The Brothers K

by David James Duncan

  “I’ll write,” he managed to say.

  9. New Life

  On May 29, 1971, two men were limping down a road in the Deccan Plateau of India. A red sun was sinking in the smoky sky behind them. A full orange moon was rising in the smoky sky before them. The fields by the road were barren, the huts uninhabited, the landscape a moonscape thanks to ten years of drought. Both men were exhausted, their bare feet bruised and bleeding. Both were silent, their lips cracked from thirst. They were also stark naked—and as white as the supposed name of the train that brought them to this pass.

  Cresting a little hillock, peering in under the moonrise, they saw the faintly lit huts of the village called Dadagaon huddled beneath a blue cloud of cooking smoke. They knew already that the village had no electricity or running water, no police, hotels or taxis, no telephone or even telegraph with which to wire for help or money. Their only hope was to place themselves at the mercy of people whose lives—except for the occasional passing car or train—hadn’t changed in three thousand years. And though this prospect filled one of the Americans with terror, the other looked down at the huts, then straight ahead at the moon, and whispered, “Thank you! Thank you!”

  They made their way down to Dadagaon and picked out a hut like any other: dung-floored, mud-walled, about the size of a UPS truck. They stepped up to the open door, and waited to be discovered. A small child saw them, and let out a terrified scream. There was a stir inside. And when T Bar Waites suddenly found himself standing, double love-handles and all, before the stunned, rail-thin mother of a drought-stricken family whose annual income couldn’t have purchased one of his missing boots, he lost his voice, dropped his gaze, covered his privates, and stared down at the ground. But Peter—drawing on all the strength inside him, and all the misdirected love he’d ever felt for things Indian, things simple, and things true—just joined his palms together, gave her a slight bow and a still slighter smile, and said, without panic or shame or pleading, “Ma. Prem se bhiksha dijiye.”*

  And so began a new life.

  * “Mother. What you give with love, we accept.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  God’s House

  It’s a question of being so pitiful that God takes pity on us, looks down and says, “He’s done for. Let’s give him a few good words.”

  —Walker Percy

  First Adventist Church of Washougal/June 1, 1971

  Brother Beal rose up from his chair, a tall, striking, athletic figure of a man. But as he stepped toward the microphoned podium, his Lord, or some such invisible Prankster, seemed to grab a hidden valve in his backside and start letting all his air out. By the time Beal reached the mike his arms had shrunk to half their previous length and hung bent before his chest like a kangaroo rat’s, his head had sunk down between his shoulders like a stone thrown into mud, and a crevasse of piety so deep it looked like a tomahawk wound was fixed between his eyebrows. In a voice that carried the way flat beer tastes, he begged the congregation to please rise, and to turn, if they possibly could, to Number 108 in their hymnals. The organ plunged into the introduction like a man in hip boots trying to work his way upstream against a stiff current. Laura Chance found Number 108, held half of her hymnal out to her daughter—and Bet glanced at it, snorted, and let it drop: the hymn was “Shall We Gather at the River”—Irwin’s favorite.

  Mama had phoned Brother Beal a few days before and requested it, partly to give herself courage for what she planned to do once the hymn was sung, but also to surprise Bet—she hoped pleasantly. And now Bet slouched, sneering.

  Mama considered a reprimand, but only reflexively. Bet had been morose or fey or hysterical ever since Irwin left a year ago for boot camp. But since Papa’s phone call from the Mira Loma asylum just two nights ago—since she had snuck onto the extension just in time to hear him say to Mama that Babcock’s letter of retraction hadn’t helped, that he’d tried everything, that he’d lost hope and felt like he was losing his mind, that the drugs were relentless, that there’d been more electroshock, that Keys had blamed Papa for making it necessary and had banned further visits, that it couldn’t have been worse if the Vietcong had Irwin, that the last time he saw him he looked (and here Papa burst into a wracked, hacking cough) as though he was being tortured, and slowly, surely killed—Bet had been worse than fey. She’d been spiteful, impossible, vicious … But here. Here were the words. And for Irwin’s sake, Mama felt she must mean every one of them:

  Shall we gather at the river

  where bright angel feet have trod

  with its crystal tide forever

  flowing by the throne of God?

