An Acceptable Warrior

by Earle Looker

  “Ever since I was a boy, I have had trouble with Christianity. My own religion has never been of much importance to me; it all seems very superficial – just a lot of pomp and circumstance, if you know what I mean. I think it may be possible that all religions might well be dead.”

  “But, Daveed, to the Church you do not belong? Your soul is en grande menace – danger.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. I do not think there is a Heaven – or a Hell. If I’m right, then it doesn’t matter. If I am wrong, then I will just deal with it then. Today I am alive, and that is what is important to me. You do not agree?”

  “No, Daveed, I do not.” Ne pense que vous êtes mieux que d’autres. My dear Daveed, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. Do not have bad thoughts about them and what they think to give them some small comfort if they want to believe with faith.”

  “OK, I can live with that – to just live and let live then,” David said.

  “Celeste, I have another question. What do women think? It seems that when a woman has a problem because of a negative experience she had, she usually cries. It appears to me that women think differently from men, especially when it comes to relationships. Can you tell me – shine some of your light on the subject?” he said.

  Celeste replied, “There are certain things most men almost always mal comprendre – misunderstanding. Men are more logical in their views – it is only all black or white, right or wrong, correct or incorrect. But women are more emotional and view things differently. A woman does want you to trust your strength, but at the same time, she wants to feel like you can handle something, oui? She wants to feel like you will not judge her if she asks for something risqué. She wants to know you will not feel in defeat if she tells you to do it ‘This way’ instead. She wants to feel you hearing her, and aware of emotions of her. And also this is important, Daveed. If you can make a woman laugh, you can have her do almost anything for you! The best lover is the man who can kiss her forehead or smile into her eyes or even – maybe – just to stare into space, but still listening! So, women want a man who listens – and cares. But not a perfect man – mais non! We want a man who are striving to be their best selves. She doesn’t necessary need – want? – someone who know every step his life so clear, but she wants someone with drive and with goals to better himself. That is exciting to us women. You understand?”

  “Oh, yes, I do! And I can make you laugh!”

  “Now, Daveed, here is something else important. Because we are always getting so many – messages déresponsabilisante – hien? How you say? – disempowering messages from everywhere questioning our abilities and even our sexuality, women need a safe place where to feel they can completely trust the man, you know? Women want you to know we can handle our own selves when a trouble happens. And we want to know you will not get so confused you run away and hide when you see us get maybe too emotional, yes? Women want to know they can count on their man.”

  “But we men love to solve – to fix – logical problems, and because we are so good at doing that, we automatically assume the best way to solve a woman’s problem is to help her by solving and fixing it with logic. But it just seems most women do not appreciate that!”

  “Daveed, the very last thing you should think about when a woman tells you a problem is to try and solve it with logic for her. The only thing a woman wants you to do in such a situation is hug her, give her a kiss and tell her that everything is going to be alright and you are there for her. Just listen! That’s it. Yes, we women do not think logically the same as men, and solving their problems using logic will not help. Women think a lot with their emotions. Whatever a woman says to you, you always have to remember that the only reason she says it is because she is reacting to a certain emotion. Comprenez vous?”

  David asked, “Yes, I think so. You are helping me to understanding this, Celeste.”

  “Also, Daveed, one of the most important qualities in a man that a woman needs is to have a caring attitude. Just as a man has the need to protect, women have a desire to nurture. Women want to see the cracks in your armor, to be vulnérable, oui? They want to see how we can trust a man enough to open up to him. Pour moi – for me, this is the most important! Women want to be able to help their man through his sadness. A man who is so balanced, and maybe a little bit feminine in that way, is to us très attrayant!”

  David paused and reflected on being with Celeste: ‘This is the first real attraction I’ve had toward a woman since Anne,’ David thought, ‘Celeste is so slim and straight, as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings. She could ride a horse and jump, and she knew how to wear her kit. She was quick and keen and poised and calm and she knew her mind and of what men were made. If she wanted him to be practical: she’d double the value of his work when he strove to make it acceptable to her; this was inspiration if anything was. She was more than any man deserved, but surely there was fate in their meeting and understanding – like some unseen hand. Coincidence could not explain it. Fate could not be resisted; it could only be carried out.’

  ‘Despite the distortions,’ he continued, ‘here were the throaty pitches, the overflowing of ideas beginning in French, then changing to English to surmount my difficulties of understanding, a language of intonations becoming more and more beautiful as I listen to her with some indefinable recollection.’

  “Devez-vous me regarder ainsi? Must you look at me so? You forget, Daveed, I was nearly a Sister of the convent! Did not Papa tell you that?”

