Brother's Keeper

by C. E. Smith

  ‘Stay where they can see you,’ Nick warns.

  Burkett turns his back to the car and scans the horizon while urinating in the dirt.

  ‘Hassad knows the Buick,’ he says as he zips his pants. ‘Maybe there are drones tracking us at this very moment.’

  ‘You’re on edge,’ Nick says. ‘You need to relax.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘When you’re jumpy they’re jumpy, and they’re the ones with the guns.’

  Another two hours pass before they arrive at a small house made of stone and mud brick. They park beside a dented Ford SUV with rope and wire holding the rusted bumper in place. Their captors, who for the last hours have been completely silent, shout praises to Allah when a group of bearded men, no doubt fellow jihadists, file from the house. It is a mixed group – both Arabs and Khandari tribesmen.

  The owner of the house, an elderly farmer, greets Burkett and Nick as if they were invited guests, introducing them to his teenage grandsons and offering them millet cakes and tea, which they gladly accept. Inside they eat and drink, sitting on the floor with the others in a loose circle around a tea kettle and propane burner. Against the wall are uncomfortable-looking pillows adorned with fragments of mirror and colored glass. When the old man begins to speak, the others fall silent.

  ‘What is he talking about?’ Burkett whispers.

  Nick waits a moment for the old man to finish. ‘He was there when Mullah Bashir, the jihadist leader, put on the cloak of Muhammad.’

  ‘What kind of cloak?’ The sharpness of his voice draws glances from the others. ‘They actually think they have clothes worn by the Prophet?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Nick says.

  ‘Assuming the mullah didn’t buy it in a consignment shop, how is Muhammad’s cloak supposed to have ended up in Khandaros?’

  ‘Legend has it that in the early seventh century, islanders heard about the Prophet and traveled to Mecca to meet him. He was dead by that time, but that didn’t stop them from collecting mementoes: his dagger, chalice, and cloak. All that remains is the cloak. Supposedly, when Mullah Bashir put it on, those in the crowd who were sick or lame were healed.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you would if the cloak had belonged to Jesus, or if it had happened in a church rather than a mosque.’

  ‘I have to assume that most people who believe in miracles do so in the context of a single religious tradition.’

  Nick seems on the brink of smiling. That smug, axiomatic style of disputation: Burkett finds it all the more irritating for being expected – for being so typical of Nick. Why does he all of a sudden find Nick so annoy­ing? His voice is like an allergen that prompts a stronger reaction with each exposure.

  ‘If God has the power to stop suffering,’ Burkett says, ‘why doesn’t he go ahead and do it? Why doesn’t he cure all sickness and heal all pain?’

  ‘You’re asking why suffering exists at all.’

  ‘How can you believe in a God who would allow it?’

  ‘Because he himself experienced it at its very worst.’

  He has an answer for everything, Burkett thinks: I’m the only one in this room who knows the feeling of doubt.

  He looks at his hands, the tremor worse by the hour. Recognizing the symptoms of withdrawal does nothing to mitigate them. What he needs is a Xanax, or at least a drink, neither of which he has any chance of finding here.

  After the old man retires and the lamp is put out, Burkett and Nick lie down, sharing a single blanket. He could make a list of the things keeping him awake: the mildew stench of the blanket, the rustle of the plastic sheet in the window, the chorus of snoring, Nick and his theological certainty.

  Burkett yearns to take a shower, or at least to wash the layer of grime from his hands and face. Earlier he saw a water tank on the roof, so there must be a working bathroom, but so far they’ve only gone outside to urinate. His sudden fastidiousness surprises him. He’s been kidnapped – possibly by the very men who killed his brother – and all he wants is to get drunk and take a shower.

  The door at the far end of the room, which leads deeper into the house, seems off limits to all but the old man. Perhaps there are women, the old man’s wife or daughters – the daughters hidden from the world of men, protected from sinners like Burkett. He imagines a fragrant bedroom just beyond the wall. He sees himself getting up, gingerly stepping past the snoring heaps, the stacked flip-flops, and Kalashnikovs.

