The Brother

by Rein Raud

  “That’s him,” the dandy then said, pointing toward the park gates. “Bless you!” he added when the Surgeon sneezed. They nodded a goodbye, briefly, since at that moment, they both thought they would never meet again.

  The Surgeon always knew exactly what he was doing, and was capable of carrying out everything necessary: unseen, he could track someone through alleyways packed with people just as well as on side-streets devoid of them—even someone making his way across a city without any apparent destination; he could observe from a distance, for days on end, persons of interest to him, just as well as he could stalk catlike across rooftops, noiselessly open a window, hold his breath for an outright unbearable length of time, and naturally also—after striking the carotid artery on his first slice—of pressing the opened straight-razor into the victim’s own palm without letting himself be smudged with blood. Those kinds of deaths did not occur all that often in these parts, although frequently enough to arouse justified suspicions among the drowsy local police; nevertheless, the Surgeon had never left a trace behind, and on top of that, he never took care of people who would be mourned by anyone whose words carried greater weight.

  Even now, everything could have gone the way it always did. But just at the very moment when, deep in the middle of the night, he leaned over the face of the man breathing evenly in the bed, the man’s eyes opened as if he hadn’t actually been asleep. He stared at the Surgeon for a few moments, then began to speak. He spoke softly, but rapidly, and it was almost impossible for the Surgeon to tear himself away from that voice.

  “It’s generally believed,” Brother said, “that all types of sneezing are different, and therefore their treatment has to differ, too. There’s hay fever, which you can treat by sticking needles into the right points in your auricle; and there’s the common cold, which can be treated with an infusion of linden blossom and raspberry stalks. And then there’s also nervous sneezing, which sometimes strikes those who aren’t big fans of speaking in front of large auditoriums, and which can ordinarily be overcome by a sip of cognac; however, you have to personally believe it’ll help. And there are others. Until all those little tricks have been tried out, people maintain the steadfast conviction that every form of sneezing simply requires its own cure, and there’s no point in trying to counter it with a single measure. I thought the same thing until one time, I ended up stopping by an old kook’s place near Barcelona—a man who’d read Ramon Llull and the Kabbalah all his life, and the dust from his books made me sneeze incessantly. He taught me that in spite of everything, there also exists a tincture that eliminates the affliction at its roots so it’ll never return, and since ingesting it, I haven’t sneezed again in the rest of my life. He gave me a little bottle of it to take along and promised that one day, it might save me or one of my loved ones from great peril, but I haven’t needed it in years. Yet two days ago, when you started following me in the park for the first time, I remembered it, and I fetched it from of my bag for you. And now, you’re here.

  “What the hell,” the Surgeon said after considering it briefly. “Let’s give it a try.”

  When the innkeeper of the Lark Boarding House, which was perched on the outskirts of town, went to collect rent about a week later and found that one of her guests (who maintained a questionable lifestyle but was always dressed fashionably) had slit his own throat, the police officers initially didn’t want to believe it was a suicide, since although the dandy had frequently been in trouble for gambling debts, they found in his closet, beneath a pair of properly-folded checkered pants, an excessively large quantity of cash for this to be true—three packs of one-hundreds still bound in currency straps. On the other hand, it didn’t seem at all credible that some unknown, villainous intruder had just gone and left that unhidden fortune untouched. Somewhat hesitantly, the young lieutenant heading up the investigation also tried searching for the Surgeon, but heard that the man had put his apartment up for sale a few days earlier and then left town, his destination unknown. And since no one else was especially interested in the case, either, the police officers ultimately just gave up; they were long-since accustomed to living in a world where they were concerned only with what could be said out loud.

  Rat-faced Willem now knew Brother’s true name, but even so, he was very well aware of the fact that it was merely a tiny step forward along the path he had begun, and there was still a ways to go. For what good is a name if it isn’t tied up in a network, connected to faces over the span of time, discovered in the trails that could demarcate the whole world? It was a mere word, a moment of moving air, a few lines on paper. It could most definitely be the case that the greater part of his work still lay ahead.

  Over the first days of the new stage of his search, one disappointment after another befell Willem. He was unable to locate any of the Sea family’s relatives, not even distant ones, and only one former neighbor had a hazy recollection of her; so hazy that not even his confirmation of Sea’s relationship with Laila’s father would likely have held up against a talented cross-examiner in court. But Willem didn’t need that attestation anymore. What was worse was that after the birth of Sea’s son, he had disappeared without a trace. Regardless, someone had to have taken him from the hospital, and someone had to have arranged Sea’s funeral, as well. Willem had no choice but to infer that Laila’s father had taken care of that, too, but inferences weren’t enough for him.

  Where had Laila’s father taken his son? Had they rented an apartment here in this same town? Or did the man leave, an infant in his arms? So much time had passed that certainly neither hotel records nor ledgers of apartment tenants were still preserved—and even if they had been, it wouldn’t have been any easier, since rat-faced Willem lacked a single address, a single lead to follow.

