Days by moonlight Read online

  them, he looked pensive. And, as if answering a question, he said

  – Well, after all, the soul has no gender.

  – Oh, said Michael, we make no assumptions about the soul.

  This is a museum of sex, not religion. And it isn’t the soul that

  copulates. Our various bodies do that.

  Then, looking at me, Michael asked

  – Are you all right?

  – I’m feeling overwhelmed, I said. I’m going to go sit down

  for a while. You two go on. I’ll catch up later.

  And I left them on their own.

  Unfortunately, I had to pass the fourth diorama on the way

  out. It was a scene in a forest – a thickening of birches and

  spruce like a wooded haven in the distance. There was a well-

  trod path that led from the front of the diorama – where the

  viewer stood – toward the trees at the back. To the sides of the

  path: trodden grasses, white-headed clover, and a smattering of

  purple-tufted thistles. Lying on the path in front of the viewer: a

  bloodied body, one of its arms struggling or instinctively pulling

  at the ground in order to escape the grizzly bear that had just

  mauled it. The grizzly – which was extremely realistic – was up

  on its hind legs facing the viewer. And as the viewer approached

  the diorama, the bear roared, its jaws agape so one could see its

  bloody teeth.

  The effect was to put the looker suddenly and without warning

  in loco praedae: in the place of the grizzly’s prey. So realistically

  was this done that one could not help backing away. On stepping

  back, however, the viewer tripped a mechanism and the bear in

  the diorama lunged forward, its growl pure nature – loud and

  127

  ferocious, the thud of its paw against the glass powerful enough

  to shake the diorama.

  When I’d recovered from my distress, Michael and Professor

  Bruno had caught up to me. Both were smiling, no doubt admiring

  the diorama and, maybe, amused by the effect it had had on me.

  Still stunned, I told Michael I couldn’t see how this diorama had

  come to be in a museum devoted to sexuality. Nothing about

  being killed by a bear struck me as erotic.

  – Many people say this, said Michael. But the connection

  between arousal and danger is well documented. We know for a

  fact that all sorts of animals, when facing death, become aroused.

  And humans regularly court danger while having intercourse.

  Couples mate on rooftops, while driving cars, on planes, in Ferris

  wheels. God knows where. For my money, this is the most sensual

  of the dioramas.

  Professor Bruno nodded in agreement.

  – This is very true, he said. And just think, Alfie, we live in a

  world where people dress up as wild animals to have pleasure. I

  find this diorama quite convincing.

  I saw the professor’s point, but I simply could not accept that

  an enraged and marauding grizzly could be taken as an adjunct to

  pleasure. I’d mistaken the realistic representation of a grizzly for a

  real one and I’d been frightened, but even knowing that there was

  no danger, I felt uncomfortable standing in front of the diorama.

  This and my discomfort with the museum itself was too much. I

  let the professor and Michael discuss the nature of sexual fantasy

  on their own. I left the room, looking for a way out of the museum.

  Leaving the room with the dioramas, I followed a wall-painted

  arrow that pointed to my left. Above this arrow were the words

  “The Instruments/Les Instruments.’ Beneath the arrow it said,

  “This Way Out.’ Which is to say, I had to go through another

  gallery to get out of the place.

  “The Instruments/Les Instruments” was in a space as large as

  the one I’d left, though it seemed smaller because there were no

  128

  dioramas. I tried to avoid looking closely at anything as I passed

  through the room, but what I did see resembled a work of concep-

  tual art more than it did a museum exhibit. Along all four walls,

  there was a latticework of white squares – hundreds of white

  squares, each of which held one object, each object lit by its own

  tiny light: bananas, melons, and dildos on the top shelves, followed

  by more modest “dilators” and “recipients” (false vaginas, plastic

  fish heads), which were in turn followed by smaller things. What

  those smaller things were, I can’t say, because I kept my eyes on

  the door as I made my way to what I hoped was the last exit.

  But it wasn’t. The third exit was through the museum’s book-

  store, a well-lit space on whose walls hung posters from previous

  exhibits. Despite my desire to leave the museum, I couldn’t help

  admiring the images. The least one could say was that most made

  you wonder about the exhibits they advertised. For instance, the

  professor and I had apparently just missed a show called

  PIERRE TRUDEAU: ANGEL OF THE EROTIC

  whose poster was a painting of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s face. The

  former prime minister looked out, smiling kindly. But his image

  gave nothing away about the show’s content.

  After leafing through a pricey book called Custard, Twigs, and

  Berries, I went to the foyer, sat on its marble bench, and, for the

  hour it took before Professor Bruno came out, I tried to make

  sense of my feelings: my unease. I assumed it had nothing to do

  with sex itself. Having been born in a time when it’s increasingly

  difficult not to know that humans have peculiar ideas of what

  constitutes sexual pleasure, I wasn’t offended by what I’d seen. It

  is simply a fact that some of my contemporaries find motorcycles

  arousing: motorcycles, monocles, the smell of bleach, rubber

  gloves, cheese graters, maple leaves, and so on, endlessly. I also

  assumed it had nothing to do with the way the information was

  presented. I love taxonomy and I take pleasure in small variations.