  But the vision takes him instead down a carpeted hallway, a place from his memory. It is the lake house where many years ago he and his brother spent a weekend with friends.

  While the others were out in the boat, Burkett and Amanda, his brother’s girlfriend, found themselves alone in the house. It seemed to be a random encounter, but in truth each of them had stayed back in the hope of being alone with the other. Over the preceding months a kind of tension had developed inside of Burkett and when they kissed in that hallway it seemed like the final snapping of a cord stretched to its limit.

  That night Owen and Amanda, being Christians, slept in separate rooms, so Burkett got up and tapped on her door and she let him in. This was a night of firsts: her first time having sex, their first irrevocable betrayal of Owen. They swore it wouldn’t happen again, but in the weeks that followed their efforts to avoid each other only fueled the attraction. Since she and Owen never slept together, Burkett gravitated to her dorm each night as if the vacuum left by his brother were abhorrent to nature. One twin by day, the other by night: did she try to pretend they were the same person? Burkett wishes he could blame alcohol, but at the time he drank neither more nor less than the typical off-season wrestler.

  Amanda broke up with Owen two weeks after that trip to the lake. Since Owen seemed to have no concept of the antecedent betrayal, she and Burkett, in an attempt to make their affair seem legitimate, concealed the overlap by staging a careful escalation. Burkett took it as permission granted when Owen agreed that Amanda looked like she could use some company, that it might be a good idea for him to spend time with her. But how could Burkett have been such a fool? How is it that he failed so com­pletely to appreciate the pain his brother must have felt on merely seeing the two of them together?

  When Owen’s clavicle healed after the national championship, he needed to train for the Midlands wrestling tournament as well as the Olympic trials. Burkett had no such ambitions and would have preferred at that point, the spring of their senior year, never to set foot on another wrestling mat, but still he woke every morning at six a. m. to train with his brother in the wrestling room. Owen worried about reinjuring his clavicle, so they began slowly, easing over days and weeks back into their former vigor.

  Burkett and Amanda were spending more time together, and Owen had retreated into the fold of his Christian friends, so the brothers rarely interacted except during those morning sessions. Burkett began to sense a kind of rage in the way his brother wrestled. Each bout felt like a relentless assault, far beyond the intensity level anyone would reasonably expect in a practice setting. Morning after morning, Burkett left the wrestling room sore and bruised, knowing it was only a matter of time before he sustained the injury that would free him of any obligation to continue.

  A month before graduation, Owen came down on Burkett’s knee with the clear intention of tearing ligaments. Burkett saw it but allowed it to happen, even while knowing such an injury could end any prospect of future competition. And when he suffered no more than a sprain – enough still to spare him another month of brutality – he realized Owen must have pulled back at the very last moment.

  Owen found another drill partner and went on to win the Midlands tournament and become an alternate on the US Olympic team. Burkett sat with their father in the bleachers at both tournaments. It was during the finals at Midlands that the old man with tears in his eyes said, ‘
I have a son who wrestles like a god.’

  Only after the brothers had moved to different cities for medical school could they sustain a fiction that nothing had come between them. There was never any kind of apology on Burkett’s part or, as far as he knows, any forgiveness on Owen’s, but isn’t this how it is between brothers? Is rivalry not essential to the relationship? Like wrestlers, each man pushing against the other. Perhaps he most feels the loss in the sudden absence of that opposing force. He’s off balance, reeling without purchase. There is no one now to envy, betray, or forgive – no one with whom to compete.

  10

  In the morning they set out on foot, following a dry creek bed into the hills. Their original captors having returned north, Burkett and Nick now find themselves under the watch of three Arabs and two native Khandaris. The tribesmen wear hoops in their ears and shells woven into their hair. Two of the Arabs carry large framed backpacks with stuffed pockets and dangling tools and canteens. It is the third who seems to be the leader – he walks in front and shows the least interest in Burkett and Nick. The strik­ing thing about him is that, in addition to the standard Kalashnikov, he carries a scimitar against his back and a large, ornate dagger at his waist.

