My Brother’s Keeper

- 9 -

The house they took me to was smaller than Chandra’s, but still another impressive mansion. A structure of dark-red brick, it was surrounded by the now-familiar screening wall, and the garden within was laid out with scrupulous care. The beds of sages and flowering thyme threw back at me the perfumed mix that had first hit my memory on a London street.

The old man would not (or could not) talk to me on the journey. After two or three Bengali sentences in a voice that was at once angry and deferential, he had given up on me. He had accepted my help in getting the woman Ameera out of the Maidan, leaving me to do most of the carrying while he shooed away inquisitive onlookers and two Calcutta policemen, but his looks at me when we came to the carriage were angry and puzzled.

The ride in the closed, horse-drawn cab was short, only a few minutes of twisting and winding up narrow back streets. I already knew Calcutta well enough to realize that the horse was a sign of wealth, not poverty — a car would have been cheaper to maintain — and the houses that we passed confirmed the impression of ample money. By the time we arrived at the big double doors and had been admitted by a man with a heavy black mustache who stood guard in a little sentry box, the woman was awake again, sighing and fluttering her long eyelashes. I got out of the carriage first, ready to try and explain my presence and coax some English-speaking member of the household into allowing me to stay. It was quite unnecessary. The guard touched his hand deferentially to his brow, bowed stiffly from the waist, and motioned me forward toward the main structure of the house.

I stood in the entrance, wondering what came next. Ameera was led away through rustling curtains of silk by an older woman who bustled out of the house as soon as we entered the double gates of weather-beaten teak. She gave me one nod, then ignored me. After a couple of minutes, the old man who had been in the Maidan came in behind me and gestured to another inner room.

It was a study, panelled and lined with bookcases. The wall on my left was flanked by a long sideboard bearing a dozen full decanters of different colored liquids, and heavy armchairs and coffee tables stood in precise alignment on the hardwood floor. There were no rugs — I could see what a hazard loose rugs would be to a blind woman — and there was an exact orderliness to the furniture arrangement.

The man who had led me in had abandoned me at once. I stood for a while looking at the books but that quickly proved to be a waste of time. They were all in Arabic or Hindustani script. After a futile few minutes I stepped across to the sideboard and removed the stoppers from a few of the decanters: Scotch, rum, sherry. It seemed at odds with the eastern elements of the room. I ran my hand across the smooth wood of the sideboard. Everything was spotless, no mote of dust anywhere despite the absence of occupation.

I was still standing there when Ameera returned, alone. Her color was back to normal, a rich coffee-cream with a hint of pink behind it in her cheeks. She came in confidently, skirting a coffee table and heading straight towards me. If I had not seen the telltale cloud behind her eyes in the Maidan I would have sworn that she had normal vision.

A couple of feet away from me she halted and spoke again in Bengali. I shook my head, then realized that was probably useless.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Leo-yo?” The word was musical and strangely accented. It brought the hair up on the back of my neck, and it wasn’t just her use of Leo’s name. I had found it, Leo’s eastern contact!

“Leo-yo,” she said again. “Please talk to me.” Her English was precise but not fluent.

“I am Leo’s brother,” I said, slowly and carefully. “Not Leo. My name is Lionel.”

“Brother?” Her face changed expression again, from sadness to worry and confusion. She came nearer and touched her hand up to my face. This time she was more thorough, running her fingers gently over my forehead, then back to the scars that were still lumpy patches of tissue on the back of my skull. She hissed to herself, tongue between her teeth, when she came to the patched-up bone.

“Leo-yo. You have been hurt.”

“Not Leo.” I took her hands gently in mine. She looked up at me patiently, her eyes wide and opalescent. “Ameera,” I said. “Please believe me. I am not Leo. Leo had a brother, I am his brother.” As I spoke I winced at my use of the past tense for Leo, but Ameera’s English was not good enough to catch it and read its significance. Her face remained perfectly calm.

“Ameera,” I went on. “I would like to talk to you. About my brother. About Leo.”

The long eyelashes flickered, and the lids covered the cloudy beauty of her eyes. She was looking down, her hands running their sensitive fingers over the back of my hand and my forearm.

