it bark. He gathers saliva, trying to cleanse his mouth, he lights a cigarette and starts the car. The dog barks again, it falls away from the window as he accelerates, the rear wheels slide as he gathers speed, it runs beside him, the night is immense, he doesn’t know the road in this direction, he doesn’t know where it leads.

  He’s driving faster than he should, he mustn’t go off the road, he mustn’t get stuck, the husky’s loping behind him. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.

  If, when he reaches the floor of the ravine, he turns right instead of left, if he climbs the small hill to the road and descends across highways to the railway tracks, he’s in the Don Valley. It must have been beautiful before the war. The river meanders as a river should. He can see sepia figures with parasols, gentle men with shiny boots, they drift silently beneath great black trees with rough
bark, but the trees are dead now and the water is foul. In the guts of the bridge above him a subway train rattles to Bloor Street. It’s almost spring, the wind is cool: dirty water swells powerfully to the lake, eddies, whirlpools convulse to the surface and vanish. Felix crouches at the edge, on a sandbank, with a mountain of filthy snow and salt on the other side. Clearly pressed into the wet sand there are the tracks of animals, exquisite icons, he doesn’t know what they are, he touches them with his finger. He doesn’t know what they mean. He stands. There are trees, obviously different kinds of trees. He stares at them. They have names, he doesn’t know their names: they are different from each other and unique, some have rough bark, others are smooth, some are tall and slender, others burst greedily from the earth, and birds, he hears their separate voices; following the edge of the river he startles a flock of hundreds, they spring from dead weeds stuck in the snow. All about him there are signs, strange birds chase each other on an empty sky, he threads through husks of summer plants, their pods open and dry like insects. He does not want them to touch him. The snow is melting, the river grows. Even here, all around him, there are animals, they watch him pass. He doesn’t know.

  He knows that he has loved her but no longer understands what it means. Standing by the window. Laughter and applause from the front room. He stares at the garage: it’s dusk, he will go for a walk. There is music now from the television, it makes him angry: in front of the set, her legs tucked beneath her on the sofa, the delicate perfume of her body, he needs her, needs to lie down with her, they cannot do that. Why can’t they? Heavy shadows at the end of the garden, the catalpa black against the sky. He goes for another drink, she turns her face to him, he’s aware of her face, he doesn’t respond, he goes into the kitchen. He should have looked at her, he should have touched her. “Do you want a drink?”