My Brother the Enemy

by Rupert Colley

  Chapter 15: The Hospital

  ‘Monika, my name is Monika. Does it matter?’

  ‘It’s not her that’s injured, it’s my brother,’ added Martin.

  The corridor bustled with people; a pair of stretcher-bearers pushed pass them, carrying a small girl huddled in blankets. ‘Make way,’ they shouted as they zigzagged their way along. Somewhere, someone screamed. The doctor pulled on his goatee. ‘You can see how busy we are. There’s no way I can leave.’

  ‘But he’s in too much pain to move,’ said Monika, trying not to lose her patience.

  ‘Then there’s nothing we can do. Now, if you’ll excuse me...’ He turned to leave, tucking a clipboard under his arm.

  Monika and Martin looked at each other. Martin shrugged, obviously prepared to accept the doctor’s last word. Monika however was not. She ran after him, sidestepping a man on crutches and two women sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, both quietly crying, one soothing and stroking the hair of the other. ‘But tell me, what can I do? He could die there.’

  ‘Look, young lady, I don’t know how else to tell you. The hospital is heaving with injuries, half the staff have disappeared and I haven’t slept for three days. We’ve run out of all medicines, antibiotics, chloroform, disinfectants, you name it, everything. We’re operating without anaesthetics and for every patient we send home, another five take their place. And you’re asking me to leave all this to traipse two kilometres there and two kilometres back to see your boyfriend. In the time I do that, we could lose another twenty. I’m sorry, truly I am, but what do you suggest I do?’

  Monika knew she didn’t have the answer. The doctor pondered her silence for a few moments. More people passed. Nearby, the two tearful women held on to each other. The doctor scratched his goatee and threw her a look that said this time he didn’t expect to be followed. She didn’t.

  Martin took her hand, ‘We did our best.’

  She shook his hand off. ‘I did my best. I didn’t hear you protest.’

  ‘Oh come on, Monika, look at this place. The doctor’s right, you know he is.’

  ‘So what do we do then?’

  ‘Go back to him, keep him warm, keep his spirits up. I’ll hunt around the pharmacists and try to find something.’

  Another pair of stretcher-bearers rushed by. Monika and Martin leant back against the wall to allow them through. This time, the victim was a middle-aged man, his leg blown off leaving a congealed mesh of bloodied rags.

  Monika had seen enough. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  *

  It felt as if someone was pressing down a huge pile of bricks onto the side of his face. The pressure was unrelenting, the torment constant. Occasionally, a spasm of pain washed over him leaving him exhausted and afraid. The inside of his mouth felt like a cavern as he probed with his tongue, feeling the irregular and alarming contours on the right side. He could still talk but the effort was too much. Swallowing was painful and he hadn’t eaten, drinking only water through a straw that Martin had found in a deserted café. He was frightened – frightened of what was going to happen to him, how he was going to get to the hospital. Frightened of the pain to come, frightened of how he looked. The future loomed ahead of him, filling the quiet hours as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and it was no longer a future he could envisage, not one he could look forward to. It had taken a second to shatter the certainties in his life. And nothing would ever be the same again.

  He looked around him. He felt imprisoned in the living room that looked as if it could collapse on him at any moment. There were no lights, no glass in the windows, not an inch of surface free of powdery, snow-white dust. His body sunk into a bed of white dust within the patchwork quilt. Martin must’ve have manoeuvred the bed in from the second bedroom. An upturned crate served as a bedside table, bare but for the candles, a half-full packet of cigarettes, a box of matches and, hidden beneath it, a revolver – for when the Russians come, Oskar had said. Beside the bed a bottle as a bedpan and a chair frame – the woven seat having disintegrated. The curtain rail had fallen on one side, leaving a trail of curtain, once blue, now dusted and torn. The mantelpiece had caved in, ornaments lying on a heap in front of the grate. Pictures hung at peculiar angles, large chunks of masonry had fallen and were now embedded on the carpeted floor. And everywhere, shards of glass and this all-pervading layer of white dust.

  A whole series of needs plagued him, none urgent but together forming a mesh of discomfort and self-pity – the need to urinate, to eat, to drink, to escape this cold. And above all, to rid himself of this pain, this clawing pain that refused to disappear. And lingering beneath it all, the desire to know where Monika was, what was she doing, was she with Martin?

  Martin. Never again would anyone confuse the two of them. No longer the need to differentiate the two by the extra mole, the extra smattering of freckles. The difference between them was now as marked as black and white, as beauty and the beast. And he, Peter, the one with the soft heart, the forgiving nature, cast as the beast, the gruesome one. But all the time, his former looks were there to see, to admire. For the rest of his life, he knew whenever he looked at Martin he would see, not his twin, but his own face as it should have been. Whatever was about to happen, he knew that once it was over, he had to escape, to finally break away from his other half, to pretend he’d never existed. He couldn’t bear the thought of staring at himself sitting on the other side of the room, bagging the pretty girls that wouldn’t give him a glance, enjoying the life that should have been his to share.

  A shaft of light stretched across the room, shadows, a familiar voice. She was back. Please God, let her have brought help, something to make this pain go away.

