by Darren Greer
The next Sunday, Grandnan left for Mass with my mother, uttering a parting shot regarding “generational spiritual decline.” I went to my room and read until my uncle said it was time to go.
Earlier I had called Cameron — he was always home on Sunday — to tell him I was visiting the house of the one and only Henry Hennsey.
“Big deal,” Cameron said. “He’s just a person like the rest of us.”
“I’m gonna ask him what was the big event of 1884,” I said.
“The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published,” said Cameron. “It was also a leap year.”
I knew Cameron had been studying events for each year, ever since I told him Henry did it. He never said so, but I had seen him in the school library a time or two poring over an encyclopedia, and when I asked him what he was doing he wouldn’t tell me.
That was okay. I was doing it too, though I had only made it to 1653.
Henry Hennsey had influenced us without being aware he was doing it. To this day I can remember major events for every year from 1600, though picking events from recent years has been difficult. Sometimes, as my uncle said, it can be hard to see what’s important when you’re so very close to it.
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there were no little black boys fishing on Henry Hennsey’s lawn. Or gnomes. Or angels. The only adornment was a miniature red wooden wheelbarrow heaped with dirt. I could imagine him, in the green workpants and the old plaid shirt he always wore, on his knees spading in tulip bulbs or geranium roots. I pictured him carting off rocks in a real wheelbarrow, like my grandmother, only with a lot less distance to go to round his little yellow house.
My uncle and I walked up the flagstone path to the front stoop and knocked on the door. After a minute Henry opened it, and without a smile or even a nod of greeting asked us to come in. “Tea?” he said to my uncle. “Or something stronger?”
“Tea,” said my uncle. “With two sugars.”
“And for you Jacob?” said Henry. “I’ve got some soda pop.”
I was surprised Henry knew my name. I had never spoken to him, and I thought he had never taken any notice of me. I agreed to the soda, though Henry didn’t say what flavour it was. When he brought it, it was cream soda. My favourite. He told us to go into the sitting room to the left, and my uncle and I did, each claiming a chair across from a small tweed sofa with a painting of a sinking schooner above it. The painting interested me. I had seen many paintings of ships and schooners over the years — there was one of the Bluenose in our library at school and my grandmother had paintings of two others in the upstairs hallway of our house. But I had never seen one that was sinking before. The rigging had let go. The sails flapped violently in a savage wind. The men scrambled fruitlessly on deck for control. I studied it until Henry came back with our tea and soda. He set them on the coffee table and then took a seat on the sofa in front of us, below the painting.
At first no one spoke. Henry studied his pants. My uncle blew on his tea to cool it and I took a sip of my drink. Eventually I drew my eyes away from the sinking ship and looked around the little room. It was perfectly neat and somehow, despite the amount of furniture, did not seem crowded. The hallway ran from the front door only a few short yards down to the back of the house, off which must have been a kitchen, and on the other side a set of stairs climbing back up in the opposite direction. Across the hallway from us was another little room, with a table and chairs and a sideboard similar to my grandmother’s, only smaller.
It was strange to be in such a small house.
I decided I liked it.
I decided when I got old enough I would live in a house like this. And read books and play games and memorize events from every year since 1600.
I noticed there wasn’t a single book to be seen, and yet my uncle had said Henry was a reader. Before I had a chance to check my words, I asked Henry where all his books were. “Uncle David says you have some,” I said. “Do you keep them in a library? We don’t have a library, but grandfather had a den and it’s filled with books. I’m not allowed in there though. Do you have a den?”
My uncle looked at me and smiled. Henry did not change his expression, which could best be described as disinterested. He had a flat face and a wide nose. His lips were thin and dark. I learned eventually that the flat, expressionless face Henry presented to the world belied, as my uncle knew, a fierce passion and deep intelligence. He had learned perhaps to keep his feelings to himself.
Henry did answer me, though. “I don’t have a den,” he said. “Or a library. But I do have a book room upstairs. Used to be my mother’s room. But I don’t believe in storing your books in a place where everyone can see. Kind of like hanging your underwear in the living room, only instead of getting a peek at your drawers they get to look at your brain and what you put in it. Books should be private, Jacob. You should only show them to people you want to see, and not every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes waltzing in your front door.”
My uncle surprised me with a laugh. “I never actually considered that before, Henry, but you’re absolutely right. It’s the way I felt about forcing students to read Lord of the Flies or Heart of Darkness. If they want to, they’ll come to those books in time and in their own way. Making them read them is kind of like forcing an infant to eat chocolate cake. You spoil the experience for later.”
“Fine books, both of them,” said Henry. “‘O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts. And men have lost their reason.’”
It was hard to square what was coming out of Henry Hennsey’s mouth with how I’d always perceived him — quiet and unobtrusive. No wonder my uncle said he was an intelligent, articulate man. I had not read any of the books they talked about. I looked back and forth between the two of them. Even my uncle surprised me, for I had never seen him talk with such passion as when he discussed these subjects. Soon they moved on to history, and art, and politics. Henry did not get as excited as my uncle. He kept still in his seat, and talked low. But the language and learning were sophisticated. Somehow my uncle had mined him, brought forth what must have always existed below the surface. My respect for uncle David multiplied right there. I was too young to understand much of what they were talking about, but I was fascinated, as the ideas sailed back and forth between them.
