Communion Read online

  COMMUNION

  Also by Graeme Gibson

  Five Legs

  COMMUNION

  A NOVEL BY GRAEME GIBSON

  Copyright © 1971 Graeme Gibson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

  This edition published in 2012 by

  House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4

  Tel. 416-363-4343

  Fax 416-363-1017

  www.houseofanansi.com

  eISBN 978-1-77089-346-7

  Cover design by Hilary Norman, from a painting by Manuel Serrano

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  For

  Selena,

  Jake L. and Peter C.

  INTRODUCTION

  For thinkers putting together a philosophical outlook to guide the Green Revolution, Graeme Gibson asks the fundamental question: how can we clean up our global campsite without destroying the planet further? Even when introducing species to restored habitats, we must rely on technology, thereby distancing our humanity from Earth and consolidating us in the role of her manager. This is an arresting question for a former council member of World Wildlife Fund Canada to ask — but Gibson is also a novelist, and even more startling is the alternative he explores in Communion. The alternative is to dream ourselves into the spirit society we have hitherto called “wilderness” in a way that leads to our own dignity as earthlings. Yet this visionary impulse is immediately betrayed by technology, leaving in the case of Communion five impotent dreamers trying to survive as shamans.

  Who in this book of interwoven vignettes is the protagonist, the one who suffers our agony for us? Is it the part-time veterinary assistant who tries to return a husky to the wild? Is it the dog with its once wild nature reduced to a flickering dream behind its eyes? The assistant identifies with this domestication of instinct, being pulled out of his own fetal dreaming every morning by a woman who asserts the material world on his senses, materia as mater. His only recourse is to paw the statues of grieving nymphs in a cemetery whose Stygian waters contaminate the nearby ravine. Is the protagonist an individual curled up around himself on a basement floor, so paranoid with fantasies of children and guns he is barely able to “rise onto all fours”? Another paralyzed dreamer, “he misses nothing even though his face is turned inward to the wall” (Gibson’s protagonists aren’t objective people so much as spirits inhabiting bodies, or trying to get back to them through sexuality). Is it a voyeur who sends his spirit out nightly through the walls of houses in search of a woman’s touch? Or is the protagonist a normal, if brooding, individual shuttling across the ravine between the sorrow of a wife and the morose delight of a mistress, both asking: “Why am I always attracted to empty men?”

  Or is the protagonist of Communion the ravine, a strip of wilderness extending into the heart and loins of a city, filling the people who live on its edges with the “uncertainty and dread” of a dark existential choice?

  To readers of literature, this book is one of the finest experiences of polyphonic storytelling this side of the Sirens episode in Ulysses. Polyphony denotes a composition in which multiple voices or instruments pursue their melodies independently, each keeping its ear on the others, none of them dominating the whole it helps to create. As such, Communion is a literary string quartet — a decided alternative to the symphonic megaproject called the novel and to its political equivalent, the hegemony imposed in the name of social harmony. As an ornithologist, Gibson is tuned to the natural polyphony of the forest, where songs pass through each other or respond in duets and sudden choruses, and he offers brief glimpses of this primal. But the book seems to leap back in time beyond Romanticism to shamanic myth with its narrative polyphony of human, animals, and spirits sharing the same stage without a master-script. Communion is an enactment of bodies as the visible arcs of spirits, trying to recover an earthly paradise in the density of time and space.

  Sean Kane

  February 2013

  Space is always between us

  and time is inserted in us like a disease.

  Barbusse

  Why does she come each morning like this? A ritual perhaps, but not for him: he’s happy enough beneath the covers, arms against his body, hands together at his throat.

  Christ knows he doesn’t need it! with knees pulled up under his chin for protection, the body curled around its own belly like this, anyone can see he doesn’t need it. Yet here she comes with cigarettes, matches and the white plastic holder . . .

  Why?

  Deliberately from the door to the chair beside his face and sitting, staring impassive as he sleeps. She hears her spring morning at the open window. She hears birds in the eaves and she hears the trees, a car door slam. She hears the starter before the engine catches, then she listens to hear acceleration to the corner; tipping her ear slightly, she squints her eyes after the diminishing sound. It doesn’t take long. And then there’s only the city and the imperceptible sound of his body’s sleep.

  She rises, she puts the cigarettes, the matches and the holder beside his pillow and, bracing her feet on the floor, her knees against the bed, she takes a deep breath and tries to wrestle him onto his back. He resists. She tries harder. He curls in upon himself like an armadillo, but grunting and clutching, sweating now and heaving, she begins to gain the advantage: he’s weakening, one of his arms comes loose: vainly he struggles to re-enclose himself but the circle’s broken . . . it’s just a matter of time. She hears a high-pitched whimpering in his throat, and knowing the muscles that strain in his chest, the burrowing face, she pauses. Clever. With left hand on his right wrist, elbow against his belly and into his hip, and her right arm under his shoulders, she seems to give in to him. Very clever. His body, surprised at this unexpected freedom, relaxes (will it never learn?), the whimpering dies . . . and at this instant, so beautifully timed, she surges to her feet and grunting flips him onto his back.

