André Alexis: Fifteen Dogs

And yet, a divide existed between them, one that the god could not breach, despite his power, knowledge and subtlety: death. On one side, the immortals. On the other, these beings. He could no more understand what it was to live with death than they could what it was to exist without it. It was this difference that fascinated him and kept him coming back to earth. It was at the heart of the gods’ secret love for mortals. Death was in every fibre of these creatures. It was hidden in their languages and at the root of their civilizations. You could hear it in the sounds they made and see it in the way they moved. It darkened their pleasures and lightened their despair. Being one of those who longed for death, Hermes found the earth and all its mortals fascinating, perhaps even at times worthy of the depths he allowed himself to feel for them. It is this, of course, this ‘feeling’ whose nature surpasses language or human understanding, that kept Hermes — that kept all the gods — from wiping mortals out.

On the one hand, power; on the other, love.

The light changed. The car drove off, and Hermes, imperceptible, rose above the city. To the south, the lake was a light mauve. The clouds above the water were airy and white. Hermes’s thoughts turned to Prince. How odd that such a perceptive creature had imagined the death of a language would mean the death of its poetry. For the immortals, all true poetry existed in an eternal present, eternally new, its language undying. Having once been uttered, Prince’s verse would live forever. At the thought of the dog, Hermes was pleased. And, feeling magnanimous, the god of translators rewarded Prince for his artistry and his unwitting service.

Prince’s soul, which had almost entirely extricated itself from the world, returned briefly to consciousness. He was in a stretch of green and ochre prairie that smelled of Ralston. He was young again, and how thrilling it was to have his senses alert and vivid. It was a late afternoon in summer, somewhere around four o’clock. The sun had just begun to cede its ground to darkness. In the distance were the yards behind the houses on Cawnpore Crescent. He could smell the spore of a gopher, urine, pine gum, dust and the burning flesh of lamb that wafted toward him from god knows where.

Suddenly, he heard a voice that he loved.

— Here, Prince! Here, boy!

It was Kim, the only human whose name he had ever bothered to keep. Prince could see him in the distance, Kim’s silhouette unmistakable for any other. And Prince’s soul was filled with joy. He ran to Kim as he always did: with abandon, bounding over the prairie. This time, though, he ran having caught every nuance in Kim’s voice, understanding him fully.

In his final moment on earth, Prince loved and knew that he was loved in return.

Toronto, 2013

Quincunx 2

The poems in Fifteen Dogs are written in a genre invented by François Caradec for the OULIPO. It was invented after François Le Lionnais, a founder of the group, wondered if it were possible to write poetry that has meaning for both humans and animals. In Fifteen Dogs , each poem is what Caradec called a ‘Poem for a dog.’ That is, in each poem the name of a dog will be audible — to the listener or to the dog — if the poem is said aloud, though the name is not legible. Here is an example by Harry Mathews. It is a poem written for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog, Flush:

My Mistress never slights me

When taking outdoor tea

She brings sweet cake

For her sweet sake

Rough, luscious bones for me.

In Mathews’s poem, between the words rough and luscious , the name Flush can be heard. In the same way, each of the poems in Fifteen Dogs contains one of the dogs’ names.

The poem containing the name ‘Prince’ was written by Kim Maltman:

Longing to be sprayed (the green snake

writhing in his master’s hand),

back and forth into that stream –

jump, rinse: coat slick with soap.

As well, Kim collaborated on the writing of two other poems (‘Ronaldinho’ and ‘Lydia’) and edited all fifteen ‘poems for a dog.’

The song Majnoun hears beside High Park is based on lines written by Roo Borson.

Prince’s metaphysical ‘riddle’ was suggested by Alex Pugsley.

André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His debut novel, Childhood , won the Books in Canada First Novel and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His previous books include Asylum, Beauty and Sadness,Ingrid and the Wolf , and, most recently, Pastoral , which was also nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.