The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie

by Agota Kristof

  I am silent. Sweat runs down my back. Finally I say, "There's some sort of mistake. I have no brother."

  The voice says, "Yes you do. A twin brother. Lucas."

  "My brother died a long time ago."

  "No, I'm not dead. I'm alive, Klaus, and I'd like to see you again."

  "Where are you? Where have you been?"

  "I lived abroad for a long time. I'm here right now, in the capital, at the embassy of D."

  I inhale deeply and say in one breath, "I don't think you're my brother. I see no one and don't want to be disturbed."

  He insists. "Five minutes, Klaus. I'm asking you for five minutes. I'm leaving the country in two days and not coming back."

  "Come tomorrow. But not before eight in the evening."

  He says, "Thank you. I'll be at our house—I mean at your house—at eight-thirty."

  He hangs up.

  I wipe my forehead. I return to the television. I can no longer follow the movie. I throw the rest of my biscuit in the trash can. I can't eat anymore. "At our house." Yes, it was our house once, but that was a long time ago. Now it's my house and everything here belongs to me alone.

  I quietly open the door to Mother's bedroom. She is asleep. She's so small you'd think she was a child. I brush the gray hair off her face, kiss her on the forehead, and stroke her wrinkled hands on the bed cover. She smiles in her sleep, squeezes my hand, and murmurs, "My little one. There you are."

  Then she says the name of my brother: "Lucas, my little Lucas."

  I leave the room, get a bottle of strong alcohol from the kitchen, and settle in the study to write, as I do every night. This study used to be our father's; I haven't changed anything, not the old typewriter, not the uncomfortable wooden chair, not the lamp, not the pencil holder. I try to write but I can only cry and think about the thing that has ruined all of our lives.

  Lucas will come tomorrow. I know it's him. I knew it was him from the very first ring. My telephone almost never rings. I had it installed for Mother, in case of emergencies, to order in when I don't have the strength to go to the market or when her condition doesn't allow me to leave.

  Lucas will come tomorrow. How to make sure that Mother doesn't find out? That she doesn't wake up during Lucas's visit? Get her out of here? Escape? Where? How? What excuse to give Mother? We've never left here. Mother doesn't want to leave. She thinks it's the only place where Lucas could find us again when he comes.

  And it is in fact here that he has found us.

  If it's really him.

  It's really him.

  I don't need any proof. I know. I knew, I have always known, that he wasn't dead, that he would come back.

  But why now? Why this late? Why after an absence of fifty years?

  I have to protect myself. I have to protect Mother. I don't want Lucas to destroy our peace, our routine, our happiness. I do not want our lives turned upside down. Neither Mother nor I could bear Lucas starting to root around in our past, reviving memories, asking Mother questions.

  At all costs I must fend off Lucas, keep him from reopening that terrible wound.

  It is winter. I must save coal. I take the edge off the cold in Mother's room with an electric heater that I turn on an hour before she goes to bed and turn off when she has fallen asleep, then turn on again an hour before she wakes up.

  As far as I'm concerned, the heat of the kitchen stove and a bit of coal for the living room stove are enough. I wake up early to light the kitchen stove, and once it has produced enough embers I take some into the living room stove. I add a few lumps of coal and in half an hour it's warm in there too.

  Late at night, when Mother is already asleep, I open the study door and the heat from the living room immediately flows in. It's a small room and warms up quickly. It is there that I change into my pajamas and bathrobe before starting to write. That way, after I have finished writing all I have to do is go to my room and climb into bed.

  Tonight I pace around the house. I stop several times in the kitchen. Then I go into the children's room. I look at the garden. The bare branches of the walnut tree brush against the window. A fine snow settles in thin, frosted layers on the branches and on the ground.

  I walk from one room into the other. I've already opened the study door; it is there that I will see my brother. I will close the door as soon as my brother comes, the cold be damned; I do not want Mother to hear us or for our conversation to wake her.

  What will I say if that happens?

