30 Pieces of a Novel (70 page)

things. I've
checked everywhere else—just now Josephine's room—so I thought I'd give yours a try,” and she says, “What's it called?” and he gives her the title and she says, “What's it about?” and he starts telling her and then says, “This sounds too much like a tropical bedtime story, when it's a bit late for one. I'll continue with it in the morning if you refresh my memory that we spoke about it tonight. Go to sleep now,” and tries to reach her bed to kiss her forehead but there are heavy shoes and some other small hard objects in his way, one he accidentally kicks, and he says, “If you're missing the mate to the sneakers or shoes you want to wear tomorrow, look under the bed for it. Now I'm blowing you a kiss good night,” and blows one. Checks the bookcases in the living room. Must be a thousand books, most of them his wife's, and he scans every one except the big art books and atlases on the bottom shelves. After he's done with a book, and if his wife isn't interested in reading it and he doesn't think one of the kids will be in the next few years, he usually gives it to the town library or a friend or student or sticks it on a shelf in his department's reading lounge, even the ones inscribed to him, unless the author's in his department. I give up, he thinks. I'm just going to start something else and, if I don't like it, go to a bookstore tomorrow and find something new—and looks at the fiction shelves and sees the Conrad. “I don't understand it,” he says to his wife, and she says, “Still looking for your book?” “No, I found it. Polly didn't clean today, did she?” and she says, “She can only give us every other Thursday, so next week. Why, is the house so filthy to you?” “Not at all. I'll tell you about it later: this book”—holding it up—“a big big mystery,” and washes up, gets into bed, and starts reading. Oh, God, why can't I ever remember this? and gets up and turns the bathroom light on and leaves the bathroom door ajar so his wife will be able to see when she comes in and he can fall asleep without a bedroom light on. Gets back in bed and resumes reading. I think I'm going to give up on this one, he thinks, after a few more pages, and drops the book on the floor without a bookmark in it, puts his glasses in their case, brings his pen, watch, memo book, and handkerchief closer to him on the night table, lays his pillows flat, and turns off the light. His things, he thinks. Where are they? This is ridiculous. Put his pen, wallet, memo book, checkbook, book, and handkerchief down somewhere and now can't find them. Keys are on their kitchen hook; he puts them in his pocket. The rest shouldn't be hard to find. So big a pile, thick novel on the bottom, how can he miss it? First place he looked was the tops of the washer and dryer in the kitchen, where he usually puts things he's going to leave the house with. Now he looks at all the tables and sideboards and flat surfaces of furniture in the dining and living rooms. On his bed?—because he remembers collecting everything together so he could leave for work—and looks in his room. Not there or anywhere in the room or in his briefcase hanging on the coat rack in the living room. He takes it off and puts it on the dryer so when he does find all these things he can set off right away. They couldn't be in the bathrooms or either of the kids' rooms. Single things, yes, but not a big pile of his stuff. Wife's studio? Doesn't think so, but check—“Excuse me”—and goes in and looks around. “What are you looking for?” and he says, “Something.” “I know, something, but what? Perhaps I can help,” and he says, “Several things, actually. Not important; I'll find them.” “Don't you have to go to work soon?” and he says, “That's why I'm looking. But if I don't find them before, no big deal.” “Maybe I saw them. Your wallet and notebook and pen?” and he says, “Yes, you've seen them?” and she says, “Not recently. Just that those are what you tend to lose with some frequency.” “And my glasses, I just realized. They're with the other things I've misplaced and that I have to find before I go. Keys I know I have,” and sticks his hand into his pocket to make sure. “It's a big single pile of things. I'm sure it's right under my nose somewhere, but not here,” and she says, “If I see any of them I'll give a yell.” Didn't leave them in the car. You're so sure? and he goes out to the car and they're not there. He knows he put them all together: glasses, pen, wallet, memo book, handkerchief, checkbook, novel, and also his address and appointment books. The last four go into his briefcase. Keys are in his pocket. He just checked, but check
