by André Alexis
deep relationship. They still might. For all I know, you’ll see
him there.
Just before we left him, Professor Bruno asked if Carson
Michaels still worked at Lee’s Garage. Mr. Henderson, his hair
back to its previous unruly state, assured us that she did. She had
married one of Lee’s sons and raised a family in Coulson’s Hill.
– Do you think she’d mind if we introduced ourselves?
– I don’t see why, said Mr. Henderson. She’s as down-to-
earth as you get.
110
The two men hugged. Then Mr. Henderson put his hand on
my shoulder, the weight of it like a small bag of potatoes.
– You’re a good man, he said. You’ll make sure Morgan gets
back home in one piece, won’t you?
– I will, I said. I’ll do my best.
I thought the visit to Lee’s Garage might hold us back, but it
turned out to be a brief encounter. Carson Michaels was now in
her sixties. Her face was one that, in daylight, was surprisingly
variable. It refused to settle into one fixed face. If he noticed
this, Professor Bruno was not the least put off by it. He clearly
thought Carson Michaels fascinating. He was transfixed. If this
had been the old days, Ms. Michaels would no doubt have asked
him to name the object that made her sad.
– Excuse me, said Professor Bruno, but are you Carson
Michaels?
– Yes, she answered. Can I help you?
– I’m writing a book about John Skennen, he said. I wonder
if I could ask you a few questions.
She looked up at us, then. Her eyes were brown and lively
and, for a unnerving moment, it was as if I were looking into my
mother’s eyes, the loving face I remember from when I was a child.
– John is someone I knew a long time ago, she said.
– Yes, said Professor Bruno. I wonder if you’d share any
memories you have of him with me.
– I’m sorry, said Carson, but I can’t help you.
Nor did she give him a chance to change her mind. She
walked away from the till and left the store. After a moment, she
was replaced by a young man who politely asked if we meant to
buy anything.
I could see the professor was disappointed, but he was too
much the gentleman to say anything. He bought a litre of water and
we left. I’d have been happy to go on to Feversham, but Professor
Bruno, still under Carson Michaels’s spell, suggested we stop in
111
Schomberg, the town where she’d grown up, where her family still
lived, where Skennen had stolen the porcelain jug.
– Don’t you think we should go to Feversham? I asked.
Mr. Henderson said Reverend Crosbie was the right person
to talk to.
– Very true, he said. But it’s almost noon, Alfie. We have to
eat sometime. We can eat at the Scruffy Dog in Schomberg. I’ve
heard it’s good.
I thought it was unlikely that anyone had said anything about
the Scruffy Dog. But that isn’t what struck me. What struck me
was that it sounded as if Professor Bruno was no longer interested
in John Skennen. From the moment Mr. Henderson told us that
Skennen might be around, the professor seemed less and less
charmed by the idea of meeting him. I began to wonder if he
dreaded the possibility.
– No, no, he said. I don’t dread anything, Alfie. Besides, we’re
going to Schomberg for research!
I wasn’t convinced by his answer.
The Scruffy Dog was no different from taverns all around the
province, except that it was in Schomberg. Of course, that, in
itself, was noteworthy. Schomberg is different. I knew the town.
I’d known it since I was a child, having spent summers there as a
boy, between the ages of seven and fourteen. Even so, I find it an
unsettling place. My unease has nothing to do with Schomberg’s
Black population. Being Black, I’m comforted by the thought of a
town of Black people. My problem is more practical: when I’m in
Schomberg, I’m often unsure of what’s being said to me.
Given that he’d grown up in the region, I was surprised the
professor knew so little about Schomberg. But then, Professor
Bruno is Caucasian and Schomberg is difficult for white Canadians
to understand. This is partly because the town is reflexively cool
toward white Canadians and partly because it is traditional for the
Black people of Schomberg to hide meaning from white Canadians.
112
This had to do with the town’s history. In the early 1800s,
Schomberg was a bastion of abolitionists. Most of them had
come to Canada from Britain and the United States and were
against slavery for emotional, religious, or other theoretical
reasons. They did not know anything about actual Black people.
Few of them had dealt with any. In fact, it’s often said that if – in
the 1800s – the abolitionists of Schomberg had lived with actual
Black people, they might have discovered sooner that “Black
people” are human beings and, so, unlikely to meet the idealized
– and often primitive – versions Canadians had of them.
