The Friend

by Sigrid Nunez

  I remember how happy I was when I heard you were coming. I’d been missing you a lot. And, partly because this was one of those rare times when you were single, and partly because we were far from home—visitors abroad who were often assumed, naturally enough, to be husband and wife—it sometimes felt as if that’s what we were: a couple. A couple on vacation. At any rate, I remember feeling especially close to you that weekend and sadly bereft when you left.

  • • •

  All of this is branded in memory and was much on my mind as I sat in the therapist’s office. But I could not talk about it because I could not stop crying.

  • • •

  Now asking myself why, in spite of reflection, I let “Of heaven” stand.

  • • •

  He thinks I’m in love with you. He thinks I’ve always been in love with you. This he tells me in a voice that’s different from his usual gentle one, not exactly ungentle but a touch impatient if I’m not mistaken. Or maybe just urgent.

  This complicates the bereavement process, he explains. I am mourning you as a lover would. As a wife would.

  Maybe it will help you to write about it, he says the last time I see him.

  And maybe it won’t.

  • • •

  I had forgotten how painful it is to remember, writes one of my students. And she is only eighteen years old.

  • • •

  It is Hector who brings the news, ringing my bell one late afternoon. The building management agent has advised the landlord that it’s not worth the trouble of contesting my request to keep Apollo as a support animal, especially since there have been no complaints about him from other tenants. (A friend points out that now that I have the certificate I could probably get away with having a dog in my apartment as long as I live there, even after Apollo has passed. Probably, but I have promised myself not to pull this trick more than once. And besides, I can’t bear to think of Apollo passed, Apollo replaced.)

  Hector is grinning from ear to ear. I am damp-eyed with relief.

  I think this calls for a celebration, I say.

  And as it happens I still have that bottle of champagne my student gave me.

  PART TEN

  Anyone forced to contemplate an aging pet is like the poet Gavin Ewart wishing that his fourteen-year-old convalescent cat might get to have just one more summer before that last fated hateful journey to the vet.

  I see the gray hairs on Apollo’s muzzle and the redness rimming his eyes, I see how stiffly he walks some days, how it sometimes takes two efforts for him to get to his feet, and I ache. The list of things the vet gives me to watch out for, common signs of disease and deterioration in senior dogs, makes me quail. (How are you going to take care of him if he becomes infirm?) In the six months between checkups, his arthritis has gotten worse.

  One miracle is not enough. That disaster has been averted, that we are spared separation or eviction—I’m sorry, but it’s not enough. Now I am like the Fisherman’s Wife: I want more. And not just another summer, or two or three or four. I want Apollo to live as long as I do. Anything less is unfair.

  And why, in the end, that inevitable trip to the vet? Why can’t he die at home, in his sleep, peacefully, like a good dog deserves?

  Why, having saved him, must I now watch him suffer—suffer and die—and then be left alone, without him?

  I think he knows when I’m having such thoughts. If he’s nearby, he will turn his attention to me, almost as if to distract me.

  • • •

  It is widely believed that although animals don’t know that one day they’ll die, many of them do know when they’re actually dying. So at what point does a dying animal become aware of what’s happening? Could it possibly be a long time before? And how do animals respond to aging? Are they completely puzzled, or do they somehow intuit what the signs mean? Are these foolish questions? I acknowledge that they are. And yet they preoccupy me.

  • • •

  Apollo has a favorite toy, a bright red tug toy made of hard rubber. I like the mock monster-dog noises he makes when we play tug-of-war. But most of the fun for him seems to be in letting me win. (I remain ignorant as to how aware he is or is not of his own strength; I’ve certainly never seen him use anything like the full force of it.) Other toys don’t interest him, though I keep buying new ones—as I keep taking him to the dog park, even though I’ve lost hope of seeing him play there. He is no more interested in other dogs than he is in other people. And this continues to bother me. Why won’t you play? So many nice friendly dogs at the park!

  But why should this matter? I guess it’s like a parent wanting their kid to be, if not wildly popular, at least not a loner. I’d be so happy to see him make friends with just one other dog, maybe even fall in love. Just because he’s been neutered doesn’t mean he can’t have special feelings for another dog, does it? We often run into a stunning silver Italian mastiff named Bella. (Anthropomorphism, I’ve decided, is inescapable, and though I might try to hide it I no longer fight it.)

  On the much admired trait of canine loyalty, the writer Karl Kraus has pointed out that it’s to people that dogs are loyal, not to other dogs. And so: maybe not the best example of the virtue. In fact, very often, dogs hate other dogs, even their own blood.

  I saw it again just this morning. Two leashed dogs catch sight of each other and instantly start lunging and snarling.

  Motherfucker. I hate you. Goddamn you. I’ll bite your fucking nose off, you stinking piece of shit. I’ll kill you. Lucky for you I’m on this leash, or I’d tear your fucking balls off.

  All but choking themselves to death as they strain to get at each other.