I excused myself to go to the bathroom upstairs. When I came back down, and turned into the hallway, their tone was different, the voices lower, more intense. The conversation had changed.
“Have you told them yet?” asked Henry, softly.
I stopped at the newel post.
“No,” said my uncle, equally soft, but still clear to me from where I stood at the end of the hallway. “I don’t know how.”
“You have to tell them soon,” said Henry. “All hell’ll break loose if you don’t.”
“I know,” said my uncle.
Because I could not see into the living room from where I stood, I did not know what expression my uncle wore when he talked of this mysterious thing. I could tell by the low voices and heavy emphasis it was serious. But what came next surprised me. Shocked me even. I heard something I will never, in all my life, forget. A half-sob, half-choke from my uncle.
I have since heard that strangled sound many times since, in the work I do. It is the inarticulate cry of fear, depression, and despair. Now I know, and perhaps I knew then on an emotional level, it was less for the books and knowledge that Uncle David sought out Henry Hennsey, than for someone with whom he could share his terrible secret.
I announced myself carefully with a feigned stamping of shoes on floor and a sniffle, pretending I had a cold, then went back into the room. Whatever had transpired between them during my absence was now gone, and my uncle was smiling, though his eyes looked sad.
“Ready to go?” he said.
“I guess so,” I said, and we made our goodbyes.
On the way home, my uncle was silent. I did not ask any questions.
Have you told them yet?
Henry Hennsey had asked.
Not yet, my uncle answered.
What was this horrible thing that made my uncle, usually so calm and happy, actually cry? What secret was he carrying? I was curious, like so many kids my age. But it was beyond me. And as we walked home from Henry’s, from the house of the only black family to live in Advocate in all the long years we had been there, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know.
2
only a few days after we went to Henry’s, my uncle felt poorly again and refused to go outside, despite the weather being fine. His constant see-sawing between illness and wellness irritated my grandmother, who said no one could be sick that often. She suspected my uncle was prevaricating, faking illness in order to avoid taking responsibility for himself. She had to recant when he came down with a violent attack of what she referred to as “summer complaint,” a mysterious illness of her childhood.
Dr. Fred came to see him at the house. My grandmother’s diagnosis did not sit well with either my mother or Aunt Jeanette. But Dr. Fred did not offer an opinion on it, other than to say that when my grandmother said “summer complaint,” what she really meant was a bacterial infection caused by food or water contamination. This was more common in my grandmother’s day, when food regulation was not as strict and many of the wells were dug instead of drilled and subject to floods or drying up or standing stagnant in the hot days of summer. Dr. Fred told my mother he did not think Uncle David was suffering from bad hygiene or food poisoning, but he would not say what he did think he was suffering from.
My grandmother stuck to her guns.
She knew Uncle David was sick in this manner because of his increasing trips to the bathroom and their unusual duration. The stink, too, was tremendous. She claimed the upstairs hallway was unfit for habitation for hours after he went — and though this was an exaggeration, it was true once David had been in the bathroom, I wanted to wait a bit before waltzing in after him. When he was not on the commode, he was lying on his bed in his robe and pyjamas. He was hot — red-faced and sheathed in sweat — some of the time, and stricken with chills at others. He slept for most of the day, in between bathroom visits. My grandmother grew alarmed.
Dr. Fred came to the house several more times to look at my uncle, and was still vague about what might be the problem.
“A bad flu,” he said one time.
“Perhaps a case of sepsis,” he said another. “A poisoning of the blood.”
In the end my uncle went to the hospital, for two nights. They got the diarrhea under control and gave him medications to deal with the fever. He was sent home, still weak and confined to his bed, and my mother and Jeanette made him soup and tried to get him to eat. They read to him from what books he had brought from Toronto. My grandmother, once she realized David was going to be okay — for a while, when he was in hospital, she acted like she might actually be worried about him — started complaining that not only was the poor boy homeless, he was sick too.
“He’s always been sickly,” she said. “But this is ridiculous.”
“He’s not always been sickly,” my mother protested. “David got sick least of all of us!”
“That’s not how I remember it,” said my grandmother.
The next day, Dr. Fred again came over and diagnosed my uncle with a case, not of summer complaint, but of meningitis. My grandmother had heard of it, but my mother and Jeanette had to have it explained to them in the kitchen after the doctor had seen my uncle in his room.
“Does he need to go to the hospital again?” my mother asked.
“No,” said Fred. “He can stay here. We’ve given him some antibiotics, and you’ll have to keep an eye on him. He’ll be very sick for a while yet, but eventually it will get better.”
“Is it contagious?” asked my grandmother.