  129

  An extra leaf, an unusual shade of flower, stamens of improbable

  length, etc.: all these details move me.

  And yet, the collision of sex and taxonomy was at the heart

  of my unease. The museum was disturbing in its institutional

  desire for inclusivity, a desire that had turned the sexual into a

  thing that could be dealt with alphanumerically. Seeing the nota-

  tions on the glass of the dioramas, I’d felt the tyranny of the

  specific. If every instance of the sexual could be plotted, turned

  to symbols, catalogued, and boxed, could the emotions behind

  our couplings and caresses also be assigned a symbol? Could

  the museum place a “Λ” beside certain notations, so that some

  were performed with love (Λ) and some without (−Λ)?

  At the thought of this, it was as if Anne had left me again. Or,

  rather, it was as if she came back and then left. I had, as I sat there,

  a vivid memory of her. We’d been walking together along Kingston

  Road when she showed me the steps down to Glen Stewart Park,

  not far from where she lived. It was summer, my first time in that

  green place, and I was enchanted by everything: the broad wooden

  s
teps, the plank railing, the steep decline into the ravine, the

  sound of the stream running through it. We were happy then,

  and she turned to me, smiling, tucking a strand of light-brown

  hair behind her ear and then kissing me, for no reason but pleasure

  in the moment, knowing the pleasure was shared, taking pleasure

  in the knowing, before we walked through the park, past houses

  that were like modest mansions in some secret England.

  As the memory overwhelmed me, I sat on the marble bench

  in the Museum of Sex, feeling as devastated as if she’d just told

  me – told me again – that she thought she loved someone else,

  that she was sorry but we couldn’t go on, that it was her fault not

  mine, that our stars were misaligned, that I shouldn’t call because

  it was no use talking until she knew what she wanted, until I

  knew how I felt, until we’d both had a chance to heal.

  Painful as the moment was, however, release from my unhap-

  piness came soon after. As I wondered about the connection

  130

  between love and fleshy mechanics, I thought of the story Mr.

  Henderson had told us about John Skennen and Carson

  Michaels. Though the story sounded fanciful – more legend

  than fact – I found, as I sat in the foyer, that I preferred the

  story’s invention (its dishonesty, even) to the catalogue of

  couplings and preferences housed in the museum. I preferred

  the myths of intimacy to the facts of it. Professor Bruno had

  speculated that Madame Madeg’s love for Baillie was evident in

  her punishment of John Skennen. Long after Madeg’s proximity

  to Baillie, her feelings for the man were still strong. That idea

  brought me peace. Love was not just a superfluous part of what

  bodies did, it was in the moments before and after the mechanics

  as well. We were in the Canadian Museum of Sex not the Cana-

  dian Museum of Love, after all. This simple and obvious realiza-

  tion brought with it a more complicated puzzle: if we find love

  with someone, as I had with Anne, was it possible to lose it when

  that person was gone? Or did it, rather, stay within us: a perpetual

  gift, an inexhaustible resource?

  I was reminded of a poem by John Skennen:

  A blue heron rose this morning from White Lake –

  wings pulling at air, dangling feet encumbrances,

  until it caught an updraft and was still

  having found its daily elegance in flight.

  Restless predator gone the lake unrippled

  soothing the stump from which the bird had flown

  setting cattails and reeds quietly rocking

  shaking the birches and alders – their leaves.

  O Canada, O my country

  for whom am I meant to keep this love?

  A list of things. But a list behind which there’s something

  irreducible. On first reading the poem, I thought Skennen had

  131

  been confused about which of his partners he was meant to love

  and I’d found it strange that he’d ask his country’s help to decide.

  But when I thought about it in the museum, it struck me that

  Skennen’s feelings were caught in the web of things he’d listed:

  herons, birches, cattails, alders, and leaves. The world – people

  and things – brings us to love but it is not love itself. I might

  have said those very words about my parents and Anne, that

  they had brought me to love, that they were not love itself. That

  they were gone from me could not spoil what they’d given.

  Obvious though this idea might have been to others, it was a

  revelation to me. So much so, that I began to feel as if our journey

  – mine and the professor’s – was not to help Professor Bruno

  but to help me, Alfred Homer. It briefly felt as if all were meant

  for me, as if I’d generated everything in order to tell myself this

  small thing. Then again, I suppose every traveller feels this,

  because, in the end, every journey has a special – not general –

  meaning, a meaning particular to each traveller. A strange idea:

  that the professor was there to help me, not the other way around.

  Just as I was thinking about him, Professor Bruno came out

  of the museum. He was red-faced.

