by Fleur Jaeggy
I Am the Brother of XX
Also by Fleur Jaeggy
* * *
Last Vanities
Sweet Days of Discipline
S.S. Proleterka
These Possible Lives
Contents
I Am the Brother of XX
Negde
The Last of the Line
The Gentleman and the Lizard
Agnes
The Aseptic Room
The Heir
Portrait of an Unknown Woman
The Black Lace Veil
An Encounter in the Bronx
The Aviary
The Visitor
Adelaide
Tropics
Cat
Osmosis
Names
The Hanging Angel
The Perfect Choice
F. K.
The Salt Water House
I Am the Brother of XX
I am XX’s brother. I am the child she spoke of once. And I am the writer she never spoke of. Only mentioned. Mentioned my black notebook. She wrote about me. Even recounted conversations at home. In the family. How was I to know there was a spy at our table. A big old spy in the house. And it was her, my sister. She is seven years older than me. She watched my mother, ours, my father, ours, and me. But I didn’t pay attention to the fact that my sister was watching us. All of us together. Then went around talking about it. Once when I was eight years old my grandmother asked me, what will you do when you grow up? And I answered, I want to die. I want to die when I grow up. I want to die soon. And I think my sister really liked that answer. We got to know each other late, she and I. More or less when I was eight. Before that we hardly spoke. I was thought to be a bit autistic, but that wasn’t true. I preferred not to speak. And my sister preferred to watch. And so, as long as I didn’t speak she couldn’t say anything about me. What could she say about a brother who shuts up, bothers no one, makes himself practically invisible? Because my aim was to make myself invisible to the family. A family made up of a spying sister, a gambling mother, a sensitive absent-minded father. I’d like to say right away that sensitive people are absent-minded. They care absolutely nothing for others. Sensitive people, or sensitive enough to be called that — as if it were a great quality — are insensitive to the pain of others. But for now I don’t want to dwell on pain. I only want to talk about my sister, the spy, and about me. I should give this account of mine a title. The Brother. The Brother of XX. A being who doesn’t like the mountains. He was sent to a school on top of a mountain. The school overlooked a great many boulders. There no longer were any trees. One reached the top of the mountain by a narrow road, all curves. And it was fun to accelerate on the curves. Chasms below. I didn’t drive then, I was a baby brother. I didn’t stay at that school very long, but for one very long year at least. I would look out the window. The boulders. And those narrow chasms pointing downwards, upside down triangles. All I saw was upside down. Everything was headlong down. My thoughts, too. Once my sister XX came to see me in an MG convertible. She sped on the curves. She told me it was fun. As she took off her gloves with the fingers cut away. We sat on a rock. She looked at me with affection. Couldn’t wait to leave. At the time she had a number of boyfriends. Many appointments. And probably, while visiting me, a visit she had promised me, she must have promised one of them a date at the same hour. She puts one hand on my shoulder. It won’t be long. At the end of the year I’ll come get you and you’ll go home, she says. Surrounded by all those pointed gray rocks, I felt we loved one another. There was nothing else in the universe. A house where it seemed that Sunday that all the other kids were asleep — and even the birds, even the crows, even the foxes, there was a terrible atmosphere of sleep, of a final, perpetual sleep. Only she and I awake. The brother awake. XX the sister awake. The sister was beautiful. While we loved one another that Sunday afternoon among the rocks, I felt that she loved what she had on, which consisted of a fabulous casual checked Sunday shirt, very gentlemanly, with button-down collar, the sleeves pulled up to the elbows, slim swamp-colored or rotten-fall-colored or rotten-leaf-colored slacks and eggplant-colored penny loafers. And also a thin gold bracelet, with small round sapphires. I too, in spite of my imprisonment in the house on top of the mountain, had a certain predilection for shirts after all. And that day I wore only a pale blue shirt and well-cut velvet pants almost the same color as XXX’s, I don’t know why I sometimes add an X to her name, after all, just one would do. Forgive me if I add a few. Almost the same color pants, only darker, since brown and pale blue go well together. Our colors, those of the clothes and our complexions, next to the gray slightly dark rocks, made a nice little picture. Brother and sister love one another. So my schoolmates might have said if they hadn’t been sunk in their perpetual sleep.