  What might still remain from that time at all? Does there exist something, wondered rat-faced Willem, that might allow me to peek over that high wall of time, if even for a moment, into tens of years ago when that tall, mysterious brother was screaming in diapers for his mother’s breast, the taste of which he wasn’t even destined to sample?

  And then he got it. The hour wasn’t all that late, so he would still have time to get a thing or two done today.

  “You’re the first person to ask for them,” the harsh-faced, long-necked woman in a purple dress had said to him. “The very first ever; at least as far as I know.”

  Rat-faced Willem was unsure of whether he should be cheered or embarrassed by this fact. He helped the woman brush the thick layer of dust off the hard cover, set it carefully on the table, and opened it to the middle. The evening newspapers published dozens of years ago had turned brittle over time and could tear at any movement, so he tried to proceed as carefully and slowly as he could manage.

  On the front page of the edition printed on Brother’s birthday was a lengthier interview with a hockey star from the area, who only commented in passing on rumors about his imminent marriage, and on the next page, a doctor explained the dangers associated with rapid weight-loss: after ending up in the bloodstream once again, toxins that were stored up in fat cells over the years can cause health complications and exert unusually strong pressure on the liver. The next day’s leading story was dedicated to a water-main burst at a warehouse, while the reverse page spoke about a soon-to-open new history museum and the successful performance of the local brass band at a review held in the capital.

  How different were the times, how different was the world, mused rat-faced Willem. The people . . . but the people were still the very same, deep down inside.

  On the back page, he found a short piece about Sea’s unfortunate death. Mourning her was her newborn baby boy. There wasn’t a single word about where and with whom the baby boy was, only a reference to a generous admirer, in whose opinion the death was a tragedy that was completely worthy of public attention, as well as Sea’s button-store co-workers’ recollections of her kind and always-cheerful disposition. But that was obvious from the picture that accompanied
the obituary, too.

  Again, nothing.

  Then, his gaze fell upon the adjacent article about a fellow citizen who had died while on a mountain hike in Croatia, and he realized that he had started his quest from the wrong end entirely.

  “You’ve been looking so good lately,” Gloria said when Milla poured her tea.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Milla asked with a smile. “Life has a completely different flavor.”

  A shipment of new furniture from Milan had arrived the day before, and Gloria was the first guest to whom Milla had offered a seat in their glossy black leather armchair. They were eating tiny marzipan cakes with very long-handled spoons, and both had also taken a small glass of excellent white port wine with their tea.

  “But things aren’t so bad for yourself, either,” Milla said.

  “Sure,” Gloria snickered. “And when I finally get a divorce from that bastard, take a look at me then.”

  “What’s holding you back?” Milla asked in surprise.

  “Hah—he should get caught with something himself,” Gloria explained. “I can’t let him strip us of everything, now can I?”

  “He’s in pretty bad shape, isn’t he,” said Milla, who had last encountered the lawyer a few days earlier at an official lunch, to which she had had to accompany her husband.

  “Maybe he’ll up and die,” Gloria said with a laugh. “I doubt it, though. Hatred only keeps men like him alive and kicking.”

  “I suppose you know best,” Milla said, nodding. It was easy for her to say, since she had personally married out of love; at least that was how it had seemed to her.

  “Hatred,” Gloria said, apparently more to herself. “How’s it even possible to live without hating?”

  “Mikk is very angry on occasion, too,” Milla remarked after a few moments. “Just a few weeks ago, for instance, a ship of his in Liverpool was detained for two days over some misunderstanding, and it was like he was at his wits’ end. All he did was pace back and forth across the room like a caged lion and wouldn’t say anything, but when he looked at you, then it was a look that could shatter glass.”

  Gloria wasn’t listening to her at all, but instead staring out the window. Strolling down the oak allée toward the Villa was a man in knee-high boots, carrying a box of gardening tools.

  “Is that him?” Gloria asked. Milla stood up to get a better view, although she knew very well who it was.

  “That’s him, yes,” she said.

  “Nice,” Gloria said, nodding approvingly.

  “Oh, he’ll be finishing up the garden in a couple of days,” Milla said. “And summer will be over soon, too.”

  “All too true,” Gloria agreed.

  “I’ve become so accustomed to him somehow,” Milla said. “I can’t even really imagine how it’ll be when he’s not coming or going.”

  “He’s really that good, then, is he?” Gloria asked, smiling.

  “What do you mean?” Milla asked, not catching on.

  “Oh, come now,” Gloria smirked. “It’s entirely obvious that the garden is merely an excuse for you two.”

  Milla blushed lightly at her friend being able to think that of her, but said nothing so as not to dispel the thought.

  For starters, Laila decided, I’ll need to make a few small rearrangements.