  I will say, "Go back to bed, Mother, it's only a journalist."

  And to the other one, to my brother, I will say, "It's only my mother-in-law, Antonia. She's been living at our house for a few years, ever since she was widowed. She's not completely right in the head. She confuses everything, gets things mixed up. She sometimes thinks that she's my real mother because she raised me."

  I must keep them from seeing each other or they will recognize each other. Mother will recognize Lucas. And if Lucas doesn't recognize Mother, she will say when she recognizes him, "Lucas, my son!"

  I want no "Lucas, my son!" Not anymore. It would be too easy.

  Today, while Mother was taking her nap, I moved all the watches and clocks in the house forward by an hour. Luckily night falls early this time of year. It's already dark at five in the afternoon.

  I make Mother's dinner an hour early. Carrot puree with potatoes, meatloaf, and crème caramel for dessert.

  I set the kitchen table and go call Mother from her room. She comes into the kitchen and says, "I'm not hungry yet."

  I say, "You're never hungry, Mother. But you have to eat."

  She says, "I'll eat later."

  I say, "Later everything will be cold."

  She says, "All you have to do is reheat it. Or maybe I won't eat at all."

  'I'll make you some herbal tea to whet your appetite."

  Into her tea I dissolve one of the sleeping pills she usually takes. I put another next to her cup.

  Ten minutes later Mother falls asleep in front of the television. I pick her up, carry her to her room, undress her, and put her to bed.

  I go back into the living room. I turn down the television and mute its screen. I reset the hands on the alarm clock in the kitchen and on the living room clock.

  I still have time to eat before my brother arrives. In the kitchen I have a bit of carrot puree and meatloaf. Mother has difficulty chewing despite the dentures I had made for her not too long ago. Her digestion isn't very good either.

  When I've finished eating I do the dishes and put the leftovers in the refrigerator; there's just enough for tomorrow's lunch.

  I settle down in the living room. I put two glasses and a bottle of brandy out on the little table next to my armchair. I drink and wait. At eight o'clock on the dot I check on Mother. She's sleeping deeply. The detective movie begins and I try to watch it. Around eight-twenty I give up on the movie and take up a post by the kitchen window. The light inside is off and it's impossible to see me from outside.

  At eight-thirty exactly a big black car pulls up in front of the house and parks on the sidewalk. A man gets out, walks up to the gate, and rings.

  I return to the living room and say into the intercom, "Come in. The door is open."

  I turn on the veranda light, sit back down in my armchair, and my brother comes in. He is thin and pale and walks toward me with a limp; a portfolio case is tucked under his arm. Tears come into my eyes, and I rise and stretch out my hand to him. "Welcome."

  He says, "I won't disturb you for long. A car is waiting for me."

  I say, "Come into my study. It will be quieter in there."

  I leave the television sound on. If Mother wakes up she will hear the detective show, as is usual every night.

  My brother asks, "You're not switching off the television?"

  "No. Why? We cannot hear it in the study."

  I take the bottle and the two glasses. I sit down behind my desk and motion to a chair across from me.

&nbs
p; "Have a seat."

  I pick up the bottle.

  "A glass?"

  "Yes."

  We drink. My brother says, "This was our father's study. Nothing has changed. I remember the lamp, the typewriter, the furniture, the chairs."

  I smile. "What else do you remember?"

  "Everything. The veranda and the living room. I know where the kitchen is, the children's room, the parents' room."

  I say, 'That is not so difficult. All these houses are modeled on the same pattern."

  He goes on: "There was a walnut tree outside the window of the children's room. Its branches touched the glass, and a swing hung from it. With two seats. We kept our scooters and tricycles in the shed at the back of the courtyard."

  I say, 'There are still toys there, but not the same ones. These ones belong to my grandchildren."

  We are silent. I refill the glasses. When he sets his down Lucas asks, "Tell me, Klaus, where are our parents?"

  "Mine are dead. As for yours, I do not know."