  – My, my, my, he said. What an institution! I don’t think I’ve

  ever seen anything like it. What did you think? I loved it! I’d say

  this is one place where our tax dollars are well spent! And I’m

  not ashamed to say I was quite aroused. At times, quite aroused.

  On an unrelated note, Alfie, we’re going to Marsville.

  Without meaning to challenge him, I said

  – I thought we were going to Feversham.

  He frowned, but only for a moment.

  – Je te vois venir , Alfie! he said. Yes, all right, I am wary of

  meeting John Skennen, so I’m wary of Feversham, too. I admit it.

  But you’ve got to understand, my boy, that in my mind and in all

  the work I’ve done, John Skennen is an artist and a brilliant

  thinker. I’d hate to have that image of him destroyed by facts.

  You see? The real Skennen could just as easily kill my version of

  132

  him as improve it! And I don’t mind saying I think my version of

  the man and his work is better than any real version could be.

  I’m not a coward, Alfie. I can face reality. But we old people know

  the cost of that confrontation more than you youngsters! I didn’t

  know I’d feel this way when we started out, but there you have it.

  I do feel this way. We’ll go to Feversham, don’t worry. But it’ll be

  tomorrow. Not today. For today, I’ve made arrangements with

  Michael to visit Michael’s home in Marsville. Such a pleasant

  person! And so witty! Like finding an ounce of gold. We couldn’t

  not go! Anyway, I’m sure you don’t mind. I’m very happy about it

  myself. Very happy.

  – Are we going to spend the night in Marsville? I asked.

  – I’m not sure where we’ll spend the night. We’ll see how it

  goes. Michael’s invited us for supper, but we’ll be eating after

  six, once Michael finishes work. And it would be good for us to

  take our time, get to know Michael and Michael’s roommate.

  – Michael’s roommate?

  – Oh, yes. Michael’s roommate will let us in. We can wait at

  their house.

  As we drove to Marsville, the professor was almost chatty.

  – You should have stayed for the other exhibits, he said. I

  can’t tell you how interesting it all was. Did you at least see the

  Canadian Construction? Now that was fascinating! It’s a program

  that allows you to create a Canadian lover. Imagine that! You

  choose from a set of characteristics: mouths, eyes, accents, vocab-

  ularies, the works! But all the aspects on offer are typically Cana-

  dian, based on the population we have. There’s a large percentage

  of European characteristics on offer, of course: brown hair, freck-

  les, that sort of thing. So, if you want a Malaysian accent, you

  have to ask for it, and the program might refuse, based on how

  many Malaysian accents have been asked for that week. So, it’s a

  surprise what you end up with. Very surprising. The program
<
br />   creates a hologram that can talk! I’m not ashamed to say I was

  pleased with my hologram. Very lifelike. But Michael pointed

  133

  out that my hologram looked exactly like Michael. That was an

  embarrassing moment, Alfie, but … I went with it, as young people

  say. And, after all, Michael is very attractive. I don’t mind saying

  that if I were younger and if I could tell Michael’s gender, I’d be

  fit for an adventure. I really would.

  This was more information than I needed. But I didn’t want

  him to think I disapproved.

  – Why does Michael’s gender matter? I asked. Couldn’t you

  have an adventure, anyway?

  – Now, there, Alfie, is where you’re one up on me, he said. It’s

  too late for the old professor! I’ve spent seventy years getting

  used to a certain kind of plumbing. I’m too old to take things as

  I find them. I need them as I’m used to them.

  My question gave him something to reflect on, I think. He kept

  quiet for a while, looking out his window at the late summer fields

  – the land faded, the sky as if unwillingly blue, the bale-ready hay

  lying out like a yellowish carpet. I worried that I’d saddened him,

  but, when I looked over at him, the professor was smiling.

  – Maybe I shouldn’t make assumptions, he said.

  A mysterious sentence. I couldn’t tell if he was referring to

  assumptions about Michael, assumptions about himself, or

  assumptions about life in general. But I agreed with him, nodding

  in an understanding way, and we continued along the Orangeville-

  Fergus Road with nothing but flat fields, outcroppings of trees,

  and the occasional farmhouse to distract us.

  The directions to Michael’s home were vague – “Turn right at

  13th Line” – but they were enough. The house wasn’t far from the

  main road and it was painted white – white and blue, rather, the

  window frames being indigo. To the left of the front door, there

  was a patch of bat’s delight ( Asclepias onterica) – dark green leaves,

  crimson “bars” (transverse pistils), the plants at full height touching

  the aprons of the windows on the first floor.

  (The first time I ever saw bat’s delight was at the Musical

  Gardens in Toronto. There was a patch of it on a hillock facing

  134

  the lake, its crimson pistils vivid. But the plant is best seen in

  early evening. Asclepius onterica is a natural calmative for bats,