again
, and touches his pocket. He's lost a couple of things at once—pen and wallet when he used to keep the wallet in his side pants pocket—but found them after a long search on his car seat. That's when he thinks he started putting his wallet only into his back pocket. And one time three things—pen was one of them, forgets the rest—but not as many things at once as today: five, six; not even close. And he remembers they were in a neat pile, handkerchief on top, glasses in their case right underneath it. Blue hanky, too, or black. That might be the reason he can't find the pile: hanky's covering it and he was looking for something entirely different, and goes through the house looking for a folded handkerchief on a mound. “Still can't find it?” his wife says, and he says, “It's not just two or three things and my glasses in their case, it's many. Checkbook, address and appointment books, book I've been reading for pleasure,” and she says, “What are you reading these days?” and he says, “Whatever it is, I've no time to discuss it. It's the whole stack of things that's important. And what did I say before, the stuff wasn't important? That's crazy. My memo book. You
know how
I feel about it, particularly since I lost the last one.” “You never got your new notes copied? You said you would,” and he says, “No. And same with my hybrid pen. It has some mysterious importance to me, as if without it I couldn't continue with the work I'm on. Don't ask me why—something there crazy too—though the pen's of less importance than the memo book, just as the novel, even if it were the best one I'd ever started reading, and address and appointment books…. Well, the novel, since I can always get another copy of it in a day at a library or bookstore, is the least important of all except for the handkerchief, which is of no importance other than it might be hiding this very important pile. As for the checkbook—I'm not sure how it compares with the others in importance,” and she says, “It's extremely important, possibly the most important item to me of everything you spoke about so far. It has the register of all the checks you wrote this year. You lose that, we'd be in serious trouble when I started doing our income taxes. When you find it you should photocopy every page of the check register too.” “I will, though maybe not right after I find it; and I don't care what you say, the checkbook's not more important than my memo book or wallet or pen. How am I supposed to leave the house without them, at least the wallet and memo book?” “You didn't mention your watch, was that in the pile too?” and he says, “Jesus, my watch,” and feels his wrist. “Where the hell is it?” Goes through his pants pockets. Touches the keys, couple of coins, but nothing else in them. Runs through the house looking at all the places he thinks he could have left the watch. Goes back to her room and says, “Watch is probably in the pile too. So, if I'm right, watch, wallet, pen, handkerchief, checkbook, all those other books, maybe even some other things, though I can't imagine what,” and she says, “Is it possible your appointment and address books and checkbook are on the wooden shelf above the stove? I know I've seen them there before,” and he says, “I looked; or did I? I could be thinking of something else I looked for there today, like the pile with my handkerchief covering it, and not for any of those books specifically, so missed them. But I'll look again. Anything to find them. And maybe finding one will lead to another, and so on, though I don't see how. I'll be satisfied for the time being to just find one of those things, though of course, best of all, the most important one either to you or me,” and goes into the kitchen. On the shelf are an old tuna-fish can of coins, several pencils, lots of Visa receipts, bottle of aspirins, two subway tokens from New York, one of them the old one or maybe even the token before that, paper clips, rubber bands, seashell from the summer, jar of red food color (so his wife probably mixed a solution for the hummingbird feeder and set it out or is planning to or else planned to and forgot about it), dried-up marker he's been meaning to dump for a month, and tosses into the garbage can. Turns around to get a carrot from the refrigerator, something he often does—chomps carrots—when he's frustrated at some work he's having a hard time getting done or can't find something