Communion

by Graeme Gibson

  “I . . . I don’t think so.”

  Sitting in an office on the seventh floor, at some point in his life, staring where his reflection should be in the window, he becomes aware, imperceptibly, of a large bird flying towards him, he can’t believe it, he waits for it to slow down, to wheel away from him, but it doesn’t, it intends to imbed itself in his chest, fiercely he sees its eyes, the yellow beak as it explodes against the glass.

  Is that someone on the garage? he’s sure it wasn’t there before: a shape of some kind, a form, almost like someone lying up there observing him, but that’s unlikely. He takes a mouthful of whiskey and tries to determine if someone is watching as she comes to stand behind him, she puts her arms around him, a hand inside his shirt against his belly, she rests her body against him. Is she crying? He turns to her. It isn’t any good, he doesn’t know what to feel, it makes him sad to know he has nothing to say. It’s night now. A train crosses the bridge as she speaks: “I’m sorry.” Her mouth remains parted, she doesn’t expect an answer.

  “So am I.” He touches her face with the tips of his fingers, lightly brushing her forehead, her cheekbones, he is particularly uncertain because the watcher is waiting to see what they will do next. With his hand at the back of her neck he pulls her against him. It is merely awkward, at first, but it quickly becomes embarrassing: she steps away and returns to the other room. He returns to the window. Perhaps if he turned off the light and crouched by the window he would see a wiry silhouette rise to stand beside the tree.

  In front of him a car bursts over the hill, driving fast it appears instantaneously, it blinds him, he swerves to the roadside: its horn blares once and then it’s gone. Felix struggles to keep the car moving through drifted snow, he’s sliding in deeper, he stops the car and puts it into reverse, he accelerates, it begins to move, the wheels are spinning, his hands are clenched, he throws it into drive, then reverse, rocking his body with the car he makes it back onto the crown of the road. He lights a cigarette and smokes without moving. There’s a gentle wind now; the sky is full of stars. If he doesn’t come to a concession road soon he’s going to have to turn around and drive out the way he came in. Where is the husky? possibly it has left the road, it had been right behind him. He searches carefully but there’s no sign of it. He gets out of the car to pee, his body doesn’t work very well, it’s as if it doesn’t understand, all his muscles are contracted so that he has difficulty in straightening himself, it occurs to him that very old men must feel like this. Fumbling beneath his coat to find his fly he hears it, he knows it’s the dog, he knows it’s been hurt, it’s gone mad, it’s been injured: his feet on the frozen road, he’s supporting himself with both hands along the car so he doesn’t fall, it’s having a fit, a noise, a strangling, the sound of his feet, the wind, peering ahead he sees it crushed beside the road, it struggles in small circles, it flops from side to side like a fish. Standing over it he tries to understand. Bone protrudes from its side and the snow is black with its blood. He doesn’t understand, he can’t stand the noise! kill it to stop the noise, he doesn’t know how to kill it, he falls as he tries to turn away, his knees bang stupidly against his chest, he’s bleeding from the mouth, he doesn’t feel the snow against his face. He doesn’t see the husky die.

  Ritson awakens. It’s predictable enough. This afternoon, like every afternoon at the same time, the need to urinate wakens him. Since he’s not yet prepared to wet himself, he can resist the pressure but he can’t ignore it. So he wakes up. Manoeuvring onto his back, he opens his eyes. There is no light, not a glimmer, he’d be astounded if there were. Lying on a mattress, in a windowless cubicle, not a cell, in the deepest corner of his basement, he acknowledges there is light in the city, but it never penetrates this far beneath the street.

  On his back in the dark, it’s like sleep but his eyes are open, the empty house above him, so many rooms, the furniture covered with sheets to protect it, he remembers a woman, she must have done that before she left. Or has he always been alone? He remembers many women, and children, some of them had children in their arms, they prepared meals of soup and sandwiches for children coming home from school. It doesn’t matter. He must get up, the pressure on his bladder insists, he closes his eyes, he opens them again. Children skating on a river, their red toques brilliant in the sun. Their voices come to him in the wind. It’s possible he played a musical instrument of some kind, a violin perhaps, some instrument that he could carry with him.

  He’s convinced, not without reason, that he’s appreciably weaker, his body less effective. The pain is no more intense, indeed it may have diminished, but that’s neither here nor there; pain has come and gone with the brute regularity of the tides for as long as he can remember. Inevitable; but it has no more bearing on his true state than the beating of his heart, for example, or the alternate expansion and contraction of the lungs inside his chest. But when he attempts to stand he can see that the process of disintegration in his body has continued while he slept, it may even have accelerated. His spine doesn’t bend easily, it’s as though the individual vertebrae cling to each other and even with help from his arms, the muscles in his belly are incapable of pulling him into a sitting position. He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest, levering with his arms, he flops onto his belly, he struggles to raise his trunk from the mattress, to rise onto all fours, his arms are too weak, he collapses, his face bangs rudely against the cellar floor. It’s probably like this every day, soon the strength will return, he lies motionless with one arm beneath him, his face is pressed against the cement.

