My Brother's Keeper

by Marcia Davenport

  “He has been retained at Pavia for a certain amount of lecturing and graduate instruction, but most of his time will be devoted to independent research. He will be paid a stipend upon which he could live modestly. But your generosity for so many years, and the advice of Avvocato Stucchi in Milano, have enabled me to save such a portion of funds in Switzerland that Sebastiano now possesses a competence sufficient to establish him in life.

  “As for me, my requirements are extremely small and Sebastiano particularly wishes to be the only person who provides for them. I am sure you will consent to this request of his, since he makes it from a sincere and grateful heart. He charges me to assure you of his profound devotion and his loyalty which is beyond the power of words to express.

  “Dear Friend, it is with assurances of the deepest regard that I take leave of you now. It has long been my habit to live in solitude and you will understand that any further effort at communication would be beyond my strength. I implore of you therefore the goodness not to reply to this letter, nor to expect that I will write again. May the blessing of God be with you all the days of your life.”

  “R.T.”

  He never knew how many times he had read the letter before he folded it carefully back into its envelope, and slowly, painstakingly took apart a mountainous accumulation of things in order to reach his old childhood desk, which was so deeply hidden in this room. He put the letter away in the innermost recess of the desk and covered it with all his most private things, and having once again packed it solidly in this way, he laid back over everything the crumbling yellow animal-tracings that had always been there, and closed and locked the desk and began once more the slow labor of replacing it where it had been hidden before. It was nightfall before he finished. He was standing inside the door of the room, holding the tips of his fingers to his head as if to pull back his thoughts or his senses to recognition of where he was instead of where he had been, when he realized that Seymour two flights downstairs was calling and crying in sharp, panicky wails. He shook his head a little and felt suddenly as if he had jogged his ears to recognize a noise that had been going on unheard for a long time. Why … it was Seymour … he must have been alone, untended … how long? Randall looked blankly back into the room, shut and locked the door, and moved down the stairs, feeling his way in the dark, to where Seymour sat whimpering and quivering with panic and temper and discomfort. Randall lit a candle.

  “Look at the mess you’ve let me get in,” cried Seymour. “I’ve been screaming at you for hours … my bottle, my bottle … you …” He beat his knees.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Randall, hurrying and fussing and doing everything he could. “Forgive me, Brother, I was … There,” he said, his hands busy. “There. You’ll feel better now.”

  “Better!” squealed Seymour, dithering and furious. “You and your blather! How would you feel if you had to wait for some damn fool to attend to you, instead of walking down the hall to the toilet!”

  “Toilet? Why—” Randall stood with his mouth open.

  “Yes! Don’t you understand English any more or do you want me to use a politer word?”

  “Why, Brother. Didn’t you—why, I just took it for granted you knew.”

  “What?” Seymour snickered suddenly, but pulled his long face into a scowl again.

  “The—the toilet. It’s been broken for a long time.”

  “It has? Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Well, I guess I just thought … the way you always hear everything … didn’t you notice when you didn’t hear it any more?”

  Seymour was giggling, with the witch-like expression which meant not mirth, but mischief. “It was damned funny you didn’t tell me,” he said.

  “Why should I?” asked Randall dully. “You don’t want to hear about things like that, you only get angry and yell at me that you won’t pay for any repairs, so …”

  “So what?”

  “I—oh, I—Seymour, I manage. I know we don’t want to spend any money on repairs.”

  “True enough,” said Seymour, nodding hard. “Good little Randall. What do you do?”

  “Oh—” Randall was too distraught to talk about it any more. “What did people do before there were such things?”

  “I don’t give a damn. I’m asking what you do. What do you do with that bucket you empty my bottle and the pan into? Where the hell do you go yourself?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!”

  “I do. I’m curious.”

  “Oh, Seymour… .” Randall tried to get out of the room quietly but Seymour heard him and cried, “Stop! Tell me.”

  “The back yard … there’s a … a hole …”

  “You dug a hole?”

  “No,” shouted Randall. “Just a hole that’s there. Now shut up.”

  Seymour cackled brittlely, muttering to himself. “Down a rathole,” he snickered. “You’ll do.” He spouted wicked laughter. “You’re not as stupid as you seem.”

  A familiar but infrequent commotion was about to take place, the arrival of a van bringing something which Randall needed. There was no doubt that he did need each object that he brought into the house. Most such things were necessary for his work, but also he felt obliged to take care of certain others if nobody else appeared to want them. That seemed to be the case nowadays with pianos. When he went on his long walks he was quite shocked to see how indifferent people had become to pianos, particularly to uprights. What a pity! Such a thing ought not to be. All pianos were valuable; all his life he had considered them important not only of themselves, but to practise upon and to play to Seymour, which he intended to begin doing again just as soon as he was caught up with his work. But Seymour too had needed pianos, even old and damaged ones, because they were full of stuff he could use when he wanted to make something. Seymour had been following his cure so faithfully for so many years that Randall expected its successful result very soon now. One day, any day, Seymour would be able to see again. And when that happened, he would not only want to read the papers that Randall had saved; he would want to begin to make things again, and he would be perfectly delighted to see how much useful material Randall had collected for him.

