but it had dried leather-hard,
and she was painting it. She had a tiny brush in one hand,
and she was painting a pattern like this:
She lifted her head and smiled her lopsided smile.
“My father was a potter.
He owned the shop before Phaistus,
and taught me to paint.
I painted borders when I was younger than you.
It’s not as easy as it looks — ”
I took a step nearer. It didn’t look that easy.
“ — because you’re always painting on a curve.
Phaistus paints the stories, the figures,
but I’m better at borders. Even he admits it.
I like keeping my hand in.
He’ll teach you one of these days.”
It was hypnotic: the small brush,
the even strokes: every line the same thickness.
When she finished, she gave me the brush.
“Take that and wash it for me, will you?
And take the bowl of slip back to the shop
and seal it with wax.
Tell the others it’s time for supper.
I traded a jar for duck eggs.
We’ll have duck eggs, olives, and new bread.”
She was always excited about food,
and while the rest of us ate,
she talked. Her words splashed over us
like water from the fountain:
women’s gossip, mostly:
how the chickens were laying
and who was getting married,
who might have seen a ghost.
I didn’t understand why Phaistus
never told her to shut up.
I didn’t understand why she seemed so happy.
Except that sometimes, she wasn’t.
Every now and then there’d come a day
when she’d be quiet. She’d stop mid-task
and place her hand on her belly,
a strained joy in her face.
Then, the next day
she’d be short-tempered
and she’d smell: a powerful odor
that I didn’t like
but one that reminded me of my mother;
of burying my face in her skirt.
I saw her once in the courtyard, weaving —
She dropped the shuttle,
lost her temper.
She snatched the loom as if it were a slave
and beat it against the house wall
cracking the frame;
the loom weights tangled and clanked —
it was as if some god
cursed her with madness.
I told Kranaos,
and he said: “Boy, you know nothing.
It’s one of her woman-times. She’s bleeding.
Don’t you know about that?
A woman’s body is a sickly thing. Not like a man’s.
Every month, they have to bleed,”
and he flicked away from his crotch
as if shooing a mosquito;
so I knew where women bled.
I hadn’t known before. How would I know?
With horses, it’s different.
A mare comes into heat,
but only once a year.
“Every month, they bleed,
unless there’s a baby on the way.
That’s what galls her. She wants a child,
and every month, until the blood comes,
she thinks there’ll be a child.
She’s a fool. She’s been married eight years.
And not so much as a miscarriage.
The master could divorce her.
She’s no good as a wife.”
I said, “She’s good to you,”
which surprised me.
It was almost as if I were taking up for her,
which I wouldn’t
because I didn’t like her.
After that, I could predict the pattern.
First the hoping
then tears
and the smell of blood. I saw
what she wanted from me.
She wanted a child,
and until she got one
she wanted to pretend I was hers.
I didn’t want a mother.
I’d had my own mother.
There was no one I’d loved more,
and there never will be,
but the last time I saw her
she cut me with a knife.
Is it any wonder
that I hardened my heart?
5. SOKRATES
Twice a week I dug clay. Phaistus showed me how.
He took me to the banks of the Kefissos River
and showed me scales and ridges in the earth.
He taught me to moisten the dirt,
roll a tiny snake, and wrap it round my thumb.
Clay needs to be sticky, but not too sticky;
grainy, but not brittle.
I filled Phoibe’s saddlebags with clay.
Sometimes it wasn’t good enough.
Kranaos said, “The boy knows nothing.”
Phaistus said, “He has to learn.”
That was my master.
That was Kranaos.
That was my life.
To tell you the truth,
I didn’t mind digging clay.
If I wanted to take a few minutes
to ride Phoibe by the river,
or draw a horse,
there was no one to tell on me.
It was getting to be spring;
the willows were leafing out;
the oak trees scabby with buds;
I was leading Phoibe back home,
her saddlebags full.
Then: a curve in the riverbank
a grove of willows
an old man sitting on a rock
barefoot
a loaf in his hand.
I knew him at once.
I called out “Sokrates!”
I can’t believe I yelled like that.
“Sokrates!”
He looked up. I saw in his face
the struggle to place me.
“Why, you’re Menon’s boy!”
“Not anymore. I live in Athens now.
I work for a potter, Phaistus.”
Sokrates nodded.
“I believe I know your master.
A good potter and a good painter.
But I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Rhaskos. That’s what my mother named me,
but the potter calls me Pyrrhos.
I remember the day when you drew that square
and asked me to double it. Remember?
You talked about how my soul had knowledge.
I’ve thought about that a lot. I like thinking about it.”
I sounded like a little boy
asking another boy to play with him.
“Then you have a taste for philosophy?
Strong meat for a young mind!”
He was grinning,
that grin I remembered that had no sneer in it.
“Children are like puppy dogs. They’ll rip an idea to shreds
just to work their teeth!
But it’s not always a bad thing,
to let puppies teethe —
I gave you a taste of meat and you liked it, didn’t you?”
“I did. I did!
I haven’t forgotten what you said —
I mean, what I understood.
I didn’t understand the whole thing.
But everyone says you’re the wisest man in Athens — ”
Sokrates wagged his hand to shut me up.
“Then everyone is wrong.
They think they’re quoting the Oracle at Delphi,
but what the priestess said
is that there was no man in Athens wiser than I am.
That’s not the same thing.
The priestess might have meant
that At
hens is the home
of other men just as foolish —
or, the gods forbid, more foolish, than I am.
In which case Athens is in peril, don’t you think?”
I laughed out loud.
“Or perhaps the priestess meant to praise me
for knowing I know nothing.
I’m wise enough to know that I’m not wise.
Even small things confuse me.
One and one making two, for example!
Isn’t that a strange thing, Rhaskos?
Which of the ones turns into a two?”
I thought he was teasing me, but
there was a funny knot in my mind, because
when I thought about it,
I didn’t know which one turned into a two.
I didn’t want him to think I was stupid.
“I never thought about that, Sokrates.
I think they both turn into two.
I mean, there have to be two ones,
or there can’t be a two.
Isn’t that the point about numbers?
You can’t make two out of one.”
“Can’t you?”
He broke his loaf in half
and held out half to me.
“Join me on the riverbank, Rhaskos!
I believe you want to be friends,
and that’s fine with me.
I tell myself I am a man who desires little,
but I’m greedy for friendship.
I’d rather have a new friend than a new horse. Eat!
When I was your age, I was always hungry.”
I sat down. I felt giddy.
The wisest 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 Zo
sima, 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. My master will be angry if I’m late.
It isn’t that I don’t like talking to you.
I like it, even if I don’t know what I’m talking about.
But I have to get back to work.”
“Why don’t I come back with you?
I often frequent the potters’ quarter,
and I’d like to pay my respects to your master.
I’ll explain to him that if you’re late
it’s because I waylaid you,
with a search for the truth.
Shall we?”
I was proud to walk beside him. I was thinking:
What Sokrates had done with me
was the same thing he’d done with Menon.
He asked me a question that sounded simple,
and I thought I knew the answer, but I didn’t.
It made Menon angry, but I wasn’t angry.
I liked wondering. I felt as if my mind were a toy,
full of riddles to solve.
We came to the spot on the path where Phoibe always balks.
She stopped short. I gripped her halter.
Sometimes she tries to back up, but I don’t let her.
Amber and Clay Page 20