  Apollo is not like that. I have never seen him insult or attack or bully another dog. In spite of all he’s been through, he has remained kind, he has kept his—humanity, I want to say (what word should I say?).

  One time we pass a stoop with a cat sitting at about the same level as Apollo’s head. The cat jumps up, goes horseshoe, and spits in his face. Apollo turns the other cheek: a paw shoots out and swipes it. For an instant I fear for the cat, but Apollo keeps walking. He doesn’t want trouble. He wants peace.

  • • •

  Even in old age, he is a creature of such arresting beauty that he regularly draws gasps.

  To think what he was like in his prime.

  It’s not uncommon to wish to have known what a person you’ve come to love was like before you met them. It hurts, almost, not to have known what a beloved was like as a child. I have felt this way about every man I’ve ever been in love with, and about many close friends as well, and now it’s how I feel about Apollo.

  Not to have known him as a frisky young dog, to have missed his entire puppyhood! I don’t feel just sad, I feel cheated. Not even a photo to show what he was like. I have to make do with looking at harlequin Great Dane puppies in books, or online. An activity to which I confess I have devoted some hours.

  It’s happened just once. Walking in SoHo, I run into another person walking a harlequin Dane. Both humans are thrilled, but the dogs look right past each other.

  • • •

  Something bad happens to the dog: a lesson learned early, from childhood books. The animals in those stories often die, often in bad ways. Old Yeller. The red pony. And even when they don’t die, even when they’re not just alive but happy at the end, they suffer, often badly, often they are put through hell. Black Beauty. Flicka. White Fang. Buck. The autobiography of Beautiful Joe, based on the life of a real dog and abounding in scenes of cruelty, begins with his brute owner slicing off Joe’s ears and tail with an ax.

  No doubt like many other readers, I remember crying over these books (never so hard as over poor Joe), yet never regretting having read them. Is there anything more compelling than a story about a child and an animal who bond? When I first knew I wanted to write, I was sure thi
s was what I would write about. But I never did.

  When people are very young they see animals as equals, even as kin. That humans are different, unique and superior to all other species—this they have to be taught.

  Children fantasize about a world populated solely by nonhumans. I liked to pretend that I was some kind of animal, a cat or a rabbit or a horse. I would try to communicate through animal sounds rather than speech and refused to eat with my hands. At times I kept this up for so long and with such conviction that it became cause for parental concern. A game, but at the core of it something dead serious, a trace of which has been carried into adulthood: the wish not to be part of the human race.

  • • •

  Something bad happens to the dog in Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The dog is given as a pup by the main protagonist, Tomas, to his wife, Tereza—for the very same reason, we are told, that he married Tereza: to make up for the pain and humiliation his incorrigible womanizing causes her. Though female, the pup is whimsically named after a male character in another novel: Anna Karenina’s husband. Karenin the dog hates change, loves being in the country, where he makes friends with a pig, and, after developing terminal cancer, is put to sleep.

  Kundera has his own interpretation of Genesis 1:26. True human goodness can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Let it be seen, then, how the human race treats those that have been placed at its mercy. And put to this moral test, mankind has suffered . . . a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

  Karenin and Tereza are devoted to each other. Reflecting on their pure and selfless bond, Tereza concludes that such love is, if not bigger, nevertheless better than the corrupt, fraught, eternally disappointing and compromised thing she has always had with Tomas.

  Idyllic is how Kundera describes human relationships with animals. Idyllic because animals were not expelled with us from Paradise. There they remain, untroubled by such complications as the separation of body and soul, and it’s through our love and friendship with them that we are able to reconnect to Paradise, albeit by just a thread.

  Others go further. Dogs are not merely untouched by evil. They are celestial beings, angels incarnate, furry guardian spirits sent to watch over and help people live. Like the deification of cats, this belief is all over the internet, and growing. It makes you wonder. About people, I mean.

  • • •

  Something very bad happens to a lot of dogs in Disgrace. The question persists, why won’t David Lurie save the one, a mutt that has clearly come to love him and for which he, in turn, feels a special affection. Why can’t that dog—a good dog, crippled but still young, and apparently sensitive to music—be spared the fate of all the other unwanted dogs destroyed at the animal welfare clinic? Why, instead of keeping this one dog, does Lurie insist on sacrificing it?

  Remember Agent Starling in The Silence of the Lambs telling Hannibal Lecter how, as a little girl living on her uncle’s ranch, she had desperately wanted to save the lambs from the spring slaughter. How she picked up one lamb and tried to run away. I thought if I could save just one . . . but he was heavy. So heavy. In the end, like Lurie, she could not save an animal marked for death. Not even one.

  —

  We know they think, but do dogs have opinions?

  Kundera makes much of the fact that, unlike us, animals don’t feel disgust. I’m not so sure about this (not even cats?), but that dogs are not critical or judgmental is undeniably a big part of what endears them to us. (This is what made educators think having kids with reading problems read aloud to dogs was such a great idea. Also, perhaps, why performers like Laurie Anderson and Yo-Yo Ma have reported looking out at their concert audience and fantasizing that it’s all dogs.)