  "Why so formal with me, Klaus? I'm your brother, Lucas. Why don't you want to believe me?"

  "Because my brother is dead. I would be very happy to see your papers, if you wouldn't mind."

  My brother pulls a foreign passport out of his pocket and hands it to me. He says, "Don't believe too much of it. There are one or two errors in it."

  I examine the passport.

  "So you are called Claus, with a 'C.' Your date of birth is not the same as mine, and yet Lucas and I were twins. You are three years older than I am."

  I hand him back his passport. My brother's hands are shaking, as is his voice.

  "When I crossed the frontier I was fifteen. I gave a false birthdate to seem older, of legal age, in fact. I didn't want to be put under a guardianship."

  "And the first name? Why the change in first names?"

  "Because of you, Klaus. When I filled out the questionnaire at the border guards' office I thought of you, of your name, which had been with me for the whole length of my childhood. So instead of Lucas I wrote Claus. You did the same thing when you published your poems under the name Klaus Lucas. Why Lucas? In memory of me?"

  I say, "In memory of my brother, actually. But how do you know I publish poems?"

  "I write too, but not poems."

  He opens his portfolio and takes out a large schoolboy's notebook, which he places on the table.

  "This is my last manuscript. It's unfinished. I won't have time to complete it. I'm leaving it for you. You'll finish it. You have to finish it."

  I open the notebook but he stops me with a gesture.

  "No, not now. When I'm gone. There's something important I'd like to know. How did I get my wound?"

  "What wound?"

  "A wound close to the spinal column. A bullet wound. How did I get it?"

  "How would you suppose me to know? My brother, Lucas, did not have a wound. He had a childhood illness. Poliomyelitis, I believe. I was no more than four or five when he died and cannot remember exactly. All I know is what I was told later on."

  He says, "Yes, exactly. For a long time I too thought I had had a childhood illness. That's what I was told. But later I learned that I had been wounded by a bullet. Where? How? The war had only just started."

  I remain silent and shrug. Lucas persists: "If your brother is dead, he must have a grave. His grave, where is it? Can you show me?"

  "No, I cannot. My brother is buried in a mass grave in the town of S." "Oh yes? And Father's grave, and Mother's grave, where are they? Can you show me?"

  "No, I cannot do that either. My father did not come back from the war, and my mother is buried with my brother, Lucas, in the town of S."

  He asks, "So then I didn't die of poliomyelitis?"

  "My brother didn't, no. He died in the middle of a bombing. My mother had just gone with him to the town of S., where he was to be treated at the rehabilitation center. The center was bombed and neither my brother nor my mother ever came back."

  Lucas says, "If they told you that, they lied to you. Mother never went with me to the town of S. She never went there to see me. I had lived at the center with my alleged childhood illness for several years before it was bombed. And I wasn't killed in the bombing. I survived."

  I shrug again. "You, yes. My brother, no. Nor my mother."

  We look each other in the eye and I don't turn away.

  "As you can see, we are talking about two different fates. You will have to pursue your investigation elsewhere."

  He shakes his head. "No, Klaus, and you know it very well. You know I'm your brother, Lucas, but you deny it. What are you afraid of? Tell me, Klaus, what?"

  I reply, "Nothing. What could I be afraid of? Were I convinced that you are my brother, I would be the happiest of men for having found you again."

  He asks, "Why would I come find you if I weren't your brother?"

  "I have no idea. There is also your appearance."

  "My appearance?"

  "Yes. Look at me and look at you. Is there the slightest physical resemblance between us? Lucas and I were true twins and looked perfectly alike. You are a head shorter and weigh sixty pounds less than me."

  Lucas says, "You're forgetting my illness, my infirmity. It's a miracle that I learned to walk again."

  I say, "Let us move on. Tell me what became of you after the bombing."

  He says, "Since my parents didn't reclaim me, I was sent to live with an old peasant woman in the town of K. I lived with her and worked for her until I left for abroad."

  "And what did you do abroad?"