  She noticed for the first time that the hymn began not as a statement, but as a question. Shall we? Or shall we not?

  Yes, well gather at the river

  The beautiful, the beautiful, the river …

  The right answer. But the world was so full of wrong ones. (“The Mekong is huge. It took him forever to disappear …” “Christ’s love gets you killed here …” “Herod is alive and well …” “I killed Zaccheus …”)

  But her thoughts were everywhere.

  Ere we reach the shining rive

  lay we every burden down …

  Yes. She must gather herself fast. Because her moment was coming—the moment she’d lain awake all night planning for, praying about, dreading: the little silence, right after the hymn, when the congregation settled back in their pews, the guest preacher (could it possibly be that odd little Oriental man?) shuffled his sermon notes, and the ushers moved into place with the offering plates. Because today, when Brother Beal said Let us kneel, every man, woman and child in the place would gradually see that Laura Chance had remained standing. All night she lay picturing it—the murmurings, the mystification (Look! Poor Laura’s flipped!). Never in her life had she spoken up during a church service. But today, once everyone had noticed her standing, she would speak the words she’d rehearsed a hundred times: I would like to ask, as a very special favor, that every person here today offer a prayer for my family, and most especially for my son Irwin, who, he …

  How did I—Then what?

  Because this is a very difficult time for us. Him. And it would mean so much. So please. We need your prayers. Especially Irwin. We all do …

  Amen? Thank you? Whichever seemed best.

  Yes. Only then could she kneel. All night long she felt that God was asking this of her. And all night long she’d answered, Yes, Lord! I will. She’d even mentioned it to Bet on the way to church, hoping to surprise her, maybe bring her out of her sulk. Bet’s response had been to stare at her, then snort, and roll her eyes.

  But where had the verses gone? Could it be ending already? She gripped the hymnal harder, tried to steel herself.

  Yes, well gather at the river

  the beautiful, the beautiful, the river

  But her body. What was wrong with it? She felt her tongue dry and thicken, felt cold sweat sliding, almost slithering, down her ribs, felt her skin go clammy and her mind go blank as the joyless voices roared,

  Gather with the saints at the river

  that flows by the throne of God.

  With terrible speed the congregation took their seats; Bet too—and Mama felt the sideways leer, sideways spite, never should have told her. Then there was only Sister Harg, still fumbling with her aluminum walker, and Mama insanely hoping she’d get entangled in it somehow, just to stave off the—

  Now

  Only Laura Chance standing. Standing, yes, Lord, but also panting like an animal in labor as the first few faces turned. She saw Beal moving like a man underwater, the beautiful the beautiful the, laying aside his hymnal, swimming over to the mike, then lowering it, sinking with it, down into the river, down to his knees, where she too longed to go. She heard the words Let us kneel, saw the congregation move as one body: down,

  and her jaw fell open as though it had been broken, she gasped once, loudly, and the wave of nausea and humiliation broke so hard against
her that she collapsed back into the pew, nearly bounced down onto her knees, and sank deep, with the rest of the congregation, deep into the river …

  Irwin was sitting at a table in a big white room.

  On the table were colors—eight plastic bottles of bright paints.

  In the chair across the table was the volunteer girl.

  She opened all eight bottles. She smiled. Paint your life, she said. Paint whatever you feel, said the nice brown-eyed girl in the blue dress and white smock. Someone you love, some place you’d like to be. Anything you like, Irwin. Anything nice.

  “Yerrrr shurrr?” he slurred. He didn’t mean to speak this way. The shots. They’d made him a ventriloquist—a tiny ventriloquist, lost in the torso of his own gigantic puppet, struggling to reach up and operate the huge, flopping lips.

  But she smiled as she nodded, touched by his effort, or his blue eyes, some remnant of his looks. And it was her. It was the girl in blue he liked. Except for her smock. She must be new, must not know. So he wanted to help her—to simply touch, with color, the dead white of the smock. But could he really?

