Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

man in Athens was saying we could be friends.

Me. And Sokrates! Though it occurred to me

that if someone offered me a choice

between a friend and a horse,

I’d take the horse,

because a horse can be a friend.

Then there was that loaf! Just by breaking it

he turned it into two,

which was a kind of joke,

and proved me wrong.

I tethered Phoibe

and went to sit with him in the shade.

Now, here’s the strange thing —

the spring sun was brilliant,

and the shade under the willow leaves was darker

so that my eyes were bewitched —

I got the idea there were three of us.

Sokrates

and me

and under the willow boughs, this girl,

her face leaf-dappled

and her dress mussed: a glow of marigold . . .

I blinked, and she wasn’t there. I had that queer feeling —

as if everything that was happening

has happened before.

The loaf was in my hand. I bit into it.

It was coarse, so I had to chew hard.

Eating brought me back to myself.

I wanted to tell Sokrates how much I wanted to be friends,

but I couldn’t find the words.

“Here’s a curious thing, Rhaskos.

I’m greedy for friendship, but I don’t know what a friend is.

What would you say it was?”

I kept chewing. I was stalling.

I didn’t want to say anything stupid.

It was a long time since I’d had a friend.

Of course, Phoibe was my friend, but I didn’t want to say so.

People make fun of donkeys.

I wasn’t friends with Phaistus. You can’t be friends with your master.

I’d learned that. As for Kranaos,

not even close.

“Here’s the truth, Sokrates.

I haven’t had many friends. Back in Thessaly, there was this boy, Lykos.

He might have been my brother. When we were little,

we fought all the time, and he always won.

He wasn’t my friend then. He was my enemy. But later —

he wanted to go swimming with me,

and I thought we might be friends;

except he died.

If we’d gone swimming, I’d have counted him as a friend.”

Sokrates listened. He suggested:

“So a friend is someone you go swimming with?”

“It doesn’t have to be swimming. Talking with you,

that’s enough for us to be friends.”

“Then friends are made by talking together,

or swimming together.”

“That’s right,” I said,

“or if they were women, they might weave together,

or carry water. Except — ”

“Except?”

“Except doing things together . . . that’s not the whole story.

Kranaos and I — he’s the other slave at the potter’s —

we spend hours side by side, wedging clay.

And we’re not friends.”

“So friends are friends if they swim together,

but not if they wedge clay.

Is there something about clay that’s dangerous to friendship?”

I laughed again. Little bits of chewed bread

flew out of my mouth. “You’re making fun of me!

It isn’t doing things together that makes friends. It’s something else.

Even though Kranaos and I are both slaves — ”

“But there’s a new idea, Rhaskos!

You were about to say, Even though we’re both slaves,

we’re not friends, weren’t you?

Is it being alike that brings forth friendship?”

“No. I mean, yes! Maybe. Sometimes.

Lykos and I were both boys, so we could have played together.

Kranaos and I are both slaves, but —

he’s old and I’m young.

And I can’t stand him.”

“But I am old, Rhaskos.”

He didn’t say it as if he were sorry for himself.

He was just making a point.

“It’s different with you. You’re wise —

and I’m not. Kranaos isn’t wise.”

“We seem to have a new idea, Rhaskos!

Perhaps it’s being unlike that creates friendships.

I’m old, and you’re young, and we feel the pull of friendship.

Perhaps it’s difference that makes friendship. Let’s think about that.

Does a sick man want to be friends

with another sick man

or with a doctor? Does a poor man want to be friends

with another poor man

or with a rich man,

who might be able to help him?”

“No!”

I shook my head like a dog killing a rat.

“I know what you mean, but that’s not friendship!”

“Many men would say it is.”

“Then many men are wrong! . . . A poor man wanting money?

That’s not friendship!

And the rich man won’t get anything for helping him.

That so-called friendship is no good for him!

As for that sick man wanting a doctor —

he doesn’t want the doctor.

He wants to get better! He doesn’t care a fig for the doctor!

The doctor’s just a tool so he can get what he wants!”

“Rhaskos, you astonish me.

You see quite clearly what other men don’t see,

that the sick man longs for health

and loves health,

and the doctor is only a means to that end.

Now I tell you; I’ve been cheating a little;

I’ve put this question to other boys, boys who were older than you,

but they haven’t seen what you saw.”

I felt my face get hot.

“I know these things because I’m a kind of tool.

Men use each other as tools all the time.

That’s how the world works.”

I thought about Zosima, fawning on me,

because she wanted a child, any child.

I thought about Menon, wanting me to admire him

and root for him and wipe up his vomit.

“That’s how the world works, but it isn’t friendship.”

“Then what is friendship, my dear boy?”

I lowered my voice.

I was afraid what I was going to say was womanish.

“If someone likes another person — ”

“Aha! Then friendship is a sense of congeniality?”

“What’s that?”

“Of liking someone, of agreeing with them,

of being happy in their company.”

“I think so. Maybe.”

“If a mother sees her child playing with fire

and punishes him,

is the mother a friend to the child?”

“No. Yes!

Because she’s saved him from being burned . . .”

“But the child has just been beaten. Is he happy with her?

Are they friends at that moment?”

“No, they aren’t friends then —

or maybe, the mother’s a friend to the child,

but the child isn’t friends with the mother.”

“Can there be a friendship if only one person loves?

When we say, He’s my friend, do we mean

I like him or he likes me?

Or are friends like shoes?

Do there have to be two of them?”

“I don’t know, Sokrates. I think so. But I don’t know.”

I thought about him turning one loaf into two,

and I thought about Zosima giving me tidbits

and me eating them

and liking them, but not liking her.

I was confused. And anxious

because I’d spent so much time talking under the trees.

“I should go back soon.