Days by moonlight Read online

  From earth, ground, stories, dreams, language, and history. That’s

  what a place is, Alfie. It feeds off us while we feed off it. It’s a bit

  of a paradox, you know, like context giving context to a context,

  but there you have it.

  I’m sure the professor was right. But I remember his stories

  more than I do some of the towns and grounds we passed through,

  their buildings and streets. Whitchurch-Stouffville, for instance.

  By the time we got there, we were both happy to be out in the sun

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  and away from the city. So, it’s possible I was distracted. But the

  town itself, the Stouffville part, was like any number of towns in

  the area. It had a Chinese restaurant and a business of some sort

  housed behind a red-brick facade. That’s about it. In trying to

  recall its streets, I find I’m not sure I haven’t got it confused with

  Concord or Nobleton. In fact, there are buildings in my memory

  of Stouffville that, I’m almost certain, belong elsewhere.

  We were there so Professor Bruno could talk to John Sken-

  nen’s aunt, Moira Stephens, the last of Skennen’s relatives who’d

  known him when he was young. Her house was at the bottom of

  a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. The house wasn’t unusual –

  single storey, its front porch coming away, slightly, a few of the

  black tiles from its roof scattered on the front lawn – but it was

  painted light green. The colour shimmered and the smell of paint

  was strong. We were met at the door by a young woman whose

  hair was, in streaks, blue. She was tall and willowy. She didn’t

  smile, exactly, but she politely said

  – What do youse want?

  – Ah, said Professor Bruno. We’re here to speak to Mrs.

  Stephens about her nephew. I’m Professor Morgan Bruno and

  this is my travel companion, Alfred Homer.

  – You’re from the university? said the woman. Good to see

  youse! I don’t think youse are going to get much out of Gram.

  She hasn’t been herself lately, eh? But it’s your own time youse

  are killing. Didn’t you say something about a few bucks for

  the inconvenience?

  – You must be Roberta, Professor Bruno said. I’m happy to

  make a contribution to your well-being.

  He gave her a ten-dollar bill. She folded the bill, tucked it

  into her brassiere, and led us to a living room where there was a

  fuzzy yellow sofa whose cushions had worn down in places so

  that, here and there, hernias of white foam came through. There

  were two wooden chairs facing the sofa and, beside the entrance

  to the room, a faux-elephant-foot umbrella holder that held an

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  umbrella and what seemed to be a walking stick. The room had

  an interesting smell, unexpectedly herbal. It smelled of basil.

  After a longish while, Roberta led poor Mrs. Stephens in. I say

  “poor Mrs. Stephens” not to be unkind but because the woman

  looked tired and it didn’t seem as if she wanted to be there. She

  was wearing a pink terry-cloth robe – strange, because it was

  almost as warm in the living room as it had been outside. Her

  grey hair, wet and sparse, must have been hastily done because

  you could still see the grooves the comb’s teeth had left in it. She

  had white bedroom slippers on her feet.

  – She just got up, said Roberta.

  For a while, it didn’t look like Mrs. Stephens would say

  anything. She frowned when Professor Bruno introduced himself.

  Then she stared at him when he asked questions about her nephew.

  – When did you last see John? the professor asked. Did he

  ever talk to you about his poetry? Is it true that the last place

  anyone saw him was in Feversham?

  Mrs. Stephens was provoked by the mention of Feversham.

  Her answer was almost a complaint.

  – I don’t know anything about that, she said. No one’s

  supposed to know about that.

  She moved her chair in Professor Bruno’s direction.

  – Why do you want to know about it? she asked.

  Inspired by her sudden interest, Professor Bruno was suddenly

  exuberant.

  – I love your nephew’s work, he said. I’ve studied John’s poems

  for years. I think he may be our greatest poet. Our secret Akhma-

  tova! Our hidden Hölderlin! It was time someone wrote a literary

  biography – more about the work than the man, but still … I’m

  looking for a few details from John’s life. Things to illuminate the

  poetry. I’ll leave the real biography to a real biographer.

  Mrs. Stephens moved closer to him, her left shoulder raised

  to cushion her tilted head, but she didn’t say anything. So,

  Professor Bruno went on.

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  – John’s a wonderful poet, he said. I’m not saying he needs a

  biography so the poetry can be understood. His work’s clear as

  Waterford Crystal. But I think my work brings out facets of the

  poetry and illuminates some of the obscurities. Not all of them!

  A poem needs its obscurities!

  Mrs. Stephens moved her chair closer, little by little, as if

  she didn’t have the strength to draw close at once. It seemed

  she wanted to hear Professor Bruno talk about her nephew. But

  then she inched her chair past him, pulled the umbrella (bright

  orange) out of the elephant’s foot, and hit him with it. The blow

  was a surprise. Mrs. Stephens moved so quickly for an older

  woman. She caught Professor Bruno on the cheek with the

  umbrella’s nib and drew blood. Before I could come to the profes-

  sor’s rescue – before he could defend himself – the umbrella

  opened on its own, an angry frilled lizard, and Mrs. Stephens

  started to cry. The sound of her crying was strange: the bleating

  of a kid but softer and more lilting and with long pauses as she

  drew breath.

