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Emmanuel meets a man one day who seems familiar. He is outside Daphne’s home, bible in hand and his first question is, ‘Have you found God yet?’ a question Emmanuel answers honestly with a quiet “No.” Recognizing the man is an astonishing revelation, considering that up to this point he has had little memory of anything ‘familiar’. Daphne has had to teach him everything, the way you would teach a child. But that had felt familiar in a way too. Learning from scratch. The sensation of familiarity was fleeting, showing itself in the strangest locations. Once Emmanuel had picked up a magazine about vintage cars, a sleek black muscle car on the front, while in line at the grocery store. He had no interest in cars, let alone vintage ones, yet he bought the magazine and brought it home. Daphne takes him to a sweet little diner for dinner one night, and when the time for dessert comes, Emmanuel stares at his menu for so long that Daphne asks if he’s alright. He reassures her, and laughs it off, giving his menu to the waitress and asking for a slice of apple pie.
Little things like this have become normal, but so far Emmanuel has never felt familiarity about a human. A man, he corrects himself, unsure of why he occasionally makes that mistake. The man is a preacher, but not like the one’s at Daphne’s church that are clean shaven, somewhere in their late forties with looks of false benevolence on their faces. This man has much more than a five o’clock shadow growing on his jaw, and his hair looks like it has never seen a comb. The bags under his bloodshot eyes are the color of bruises, but on his face there is true benevolence. Benevolence like Emmanuel has never seen or felt before. No, no, he thinks as he lets the preacher into Daphne’s home (not his home. Though he does not know why, he can only assume it is because he has a home elsewhere…), he has felt this before, but he has not felt it for a very long time.
He leads the preacher to sit on the couch and asks if he can get him anything, the man asks only for some of his time. Emmanuel sits and tells him that he can give him that. They talk well into the afternoon, the preacher has not said one word about God since he walked in. Instead they speak of history, great battles fought and won, the preacher leads the conversation to one about love, and the great loves of our time. Emmanuel doesn’t know any of the stories, not those of Antony and Cleopatra, or Romeo and Juliet, or Lancelot and Guinevere. The preacher smiles at him and tell him each one. Emmanuel is entrapped by the tales, each one so beautiful, so tragic in their own ways. But by the time the preacher has finished with the story of Tristan and Isolde, Emmanuel has begun to change his mind about these ‘love stories’.The preacher asks what he thinks of these tales of love and Emmanuel tells him truly that he doesn’t understand them.
“In all these stories the lovers are separated by death. It starts to seem as though ‘true love’” he says forming air quotes, “can only end in the death of one or both parties. Is that the way God created love? To always end in tragedy with the lovers being torn apart by death?” The preacher looks at him then, his blue eyes sad and the lines in his forehead deep.
“It is true that many great loves have ended in tragedy my son, do you know why?” Emmanuel shook his head, feeling like the preacher was about to impart some great wisdom on him. Some divine story of lovers dying together, therefore together in death, together in the afterlife, together in paradise, who knows. He waits, and the preacher says, “Many great loves end in tragedy because of a lack of communication and the pressures of outside influences. But not because the love itself is flawed.”
And that isn’t really what Emmanuel was expecting to hear. But the preacher is looking at him eagerly, so Emmanuel says, “I don’t think I understand…” and instead of looking disappointed the preacher looks pleased, like Emmanuel has said the right thing.
“Few people ever do my son. That is why we have these stories, because love is complicated. The meanings often end up convoluted, and once again history repeats itself. People believe that Romeo and Juliet’s story is some grand epic tale of love, a beautiful haunting story of tragedy and romance. But it is a story about miscommunication. Easily avoided mistakes. Remarks and gestures made in haste without thought. If Juliet had communicated better with Romeo, would he have rushed to her garve site to kill himself? Had he taken a moment to say, regardless of how much he loved her, ‘is it right that I die here? Or should I continue on for her? Would she have wanted this?’ It is so many little things that could have been avoided if better thought out, but that is not human nature.