Instead, even on that day my sister XX was spying on me. Here’s what she wrote. She went to visit her brother at the school (and mentions the name of the school, something I always avoid) and he was so sad, so unhappy that she got a lump in her throat — supposedly she got a lump in her throat, she who only a few minutes later was already writing that I, and I’m putting it in italics, was sad, that I wanted to die. That I couldn’t stand that desolate place any more. And she paints and confabulates that desolate place in order to report on her brother’s sadness, and make it into a poetic scene. Because desolation and sadness go well together. Just as I think that our clothes, at least their color, went well with the rocks. Without mentioning my supposed sadness. Was I sad that day? No, I wasn’t sad. It was the one day when I wasn’t. Because my sister had come to see me. Because she sped on curves. Because her MG looked good in that landscape. Because she gave me the impression that I wasn’t alone in the world. The impression that I was alone was one I had every day at that school on top of the mountain. I must admit it, up there I felt alone. I know that putting it like that might make some smile. But I’ve always heard that solitude is the worst evil that can befall anyone. That’s what I told my sister that day. She was saying she liked solitude. Meanwhile she was going out every night, coming back late, her mascara smudged. I stayed up to hear her come home. We all stayed up to hear missy come home. None of us liked that she went out so much.
She was seven years older. While I talked to her about solitude, she looked far into the distance, toward the mountains surrounding ours, she looked into the distance, she seemed to be searching for an answer in infinity, or in the lines drawn by the mountaintops, which were growing dark, because it was almost nightfall, and the afternoon had gone by with surprising speed, faster than any afternoon of the year. She looked until her heavy gaze fell on the hands of her watch. While I spoke to her of solitude she looked at her watch. Her gold watch, a rather flat Longines. And so I saw the great hands of the watch projected on the mountain before us, like a sort of Last Judgment. One hand to the right, the other, almost straight, marked the hour of parting. And when a mountain starts to mark the hours, that means it’s really over. Time is over. A time when a brother and sister loved one another is over. In their elegant clothes. There is a kinship in the clothes. I’ve always had a great understanding for her clothes. For her shoes. Gloves. And especially the blouses. The white ones. Somewhat narrow. The first buttons left undone. When I reached the age she was that day, though feeling that solitude occupied all my thoughts, I cared deeply about a certain blue coat. And in the family they knew how I loved that blue coat, made by the best Italian tailor, and they thought I was a happy young man. Because I had a bottle-green Morris Mini, too. The clothes were a moral cover for the various crimes of sadness, as they would say in a court of law. The brother, who was me, hid that t
errible sense of solitude beneath a coat and a Morris Mini. My sister XX, I haven’t said this yet, had something wrong with her. She had less fun than she pretended to have. Since she was spying so much, or wanted to be a writer, and so an artist, or wanted to see, or even to compete at who might be happiest — or unhappiest. Terms that are always quite insignificant. But one does have to give words some credit. One has to at least pretend that they more or less resemble their meaning. Their shady meaning.
I don’t want to talk about the parents because this is the story of a brother, or rather, my story, and of a sister, or her story, as a big spy. The two I don’t want to talk about are watching television sitting next to each other, and before dying they didn’t have time to prepare us because they were in a rush, or perhaps just a little impatient. And so my sister and I were left alone in the big house.
When I talk my sister pays too much attention. She watches me. Maybe she is writing my story, as long as I am not dead yet like my parents. I’ve always wondered whether one of them might have died because of her. Then I think that parents always die because of their children. One always dies because of someone else. I don’t know if it’s correct to say “because of.” But one dies for others. On behalf of others, might be more correct.
My sister — I am studying, I have to prepare for my maturità exams — keeps coming into my room. Says, are you studying? While I am bent over my books. She wants to go out. And says that I must absolutely pass my final exams. That it’s important and other things. And so, if the final exams are important, I get nervous. Anything, if it’s important, plunges me into anguish. As long as I think that nothing’s important, I succeed at everything. I could even succeed at my final exams. But if they are so important that they can importune me with their importance I might not succeed. The sister XX insists. I must go to college. I must graduate. It’s important.