  When she could manage to speak, she cried out

  – Don’t you dare talk about him!

  At these words, Roberta came in to see what was wrong. Find-

  ing her grandmother distraught, she tried to calm her. She wiped

  her grandmother’s face with a tea towel and said

  – There, there, Gram!

  And added

  – I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with Uncle John.

  – It’s too much, said her grandmother. Don’t you talk about

  him, either.

  – I should of warned youse, said Roberta. Gram sometimes

  gets skittish.

  She helped her quaking grandmother from the room, returning

  after a few minutes to say:

  – She gets this way when she thinks about Uncle John, eh.

  Why don’t youse come back tomorrow? She’s not always like

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  this. It’s just sometimes she’s sensitive about it, like no one’s

  supposed to say Uncle John’s name. She’s got a heart of gold.

  Give you her last clean undies, most days. But she doesn’t like to

  talk about certain things, poor Gram.

  I thought it would be cruel to disturb Mrs. Stephens again,

  especially as she was sensitive about the one subject that inter-

  ested Professor Bruno. But the professor, not wanting to disap-

  point Robert
a, agreed to consider returning once we’d visited

  the other places on our itinerary. He held out a ten-dollar bill.

  – Please take this for your troubles, he said.

  Roberta refused.

  – No, she said. We can’t take more till you get your first

  money’s worth. Come back when youse are done your rounds.

  Gram’ll be feeling better by then.

  Professor Bruno wanted to go on to our next town straight

  away. He’d found the episode with Mrs. Stephens embarrassing

  and wanted to put it out of mind. But I stopped at the walk-in

  clinic in Stouffville for a bandage and disinfectant. Mrs. Stephens

  hadn’t done much damage, but there was blood on the professor’s

  cheek and I’d have felt terrible if his cut got infected.

  As it turned out, going to the clinic was, inadvertently, one

  of the most helpful things we did, not because the professor was

  in danger but because a sympathetic attendant at the clinic, Karen

  Kelly by name, unexpectedly pointed us to new details about

  Mr. Skennen.

  – Mrs. Stephens doesn’t know any more about John Skennen

  than I do, she said. I mean, maybe she did at one time, but the

  poor lady hasn’t been right in the head for years. I’m not surprised

  she stabbed you with an umbrella. But if you want to find out

  about John Skennen, you should talk to my mom. She went out

  with him in high school.

  Professor Bruno was warily enthusiastic.

  – This is wonderful, he said. A real find. And to think we

  have an umbrella to thank for it!

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  Ms. Kelly’s mother, Kathryn, was a surprising fount of infor-

  mation. She’d kept high school photos of John Skennen and

  seemed to remember every detail of their time together. And yet,

  there was little in what she remembered that you’d call remarkable.

  Mr. Skennen seemed to have been a normal young man, in the

  throes of first love – they would love each other forever, he

  wrote, and she was more beautiful than words could express,

  and he would spend his life making her happy. Except that he

  took poetry seriously, that he aspired to be a poet and actually

  became one, Skennen was not unusual.

  It was strange to hear the love-elation I’d recently felt so

  nakedly expressed in the letters of a seventeen-year-old. It made

  me wonder if love, whenever it hits you, is always the same. Like

  the young Skennen, I couldn’t help thinking about my “beloved.’

  But, unlike him, I could no longer revel in the longing my thoughts

  of Anne brought.

  Professor Bruno kept Mrs. Kelly talking for two hours and

  was rewarded by the discovery of a poem John Skennen had

  written as a seventeen-year-old. The poem was in one of the

  letters Mrs. Kelly had kept. She wouldn’t tell us anything about

  its meaning, but she allowed me to transcribe it:

  Ticking tocks

  taking clocks

  before they

  hurt me,

  Train, unhinged,

  is what I bid

  toward me,

  Sheet of earth,

  I let you go

  above me

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  And limestone grey

  is what I taught

  to love me

  Listening to Mrs. Kelly’s memories also brought my parents

  to mind. What must it have been like for them, young and in

  love, both God-fearing, as they called it, both wanting to get out

  of Chatham, Ontario? They’d met in their teens, right around

  the same age as Kathryn Kelly and John Skennen, but their love

  had flourished and lived on to the end of their lives. How rare

  that seemed to me now.

  Maybe because I had my parents in mind, it occurred to me

  that the young man in Mrs. Kelly’s photos looked like Professor

  Bruno or that Professor Bruno looked like the young man: same

  thick hair, same strong chin, and, in one photo, the same complicit

  smile. The resemblance was so obvious that both Mrs. Kelly and

  the professor admitted it. It made me wonder if Mrs. Stephens

  had mistaken the professor for her nephew.

  – But then why would she hit me? asked Professor Bruno.