  Gratitude: I don’t believe people are imagining it when they attribute this feeling to their rescue dog. I often feel that Apollo is grateful toward me.

  I want to know if he looks forward to things. She’ll be home soon. Can’t wait to eat! Tomorrow is another day.

  Even more, I want to know how he remembers the past. Does he have yearnings? Regrets? Sweet, sweet memories? Bittersweet ones? With senses as keen as theirs, why couldn’t dogs have Proustian moments?

  Why couldn’t they have eureka moments, epiphanies, and so on?

  In the beginning I sometimes caught him staring at me only to turn away when I looked back. Now he often rests his block of a head on my knees and tips his eyes at me with a speaking expression.

  What do you talk to him about? the shrink wanted to know.

  Mostly I seem to ask questions. What’s up, pup? Did you have a nice nap? Were you chasing something in your sleep? Do you want to go out? Are you hungry? Are you happy? Does your arthritis hurt? Why won’t you play with other dogs? Are you an angel? Do you want me to read to you? Do you want me to sing? Who loves you? Do you love me? Will you love me forever? Do you wanna dance? Am I the best person you’ve ever had? Can you tell I’ve been drinking? Do these jeans make me look fat?

  If we could talk to the animals, goes the song.

  Meaning, if they could talk to us.

  But of course that would ruin everything.

  • • •

  Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I’ll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.

  • • •

  One night I wake to find Apollo by the bed, apparently trying with his teeth to draw back over me the blanket I must have thrown off in my sleep. When I tell people about this they don’t believe it. They say I must have dreamed it. Which I agree is possible. But really I’m thinking they’re just jealous.

  • • •

  At a book party. A woman I’ve never met before giggles and says, Aren’t you the one who’s in love with a dog?

  Am I? Have I taken a dog husband as Ackerley took a dog wife? Will his death be the saddest day of my life? Will I too want to immolate myself as a suttee? No. But I too have found myself so eager to get home to him that I have jumped in a cab rather than take the train. I too sing with joy at the thought of seeing him, and for sure, this love is not like any love I’ve ever felt before.

  • • •

  A recurring anxiety: Someone claiming to be Apollo’s owner finally shows up, someone with a crazy but convincing tale of how the two of them got separated, and now I’m expected to give him up.

  • • •

  Reminded here that I only recently learned that the term puppy love refers to the feeling a person might have for a puppy. Nothing to do, as I’d thought, with a puppy’s feelings for a person.

  • • •

  Reading Ackerley, I noticed that he sometimes uses the word person when referring to a dog. At first I thought this was a mistake. But, considering that he was one of the most careful writers in the world, I’d say this is unlikely.

  • • •

  Now reminded of a friend of mine who told me that, for years, he thought the expression was It’s a doggy-dog world and was never quite sure what it meant.

  • • •

  When they see you with a dog, people tell you dog stories. A man in a business suit strokes Apollo’s head as he tells me how his mother decided one day to abandon a dog she’d had for years. She brought the dog to a bus station and left it in its carrier under a bench. When the man found out, he tracked the dog down to a shelter. He called the shelter to say he’d take the dog, but at the moment he was across the country finishing up law school. The shelter promised to hold the dog, but before he could get there the dog died. He was told that it had simply stopped eating.

  I just don’t get it, the man tells me. The dog had been grossly fat because his mother used to feed him doughnuts, he says, but he was also still young and cute and totally adoptable. No way she needed to dump him like that. Though it had happened years ago, he was st
ill trying to understand why his mother would’ve done such a thing.

  Because she wanted to hurt someone, I don’t say.

  • • •

  A public radio producer invites me to contribute a piece about a book, which can be any book I feel strongly about and would recommend to listeners, she says.

  In fact, I am familiar with this series, having heard other writers reading on the air their pieces about their favorite books.

  I choose The Oxford Book of Death. Not only because it’s a book I really do think everyone should read, but also because I happen to be rereading it, with particular attention to the chapters “Suicide” and “Animals.”

  I write the requested five hundred words, praising the anthology’s selection of extracts from ancient to present times on every aspect of the subject, from “Definitions” to “Last Words.” I say how fascinating I found all this writing about death to be, how paradoxically entertaining and full of life the whole book was.

  I spend a lot of time on the piece, grateful for the little assignment, to be writing something, anything. I finish it and send it off, but there is no response, and I never hear from the producer again.

  • • •

  In the news:

  An experimental therapy being practiced at some animal shelters: having volunteers read aloud to abused and traumatized dogs.

  Interview with a professional dancer who, as a young boy, a victim of persistent bullying, went mute.

  Death of author Michael Herr. Whose obituary reveals that in the last years of his life he had become a devout Buddhist, and stopped writing.

  • • •