by Rein Raud
“Probably not,” Dark agreed. “Even so, you can’t imagine how happy I am that we ended up meeting. You are staying in town for a little while longer, aren’t you?”
Brother shrugged under the covers.
“Until what I came to do is done,” he said.
“That garden? It really can’t be true that you’re only here for their garden, can it?”
“Of course not. I came to help my sister.”
“And you brought me a present as well,” Dark said, and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for that.”
“Maybe,” Brother said. “In any case, that’s all I’m able to do. Because I’ve learned how to love others through trial and tribulation; but the ability to be loved has remained out of my reach, all the same.”
“Why’s that?” Dark asked.
“Love springs from the ability to prefer imperfection over perfection,” Brother said. “From you understanding the shortcomings and flaws of your parents, your homeland, your children, and someone dear to you; naturally while wishing that those imperfections didn’t exist, but still never replacing them with anyone or anything else, so what that those things might be flawless.”
This time both of them were silent, until Dark started humming something to herself: a gentle but piercing melody that Brother had never heard before.
“Do you always sing?” Brother asked.
“No,” Dark answered, laughing. “Only when you’re truly with me.”
“Then I’d like you to sing always,” Brother said.
“Then everything’s fine,” Dark said, satisfied. “But I’m guessing you probably won’t take me with you when you leave again.”
“Darling Dark,” Brother said with a creeping smile, “of course not, why do you even ask?”
“Thanks,” Dark said.
The bank branch-office accountant had apparently grabbed something else along with the day’s till and a portfolio full of documents. Important data about the bank’s security systems, for example. For how else could one account for the multiple inexplicable transactions made from the bank headquarters’ most sensitive, most crucial accounts? Transactions that were done so cleanly that no one would have been capable of proving their illegitimacy in any way. Not taking into account the fact that according to the paper trail, either the banker himself or one of his deputies should have confirmed those transactions personally. Yet none of them had done so. They had been unsuccessful in tracking where the money had disappeared to.
His phone rang. It was the notary.
“Did you already hear what happened to the lawyer?”
“I did,” the banker answered, nodding. “He personally asked me to help him keep the matter quiet.”
After the lawyer’s wife had informed them they needed separate bedrooms, the man—in the clutches of ever more grievous suspicions—decided to prove to himself in the town’s tiny brothel that he did actually still possess all the vitality he needed. For a sufficient sum, a redheaded and plug-cheeked twenty-something moaned in his arms there in such a way that the lawyer was highly pleased with himself; but he had to relinquish an even heftier amount to the photographer who had been skulking by the brothel’s back door seemingly by chance. Although he could be sure the affair wouldn’t end up in the tabloids on this occasion, on top of everything else, the lawyer was now also beset by the gnawing doubt of whether or not his wife had found out about his little trip somehow, in spite of everything. Because a divorce filed because of his transgressions could ruin him financially—that, he knew.
“And how are you doing?” the banker asked.
“I’m doing well,” the notary replied contently. “A couple of days ago, the antiquarian sold his shop with my help. He received fifty antique gold coins.”
“Is that so?” the banker exclaimed.
“He sold it to that woman,” the notary said.
A pause followed.
“And everything’s alright with you now?” the banker asked.
“A telegram from Australia arrived this morning,” the notary said. “The correct documentation of the apple-orchard sale is a matter of a week’s time.”
This time, the pause was slightly longer.
“So, we can no longer count on you,” the banker finally stated. “Are you certain?”
“We’ll see,” the notary said cautiously. “I suppose we’ll see how things go.”
Rat-faced Willem was also able to rule out the remaining eighteen boys with unknown fathers relatively quickly. A full thirteen of them turned out to be all-around upstanding citizens, whose places of residence and fields of activity were not all that difficult to ascertain; another had possessed a dwelling until just recently, but was presently being detained in a pre-investigation correctional center in connection with a most serious case of tax fraud. Yet another required round-the-clock medical supervision as a result of his poor health and was therefore incapable of embarking on long trips, even though Willem was unsuccessful in finding the man’s exact address. After some fair consideration, Willem also crossed off the name of a man who had graduated from military school with high marks and afterward earned captain stripes, but was currently on an international peacekeeping mission—his exact location was a classified state secret, but Willem nevertheless deemed the military credible enough to not doubt its data.
Only two possible young men were left over, and here, Willem arrived at a dead end.
Because the mothers of both were long since dead—one during childbirth, one as a result of gas poisoning when the boy had been barely two years old. Information on both children’s fates was lacking. The town didn’t have an orphanage where the parentless children could have been sent, so it was highly likely that they could have been dispatched to somewhere farther away—that is, if it hadn’t been the case that relatives took them into their care.
