Days by moonlight Read online

and myself?

  Hearing those words – “it is possible to do the right thing” –

  Father Penn felt as if he’d been called back to himself, back to

  his vows. And at that moment in Forest, Ontario, after a shearing,

  he had chosen his vows over love.

  – But what if Elizabeth’s husband dies? said Professor Bruno.

  Could you choose your vows then?

  – You mean if Robert died now? asked Father Penn. Liz and I

  are friends, but fidelity to my vows has become my anchor. I would

  choose my vows. That’s the happy ending John was talking about.

  I could see why Father Penn and Mr. Stephens had become

  close. They’d gone through something similar: love leading to a

  difficult moment. But Father Penn’s decision and his reasoning

  resonated with me the way the unknown man’s words had

  resonated with him. “It is possible to do the right thing” struck

  me as immensely hopeful words. Hopeful not where my feelings

  of guilt and loss were concerned, but hopeful with respect to

  my new gift. In listening to Father Penn, I understood Skennen’s

  words about stealth more clearly. The priest had chosen discre-

  tion and work. He’d eclipsed himself for the sake of others. And

  I wondered – not being an artist, not being a priest – how I

  might disappear behind the good, as opposed to behind my

  good intentions.

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  Professor Bruno and I left Barrow at five in the morning, as Mr.

  Stephens had suggested. I told the professor that I had business

  to do at home, business I’d suddenly remembered – something

  to do with banking. He didn’t like to get up early, he said, because

  it was then that his joints – shoulders, elbows, knees – were at

  their worst. But he felt “beholden’ to me for accompanying him

  on his “journey of discovery.’ So, we both rose at four-thirty,

  dressed, ate breakfast with John Stephens, and were ready on

  the stroke of five.

  Before we set out, Mr. Stephens thanked the professor for

  his interest in Skennen’s poetry. But he asked that Professor

  Bruno respect his privacy. As far as he was concerned, John

  Skennen was no more and he didn’t want to be troubled by

  readers or admirers or anyone. He considered himself retired

  and he would be upset if others came looking for him.

  – But you wouldn’t mind if I sent you a copy of my book on

  Skennen’s work, would you? asked the professor. I think the book

  will please you.

  – I’m sure it would if I read it, said Mr. Stephens, but it’s

  about something I think of as over. After this, I won’t be talking

  about John Skennen to anyone. But do send it to me, if you like.

  There might come a time when I can read it. You never know.

  Turning to me, Mr. Stephens put a black-leather prayer book

  – supple, five by six inches, crimson-edged – in my hand.

  – I hope I see you again, Alfred, he said. Use this when you

  need it. It’s a Book of Common Prayer. I read from it every day to

  remind myself of my task.

  I thanked him, and the professor and I drove off in darkness.

  How different the return was to the setting out! All was dark,

  though in the east the first light of day showed the contours of

  the land: treetops, jagged cliffs, the roofs of faraway homes. We

  drove, first, past Lucan on our way to the 401, by which time

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  Professor Bruno was “wide asleep,’ as I think of it, snoring like

  nobody’s business, while the occasional light in a farmhouse

  window winked at us as we passed. Save for the professor and

  the sound of the engine as I drove, the world was quiet, chastely

  dreaming of light.

  And how different our journey had been to the one we’d

  planned. Professor Bruno had set out to confirm his ideas about

  John Skennen. And his doubts had been resolved, for the most

  part. I, on the other hand, had only wanted to help a close friend

  of my father’s, to transcribe the professor’s interviews, to learn a

  little about the land I’ve lived on all my life, and to look for

  Oniaten grandiflora. I was returning a changed man. It seemed to

  me as I drove that every atom of earth was miraculous, and every

  instant a parade of wonders. I was fascinated by questions that

  would have been inconceivable to me not eight days before.

  Somewhere around the outskirts of Hamilton, dawn flooded

  the road. The landscape I knew so well, the dullest part of the ride

  home, was illuminated so that the Queensway – the highway

  itself, the industrial buildings, the glimpses of the lake’s blue skirt

  – seemed new, as if no one before me had ever seen this stretch

  of road, though anyone who lived in Toronto would have seen it a

  thousand times at least. And, not for the first time, enchanted by

  a return, I wondered if home was home or only another part of

  the journey, and I remembered the words of the Romanian physi-

  cist Blavdak Vinomori: “There is no home but in travel.”

  Of course, this return really was a return to a new world. The

  lake – a constant in my imagination – was different, knowing

  that I might help the drowned or heal the sick. The boarded-up

  buildings made me think of the homeless and brought thoughts

  of duty to mind. Knowing that I could ease the suffering of others,

  I entered a city – my city – to which I had new obligations.

