HAYNTA-9
“In the shadow of the greater thing,” they say in the north, where the cold strips life to its essentials, “the lesser things that seemed great dwindle to nothing.”
Within a month of the arrival of my new roommate, Little Bolo, I was recognized by everybody at Clarks Hill. I was Little Bolo’s bodyguard, or her familiar, as many called me. For the first time in my life, I was noticed, I was known. First-year students, peers of Little Bolo, who wondered why a third-year student spent so much time with one of their own, as well as students who had been attending class with me for more than two years and wouldn’t have been able to so much as guess my name, all knew me, because I was Little Bolo’s friend.
Of course, to be referred to as someone’s familiar isn’t necessarily a compliment. A sarcasm, I think, underlay its original use, and while some, if not most, of those who called me her familiar, or bodyguard, did so only because everybody else did, others shared the sarcasm, and the disdain, or in some cases jealousy, inherent in the use of such appellations. But I didn’t care: almost in the first moments that I saw Bolo, I knew I would protect her, and defend her; and there was nothing anybody could say that would sway me from my new cause. That was the greater thing. In the back of my mind there lurked a fear that Bolo found my presence cumbersome and would, in time, slough me off in favor of the many who were drawn to her like bugs to a lem torch; but that didn’t matter either.
She opened the door at peeking speed, as if she were hesitant to come in. I saw her before she saw me, the brightness of the room’s one window, which was opposite the door, illuminating her for me, while at the same time painting me dark for her; and I could see right away that she wasn’t like Pindy, or Turta. Nowhere close to either one of them. She wasn’t one of the “pretty girls,” you know, the ones everybody thinks are pretty, and are invariably boring and vacuous, devoid of a single interesting thought—like Pindy and to a lesser degree Turta. She looked more the type who would end up having intellectual friends, who, while perhaps as unaware as Pindy and her crowd of my presence in the dorm room when they were hanging out there together, would at least, while yipping and yapping, say something interesting or humorous once in awhile.
She was pretty, though, I thought, but in such a way that only a few would think so—in an off-the-road way, you know. She was small, quite short, no taller than an average girl a couple of years younger than her, and not really thin but spry, and wearing ragged baggy clothes that made her look even smaller than she was: A pale yellow short-sleeved shirt that was obviously handed down to her from somebody older, or bigger, and long pants dusty from the road (it was to be a couple of months before I could convince her that the ankle-length skirts that I wore were much more comfortable than pants).
She had the fairest complexion I’d ever seen, lighter than mine, even, by at least a couple shades: Oh, she was red from the sun, but I could tell that her natural color was a near-ghostlike pale broken up only by the swirls and swirls of freckles on her arms and face. Her hair, too, was very very light, with a slight cast of red to it, her features unremarkable but pleasant, delicate but not fine, her face open, her eyes, one of which was brown and the other green, sincere, and uncertain. She looked as if she wanted me to like her but thought I wouldn’t, or feared I wouldn’t, which I thought somewhat endearing, first of all because in all my life, no one had ever sought my approval, or affection, and also because it made her seem younger than she was, and not as intelligent as she turned out to be.
Details of her appearance were unimportant in the shadow of the greater thing, however, for in the moment, I mean the very instant I saw her, I felt better. I couldn’t say exactly how or why I felt better, but I did. Who I was hadn’t changed, what I had done hadn’t changed (and if anything, my grief for the kitten was intensified); and yet I felt I could live with the fact, the reality, of those things. At some level, I could separate myself from it. I could look at it objectively. An angry girl had thrown a rock and killed a kitten. The act had been one of anger, not malice, not evil; and the fact that the girl was me was a good thing in the sense that because I now knew such expressions of anger could cause great harm to other beings, I would refrain from them, and in doing so would give the tiniest of honor to the poor little fella. Which wouldn’t lessen the sorrow of his demise, but would give it the tiniest of meanings. He wouldn’t cease to exist, he would exist as part of me, the more mature me, and per the reasoning of Infin Gorilla, would exist, thus, in everybody who knew me, or who knew somebody who knew me. He would be infinite. At least, that’s what I told myself later, looking back over the event and reasoning out the details of my emotional state at that time; in the moment I only knew that that my state of mind went from a wracking combination of self contempt and a wild desolate desire to somehow make what had happened not have happened, to a sorrowful, even sweet, acceptance of things as they now were.
When Little Bolo opened the door, tears were running in silent paths down her face, this girl who was, I knew, going to be my new roommate, and I couldn’t recall whether she’d been crying as she opened the door, or if her tears had begun thereafter; and while it would have been reasonable to assume that she was shy and scared in this new, strange, place, it seemed like she was crying because I was sad, which is unusual—most people get annoyed if you’re sad, unless they’re sad too—and helped endear her to me.
