Brother and Sister

by Edwin West

  Angie got into the back seat of Uncle Edward’s Plymouth with Paul, while Aunt Sara sat up front. The Plymouth was pastel, three different shades. No amount of mourning or grief could change that. It looked like a Japanese toy, happy and plastic, much more suited to the day than were its occupants.

  The funeral parlor was full of relatives--all of Mom’s and all of Dad’s. The people in the two families who were angry at one another were quietly avoiding each other. There was a sickening smell of dying flowers in the air, and not enough light, and a heavy cloying Victorian atmosphere about the room, like baroque quicksand.

  Angie hated Mister Mordenthall. He was the undertaker--he called himself a mortician--and he was a damp, pallid man with clammy hands and a false, toothy smile of sympathy.

  There was nothing to do at the funeral parlor but wait. At last, they all went out again, following the two caskets, getting into their respective cars, and driving slowly through, the sunlit streets to the church. Angie and Paul sat alone in the back seat of the long black limousine, directly behind the hearse.

  And then there was the requiem mass which dragged dolefully on and on and on.

  All during this time, Angie’s brain raced wildly. There was nothing she could do--there was no way to avoid the thoughts that crowded her mind. All she could do was sit and watch the thoughts crowding through in dogged repetition.

  She hadn’t loved her parents. Not enough. She hadn’t loved her parents enough.

  The evidence was clear and the memory of the evidence was crisp and loud.

  In the very moment when she had heard of their death, her only thought had been for herself. Her only thought had been of relief, that now she wouldn’t have to make any decision about Bob.

  When she had heard that Paul would be coming home on leave, she had been happy; she had been delighted at the idea and the thought had crossed her mind unbidden: That’s one good thing, anyway. Paul wouldn’t be coming home so soon, otherwise.

  Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. She remembered the story in the New Testament about Saint Peter, in which Our Lord told him, “You will deny me thrice before the cock crows.” Saint Peter couldn’t believe it possible, but it came to pass.

  And so had it for her. She had denied her parents, betrayed them.

  In the Gothic severity of the stone-pillared church, with its high, dark, stained-glass windows, she felt small and unclean. She hadn’t loved her mother and her father enough.

  The services went on and on, but finally it was over and they were motioning to her to get up from the pew. She stepped into the aisle and Paul was beside her, strong and protective. They began the slow procession down the aisle to the gaping, sun-brightened doors, moving slowly behind the two coffins.

  They’re in there, she thought. Mom and Dad--they’re in those two draped boxes. They’re going into the ground.

  She felt her legs buckling beneath her, but Paul’s hand was strong and reassuring on her arm. She managed to keep walking until they were out of the church, following the caskets down the steps toward the waiting cars.

  Screaming. Somebody was screaming.

  Paul had arm around her shoulder, his anxious face close. She looked at him wonderingly, not understanding, until she realized all at once that it was she who was screaming.

  Angie wished she could die. She went limp, closing her eyes, expelling her breath, shutting out the sight, sound, smell and feel of the sacrilegiously bright day around her. Feet were scraping, clothes were rustling, voices were murmuring anxiously, hands were supporting her and someone was moving her down the steps. Dimly, she heard Paul’s voice saying, “I’ll take her home. I’d better take her home.”

  There was confusion and motion. Time went rushing by and then slowed to a crawl and then speeded up again. At one point she and Paul were in the back seat of a taxi, at another point they were in the living room of their own house, and at still another point he was giving her a cup of tea with the tea bag still in it. His face looked pale and worried.

  All at once she came to. It was the tea bag that did it. She looked at it and thought, Paul forgot to take the tea bag out. She was thinking and aware again.

  She looked around, suddenly wide-eyed. They were home. She was sitting in the armchair near the radiator, in the living room, with Paul standing in front of her, the worried expression still on his face. They were really and truly at home.

  The cemetery.

  “We didn’t go!” she cried.

  “Take it easy,” Paul said. “Take it easy, Angie. Drink your tea.”

  She shook her head wildly. Didn’t he understand? “We didn’t go!” she cried again. “We didn’t go!”

  “You got all shook up, Angie,” he said gently. “Nobody blames you. It was a hell of a thing. Funerals are the cruelest things in the world. I never knew that before but they are.”

  “But--Mom and Dad. We didn’t go to the cemetery!”

  “It’s good we didn’t,” he said. “We couldn’t have done anybody any good. And it just would have made you even more upset.” He laughed nervously. “You had me scared, Angie,” he said. “I thought you were going to die, right there on the church steps.”