  What saved me from messianic feelings – not that I had

  such feelings – was my sense of how difficult those obligations

  would be to fulfill, how difficult to know the difference between

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  the just and the good, how difficult to act in such an uncertain

  and strange world.

  In fact, my first experience of the difficulty came that very

  morning.

  Professor Bruno had complained about his arthritis before

  we left Barrow, and I’d seen him wince as he sat down and got up

  from the Stephenses’ table. When we arrived at his apartment

  near St. Clair and Bathurst, I thought about how I might help

  him without his knowing. I would have to touch his joints while

  he was still sleeping. But that meant I’d have to remove at least

  some of his clothing. This was not something I wanted to do

  while parked on Bathurst in what was now the full light of a busy

  day. Nor would I have wanted him to awaken while I was trying

  to undress him. It came to me, then, that the best way to go about

  it undetected would be to put my hand in his clothes, carefully,

  in such a way as to escape notice. I saw at once that his sleeves

  were too narrow to allow any kind of intrusion. He’d have awak-

  ened had I tried to insinuate my hand up his sleeve to touch his

  elbow. But his pant legs were wide enough and, if I could gently

  turn him so his legs were hanging out the car door, I’d have

  access to his knees.

  Lying the professor down on the front seat and extracting his

  legs from the car was, surprisingly, easy. He didn’t come close to

  waking – snored even louder, in fact – and I was pleased by the

  thought that
I could, without further betraying my gift, ease the

  suffering his arthritis brought him. But while I was holding his

  shoe up so I could put my hand in his pant leg, an elderly woman

  stopped behind me.

  – Is your friend all right? she asked.

  – Yes, I whispered. Yes, he’s fine. He’s asleep.

  – Then why are you holding his foot up like that?

  There was nothing accusatory in her tone. She seemed kind

  but she was also, clearly, puzzled. Not knowing what to say, I

  said the only thing that came to mind.

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  – He’s lost feeling in his legs, I said. Bad circulation.

  – Oh, I know all about that, she said. You have to hold the

  leg higher.

  Before I could thank her for her advice, she’d taken his leg

  from me and was holding it up so that it was at a forty-five-

  degree angle to his body. This was inadvertently helpful, because

  the professor’s pant leg slid down and exposed his knee. I was

  even able to touch his knee with both hands, but it was then that

  I noticed he was awake and that he now looked as puzzled as the

  woman had before she’d taken his foot.

  – Oh, you’re awake, said the woman. Does that feel better?

  – What are you doing? he asked.

  For the n th time in eight days, Professor Bruno was bewil-

  dered. I thanked the woman and she walked away, pleased that

  she’d been able to help. When she’d gone, I explained what had

  happened. That is, I told the professor that the woman had tried

  to ease the inflammation in his joints. Strangely enough, he

  accepted this idea, but he wanted to know how she’d known

  about his inflammation in the first place.

  – I told her about it, I said, when she asked why I was helping

  you out of the car.

  – Ah, he said, you were helping me out. That was good of

  you, Alfie, but it was indiscreet of you, too.

  He was curious as to why she’d wanted to start with his knee.

  – We’d have had to undress you to get at your elbows, I answered.

  – Well, there, at least, you’re making sense, he said.

  Though our travels had lasted only eight days, I began to miss

  his company as soon as I’d brought his suitcases up to his apart-

  ment. He must have guessed my mood. Before he closed the door,

  he hugged me, kissed the air in the vicinity of my cheeks and said

  – You’ve been invaluable help, Alfie.

  And I suddenly realized that Professor Bruno was one of the

  few witnesses – a partial witness – to my world’s transformation.

  He’d gone through much of what I had. He was the only one

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  with whom I could speak about John Stephens or Feversham.

  And these were things I wanted to talk about, even if I couldn’t

  talk about certain things at all. Driving home, south on Bathurst,

  I felt a new loneliness.

  Home again – key jiggling in the lock, apartment quiet – I was

  almost intimidated by solitude. I took my sketchbook and the

  prayer book Mr. Stephens had given me and walked down to the

  lake. I sat on a bench facing the water. How strange, I thought,

  that my ability to help others was partially to blame for my own

  bewilderment. As I was thinking this, I saw a stretch of Johnson

  grass growing through the pavement like a green scar. It immedi-

  ately reminded me of John Stephens, a reminder I disliked, because

  I hated to think of the plant as representing anything but itself.

  Still, it was then that I opened the prayer book and found Mr.

  Stephens’s dedication to me. It was written in short sentences, as

  if it were a poem. But it was a simple reminder of my new state.

  Let very few know what you can do.

  It’s not safe.

  And remember always that silence abides.

  Well-meant words.

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  But, of course, I didn’t yet know what I was capable of doing.

