When they took me out of the “hole,” as they called it, I kept cheating, starting fights, and quibbling until I gave them an excuse to put me back there, my bloody body swollen with bruises and cuts. Neither severe beatings nor humiliation, nor other types of physical pain made me cry. Only my memory, my anguish, and my regret for what I thought was love and kindness, but at the end of the day was worse than evil.
My brother — he had no name except “my brother,” since he only answered when I called him that — didn’t like names. One sound sufficed for him, as in when he chose only one letter from my name — Kaf — and started calling me that, stretching it out, as he did when he started calling my parents “Maaaaaa” and “Paaaaaaaa.” They forced him to count and, unlike me, counting tasted like a kind of torture to him. Addition and subtraction required him to use his fingers and other things. That was until I found him the solution in an imaginary bag, which we sketched out together in his mind, into which he put every number that he had previously kept in his hand, waiting to complete the computation process.
He’d scream “Kaaaa!” then bang his head against the ground if he didn’t find me next to him. When I’d come, he’d gurgle like a fountain, hugging the tree as he would a human — living beings and inanimate objects weren’t different to him. My mother’s female relatives said, “God bless the Creator of two brothers who don’t resemble each other at all — either in looks or temperament. Praise be to Him, the one who beats you with one hand and supports you with the other”... I started thinking about the one they called “Praise be to Him.” The one who supported my mother when she was giving birth to me and beat her when she gave birth to my brother, as he fell from her belly onto the ground and hit his head on the tiles, rolling onto his face, his eyes shrunken, his limbs diminished. Fearing this “Praise be to Him” would direct another blow at him, perhaps as revenge, my brother didn’t want to grow up as other children do.
Despite this, for some reason I don’t understand — and contrary to the comments of everyone who spun around in our orbit, including our parents — I started to feel we were twins: as if he were the night and I the day, he the white and I the black, he the letter and I the dot. I remained amazed and astonished, not understanding how people didn’t see the resemblance between us, to the point where I put all the blame for this on “Praise be to Him,” who confused people. He put a soul in me which had my brother’s body shape, and he instilled in my brother a soul that matched my own looks. So my soul lived as a stranger, having nowhere to settle down, in exile in a place it didn’t know, where it didn’t fit in, harboring a desire to leave and go where its twin was hidden, locked up in shackles and dirt.
They pitied him and I envied him. Lying in bed, I wished he were the one about whom people said, “Beautiful features and a good head on his shoulders,” and I were the one about whom they said, “Poor thing, deranged looks and a deficient mind.” Because of my jealousy I started acting like he did while holding his hand, walking together to schooclass="underline" I would take my hand from his, making sure no one was watching, and then I’d start to cover everything with wet kisses. I’d open up my schoolbag and eat my snack before the bell rang, marking the arrival of the ten o’clock break, or I’d throw it to a homeless dog or stray cat, or I’d put it in a hole in a tree stump, and on top of all that I’d kiss it because... because it was there, on the side of the road. I’d take off my school uniform and throw out the coins in my pockets. If my shoes were too tight or a pebble got into them, I would take them off too and walk barefoot, not feeling pain, cold, or shame. My brother’s laughter would accompany me, rising up behind me and causing a huge bevy of leaves to fall from the trees onto us.
My brother was the only one who missed me after what befell me. In any case, he is the only one I missed too. Others would pass by the eye and not linger or tarry. Passersby, people in transit, visitors. Capturing the wind. I don’t remember any of their features, and they don’t leave any trace on me. The faces which come back to me are themselves few, wild, and don’t tolerate any intimacy. Sometimes I can put names to them, when the waters of memories explode within me; I’m not aware of them flowing down in my lower regions.
This is how “Ta” came in disguise, hiding behind memories that weren’t his, despite all my miserable attempts to make him go away. Ta, who I fell in love with when we were still children. Because he stopped to watch me play with my brother. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t ridicule. Because he approached us trying to be friendly, begging us to include him in our clique. Because I didn’t understand at the beginning and didn’t believe. Because I prevented my brother from hugging him and kissing him like he did with every other stranger. Because I started noticing him every day following us from a distance. Like a dog. And because I saw him one day playing with my brother, when he didn’t see me; he picked my brother up off the ground, wiped his runny nose, straightened his clothes, and kissed his head. And because when I approached, he stopped silently and asked, “What’s his name?” I said, “My brother, he doesn’t have another name.” He said, “Then he’s my brother too!”
AAAAAAAAH...
My wife rushes over to me, alarmed. My eyes are bulging, fluids streaming out of them, which she catches with her hands so they won’t soil her red sofa. She asks me what’s wrong, repeating, “Do you want me to call the doctor?”
What doctor? And what use are all the doctors in the world to me if I can’t turn back the wheel of time even a few seconds? A few seconds, not more, to push my life to the junction, which would deviate from a hell whose fires only subside to crane up its neck anew. A few seconds, my God, and I would rewind parts of the tape. I would see Ta walking with my brother and playing with him, not noticing me after he lifted him from the ground, straightened his clothes, and wiped his nose. I would go over to them and remain silent, not uttering a sound, until he asked me what his name was. I would answer, “My brother. You aren’t related to him and if you come near him again, I’ll bust your nose and even God won’t be able to fix it”... So Ta, who was cowardly by nature, would have walked away frightened, head bowed, leaving my brother and me alone, never to return.
But I didn’t rebuke him, I didn’t make him walk away, and Ta got closer and closer to us until he started haunting us. On the way to school, in school, and on the way home. We were almost like relatives — even the family on both sides followed us. In any case, they didn’t have a choice. As we grew older his infatuation with and devotion to us increased, as did our trust and devotion to him. I even started relying on him and leaving him alone with my brother, whenever desire called me. I was at the age of discovering desire in all its forms and I would forget my brother or to wonder about Ta’s devotion to him. I would forget to think about how strange it was that he wasn’t passionate about life like I was. So I’d push any doubts about him or rebukes to my own conscience right to the back of my mind.
When I discovered what was happening, they were together in the garage where my parents had set up a place for us to play when we were little. As we got older, they transformed it into a kind of space to hang out where we could have our forbidden dreams, secret conversations, and crazy music in private. My brother would rejoice when we’d take him there and he loved spending time there with us, since he could feel that perhaps he was like us, equal to us, far from the eyes of the family. We would enter, and he would explode like a volcano because it didn’t matter if we threw our things around in a mess or if havoc was wreaked on the place. We’d stand idly watching him playing our drums, strumming the strings of instruments very dear to our hearts, or ripping up pages of magazines we’d bought. The garage remained our oasis for many years. When I grew up and fell in love with my aristocratic rabbit and she was determined that we get married or break up, Ta convinced me to accept a compromise. He would stay with “our brother” and take over his care and protection so my parents — hardworking government employees who only came back home late in the evening — wouldn’t send him where disabled people like him were sent...