“I understand,” she said at last. “You told me this. That there might be a time when you could not know me, you warned of hidden times. But here… where only we are here, after so long…”

Her voice trailed away sadly, and I swore under my breath. If only she could see… It was hard to believe that those dark orbs were unseeing. What could I do next? This was supposed to be the place where I would meet all Leo’s eastern contacts — but where were they?

“Ameera, whose house is this?”

She looked surprised, her lips parting to show pearly teeth with slightly prominent canines. “House? This house? Leo-yo, you know it. This house is your house, as it has always been — what else? We have waited for you here, waited and waited… Chatterji said you would not come back, you would never come back. When he saw you in the Maidan, he did not believe it.”

I was hardly listening. Leo’s house. I knew he had been in the east for years, and he hated living in hotels. But why had he never mentioned it to me?

“Now that you are here,” Ameera was saying, “it will be a tandoori meal. Shamli has been told, and Chatterji will get the chutney you like. In one half of an hour it will be ready to eat.”

She reached confidently across the sideboard and picked up a decanter and a glass. She removed the stopper, sniffed to make sure, and poured. It was a fine oloroso sherry, Leo’s favorite. Should I try and explain to her again? I sipped, watched as she replaced the stopper and set the decanter back in its exact place, and caught a hint of the delicate perfume she had applied since we reached the house.

Suddenly I had a visceral understanding that she had been Leo’s mistress. If I closed my eyes I saw images of dark, flawless skin beneath the modest clothes. The contours of her figure glowed with secret oils, familiar to me as no woman had ever been familiar. I took a bigger gulp of sherry.

“Ameera.”

“Yes, Leo-yo?” Still she refused to accept me as myself.

“There are many books here. Where are the other books and papers in this house?”

“Many places.” She was confused. “You know it. In this room, in the bedroom. There are books everywhere.”

“Did you ever hear anyone talk about T.P.? As someone’s name?”

“Teepee?” Her voice was bewildered, “Never. Who is Teepee?”

“I don’t know — it is a bad person. How about Belur? Do you know about anything called the Belur Package?”

Now she hesitated, “Belur is a common name in the south of the country. But what is in the package?”

“I don’t know.” I would try Chatterji and the others, if I could find an interpreter, but I sensed that there would be no success. Leo’s secrets were well-kept. He would not have told these people what he kept hidden from me.

A gong, softly struck, was sounding a low note through the house. Ameera took my empty glass from my hand and led the way towards the back of the ground floor. The table in the dining room was set for two, with gleaming Benares silver and white linen tablecloth. I sat opposite Ameera and felt enormously frustrated. I had travelled a third of the way around the world to chase a long shot. Now the long shot had come in, and I was more stymied than ever. The mysterious stranger in Calcutta had been found. He was my own brother.

The chicken tandoori was delicious, served with lime pickles and an array of chutneys and vegetables by silent servants whom Ameera addressed in Bengali. The effort of speaking and understanding English seemed to have tired her, and she concentrated on enjoyment of the food. Leo had been fluent in Bengali, that was obvious from the way that I was occasionally addressed in that language by the puzzled servants. As they served a dessert of banana halva I wondered again about the household. Leo must have managed to set it up to run separate from any business activities that he had carried on in India . It had run smoothly — at what cost I could not guess — even when he had disappeared for over six months. I had the feeling that he had left the house in the past on extended trips, and my sudden appearance was less of a surprise than I expected. I looked around me at the elegant furnishings and careful arrangement. I couldn’t have set up a house to run like this in my absence, not in a million years. The old conviction that I was somehow the lesser half, a reduced version of Leo, grew stronger as the meal concluded with a demitasse of Turkish coffee, and the sun outside the window sank lower in the sky,

Afterwards Ameera led me outside, to walk in the walled garden. There was no sign of a weed anywhere. As we passed through an archway framed by climbing roses, she took my hand to lead her. I saw the new shoots that reached out to catch at our clothes and guided her clear of them. When she moved through the arch the setting sun struck directly on her face, turning it to a bronze carving.

I passed my hand across her eyes, blocking out the light, and she followed the movement of my arm with her head.

“You can see that?” I moved my hand back and forth,

Ameera smiled. “Light and dark, Leo-yo. Nothing more. It has not changed.” She reached out to take my hand as it moved in front of her. I could smell her perfume again, rosewater and jasmine. She stroked my hand.