  If I was simply a healer – and one who could bring small animals

  back to life – I would live accordingly. If I could bring people

  back from the dead, I would have to deal with that, too. But what

  a complex moral equation! Though I accepted that it was, in prin-

  ciple, a bad idea to bring those who’d found peace back to this

  uncertain world, I would have to awaken someone dead to know

  what I could do, wouldn’t I?

  I looked out at the lake before me. The water nearest shore

  was greyish-green. In the mid-distance it was dark green, and far

  away it was dark blue. Above me a handful of clouds pretended

  they did not move, daring me to catch them at it as they made

  their way across the sky. Behind me was my city, Toronto, soothing

  for being a faithful presence, a boisterous Eurydice: cars passing

  on Lakeshore, people speaking, the occasional cries from the

  seagulls, the not-quite-autumn wind that was not quite cold.

  I closed my eyes, the better to remember my parents’ faces,

  the way they looked when they were young, just before they had

  me, which is the strongest visual impression I have of them,

  coming as it does from a photograph – taken before they were

  married – that hangs on a wall in my study.

  – What a strange world you’ve left me, I said.

  – Oh, Alfie, said my mother, you don’t know the half of it.

  – Marjory! said my father. No one knows anywhere near that

  much!

  He was teasing her, as he always did when they were happy,

  and I was suddenly, deeply grateful for the love they’d had for

  each other. I wanted to tell them, but, of course, there was no

  need. Existing as they did within me, they knew everything I did.

  When I opened my eyes, the daylight had dimmed and the water

  before me was an undulating grey, as a four-seat scull quietly passed,

  heading back to the Argonaut Boat Club at the end of the day.

  Quincunx 5, Toronto–New York

  218

  A NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Days by Moonlight is not a work of realism. It’s not a work that

  uses the imagination to show the real, but one that uses the real

  to show the imagination. For instance, though most of the place

  names in the novel exist, the cities and towns they refer to are

  distortedly, exaggeratedly, or (even) perversely portrayed.

  The novel was influenced by a handful of wonderful books

  about real or imagined travel, books read or remembered while

  writing:

  Paradiso, Dante Alighieri (1472)

  Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Anonymous (1499)

  Lazarillo de Tormes, Anonymous (1554)

  Bartram’s Travels, William Bartram (1791)

  Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (1605, 1615)

  Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol (1842) (Donald Rayfield, trans.)

  The Golden Flower Pot, E. T. A. Hoffman (1814)

  The Unconsoled, Kazuo Ishiguro (1995)

  Voyage d’automne et d’hiver, Gilbert Lascault (1979)

  Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Jan Potocki (1810)

  Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726)

  But it was inspired by Pier Paolo Passolini’s Teorema and

  Ugetsu Monogatari, a film by Kenji Mizoguchi.

  John Skennen’s poems were written by the a
uthor, except for

  “Ticking Clocks,” which was written by Lea Crawford.

  In Chapter 4, the dreamlike version of “Johnson Grass” was

  created by Andy Patton.

  The stanza quoted by John Skennen (“lovers by the score,’

  etc.) is from Dennis Lee’s poem “High Park, by Grenadier Pond.’

  The words “a dense garden, a bed smooth as a wafer of sunlight”

  are from “You Have the Lovers” by Leonard Cohen. The fragment

  of Arnaut Daniel’s poem “Lancan vei fuill’e flor e frug” was trans-

  lated by the author.

  All the poems of John Skennen were edited by Kim Maltman

  and Roo Borson. Kim also provided the repurposed graphs in

  Chapter Two.

  Alfred Homer’s drawings were by made by Linda Watson.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  André Alexis was born in Trinidad in 1957 and grew up in

  Canada. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada

  First Novel Award and the Trillium Book Award, and was short-

  listed for the Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

  His previous books include Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid

  and the Wolf, and Pastoral, which was also nominated for the

  Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and Fifteen Dogs, which won

  the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Scotiabank Giller

  Prize, and the 2017 edition of cbc’s Canada Reads. His most

  recent novel is The Hidden Keys, shortlisted for the Trillium Book

  Award. In 2017, he received a Windham-Campbell Prize for the

  body of his work.

  Typeset in Albertan and Gotham.

  Albertan was designed by the late Jim Rimmer of New Westminster,

  B.C., in 1982. He drew and cut the type in metal at the 16pt size in

  roman only; it was intended for use only at his Pie Tree Press. He drew

  the italic in 1985, designing it with a narrow fit and a very slight incline,

  and created a digital version. The family was completed in 2005, when

  Rimmer redrew the bold weight and called it Albertan Black. The letter-

  forms of this type family have an old-style character, with Rimmer’s

  own calligraphic hand in evidence, especially in the italic.

  Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox

  Cover design by Ingrid Paulson

  Cover image is by Zachari Logan, Datura from Eunuch Tapestries, pastel

  on black paper, 59 × 100 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.

  Coach House Books

  80 bpNichol Lane