In any case, delegations of abolitionists shepherded into
town numerous freed slaves who’d come to Canada by way of
the Underground Railroad. The freed men and women were
collected in such numbers that they quickly became a significant
part of the community. Now Schomberg was forced to deal
with real Black people and, for the most part, the townsfolk did
well. Black people were more or less accepted. What was not
accepted was the way Black people spoke. It was disconcerting
for Schombergians to hear their town become foreign. So, with
overwhelming public support, Schomberg’s lawmakers made it
illegal for Black people to speak on the streets of Schomberg
during the day. Black people were free to live their lives to the
fullest: they could own property, send their children to schools
outside of Schomberg, attend churches, work wherever they
were needed. But there were fines for Blacks who spoke during
the day. The fines were heavy and could, if unpaid, lead to time
in jail.
For the first generation of freed slaves, the injunction against
public speech was bewildering. But it was also a reasonable bargain.
As they’d recently come from places where they could be sold
like chattel and whipped like animals, the idea of remaining silent
on the streets of Schomberg was lightly borne. They kept quiet
but developed a culture of silence, communicating with each other
by hand signals and movements of the head. Moreover, as time
113
passed, they came to take pride in their command of quietness
and passed “day speak” on to their offspring.
As the decades passed, the white population gradually moved
away to Toronto or Newmarket, Markham or Quinte, leaving
Schomberg to its largely Black citizenry. And so, 150 years after
the first freed slaves were introduced to the town, Black people
owned all of the companies in Schomberg, ran its institutions,
and, to help
maintain the daily quiet, sent their children to school
in Newmarket. When, in 1998, the town council voted on whether
to take the old, racist bylaws off the books, they decided instead
to keep them, arguing that their ancestors had put racism to good
use, creating a unique language and culture. By the year 2015,
Schomberg, Ontario, was 90 per cent Black and, during the day,
it was the quietest town in the country.
None of this history meant much to me when my parents first
took me to Schomberg. Nor was I upset at being forbidden to
speak in public. I accepted the reasons and felt proud to be in a
town filled with people like me. What unnerved me was the way
people moved. Though the town was quiet, save for the noises of
traffic, the people in it were constantly “speaking” – hands and
heads in peculiar but specific motion. Naturally, my parents had
told me that people in Schomberg “spoke” with their whole bodies,
but I discovered that there were also times when heads and hands
moved without signifying. And I found it embarrassing not to
know when a movement meant something and when it did not.
For years after my first visit, I had bad dreams in which trembling
willows and billowing drapes said nasty things to me.
As always when I’m in Schomberg, my first reaction to the
town was pleasure at the sight of so many Black people. I feel an
immediate connection to the place, a sense of belonging. This time,
with Professor Bruno accompanying me, the feeling did not last
long. Professor Bruno was enchanted by everything. It was as if
he’d never seen hardware stores or bank machines. But what he
hadn’t seen was a Canadian town in which it was mostly Black
114
people who used these things. He knew, or was familiar with, the
idea that there are places in Ontario where he, though white, would
be in the minority. But an idea is not a thing. It’s the thing behind
a thing and it’s always at least a little odd (or exhilarating) to feel
an idea come into the world, like a phantom become solid.
As we walked, he couldn’t help pointing to objects and saying
– This is wonderful!
or
– How delightful!
when they were neither wonderful nor much cause for delight.
But the professor’s words were, in the quiet town, a kind of
pollution. We were noticed, and, after his sixth or seventh
“Wonderful!” a woman walking toward us stopped, looked at the
professor, and put a finger to her lips. She then looked at me and
raised the middle finger of her right hand. I nodded. But I could
see the professor was taken aback. He held up both his hands,
palms out as in surrender. At this, the woman slapped him across
the face and, furious, walked away.
This was just the type of situation I’d worried about. I’d
warned the professor to keep his hands by his side and to say as
little as possible. The woman had, while looking at Professor
Bruno, asked him to keep quiet. She’d asked politely, using a
universally understood sign for “silence” – finger up before the
lips. Showing me the middle finger of her right hand, she’d asked
– just as politely – if I was from out of town. As I answered,
Professor Bruno had – in lifting his hands palms up – inadver-
tently communicated his desire for sexual contact.
The woman must have known Professor Bruno was a stranger.
She’d have approached him differently, otherwise. So, she must
also have known that he’d not intended anything inappropriate.
But the professor’s gesture had been so rude and so unexpected,
it must have been impossible for her to quell her indignation. To
be fair to the professor, misunderstandings of this sort between
residents and strangers are common in Schomberg.