When she stops talking about the importance of the exams, about the importance of succeeding in life, about the importance of a degree, about the importance of living, I feel finished off. Importance has me totally in its grip. It has crushed me. It crushes me. She, my sister XX, leaves the room. And I am alone with my books, the desk, and I find myself, the brother of the voice that has just spoken, having a great urge to hang myself somewhere. Coming to my own aid, I think again of solitude, of the solitude that surrounds my existence. And that thought, always so lugubrious, distressing, now, after the importance of succeeding in life, becomes almost light. Words have a weight. Importance is weightier than solitude. Though I know that solitude is harsher. But the importance of succeeding in life is a noose. It’s nothing but a noose.
At night I can’t sleep, I feel like talking to someone. It’s four a.m. I get up and go in search of my sister XX. The room is empty. A vague scent, many shoes on the floor. Maybe it’s the indecision of choice. I look at the countless shoes. They seem to have come home on their own. While the owner of those heels may have been in an accident and can no longer come home. But the shoes that know the way home have returned to the room. Meanwhile the feeling of solitude assails me again. My sister XX is not there. I start thinking that something has happened to her. Since the shoes came back on their own. I call all the hospitals, the police. There are no traces. I sit on her bed. Some hours later she appears and asks what I’m doing on her bed. I hadn’t realized, but on my feet are her shoes. I swear I didn’t put those shoes on. It’s the red shoes, they’re the ones that ambushed me. My sister takes off her shoes and they promptly slide into the closet. Did you study? she asks.
The pharmacist knows me. He immediately gives me the pills I want. And the sleeping pills. Actually, I have been taking sleeping pills since I was a child. At home we all take sleeping pills. All four of us. The way others take fruit. Usually in families fruit is given to children, in ours sleeping pills. My mother couldn’t conceive of anyone not sleeping. Of her children not sleeping. So early on she got them used to sleeping pills. And that’s why in the morning there was a great silence in the house. With the years the silence became even greater. The silence has taken up a lot of room. And that’s why my topic of solitude comes up again and I tell my sister who right away takes advantage of it to write about me that I feel lonely. And desperate. She ups the dose. First I am alone. Then sad. Then desperate. I know she wants me to end. What’s after despair? That’s what my sister is waiting for. Like a watchman in a sentry box. She is waiting for me to go from despair to the floor below. If indeed it’s a descent. She stands behind the glass, watches, exhorts, spies. There are no other words to define my sister XX. So she talks about when I was a writer, long before her, assuming she ever became one. That I can’t know, I shall never know. Her future doesn’t worry me much. She is interested in my nonfuture. My lack of a future. Even though I passed my final exams brilliantly. With the highest grades and to her great disappointment.
When I was a writer, my black notebook, number four, was titled Poems, Melodies, Tales of the Writer, and below my name, to the left, I drew a crooked tree, like a stele, I realized only later, and the date, 1945. I was eight, the age when I decided what I would do when I grew up, and which my sister XX immediately told others about. While I was taking that decision, to put an end to my life, I would never have talked this way about it, but since I am writing about myself, I am trying to use appropriate sentences. Appropriate to what? To my sister the big spy.
My sister XX says that I am being a brat. That I don’t want to go to the funeral mass for our mother. It’s true, I said I wouldn’t go. I wanted to be left in peace. But she insisted, insisted, damn her. That it was important. That I had to. That I was her son. That it’s not done for a son not to go to his mother’s funeral. For a son not to participate in his mother’s last rites. And why should I, as a son, have participated, if everything was against me? I didn’t want to. I felt that I didn’t have to go. My being — if there is a being in me, if we are beings she and I — rebelled at the mere thought of going to my mother’s funeral. My mother would take care of her own last rites, I thought, like Bach who when his wife died told the servants to tell his wife to manage the last rites. I felt like Bach. I wanted my mother to be the one to go to her own last rites. And not to make me have to decide anything. My sister insists, says I must go. To church. I call my mother, she doesn’t answer and I have to go to the last rites, since she is not answering and my sister XX orders me to go. I dress up in gray. I go. I have a German girlfriend. She’s in gray too. We are dressed alike. My girlfriend, too, insists that I must go to the funeral. That I take part. I don’t want to take part in anyone’s last rites. But if they insist I’ll go. The church is near home. It’s on the square. An ugly church and snobbish. Next to a café. The three of us, sister, brother, and girlfriend, all dressed alike. The coffin is before us. I am not even sure that in it is my mother, mine and hers, of my sister who insisted. Who put her in there? My sister. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t even know why I’m at the church. I am at the church for my mother’s funeral. That’s all I know. Flowers have been placed on the coffin. They look ridiculous. Little sweets, little strawberries, a flowery meadow on our mother’s skull. Long candles. The flames almost still, almost fake, give the impression of an embalmed fire. Then they load the whole thing up, together with the flowers, onto a van and they go, before it all disintegrates. That’s what my mother, mine and hers, wanted, to be disintegrated. I didn’t ask my sister about that, but she must certainly have divined her thoughts, to find out for sure what she wanted done with her body, since it wouldn’t dematerialize all by itself.
