Дональд Уэстлейк - Brothers Keepers

Mr. Schumacher was silent for a while, and when I looked at him he was deep in thought, chewing on his lower lip. I let him do his thinking in peace, and at last he muttered (to himself, not to me), “I never see my family anyway. They’ll never notice the difference.”

I considered saying “absolutely,” but refrained. I had not been addressed, after all, nor was I entirely certain “absolutely” was the right response to what had been said. Mr. Schumacher continued to ponder, though without verbalizing any more of his thoughts, and I finished my last little bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Looking up, hoping to catch the stewardess’ eye for a refill, I saw her making her way down the aisle in my direction, pausing to say something to each passenger along the way. When she reached us she said it again: “Please fasten your seatbelts, we’ll be landing in a moment.”

“No more Jack Daniel’s?”

She smiled at me and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said.

“Brother,” I said, but she had gone on.

I clinked as I walked. Many little Jack Daniel’s were stowed about my person, and they tinkled together with my movements as though I were some sort of living wind chime.

We had landed, sailing down the late afternoon sky to New York and coming at last to rest. The airplane door had opened, to reveal a corridor on the other side of it — could that corridor have flown all the way from Puerto Rico with us? — and Mr. Schumacher and I had joined the other deplaning passengers in deplaning. I was carrying my vinyl overnight bag, packed with my new razor and my new alarm clock and Brother Quillon’s socks, and Mr. Schumacher was carrying a battered canvas bag festooned with zippers.

He had remained silent through our descent, and didn’t speak at all until we had passed through the mysterious corridor and found ourselves in the terminal building. Then he said, “You got luggage?”

I held up the overnight bag. “This.”

“No, more than that. To pick up.” He gestured toward a sign saying baggage , with an arrow.

“Oh, no,” I said. “This is all I have.”

“Smart,” he commented. “Travel light.” Then he lowered his brows and looked thunderous and said, “If you’re going to Travel at all.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Never again.”

“Good man,” he said. “Well, then, let’s go.”

“Go?”

He was impatient with my bewilderment. “What did you think? I’m coming with you. Travel, goodbye!”

We did Travel, though, by cab, from the airport to Manhattan. And while sitting together in that back seat I tried gently to suggest that this sudden urge of his was a mere passing fancy, a transitory whim brought on by Jack Daniel’s and Traveler’s fatigue.

But he’d have none of it. “I know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You described to me a place I’ve been dreaming of all my life. Do you think I wanted to get into this business? A grandson of Otto Schumacher, what chance did I have? Travel Travel Travel, it was pounded into me from the day I first learned to walk. A day, by the way, that I’ve cursed ever since.”

“But your family. Haven’t you a wife, children?”

“The children are grown,” he told me. “My wife sees me about two days a month, when I bring her the laundry. She says, ‘How was the trip,’ and I say, ‘Fine.’ Then she says, ‘Have a nice trip,’ and I say, ‘I will.’ If she misses all of that, I can phone in my part.”

“Your business?”

“Let my brothers handle it. And my cousins and my uncles. Neither of my sons would follow in my footsteps — a dreadful phrase, that — so I leave the world with a clear conscience.”

“But not with a clear head,” I told him. “I know I’m feeling the effects of all that alcohol.”

“If I change my mind tomorrow,” he told me, “I can always leave, can’t I? You people won’t chain me to a ring in the wall, will you?”

“Absolutely not!” I said, finding another use for my favorite word.

“Well, then.” And he faced forward, smiling cheerfully and expectantly and — I thought — a bit madly.

The building was there, where I’d left it, but its future could now be counted in days, perhaps hours. At midnight, it would begin to fade, like Cinderella’s coach. Mr. Schumacher, his cheek against the cab’s side window, said, “Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He paid the fare and we clambered out to the sidewalk, freeing the cab to surge back into the melee. I was certainly no more drunk than when I’d left the plane, but for some reason I felt less steady on my feet, and apparently Mr. Schumacher was much the same. We leaned on one another for support, each of us grasping our luggage, and we paused for a moment on the sidewalk to gaze at the nearly featureless stone wall — the dull facade — that the monastery presented to the transient world. It was after five by now, evening was nearing, and in the fading light that stone wall seemed somehow more real, more substantial, than the glass and steel and chrome erections thrusting themselves skyward all around us. They in time would fall of themselves, but this stone wall would have to be murdered.

“It’s beautiful,” Mr. Schumacher said again.

“Beautiful,” I agreed. “And doomed.”

“Oh, it must not be,” he said.

Passersby were pausing to look at us, not sure whether to frown or laugh. I said, “Why don’t we go inside?”

“Absolutely,” he said, having picked up my favorite word.

The door to the courtyard was locked — there was a case of locking the barn after the horse has gone — so we staggered instead to the scriptorium door, which was also locked. Thundering on it, however, via my fist and Mr. Schumacher’s shoe, produced a startled-looking Brother Thaddeus, who gaped first at Mr. Schumacher and then at me. “Oh! Brother Benedict!”

“Brother Thaddeus,” I said, stumbling on the step, “may I present Mr. Schumacher.”

“Thaddeus,” said Mr. Schumacher. He gripped Brother Thaddeus’ hand and peered intently into his face. “The Merchant Mariner,” he said, “safe at port. The sailor, home from the sea.”

“Well,” said Brother Thaddeus, blinking and looking bewildered. “Well, yes. That’s right.”

I managed to enter the building and close the door behind me. “I met him in my Travels,” I explained.

“I want to join you,” Mr. Schumacher told him.

“Ah,” said Brother Thaddeus. “That’s very nice.” For some reason, I had the impression he was humoring the both of us.

I said, “Where’s Brother Oliver, do you know?”

“In the chapel,” he said. “They’re all there, a vigil, prayers for a last-minute reprieve.” Hope entered his eyes and he said, “Do you bring us good news, Brother Benedict?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I knew I’d be seeing that crushed look another fourteen times before this day was over. “I failed,” I said.

“Don’t say that. You did your best,” he assured me. “Of course you did your best.”

“It must not happen,” Mr. Schumacher announced. He was now glaring around at the scriptorium’s woodwork, his expression an odd combination of defiance and pride of ownership.

I said, “Come along, Mr. Schumacher. We’ll go see Brother Oliver.”

“Precisely,” he said.

We left our luggage with Brother Thaddeus and walked through the building to the chapel. Mr. Schumacher loved everything he saw along the way, from the doorframes to the Madonnae and Children. “Wonderful,” he said. “Precisely.”

The chapel was silent when we entered it, but not for long. Faces turned, robes and sandals rustled as the brothers rose from their pews, and at first the question was asked in whispers: “What news?” “Did you have success, Brother?” “Are we saved?”