And there was something else about her face that made me like her right off, some other rare quality: it was devoid of judgment. Now, before you scoff, yes, I’m well aware that any conclusions reached about such a thing as whether somebody is judging you in the first moments of seeing you are likely to be suspect, but with her, in that face of utter innocence, I could tell, there was no judgment of me, and no wondering what on earth could be the matter, just an acceptance of my grief, and an embrace, those different-colored eyes that made her seem simple and yet as if she could see into you, somehow embracing the real me, the whole me. She could see into me, I thought, she knew that I had killed the kitten, not in fact but in essence, and she still wanted me to like her!
I guess I knew, then, again at some wordless level, but I knew, nevertheless, what I would confirm in the coming days: that somebody as innocent and pure of spirit as she was, as devoid of meanness or judgment, and possessed of an almost unbelievable naivety, had had to have grown up in a bubble of absolute love and good will. And now, that bubble was gone; she was alone, away from those who had always treated her with such gentleness and love, and protected her from the harshness of life; she was alone, defenseless against the soul-sucking influences of the world outside that bubble; her charge, her guardianship had fallen to me. I didn’t know what specific actions I could take to protect her, but I would not fail her: I would protect her against all the truth-eating goblins of this world; she would remain herself; her innocence, her purity of spirit, her kindness, would never be blighted. In some sense, I suppose, it was as if she were the kitten reborn. She was a little like a kitten, at first blush.
Little Bolo would have been a good roommate even if I hadn’t liked her, because everywhere she went, something interesting, or, not exactly magical, but enchanting, happened. In her wake, an under-music echoed, and things, and people, shone with a not-seen, but felt, ethereal glow as if covered with a sprinkling of magic dust that captured the light not of the sun but of the spirit. So, even if I hadn’t liked her, or worse, even if she hadn’t liked me, I would have looked forward to seeing what she was going to do next, or what was going to happen in the circle of her passing, and what others would do in unconscious response to her presence. I would, thus, have had something besides sleep to look forward to every day, which, with Nolk gone, and Mrs. Camden no longer one of my teachers, I would have sorely needed.
But, I liked her, a lot, and I didn’t just look forward to seeing what she would do or say next, or what delightful little occurrence would arise from the influence of her presence or her passage, but I rejoiced in it; and I was ready at all times to protect her in case something went awry. One way I had decided for sure that I could protect her was that if she were to encounter meanness or malice, I would counter it immediately with kindness and encouragement: if some ignoramus made fun of her, or if some dark-hearted somebody reacted with hate to the light and love that emanated from her, I would intercede. I would contradict, forcefully, any mean or hurtful words directed at her, and then I would extract her from the conflict, take her back to our room, and explain to her that the person’s words rose from ignorance and fear.
So let people call me her bodyguard, let people call me her servant or familiar; I had a duty to do, and I would do it.
One sheerly practical way that I helped her was with her classwork. She seemed to me to be quite bright; but she had never attended any classes of any sort, and because of this was not only unused to systematic, regimented study, but also didn’t have quite the level of knowledge of subjects that it was assumed students would have at her age; and, in addition, didn’t seem to think anybody would care if she didn’t do a particular assignment by a particular time. So, I explained everything to her. I filled her in on what she was supposed to know; I gave her the foundation of knowledge she needed to keep up in her classes. And I found out that Nolk had been right: I did remember most of the stuff I’d learned during my first two years at Clarks Hill, which better equipped me to help Little Bolo with her stuff.
For the first two or three months of the year, I spent a couple of hours every day tutoring her. The routine of my day was: Breakfast followed by classes in the morning; lunchtime, go talk to Nolk in the walnut grove (for Nolk returned about five days into the semester, and resumed his janitorial duties—more on that, later); more classes in the afternoon, then return to my room and do all of my assignments for all of my classes, so that I would be available to help Bolo when she got back from her classes, which was an hour or so after I did. When she returned, she would relax or meditate or maybe take a short walk while I finished my studies, then I would help her for an hour or so, at which time we’d head over to the cafeteria for supper, and then either return to our room or go to the Nonagon or the library for another hour or so of studying.
By then it would be nightfall, or close to it, and I would be exhausted—pleasurably, joyously, exhausted—but with Bolo still of a mind to stay awake and experience this strange new world of Clarks Hill, we would tour the grounds, or the Nonagon, enjoying the twilight or the post-evening lights as they were called, when students roamed about with lanterns, mingling, watching the sun go down until the bells that signaled that it was time for students to go to their rooms tolled—the Bells of Yarrow, as Little Bolo named them, with her characteristic affection. After returning to our room, we would lie in bed and tell each other stories in the dark, like unto the people of Dume, until sleep came upon one or the other of us. There was a brightness to it all, even though without Mrs. Camden my classes were boring again (luckily, Yaan had Mrs. Camden for her Reading, Writing, and Language class, so I was able to live vicariously through her reports of Mrs. Camden’s lectures and stories). It was a boring tinged with light, though, because I was enduring it for a purpose; it was a stress-less, even enjoyable boring-ness, an ease, a living with life, a peace with Existence.
That was the lull before the storm.