by André Alexis
Now, few women would have found earrings in the shape of Goya’s Kronos attractive, and Louise did not. She thought them “interesting” and unusual, but she adored them because, as it happened, she had had enough chocolate (Charles Baelde’s truffles with dark chocolate ganache) and flowers (columbine, above all), the things her husband had given her.
Was this why they resumed their physical relationship?
No. The resumption of their sexual relationship was an accident, say, something that happened despite her better judgment, because, after a night out (latkes and applesauce at Nate’s, The Apartment at the Towne, a languorous walk home during which she put her arm through his as they crossed King Edward and they walked together like that until Sussex when he pointed to the constellation above them, Gemini, the twins brightly skeletal on this moonless night…), after an intimate and unhurried night out, desire got the better of her, or got the better of them.
– It’s late, he said, do you want to stay the night? There’s just the bed, but it’s big enough for both of us.
Walter had blushed, not because he was consciously thinking of anything sexual but because he felt foolish telling her about his bed. She knew its dimensions as well as he did, because she’d slept with him there. And that thought, the memory of a particular moment between them – facing each other, her leg beneath him, she reaching down to put him in – that simple image made him blush again. But how strange to feel shame at such an intense memory. He remembered everything about that remembered instant: the colour of her eyes, the cut of her hair, the warmth of her body, the feel of her leg beneath him.
– I don’t know if I’m ready for that, Wally. Can I think about it for a while?
– Would you like some tea? he asked.
– Yes, she answered.
It had surprised her to see him blush. She assumed he was thinking of lovemaking. She was thinking of the same thing and the thought was arousing, but what did she want? Uncertain. What did she feel? Lucid confusion. But why should it matter, in the end? They were not young. They knew the differences between minds and souls, bodies and hearts, didn’t they?
They went into the kitchen, she following behind, inadvertently admiring the nape of his neck, his lovely hands, inadvertently remembering a trip they had taken together (the only trip they had ever taken) on the spur of the moment, by train to Montreal (just for somewhere to go, because Paul was away) and back the same day, or rather, the same night, she sitting by the window feeling both embarrassed and excited as he touched her, his hands slowly moving under the dark raincoat he had put over them as if it were a blanket.
Now she blushed, and was grateful he did not see her as he put the kettle on the stove and took the tea down from the cupboard above the sink. She waited for as long as she could, but as he turned towards her she took the step between them and, slipping her arms around his waist, held him while looking up to kiss his lips. Unfortunately, he was not ready for the weight of her and he staggered slightly, backwards.
It was surprising how sweetly it went. True, it seemed to take forever to come, to climax, and she was conscious of every moment and that consciousness held her back, but that was all to be expected, wasn’t it? Part of her still could not forgive him for having left her, did not quite believe he would not do it again. That part of her was like a needle in an apple. It would be difficult to extract.
Still, having something to forgive him for was the very essence of domesticity, wasn’t it?
Some months later, leaving the Khyber Pass after an unexpected encounter with François Ricard and a young woman, it suddenly occurred to Louise that her life had changed. It had changed completely, but it was at that moment, walking home with Walter, that she realized it had changed. And, her life having changed, it felt as if it might easily change again.
Intoxicated by the idea, by the freedom uncertainty offered, she pressed Walter’s arm in hers, was aware of holding his arm, aware she was walking along Elgin with a tall man who was dressed in a long, dark brown wool coat (one side of its collar turned up), light brown pants, ox-blood brogues.
He was not an easy man to be with. He was moody, absorbed by his work, by a book he’d begun to research. She could leave him, if she chose, when she chose. She could go. She felt no deep obligation to him and the exhilaration this lack of obligation brought was profound.
Still, is it in the nature of love to seek freedom or bondage?
She held Walter’s arm and leaned towards him. How strange her feelings were these days, but how wonderful to know them strange.
{45}
PAUL DYLAN ECLIPSED
The sun was shining and the city was heedless of the coming winter. Paul Dylan walked at his own pace along the promenade, west past Bank, west towards Carleton. It was warm in the sunlight, and the curves the canal took on its way to Dow’s Lake seemed, to Paul, meandering and sacred. Then again, on a day like this, every clump and curve of earth seemed sacred.
He had given up his possessions and his business. (The moment to divest had come suddenly, as these moments will, and he had divested, giving what he could to Louise Lanthier, keeping only enough money to save him from charity or, rather, to save charity from him.) He had paid a final, unnerving visit to the woman who had been his wife. (And how devastating it had been to discover a pool of hatred, unstanchably within. He had left his former home as if fleeing a demon.) And, on the day of his eclipse, the day he was subsumed by God, Paul Dylan was contentedy walking by the canal, on his way to Carleton to look for a book (The Fire of Love) and to talk with the man who’d recommended it.
He was approaching Bronson when he saw, walking along the promenade before him, a familiar figure, a familiar amble. Not knowing who it was, but certain that he should, Paul quickened his pace and was surprised to discover he had caught up to Walter Barnes.