  “I tried to,” she said quietly. “I tried to die.”

  “Hey! Cut that out, kid. Take it easy and let things settle inside your head. Don’t go getting dramatic on me.”

  She looked at him, his familiar, concerned face strengthening her, as his hand against her arm had strengthened her in the church. “Thank you, Paul,” she whispered. She reached out, tenderly, hesitantly, touching his cheek. “I’m glad you came home,” she said.

  “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come home.”

  “You’d be okay,” he told her. “You’re a good kid. You’re going to bounce back fast. Wait and see.”

  “Stay here with me,” she begged him. “At least for a while--for a few weeks, at least.”

  “Sure. What do you think?” He grinned, more naturally now, playfully poking her jaw. “I’m your big brother, little girl,” he said. “I’m responsible for you.”

  “Thank you, Paul.”

  “Only right now,” he said, “I’ve got a cup of coffee getting cold in the kitchen. Is it okay if I go out and get it? If I promise to come right back, I mean?”

  She smiled, nodding. “I think it’ll be all right,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  He got his coffee and they sat together in the living room. They were silent, mostly, saying small inconsequential things to one another, only at intervals. Angie needed time to get over the emotional explosion that had hit her at the church, and Paul seemed to realize this as he paced his own mood accordingly.

  They’d been there not quite an hour when Bob arrived.

  Bob, over the last two years, had gradually become, to a certain extent, a normal part of the household. He had dinner with Angie and her parents perhaps once or twice a week. He had spent many afternoons chatting with Angie’s father or working with him on the car. And he had long since come to the stage of personal relationship with the family where he no longer bothered with the doorbell. On arriving at the house, his normal method was to simply open the front door, walk in and shout, “I’m here!”

  That is exactly what he did this time. His shout, loud and ringing, went echoing through the silent house, emphasizing its new emptiness. Angie jumped, wide-eyed, feeling her nerves tighten suddenly.

  Then Bob appeared in the living room doorway, grinning fatuously. “Hi, folks,” he said.

  Angie could only stare at him.

  Paul got to his feet slowly, glaring at the boy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Don’t you have a brain in your head?”

  Bob stopped, open-mouthed. “Oh, golly!” he said. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, I forgot! I’m sorry--Paul, Angie, I’m really sorry, truly I am. I just completely forgot.”

  “You better forget yourself right on out of here,” Paul told him angrily.


  “Hey, now, wait a second!”

  “Never mind ‘wait a second’,” Paul said. “Just get out.” He strode across the room to Bob. “Go on,” he said. “Take off.”

  Bob looked over Paul’s shoulder at Angie, his eyes wide with surprise. “Angie! Tell him to stop this. Tell him it’s okay for me to be here.”

  Paul reached out and shoved the other boy, saying, “Just leave Angie alone. She’s had a rough time today. We don’t need idiots like you coming around to make things worse.”

  “Angie!”

  Angie looked from one to the other. She felt the nerves in her body tightening, coiling harder and harder like the mainspring of a watch. She hung onto the arms of the chair, afraid she was going to burst apart any second now.

  Because Bob brought it all back. All the guilt, terror, loneliness and self-pity that had gradually been soothed out of her by the quiet, reassuring presence of Paul was all coming back now. Bob’s presence had brought it crashing in upon her again. The betrayal of her parents, when first she had heard of their deaths, when she had used the knowledge to avoid committing herself with Bob. The second betrayal lay in her happiness at Paul’s having come home. And the third betrayal had occurred today when she hadn’t even accompanied her parents to the cemetery, and had made it impossible for Paul to go to the cemetery, either.

  Paul’s strength, his calm presence, had soothed her and made her forget these things, or at least had kept her from dwelling on them. But now Bob was here, bringing the raucous sight and sound of the non-grieving world, bringing with him the strong reminders of guilt.

  And. he was calling to her for help. He was looking over Paul’s shoulder at her and calling to her to turn against her brother. She couldn’t do it. Even if she’d wanted him to stay, she couldn’t turn against her brother.

  And she didn’t want him to stay. She didn’t want him near her at all, not now, not for a long time.

  But the old ambivalence was on her again. She couldn’t say yes to Bob, she couldn’t be what he wanted her to be. But at the same time, she couldn’t say no, either. She couldn’t simply end the relationship. She couldn’t tell him definitely that it was all over between them. She didn’t know which she wanted, not really, and until she did it was impossible for her to say anything at all.

