The Friend

by Sigrid Nunez

  Rilke, who loved dogs and looked hard at them and shared a boundless communion with them. Who once found in the imploring look of an ugly, heavily pregnant stray that he encountered outside a café in Spain everything that probes beyond the solitary soul and goes God knows where—into the future or into that which passeth understanding. He fed her the lump of sugar from his coffee, which, he later wrote, was like reading mass together.

  Rilke, in whose work Apollo is a recurring figure.

  • • •

  The book is short, it can be read aloud in about two hours. But soon Apollo has dropped off, like a child at whose bedside a mother has been reading and waiting for precisely this moment to tiptoe away. I’m not tiptoeing anywhere. Pinned beneath his weight, my feet have gone numb. I wiggle them and he wakes. Without getting up he seeks my hand, still holding the little book, and he licks it.

  Now we are both up, heading for the kitchen. I pour him some kibble—it’s that time—and while he eats I get ready to take him out.

  • • •

  I might have dismissed the incident as something out of my anthropomorphic fancy, but the very next day this happens: I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop when Apollo comes up and starts sniffing the books on the coffee table. His giant jaws open and close around the new paperback copy of the Knausgaard book that I bought to replace the one he destroyed. Oh, not again! But before I can take it away, he gently places the book by my side.

  • • •

  I’ve heard of therapy dogs, of course. Dogs trained to work in hospitals, nursing homes, disaster areas, and the like, their purpose to bring comfort and cheer in hopes of lightening whatever suffering humans might be going through. I know such dogs have been around a long time, also that they are now often used to help children with emotional or learning difficulties. To improve speech and literacy skills, children in schools and libraries are being encouraged to read aloud to dogs. Excellent results have been reported, with children who read to dogs said to progress significantly better than children who read to other humans. Many of the listeners are said to appear to enjoy themselves, showing signs of alertness and curiosity. But an analysis of the full benefits to canines of being read to by humans is not something my research turns up.

  It occurs to me that someone used to read to Apollo. Not that I think he was a trained certified therapy dog. (Would such a valuable animal end up a stray?) But I believe that someone must have read aloud to him—or if not to him at least while he was present—and that his memory of that experience is a happy one. Maybe it was just that whoever did the reading was someone he loved. (Was it you? Not to her knowledge, says Wife Three. Never in her presence, at any rate.) Or maybe, though not a professional therapy dog, Apollo had nevertheless been expected to help someone by listening to that person read, a responsibility he took seriously and for which he was praised and rewarded. It’s in the nature of many dogs to do some kind of work, training manuals say (assigned a task, dogs showing signs of boredom or depression often perk up), but people almost never give them enough—if anything—to do.

  Or maybe Apollo is a canine genius who has figured something out about me and books. Maybe he understands that, when I’m not feeling so great, losing myself in a book is the best thing I could do. Maybe this is something his phenomenal nose tells him. If, as studies show, a dog’s nose is capable of detecting cancer, it would not be surprising if it could also detect changes caused by the relief of stress, or by the experience of mental stimulation or pleasure. If some dogs can predict seizures in people, as we know has occurred, how strange would it be for one to predict a looming fit of the blues?

  In fact, the more I live with Apollo, the more convinced I am that Grumpy Vet was right: we humans don’t know the half of how dogs’ brains work. They may well, in their mute, unfathomable way, know us better than we know them. In any case, the image is irresistible: an avalanche of despair and, like the Saint Bernard coming through the snow with a mini barrel of brandy, Apollo fetches a book.

  Even if we know Saint Bernards never really did that.

  There was a time when it would have been clearer to me whether reading Rilke’s letters to a young poet to a dog was a sign of mental unbalance.

  I decide to make reading aloud part of our routine. Knowing how this might look to others, though, I don’t tell anyone. But then there’s a lot in these pages I’ve never told anyone.

  It is curious how the act of writing leads to confession.

  Not that it doesn’t also lead to lying your head off.

  • • •

  Like Rilke, Flannery O’Connor wrote a series of letters to a stranger who wrote to her one day out of the blue. In the collection of O’Connor’s letters published after her death, this particular correspondent, who’d asked to remain anonymous, is called A. At thirty-two she is two years older than O’Connor, who is nevertheless more than up to shouldering the role of mentor. The letters to A., written over a period of nine years, are filled with thoughts about literature and religion and what it means to be a writer and a believer in the Catholic Church. She talks freely about her fiction writing, and when A. sends her some of her own fiction the response is encouraging. A. has a gift for story writing, O’Connor says, judging one particular story to be “just about perfect.” When A. appears to be suffering from a block, O’Connor is quick to blame the devil. For the serious Catholic O’Connor, the devil is not a metaphor.

  Though in time the two women arrange to meet, they will not do so often. Meanwhile, on paper, the friendship thrives, bringing them close enough for O’Connor to call A. her “adopted kin.” Overjoyed when A. decides to join the Church, she agrees to be her confirmation sponsor.

