The Brother - Rein Raud

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      “Easy,” the banker said. “First of all, we should find out more about him.”

      A rat-faced young man—the lawyer’s assistant, whose name was Willem—came to empty the ashtray. He said nothing.

      “We should figure out who he is,” the banker continued.

      “How, I wonder?” the lawyer asked.

      The banker was a strong man who had already begun to watch his health and had managed to achieve enough in his lifetime to answer yes-or-no questions with a single word.

      “We should play cards with him,” he said.

      Cloves always came on Thursdays, and Thursday it was.

      He had already managed to empty the bottle of beer he was carrying with him, and had already managed to place the flower he had brought into a vase with water. He had already managed to go grocery shopping and to buy everything he always did. And while Laila made dinner, he had already managed to check and see whether the bathroom faucet was still leaking, and it was, and he had already managed to fix it, so that now it should definitely hold. He had already managed to read through both today’s and yesterday’s newspapers, and to listen to the radio a little on top of that. He had already managed to eat his favorite cabbage rolls, as many as he could stuff down, and this time was unusually somewhat astonished by why Laila had made so many of them. He had already managed to ask what news was to be heard, and without waiting for the reply, had also already managed to say how fantastic it was that at least one person—he, Cloves—hadn’t left Laila alone to wilt in bleak solitude. This time, unusually, he had already managed to start to feel somewhat incredulous over why Laila hadn’t already made the bed and gone to wash up.

      Then, the sound of footsteps made by knee-high boots echoed from the stairway, and a knock sounded at the door.

      “Good evening,” Brother said.

      “Hello,” Laila said.

      “Good evening,” Cloves said.

      They stared at each other until all was clear.

      “It appears it’s time for me to go,” Cloves said, and stood.

      How could he have known that once, long ago, the flower he brought would stand in the vase for the entire week, but then, little by little, it started to wilt already by Monday, then it barely lasted until the weekend, and now it was thrown out with the Friday-morning trash? Laila strove to remember what kind of a job the man even held. Director of the post office’s delivery department? A clerk at the stationmaster’s office? Bookkeeper for the brass band? She couldn’t remember.

      “I’ll get going, then,” Cloves said at the door, his flushed cheeks sagging, his spine slightly arched, and his gut hanging slightly over his waistband. Laila realized that she was seeing the man for the second time in her life today, as something obviously had to have impressed her the first time; but maybe then, long ago, each time before he looked at her, Cloves himself hadn’t always known exactly what he saw.

      “I don’t understand,” Brother said. “I don’t understand how you’ve allowed the world to step on you like this.”

      “Because I hoped it would step over me,” Laila replied.

      “Even so.”

      “But did I really have a choice?” Laila asked. “I wanted, I really wanted to have a friend, too. But none of them saw me. Do you think that when they looked at me, they saw a scrawny girl with pale, thin lips and potato-colored locks, hiding her hands behind her back? No. They saw a tall, blue marble staircase; arching, golden thatched roofs; and a white stretch limousine parked outside—so what that it’d been a long while since anyone could drive anywhere in it. They saw my grandfather’s surname and all of his ancestors since time immemorial peering over his shoulder. And when the mirage faded—and that happened as soon as they really heard anything I said—then they fled, helter-skelter; some didn’t even say goodbye. You know, when that whole degrading process was over and they’d tricked me out of everything we once had, and I ended up here, penniless, unable to do anything about it and with only a bunch of memories breathing down my neck, then at first, I really wanted to scream and cry, but afterward, I realized that I was actually glad. Glad that it’s all over now. That I’m free. That I’m myself. And that from then on, things would go both as well and badly for me as they might, but that it’d only be my own doing.

      She gulped.

      “It’s hard for me even now,” she continued, “when someone greets me out of habit, as if I’m still the way I was then. I don’t know what to say to them in return, but they still do it—my old tutor Mrs. Salt or Mrs. Cymbal or the twin boys Hendrik and Hindrek—or, well, they’re not quite boys anymore—whose mother used to be the Villa chef, or else Gabriel, you know—the bachelor photographer, with whom I was in love for a while in high school, against my will but all the more hopelessly. How can’t they see that I’m not the one they knew?”

      “I understand,” Brother said.

      “No, you don’t,” Laila sighed. “You still think that I’m just like you are. Strong. Someone who can handle anything.”

      “No,” Brother replied. “What I think of you isn’t something I don’t see, because that’s just the way I love you. But it seems like you’ve let yourself be bent the other direction. Maybe it’s easier, but it’s definitely not right, and blaming the world for it is even worse. You can stay hungry even while walking between tables heaped with delicacies if you never reach out your hand.”

      “I want nothing from them. Nothing at all.”

      “That’s what I just said.”

      I bet it’s a telegram, or else a catalogue big enough to not fit in the mailbox, sent from some department store, for example, the woman thought while rushing down the stairs—for who else would ring their doorbell at this hour? Passing by the kitchen, she glanced in and noticed a scrap of paper lying on the table—but she’d have time to deal with that later; as usual, her husband had left her a grocery list and instructions on what he’d like for dinner. Right now, she adjusted the folds of her bathrobe, brushed her hand through her somewhat messy hair, and opened the door.

      Standing on the front steps was a complete stranger, muscular and tanned, far from unimpressive, wearing knee-high boots.

      “I understand that you’re in need of a gardener here,” the man said.

      “Yes, that’s true—my husband and I have discussed fixing up the garden a couple of times,” she said. “But we haven’t settled on anything more specific than that,” she added immediately. “We mow the front lawn here ourselves, but it’s awfully overgrown out back, and there really is so much beautiful land there.”

      “That’s exactly why I’m here,” the man said. “May I come in?”

      “Of course,” she nodded, instantly forgetting everything her husband had instructed her about talking to strangers.

      “I’m not interested in long-term employment,” the man explained. “But if you’d like, I can restore the Villa’s garden to its original state relatively quickly, so that if you employ someone to maintain it more permanently afterward, it’ll be extremely easy for him to handle. Don’t worry—I’m experienced. I’ve managed to get by at a number of countryside manors in England, and then we also fixed up a couple of hunting lodges near Wittenberg—although I worked together with locals there, since Germans don’t trust foreigners all that much with those jobs. I learned quite a lot of new things from them, too, I might add.”

      “Very impressive. Perhaps

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