  “Who could help it? You’d bring sunlight into the deepest dugout. Look here – I’ll just say it – I need you desperately! I need you for all your beauty and balance and sense and judgment. I need you …”

  But she was not sure she believed him. She had been so fooled before!

  “How pleasant it would be to listen, Daveed, but at some other time. But not yet, Daveed. You move trop vite pour moi! – Oui, too fast! I don’t deserve the beauty of that,” she protested.

  ‘What was to be done first?’ David thought. ‘But perhaps no great matter.’

  She walked with him along the shore of the Grand Lac, under the thick, overhanging trees along the path. There interjected a long, uncomfortable silence between them, each residing within their own thoughts of what had been seen and said and what could be. She was close to laughter, he thought, but sometimes appeared to be as close to tears.

  They returned to the Pavillon and resumed their conversation. The air was colder now, and a light breeze was rustling the dead leaves, swirling on the path in front of them.

  “I am in love with you, Celeste,” he said quietly. “I am nothing special, to be sure, and a common man with ordinary thoughts. No monuments will be dedicated to me, and my name will someday be forgotten, but I love you now with all my heart and soul, and to me, this will always be enough for me. I can be selfish, impatient, moody and a little insecure – I am a man. I make mistakes and at times can be out of control, hard to handle. Is that something you could accept and be with?”

  She was staring at him, and he could see the corners of her eyes crinkling.

  “I too love you,” she said, “without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride. I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intime that your hand upon my breast is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes do close.”

  “I think love happens accidentally,” he said, “like a single unexpected flash, an ecstatic, throbbing moment. It is a state of being happy, and another’s happiness is essential to their own – by this I mean your happiness and mine, Celeste.”

  “I too am not in this – entreprise – this business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.”

  “Celeste, I feel comfortable telling you things never shared with an
other soul. We share our hopes for the future, dreams that may never come true, old goals never achieved and the many disappointments of life. But when something so wonderful happens, I know you will share in my excitement. I do not feel embarrassed should I cry in front of you or laugh with you when I make a fool of myself, as I am prone to do. I would never hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather I would build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special, to me and the world, and even beautiful. Those ordinary things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures to be kept safe in my heart and cherished forever. I open my heart to you, knowing there is a chance it may be broken one day, but by opening my heart, I know I will experience a love and joy I never before dreamed possible. I have found a new strength in the knowledge I have a true friend and soul mate, who will remain loyal to the end. My central hope and security is in knowing you are a part of my life. Celeste, is that so wrong – or too much?”

  “Nous ne pouvons jamais être parfait ensemble. We may never be perfect together, but if you can make me laugh, causing me to think, and admit to being human and making mistakes, then we can give – love – each other the most we can”.

  “Yes. Love take’s no account of time, Celeste. It is like a true belief that cannot be denied whatever happens. It is a mutual desire and fulfillment. It is – mutual sympathy – and it is an exchange. It is the greatest expression of that Golden Rule. Everything in the world could be destroyed – except love – and we could start everything all over again – it is immortal too. Do you know the Sonnets?”

  She was startled, he saw. Surely she was not familiar enough with them to understand their particular emphasis now.

  “Shakespeare’s Sixth Sonnet,” David said, “could have been written for you!”

  “But that’s impossible. Perhaps we might be able to tell each other what happened to ourselves through the war. But more than that, trying to decide what it may mean – oh no! Daveed, please …”

  “I don’t agree with that at all,” David heard himself say in his command voice, pulling up closer to her.

  “You must listen to this, Celeste. It is as important for me to say it as it was for you to tell me what women think.”

  “Yes, now I listen, Daveed.”

  “It begins,

  ‘Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface

  In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:

  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

  With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-kill’d …’”

  “Celeste, it says it more beautifully than I could ever say myself, but no more sincerely than I feel it.” He continued,

  “ . . That use is not forbidden usury,

  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

  That’s for thyself to breed another thee,

  Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

  Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

  If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee:

  Then what could Death do, if thou shouldst depart,

  Leaving thee living in posterity?

  “Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair, to be Death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.” Then David joked that ten children would surely foil “Death’s conquest – If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee”.

  “Je ne comprends pas. But Daveed, my darling, that English is so hard!”

  “But there it is, so much of it, mixed together; death and life and love in the best words, perhaps there ever were, to make love.”

  “Maintenant, Daveed, here is a little poem for you. But I think maybe it is too old fashioned? It is called Foy porter or something like ‘I Want to Stay Faithful’ 5 …”

  “Car tant vous aim, sans mentir

  Qu’on poroit avant tarir

  La haute mer

  Et ses ondes retenir

  Que me peusse alentir

  de vous amer.

  Sans fausser; car mi penser,

  Mi souvenir, mi plaisir

  Et mi desir sont sans finer

  En vous que ne puis guerpir n’entroublier.”