  But in the end the devil won. A. loses her faith. She leaves the Church. Though she produces work in several genres, she publishes nothing. At seventy-five, thirty-four years after O’Connor’s death from lupus at the age of thirty-nine, Hazel Elizabeth Hester, known as Betty, shoots herself to death.

  • • •

  If O’Connor had been my mentor, if she’d been writing to me, I might have asked her this: What exactly did Simone Weil mean when she said, When you have to make a decision in life, about what you should do, do what will cost you the most.

  • • •

  Do what is difficult because it is difficult. Do what will cost you the most. Who were these people?

  • • •

  If writing wasn’t painful, O’Connor says, it would not be worth doing.

  Turn then to Virginia Woolf, who said that putting feelings into words takes the pain away. Making a scene come right, making a character come together: there was no greater pleasure, she said.

  —

  First faculty meeting of the semester. Should students be allowed to read assigned books on their cell phones. The majority is firm: other electronic devices, okay, but for God’s sake not cell phones. But where’s the logic, argues O.P. If all we’re talking about is screen size. Isn’t that like saying they can’t read printed books in pocket editions? No, that’s different, the majority agrees. Though fifteen minutes later no one has succeeded in articulating exactly how so.

  • • •

  Office hours. Student A is frustrated that the program requires so many reading courses: I don’t want to read what other people write, I want people to read what I write. Student B is concerned that so much of the assigned reading includes books that failed to make money or are now out of print. Shouldn’t we be studying more successful writers?

  • • •

  It happens fairly often: I hear from a former student that she’s had a baby. The book she’d been working on has had to be put aside. Maybe when the child is a little older she can get back to it, she says. Then, when the child is a little older—usually around two—she has another baby.

  • • •

  They keep coming. Announcements of opportunit
ies to study writing paired with some other activity. You can write and enjoy gourmet food, write and taste wines, write and hike in the mountains, write and sail on a cruise ship, write and lose weight, write and kick your addiction, write and learn to knit, cook, bake, speak French or Italian, et cetera. Today, a flyer for a literary festival: Who says writing and relaxation don’t mix? Enjoy the perfect getaway: a writing workshop spa retreat. (Mani-Pedi-Story, O.P. quips.)

  • • •

  At the bookstore. A friend’s most recent novel, published last year, is now out in paperback. Chagrined to realize that not only have I still not read it, I had forgotten all about it.

  • • •

  At the eye doctor’s. A middle-aged woman with dyed-black hair the exact shade of her leather jacket enters the waiting room. I have a familiar feeling about her and almost cry Aha! when I see the logo of The New York Review of Books on her tote bag. She sits down and pulls out an issue of—the London Review of Books.

  • • •

  Academic joke making the rounds: Professor A: Have you read that book? Professor B: Read it? I haven’t even taught it yet.

  • • •

  In the faculty club. Another teacher and I drink gin and amuse ourselves speculating: in the event of a school shooting, which of our students would we or would we not take a bullet for.

  • • •

  Sometimes in the banner, other times in a right-hand window, or waiting, a surprise to be revealed as I scroll down the screen: James Patterson. James Patterson, the bestselling author in the world, who has placed, consecutively, more than twenty times at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Who, apparently of a modesty as vast as his success, believes equal success to be within easy reach of, well, anyone. Or at least anyone possessing ninety dollars for the twenty-two video lessons plus exercises he’s offering, thirty-day money-back guarantee. Stop reading this and start writing. James Patterson, one of the world’s richest authors, net worth $700 million (probably more now). Focus on the story not the sentence. His image: elderly, kindly, relaxed. A normal guy, bespectacled, in a dark blue sweater. Defeat the blank page! Sometimes shown writing on a legal pad (never a computer). What are you waiting for? You too can write a bestseller. James Patterson. Always popping up, urging, coaxing, promising the world. Like the devil.

  • • •

  Are you kidding? says a friend who raises goats on a farm upstate and makes award-winning chèvre. Writer’s block was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  • • •

  The anniversary of your death. I want to mark the event but don’t know quite how. Not for the first time I go online and watch a video of you giving a reading. I have never seen Apollo respond to a screen, and that includes television (his eyes don’t appear to focus on any screen image, not even if it’s another dog). If I let him listen, I think he would recognize your voice. What stops me from finding out for sure is the thought that this might be cruel. He may be my dog now (my dog!), but I don’t believe he’s forgotten you. What might hearing your voice do to him? How can he understand? What if he thinks you’re trapped inside there?

  A story about Judy Garland’s children watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time. She happened to be away, working abroad, when the children and their nanny sat down to watch the movie, which was playing that day on TV. Though she was well past the age when she’d played Dorothy (sixteen), the children knew their own mother. So that’s where she was! Carried off to the witch by the flying monkeys! In an emotional state that does not bear thinking about, the children burst into tears.

