friendsandlove

BACK TABLE OF CONTENTS FORWARD

04-FEB-2002 00:06: Friends and Love

THE TROUBLE BEGAN WITH THE LOVE LAWS.
THE LAWS THAT LAID DOWN WHO SHOULD BE LOVED,
AND HOW. AND HOW MUCH.

THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS ~ ARUNDHATI ROY

"Evening, Gallagher," Tess said when he appeared with her nightly brandy. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes and papers.

"And a good evening to you too, madame," Gallagher returned. "You appear to be quite busy."

"S'okay," Tess said. "I'm sorting." She lifted her head to glance at the menagerie around her. "There's so much to sort through and I can't quite figure out where it all begins, or where it all ends, or whose pain is muddled up with whose. I'm getting there though," she said with a smile.

"Do you want some of this brandy?" she offered. "There's more in the cupboard -- I'm cyber-stocked you know. Besides, I want to read you something."

"In that case, I think I will, madame," said Gallagher.

"Okay, you pour. I'll read." She stretched out in front of the fireplace with a sheath of papers in her hand. "This is an old letter, Gallagher -- from my AC. He wrote it to me after his father died. It was one of my favorites. She cleared her throat . . .

Date: 9/05/99 1:05:31 PM
From: The AC
To: Tess
Subject: Memoriam

Once upon a time, back in the late 50's, there lived a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force who was stationed in the enchanting village of XXXXX, XXXXXX (ugh!) with his wife and son. One lovely Sunday, the wife, who being a child of the depression, (as the master sergeant had been), knew how to scrounge around for an extra buck here and there, decided to hold a tupperware party (!) at their house. The husband/MS, deciding that a henhouse was not the place to hang out on a lovely Sunday, took his son out to the country to test fire a pistol that had belonged to the wife's deceased first husband, (of course, given the circumstances, he would have gone out to test fire a sling shot, but that is neither here nor there).

So off they went, father and 5 year-old (approx.) son, to a little spot in the country that, no doubt, has since fallen victim to urban sprawl. The father found that by firing downward he could minimize the risk of a stray ricochet. He fired and fired, and wasn't too impressed with the pistol. (Police Department Issue, c. 1935). After a while, that was that, and they started back to their car.

On the way back, the little boy, a curious (in both senses of the word), little fellow, asked apropros of nothing whatsoever that had been said during the entire afternoon, "Dad, what's a friend?"

And the father, without hesitation, hem or haw answered, "A friend is someone you'd be willing to die for."

Now what manner of man would say such a thing to a young boy who was just beginning to understand life, and never mind death? A man, who as a malnourished child of the depression in the most depressed, racist, ignorant part of the United States, had seen and heard of terrible, ugly things and had somehow managed to grow up with his soul intact. A man who fought in two world wars, had seen death at its most gruesome, and had grown immune to its ugliness and awful finality. Or was he a man, who believed so strongly in that little boy, that he believed the boy could face a strange horrible beautiful Truth and not be frightened, nor dismayed, nor petrified by its horrible beauty?

Who knows? But that's what he said to the boy, and the boy believed him.

And I still do.

And as I became a man, I understood that he wasn't really talking about friends--he was talking about Friends.

(Disclaimer: Dear Friend, I don't expect you to take a bullet for me or anything so melodramatic as that. But you get the idea, I hope.)

Thanks.

AC

"That's a nice letter, don't you think, Gallagher?"

"Indeed. A charming story as well," he added.

Tess rolled onto her back and balanced the brandy on her belly. "Oh yes. We used to tell each other stories all the time; it was my favorite part, aside from the laughter. He used to call me the Tin Man back then. And I called him Oz." She chuckled, jiggling the brandy in the glass. "We were silly then. Goofy. The night after his father died, I told him a funny story and he laughed until he cried. Which was a good thing, I think. Don't you?" she asked as she twisted her head to peer up towards him.

"Sometimes laughter is the best medicine," Gallagher replied in confirmation.

Tess sighed and pondered the golden liquid within the glass. "I miss that Friend, Gallagher. I miss my AC."

"Did you love him, madame?" Gallagher asked.

"I did," she said. "I loved him as one brother loves another."

"Did your AC love you?" Gallagher questioned.

"Far's I know," Tess said.

"And what about Limh?"

Tess sighed once more. "I don't know, Gallagher. She said she did. She said, I love you and I don't want to lose you over this, and then she turned around and never came back. "What kind of love is that?"

"I don't know," Gallagher said.

"I don't know either." Tess sighed. "And I thought I loved her too, and then I thought maybe I didn't. But now, here it is all these months later and I'm still hurting. I miss Limh too. So maybe I did love her after all and I just didn't want to look at that."

"Like your sword, madame?"

"Exactly like that, Gallagher. Exactly."

"She and I, we used to talk all the time. She would tell me about the men she was seeing, or her daughter who had died in an auto accident -- she was only seven when it happened. Limh missed her a lot. But we laughed too. We had good times."

Tess sighed and rolled onto her back once more. "Why do you suppose we love people anyway, Gallagher? Is it because of what they can give us? What we can give them? A combination of that? Or maybe something else entirely?"

Gallagher stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I don't know the answer to that either, madame. What kind of love?"

"Good question, Gallagher. How many kinds do you suppose there are?"

"Well, there's the love of a parent for a child," he mused.

"And a child for a parent," Tess added.

"There's love between siblings," said Gallagher.

"And love for your pets," Tess interrupted, "some people really love their pets."

"True," Gallagher noted. "How many is that so far?" He counted with his fingertips. "We're up to four."

"Love of Friends. That's five," Tess said. "And, of course there's the capital-L kind of Love. You know -- the love between a man and a woman. The BIG bahoomba of love."

"Or love between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman." Gallagher added.

"Yes, but that's all the same kind. It's all romantic love, so we can't count it as being different," Tess retorted.

"Good point," Gallagher agreed.

"The ancient Celts," Tess continued, "they said there were thirteen different kinds of love relationships but I haven't been able to figure the list out. I also don't know if the ancient Celts loved their pets or even if they had any, which would skew the final results. Wouldn't you agree?"

"That seems a reasonable conclusion, madame."

Tess rolled onto her belly and propped her chin up on her hands. "You know, all this talk of love could be dangerous. Maybe love isn't about love at all. Maybe it's about something else. Like power. Or energy maybe. I read that in a book one time -- that love is about energy and getting as much energy as you can."

Gallagher shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

"Hmmmph! You're no help. You don't even have the answers," Tess grumbled.

"Have you asked god?"

"I did," she replied. "god's no help either. She said I have to figure it out myself."

"And are you?"

"Well, Gallagher," she said with a sigh, "that's what I'm here to do. Figure it all out."

The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

BACK TABLE OF CONTENTS FORWARD