  ‘Peter,’ she said, her feet crunching over the shattered glass and masonry.

  He wanted to smile but couldn’t. Something inside him told him he would never smile again.

  ‘Peter.’ Her voice oozed sympathy and concern but within it he could sense the very emotion she was trying so hard to suppress, but he felt it nonetheless, the pity. She sat on the chair without its seat and took his hand and stroked it. ‘Oh, Peter, we tried but they won’t come.’ She told him of the doctor with the goatee, the corridor of distresses, the lack of medicines.

  ‘But Martin is still out searching,’ she added, raising her voice to emphasise the optimism she lacked. ‘You know Martin, he’ll find something.’

  Yes, he thought, he knew Martin.

  Chapter 16: Reassurance

  ‘He’s getting worse. You sure there’s nothing?’

  ‘Monika, you know I scoured the whole bloody city. Everything’s gone; used up.’

  ‘Look at him, the poor love.’ She slid off the chair without its seat and leant against Peter’s bed, stroking his hair, studying his face. A face she knew so well. She thought back the nine years to the day in the forest, her sister swimming naked. It’d been the first time she’d spoken to them without the presence of adults. It wasn’t the best of starts but since then the three of them had grown up together, protected each other and laughed together. She ran her finger down his left jawbone, across the stubble, and his lips, dried and cracked. How white and aged his skin, she thought, how brittle his hair. And how she missed his perfect face. The bullet had only grazed him, as a passer-by had said, almost convincingly, but the left side of his face was a terrible mess, the cheek pulverised, fissures of flesh, the ridges of congealed blood. Graze seemed too inadequate a word. And now an infection had set in.

  Most of the time he slept, free of the pain that tormented his waking hours. Occasionally he experienced a brief period of conscious calm, free from pain, during which moments he could speak and eat. Monika would break bread into small pieces and feed it to him with sips of water. When she had to leave, she made sure she left food and water on his bedside table – the upturned crate beneath which hid the revolver left behind by Oskar.

  She looked up and Martin was still there. He’d been
staring down at her all the while. At moments like this she was grateful for his presence and his words of reassurance. Words, she knew, that came only with difficulty but were there, nonetheless. She felt grateful too that the face she missed so much was still so visible in another. She thought of the previous evening, when Martin, for the first time, lay next to his brother and Peter turned to face him. The vision of the two silent brothers, lying on the backs, looking at each other, their noses almost touching, jolted her heart. Until the grazing bullet had done its work, a mirror held upright between them would have had the same effect, one brother gazing at the other and seeing himself. But not now.

  At other times, perhaps most of the time, she found herself resenting Martin, resenting his perfect features while Peter’s face remained obscured by his mangled wound. Had Martin shown any disquiet while the other half of his soul languished in pain? Had the burden of his brother’s injury slowed him down or softened him? No, thought Monika, none of these things had happened. Martin was still Martin, only more so. The identical twins – match for match in beauty, but God had seen to it that the kind one, the one with the heart should suffer, while his feckless brother revelled in his strength and his being. Even God had got them mixed up.

  ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to.’ She knew really that he wanted to go; there was only so much he could take of his brother’s presence and her maudlin anxiety.

  ‘He’ll be OK.’

  She laughed her tearful laugh, and wondered what made him say something so obviously false, so inappropriately bland. Peter was not going to be OK. The infection was spreading, doing its vicious work on his system, and he had neither the strength nor the medication to fight it. Peter was going to be anything but OK.

  Chapter 17: The Park

  Monika hadn’t been out for a couple of days, devoting her time and energy in caring for Peter, who lay motionless, slowly slipping away. She’d cried so much she had nothing left to cry. Martin went out frequently, bringing back bits of food or fuel. Finally, she could bear it no more; she needed air, to escape the suffocation inside that dingy room.

  Together with Martin, Monika took a walk, gawking at the chaos that scarred the city, occasionally stopping to read one of the newspapers plastered up on walls or shop fronts. A weak sun filtered through the clouds; people were out on the streets, trying to fathom out what the future held for them. The few remaining optimists clapped each other on the back, saying that Germany wasn’t finished yet, that she would fight back and ultimate victory was still to be had; but most people shook their heads and spoke fearfully of the Russians but dared not speak too loud – defeatist talk could have dire consequences. They saw a queue of people outside a post office – people waiting to withdraw their life savings. Reluctantly, they joined the queue. Two hours later, they left, their pockets stuffed with what remained of their money, their accounts closed.

  No street was free of corpses; bodies lay statuesque-like, covered in coats, some sprinkled with lime to lessen the pungent aroma. People strolled from one to another, their hands clasped over their mouths, lifting the coats, looking for a loved one.

  Martin suggested a stroll in the park and Monika readily agreed, too tired to decide for herself. He spotted three young boys vacate a bench and ran to claim it. Monika joined him, pleased to sit down. They sat in silence and watched a father play football with his two young sons, allowing them to score at frequent intervals amid yelps of delight. Martin laughed and Monika tried to smile

  ‘He’s dying, you know.’

