able to embrace. The title Brother is not definitive enough for Judith; it is loosely and embarrassingly sentimental, hinting at imposed familiarity and chummy handshakes.
“What’s it supposed to mean exactly?” she questions. “Is he a priest? Or what?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“You mean in all these letters you’ve written, you’ve never asked him?”
I pause; it’s hard to explain; some things do not yield to simplicity. “That’s the sort of question he might consider trivial. Too particularized, if you see what I mean.”
“But you think he might be a priest?”
“Well, he lives in a place called the Priory.”
“Which priory.”
“Just ‘The Priory’.”
“And it’s in Toronto?”
“Yes. In the Beaches area.”
“Are you going to see him?”
Another pause. “Maybe,” I mumble this ‘maybe’, chewing the side of my cup, trying to conceal the leap of sensation this ‘maybe’ excites in me.
“But he is a botanist?” Judith asks.
“Yes. In a way. Actually, it’s hard to tell.”
“What do you mean?”
“He seems to know all about plants. And he sent an article to the Journal. I more or less -assumed that only a botanist would submit an article to a botanical journal.”
“What was it about?”
“Grass.”
“Grass? Was it any good?”
“Yes. And no. I liked it. But Doug—you remember Doug Savage, you met him in Vancouver when you were there—he thought it was hilarious.”
“You mean actually funny?”
“It wasn’t funny. He wasn’t trying to be funny at all. It was a serious article, passionately serious, in fact. And scientific in a way. It was a sort of sociology of grass, you might say. He has this theory about the importance of grass to human happiness.”
“Maybe he’s talking about marijuana.”
“No. Just ordinary grass. Garden grass. He’s trying to prove that where people don’t have any grass, just concrete and asphalt and so on, then the whole human condition begins to deteriorate.”
“It sounds a little fanciful,” Judith’s old skepticism again.
“In a way. I don’t understand it all, to tell you the truth. But he writes with the most pressing sort of intensity, something much larger than mere eloquence. Anguished. But reflective too. Not like a scientist at all. More like a poet. Or like a philosopher.”
“But nevertheless the Journal turned it down?”
“Naturally. Doug thought it was just plain crazy.”
“And he gave you the job of returning it.”
“Yes. I send back all manuscripts we can’t use. And usually I do it fairly heartlessly. But with Brother Adam it was different. I couldn’t bear to have him think we utterly rejected what he’d written, that we sneered at what he believed in. I mean, that would be like saying no to something that was beautiful. And humiliating someone who was, well, beautiful too. Don’t look so exasperated, Judith. I know I sound fatuous.”
“Go on. You sent the manuscript back to the Priory?”
“Yes. But instead of the usual rejection card, I enclosed a little note.”
“Saying . . .?”
“Oh, just that I’d enjoyed reading the article, at least the parts I understood. I thought I’d better be honest about it. And I said I thought it was a shame we couldn’t use an article like that now and then to break the monotony. Everything we print is so detached. You wouldn’t believe it, Judith. I should send you an issue. It’s inhuman. The prose style sounds factory-made, all glued together with qualifying phrases. And here at last was an article spurting with passion. From someone who really loved grass. To lie on, to walk on, to sit on. Or to smell. Just to touch grass, he feels, has restorative powers.”
“Why grass? I mean, why not flowers or fruit or something? Or trees, even? Isn’t grass just a little, you know, ordinary? After all, there’s a lot of it around. Even these days.”
“That’s partly why he loves it, I think. The fact that grass is so
“What’s it supposed to mean exactly?” she questions. “Is he a priest? Or what?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“You mean in all these letters you’ve written, you’ve never asked him?”
I pause; it’s hard to explain; some things do not yield to simplicity. “That’s the sort of question he might consider trivial. Too particularized, if you see what I mean.”
“But you think he might be a priest?”
“Well, he lives in a place called the Priory.”
“Which priory.”
“Just ‘The Priory’.”
“And it’s in Toronto?”
“Yes. In the Beaches area.”
“Are you going to see him?”
Another pause. “Maybe,” I mumble this ‘maybe’, chewing the side of my cup, trying to conceal the leap of sensation this ‘maybe’ excites in me.
“But he is a botanist?” Judith asks.
“Yes. In a way. Actually, it’s hard to tell.”
“What do you mean?”
“He seems to know all about plants. And he sent an article to the Journal. I more or less -assumed that only a botanist would submit an article to a botanical journal.”
“What was it about?”
“Grass.”
“Grass? Was it any good?”
“Yes. And no. I liked it. But Doug—you remember Doug Savage, you met him in Vancouver when you were there—he thought it was hilarious.”
“You mean actually funny?”
“It wasn’t funny. He wasn’t trying to be funny at all. It was a serious article, passionately serious, in fact. And scientific in a way. It was a sort of sociology of grass, you might say. He has this theory about the importance of grass to human happiness.”
“Maybe he’s talking about marijuana.”
“No. Just ordinary grass. Garden grass. He’s trying to prove that where people don’t have any grass, just concrete and asphalt and so on, then the whole human condition begins to deteriorate.”
“It sounds a little fanciful,” Judith’s old skepticism again.
“In a way. I don’t understand it all, to tell you the truth. But he writes with the most pressing sort of intensity, something much larger than mere eloquence. Anguished. But reflective too. Not like a scientist at all. More like a poet. Or like a philosopher.”
“But nevertheless the Journal turned it down?”
“Naturally. Doug thought it was just plain crazy.”
“And he gave you the job of returning it.”
“Yes. I send back all manuscripts we can’t use. And usually I do it fairly heartlessly. But with Brother Adam it was different. I couldn’t bear to have him think we utterly rejected what he’d written, that we sneered at what he believed in. I mean, that would be like saying no to something that was beautiful. And humiliating someone who was, well, beautiful too. Don’t look so exasperated, Judith. I know I sound fatuous.”
“Go on. You sent the manuscript back to the Priory?”
“Yes. But instead of the usual rejection card, I enclosed a little note.”
“Saying . . .?”
“Oh, just that I’d enjoyed reading the article, at least the parts I understood. I thought I’d better be honest about it. And I said I thought it was a shame we couldn’t use an article like that now and then to break the monotony. Everything we print is so detached. You wouldn’t believe it, Judith. I should send you an issue. It’s inhuman. The prose style sounds factory-made, all glued together with qualifying phrases. And here at last was an article spurting with passion. From someone who really loved grass. To lie on, to walk on, to sit on. Or to smell. Just to touch grass, he feels, has restorative powers.”
“Why grass? I mean, why not flowers or fruit or something? Or trees, even? Isn’t grass just a little, you know, ordinary? After all, there’s a lot of it around. Even these days.”
“That’s partly why he loves it, I think. The fact that grass is so
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