  Anything you like …

  Okay. Ever so gently, please don’t be frightened, ever so slowly, Jesus loves us, he reached across the table, a speck of bright green on the tip of his brush. But the instant it touched her he saw that she was weak, that already she felt only her aloneness, saw only his size, remembered only the warnings—smashed teeth! phantom boys! Her white smock became a fuse, his brush a flaming green match. He watched her explode, watched her mind turn white:

  Dont! she said viciously.

  “Sorrrreee …” Dropping the brush, pulling back as fast as the drugs would let him. But now the slowness made her think he was mocking her, toying with her. And already she was fleeing, locking him in, doing something terrible, “Nooo …” But she was gone.

  Anything you like, Irwin. Anything nice …

  He once saved a dog. Nice. Show her. Show her anyway.

  He painted the bridge, and the floating house. He painted Sparkle. But there was still no water in his river when he heard Snowmen in the hall. Fighting his fear, trying to use his panic, he painted in an awkward frenzy, clear off the paper, clear off the tabletop. And he got some of the swirling, some of the power, but his river was still too small, too wrong, more a dirt path or road when he ran out of brown.

  “Owwwwww!” Snowmen pounding the window, grinning at his river through the wired glass.

  Show her anyway. More brown!

  He tried black and yellow, got gray mud, tried red and blue, got purple, mixed it with the gray, got more gray, spilled it, saw the mess, knew she’d never understand, thought Christ, thought Christmas, thought Nice, took the green, started afresh, forced his flopping lips to sing, O Grissssmuh treee … O Crissssmuh …

  “Owwwwww! Real purty, Irwin!”

  But still he began to decorate it—the lovely ornaments, gifts piled beneath, little star at the top, red blood on the branches, bobbing head in the river, hand that never stops groping, never stops, never stops, not nice! But how could he fix it? It happened. And they were coming now, banging the door open:

  “Gee, Irwin. Can we watch?”

  He painted a box, gave it wheels. “The jeep!” he said loudly, hoping she was still out in the hall, still listening somewhere.

  “And what a nice tree growing through it! Owwwwwwwww!”

  Show her. He painted the legs, the little torso, tiny wrists, black band of the watch …

  “You’ve been naughty again, Irwin. Scaring little girls. And now it’s time to take your medicine.” The Snowmen started for him.

  “The boy!” he shouted, shoving the Mike one away. “Let me show her!” Painting the neck, the thin shoulders. But there was no head or eyes, there was no life when the Denny one, the savage one, grabbed him from behind, wrenched his arm up behind his back, laughed at his scream as the injured shoulder tore, shoved his head down on the table, “Look, Mike. Paint by number!,” his face dragging through the river, “You’re the art now, buddy!,” his eyes, his lips, erasing the little boy.

  “Owwwwwww!”

  “He wasn’t afraid,” he groaned, still hoping she was listening. “Not afraid!” he gasped. “And neither should we be!” But they were white, head to toe—clothes, skin and minds white—Mike and Denny, Snowmen in hell, taking him to hell too, lashing him to the gurney now, meat now, Jesus wants meat for a sunbeam. Sing it anyway: “God is my father, Jesus is my brother and the blessed Holy Spir—Aggh!”

  “Is my mom!” Mike roared.

  The white laughter. Out the door, no, down the hall, no … But there. There she was. So pale, so frightened. And crying now. So did she care for him a little? Tell it.

  “Life is green. Death is white. I only wanted to show you.”

  Eyes darting away. But tell it.

  “This is dying, and dying scares me. So I made you afraid. It was my fault.”

  “Awww. The poor little fella. Owwwwwwww!”

  Couldn’t see her now. But tell it.

  “God loves us, but kills us anyway. I forgive Him. I forgive you. Forgive me too. It’s all we can do.”

  No answer but the Snowmen: “Fergive me, Denny!” “Oh I do, Mike!” The long stark corridors, white tubes of light. “Fergive us, Irwin!” “Fer sure, man! It’s all you can fuckin’ do!” Tell it anyway.

