My Brother's Keeper

by Marcia Davenport

  “Yes,” whispered Randall.

  “I know. Everything. But if you say ‘shock’, just be sure we mean the same thing. The shock was my anxiety and remorse about you and my terror when you disappeared.”

  “Remorse!” said Randall. “Oh, Brother, I’m the one who’s dying of that. I’m so desperately ashamed.”

  “No, Ran. You mustn’t feel that way. You did what any man—never mind. The provocation was inhuman and I did it to you.”

  “We must stop talking about this now, Brother.”

  “If we can. But I can’t let you stay a night in this house without asking you with all my soul to forgive me. I’m a selfish bastard, Ran—nobody knows it like you. But I love you and I ask you to forgive me if you can. It was a criminal thing I did. And my only reason was the same damned one I had for everything.” He sighed and made a despairing motion towards his closed eyes. “I wanted every pleasure while I could still see to enjoy it.”

  “I know that now. And I realize that’s all she—” Randall stopped and forced himself to go on. “That’s all she was anyway. She always tried to tell me so.”

  “That doesn’t minimize what I did to you. Can you forgive me, Ran?”

  “Need you ask?” He leaned forward and lightly put his hand on Seymour’s forehead.

  He answered briefly when Seymour asked where he had been, even drawing a faint smile and an incredulous exclamation or two at his description of himself as a deckhand on a freighter. Seymour marvelled that he had had the nerve to do it, plagued by seasickness, but Randall said, “I wasn’t making much sense at first, and when I got used to it I rather enjoyed it.” They talked for a long time, Seymour lying always in that pathetic, still position, with his eyes closed and his hands folded. Randall asked if the doctor had ordered him to do that.

  “No,” sighed Seymour. “There just hasn’t been anything else to do.”

  Randall asked how he had been managing about his food. Mrs. Quinn, said Seymour, had been cooking him a meal of sorts at midday and in the evening he ate only fruit. “I can feel my way for that,” said Seymour. “I’ll get used to it all, in time.”

  “I need something more than fruit myself, tonight,” said Randall. “I know. I’ll go and get cleaned up and take a basket over to that German bakery-restaurant place on Tenth Avenue and have them give me whatever they’ve got. I’ll bring it back and we’ll eat it here.”

  “Fine,” said Seymour. He had no appetite, but he had felt Randall’s jutting bones through his coarse shirt.

  “I’ll be back soon. Oh, by the way,” said Randall, because he knew how much it had meant to Seymour, “what did you do about your automobile?”

  “Well-” Seymour hesitated. “I—I’m afraid you’ll think me a damned fool.”

  “Why should I? I couldn’t.”

  “Well—it’s down in the cellar.” Seymour laughed nervously and said, “I am a damn fool. But I just couldn’t bear to part with it and—”

  “Of course not! I know just how you felt. But goodness, Brother, how did you get it into the cellar?”

  “Those last days before—before my eyes gave out. I knew it was going to happen and I got a mechanic to help me and we dismantled the car and took the parts down cellar and assembled them again down there.”

  “Well, I think if that’s what you wanted, it was the thing to do,” said Randall, and he took the basket and went to fetch their food.

  There was peace of a sort, and a sense of purpose in life, rooted in tragedy where its opposite had brought only turmoil. Randall’s days were not long enough to give him time for everything he wanted to do for Seymour. He was surprised to see how Seymour managed, how he could walk about the house, all over the second floor and down the front stairs and the cellar stairs to his workshop, where he was beginning the experiment of making a ship model by touch. He could shave himself to as much nicety as he cared for, and dress himself and do many other commonplace things.

  “I’m so surprised,” Randall said more than once, when he had sprung to help Seymour and found it unnecessary. “One would almost think—”

  “One would altogether think, unless one were a damn fool. Do you suppose I haven’t been practising for this for years?”

  “Oh, I’m so stupid,” said Randall quickly. “I’m the one who’s got to learn.”