On seeing him, Walter looked wary, but said
– Hello, Paul.
– Walter! I recognized your back, but I didn’t know it was you.
The two of them walked in awkward silence towards Carleton. The trees had changed colour. There were patches of yellow and red everywhere and, from time to time, a school of dead leaves, their bellies scratching along the promenade, would tumble into the canal.
Without so much as a cough, Walter said
– You know Louise and I are together, don’t you?
And it was odd that, after all that had altered within him, Paul still had trouble saying (and meaning)
– I hope you’re very happy.
What else was there to say?
Walter did not look happy, however. He looked burdened.
– Listen, Paul. There’s something else you should know –
– No, no. Not at all. There’s nothing. You don’t have to say anything, Walter. I understand. These things happen and, anyway, it’s not my business any more.
The university was in sight. They might have gone their separate ways, he and Walter, after a few more yards, after a few words of farewell, but, no, Walter wished to speak.
– I’m not sure what you think you know, he said, but Louise and I were close long before now. We had an affair while you two were still married.
Walter was beside him, his back to the water. He was not lying. Paul could feel both the truth of what he said and his wariness. And in a flash, he (fleetingly) re-experienced all he had been through and it was, for a bladelike instant, as painful and humiliating as it had been at the time: the suspicion, the word of his secretary, the “proof” (Walter’s embarrassment, his philandering), Walter’s innocence (Louise’s deception; Løne Kastrupsen, not Louise), his apology to Walter, at Henry Wing’s home…What was all that supposed to mean?
– Had he been right to question his wife’s fidelity? (Yes, clearly)
– Had he been right to assault Walter Barnes? (Yes, but his assault had been based on false reasonin
g, so: no)
It was bewildering. If he had trusted Louise, he would not have hurt Walter. But if he had not assaulted Walter, would Louise have left him? No, because the man she left was the one who mistrusted her and who had hurt Walter Barnes. If he had not come to question his wife’s motive for telling him she and Walter had had an affair, would he have found the anger in himself to try to kill her? No. Each hurt, every resentment was needed to drive him on to his true life, the one he was living now. If he had not tried to kill his wife, he would not have come to God.
No matter how you looked at it, it all led to God.
As the truth of this hit him, Paul suddenly clutched at Walter’s sleeve.
– Thank you, Walter, he said. Thank you so much.
Walter, wary, looked guardedly at the man before him, then deliberately pushed him away.
– I’ve got a class to teach, he said.
How lovely it would be to have a word other than forgiveness, a word that does not suggest mutual understanding, forbearance, and the acceptance of pain given and pain overcome. Walter Barnes and Paul Dylan did forgive each other, but neither would have said forgiveness was preceded by understanding, forbearance, or acceptance. There had been no accord, no meeting in fraternity, and their final moment together (September 30, 1988) had different significance in the life of each man.
For Walter, it was an embarrassment, something of a failure. He had tried to erase the last misunderstanding between them. Instead, he had provoked an inexplicable reaction: not understanding but some peculiar form of gratitude. Still, and this was no small thing, he felt he had done his duty to the past and to Paul. From the moment he walked away, it was as if all business between them were settled.
For Paul, their final moment was a revelation. He had been, initially, stunned by the truth, bewildered by the emotions it called up. He did not know what to think, did not know what to feel, but it was at that moment, in the midst of bewilderment, that revelation came to him:
– This has all been done for me.
That is, in his bewilderment he saw his behaviour in light of the ground he had covered and the place he had come. He saw the trajectory, from lovelessness and anger to peace, as clearly as if it had been drawn on a map. He could not have come to this on his own. So much had had to happen for his life to reach this particular harbour, one could not deny the hand behind it, the navigator. How unlikely it seemed that his experience had been unguided. Even this, this moment with Walter depended on the “accident” of his having failed to recognize Walter’s walk.
With the recognition of trajectory, there came a momentary vertigo: the will behind his fate was almost terrifying, terrifying because beyond comprehension, terrifying in its surpassing elegance. But in its purpose, how loving: to lead him to this, this revelation that freed him from doubt.
He had held Walter’s sleeve, as much to keep to his feet as to communicate the depths of feeling for this man who had, unwittingly, given him the final piece of the puzzle: if all this had been done for him, it was because he was loved. He knew himself loved, and it was the force of God’s love that overwhelmed him.
And “forgiveness”?
At the moment of recognition, there ceased to be, for Paul, anything to forgive. What was there to forgive about Truth? In fact, the two men had moved beyond “forgiveness” understood as that which can be given or taken. Rather, they had reached a state of forgiveness, a state in which each became almost anonymous to the other. Neither was an object of scorn or dislike for the other, neither an object of attention. Each was, for the other, almost one of the crowd. Neither of them granted nor accepted forgiveness and yet the matter between them was overcome.
In a way, these were the final moments in the life of Paul Dylan. As he walked away from Walter Barnes, he became the kind of man who could live in God, eclipsed by the light of God: Fra Paulo, in other words. And it was only a matter of time before he would make the pilgrimage to Santa Maddalena.