  “Sounds beautiful, but …” David said.

  “Wait there is more,” Celeste interrupted.

  “Il ne’est joie ne joir

  N’autre bien qu’on puist sentir

  N’imaginer

  Qui ne me samble languir,

  Quant vo douceur adoucir vuet mon amer:

  Dont loer et aourer

  Et vous cremier, tout souffrir,

  Tout conjoir, Tout endurer

  Vueil plus que je ne desir Guerredonner.

  Foy porter …”

  “Sounds beautiful, really, but I can only catch a few words here and there. Sorry!” David said.

  “Bien. Let me try to explain that for you here,” she said. “For I love you so much, truly, that one could sooner dry up the deep sea and hold back its waves than I could keep myself from loving you, without falsehood; for my thoughts, my memories, my pleasures and my desires are perpetually of you, whom I cannot leave or even briefly forget. There is no joy or pleasure or any other good that one could feel or imagine which does not seem to me worthless whenever your sweetness wants to sweeten my bitterness. Therefore, I want to praise and adore and fear you, suffer everything, experience everything, endure everything more than I desire any reward. I want to stay faithful …”

  “And then this little poem closes like this:

  “Vous estes le vray saphir

  Qui puet tous mes maus garir et terminer.

  Esmeraude a resjoir,

  Rubis pour cuers esclarcir et conforter.

  Vo parler, vo regarder,

  Vo maintenir, font fuir et enhair et despiter

  Tout vice et tout bien cherir et desirer

  Foy porter …”

  “Which means this – that you are the true sapphire that can heal and end all my sufferings, the emerald which brings rejoicing, the ruby to brighten and comfort my heart. Your speech, your looks, your bearing, make one flee and hate and detest all vice and cherish and desire all that is good. I want to stay faithful …”

  “Celeste, that is very beautiful. Thank you for that, but I think …”

  “But all this,” she interrupted, “was like making love. Non?”

  ‘It is not the ones speaking the same language, but those who share the same feeling who can actually really understand each other,’ he recalled from somewhere.

  “Daveed, your sorrow over the death of your friends, and for all those men who died during this stupide guerre, seems to have prepared you for a new joy – letting you into my heart, and you accepting me. Vous avez entré mon cœur. You have me to my heart, so that something new and alive can grow. My joy pulls up the rotten roots so that new ones have room to grow. Whatever happens, I know much better things will take their place.”

  “Celeste, that is correct; you are, I think, much wiser than your years.” David placed his head on her shoulder.

  “Mais, Daveed, my heart is so small, it’s almost invisible. Do you think you could ever place such big sorrows into it?” Celeste said.

  “Of course not! But Celeste,” he answered, “your eyes are even smaller, yet they see so much of what is true, what is right in the world.”

  “Sûrement, Daveed. But now I can tell you I saw my sons when first I saw you. Eyes like my father’s, sometimes. Yes, I have waited to feel the weight of your head there where now it is. Here in the Bois, in this Pavillon, there could be no other for me. Someday, our souls will be one, and our union will be forever. I know that everything I give you comes back to me. So I give you my life, hoping you will come back to me,” she said.

  “What lies within me is – yes –
the strength to be vulnerable but also the drive to be a better man, if not for you then for myself!” David said.

  “Oh, my Daveed, vous avez écoutez-moi – you did listen to me!”

  David and Celeste had direction now. There could be no futility however they might fail in detail. He saw her inspiring his work. She saw, indeed, how she had already motivated enough in him to have created a great part in her of immortality. He had the sensation of quick, warm life, a pulsation from what had always been and would always be. It was this certainty, now, that she had entered his heart through his mind and would always remain there whatever might happen. Already there was pain in her happiness. Soon they must part ways, but though each would now be more whole and stronger, each would feel a new dependence and loneliness.

  David thought about what he had seen, heard and felt. Thinking thus, had given him a secure role in the continuity of past and future. He had been given an underlying purpose, flexible enough to apply to the action of the hour as well as to the plan of great matter. They did have direction now; there could be no more futility.

  “Nothing is more meaningful to me anymore at this moment except surrendering to your love,” said David.

  Suddenly, as if hit by a startling, bright light, Celeste knew the strength of her love for him and thought, ‘we’ll be carrying each other’s heart away.’

  “And I to you, my darling Daveed. Was I not a lost and abandoned woman? But now you have rescued me? Oui. Yes – yes! – it is to be my answer,” said Celeste.

  CHAPTER 9

  Suitable Dead Letters

  “The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are

  individual human beings, and that these individual beings are

  condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics

  to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.”

  ~ Aldous Huxley

  Paris, by unknown artist (Owned by Arthur H. Mitchell)