  “Oh, no. You don’t realize what this is yet. So far it’s like an illness—I stay in the house and lie down with my eyes closed most of the time. But when Willingdon for some pompous reason of his own advises me to let up on that, where am I then? Outdoors taking a nice constitutional? Not on your life.”

  “But, Brother—”

  “That’s it, Ran. What the hell do I want to go out of doors for? Tapping my way along with a stick, or being led by you? Or seen by anybody? Christ!”

  “Oh, Seymour, it won’t be like that. It can’t.” Randall put his hand on Seymour’s arm and held it for a moment. “I don’t believe Doctor Willingdon will say there isn’t a chance. I can’t believe it. You look absolutely the same to me.”

  “But I can’t see those big blue eyes of yours. Or anything else about you except lightish where your face is and darkish where your clothes are. No, Ran. Willingdon’s been saying this for seven years. And since he is an unsentimental scientific son of a bitch I can’t see him changing his mind.”

  “This seems to be bringing out all the profanity in you.”

  “You haven’t heard anything yet. Wait till I get one of my bad spells. You know me. Did you think I was meeting this with Christian resignation and fortitude?”

  And yet in a startling way he was. He had had three soul-crushing weeks abandoned in his Gehenna, alone with his guilt and the consequences of his transgressions. He had writhed in a hell of anxiety about Randall, sharpened by the frustration of his helplessness. He had not thought that Randall was “lost” in any sense where an appeal to the police would solve his dilemma by producing his brother. They could have found him, doubtless. But Seymour knew that Randall had fled in a frenzy of loathing for himself, for her, for Seymour, for all that had been polluted. Wherever he was, Randall was swamped in the muck of that pollution and must be left alone to make his own way out. To hound him, drag or force him here, would have been the most heartless of Seymour’s selfishnesses. He lay and met his castigation alone.

  It happened that only Marietta Pawling had telephoned him in the first days of his blindness and, not being a stupid woman, had sensed in his refusal to see her something other than the irritable evidences of surfeit which he had shown her in the past. His iron cincture of pride had bent only enough for him to admit some minor illness, but she was not deceived. She knew something to be seriously wrong, and she offered to be of help. He had put her off rudely.

  “Then Randall is looking after you?” she had asked in a guarded way which apprised him that she had been in touch with Renata.

  “Naturally he is,” Seymour had replied, “and I don’t want to see anybody else.” He broke the connection and said half aloud, “There, let them make what they can of that.” He had done what he could to shield Randall.

  And now when Randall with heartrending tenderness and a timidity which made Seymour wince, apologized for the simple food that he produced for the erstwhile gourmet, Seymour could not show appreciation enough. Though he cringed inwardly at the bitter humiliation of letting Randall help him to eat, he conquered his stinging pride and smiled and thanked Randall, joking whenever he could think of a silly thing to say. Every morning Randall read the newspapers aloud to him, almost completely through, omitting only the pages whose contents bored Seymour. He handled and read the papers as if there were no such thing as a page of musical and theatrical news, and Seymour never remarked it. Not once had Randall stopped to glance at one of those pages. He also read aloud in the afternoon or evening magazines and books that might interest Seymour.

  “You’ll ruin your own eyesight, Ran,” Seymour protested, “you aren’t used to reading as mu
ch as that.”

  “I love it, Brother,” said Randall. “I really do.” His voice was so warm that tears gathered in Seymour’s blind eyes. He thought, what the poor chap really loves is someone to take care of and be necessary to. How bitter that I am the only wretched, twisted means of his having it. But Randall seemed quite happy. The nightmares had faded, those before and those afterwards, and for the time being he did not brood. He did not worry either about the fears that had plagued him before he came home here; that great crashing train of cars no longer assaulted him. He did not worry about his things. Now that he was here and all his things locked away in their places he did not need to go and look at them unless he wanted to. They were safe.

