Days by moonlight Read online

  colour away as they passed, leaving only the idea of blue.

  How strange, I thought, that only hours before, wild beasts had

  chased me to Clare’s cottage. It didn’t seem possible that I’d almost

  been torn to shreds in what now felt like a sacred grove. As if the

  world agreed with me, when I looked back toward Clare’s cottage,

  it was gone – shrouded by mist, my dangerous night erased.

  As I passed the willows and left the clearing, I finally saw

  another being, someone in the distance. Between us was the well-

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  kept road. Above us the blue of the sky had returned. The sunlight

  was brighter. The leaves of the trees were exactly the green of the

  grass. The morning had a limited palette – blue, yellow, green,

  brown – but this limitation corresponded to my own. My mind

  was as limited as the morning’s. I could take in the physical

  world, but when, for instance, I was reminded of a poem by John

  Skennen, it came back to me in only vaguely meaningful form.

  As I approached the path, I saw that the person I’d seen was

  a man and he was wiping the stones on the ground. I greeted him

  but he didn’t even look up. He was intent on what he was doing,

  all of his labour given to the task he believed in. I remember

  being impressed by his devotion. More: I could feel the depth of

  his devotion, as if I myself were a believer keeping the path clean

  for others. Feeling this, there came such a flood of emotion that

  the rest of the way to Reverend Crosbie’s was like a deepening

  revelation, the approach of something undeniable, something

  beyond interpretation. I finally felt, I think, the love that my

  father used to speak of, a love for creation itself, whether you

  believed in God or not. That is, as I walked into Feversham I felt

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  increasing joy until I was overwhelmed, the love within me meet-

  ing the love I felt from the world around me. I was accounted for

  and taken in, taken in so completely that there was no longer any

  need for me to be a self. The boundary between Alfred Homer

  and the world was erased. There was no revelation or communion.

  There was, instead, a blissful fading away of my self as I walked.

  And when this feeling had lasted for what seemed an eternity,

  I woke in Reverend Crosbie’s guest room with the reverend

  herself in a chair beside me, her hand on my shoulder.

  – You’re back, she said. Are you hungry?

  Hearing the word hungry, I was fully awake and I was Alfred

  Homer again, and I was famished.

  – I’m not surprised, said Reverend Crosbie. You haven’t eaten

  in three days.

  Before this journey to Feversham, I’d have said I had no religious

  impulses. The religious was my father’s domain. All my life, until

  he died, Pastor Homer tried to teach me about the things that

  meant most to him: God, Love, the sacredness of fidelity, the

  near insignificance of the human in the great scheme of things.

  I’d listened, of course, because my father was a kind man and I

  loved him. But I never felt as if his language (“gospels,’ “saints,’

  “Jesus of Nazareth,’ etc.) belonged to me.

  After what happened in the clearing, I was still (mostly) irre-

  ligious. But I felt irreligious in a different way. Having experienced

  what I did, it seemed to me that religion – its language, biblical

  advice, sacred ritual, and so on – was insignificant to the universe.

  I now felt that the universe is and that one is and that sermons,

  prayers, and vows were all an outdated way of pointing to depths

  you could not reach. Whereas previously I’d accepted that what

  my father did was necessary, I was now unsure. Pastor Homer’s

  church seemed to me like an abandoned train station, weeds

  growing up through the sunken platform, tiles from the station

  roof scattered about, a haven for rats and garter snakes.

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  Also: I wasn’t sure that the vision I’d had and the dissolving

  I’d felt weren’t purely personal things, the products of my own

  brain and chemistry. If that were the case, what was the point of

  bringing God into it? Better to treat it as a private matter. Better

  to try, like John Stephens had, to understand what I’d meant to

  tell myself. It couldn’t be that the whole episode was random,

  could it? Yes, maybe. But even if the vision of a woman and

  wolves had been a spasm of the mind, there was still the oneness

  I’d felt, the dissolution. I’d never felt anything like it. I’d never

  felt anything so true. And, as I lay in Reverend Crosbie’s guest

  room, I came to think that maybe, after all, I had had an inkling

  of the divine, an inkling of the thing my father had spent his life

  pointing to.

  In light of my dumbfounding, I was glad Professor Bruno and

  I stayed in Feversham until the following day, the day after I was

  pulled from the clearing. We decided to stay because Reverend

  Crosbie wanted to know all the details of my experience. And,

  hearing about her interest, Professor Bruno decided that he, too,

  had questions for me. I’d gone through something similar to what

  John Skennen had gone through. Maybe there was some insight

  to be gained from my experience.

  So, I became Professor Bruno’s subject.

  I found it difficult to talk about what I’d been through because

  I found it impossible to say when my hallucinations had begun.

  One minute I was a certain Alfred Homer and the next I was

  eating Oniaten with a lycanthrope. In fact, immediately following

  my return to consciousness, I had more questions for Reverend

  Crosbie and the professor than they had for me.