  But it was difficult to keep him quiet on the days when a van was to deliver a piano or some large object which Randall could not carry home. The brothers scarcely ever had arguments any more, like the quarrels they used to have about money long ago. There was no reason for such quarrels now, since Randall had had to comply with Renata’s refusal to accept any more money and therefore possessed his inheritance outright. Seymour, consumed by curiosity, had tried hard to learn what Randall had done about it, but had not found out. Each paid his own share of what they considered it unavoidable to spend. And Seymour’s earlier agitation about money was exceeded by his present panic if he ever thought that anybody was trying to break into the house. Any unusual noise suggested that, so it required a good deal of careful, soothing preparation to reassure him beforehand when a van was to come. Randall often wished Seymour’s ears were not so sharp; it would all have been so much simpler.

  This time, however, Seymour took it more quietly than usual. He did several times call down shrilly to Randall while the front door and the entry door had to stand open, with the men moving two poor maltreated uprights into the house where they would be safe. “Haven’t they finished yet?” he cried from upstairs. “Haven’t they gone?”

  “Just a moment, Brother. Everything’s fine. Just one minute more. Yes,” he said to the bull-faced ruffian with whom he had chaffered to move in the pianos, “just over against the doors there. Both of them, side by side.”

  “Den how ya gonna open’a goddam doors?”

  “Will you just please do as I say,” said Randall. “That will do nicely, thank you very much.”

  Quaking with his haste to get them out he urged them along to the open front door and nervously gave each of them half a dollar. Before they were down the stoop he had got the entry door and the o
utside door closed and was beginning again to stack the crates and boxes, the empty tin cans, the dishpan, the soup-ladle, the pot-lids, the broken dictionary-stand, and all the other things in their places in the vestibule. He was so used to doing this each time he went in and out of the house, and it was so important to Seymour’s peace of mind, that he did not mind the trouble at all. It did take a lot of time, of course, but it was important. Seymour had insisted on some kind of arrangement which would make it impossible for anybody to get an inch inside the house without making a tremendous noise to warn them. Randall had some dim recollection now of wondering what use it could be if Seymour heard this alarm at night while Randall was out doing his errands. But that was the sort of question one did not bring up with Seymour.

  This especial terror of intruders was perfectly justified; they had always found the idea unbearable, but then there had been all that trouble two or three years ago about the old gas meter. They had not used any gas for longer than they could remember, and they ignored the small monthly charge for the meter installation, convinced that they did not owe the gas company a cent. But the company had decided that they wanted to take the disused meter out of the cellar. There had been letters which the brothers had torn up, and notices posted on the front door, which Randall indignantly removed, and several times the terrifying experience of somebody pounding on the door, right out there in broad daylight, while the brothers clung to each other in panic upstairs. The ultimate shock had been the shouting of a rough voice outside, between thunderous knocks on the door; somebody who shouted that he was the police and had come with an order from the gas company for restitution of its rightful property. If they did not open the door he would go back to the Precinct and report that the owner of the house was dead and come back with a warrant to break open the door and enter.

  Though Seymour was usually more terror-stricken than Randall at the mere thought of intruders, he stiffened suddenly in his chair, folded his hands on his lap and said in an icy voice, “Randall, let them in.”

  “Brother … no … you can’t mean that … I …”

  “Go down,” snapped Seymour, “go downstairs and let them in. Tell the fool from the gas company to take out his––-meter and send the one who says he is a policeman up here to me.”

  Randall was unnerved, quavering on the brink of tears. He stood trembling by Seymour’s chair.

  “Go and do as I say,” bellowed Seymour, without a trace of his habitual whine. The shouting and pounding were still going on outside. Randall turned and crept, shaking, down the stairs. He let three men into the house, two in overalls, with pipe-wrenches in their hands, from the gas company, and the policeman. Randall shuffled to the cellar door underneath the front stairs and opened it and pointed silently.

  “Where’s the light?” asked one of the men, feeling for a switch on the wall.

  “There is none,” said Randall, with stiff lips.

  He turned to face the policeman and heard an oath behind him and saw one man, with an electric torch, peering down the black steps.

  “My brother wants to speak to you upstairs,” he said to the policeman, who was standing there with his mouth open and a pinched look about his nose.

  “Never mind.”

  “Bring that man up here!” shouted Seymour from upstairs.

  Randall made a motion and the policeman shrugged and followed him up the stairs, eyeing the broken posts as he climbed past them. Seymour sat drawn as high as he could stretch, motionless in his wheelchair. The policeman stood, a stupefied hulk, gaping at the sight before him; the long greyish-yellow face, the stained moustache, the staring colorless eyes, the ragged grey hair hanging to the shoulders. Seymour’s face was hard as granite. He said, in a voice Randall could scarcely recognize, “You claim to be a policeman?”

  “Yuh—yes.”