  The crumbling ruin of the Khandarian Wall stretches across a valley, disappearing into the hills on either side. Kings built the wall over a thou­sand years ago in defense against the native Khandaris, who were viewed by the Arabs as barbarians. Once as high as thirty feet, with periodic guard towers, all that now remains of the wall are remnants of its foun­dation, with jagged projections like a row of broken teeth spanning the width of the island.

  Just south of the wall they rest in the shade of a carob tree and eat its chocolate tasting legumes. Nick speaks to their captors in Arabic, which surprises them and no doubt causes them to wonder what they might have inadvertently revealed. Burkett considers it a mistake for Nick to show his hand, even if it earns him a measure of respect, even if that respect could spill over to Burkett as well.

  ‘The leader is Safiullah,’ Nick says when they’ve resumed walking.

  ‘What else did you find out?’ Burkett asks.

  Slowing his pace, Nick turns and speaks under his breath: ‘There will be ransom negotiations when we reach our destination.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  Nick looks away without responding, perhaps regretting how much more they could have learned by simply eavesdropping.

  ‘When do we get there?’ Burkett speaks loud enough for the others to hear. This is his way of pointing out the uselessness of Nick’s information.

  ‘About two days,’ Nick says in a defiant whisper. ‘Apparently it’s a large house with running water and electricity, and room enough for all of us to sleep. They say we’ll be comfortable.’

  ‘Great, tell them I’ll take a non-smoking room with two queens,’ Burkett says. ‘And preferably a minibar.’

  A path takes them through a verdant forest whose canopy breaks the afternoon sunlight into slanted beams. On a large boulder someone long ago had chiseled the eye and teeth of Samakersh, and the lichen crusted eye seems locked on Burkett as he passes.

  He lags behind till he feels a nudge against his back, the last of the jihad­ists urging him forward with the barrel of his rifle.

  Kidnap, he thinks: to nab a kid. Perhaps for him the better term would be abduct. Duct, for lead. To lead away – farther and farther away.

  By the time they leave the cover of the trees, he wants nothing more than a glass of wine – red wine, then rest. Wine is the thing that will enable him finally to relax, to sleep. One glass and he would be able to sleep even while walking. If he collapsed, they could leave him behind or carry him. He’d be fine either way.

  He realizes what has made him think of red wine: the faint odor of pinot noir. The most likely source is the Arab walking a few paces ahead, the bladder dangling from his shoulder. It looks to be made of lambskin or leather, some material porous enough to allow the smell to seep through. And how appropriate that the spout is plugged by a cork.

  They scale a sunlit talus, staggering their positions to avoid the small avalanches created by those above.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ Burkett asks when they reach the top. They look at him, confused, till he pantomimes drinking. One of the Arabs opens his backpack and offers him bottled water.

  ‘No,’ he says pointing to the Arab’s canteen. ‘I’ll just take some of that.’

  ‘Drink this,’ Nick says. He sips from the proffered bottle of water before passing it to Burkett. ‘They brought the bottles for us. They don’t want us to get sick.’

  ‘But they have wine,’ Burkett snaps. More calmly he says, ‘I just want to know why they’re carrying wine.’

  ‘There’s no wine,’ Nick says.

  ‘Just ask,’ he says.

  ‘Why would you think they’re carrying wine?’

  ‘Can you not smell it? Just ask him if it’s wine.’

  Nick hesitates, then asks, and it’s clear from their expressions that the answer is no. Alcohol is forbidden. But the Arab with the canteen must be lying. He’s obviously trying to hide his drinking habit from his fellow Muslims.

  Burkett and Nick finish the water. Nick hands back the empty bottle, which one of the tribesmen tosses into the brush.