  After she had determined that the store’s commercial situation wasn’t anything to complain about, she closed shop for a few days. The goateed antiquarian owned his own little cottage with a yard on the outskirts of town, which he intended to continue using as a summer home in the future, but he had slept in the store’s second-floor office space (which had originally been designed as an apartment) quite frequently. Laila now had the rooms reconfigured into her personal living quarters, since she planned to never again wash a single stitch of laundry for anyone she didn’t love. Understandably, though, the upper floor’s present state—which the antiquarian had allowed to get out of hand long ago—didn’t suit her, either. The task was readily undertaken by the young twins Hendrik and Hindrek, whose mother had once been the Villa’s chef, and after the rooms had been transformed from dim chambers carrying the atmosphere of an old bachelor into a cozy and well-lit home, Laila also had her sideboard, her dresser, her chiffonier, her tea table with curved legs, and naturally the chairs with the monograms on their backs brought upstairs, and although she now had new mugs, she stirred sugar in them using the Villa’s silver spoons.

  So, here I am, then, she mused. Still free, but grateful only for my memories.

  But that wasn’t all. Now, in the ground-floor shop, she was able to undertake what she had dreamed of for years. An antique store doesn’t necessarily have to be dark and a little musty itself, she decided, and so she rearranged items as she saw fit. Giving them breathing room, of course. And light, not just in the daytime: she plugged in all of the old ceiling- and desk lamps that were still in working order, so that they could glitter cheerfully in the evenings. She likewise removed the ribbons banning people from sitting on the walnut chairs.

  And she had the dollhouse set up on a small table all on its own along the rear wall, together with all of the dollhouse furniture and tiny lamps arranged within it so that the lost world would return, too; and she placed a bold-lettered sign in front of the dollhouse reading: “Definitely not for sale”.

  How did she manage to do all of this? How was it possible for so much room to suddenly flood the narrow shop piled high with antiques? Perhaps because the first project that Laila had the twins Hendrik and Hindrek accomplish was to carry the heavy swan four times larger than life (that no one would ever buy, anyway) out of the store and onto the patch of grass in front.

  “If it can’t fly, then it can at least guard the building,” she said.

  Rat-faced Willem remembered clearly that Laila’s father was dead (and Laila wouldn’t have inherited the Villa any other way, of course), but he hadn’t considered that fact to any greater extent before, nor had he rifled through the lawyer’s documents. At the same time, it made sense that the little town’s evening newspaper would publish obituaries even for those fellow citizens who had been struck down by death abroad. At least for those, whose fates could be of any kind of interest to readers—and the Villa’s former majestically mannered owner was undoubtedly such a man. And if one were to infer that Brother had grown up (wherever) in his father’s custody, then . . . then perhaps the solution wasn’t so far off anymore, after all.

  The next evening, Willem, armed with the correct date, was back at the library. Working there today was a different, older woman, stout and gray-haired, who didn’t display the slightest shred of incredulity at Willem’s request, even though an identically thick layer of dust covered that year’s volume of evening papers, too. He found the article he sought in an edition published a couple of days after the right date, which was also natural, since back then, information didn’t circulate as fast as it does today.

  Rat-faced Willem read. He read about the fire in the hotel, read about the tiny boy who ran back to rescue his teddy bear, read about the father who rushed after his child and into the fire, from which neither of them escaped.

  He smiled. Not, of course, because, but precisely in spite of the fact that it was a sad tale. He simply liked to know more than others.

  When Laila descended the stairs in the morning to open up the revamped store for the first time, someone was already standing outside on the doorstep and peering in through the glass window.

  “Welcome,” Laila said, opening the door.

  It was a man about sixty years of age or slightly older, but strong and with a healthy appearance. He was wearing shorts and a light jacket over a simple collared shirt, and was carrying a baseball cap. And he was very tan.

  “Hello, there,” he said, “we’d like to ask . . .”

  “Yes?” Laila asked, waiting when the man fell silent. Now, Laila noticed that there was someone else standing outside—a woman about the same age and just as tanned as the ma
n, who was staring at the large swan four times larger than life (that no one would ever buy, anyway).

  “That bird out there,” the man continued, “is it for sale?”

  “Of course,” Laila said.

  “Fantastic,” the man said. “The thing is . . . well, we’d like to buy it.”

  “We’ll pay whatever you ask,” added the woman, who had now also entered the store.

  “Come, now,” the man said to her.

  “We’ll pay whatever you ask,” the woman repeated. “And don’t go thinking we’re some kinds of kooks. It’s just that we already have a similar swan, the very same size, out in our garden already, next to a little pond.”

  “Alone,” the man specified.

  “Exactly,” the woman said. “You do know, don’t you, that swans never change partners over the course of their entire lives?”

  This is a cause for celebration, Laila reckoned. I’ll put together a little party, she thought, and the thought didn’t even seem strange to her at all. I’ll invite guests to come over and order food and cake from a restaurant and buy champagne from the store. I’ll invite Hendrik and Hindrek and their mother and then I’ll invite the teacher, Mr. Salt, and Mrs. Cymbal, and I’ll invite the photographer Gabriel, too; so what that I haven’t been in love with him for a long time already. And, of course, I’ll invite my brother, thanks to whom this has all come true.