Dr. Fred looked at her, as if weighing his answer. “It could be,” he said. “We don’t know what kind of meningitis it is. If it’s bacterial, some of those can be contagious. If it’s viral it isn’t. I’ll have to do more tests. I’ve drawn blood, so we’ll know in a few days. Meanwhile, just be cautious around him. Jacob is in the most danger. Kids are susceptible to it, more so than adults. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You can tend to him as you normally would. But keep Jacob out of his room.”
My mother looked instantly worried. “Should we send Jacob away? To Cameron’s for a few days?”
“No need to be alarmist,” said Dr. Fred. “It’s a tactile contagion, so just keeping him out of the room should suffice. I’ll come back and check on him tomorrow.”
My mother and Jeanette thanked him, and he left.
“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish,” my grandmother said.
“You act like it’s his fault,” said Aunt Jeanette.
“Of course it isn’t,” said my grandmother. “How could the boy be at fault for getting sick? It’s just difficult to deal with, is all I’m saying. He was supposed to move into his new apartment. What happens now?”
“We’ll take care of everything,” my mother said. “You don’t have to lift a finger.” Then she and Jeanette went up to see my uncle in his room.
My grandmother stayed with me in the kitchen. “Don’t lift a finger my eye,” she said. “A contagion in my own house and I’m not supposed to care one whit about it?”
“What’s a contagion?” I asked her.
“A disease,” she said, emphasizing the word as a snake would a hiss. “The boy has probably not been taking care of himself properly. Running around doing this and that as he always did. He got malaria when he was tromping around in those foreign countries. Did I ever tell you that? Almost killed him. He was sick for months. Why anyone would want to go to a hot, filthy foreign place with contaminated water and infectious mosquitoes is quite beyond me. I’ve never seen anyone quite like your uncle with the knack for getting himself into trouble.”
She had lied to my Aunt Jeanette — she was blaming my uncle. You could hear it in every word she spoke. Even I saw how deep her resentment ran.
My mother walked back into the kitchen at that moment. She asked my grandmother what face cloths she could use to soothe my uncle’s head. “He’s burning up,” she said.
“Take the ones under the vanity in the upstairs bathroom,” my grandmother said. “They’re my old ones. You might as well throw them out when you’re done. They’ll be no good after.”
“You heard what Dr. Willis said,” said my mother. “It is only contagious to children. And it might not be contagious at all.”
“He didn’t say it was only contagious to children,” said my grandmother. “He said children were more at risk.” My grandmother had my mother there. That was exactly what Dr. Fred had said.
My mother shrugged and went up to get the face cloths. My grandmother sent me out of the kitchen. She was going to get supper ready. “I suppose I’ll make him some soup. He should be able to get that down at least.”
3
the priest at my grandmother’s church was Father Orlis. He was English, and was educated at the Catholic seminary of Allen Hall in London. He had a master of divinity from Oxford. Why such a grandly educated man would end up in such an out-of-the-way place as Advocate was the real question. From what I understood he chose to come to Nova Scotia. My grandmother thought it had something to do with Delilah Smith, who was English, and Catholic, and the wife of the owner of the paper mill, and part of the richest family in town. Father Orlis was in his early sixties, tall, irremediably thin, bald, with pale blue eyes and bushy white eyebrows. The eyebrows gave the appearance of constant disapproval, as if he was judging everything said or done. The strip of white clerical collar and the black vest, or rabbat, didn’t help. He lived with the two deacons in the rectory attached to the back of St. Andrew’s Church. I was told he had, like Henry Hennsey, a great many books, and when he wasn’t engaged in parish business he was busy reading. I couldn’t imagine the books of a priest would be very interesting. If my doctor grandf
ather was interested only in medical books — there were a host of them in his den from Wilde’s Epidemics in Ireland to Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine by William Osler — a priest would likely only be interested in religious books.
I liked Father Orlis. Despite the eyebrows, he had a soft, reassuring voice. When he spoke it was as if he was giving his opinion and asking for permission at the same time. He was diffident, for a priest, and he sometimes had trouble meeting my eye. But he managed the affairs of the parish with aplomb, and he always declaimed his parts of the liturgy with grand authority and confidence. My grandmother loved him, both because he was a good old-fashioned Catholic priest and yet he was not so self-assured she felt she couldn’t manipulate him. He deferred to my grandmother in a great many things, because she was head of the auxiliary, because she was prominent among the laity, because she was the wife of the dead Catholic doctor. There were three hundred nominal Catholics in Advocate, about half of which were active church members. My grandmother, if not chief among them, belonged to the religious oligarchy, its ruling class. Any good priest or pastor knows in order to survive he must keep this class happy, that it is they who own the church.
Father Orlis was a good priest.
On more than one occasion, he had been to our house for a meal. He visited when anyone got sick — though he was noticeably absent during the period I write about — and he even talked to Aunt Jeanette, asking after her affairs though she refused to attend Mass. Uncle David met him, and despite his being in “the opposite camp,” as my uncle put it, he had not disliked him. “He seems smart,” said my uncle. “One of those men devoted to God as an intellectual experience, rather than an emotional one.”