  “Angie!” he called again. Paul pushed him once more, saying, “Leave Angie alone, damn it! Just leave her alone!”

  “Quit shoving me!” shouted Bob, beginning to get angry. “Let Angie talk for herself. You aren’t her father.”

  Paul stopped dead and stared at the other boy. At last, he said, softly, “You just keep putting your foot in it this morning, don’t you?”

  “If you’d get off my back for a minute--” Bob started.

  “I’ll get off your back,” Paul interrupted him, “as soon you get the hell out of here.”

  “Why?” Bob demanded. “Why should I get out? Angie and I are engaged. We’re going to be married. I ought to be here now. Ask her yourself.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Paul, “Angie’s only seventeen old. What do you mean, she’s going to marry you? She’s got years yet before she has to decide about marrying anybody. Right now, you’re just a guy she went steady with in high school, that’s all. And you don’t have any place in this house now. Nobody has any place in this house until Angie and I say so.”

  “Then ask her!” cried Bob.

  “I’m not going to ask her anything. You leave her out of this. She’s had a rough time and you’re just making it rougher.”

  Bob looked over to Angie again. “Tell him, Angie,” he pleaded. “Tell him it’s okay--”

  Paul shoved him again, harder this time, so that Bob almost lost his balance, flailing his arms for a second before catching himself against the wall. “I told you,” Paul said angrily, “to leave her alone. I’m not going tell you again.”

  Bob ignored him. “Angie--”

  Paul slapped him across the face with an open hand. “Leave her alone!”

  Bob, stunned into silence, raised his hand to a cheek made red by Paul’s slap. “You better be careful, Paul,” he said. “You better be damn good and careful.”

  “Out you go, you stupid little twerp,” Paul said and grabbed his arm.

  Bob twisted away and pushed Paul to the side. “Cut it out.” He started toward Angie, saying, “You haven’t said a word, Angie. Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to stay?”

  Angie looked up at him, her mouth working. She didn’t know what to answer. She couldn’t say a word.

  Paul leaped after Bob and spun him around. “Now. Goddamn you--”

  Then the two of them started a strange, slow, grotesque dance in the living room. Neither one really wanted an open fight, so no punches were exchanged. They merely pushed and shoved at one another, Paul trying to maneuver Bob toward the front door, and Bob trying to work back toward Angie.

  Angie watched them, hearing the labored sound of their breathing and the scuff of their feet against the rug, seeing the tense, angry expressions on their faces, watching them move around one another, pushing and being pushed, and she wanted to scream. But any sound, any word she might utter, would be a commitment in one direction or the other. And she couldn’t do it. All she could do was sit there, her face pale and terror-stricken, watching her brother and the boy she was supposed to marry build themselves up slowly to a real fight.

  The first punch was thrown by Paul, a hard, short chop to Bob’s chest, still more of a shove than a punch, and Bob replied immediately with a fist to Paul’s ribs. Then the fight began in earnest.

  Paul was taller, heavier and older than the other boy, and in somewhat better condition, but Bob was just as sullenly enraged as he was, and it was a nearly even fight. They stood toe to toe at first, slogging each other in the chest, ribs, stomach and arms, neither of them hitting for the face, neither of them giving an inch.

  It was the gradual development of the fight that was the most terrifying part for Angie. She knew that neither one of them really wanted to fight, and that all it would take at any moment was one word from her to make them stop. First, they had just been pushing one another, harder and harder, and now they were punching one another, but not aiming for the face yet, as though that would have been a step farther, as though they were still trying to hold back, still waiting for Angie to speak.

  Gradually, Bob was forced backward, Paul circling him, driving him slowly but steadily toward the door. Neither of them said a word--they only moved grimly toward one another, their faces set and hard.

  Then Paul caught Bob with a hard left to the side, just above the belt, and Angie saw Bob’s face twist with pain. Bob backed away, trying to protect himself, and Paul pressed in on him till Bob lashed out and hit Paul high on the right cheek, just below the eye. Paul stepped back but Bob moved in on him again. Paul stood him off with a fast left jab to the ribs and came driving across with a right that caught Bob on the side of the jaw and sent him reeling back against the wall.

  Angie thought for a second that Bob was unconscious, knocked out but still upright only because of the wall. Bob’s legs were buckling, his arms were dropping to his sides. Then he bowed his head forward, shaking it, suddenly pushing himself away from the wall and lunging after Paul again. He ducked away from a whistling right hand and bowled into Paul. They crashed over an armchair and fell heavily to the floor, Bob on top.