  So Seymour never left the house at all, and Randall only when he went to do errands, all of which were part of taking care of Seymour. It was early in December now. Very much of the memory of recent months had blacked down in a vault, inside which it would be madness to look. Seymour, with his dreadful future already marked out for him, knew the urgency of holding to this modus vivendi, whose only compensation, a pitiful one, was giving Randall an occupation which at this time seemed good. But how could that continue, how could he let it continue, how could this be the end of his brother’s life as well as his own?

  “What about your church, Ran?” he asked one day. “Wouldn’t you like to go back there, at least part of the time?” He could not see the dull terror which whitened Randall’s face and swept his blue eyes wildly towards the ceiling. “Don’t you miss your work, your music?”

  Randall was clever enough to wait with his answer until he felt sure his voice would betray nothing. Then he said, “Oh, no, Brother. I was getting bored with it anyway—and really I’m so much happier just staying here with you.”

  “We’d be in fine case if we hadn’t any money between us,” said Seymour. “Both without jobs.”

  “But as for music—wouldn’t you like me to play for you sometimes?” Randall asked. He found himself facing the amazing fact that this had not occurred to him before. He ran his knuckles up his forehead as if to knock at the door of his wits.

  “Why-yes.” This time Seymour was slow with his answer. He had never cared much for music but in these circumstances it might turn out to be a wonderful resource, and it might also be good for Randall. But he was worried. Those trunks were still downstairs in the drawing-room, she had done nothing about sending for them, and in the few days before he collapsed he had been in no frame of mind to trouble to send them to her. And Randall ought not to see those trunks. Or had he? Seymour did not dare pursue it. He did know that Randall had not struck a note of music since he had been back in the house. It looked as if he had not gone into the drawing-room, or more probably, had done so—enough to see the trunks still there and flee.

  “I tell you, Ran,” said Seymour slowly. “This is a funny house. I only like the rooms in it that I’ve always used myself. You know what I mean? Not the ones that are full of—what do I mean? Memories? Personalities? Anyway, I’ve never liked that drawing-room ever since the days when you used to be shut up there with Mama practising all the time and getting all the attention.”

  “Was I, Brother?” Randall’s voice was bewildered.

  “Why, sure. I was jealous of you, didn’t you know that?” (God forgive me, Seymour thought, any rot I can think of will be a good enough reason for staying out of that room.)

  “I never knew that,” said Randall slowly. “But I guess it’s true. I do remember the way you wouldn’t let her go to Europe with me.”

  “Well, we’re queer dicks, we always knew that. Anyway, I don’t much want to sit in that drawing-room.”

  “Of course not,” said Randall quickly. “We’ll—” he paused. “That wouldn’t do. I was about to say we’d move the piano up here. But it’s so big. There wouldn’t be room for it on this floor.”

  “Never mind,” said Seymour. “Some days I’ll be in a specially unjealous mood and then we’ll go downstairs and you’ll play for me.”

  But Randall went out a few days later and bought the smallest upright piano he could find, and had it hoisted up to the second floor and put in the wide part of the hall outside the library. There it wouldn’t be in anybody’s way and he could play for Seymour while he sat in his own chair and was comfortable.

  Seymour, when Randall was out next day, stood in the hall gingerly feeling the new piano. “God Almighty,” he said, shaking his head. “This makes five.” At that moment the telephone rang. Startled, Seymour gasped out an oath. This almost never happened. The bell rang again and Seymour groped along the hall wall until he found the telephone and as it rang the third time, he lifted the receiver.

  A week later Randall was on his way home in the afternoon. Over on Twenty-third Street where he had been doing errands, the big shops were so brightly lighted, and the street so crowded with busy people, that he had not noticed the early dark which at this season closes in on New York while one thinks it is still day. He began to walk faster, he did not like the thought of Seymour alone in the dark house. He cannot see it is so dark, Randall thought, but I don’t want to think of him there in his chair, not even knowing. It was cold and he wanted to get home and replenish the library fire and light a gas globe and make sure that Seymour was comfortable. He turned into his own block on Ninth Avenue and walked quickly west on Twenty-fourth Street. He was almost at the house when a figure appeared beside him, and his ears, his whole head rattled with shock as he heard, softly, “Randalo.”