“When God created Adam he was pleased with what he had done. But though Adam had Divine love, shelter, food, animals, even true Paradise, there was one thing he lacked. So God made Eve, thinking that what Adam needed was a companion of his own kind. He was not so far from the truth. Adam needed human love. Eve gave him human love. And it was out of human love that he bit the apple.”
“Wait,” Emmanuel interrupted, “it is beginning to sound as though love is a bad thing. I am not sure I see where you are going with this.”
The preacher smiled, “Indeed it does appear that way. But don’t forget that when Adam and Eve were banished, Adam stayed with Eve. He built a family with Eve. Together they survived in the desert. Could he not have left her? Could he not have gone his own way without her? She was the one who lost him his place in Paradise.” Emmanuel didn’t know how to answer that. “It was out of human love that he bit the apple, but it was out of true love that he stayed with Eve in the desert. Had Romeo said, ‘No, I will live on for Juliet, because that’s what she would have wanted,’ it would have truly been a great and beautiful epic. Because he would have learned to love unselfishly, and that is the truest kind of love there is. Do you understand?”
“I think I may be starting to,” Emmanuel whispers.
“Let me tell you one last story of love,” the preacher says, “it is one of the greatest tales I know. There are many kinds of love in this story and each is beautiful and human and flawed. It starts with two brothers whose love for their father and each other sends them on a long journey. A journey that does not end when they find their father, nor when they lose him, nor when they fight and lose each other…” and so on and so forth. The preacher weaves a tale of heartbreak so profound that Emmanuel cannot believe such suffering exists. An impossible story of death and destruction, survival and scars, fire and brimstone, loss and recovery, divine intervention and failure, giving up, moving on, repeating the cycle. But in the middle of it all Emmanuel feels love. He feels compassion when the brothers rejoice their small victories, he feels sorrow when the younger of the two brothers dies, he feels absolute anguish when the elder passes. Emmanuel makes the preacher stop and promise him that the elder brother will live. The preacher gives him a small, sad smile and tells him that the elder brother is saved. By an angel of the Lord. That the angel will become a companion to the brothers, and addition to the story, along with an old man, a prophet, a demon, and a whole host of others. The story does not go smoothly after that, much happens, many die, and there is great suffering. The angel betrays the boys, betrays himself and all his brothers. The story draws to a close with the angel destroying himself. Emmanuel suddenly doesn’t like this story anymore. He liked it much better before the angel came into it.
“What – What happens to them,” Emmanuel pleads. The preacher simply shakes his head.
“They live on as they have always done. But both of them are broken. They need their friend back, even if they do not know it. The elder brother needs him even more than can be imagined.”
“But the angel nearly destroyed them.”
“True.”
“Then why would they need him back?”
“Why did Adam bite the apple?”
“What?” Emmanuel was confused.
“Why did Adam take the apple from Eve?” the preacher patiently asked again.
“Because he loved her?”
“Indeed.”
“What does that have to do with the – oh,” realization suddenly dawns on Emmanuel.
“You mean he did all that-”
“Because he had a foolish, misguided sense of what was right and wrong? Yes. Because he was so in love, that he was blinded to everything else? Yes. Because no one had told him that he was loved? Yes. He was a fool, but so was Adam. Everyone needs love.”
Emmanuel sits filled with reverence for the man in front of him, who suddenly seems much bigger than a simple preacher. The lines around his eyes and the way his shoulders slump show a tiredness that Emmanuel hadn’t previously noticed. The shape of his mouth is twisted with melancholy.
“The angel, will he live? Does someone save him?”
“Yes.” Emmanuel waited for the preacher to expand, but no more information was forth coming. The preacher looked at his watch, tsking and rising. Emmanuel rose with him.
“Must you leave?” it came out plaintive and the preacher smiled.
“Yes my son, it’s time I go. Here,” he reached into his breast pocket and drew out an amulet on a string. It was glowing brightly, when the preacher placed it around Emmanuel’s neck. “Keep this for me for while would you?”
Emmanuel gripped the strange gold talisman in his hand, feeling its soothing warmth as the preacher walked to the door. He stopped in the threshold and looked back and said,
“Has God found you now my son?”
and Emmanuel replied, “Yes.”