  Things proceed as usual.

  Felix open on his back, he breathes the end of sleep . . .

  Cigarette in her mouth, she rests. It’s getting harder all the time, she isn’t getting one bit younger: once it was strength alone that did it, she walked in at seven and simply rolled him over. But those days are gone now: more and more she has to rely on the advantage that comes with experience. But then he’s more stubborn too . . .

  She lights a cigarette and slips it into the holder. There are birds outside and trees that press about the house: the sun is shining, rather pale at this hour, but shining nevertheless as she leans forward to brush her finger lightly at the corner of his mouth. He shivers, he searches blindly with a sucking noise, his face is pained, is drawn in lines as his mouth searches suck suck. Such an anxious face!

  By resting her elbow at his side she keeps the holder steady; her arm along his chest, she bends and reaches, pinching the nostrils to stop him breathing through his nose. It’s the only way. Otherwise he simply puffs, breathing sleepily all the while, and the smoke scarcely p
asses his lips, hardly gets into his mouth, let alone into his lungs where it’s needed, where it does the most good. The effect is immediate. The tip glows more brightly, it fades to greyness, then it glows again, it fairly crackles! Miniature forms collapse upon themselves as he exhales. But the rhythm’s still uneven, it’s not bad, a beginning, but uneven . . .

  Sometimes the smoke goes down the wrong way, gets into the gullet or whatever and he’s overcome, he’s doubled up and blue with the lack of air. It was frightening at first, she used to think he was actually going to die, but since he never did she’s learned to put up with unexpected things from time to time. One morning last winter he wouldn’t open his mouth to take the cigarette. Even when she held his nose shut tight he wouldn’t open up . . . his body heaved, convulsed as if to make sure there was no way, and then he just lay there turning greyer and greyer until a purple ring appeared about his mouth. Terrible, as if he didn’t care, he was so calm, he didn’t move and she panicked. It was the spreading private bruise, that blackening beneath the skin, she couldn’t look away, she could only stare . . . and growing certain that he’d finally win, she lost her head completely. She savagely pinched at his nose, twisting the holder she tried to pry his body open at the mouth, she pleaded and coaxed, she cursed him, she promised intolerable things but he wouldn’t hear, he’d simply stopped breathing. And he wouldn’t have started again, she’s sure of that, if she hadn’t reached between his legs and gathered his genitals in her hand. She gave a tentative pull . . . unconvincing . . . so she squeezed, violently she twisted until he bellowed, he gasped, he started to breathe . . . and before he could close again she’d pushed the mouthpiece in and won!

  That was an unusual morning; but the question of tempo is automatic. The problem is to press firmly and rhythmically on his chest while keeping the nostrils closed and holding the cigarette in his mouth at the same time. None of these things can be neglected for a moment. For example, if she doesn’t maintain a constant pattern of pressure on his chest, then she’ll never regulate his breathing . . . however, if in concentrating on this she forgets the nostrils, if air seeps into his head in any way except through the mouth, then he’ll simply breathe without smoking at all. Finally, even if she manages both, but doesn’t keep the cigarette holder firmly in his mouth, if she lets go even for an instant, then his jaws part, his lips slacken, open like an old man’s, and the cigarette falls onto the pillow and rolls down to where the throat meets his shoulder.

  Perhaps it sounds more difficult than it is, and it’s true that at first she’d longed for another hand, two extra fingers even, just to snip the nostrils shut. She’d begun to wonder, to plan even, to see if perhaps there was some sort of equipment, a machine . . . A clothespin, for example, placed carefully on the nose, it seemed an excellent idea, almost like two extra fingers, perhaps the clothespin would do. But he was offended, he’d groaned and thrashed about, his arm had swept up and thrown the clothespin against the wall.

  That had been a disappointment. Leaning to enclose his nose securely in the crotch of her thumb and index finger, her hand extending down so the tip of that same thumb and finger can steady the holder in his mouth; she remembers the sense of failure. Yet at the same time she’d never fully despaired, never seriously, and that’s something after all; not once has she really considered giving up . . . What’s more, her perseverance ultimately produced the technique she’s using now and it works well too: her right hand, placed as it is, successfully looks after the nose and the mouth (both of them) and leaves her left hand free to lean upon his chest, impose this healthy rhythm on his breath.

  Leaning her weight, pressing and counting, “a thousand and one” with grey smoke issuing from his mouth . . . briefly she holds . . . then “a thousand and two”, withdrawing she sees the fire as his lungs are filled. And so it goes. She fights him resolutely, pressing again (“a thousand and one”), she feels the slobber from his mouth, she pauses . . . and withdraws.