  He stopped walking, and looking straight ahead he said, “Go away.” Something pounded in his throat.

  “Please let me speak to you,” she said.

  “No, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Go away.” He was still looking straight before him, he had not seen her at all. He took a step forward but he felt her hand fall lightly on his arm.

  “Randalo,” she whispered, “for the love of God. I pray you, let me speak.”

  “I don’t want to listen to you. I don’t want to hear anything.” He shook off her hand. “Get away from here. Haven’t you been enough of a—a—” he had no word. “Without loitering here?”

  “I come because is the disperazione, I must tell you something, I—”

  He turned and looked at her in the dim light from the arc-lamp up the street. Her face was ghostly, her eyes enormous above her pinched cheeks. He let her see he remarked her looks. He said, “If you’re hungry, go and ply your trade in some other block.”

  Her face fell into her hands, and though he meant to step ahead again and get away from her, he could not escape her words.

  “I am not hungry,” was what he heard. “I am incinta. I am to have a child.”

  He stood for a moment, overwhelmed. First this had no reality, then it had the terrible reality of the last he had seen of her. That reminded him. He said, “I called you three names the last time I saw you. They’re true. Take your choice. Nobody gives a damn when such a woman has a child. Why should I?”

  “Abbi pietà!” she moaned softly. “This is not you, Randalo.”

  “I am not the man you knew. You took good care to destroy him.”

  “But the child—”

  “Stop talking. The filth of it, to tell me about your child.”

  “Can be yours, Randalo.” She whispered the words, her head bent, but he heard. He felt sick and cold; a vile bitter taste flooded his mouth.

  “It can be anybody’s. Anybody’s at all. Why pick on me? Because I was a sucker before? Or because you were too smart to try to tell my brother?”

  “I have try’.”

  “What!” He felt his fists clench, a spasm of rage seize his stomach. How had she tried? What had she done, how had she contrived to vex and mortify his afflicted brother? He was infuriated. One of his hands gripped her upper arm until she quailed with pain and he saw her lips bitten hard together. “Shameless! You dared to go near that house? You’ve just been there?”

  “No. I have talk’ to
him once on the telephone.” Her eyes were closed, she was visibly faint from the pain of his savage grip on her arm. He shook it once contemptuously and flung it aside. She staggered a little. He saw this now as an assault on Seymour. No other part of what she said mattered at all, compared with the vehemence of his passion to protect Seymour.

  “What did he say?” He bent over her, speaking in a snarl. “What did he tell you?”

  “Tell me?” Her face was unnaturally stupid in her bewilderment. “He tell me—” she choked. “The same like you. He say he kill me if I tell you.”

  “Well—and so you took a chance on your precious life and told me anyway. Would you be interested to know he can’t kill you, or do anything else about you because he is blind?”

  “Oh! Dio! Madonna Santa!” She crumpled against the iron railing nearby and began to sob, praying the while in a throbbing moan.

  “And if you ever try to bother him again, I swear to God I will kill you, and I’m not blind. I was. But never again. Now clear out.”

  He turned to go towards his house but she stumbled after him and caught at his sleeve. He tried to shake her off but she held his right arm tightly between her hands.

  “Is not for myself,” she said. There was a note of solemn desperation in her voice that overreached the peak of his anger and held him there, scowling. “You didn’t understand? Is for the child I am praying.”

  “Then go and bother the other men who’ve had you.”

  “There have been none. Nobody.”

  “Pah!”

  She bent her head, but she still held his sleeve like a vise. “I have been alone. Absolutely alone. Is not what I did with my body or what anybody has done has made me live in penitenza, but what I did to you moralmente. You can believe or not believe. Is not probable you believe. I only ask from the heart should not be punished the child.”

  “You are what you are, you always said so. Now I know it. Women like you get rid of these—things. Go and get rid of yours.”

  Her hands fell from his arm, and though he could now have walked away he was abruptly compelled to stand and watch her head come up with a motion of unflinching conviction.