he's been looking for for a long time, and sees what seems like the missing pile on top of the refrigerator. No, can't be, and gets up close and finds under the handkerchief everything he's been looking for and a nail clipper he didn't know was in the pile and which he usually keeps in the coin can on the shelf. He thinks he intended to clip his nails later, either during the drive to school while he was waiting for for a long red light to turn or between classes. But how'd he miss looking here for the pile? he thinks, putting his glasses on and their case into his back pants pocket. Well, his eyes, first of all, without the glasses; handkerchief is navy blue, he sees, and rubs his nose with it and puts it into a side pants pocket. And he never turned the ceiling light on while he was looking and there's not much natural light in the kitchen around this time, and really only in the morning for an hour or so does it get some sun when there's sun. Otherwise, because the entrance is under the carport, it's the darkest room in the house. He also never looked on top of the refrigerator because it never entered his head the pile could be there. He can't remember putting anything on it before except empty jars and rolls of paper towels and things like that if he couldn't find room for them in the kitchen cabinets. So why'd he put the pile there today? Doesn't know, though is sure he did it. Kids had gone to school before he made the pile and his wife can't stand by herself and anyway would have remembered and told him if she'd put the pile there. Next time he loses something important he's going to look on every flat surface in the house even if he has never put anything on some of them, though not something like the top of a bookcase seven feet high. “I found them,” he yells out, and she says, “Everything, including the checkbook?” and he says, “The works, plus a nail clipper I didn't know was among them.” “The regular one for fingers or the big one for toes?” and he says, “Fingers,” and she says, “I could use it now, if you don't mind; I've been hunting for it myself,” and he goes into her room and gives her it. While she's clipping her nails, a sound he hates so he says, “Excuse me,” and shuts her door, he puts the memo book into the back pants pocket his eyeglass case isn't in, rest of the books into his briefcase, pen and wallet into his side pants pockets, and straps the watch around his wrist. “Listen,” he says through her door, and she stops clipping, “I have to go now. But I'm glad the whole thing's over with,” and she says, “I can imagine. I know what not having some of those things around means to you. And everything at once? It would have been a catastrophe if they were lost even for an entire day. And all of them lost forever? I won't even begin to imagine.” “Oh, I'm not so sure anymore”—pushing her door open—“everything can eventually be replaced or considered not that relevant, when you think of it. Nothing should be that important where it's going to seriously disturb you if it's permanently lost. Take the wallet, for instance. It'd take some time and maybe a little expense, but I could replace everything in it except a few photos. And the pen? Dammit, some markers are just as good, or almost. And the pen I have runs or just stains my fingers every time I fill it up. And why should I attach to it some mystical significance, almost, for my work? And the memo book? A big loss, if I could never find it again. But then I'd try to remember what notes in it are important. And if I couldn't remember them—well, then maybe they weren't so important. So it ends up being a not-so-bad thing in losing it, since I've weeded those notes out. And then, if I still felt lousy about losing some of the notes, and I probably would, I'd sit down and force myself to think up new ones that I never would have thought of if I hadn't lost the memo book in the first place, or something like that, but you know what I mean,” and she says, “You're only saying that because you found everything. But if one of the more important things, like your memo book or wallet or even your pen, was permanently lost and you knew it was, you wouldn't be so easygoing about it,” and he says, “I'm telling you, it's true, except perhaps for the memo book a little and, for you, my checkbook.” “Then photocopy all the important memos in it and also the entire check register, and set both our minds at rest,” and he says, “I will, definitely, at work today,” but is almost sure he won't have time to or that he'll forget.