  The next cigarette is ready in her mouth as, poised, she forces his lungs empty, and then with amazing speed her left hand grabs the holder and brings the glowing butt to light the new one; at the same time, her thumb and index finger have pinched his mouth shut and that’s important, so he can’t breathe and break the cycle. Ashes fly as she ejects the butt into the ashtray, exchanges the empty holder for the cigarette in her mouth, firmly inserts the latter into the former and, letting go of his lips, jams the holder back into his mouth. He gasps, she lurches to maintain the interrupted tempo, “a thousand and one” and they’ve hardly missed a stroke . . .

  It’s going very smoothly this morning.

  Soon she stops the regulating pressure, stops the counting and relaxes somewhat back on the chair: she smiles, an imperceptible smile on her large face and hears again the birds, a car in the street, the day outside and sees the lines about his eyes, his mouth in rhythm now and knows the worst is over, that soon he’ll be awake.

  Keys, in hand and ready, cautious he leans his face to the glass and peers inside: it looks clear enough but he can’t be sure, it’s nowhere to be seen and that’s ominous; it’s not on the counter by the cash register, nor crouched as it is some mornings on the door leading to the back rooms. Where is it then? Methodically he searches as best he can; because of the relative darkness inside, the street’s reflection on the glass and so forth, it isn’t easy . . . he concentrates though, shading the glass he stares into gloomy corners, he even crouches to improve the angle; kneeling on the sidewalk, he tries to see if it’s above the door. It doesn’t seem to be but he can’t be sure so turning the key, carefully bracing his shoulder he inches the door open . . . pausing to listen . . . but he can’t hear it. All the usual sounds, the morning sounds: snuffling and groaning, breathing and sighing, all this and more; the brush of bodies, and madness of the talking birds, the chains and the scampering claws in metal wheels. But no Sammy, where is he? Door open a bit more until there’s almost enough room to sneak through, it’s looking good. Pausing to listen, then whipping it open and lunging inside, slamming the door just as he drops with a shriek from the transom, a chattering howl, the cunning bugger was there all the time! Pounding his fists on the door too late, face of a woodcut devil, then leaping to the counter he turns to stare; his angry shrunken face for a moment, and then he’s gone.

  Felix trembling inside because of the shock. Even though he was expecting some such assault, even though he’s been through it, or something like it, morning after morning now, ever since taking the job, he still finds the shrieking accusation, the wizened face, the snarl profoundly disturbing, far too personal in fact. As if it’s his fault, when he’s only the employee, nothing more than an employee and yet every morning the stupid bugger comes at him like this, pinches up its nasty face in rage, charges about like a madman and rushes off into the other room.

  Glancing to see that the cage is open, that the monkey will be able to get in alright, he picks up several supermarket bags and strides into the back room. Along the length of the room there are three aisles between the cages, and in these cages (depending on their size, whether they’re on the first or second level) there are dogs and cats, a raccoon or two, a skunk, sometimes tangled creatures that he doesn’t quite recognize, and in the corner of the room, in the highest cage, there’s an owl.

  Now, with Felix pausing inside the door, with Sammy’s violent anger, all the animals that can stand are on their feet, they press against the wire or cower back, they snarl or howl, they chatter and moan amongst themselves as he starts down the aisle. The monkey’s hiding somewhere, but that’s alright, he knows! Felix blows into the bag, squeezing the mouth shut as he draws another breath, blowing again with the paper stretching, the wrinkles vanishing as it fills with air. Down one aisle like this and up the next with still no sign of Sammy, he must be somewhere poised, but he hears alright and soon he’ll make his move. Relentless pursuit in the growing excitement of caged animals and blow
ing out he turns the third corner, at the end of the second aisle, and then the fourth, the last and sees him, yes! he shouts, Ho-Hoh! And rubs the bag against his chest in warning, the monkey screams up onto the cages out of sight and scrabbles away as Felix smashes his hand against the bag. Mercifully it works, on the first try too, it explodes and more than fifty animals panic.

  Blowing mightily on the second bag, Felix moves to cut Sammy off at the door because it won’t do to let him out there yet, he’s not ready, he’s not desperate enough for his cage, he might think so, he might even get into it but he won’t appreciate it. Not yet. He’ll complain all morning.

  Dogs cringe away from his legs and howl as he passes. He rustles the paper while gathering air for another blow, preparing himself; not a motion wasted or a moment lost, momentum is the watchword here, for Sammy thinks he’s hiding but Felix sees him, yes he does, he sees him over there beside the owl and creeping up behind him bursts the bag! It retreats in growing confusion and fear, he follows with the third bag in his hand, the monkey bounds for the door and still he follows, he’s gasping now, he’s dizzy with Sammy retreating as the bag begins to stretch, retreating from the room and into his cage. Very good. But Felix won’t relent, not yet; he stalks to the door to make sure, he pauses, he rubs the bag against his chest and Sammy whimpers; very good, there’s no need to break it now, no need at all. He can walk to the cage and say “Hello Sammy”, he can reach inside and stroke the skeletal body, he can say “Morning baby”. Scratching under the chin, seeing skull beneath the hair and stroking its head: “Do you want some breakfast Sammy? that’s what you want, you want some breakfast.”