When my mother died, I didn’t think about solitude, as I was accustomed to by then, or inured to. Thoughts are not consequential. Because if a relative dies, one feels alone afterwards. That would be consequential. Not for me. That day the thought of solitude did not surface in any way. Maybe because I’d kept her company while she was locke
d up within polished wood, I had exhausted the sense of solitude that had surrounded me forever. Maybe, since we were both in the front row, we were so close to our mother that even my sister was not aware of any abandonment, or of something irreversible. Often it’s only later that one realizes. One realizes everything later. Sorrow always comes late. Sometimes sooner because it gives advance notice. Sorrow likes to give advance notice. Coming to find you at night, digging holes in brain and stomach and veins with pain, wounds, something dark comes to us. But you still don’t know what it is.
But let’s not talk about that. My sister paid very close attention to my behavior at church. And she found that I had behaved very well. I could tell by the pleased look in her eyes.
But let’s not talk about that. That has already been swept away. The brother and the sister are still alive. The brother has graduated. Cum laude. It’s important to graduate, the sister had chirped. And now there is the nightmare, the one and only nightmare, of living. Of the importance of living. And of the importance of succeeding to live. Or simply of succeeding. In other words, of becoming something. Something more or less than what one is. As far as my sister is concerned there is no need to think about it. She wants to become more, a great deal more, than what she is. She wants to succeed at the cost of her very life. I realize that she wants. That she has a will. I don’t know what it is that she wants. But since she keeps telling me I must succeed I suppose that what she wants, for herself, is to succeed. And so, I, too, must succeed. First of all, now that I have graduated, what do I do? What is it important that I should do? I take my pills. Now I have gotten used to an even stronger sleeping pill. I have so many prescriptions. I asked the doctor to give me many prescriptions, so I won’t be without. Without sleeping pills. It’s the only thing that really matters to me. Even now that I have graduated. I don’t know what to do. But I know. I know that I want to sleep no matter what. I think exactly as my mother did. It’s not thinkable for her children to lie awake at night. They must sleep. You are right, mother, I tell her, I must sleep. Rohypnol is the name of my sleeping pill. Sleep well, mother says. Did you sleep? my sister says. She can naturally sleep ten hours and even twelve without a sleeping pill. The sleeping potion spreads from my body to hers, I suppose. She can’t sleep that long without pills. She insists again that I should work. It’s important that a man work. It is frightful, I think. I must work. I try doing the thing that my sister considers important. I look for a job. Late in the morning. I always have my Rohypnol in my pocket. It keeps me company. While I talk to possible employers. In offices, in banks. I have graduated cum laude but this doesn’t seem to count for much. I tell my sister that. My sister says I have to be patient. Suddenly I realize that what she said was important no longer is. To her. Importance is waning. I am the one watching her now. I spy on her. We are two wretches, I think. She and I. If important things no longer are, what’s important? I am too tired to answer. The other day I was distracted. In a deserted square I crashed my Mini Morris into a wall. I was dazed. A small head wound. When my sister XX came, she asked me what had happened, why I had crashed, but I didn’t know, I had crashed and that was that. I wasn’t hurt. I was fine. From that day on I realized that I don’t feel physical pain. I had become insensitive to pain. It was as if my body had left me. And I was by myself. Without a shell. But with clothes on.