Willem located both young mothers’ passport photos in the population registry, and placed them side-by-side on the table. They seemed so different in every respect, and such was even the case with their surnames. Sea and Wood. Sea had dark locks and dimples on her cheeks; Wood had long, straight light hair, and was serious even when smiling. Which of them had been the one to whom Laila’s father had been drawn with such an irresistible force that it had resulted in the birth of a child? Willem stared at the faces. Women like Sea left Willem himself feeling rather indifferent (just as he did them), since nothing was certain in their presence. But Laila’s father, on the other hand, had been a sensitive birdbrain—he might have seen them in a different light. Could that sort of a bohemian personality have been at all tempting to Wood? Yes, if her plan hadn’t in fact been to start a family, but instead just to get a child to be a companion in her lonely life. Wood definitely could have been that kind of a woman. Willem would have gladly envisioned someone like that close to himself, though not quite as a wife—rather, as a mother. His own mother had been an entirely different kind of person, and he generally preferred not to think about her.
It’ll take an eternity to track both of them down, rat-faced Willem thought. I’ve got to start with one or the other.
Let’s go with Wood, then.
He exited the archive and, still doubting his decision just a little, walked to an intersection with a newspaper stand on the corner. And then he did something that was simultaneously utterly illogical and, in its own unique way, exceedingly rational, and which pointed to Willem—against all odds—finding salvation before the story ended. Unlike many others. He walked up to the kiosk and purchased a pull-tab lottery ticket. If I win anything, he decided, then I picked incorrectly. Because it’d be cosmically unjust for the same exact person to make two correct choices in a row by chance.
He popped open the ticket, and not a single muscle twitched in his face. He had won—a new ticket. He threw the winning ticket in the trash and walked on.
The goateed antiquarian left his hometown by train. Felix had had important business to conduct in the city, he explained, and furthermore, al
l of his junk wouldn’t fit into a single vehicle anyway. But Felix had made a firm promise to come and meet him at his destination. Brother had come to help transport his things to the station in town, and they did indeed have to take two trips. The taxi driver regarded Brother in disbelief, since the last time they had met, Brother had been wearing only a single backpack, but now he was loading the vehicle up to the bursting point with large crates. It was only when the first load had been entrusted to the stationmaster and they went back for the second that he grasped the situation.
“Going to the city, sir, are we?” he remarked crisply.
“What can you do,” the goateed antiquarian sighed, and nodded not all that happily. “But my business will keep running,” he added, peeking over at Laila. “Just a change in ownership.”
“Even the name will stay the same,” Laila added. She was wearing a white blouse closed at the neck with a brooch.
“So, something’s changing and something’s staying the same,” the taxi driver remarked. “Just like always. Have a good trip.”
It was a foggy evening, and when they had finally hauled all of the antiquarian’s baggage through the tiny station café, through the waiting hall, past the baggage hold and the ticket counters, out onto the platform, and the train arrived, it was impossible to understand where the smokestack steam ended and the fog began.
“Well, what’s more to say,” the antiquarian said. “I hope that all goes well for you.”
“Why shouldn’t it,” Laila said, and nodded.
It appeared as if the antiquarian wanted to say something else, but he didn’t know how to put it exactly. He opened his mouth to begin several times, but only closed it again. Finally, he shrugged.
“Fine,” he said, and took from his jacket pocket a large, heavy gold coin with old raised and worn lettering.
“I don’t know how they found their way back to you,” he said, casting a quick glance at Brother, “but I know from whom. Go ahead and keep this one, Laila. In memory of your father.”
The antiquarian loved his son Felix more than anybody or anything else on this planet, but he was well aware that his son wasn’t the foremost reason to feel proud of himself.
He sighed, boarded the train, and didn’t look out the window again.
Brother and Laila entered the station from the platform and walked past the ticket counters and the baggage hold and through the waiting hall and through the tiny café, where there were four or five tired customers with wine glasses or coffee mugs before them.
One startled upon seeing the pair and raised his hand, as if wanting to stop time.
“Hold on,” he said.
They only recognized Cloves by his voice.
There wasn’t very much left of Cloves, but his hollowed expression saw deeper than it had before.
“I understand more now,” Cloves said. “I understand with my head a lot of what should actually be seen with the heart; I even understand that it’s wrong to be like this, but I’m incapable of anything else. Maybe I was capable, at one time, but that’s left me. Though I remember feeling in childhood like the whole tangible surface between me and the world was made up of eyes—of hundreds of thousands of thirsty eyes that were ready to devour every flicker of reality—now, all of those eyes have closed like evening blossoms.”
“I’m to blame,” Cloves said, “for thinking it meant reaching adulthood. I thought that ideals are like toys you stow away in a cupboard when you grow up; or like luxury odds and ends that people who’ve never had to experience worry over everyday things can allow themselves. I was wrong. I thought that I’d learned my way to strength, but actually, I’d surrendered to weakness.”
“It was always lousy of me to let my weakness be fed by someone who’d taken a much harder blow than I had,” Cloves said. “Maybe by longing to be with you, I was just trying, without realizing, to build a bridge back to where I came from; but in reality, I only sealed your own path into a loop. It’s futile to make the excuse that the loop trapped me as well. But it doesn’t matter anymore—we’re both free now. Is it better this way? I suppose so.”
