Integrité

Roberta Kwan 71 ―Shall we gather at the river / Where bright angel-feet have trod,‖ the opening lines of an 1864 hymn written by Pastor Dr. Robert Lowry as he reflected upon Revelation 22, the biblical eschatological vision in which the river is a key image.

Proceeding from ―the throne of God and of the Lamb‖ (Rev. 22:1) it feeds the tree of life (Rev. 22:2), which, in its monthly crop and healing leaves, represents the reversal of the Fall (―there shall be no more curse‖—Rev. 22:3) and a re-creation characterised by restored relationships, ―light,‖ and abundant, everlasting life (Rev. 22:5)—the consummation of the gift of Christ. This is the vision that frames Cloudstreet‘s narrative, unambiguously indicated by its circularity. The river features in the prologue and penultimate vignette (―Moon, Sun, Stars‖).

Both also include the refrain, ―the beautiful, the beautiful the [sic] river,‖ (2, 423) the sixth line of Lowry‘s hymn, and several other allusions to the hymn.13 Further, the language of completeness and perfection is used in conjunction with Fish‘s transformation via his return to the river. The prologue states: ―for a few seconds he‘ll truly be a man;‖ (2) in ―Moon ...‖ Fish articulates the experience from his perspective: ―a pause for a few moments. I‘m a man for that long, I feel my manhood, I recognize myself whole and human …‖ (424). It is as Fish reconnects with the river and the other, transcendent, abundant, re-creating reality it represents and contains, and as he gives himself to it to attain it—―he‘ll have it, and it‘ll have him‖ (2)—that paradoxically, he is enabled to momentarily experience the fullness of his humanity. This sense of fullness is reinforced in the echoes of the language of healing from Revelation 22: ―he‘ll savour that healing all the rest of his journey, having felt it‖ (2).

In these brief moments, Fish receives insight into his earthly existence—in ―Moon ...‖ he states, ―[I] know my story for just that long, long enough to see how we‘ve come, how we‘ve all battled in the same corridor that time makes for us‖ (424). Fish‘s story is the twenty-year saga of Cloudstreet, its inhabitants, and their journey along life‘s time-chiselled corridor: ―I‘m Fish Lamb for those seconds it takes to die, as long as it takes to drink the river, as long as it took to tell you all this‖ (424). Behind all the perspectives and ―times‖ presented in the novel is Fish‘s perspective and voice, a ―believing‖ voice, infused with the perspicacity and wisdom gifted to him as he pauses in the liminal space and time between earth-bound finitude and eternity. This perspective and voice add a layer of meaning to the narrative hinted at from the novel‘s commencement. In the prologue‘s final paragraph, the point of view switches from the third person to the second person as the narration adopts the point of view of the eternal Fish who watches his mortal self: ―From the broad vaults and spaces you can see it all again because it never ceases to be. You can see that figure teetering out over the water, looking into your face…‖ (3). The brief introduction of another point of view alerts readers to the presence of at least two layers of reality and aligns those layers with the perspective of the subject—the eternal ―you.‖ ―Wherever the River Goes‖ contains another temporary shift in point of view, this time to the first person as the eternal Fish speaks of himself in relation to his earthly self: ―I‘m behind the water, Fish, I‘m in the tree. I feel your pulse.… Your time will come, Fish ... you‘ll be me, free to come and go, free to puzzle and long and love, free of the net of time‖ (178-9). The first-person point