  If he doesn’t manage to get up soon he’ll have to pee here in his bed and he’s never done that before, at least he can’t believe he has. He has vomited, that’s fairly certain, he’s clawed himself from sleep, his throat and lungs choked with half-digested food, and in the past, dreaming of boys and girls, a hayride perhaps, young limbs entwining him, their voices, hands, the smell of the hay, their bodies, he’s woken with hands between his legs, the unfamiliar noise of ecstasy. If it happened, it was a long time ago.

  Manoeuvring onto his back, he opens his eyes. On his back in the dark, it’s like sleep, the empty house above him, so many rooms, the furniture covered with sheets to protect it, he remembers a woman, she must have done that before she left. Or has he always been alone? He remembers many women, and children, some of them had children in their arms, they prepared meals of soup and sandwiches for children coming home from school. It doesn’t matter. He must get up, the pressure on his bladder insists, he closes his eyes, he opens them again. Children skating on a river, their red toques brilliant in the sun. Their voices come to him in the wind.

  Felix stops by the car, he’s afraid, he turns to look at the corpse. Even if he did kill it, it doesn’t matter: beneath stars, the dead of winter, no harmonies, there’s nothing known, nothing not known; he’s trembling against the car, the occasional naked tree, the brittle earth, he doesn’t tremble because of the fear, not even because of the cold.

  What does he have to do?

  Deathly cold, shaken by uncontrollable tremors, he drives back down along the road they entered. Snowbanks on either side, he accelerates beneath the sky. It was dead when he revived, beside him, nestled against him, its great body against him: he had stumbled away from the black snow, he had paused . . . Descending to the lake he turns to the right, the heater is beginning to thrust warm air into the car, it isn’t enough. He failed. He doesn’t understand. The road rises and falls with the land, he passes houses without lights clustered at crossroads.

  Leaving by the side door, into the alley, it’s dark, he’s wearing running shoes and goes directly to the park, then into the ravine, he moves with empty grace, through underbrush, a path beside the road because sometimes there are others . . .

  Under the railway bridge, he smokes a cigarette: cupping it secretively in his hand, he hunches down with his back against the concrete column. He list
ens to the stream rushing over rocks and garbage. It stinks of the graveyard. There was a boy who lived under a bridge, maybe even this bridge, there are lots of places to hide, he grew up under it in the middle of the city and nobody knew he was there. He’d come out at night to forage for food like the raccoons. He would have gone to the country, it might have been different in the country, but he didn’t know it was there. During the day he’d cling unmoving among the supports high above the ravine and watch strangers walking dogs, he was afraid of the dogs, he saw boys and girls playing together, riding their bicycles; occasionally there would be lovers lying together in the long grass, he’d see them, their private urgency and after they’d gone he’d descend to where their bodies had crushed the grass and lying on his belly, with a long freight rattling over the bridge above him, he’d weep. He knows how the rabbits move nervously at dawn and where the groundhogs live, he’s seen them killed by dogs.

  At night, when there’s no longer the noise of traffic on Yonge Street, with winos sleeping heavily in the bushes, he emerges from the ravine, he must eat and knows which houses are likely to be open and where there are no dogs. He’s motionless by the catalpa, he’s watching, listening, then he vaults the fence and moves quickly to the back door and slips inside. He’s selective by instinct and rather than have them miss anything, begin to watch for him, he’ll visit three or four houses, taking a little from each. He drinks from the milk bottle, there’s cold meat in a drawer beneath the freezer, he takes some fruit, several slices of bread, he puts it all in his pockets, picks up a tomato, takes another mouthful of milk and starts for the back door . . .

  Excited because nobody knows he’s here, there are lights in the apartment window, but he can’t see anybody inside. Music is playing somewhere, he doesn’t recognize the song: noise from the traffic on Yonge Street is curiously soothing, like the sea. Using the fence and the tree, Fripp climbs onto the garage roof, he wriggles forward on his belly, excited because nobody knows he’s here, he presses himself flat on the gravelled surface. A bearded man appears in the window, it’s the husband, he stands looking out with a drink in his hand. There is a bed behind him, a doorway with light in it; the music has stopped. Night air is moving imperceptibly against his face as she appears in the doorway, the woman walking up behind him, she puts her arms around him, he doesn’t move, her hand is inside his shirt. If they speak he cannot hear them, if there are sounds in the apartment, he doesn’t know: they remain motionless, he imagines their breath, the rustle of clothing as he eventually turns to her. He takes her in his arms. She turns from him, he reaches after her, she stops to look at him from the doorway, his arm is still extended, she steps forward and sits on the bed, she’s reflected in a mirror on the wall, she lies with her face in her hands, the man walks to stand over her, he touches her as if he’d never seen her before. She doesn’t move. He touches her shoulder and still she doesn’t move, he’s saying something to her; she presses her face even more tightly into her hands. The man comes to the window. He empties his glass and lights a cigarette, he stands smoking, staring out at the end of the garden. Without turning his head he says something, the woman raises her face to stare at him, her long hair over her face like a mask: it isn’t any good, the man turns, the woman stands, pulls her dress up her body and over her head, she is naked except for bikini pants and her back is crisscrossed with lacerations as if she has frequently been whipped. He sees her reflected in the mirror, she is standing very still, her body is white and soft even from this distance, her breasts are heavy. He does not know what is happening, the expectation is like panic. She bends to the bed, she kneels on it, she stretches herself face down along it, the man comes to crouch over her, he leans to put his mouth on her wounds, they look like decorations in her flesh, his tongue traces them dutifully, there’s no passion, they don’t appear to be moving at all. Her eyes are closed.