He could do nothing today. Yesterday he could do nothing too. Sat around, napped a lot, read without wanting to, quickly put down the book, took walks, bought things at stores he didn't need now but could later use. Then he thinks of his brother—this came on his last walk. What if he had lived? He had never thought of it before. Or if he had, he forgot. He'd call him if he were alive. “Hi,” he'd say, when his brother answered the phone, “how are you, how you doing?”—all that stuff. But what else? Beyond the how-ya-doing and -are-you. His brother's job, for instance, if he wasn't retired by now, and so on. And if his brother were retired, then what he was doing with his free time, anything interesting or new? What's he been reading, seeing; what's on his mind? Anything particularly fascinating happen to him, the last, let's say, week, and how's his health? And it doesn't have to be “fascinating”; just anything he'd like to tell him about? Also, perhaps how glad Gould is to have a brother to speak to at such times. “Oh, yes?” his brother could say, and he'd say, “When I'm slightly depressed, just not feeling too good with myself and my work. More than slightly depressed, meaning more than ‘slightly.' I've for the past two days mostly been napping, taking walks, sitting around, trying to read, buying things I don't need, although nothing to bankrupt my family. But let's not go into what's been happening to me; I want to hear about you.” A lot of what he'd say to his brother would depend on where he lived. If his brother were living in Oregon, let's say, then most of what they talked about would have to be over the phone. He'd want him to live closer. New York, D.C., Boston, New Jersey. Someplace that'd take one up to a maximum of eight hours by car or train to get to. They were close as kids, he was told and can faintly recall, personally close, and would be that way now, he's sure. From everything his folks said, his brother had a terrific disposition from day one. “My obstetrician said he slid out smiling,” his mother said, “just as you say you saw your second daughter do, and she's still as jolly and sweet as can be,” and he said, “She has her off days, or moments,” and his mother said, “So did he—not days; rarely for more than ten minutes—but for the most part he was sublime.” And he feels one's disposition, if it's a good one—he has nothing to back this up except casual observation over the years—stays much the same through life unless there's a dramatic chemical imbalance along the way or something traumatic happens. Like losing a brother. That could do it, though it'd depend what age you lost him and how close the two of you were. So if everything had remained relatively the same they would have continued being close for a while. Then when his brother got to around twelve he would have started hanging out more with his own friends and a lot less with Gould. That would have been hard to take. The first child, of course, never has to go through it so isn't as aware of the effect. His folks, mainly his mother, would probably have told him many times, “That's what happens with boys at Robert's age so you have to begin accepting it and not be so disheartened,” and maybe even done more things with him and shown him more attention, mainly his mother, till he grew used to the change and perhaps got closer to his own friends. Then they would have become close again when Gould started college, and later on, and stayed that way till today. Again, nothing to base it on, though he has talked about it with several of his male advisees at school who were in similar situations. Why didn't his folks have more kids—he asked his mother this about ten years ago—“especially after Robert died? And if you had got to it right away the baby would have been four years younger than me, not much different than what Robert and I were,” and she said, “Two was plenty at first. I had my outside activities, professional things mostly, and your dad never wanted children that much. He would have been content with one, and if we'd had none he wouldn't have minded either. He loved you both but would have been happy to just spend long hours at his work and, when we could, to take extended vacations with me. So it was my decision alone, and two seemed the right number we could afford, and I also figured two brothers would play with each other, and so forth. While one could be a nuisance and, if we ignored him when he had no one to be with but us, a problem that would get worse the longer we did little to correct it. But after your brother's death, though I was certainly fertile—I had two abortions after Robert died—I swore off having another. Not even as a replacement child—the one you never would have had if a previous one hadn't died—and only thought of putting all my child-rearing efforts into keeping alive the one I had left, you, which is why you might feel you've been smothered most of your life. But you wanted me to have a third, true? Even a sister?” “Sure. Someone around who wasn't an adult. Then later for helping us take care of Dad and then he or she and I looking after you, not that you'll ever need it, and just for me to know someone else was there.” But his brother. If he were alive he'd call him now, no matter where he was, and say what? “God, I haven't seen you for more than fifty-five years. You must have changed some in that time. I'm listening; I'm