  Wouldn’t she be happy to see her nephew?

  – You know, said Mrs. Kelly, I haven’t spoken to John since

  we broke up, but there must be a reason he changed his name

  from Stephens.

  – I suppose that’s true, said the professor. And Skennen is the

  Ojibwe word for peace. I’ve always wondered if he ever found it.

  – Oh, I don’t think John ever found peace, said Mrs. Kelly.

  So few of us do, on this side of the lawn. Anyway, if his aunt

  didn’t beat him with an umbrella, it would be one of the few

  things she didn’t use. That generation liked to hit.

  While we were in her home, Mrs. Kelly made sure we had

  lemonade – a clear lemonade with mint leaves crushed in it –

  and that we were comfortable and that the air conditioner was

  not too cold for us. Her kindness struck me. Though her living

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  room was cool as a larder, it was still welcoming, because she

  was herself so generous.

  Sometime later, Professor Bruno spoke of his admiration for

  Mrs. Kelly’s beauty. I must have looked at him as if I weren’t

  convinced. Mrs. Kelly was in her sixties, maternal in my eyes.

  The joints of her fingers were slightly knobby. She was thin but

  big-breasted so that her body looked weighed down. Her face

  had, I think, once been what’s called “beautiful,’ but it was now

  gaunt and a little intimidating.

  – Was she beautiful? I asked.

  Professor Bruno was annoyed.

  – No, she wasn’t beautiful. She is beautiful. Her spirit is as

  warm as a sauna. And I mean a good sauna. Not one of those

  overheated contraptions where you can’t breathe. I’m surprised

  at you, Alfie, observant as you are! You know spirit is as important

  to beauty as physical appearance, don’t you? There’s a difference

  between a leaf on a tree and one that’s dead, isn’t there?

  – Yes, I said, but dead leaves are beautiful, too, aren’t they?

  Professor Bruno took a dark leather pouch out from somewhere

  in his suitcase. Our vicinity immediately smelled of moist and sweet

  tobacco, like tar, cinnamon, and oranges. He took out a brown pipe

  and, after he’d filled the pipe and lit his tobacco, he said

  – I wonder what you mean by beautiful. Dead things aren’t

  as beautiful as living ones. I mean, you can’t be interested only

  in surfaces, can you? It’d be a great mistake if you were. I under-

  stand you artists and your natures mortes. You’re fascinated by

  geometry. But all those still lifes with their skulls and flowers

  can’t touch a well-done portrait or a vivid landscape. And do

  you know why? Because with still lifes you don’t have to capture

  the spirit that animates a person or a place. It’s an easier job, isn’t

  it? I wonder if you know the story of Apelles, the Greek painter?

  He was drawing a horse, a running horse, and he’d got the paint-

  ing’s background and the horse itself perfectly. The work was


  going to be his greatest, except for one thing. The only detail he

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  couldn’t get right – a small detail – was the froth coming off the

  horse’s mouth. For months, he tried everything – every brush,

  every way to apply paint. And despite all his skill, he couldn’t

  get the froth right, and the fact that he couldn’t get it right ruined

  the painting for him! His greatest painting! Ruined! Out of frus-

  tration, he took a sponge he’d been using and threw it at the

  canvas. It hit the painting at exactly the right place and got exactly

  the right effect: the froth on the mouth of the horse! I’m sure

  you’ve heard the story, Alfie, but people don’t talk about the

  lesson in it. The living and spontaneous in the work of Art – the

  horse’s froth – can only be caught by the living and spontaneous

  in the artist. True beauty, Alfie, perfection in Art, has spirit as its

  object and as its subject and as its substance. Do you see?

  – But doesn’t all Art have some of this spirit in it? I asked.

  – Most works of Art, he answered, don’t have enough of it to

  justify their existence!

  – So then, are you mostly disappointed by Art, Professor?

  – Oh no, he said, not at all. I live for a perfection I’ll never

  find! That’s the human condition in a nutshell, isn’t it?

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m not any kind of artist. Far from it.

  And, where plants are concerned, I’ve always been happy with

  surfaces. The idea of perfection or even “true beauty” had never

  occurred to me because I’ve always enjoyed what’s there in front of

  me. I’ve never thought that’s a perfect lilac or here’s the true beauty of

  celery. In the same way, I wouldn’t have said Mrs. Kelly was beautiful

  any more than I’d have said she was ugly. She was as I found her. In

  the end, I had no experience with separating the spirit from the

  thing. I wasn’t even sure what the professor meant by “spirit,” but I

  believed he was on to something, and it pleased me to think that

  one day I might understand what he was talking about.

  We drove toward Concord along gravel roads. We were going to

  see one of John Skennen’s childhood friends, Ron Brady. Mr.

  Brady lived on the outskirts of town on a farm, or what seemed

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  once to have been a farm: a dilapidated barn, a stone farmhouse,

  fields overrun by weeds – Queen Anne’s lace, mostly, the land