  What, I wondered, had my experience looked like from the

  outside?

  – Well, said Reverend Crosbie, you walked into the clearing

  with thirty pilgrims and you passed out.

  – Yes, said Professor Bruno, you fell right into the apples, as

  the French say. You barely got past the willows.

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  – It wasn’t just you, said Reverend Crosbie. A number of

  pilgrims fell where you did.

  – How many? I asked.

  – Two or three, said Reverend Crosbie.

  – Four or five, said Professor Bruno.

  The rest of the pilgrims walked on and prayed, leaving those

  who’d passed out where they were.

  – You know, said Reverend Crosbie, I’ve been to the clearing

  most days I’ve been here. I’ve wished for what happened to you

  to happen to me. I’ve even wondered if there’s something wrong

  with me. But in your case, Alfred, I’d say there’s something right

  with you. God found you fit to commune with.

  – But that depends, said Professor Bruno, on whether this

  vision has anything at all to do with this god of yours, dear lady.

  It’s possible that young Alfie here was influenced by all the talk

  about Feversham. It’s no surprise people are always having

  visions at Lourdes, because they’re always talking about visions

  in Lourdes. It’s auto-suggestion. Alfie had a vision, of course he

  did, but
there’s no need to turn him into a prophet, you know.

  – Yes, said Reverend Crosbie, I agree. But the reason for a

  vision is less important than the vision itself, eh? And its conse-

  quences. Isaac Newton was as loopy as a crazy man, but we take

  his vision of a mechanistic universe seriously, don’t we?

  Professor Bruno looked at her as if seeing an old friend for the

  first time in a while. I could almost feel his admiration and surprise.

  – Dear Reverend Crosbie, he said, we’re in complete agreement.

  If they were in complete agreement, that must have been the

  only time they were, at least while Professor Bruno and I were in

  Feversham. It wasn’t a matter of discord or dislike. I’m sure the

  professor admired Reverend Crosbie as much as I did. She

  reminded us both of my father. But although Professor Bruno

  and Reverend Crosbie were people who loved ideas, they used

  them very differently. I feel a little guilty saying this, but I do

  think that ideas mattered more to Reverend Crosbie. She did

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  not want to mislead anyone, so she was careful with her argu-

  ments. For Professor Bruno, on the other hand, the whole busi-

  ness – ideas and arguments – was part of a game in which we

  humans can’t help being misled, because thought itself is mislead-

  ing. Truth, for him, was like a miracle that happened despite us.

  It’s no surprise, then, that the only time one of them got angry, it

  was Reverend Crosbie getting angry at the professor.

  A further un-surprise: the point over which they argued most

  was the meaning of my vision.

  For Professor Bruno, it was all a psychological matter. As far

  as he was concerned, the episode with Clare – the terror and

  distress – was a way of punishing myself for my earthy desires.

  But then, having proved myself faithful to a woman I love (Anne),

  I allowed myself to experience an ecstasy greater than the physical

  pleasure I might have had with Clare.

  – I don’t want to embarrass you, my boy, but this vision you

  had is obviously psychosexual. Just think about the hand you

  ate! You and this Clare woman sitting at a table – just you and

  Clare – and what are you doing? You’re eating a hand. You’re

  symbolically depriving yourselves of one of the means we all

  have of giving ourselves sexual pleasure: manustupration.

  Although Professor Bruno found the “arena” of my visions

  “obvious” – the arena being the psychosexual – he had kind

  words to say about my use of symbols. Wolves, hands, salad,

  shoes, painted moons. He found the whole array of symbols

  wonderful. He was especially taken by the moons, which, he said,

  likely pointed to a hidden, mysterious aspect of myself. The

  professor wondered if the point of my vision wasn’t to tell myself

  that I was homosexual.

  – But I don’t think I am homosexual, I said.

  – Really? he asked. Don’t you think it’s significant that you

  denied yourself any desire for Clare, the woman, but then had

  your most ecstatic moment after seeing a man wiping moisture

  off the road?

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  To be polite, I told him that I saw his point. But my feelings

  on awakening in the clearing hadn’t been sexual. And the sexual

  feelings I had experienced had been for Anne, with whom I had

  actually made love, in real life.

  – Oh, he said, the real world has no place here. What you

  experienced wasn’t real. It was symbolic.

  – You mean I’m symbolically homosexual? I asked.

  – I think all the signs point to it, he answered.

  – But what does that mean? asked Reverend Crosbie.

  – I think it means, said Professor Bruno, that on some deep

  level, Alfie here is ashamed of the desire he feels for women, and

  this entire episode may be his way of admitting to himself his

  longing for men.

  Reverend Crosbie said

  – Do you really think that’s likely?