  “And you took it on yourself to shout in the public street that I am dead? I am not dead.” The voice was level; icy. “I am Seymour Holt, marine architect. I am not dead. I am paralyzed and I am blind. I want your name and your shield number.”

  “Uh,” said the policeman.

  “Write them down and give them to me.”

  Randall was afraid to look at the policeman, but he heard heavy breathing and the rustle of paper, and saw the slip put into Seymour’s hand. Seymour held it towards Randall and said, “Is the number correct? Look at his badge and—”

  “Hey,” said the policeman suddenly. “Who’s the law around here?”

  “I am,” said Seymour. “In my own house. Now get out. Stay out.”

  Randall led the way downstairs again, scarcely able to walk in his frightened amazement at Seymour. The men from the gas company were out on the step with the ancient, rusty meter between them; their faces were pale and they looked at the policeman with sickened eyes. Randall slammed the door behind the three men and stood leaning against it, dripping all over with sweat.

  “Holy suffering Christ,” he heard, and a sound like somebody choking.

  “I never seed the beat o’ that. Jesus, what I seed in that cellar …”

  “You seed? Listen, I was down there too. A automobile, for Crissake, a whole automobile … older than me.”

  “Automobile …” said the other voice, less loud as the footsteps moved away. “The hell with the automobile. Rats,” gulped the voice. “Rats as big as cats … “

  It was after that that they held a council of war and Seymour said they must rig up a system of alarms to warn them in case anybody ever tried to get into the house again. The first and most important place was the front entry, of course. Then by degrees, as Randall went on painstakingly, and more and more expertly, with his work, they decided that they would punctuate the tunnels that had to go through the stacked newspapers with contraptions that would make a frightful noise if anybody other than Randall tried to pass through. Randall knew his way and knew exactly which pieces of old iron and brass, which bottles and empty tin cans and broken kitchen utensils he should move to clear the way for himself. On the other hand, he also knew which ones not to touch.

  But from time to time Seymour had particular spells of fretfulness which were—Randall thought, quite naturally—set off by the occasional arrival of a van bringing things that Randall had needed. He did not want to upset Seymour unnecessarily, and he had about decided anyway not to bring any more large things to the house, no matter how useful they seemed to block spaces, not even if they were pianos. He thought Seymour would be relieved to hear that, so he told him about it the evening after the last two pianos had arrived and been set to block off the drawing-room doors. The room inside was finished now; solidly packed from floor to ceiling, all the old furniture and Randall’s big Steinway completely engulfed; there was not even a tunnel because he never expected to have to get through the room. He felt good about it; calm and pleased with a sense of a job well done. He told Seymour; and also how he had finished off the whole thing with the last two pianos.

  “That’s fine,” Seymour agreed. “You’re doing wonders, Ran. I’m sorry I get so nervous when things come to the house.”

  “I’m sorry, too. And I don’t really have to send in any more. There’s enough, and I don’t like the disturbance any more than you do.”

  “How many pianos have you put in?” asked Seymour, in a tone that sounded unusually vague.

  “Why—” Randall was much vaguer. There had been six. He said, “Four—I guess.”

  “Well, yes,” mused Seymour. “That ought to be enough. How much did you pay for them, Ran?” This time his voice was quite different: prying.

  “Oh—they don’t cost much of anything, you know.”

  “I suppose not. I’m just surprised you have money enough even for that, the way the damned income-taxes are now.”

  “Oh, I don’t pay any income-taxes,” said Randall blandly.

  “You which? What?” Seymour was at last on the brink of finding out what for years, he had no idea how many years, but more than ten, Randall h
ad done about his money. Time and time again he had almost wormed it out of his brother and somehow they always ended up talking about something else. But this evening they felt unusually relaxed, intimate; perhaps because Randall was so relieved and pleased to have finished his work downstairs. “What did you do about your stuff?” asked Seymour, in the mildest, laziest tone he could contrive.

  “Why—I just put it in the bank.”

  “In the bank? The income yes, but—”

  “Oh,” said Randall brightly. “I have no income. I didn’t want any … . that time I finally decided to go and talk to those horrid people and they told me all the things I’d have to do. Like you, Brother. You still do it, or tell Mr. Cullom to do it for you. But I’d never bother with anything like that. My goodness, I’m too busy!”

  “I see,” said Seymour faintly. His mouth hung open. “So you—”

  “I just told them to put the money in the bank, that’s all.”

  “So they just sold all the securities,” said Seymour beginning to cackle like a hen, hunched over in his chair, “and you put about a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars cash in the bank!” His bony shoulders heaved. He laughed and laughed until Randall took hold of his wheelchair to steady it and Seymour wiped his streaming blind eyes with the back of his hand. “Oh, God. Oh, Lord. In the Seaboard, Randall?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But what bank?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Seymour went into another paroxysm. “Well,” he gasped, when he could speak again, “of course you don’t have to say.”

  “I really don’t know,” said Randall earnestly. “I mean I never can remember. I know it when I see it. It’s over on Eighth Avenue somewhere. I just go there once in a while and get a little money.”