  “I do forgive you, Mike. I do, Denny. Forgive me too.”

  So this is it, she thought as the wide wooden boat bobbed before her: the river.

  But someone kept jostling her: “Mama? Mama?”

  Till a reflex snapped: “What?”

  “Are you all right?” Bet’s voice.

  The reflex: “Yes.” But she had to look for several seconds before she realized the bobbing boat was an offering plate. Have I denied my son? Then she realized that every person in the pew was staring at her, waiting for her to pass the plate.

  She tore open her purse, dropped in ten dollars instead of the usual one, bowed her head, and began trying to breathe, to pray, to think. But when Bet took the plate she eyed it coolly, removed the ten, stuffed it back in her mother’s purse, and through the insufferable new sneer whispered, “Insult God with your cowardice, Mama, but not with your bribes. It’s embarrassing.”

  Slap her! hissed the reflex. But this was church. And the sickness inside her said, It’s true.

  Up at the podium Brother Beal had set his flat dead voice to droning: “And the Pathfinders raised over forty dollars at the big spring car wash last Sunday. Hearty congratulations, kids.” And Hugh’s broken voice, their son, her son: if the Vietcong had him … “The offering in your envelopes today goes to our fine new TV ministry, and the loose offering will go to the Game Room fund. Heartfelt thanks” tortured … “lovely flower arrangements this week the generous gift of Mrs. Beckenhurst, in memory of her husband, Rex. What a treat for us all. Elder Babcock sends his blessings” slowly, surely … “giving the guest sermon on the Bread of Life program for radio KIND, in Vancouver. But he promised to join us for the potluck dinner out at Deer Creek Park” killed … “golden opportunity to taste my famous potato salad” my son … “and what a day for it! So please, do come.”

  But why? When Irwin’s need was so great, why did it feel so wrong to ask for a shared prayer? Having never challenged the way they worshipped here, she’d never experienced the limitations. But the instant she stood up, alone and desperate, it seemed dreadfully obvious that some antiseptic, ill-tempered god of propriety had built a transparent wall between the congregation and their own lives, and that what they now worshipped was that wall. There was no one to be angry with, no one to blame: it had simply been decided before any of them were born that a hymn, a sermon and a ritualized prayer must meet their spiritual needs. “Well, I’ll not have it!” Mama whispered aloud. “This is Irwin’s church, these are his people. Who is going to pray for him if we—”

  Shhhhhh! People turning. Please shush! Behind her too, and the seasickn
ess, the humiliation washed through her again. Then Bet leaned hard against her shoulder. “Get serious!” she hissed. “This place put Irwin where he is. ‘Believe and you’re saved,’ they told him since Cradle Roll, so now he’s believing himself to death. And who’s gonna save him? Beal? Babcock? God? You? Stuff your prayers, Mama. They’re an insult to Irwin’s faith.”

  “When we get outside,” Mama, or the reflex, whispered, “I’m going to slap your face!”

  “Sure you are!” Bet retorted. “Slapping people’s easy. A thousand times easier than speaking up for your son. It’s so easy I might slap you back!”

  Shhhhhh! Before and behind them.

  “Please!” The woman in the pew behind them placed a well-meaning hand on each of their shoulders. But the words she spoke were too perfect: “If you two have a problem, this is not the place to try and solve it.”

  They turned, still fuming, to the front of the church. The guest preacher, an Elder Kim Joon, was being introduced by Brother Beal. “And though he’s a convert from our Korean Mission,” Beal was saying as the little man grinned like a shy Eskimo out of Babcock’s ostentatious igloo of a chair, “Elder Joon has caught on to our ways very quickly. He finished fifth in his class at Loma Linda University. He recently completed the four-year seminary in just three years. But I’ll embarrass him if I keep bragging him up like this. Elder Joon will be preaching today on the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, which, by the way, are a couple of real beauties for all you nature-lovers out there.”

  There wasn’t a stir from a nature-lover anywhere. Which left Beal no choice but to slouch back to his chair and sit down. Then Elder Joon stood, beamed his diffident Inuit smile, took a step or two forward—