  "All sorts of things, and then I wrote books. And you, Klaus, how did you survive after the death of Mother and Father? From what you tell me, you were orphaned very young."

  "Yes, very young. But I was fortunate. I spent only a few months at an orphanage. A kindly family took me in. I was very happy with them. It was a large family with four children, of which I married the eldest daughter, Sarah. We had two children, a girl and a boy. At present I am a grandfather, a very happy grandfather."

  Lucas says, "It's odd. When I first came in, I had the impression that you lived alone."

  "I am alone at the moment, that is true. But only until Christmas. I have pressing work to complete. A collection of new poems to prepare. After that I will rejoin my wife, Sarah, my children, and my grandchildren in the town of K., where we will all spend the holidays together. We have a house there that my wife inherited from her parents."

  Lucas says, 'I've lived in the town of K. I know the place very well. Where's your house?"

  "Central Square, across from the Grand Hotel, next to the bookseller's."

  "I've just spent several months in the town of K. In fact I lived right above the bookseller's."

  I say, "What a coincidence. It is a very pretty town, would you not agree? I often spent vacations there when I was a child, and my grandchildren like it very much. Especially the twins, my daughter's children."

  "Twins? What are their names?"

  "Klaus and Lucas, obviously."

  "Obviously."

  "For the time being my son has only one child, a little girl named Sarah after her grandmother, my wife. But my son is still young and he too may have other children."

  Lucas says, "You're a happy man, Klaus."

  I reply, "Yes, very happy. You too, I suppose, have a family."

  He says, "No. I've always lived alone."

  "Why?"

  Lucas says, "I don't know. Perhaps because no one ever taught me how to love."

  I say, "That is a shame. Children bring one a great deal of joy. I cannot imagine my life without them."

  My brother stands up. "They're waiting for me in the car. I don't want to disturb you any longer."

  I smile. "You haven't disturbed me. So, are you going to return to your adoptive country?"

  "Of course. I have nothing more to do here. Farewell, Klaus."

  I rise. "I will see you out."

  At the garden gate I extend
my hand to him. "Good-bye, sir. I hope that in the end you find your true family. I wish you much luck."

  He says, "You keep in role to the very end, Klaus. Had I known you were so hard-hearted I would never have tried to find you. I sincerely regret that I came."

  My brother climbs into the big black car, which starts up and drives him away.

  While climbing the veranda stairs I slip on the icy steps and fall; my forehead slams into one of the stone edges, and the blood flowing into my eyes mixes with my tears. I want to remain lying here until I freeze and die but I can't; I have to take care of Mother tomorrow morning.

  I enter the house and go into the bathroom; I wash my wound, disinfect it, bandage it, and then I return to the study to read my brother's manuscript.

  The next morning Mother asks, "How did you hurt yourself, Klaus?"

  I say, "On the stairs. I went down to make sure the gate was locked. I slipped on the ice."

  Mother says, "You probably had too much to drink. You're a drunk, an incompetent, and an oaf. Haven't you made my tea yet? Unbelievable! And the house is cold too. Couldn't you get up half an hour earlier so that when I wake up I find the house warm and my tea made? You're a layabout, a good-for-nothing."

  I say, "Here's the tea. In a few minutes the house will be warm, you'll see. The truth is, I didn't go to bed at all; I wrote all night long."

  She says, "Again? The gentleman prefers to write all night long instead of worrying about the heat and the tea. You should write during the day, working like everyone else, not at night."

  I say, "Yes, Mother. It would be better to work during the day. But at the printing press I got used to working nights. I can't help it. Anyway there are too many things to distract me during the day. There are errands to do, meals to make, but especially the street noise."

  Mother says, "And there's me, isn't there? Say it, say it outright, that it's me who disturbs you. You can only write once your mother is in bed and asleep, right? You're always in such a hurry to see me off to bed at night. I understand. I've understood for quite a while."

  I say, "It's true, Mother, I have to be completely alone when I write. I need silence and solitude."