Claudia Casper - The Mercy Journals

I can just see that.

I wonder if Parker will tell Griffin when he returns from fishing.

After dinner I went up to Leo’s room. He was lying in bed, the covers under his armpits, reading some papers. He put them face down when I came in and never took his hand off them.

Whattup? he said with an ironic mimicry of ease.

I went in and sat in the chair in the corner, a low-slung thing with no arms that had been our great-grandmother’s.

What was that this morning?

What was what?

Parker started crying when you left.

I guess I should take that as an insult.

How about a signal to leave her alone.

She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself, believe me.

She’s pregnant, Leo. And she’s with Griffin.

She hasn’t fully committed.

There were a bunch of framed photographs turned face down on the dresser near my chair. I turned one over. Our parents, arm in arm, in Palm Springs. A photo from another epoch. I got a stab of nostalgia.

Can I take this? He nodded. What are you up to, Leo?

Up to?

Hey, I’m your brother. Something’s going on.

But are you my keeper?

Yeah. Sure. Maybe I’ll even keep you from yourself.

We were quiet for a bit.

The pistol. Parker. The cupboards. You’re looking for something and you don’t want to tell me about it.

I do things. The way everyone does, not always in a straight line.

But never without a purpose.

He shrugged. His feet moved under the covers. They distracted me for a moment, thinking about his bare feet. Why do I think you killed that goat?

We looked at each other. Why do you?

It wasn’t lying right. A cougar would have eaten more. And dragged it into the bush. The cubs would have demolished it.

You’re getting paranoid, big brother. Must be that post-stress thing. Why would I kill the goat? Although I admit I was getting sick of fish and shellfish and eggs.

The cougars didn’t kill it. If they show up, I’m going to scare them off. I want the pistol to do it.

Yeah, well, let’s see what Parker and Griffin think about that.

On this I don’t care what they think.

Ooh, the boss rears his head. Leo put his hand behind his head, keeping the other on the papers.

What do you care? I asked. You don’t even really want to live.

And now you do?

What are you reading?

Old love letters, he lied, not even bothering to disguise the lie, savouring his moment of dominance.

Bean and barley soup with a couple of goat bones, carrots and onion and thyme and sea salt. Good, but not quite enough to fill us. Leo held up a glass of goat’s milk to Parker. Lovely soup, my dear. Thank you.

The last of the onions and the first of this year’s carrots. I hope it’s enough.

Oh God, Leo continued with a surge of emotion, when I think of how much food there was. And the variety. Sushi, wasabi, soy sauce! All gone. Your generation, he gestured with his spoon at Griffin, you don’t know any different, but for me … So many pleasures — and now — homespun, bland, and nourishing, for the rest of my life. Oh for a California Cab Sauv or a crisp French Chablis Grand Cru — and not just once, but every night …

You’re not helping, said Griffin.

Oh, helping. Everything going in one direction. Subsistence just isn’t that engrossing for some of us older folk. Don’t get me wrong. I love working out there in the field with you two, covering every millimetre of skin to avoid burnage, expending the same number of calories to do the work as to grow more calories, ad infinitum.

Leo’s looking more like a mad man again these days. His hair is stiff with dirt and stands up at odd angles, and his beard looks like a squirrel has been tucking away food particles in there to last the winter. His eyes are a deeper blue than ever; the pupils always seem too small, and somehow he doesn’t

seem to see what he’s looking at. We had to ask him to bathe and wash his clothes last week because he stinks. He tried to get us to wash them, saying it was our need not his.

I’m bored. I’m depressed. I want my old life back — my family, my car and my house, my clothes, restaurants, trips, movies. Variety! Variety! Variety! Variety! he shrieked, his eyes popping open, hand pounding on the table. Griffin and Parker remained very still.

It could be different, you know, he continued. It doesn’t have to be like this. OneWorld Spartanism. They’re hoarding. There’s enough wealth. The one-child law has solved the problem; they’re just not admitting it. They’re fucking moralists without imagination. They’ve won, and they’re imposing their morality on the world and loving the power. There are some who see what they’re doing and are starting to organize. Getting ready. There are going to be changes. You should expect it.

He had my attention. What changes? I asked.

Leo looked at me, sizing me up, then an expression of contempt leaked over his face.

Oh change, change is inevitable, as the Buddha says.

I felt unbearably weary. More conflict. More striving. More history. More killing. I realized I had let myself believe that we were on the verge of a new order. A consensus after near extinction. Of course, there will be no end.

Leo spoke to Parker. At least you’re having a baby. That’s something new. Exciting. What is there for the rest of us?

What about your children? Parker asked, not looking at him.

Well, there’s Griffin here, looking like the end of a line, and not, with all respect and affection to Griffin, even my bloodline. Allen over there has lost track of his boys, so that genetic covalent is a question mark, and I have lost my daughters. I’d hoped we’d find at least one of our offspring here, and that that one might know something about the others. Allen acts like it doesn’t matter, but this could be the end of the Quincy line. All that’s left is a few more stops at Barley Soup — no offense — and a blind date with the worms.

You can all be family to this baby, Parker said in a small burst of hopeful connectivity. It’s not like it’s going to have any other. It would be lucky to have three uncles. My mother used to say if a baby has good grandmothers or aunties, its chance for survival goes way up.

Charmed, I’m sure, to be compared to a grandma, and yes, of course, happy to be an uncle to the little thing. But, again, no offence — blood matters to me.

That was a conversation assassination and we stayed silent. Thicker than water, trickier than water. Leo put his bowl in the sink and left. Then Parker leaned in. What happened to his daughters?

I left home when I was sixteen, Griffin said. Amanda was nine and Annie was eight. I feel guilty now. I didn’t know I was abandoning them. I didn’t know Leo would leave. He stared at the woodstove. I was hoping to find some trace of them here.

I passed the staircase later that night on my way to bed and heard Parker and Griffin whispering furiously.

Leo came out of his room and stood at the top of the stairs with an empty jug in hand.

You know what they say, he winked as he went past to the kitchen to fill the jug with water. Loose hips sink ships.

This morning I got up early and made tea and porridge. Leo came down and we ate companionably enough. He tossed his spoon into the empty bowl, pushed back his chair, sucked air in through his teeth, and said, Gotta see a man about a logging operation.

He headed to the outhouse and I went up to his room and looked for the pistol. I looked under his pillow and his mattress, under the bed, in the drawers, in the wardrobe. I felt undignified skulking around and resented Leo for putting me in this position. I felt behind the books on the bookshelf. I checked the pockets of his clothes. I eliminated every possible place to hide a gun in that room. I thought about the papers he’d been reading and had lied to me about. There was a gap between the hardcover and the pages of one of the books in the bookcase, For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway. The papers were inside.