  Now, and this is more difficult, going to her again, knowing the hair shrouding her face, knowing she waits for him: there are trees scattered up each side of the ravine, this morning he saw a hawk, he’s almost certain it was a hawk, it soared on ragged wings.

  Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth as he climbs out of the ravine, he vaults the fence by the garage, she’s waiting for him, she’ll turn as he comes in the door, light from the window in her hair, on her cheek.

  A bottle of chilled white wine, it’s a ritual, either of them might have bought it: they’re listening to her records. Bright on the wicker placemats, the afternoon sun is still warm; the wine glass focuses a shimmering patch of light on the table by his hand. She reaches across the light to touch him. He goes around the table, he kneels before her, he burrows his face into her lap, his hands under her skirt grope for her thighs, her buttocks spreading as she sits: her hands are in his hair, she traces the muscles from his neck into his shoulders. They do not speak. She’s watching him. He loves her, he raises his face, she kisses him, her mouth is full of wine, he drinks: she reaches for her glass, her eyes are moist, pressing her mouth to his she dribbles wine, warmed by her body, into him; he loves her, his tongue is swollen against her teeth, she resists, she rejects and receives him; with mouths bruising together they re-explore familiar innocence. The floor is beginning to hurt his knees. His hands are at her hips, his thumbs pressing into her belly, his fingers stretching towards her buttocks, he levers himself from the floor, it’s only briefly awkward, she stands with him, they embrace, her long body in his arms; then taking the bottle of wine, what’s left of it, they go into the bedroom.

  It’s so easy.

  Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth, still gentle they undress each other, a shaft of fading sunlight across his body and hers, he spills wine on her breasts, her belly, and drinks; laughing she presses him onto his back, her fingers, mouth and teeth at random on his body. With her again, for the first time again, he understands.

  “You make me beautiful.”

  Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth, the urgent sounds of their bodies, passion growing like fear or anger, they clutch and bite in desperation, it breaks, they’re tumbling together into loneliness and awe.

  On her street for the first time in daylight, he walks past her house, there’s no sign of her: a stark tree on the lawn, the windows are clean, there are bright curtains; he stops as if to light a cigarette. He doesn’t know her name.

  He will tell her, he’ll say: “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.” She watches him. Does she understand? her hands are curled in her lap, he’s drinking her scotch, smoking her cigarettes: sitting across from her, pale eyes, she doesn’t move, he believes she stopped him when he tried to leave, listening to her records.

  He will say: “I’ve never encountered a situation, in the lives of my friends, when they made any kind of choice, when they could have done anything other than what they did do. Choice” he will say, “describes what might have been.”

  “That’s a useless idea.”

  “I believe it.”

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

  Her street in daylight, he walks to her door: a stark tree on the lawn, the windows are clean, there are bright curtains, everything is clean; it’s the kind of apartment that will have fresh cut flowers, it will smell of wax, of furniture polish. He steps into the vestibule, her name is printed beneath her doorbell. Urquhart. Mr. and Mrs. D. Urquhart, he rings the bell. He’s forgotten his role, what he was going to say, she’ll know, she’ll cry out, protesting . . .

  She’s taller than he thought, her hair is almost black, she looks at him impers
onally, her black hair over her shoulders. “Yes?” Her voice is clear and open, he cannot meet her eyes, surely she suspects . . . “May I help you?” He must answer, he hears his voice:

  “Are there any, do you have any odd jobs, you know . . . work around the house?” He manages to glance into her face, he doesn’t know where that idea came from, certainly she’ll refuse him. “Please . . . I’ll do anything . . . ” Calculating, she stares at him easily, there is sunlight in the room behind her, the flesh in the opening of her shirt is white, his mouth and throat, even his teeth are dry, he’s seen her breasts, they’re even bigger than he thought, she must know, surely she suspects, she’s opening the door! it never happens this easily, is she alone? he listens intently, but there’s no sound from the apartment behind her. She’s alone and she’s opening the door, she’s stepping backwards . . .

  “Come in. I’m sure there’s something.” Trembling violently he closes the door, he follows her in the hall, her hair comes right down to her ass, his sneakers make tiny kissing noises on the hardwood. Everything is clean, the rooms are clean, they smell of furniture polish, soap, perfumes and powders, wax, there are fresh cut flowers by the piano and a bowl of fruit on an ornate stand by the window. There is an enormous black brassiere drying on a radiator in the bathroom.

  Several women at a table by the window, they’re laughing richly. They appraise him in the doorway, it’s disconcerting. The table is covered with open beer bottles: she leaves him to drink from her glass, he watches the life in her throat as she swallows. “He wonders if there’s anything he can do around the house.” Dragging deeply on her cigarette, their buoyant voices overlap; it’s as if she’s devouring the smoke.