  • • •

  In the post office. A young woman accompanied by a spotted mutt enters and gets in line. A clerk behind the counter says, No dogs allowed in here, miss. He’s a service dog, the young woman says. That’s a service dog? says the clerk. Yes, snaps the woman with such fierceness that the clerk responds cautiously. I was just asking, miss. I mean, I don’t see any badge or sign. The customer standing in front of the woman turns around, eyes her, eyes the mutt, and turns back, shaking his head. The woman draws herself up. She scalds us all with a look. How dare you. This dog is my emotional support companion. How dare you question his right to be here.

  What makes this odd scene even odder is that the dog is missing a hind leg.

  • • •

  Watching Apollo sleep. The peaceful rise and fall of his flank. His belly is full, he is warm and dry, he has had a four-mile walk today. As usual when he hunched in the street to do his business I guarded him from passing cars. And, in the park, when a texting jogger bore down on us, Apollo barked and blocked his path before he could run into me. I have played several rounds of tug-of-war with him today, I have talked to him, and sung to him, and read him some poetry. I have trimmed his nails and brushed every inch of his coat. Now, watching him sleep, I feel a surge of contentment. There follows another, deeper feeling, singular and mysterious, yet at the same time perfectly familiar. I don’t know why it takes a full minute for me to name it.

  What are we, Apollo and I, if not two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other?

  It is good to have things settled. Miracle or no miracle, whatever happens, nothing is going to separate us.

  PART NINE

  Everyone I know is writing a book, the therapist tells me unnecessarily. I meet a lot of writers, and I can tell you writer’s block is pretty common.

  But I’m not there to talk about writer’s block. If I weren’t so anxious to be on my way I would explain. Usually when a writer sees that someone else has just published a big piece in a major publication on the very topic they’ve been working on, they feel dismay. I felt relief. (Well, okay, then, said the editor, sounding relieved himself: I guess you’re off the hook.)

  To draw me out, the therapist asks what I did for the holidays. When I tell him he says gently (he says everything gently), Sounds like that’s one of the ways your loss has affected you: not wanting to be with other people.

  Hating to be with other people, I don’t say. Terrified of being with other people.

  But the truth is, even if I hadn’t been worried about leaving Apollo I’d have wanted to be alone.

  Strays is what a writer I recently read calls those who, for one reason or another, and despite whatever they might have wanted earlier in life, never really become a part of life, not in the way most people do. They may have serious relationships, they may have friends, even a sizable circle, they may spend large portions of their time in the company of others. But they never marry and they never have children. On holidays, they join some family or other group. This goes on year after year, until they finally find it in themselves to admit that they’d really rather just stay home.

  But you must see a lot of people like that, I say to the therapist.

  Actually, he says, I don’t.

  • • •

  A moment here to retrieve something from the past. For two years when I was in college I earned pocket money working for a couples therapist. The entire job consisted of typing up the transcripts of the therapist’s sessions. This was not to help in the treatment of clients but because the therapist was planning to write a book. The couples were mostly middle-aged, and all were married. (The therapist disliked the term marriage counselor, calling it fusty.)

  Listening to the tapes was often depressing. I remember wondering how the therapist could stand her job, especially after I learned that, in a high number of cases, the couples were not able even with therapy to reconcile their differences and ended up getting divorced. But this was sometimes the point, said the therapist: to help two people let go.

  The therapist herself was strikingly glam, slim and tall and a killer dresser (stiletto boots, cinched sweater dresses), who, at forty, had two divorces behind her. As far as I knew, her clients were kept in the dark about her personal life, but I always wondered whether her marital h
istory might have given at least some of them pause. And I remember thinking that, whatever Tolstoy had to say about unhappy families, unhappy couples were all unhappy in the same way.

  Just about every husband had been caught cheating or was suspected of cheating. (More than once it was during a session that a man came clean about his infidelities, and it was during a session that one man confessed to his wife that he was in love with another—man.)

  In general the women complained of feeling unwanted, underappreciated, and—apparently worst of all—unlistened to.

  The men saw their wives as some version of the Grimms’ Fisherman’s Wife: always nagging, never content.

  Again and again I was struck by the evidence that, for husband and wife, the same word did not always have the same meaning. The same words would come up all the time, and I would type them: love, sex, marriage, listen, need, help, support, trust, equal, fair, respect, care, share, want, money, work. I would type the words, and I would listen to the couple talk, and I could tell that the same word meant this to him and that to her. I heard several men object to the use of the word adultery to define sleeping with someone outside of the marriage. Adultery is when you make it a habit, insisted one. He doesn’t help me, a wife said. And when her husband reeled off a list of errands he’d done for her only that past week: I said help! she shrieked. I said help!

  One other thing I picked up on, listening to all those sessions: the therapist changed her voice slightly depending on whom she was addressing. Always subtle but always there, a difference in pitch or something, hard to describe. Perhaps all in my head. But if I had to, I’d say she was more on the side of the men.

  • • •

  I should have known the therapist would want me to stay for the full hour. When I tell him I’ve left Apollo tied up outside, he says, Next time, why don’t you bring him in?