115
The professor, his face red – a deeper shade where hand had
met cheek – stood where he was for a while, speechless. Though
I’d have liked to spare him the humiliation, and though I’d worried
about this kind of encounter, this confrontation was the best
thing that could have happened to us. It showed the professor
that I hadn’t exaggerated the problems strangers face in
Schomberg. It dampened his enthusiasm for the place, so we were
able to leave it sooner. From the moment he was slapped, he kept
his arms at his side as if he were in a crush of people, afraid of
signifying. And, as it turned out, the only other contretemps we
had in Schomberg was entirely my fault.
Though he was upset after his encounter with the woman,
Professor Bruno decided we should at least stop at the Scruffy
Dog. He was still curious about the town Carson Michaels had
come from and, besides, he wanted a cup of tea – camomile, if
possible – to calm him.
The Scruffy Dog was very like the Rebarbative Moose, the
pub in Coulson’s Hill. It offered pub grub, inexpensive beer,
cheap Scotch, reasonable rum, and economical vodka. In other
towns, the music playing in places like the Dog is almost always
older, nostalgic, comforting (if you’re old enough), or irritating
(otherwise): Beatles, Stones, Eagles, or country and western if
you’re near farmland. In the Scruffy Dog, the music was from
the same era but Black and resolutely American: James Brown,
Motown, Philly soul, rhythm and blues.
Feeling that the Dog was a safe place – there being only one
other patron in it besides the two of us – I encouraged Professor
Bruno to order the tea for himself. The sign for “tea” in Schomberg
is one I’ve always found funny. It resembles someone milking a
cow. So, wittily, “teats” stand for “tea.’ I showed the professor how
it’s done: hands making circles (like monoculars) and then one
up, one down, imitating milking or pistons moving.
– But what do I do for camomile? he asked.
There was no sign for “camomile” as far as I knew. What there
116
was was a sign for “herbal.’ For this, one moved one’s fingers as if
playing the piano. That is, fingers moving up and down while
hands moved from side to side – an imitation of plants moving
in a field serving to suggest herbs.
Once I was sure he could do the signs clearly – and, after all,
they were not difficult – I sent Professor Bruno to the bar for his
order, there being no wait staff around to serve us. From where I
sat, I could see if the professor was speaking correctly. He
approached the bar, nodded at the bartender, imitated the milking
of a cow, as I’d told him, and followed that with an imitation of a
field in motion (or of piano playing). As far as I could tell, it was
done properly, so I don’t know which of us – Professor Bruno,
me, the bartender – was more surprised by what followed.
Without taking his eyes off the professor, the bartender backed
away immediately, as if the professor had shown him something
dangerous. I could see Professor Bruno was puzzled but deter-
mined to maintain quiet. He again imit
ated the milking of a cow
and the playing of a piano. Now the bartender put a grease bucket
before the professor and gave him a glass of water. More puzzled
than ever – his face red – Professor Bruno persisted, moving his
hands up and down, then fluttering his fingers back and forth.
The bartender pushed the bucket toward him and held up a bar
towel, as if to ward him off.
It was only then that I saw the problem. It was, in a way, a
question of accent. Instead of keeping his fingers in the shape of
a circle, Professor Bruno held his fingers (pinky, ring, and middle)
out like crab legs – ( ( ( – so that when he moved them up and
down he was making the sign for “vomit.’ Nor was he moving his
hands back and forth when he imitated a field. He was holding
them in place, which is the sign for water. So, in effect, he’d been
telling the bartender that he was about to vomit and needed a
glass of water.
I caught the bartender’s attention and corrected the professor.
He nodded and brought a pot of orange pekoe tea and another
117
glass of water. I made what I thought was the sign for “herbal”
again and this time the bartender shrugged and pointed to the
glass of water. A light must have switched on in his mind, though.
He looked at me and, questioning, made the proper sign for
“herbal,” which was like piano playing but with the palms upward.
I nodded, and only then did he bring a selection of tisanes from
which to choose.
Professor Bruno seemed happy to sit and drink his camomile.
But I was uncomfortable. Schomberg had defeated me or taught
me again – as if I needed the lesson – the gulf between blood
and culture. I felt humiliated that I’d mistaken the signs for “water”
and “herbal.’ But why should my mistake be humiliating? I don’t
live in Schomberg and I’m not all that familiar with its “day speak.’
Really, there was no reason for my humiliation, except that not
knowing the language of Black people created a kind of doubt in
me that I was myself Black. I brooded on the idea that the remain-
ing white people of Schomberg who knew “day speak” were, in
some way, more “Black” than I was. Was I, then, more Canadian
than Black? This was an even stranger thought, since Schomberg
and its inhabitants were all proudly Canadian. It was proof that
I unconsciously excluded the people of Schomberg from “the