{46}
KIND WORDS FROM REINHART
Reinhart was in an expansive mood. He would not have predicted it, but from the time he abandoned MacKenzie Bowell, leaving the details to Franklin, he’d begun to paint with the kind of passion he associated with the pursuit of, let’s say, a young man with long red hair who had to be seduced. This new fertility was so striking, he came to think MacKenzie Bowell a kind of Calvary: that which had to be endured in order to find something greater.
Actually, he thought of MacKenzie Bowell in many ways, trying to reason it through: perhaps, in his immersion in the thousands of images, words, ideas that preceded his design of the prison, he had discovered the key to something in himself, something he had not recognized at the time. If so, he could not think what this “key” was. Then again, perhaps it was his reimmersion in the world, post-penitentiary, that was the source of inspiration.
Whatever the prison had done, whatever it had brought about, it was amusing to Reinhart that his least successful work (most derivative, though he couldn’t quite tell from what it derived) was the one that, for a year now, had given the most back to him.
It was this Reinhart, a Reinhart at peace with the world, that Edward visited one afternoon. He was not posing for a portrait or any such thing. But as, over the last months, Edward had not seen his friend, he went seeking an ear and company. Franklin’s injunction to “move on,” to forget St. Pierre and Mickleson and what they had done, had been neither tonic nor practical. Edward still thought about them and was easily spooked. It seemed there was no easy way, once one knew of their savagery, to put the two men out of one’s mind. They hung about his imagination like the smell of smoke from a woodstove in a winter cabin. And, of course, as often as he thought about Mickleson and St. Pierre, he thought about the McAllisters, about fish tanks, sweaters, and tea, and he was troubled by visions of bloodied lap dogs. He had avoided Reinhart for this very reason, not wishing to disturb him.
They spent the first of his visit as they always did: drinking and looking at paintings. That is, Reinhart looked at paintings and Edward, when he had had enough, looked out the window. Inevitably, this is the time Reinhart liked best. He appreciated Edward’s company at the beginning of the looking, but appreciated even more that Edward left him to himself after one or two canvases. In fact, Edward was one of the few with whom Reinhart ever shared his work.
When they’d finished looking and had sat down to eat olives and a stale Boko baguette, Edward began to tell Reinhart what had been on his mind for so long.
Far from disturbing Reinhart, this recounting brought a closeness they hadn’t shared in years. When Edward had finished, Reinhart asked
– Did you tell Franklin about all this?
– Yes and he told me to just let it go.
Reinhart said
– That’s good advice. You’re not cut out for this, Eddy
because it was clear Edward was not ruthless enough to swim with Micklesons and St. Pierres. It also seemed, to Reinhart, that Franklin had not been thinking straight when he’d hired the two men.
– Franklin’s not a bad guy, said Reinhart, but it’s a real can of worms using men like that. Once you use them, where do you stop? Anyway, he’s a civil servant. Maybe sometimes he doesn’t think about consequences.
– I’m a civil servant, Rein.
– But you’re not ambitious.
– What does that mean?
– It means you wouldn’t do just anything to climb that ladder and get your name in some ledger in the National Archives.
– I am ambitious, Edward said.
Reinhart smiled.
– Eddy, you’ve spent years working for Franklin. Why? To please Franklin. But what about you? You’ve got to find something for yourself.
Edward knew, or in any case felt, that Reinhart had said the truth, but it was a truth that illuminated his friendship with Reinhart
as well. His ambition had always been for his friends, never himself. It seemed he himself did not have the kind of mind that wanted. He had no talent for wanting. He knew his immediate needs, and satisfied them, but what was it to want something it would cost years to achieve? In the end, he felt, he lacked imagination.
– In the end, I lack imagination, he said.
– You’ve got great imagination. Otherwise, you wouldn’t care about others.
Reinhart brought Edward’s coat, put it around his shoulders.
– Let’s walk, he said. My hands are tired.
They walked west along Gladstone, north on Bronson. This was, now that Reinhart thought of it, the first time, since childhood, he felt obliged to offer serious advice to a man who was, after all, a friend of almost forty years. Wasn’t it interesting that Edward had managed to impose so little on him? It was at moments like these that the person beside you is illuminated, some essential trait revealed, a thread one could pull to unveil the nature of the nothing within.
(The last time Edward had asked anything of him was in Grade Eight when he asked Reinhart to “help him” with Albert Cohen. Reinhart blushed at the memory of the beating he’d inflicted on Albert and of Albert following him around thereafter, like a puppy. How unpredictable sexual memories are in their intensity.)
They walked in silence, the night surprisingly warm – not sultry, you couldn’t call Ottawa sultry, in November, but it was as if the city had moved south, to Maryland, say, or North Carolina. The weather was unusual and it may be it provoked in Reinhart a strong sensation of time, a vision, almost, of himself and Edward as they had been as children.