  – I’m not sure, said Professor Bruno. Maybe I’m being too

  aggressively Freudian. It’s part of my training. But you can’t deny

  the element of shame in there. Then again, it could be more of a

  class-based shame, a Marxist vision. That was part of my training,

  too. I wrote my master’s on Louis Althusser. So … the way Alfie,

  in this vision, manages not to exploit Clare and the way he finds

  pleasure in being one with the collective. There are certainly

  Marxist avenues we could explore. But what’s your take on this,

  my dear Reverend Crosbie?

  Reverend Crosbie expressed sympathy for a Marxist inter-

  pretation. She wasn’t Marxist herself, but she believed in

  absolute equality before the Lord. So, some version of the “human

  collective” had always appealed to her, whether it was Marxist

  or Christian, Buddhist or Keynesian. But, as concerned my

  vision, she was hesitant to contradict Professor Bruno. She

  agreed that, of course, some degree of shame had played a part.

  But the detail that mattered to her most was the fact that, in my

  vision, I hadn’t been attacked by the wolves.

  – I think it’s because I didn’t desire Clare, I said.

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  – Yes, she answered, and that’s an interesting point. But what

  if the reason they didn’t attack you is that you were filled with

  desire, one of the purest feelings, and the wolves took you for

  one of their own? There are religions where wolves are sacred,

  you know. In Norse mythology, the wolf Fenrir is a god. And the

  Egyptians painted Anubis, god of the underworld, as a wolf …

  – Your bible doesn’t much care for wolves, though, does it?

  Professor Bruno said.

  – I know that, said Reverend Crosbie, but we’re talking about

  symbols, aren’t we? And wolves sometimes do represent God.

  – They represent the devil, too, said the professor.

  – Yes, said Reverend Crosbie. And the Devil is a fallen angel.

  In mythology, gods and devils are often taken for each other. It’s

  an important distinction, but, as people say, it’s a wise man who

  can tell God from Satan. To me it simply makes sense that once

  Alfred is accepted by the wolves – and even finds himself sleeping

  outdoors like a wolf – he experiences the oneness that erases

  the line between the human and the divine.

  – But what about the hands, then? asked the professor. What

  do the hands mean?

  – Well, said Reverend Crosbie, I don’t think everything has to

  have a meaning, do you? It’s important to know what has meaning

  and what doesn’t. But hands are a symbol of God, you know. It

  could be that when Alfred was eating a hand, he was taking in a

  divine characteristic. Catholics eat the body of Christ, don’t they?

  Professor Bruno scratched his chin.

  – I’m not sure there’s ever respite from meaning, he said. All

  things tend to mean something.

  – There must be respite from meaning, eventually, said

  Reverend Crosbie. I can’t imagine an afterworld of calculus.

  – My dear lady, said the professor, if you can imagine an<
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  afterworld at all, you’re imagining pure calculus.

  I hadn’t been any more or less convinced by Reverend Cros-

  bie’s interpretation of my vision than I had been by Professor

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  Bruno’s. I thought about it, though. I looked up at the sky through

  the guest room window. There was a sinuous column of smoke,

  like a pokey cobra ascending from a barbecue down the road.

  – Reverend Crosbie, I said, do you think God is a civilizing

  influence or does God call us to wilderness?

  Professor Bruno jumped in.

  – Ah, he said, now there’s a good question! God is an unim-

  peachable call to wilderness, Alfie. As soon as you hear the word

  God, you should think forest!

  – I really don’t think that’s true, said Reverend Crosbie. When

  you’re in the wilderness, a person might think about God, so as

  not to despair. I believe civilization is one of the gifts we get

  from the Lord.

  – Well, there I think you’re wrong, my dear Reverend Crosbie.

  Of all the ideas humans have come up with, civilization is one of

  frailest. All is illusion except wilderness!

  – I don’t think I’m wrong and it’s rude of you to say so. You

  have no more idea than I do about God.

  – My dear Reverend Crosbie, you’ve winged me! You’ve shot

  me down! I didn’t mean to be rude! I shouldn’t have said you were

  wrong but I couldn’t help myself. Before there were civilizations,

  there was wilderness. When civilizations crumble, there’ll be wilder-

  ness. If there’s a God and if you’re going to associate this God

  with something, it should be with the wild, not with civilization.

  – But that’s not the question! God is in the wild and the

  civilized. The question was whether God is a civilizing influence

  or a call to wilderness. At the very least, God gives humans a

  sense of order, a sense that we are not the centre of the universe.

  With order comes civilization. It may be a frail idea, but when

  you think of God, you don’t think of going into the wild and

  killing things, do you?

  – You said yourself, dear lady, that Fenrir was a god. When I

  think about Fenrir, I certainly think about going into the wild

  and killing things.

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  – Please don’t call me “dear lady,’ said Reverend Crosbie. It’s

  condescending. Fenrir is an aspect of God. Fenrir is a version of

  God the destroyer because God is also a destroyer.