“Your room,” she said, “it was not made ready. If we had known you would be here… we have not even cigars for you, Chatterji will buy them tonight.” She sounded upset.

“I have my room at the hotel,” I said. Then I saw her face, and added: “All my clothes are there. I have nothing here with me.”

“There are clothes.” She turned her face again to the setting sun. “It will soon be dark. You are tired from your travel? Wait here, and I will see if the room is ready yet.”

I was exhausted from tension, but before I went up to bed I wanted to look over the rooms of the house. At my request Ameera led me around the whole place. Many rooms were unlit and I had trouble following her, though she moved confidently everywhere, past huge settees in the living room and the grotesque wooden statues in a long corridor that led back to the kitchen. I realized in the first few minutes that any search of the house for evidence of Leo’s activities in India would take days. But the best place to begin might well be Leo’s bedroom.

The house bustled busily about us as we went through the kitchen and up the rear staircase. It was clear what was happening. The master of the household had returned. Ameera treated me just as though I were Leo, and the rest of the staff took their cue from her. Everywhere I heard polite Bengali greetings, and Ameera replied to them. She seemed to feel that Leo, for his own purposes, was choosing to speak only English, and she behaved as though it were some kind of test. She had already told me, a little proudly, that for the past six months she had been practicing English speech every day — as I had told her to.

By eleven o’clock I had seen all of the house that a lightning tour could provide, said goodnight to Chatterji (still puzzled and obeisant) and to Ameera, and was making a closer examination of Leo’s bedroom. It was a huge, north-facing cavern on the second floor, with one small window that looked out over the high wall to the city beyond. Shaving equipment, towels and liquid soaps, enough for an army, were set out by a massive marble washstand, and clean clothes that smelled strongly of camphor were draped over wooden hangers. They were street clothes, and I could find no pajamas or other night attire. The room had one weak light over by the door, and another above the great bed. I could see evidence of Leo’s taste in some of the fittings and in the bookcases that filled the headboard and much of the wall space. But nowhere could I find one book or paper in English, or any sign of files or recording system.

So where did Leo keep his paperwork? I yawned, and decided that had to be a question for the next morning. I washed, turned off the lights, and climbed naked into bed. It was warm in the room, and I lay covered by a single cotton sheet that smelled pleasantly of lemon and reminded me of my childhood back home in the north of England .

The headache that had been creeping up on me for the past couple of days — a mild foretaste of things to come — pushed at me, like an itch behind my eyes, and I was glad to rest my head on the pillow. Even when I fell asleep the ache remained, following me into an uneasy dream, I found myself walking through a harsh, sunlit land, all yellows and crude reds, where small lizards sunned themselves on baking rocks and fled before me as I approached. And even in sleep, I knew I was not in India .

The door of the room opened. I was hazily aware of it, wondering what was happening to throw a spear of light in across the bed. I came more fully awake with the soft rustle of clothing, dropping to the hardwood floor. After a few seconds of silence I felt hands on my shoulders and the back of my neck. I tensed and almost cried out, then suddenly relaxed as the fingers dug in to massage my tired muscles and work out their tension and fatigue.

“Leo-yo.” It was a soft breath in my ear, smelling of mint and anise. I moved to sit up, then lay back beneath the pressure of her hand on my chest. Her gentle touch moved lower, exploring, pressing and rubbing and caressing.

“Lie still.” There was a fragrance of oils and powder as she slipped back the sheet and moved in beside me. She slid her body across mine. She was shapely and perfumed and had a skin as soft as a peach. There were a few gentle words to me in Bengali, then she moved on to me in total silence. For a long time there was only the sound of our breathing. Ameera was in control, leading me and following me irresistibly to a sweet climax.

Perhaps I should have felt guilty, a triple cheat. I was unfaithful to Tess, taking Ameera under false pretenses, and stealing Leo’s woman, all at the same time. I did feel uncomfortable — later. But as Ameera taught me something about the East that until then I had only read about, I could not feel anything but pleasure.

Her enjoyment seemed as intense as mine. Later we lay together, drowsy in companionable darkness, until she moved her hands to rub again at the muscles in my shoulders, lulling me. Again I felt her hands move all over me, caressing, renewing their acquaintance with my body, learning what her eyes could not tell her, And then, when I was very close to sleep, I heard a sound that jerked me back to wakefulness.