  ‘Peter?’ She noticed him cast his eyes down, fiddling with a button on his coat. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s only that...’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You act as if you don’t care.’

  Martin sat up and half-turned to face her. ‘That’s not fair, I do care but...’ He slunk back on the bench. ‘I do care, Monika, I care a lot; he’s my brother and I miss him. But I feel so useless, I can’t help him, none of us can.’

  One of the small boys fell awkwardly chasing the ball. He lay on the grass, motionless, stunned, before letting loose an ear-piercing scream. His father ran to him and scooped him up in his arms, pressing his face into his and smothering him with concern.

  ‘Do you really miss him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘I want to say sorry to him, to say sorry for having been such a shit to him all these years.’ The words came quickly but he stopped abruptly and cast his eyes heavenwards, grappling with his thoughts. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, how you don’t appreciate something until it’s too late?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I mean, we grew up together, he was always there, we came back to Berlin together, we’ve always lived together. He’s always been part of my life. But God, it’s more than that; he’s part of me. I suppose they say that of twins and it’s true. I never really thought about it until now but it’s so obvious. Martin and Peter, the inseparable twins. And suddenly, he’s not there any more, he’s lying in that shit-hole with this fucking infection eating him up and I don’t know what to do, so I do nothing. But part of me is dying and whatever I do, I can’t escape it. So, yes, I miss him.’

  Their arms intertwined, their faces touching cheek to cheek.

  ‘We talk of him as if he’s already gone.’

  Martin laughed, a sorrowful laugh. ‘I know.’

  Their foreheads touched as they whispered to one another within the privacy of their own shadows. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise, I thought...’

  ‘You thought I didn’t care.’

  ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘Yes, but I understand why you thought it.’

  ‘I miss him too.’

  ‘I was always jealous, you know.’

  ‘Of us two?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should’ve beaten him on the tightrope then.’

  He laughed again as her words immediately took his mind back six years to the village green, the taste of Coca-Cola on his tongue, the face of Tomi, the quartet of old men with their instruments, his feet poised on the tightrope. He lifted his head a fraction and his lips touched her cheek. He kissed it delicately, kissed the wetness of her face, the stain of tears on her skin. He left his lips there, not wanting to break the moment, not wanting to lose the warmth of her skin against his lips.

  ‘Martin. Martin? We ought to get back.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh. ‘We ought to get back.’

  Together, they stood up and the world returned into focus – the park, the bent trees, the craters. As they left, Martin glanced back. The father with his footballing sons had gone.

  Chapter 18: Café Von Bismarck

  It’s strange, thought Monika, how a lifetime’s perception of a person can change overnight. She’d never considered before that Martin’s swaggering might only be a cover for the real man who lay beneath. And yesterday, in the park, she’d discovered the real man, the real Martin. The twins were more alike than she’d thought. While Peter carried his geniality for all to see, Martin hid it away behind a screen of bravado – but it was still there nonetheless. Her mood lightened and then, as a consequence, soon darkened again. When she thought about this chain of emotion, she knew why – as well as Peter’s face, his personality would live on in his brother, albeit in a diluted form, but it meant that through Martin, Peter was expendable.

  Peter himself was failing fast but there were still periods when he was conscious and able to elucidate. But these periods were becoming increasingly rare. She did her best to keep him warm, to feed and wash him, to hold his hand. At other times, she scoured the area, still trying to find a doctor, queuing for food, finding fuel.

  Martin, as well, was subdued as they ambled aimlessly through the alleyways and avenues. It was as if his admission the previous day had sapped his energy. The fight had left him. They walked what felt like miles through the wounded cit
y, in silence, unable to talk about what happened in the park yet unable to talk about anything else.

  More cafés were reopening, the staff having made an attempt to sweep away the glass and the worse of the debris, to shake the tablecloths free of dust, to wash down the counters and machinery, to find new light bulbs to replace the shattered ones. People, thankful for a hint of normality, flocked to the cafes offering half-priced coffee. Monika and Martin sat inside the Café Von Bismarck with its nicotine-stained walls and a low ceiling that gave the place a claustrophobic feel. They took a small table near the doorway and, sitting side by side, nursed their cups of coffee, pleased to rest their feet after walking so long, to feel warm for a while. Behind them, people came and went, a constant stream of customers passing through, the place abuzz with animated conversations, of laughter even, the smell of coffee and tobacco smoke.

  Monika watched Martin as he stared into his coffee, his shoulders hunched. She wanted to reach out, to touch him, to reassure him but of what she wasn’t sure. How beautiful a man, she thought; his beauty even more striking than before – now that his was the only one.

  Martin reached for the sugar bowl and added another spoonful to his coffee. ‘What’s that brooch?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, this,’ she said, looking down at the rose-shaped brooch she’d pinned to her coat. ‘It was my sister’s. I’m rather fond of it. I wear it occasionally.’

  ‘You know,’ he said, stirring, ‘it’s strange you mentioned the tightrope contest yesterday. Did you care who won?’

  Monika stretched her memory back. ‘Yes. I wanted Peter to win.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps because Peter seemed more manageable. I’m sorry, that sounds silly.’