  Again they set off, Burkett trailing that canteen, the smell ever stronger. After about half an hour (he can only guess at the passing time from the position of the sun and the length of his shadow) he stops the Arab with the canteen and again asks for a drink. As before, one of the others pro­duces a bottle of water, but Burkett insists on the canteen.

  Nick stands a short distance away, gazing toward the sky yet radiating disapproval. Burkett through long exposure feels immune to moral scorn. His impulse is to guzzle the entire canteen, but as he takes the bladder and removes the cork he decides to restrict himself to just a few sips.

  He spits it out – nothing but water. Only the wine he imagined could have pierced the dryness in his throat.

  He drops to his knees and retches. A band of saliva hangs from his lower lip, a liquid connection to the dust. He must not be so parched after all.

  Inside him is a void and there are separate versions of himself falling through it. One version is responsible for the tears brimming in his eyes, another for his desire to keep hold of his dignity. Why is he crying? He doesn’t remember the last time he cried – never in his adult life, not even the day he learned of his brother’s murder.

  ‘Stop,’ Nick says. He grips Burkett by the elbow and drags him to his feet. ‘They see your crying as shameful.’

  ‘I don’t care how they see it.’

  ‘It’s easier to kill a dog than a man,’ Nick says – probably some local proverb.

  Safiullah and the others watch from a short distance ahead. Burkett half expects to be prodded from behind, but the solitary gunman bring­ing up the rear has settled into a squat, his rifle at a vertical beside him. Burkett wonders why they are waiting. Is his breakdown the excuse they needed to rest? More likely they’re simply enjoying the sight of an Ameri­can making a fool of himself.

  Now what he smells is blood. It must be something in the soil – iron or copper perhaps in the small stones that clatter on the path. This was the source of his earlier mistake. The smell of wine so closely resembles the smell of blood – he can’t think why he’d never noticed till now.

  It transports him back to the operating room: an open appendectomy, perhaps. He sees the slick intestinal coils, feels the heat of the abdominal cavity. Sutures feel taut as guitar strings as his fingers flutter through one-handed ties. His steps on the path fall in cadence with the heart monitor.

  On a downhill track they encounter a herd of about twenty goats, each with a tin bell at its throat. The men and animals file past in oppo­site directions, and Burkett runs his palm over the fur, fe
eling their spines. Behind them climbs an elderly goatherd, his hands clasped at his back, his torso bowed almost as low as his wards. A rifle hangs from his shoulder. He doesn’t speak or in any way acknowledge the party, even when Nick greets him in Arabic.

  At the bottom of the slope is a small stream, where the men drink and fill their canteens. Burkett and Nick are given a bottle of water to share, but Burkett, after only a sip, leaves the rest for Nick.

  Safiullah stands over Nick, berating him for reasons at first unclear, at least to Burkett. The goat bells are still audible, so Safiullah, despite his anger, is keeping his voice to a whisper. Burkett watches his hand as it moves from the dagger to the belt buckle and back again. Nick opens his mouth to speak but falls silent when Safiullah slaps him across the face. Safiullah then turns and scowls toward the path, as though wishing he could slap each of the goats as well. And all at once Burkett sees the problem: Nick shouldn’t have spoken to the goatherd.

  They follow the stream through a narrow defile with high rock faces on either side. Nick has to walk near the front where Safiullah can keep an eye on him.

  Shaded from the afternoon sun, Burkett rubs his arms against the cold. He wonders if he has a fever on top of the nausea. This is withdrawal, he thinks: his body revolting against him. I would give it to you if I could, he wants to say to his stomach, to his trembling hands.

  It is dusk when he stops and vomits. To support himself he grips the weeds of an embankment, his arms outstretched as if tied for whipping. The others hardly break stride. It’s getting late, and there is nothing surprising in a westerner’s gastroenteritis. He falls back into line, the pen­ultimate spot, but almost immediately vomits again, this time onto the stones of the creek bank. He hears the jihadist chuckling behind him but doesn’t bother looking back.