Ameera was weeping in the darkness, quiet and heartbroken. I could hear her trying to choke off her sobs as she moved her body away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I sat up, suddenly convinced that I had committed a terrible social blunder. It was impossible to believe that I had misread the signals and forced myself on an unwilling partner. But why else would she weep?

“I did not believe you,” she said at last. “You told me, and I did not believe. But it is true. You are not Leo. You are the brother.”

She had moved away from the bed and was reaching down to pick up her gown. I was sitting up, but I was naked and in the darkness and the unfamiliar room I had no idea where my clothes were. Before I could move she was at the door, slipping away from me.

As the door closed behind her all my old doubts and insecurities came flooding back. “Frozen Englishman,” Leo had said to me once, mocking me as we stood on the beach. “It’s the cold weather, you’ve got no blood in your veins. Come on out to L.A. , and maybe you’ll learn the right way to make love to a girl.”

He had been joking, but it still hurt — because I believed it.

For half an hour I lay on the bed, too depressed even to turn on a light. My headache was back, worse than ever. My thoughts went again and again over the same question: What had I done, what ineptitude so blatant that it would convince someone who wanted to believe I was Leo that I must be someone else? In our lovemaking we had not even spoken to each other. What had I done wrong?

I was still in my narcissistic fit of misery and self-pity when the door opened again. Bare feet came padding across the floor, and the bed moved as someone placed their weight on its edge.

“Here.” Ameera’s voice was only a sad whisper. “Take this. It is yours.” She pressed a sheet of paper into my hand.

“What is it?” The darkness was total. I had the wild idea that maybe this was the document I sought, the thing that told me what Leo had been doing here in India .

“I do not know,” she said. “Leo gave it to us and told us to keep it in case some day he did not come back. I cannot see, and Chatterji cannot read the English. He says it has writing in English. You are the brother. It tells you what must be done now.”

The sheet of paper seemed to burn in my grasp. I had to get to a light, to see what it said — but even more urgent than that, I had to know something else.

“Ameera?”

“Yes?” Her voice was dull and unhappy.

“I’m sorry. For what I did. I’m sorry that I wasn’t…” It was hard to say.

“Wasn’t?” Her voice was puzzled, a couple of feet away from me on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry you weren’t happy. I’m sorry that I failed you… when we made love.” My voice choked in my throat. “I mean, you knew I wasn’t Leo. I’m sorry for what it was I did wrong.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded different, as though she had turned her head away. “No, it was not that. Not when we loved. It was…” Her voice faltered. “It was afterwards, when we were lying here. And I touched you. I knew then. But I do not know how to say…”

I felt the bed move as she stood up, and heard her bare feet as she moved towards the door.

“I cannot say it,"’ she said again, and her voice sounded as though she was weeping into her gown.

“Why not? Please tell me, whatever it was.”

“I cannot. I do not know the word — the English word. But I knew you were not Leo afterwards, when I touched you — there.”

“Touched me?” She had touched me all over.

“Yes. He was — cut. You are not cut. I knew it then, as soon as I touched you.”

The door opened and I saw a swirl of white as she glided through and out of the room.

Cut? Operation scars? I had plenty of those, but we’d had no operations, either of us, before the final crash. So what on earth was Ameera talking about?

I lay back in the bed, and suddenly understood. A strange mixture of emotions flooded over me — relief, amusement, grief, and guilt. Ameera was quite accurate. Leo had been cut. Like most American males, but unlike me, he was circumcised. Only in unusual circumstances would anyone be able to use that as a method of telling us apart.

The sheet of paper was still clutched in my hand. I wanted to read it at once, to know what it would tell me. But I was gripped by powerful and uncontrollable emotions. If I am honest, I have to say that my strongest feeling was relief. My delicate male ego had survived a major trauma. Now it was more than I could do to keep my eyes open. The headache was creeping back, pulling a band of tightness across my forehead, and my brain felt numbed. Tomorrow. I would read the paper tomorrow.

In less than a minute I was asleep. And, human sexuality being what it is, I had wildly erotic dreams — of Tess. We were making love in the middle of the Maidan, ignored by the hundreds of passers-by who scurried through the midday heat on their urgent but inscrutable Calcutta business.