October 1987
After the police have gone I go upstairs to stand by Reza’s bed. You might think Look at the foolish bastard of a boy thinking he’s going to be forgiven so easily after what he did. But forgiveness was not my first goal. Before anything else I needed to know. I needed to find the missing piece of the puzzle and pocket it along with all the other pieces. In this way I could own everything that had happened and my suffering would be whole. This is what I cannot locate among the fragments of yesterday: Reza’s eyes when I push open the door of the toolshed. I cannot see them. If I do not remedy this then in my memory of that moment my brother’s eyes will forever remain as blank as the no-iris whites of Roman sculptures. If you cannot remember the sin then for what do you ask to be forgiven?
A barely perceptible shift in the pattern of Reza’s breathing tells me he knows I am here. Yet he does not open his eyes. His eyelids are smooth and pale and so thin I can almost see him looking at me through them.
“Reza,” I say.
Not a flicker.
“What did you think?” I say. “When I opened the door like that? Did you think I … I came to punish you on purpose? Did you think I knew?”
Downstairs—almost directly under my feet—Leo’s body is slowly seeping river water into the lining of his casket. Beneath the heavy wooden lid he is debloating himself. Those are pearls that were his eyes. These are sausages that were his fingers. Red patches on his hands and feet show where the fish were already starting to nibble. Had they had a bit more time they would have gnawed his eyelids into lace. Even in death Leo would then have been unable to shield his eyes from the inquisitive.
“Reza,” I say. “It wasn’t my fault. I thought I was only going to show everybody what they all already knew. It was Annabelle Foo’s idea to open the door. I only thought I would teach her a lesson. I thought she’d planned this big shocker for Cyril Dragon and I could spoil her glory.” But she knew. That’s what I can’t bear to tell him. She knew about you and Leo. I can’t do it to him: I can’t tell him it wasn’t an accident.
His eyelids spring open to show his fever-bright eyes.
“You—you’ve always been so … so … proud of yourself, so satisfied with your snooping and spying and carrying tales. You think it makes you so great. But you’re nothing but a pathetic little piece of shit.”
I will my feet to step backwards slowly one foot at a time come on now just one step one small step please come on but no. I’ve turned to stone. I cannot escape. Now Reza is hoisting himself into a sitting position but not for one second do his eyes leave my face.
“You can try to blame Annabelle Foo now but it’s always been you with all your godliness, you minding everybody else’s business, you trying to climb straight up to heaven on other people’s backs. You think you are sitting at the right hand of not just your wonderful father but God himself. You always wanted to cause trouble for us. You were always jealous because we knew how to have fun and you didn’t. Well now you’ve caused the biggest trouble of all so I hope you’re happy. Are you? Are you happy? Because for sure if this is the kind of thing that pleases your God then you will go straight to heaven when you die. You have offered up a human sacrifice after all. What could be better? Straight to heaven you’ll go, Kannu. Straight to heaven. But until you die you can spend the rest of your life thinking about what you did and I hope it will torture you and make you sweat at night. I wish I believed in ghosts because then I could say I hope Leo will come back to haunt you. But failing that I hope your own guilty conscience will poison the rest of your life. Just don’t call me your brother anymore. Don’t ever call me your brother again.”
He slides back down. Turns over onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow. I am dismissed.
In one day I have now lost two brothers. I will have my whole life to mourn them. My whole life to mourn and to puzzle over God who was supposed to show me Right and Wrong and guide my hand and act through me. And now at last it comes to me: the truth of what Reza has been saying for years. God already knew what would happen at the end. He had not only seen the scene in the toolshed the footprints in the mud the body pulled from the water; he had decreed it. Nothing after all happens without His will. So I must puzzle. I am not Reza, I cannot dust faith off my skin with a chuckle. Somewhere out there is the explanation. With God all things are possible isn’t it? X is Y’s brother and Y is Z’s brother but X and Z are not brothers. In the Scottish tea planter’s house there is a boy with two brothers. One of his brothers is dead and the other has disowned him but he can still—with God’s help—have two brothers. God can change the future and the past. He can raise the dead, He can make the blind see, He can make the unforgiving forgive. Can’t He?