Spurious - Lars Iyer [27]
Ah, Canada, with its pristine blue lakes and bear-filled wilderness! Of course, W. is Canadian, and his Canada is not a fantasy. It’s based on his own childhood by the great blue lakes and on the edge of the wilderness, and alongside the open-hearted Canadians.
They had a big house, he remembers, and went swimming every day. They were happier then. Once he showed me a photograph: a happy family, by a big house, with pine trees behind, and a big blue lake to swim in. And who are those people?, I ask him. Canadians, says W., open-hearted Canadians.
Moving back to England was the disaster, says W. Wolverhampton of all places! England’s bad enough, but Wolverhampton! He shows me pictures of himself in school uniform. It had all gone wrong by then, says W., can’t I see it in his eyes? I can see it. Ever since then, says W., he’s dreamt of getting back to Canada.
It’s not impossible, he says. His sister’s made it. She’s a Canadian now. Or perhaps it’s impossible for him, and for the likes of us.—‘It would be impossible for you in particular’, he tells me. ‘The Canadians wouldn’t put up with you for a moment’. Canada! It’s a big country, unlike England, says W. And cheap, too—he was there a couple of years ago on holiday, and was amazed. It’s cheap, and the people are open-hearted.—‘Not like the English’, he says.
Children rap on his windows as we talk. What do they want?—‘Ignore them! Close the shutters!’, he says, and we sit in darkness with our gin. Are there feral children in Canada?, I ask W. He doesn’t think so. It has a good social security system, he says, and an egalitarian attitude. They pay well, too. Salaries are high. Canadians enjoy a high standard of living, with their blue, pure lakes and the great tracts of wilderness.
Would the cold bother him?, I ask W, who always moans he’s cold. It’s not a wet cold like over here, says W. It’s a dry cold, completely different. It doesn’t feel anything like as bad. And it’s not as depressing. You don’t get wave after wave of Westerlies coming in from the Atlantic. In England, we’re battered by Westerlies, says W., but in Canada, the weather is as pure and simple as the lakes and the open-hearted people.
What about the bears—wouldn’t they frighten him?, I ask W., who is not a brave man. There are ways of dealing with bears, W. assures me. The Canadians issue pamphlets on the matter. They probably keep things in the back of their cars to scare them off. Bear-frightening devices. Wouldn’t he have to learn to drive in Canada?, I ask W. It’s a big country after all, and there are miles of wilderness to negotiate. W. admits he might have to. He’d take lessons, he says. That would be part of his new life.
And what if he broke down?, I ask W. He’d have to learn some basic car maintenance, W. admits, for the Canadian wilderness. But he’s practical, he says, and would pick it up quickly, not like me.—‘You wouldn’t last a minute in Canada’, he says.
Every year, I write long and elaborate letters to places of employment in Canada on behalf of W. I write of him as the finest thinker of his generation, or as the thinker surest to mark the age with his name. I take dictation from W., who speaks of his commanding presence and his extreme intelligence. He is a thought-god, says W., no don’t write that down. He is the best of the best of the best, says W., don’t write that down either.
But we hear nothing from the Canadians. They remain silent and distant, as remote as Martians. To console ourselves, we imagine the endless plains of the Yukon. The Canadians are busy in the wilderness, we decide. They’re boating on their many lakes or hiking through their many woods. They’re an outdoor people, we decide, and not given to replying to letters of absurd overpraise.
We’ve never liked crossing roads. Now the bridge by the