“I know that we shouldn’t measure ourselves according to others,” Cloves said. “I know: it’s one thing to sacrifice the imaginary opportunities in your life in the name of someone or something; to make your decisions based on how it’d be better for those, who make your world possible. It’s an entirely different thing, though, to put up with criticism from those same people; saying you haven’t lived the way you’d have wanted, that you’ve given in too much and you don’t deserve them when you’re a man like that. But the strong don’t thank anyone, so you can’t have any other joy than the knowledge that they’ve become strong only thanks to you.”
“Fine,” Cloves said. “I won’t take up any more of your time. The only other thing I’ll say is that if I’d been stronger, then I might’ve even survived when the tribulations have broken me down to my basic particles. That some lofty aim could piece me together anew. Maybe even I’d have been a good brother then, too—to someone. But I haven’t the strength for it, and so I’m trying to at least lose with dignity. And I’m not going to ask whether you might ever want me back, because I don’t want your last memory of me to be ridiculous. If you’re able to forgive me for the wrong I’ve done you, then you’re going to do it someday anyhow, and if not, then there’s no point in me asking you. Everything that might happen to me yet is of no importance. I’m like an athlete who’s already broken through the tape at the finish line, but momentum will carry me forward a little while longer. Only that just like all of us, I’m alone on the track, because it isn’t a race.”
He fell silent, turned, and walked slowly out into the fog, where the train was picking up speed.
Not all that many people came to Cloves’s funeral, although the brass band played and the stationmaster likewise came in person, wearing full parade costume to pay his last respects, and for some reason, all of the tiny town’s three mailmen were also present. After a brief debate, Laila had decided to attend with her brother after all. The old-fashioned black dress with a high collar (the only suitable garment she could find in her closet) added a few years to her age and made her face look paler than she might have actually been.
Cloves had lived with his mother. She was a short and serious woman who had gotten by her entire life without anyone’s help. Laila and Brother stood in the short line to express their condolences to her, but when they came up before her, the way she looked at them made Laila forget the words she had prepared.
“Don’t say anything,” Cloves’s mother said. “I know.”
Laila and Brother both bowed their heads simultaneously.
“Or, actually,” Cloves’s mother spoke up, stopping them from walking away by touching Laila gently on the shoulder. “Just tell me one thing, please: he didn’t take more from you than he gave, did he?”
“No,” Laila said. She would have said it regardless.
“Good,” Cloves’s mother said, and had it been another day, she doubtless would have smiled, too.
It was all simple: the coffin, the speeches, and the few tears. And it was even simple for Laila to toss her flower into Cloves’s grave. She hadn’t managed to say anything in the station café those few days earlier, so she did so now.
At the wake, there were more places set at the table than there were people who came from the cemetery, and Laila and her brother didn’t want to stay longer than it took to raise a glass in memory of the deceased, either. Both were rather quiet that evening, although in reality, nothing could really have gone otherwise.
Most of his colleagues had acquired their nicknames by way of unusual features or some character trait, but the Surgeon truly had practiced medicine back when there was still a hospital in the little town. It hadn’t been possible for him to embark for better days along with the other doctors, since his mother couldn’t bear to leave her apple trees, and so, he had spent a while striving to keep his head above water
by assisting scared young women in the back room of his house and by giving neighbors health-based advice in other cases for a small fee. Nevertheless, the apple trees ultimately had to go, since the Surgeon hadn’t been able to properly heat their home (which really might have been unsuitably large for two people) in the winter, and in reality, the apples had never really been good for anything else than making a somewhat tart wine, which helped keep him from asking himself every night if his life might have taken a different course in some more far-off location, and whether he’d ever get over the damned chronic sneezing that had afflicted him ever since the hospital aromas disappeared from his life. For as long as his mother had maintained the strength to go outside, he would always walk with her back to that old orchard, though the house had long since been occupied by a large family with small children, who weren’t bothered by the Surgeon and his mother taking a look around. But as one might expect, one day, his mother didn’t go on that walk anymore; she didn’t go anywhere. Luckily, it happened just a short time before the Surgeon, his sinuses clogged, made a mistake while operating on a rich man’s girl, and so was sent to spend some time behind bars. He returned an entirely different person. But his knives were still just as sharp as before.
He was approached one evening as he stepped out of a café, which he had the habit of visiting for a few drinks of anise spirits in the afternoons so as to be relieved of his sneezing for a good hour or so. As if by chance, a dandy wearing tight-fitting checkered pants and a leather jacket stopped in front of the building—the type of person who always chooses the wine when visiting a restaurant in lesser-known company, but who never pays the bill. They quickly agreed upon a price as well as the size of the down-payment, and when the Surgeon had deposited the three packs of one-hundreds still wrapped in bank currency straps into his pocket, all that remained was for him to be shown whom the transaction concerned. To those ends, they met the next day in the park, near the fountains, and this time, the Surgeon had dressed in a clean, immaculately ironed shirt and a tie. The dandy looked just as he had the day before, so if anyone had happened to take a second, closer look at them, they would have marveled at two so different people being associated by anything at all.