not hearing anything. That was a joke. So how come no laughing, brother? though if I took time to think about it I'd probably think more of you for that. Haven't spoken to you either in that time, though in my mind and dreams plenty. The former's a lie. Might as well start out on the right foot right off. But dreams of you you should believe I've had a lot. You're young, you're older, you're always better than I in academics and sports; you're married, you're happy, you're showing me your first child; you're much older, you're on your last leg—one of Dad's favorite expressions—you're the same age as I when I last remember you, and remember you I do. Those dreams can't sub for the real thing like talking to you now but are okay if that's all you got. But you're still so closemouthed. How come, from someone who was such a gregarious kid, suddenly no response? Grave's got your tongue?” Their baths together. Sat opposite each other in the tub, sharing a single soap and washrag, feet flat up against the other's and their wee-wees peeping out of the six inches of water. His father, after he told him this, said no one, from something that had happened when he was so young, could bring back so many details like that after more than thirty years. “But we took a bath a week for months, Mommy's said, starting when I was three, and we always laughed about our penises sticking through.” “If Robert told me this today I might believe him, since he was six. But the memory of a three-year-old is ninety-eight percent blank, and to think you can recollect the one soap and washrag between you and depth of the water is nuts.” “I'm estimating the depth, since it barely came up to my waist.” “Even so.” Being hoisted out of the tub by his father (almost violently, but he didn't tell him that), who said, Robert's old enough now to take baths alone. “That's also impossible for you to have remembered. I'd only possibly
remember it if
I'd done it to you, but I don't. But if I did lift you out of the tub it would be only because your mother said your teeth were chattering and you were going to catch a cold or that I saw you two futzing around in there and thought one of you might drown.” Wonders if their wee-wees sticking above the water and their laughing about it and maybe even pulling on them till they were hard or who knows what had anything to do with his father hoisting him angrily out of the tub and never letting them take a bath together again. “We should ask Dad,” he'd say to his brother now on the phone. “Come on, that's another joke; you gotta say something. I didn't make this call just to hear my own voice. And the folks plenty of times said that even as a two-year-old, or maybe it was three, you had a highly developed sense of humor—'sophisticated,' Mom said—catching on to some of Dad's pranks and funny lines and Mom's plays-on-words that kids twice and maybe thrice your age wouldn't get; and I'd think something like that, unless you've taken a great physical or personal blow, lasts for life.” Slept in the same room with him for three years. First slept in a crib in his parents' room. Then when he was around three months his crib was moved into Robert's room, or what eventually became “the boys' room.” He got a bed for his third birthday—it wasn't delivered, or maybe it couldn't be assembled for a while—but soon after it was, Robert died. He thought several times, when he was four or five, looking at Robert's bed with the same winter or summer bedspread as his but no blanket or sheets though it did have an uncased pillow underneath—his parents kept it as a possible guest bed, though no adult guest ever slept in it, and also for his friends to sleep over sometime in the future, his mother said—did Robert die because they bought me a bed? Maybe thought it once. Robert could have felt that the crib, because it had rollers, was only temporary and one day it would be rolled out with Gould in it and the room again would only be his. “Boys' room” might have meant “boy's room” to him, meaning his, since Gould was what to the family?—the baby of it, never the boy. For years the bed remained neatly made beside his with one or the other bedspread on it, then both beds with identical spreads on them after he moved away, till his mother died and he emptied her apartment and sold or gave away the spreads and just about everything else in it except for a few treasures: some painted plates of fruits that had been on the dining room wall; a small bronze of a naked boy reading a book, which his mother said resembled Robert and was the only reason he kept it; three tiny Chinese or Japanese ivories of squatting figures working at different trades. If Robert were alive they would have split everything between them fairly and squarely. Better than that. One would have said to the other, “Take whatever you want. I'll have a look at what's left.” And the other would have said, “No, you choose first and as much as you like, and then I'll see if there's anything I want. Those Japanese or Chinese figurines, for instance. They're beautifully crafted and very old and probably valuable, and I know you liked them as a boy. I used to watch you stare at them through the case and then later you made up stories for me about them.” “You did that too, and if they're so beautiful and valuable, you have them. Don't worry, there'll be plenty left that I'll like. Mom had great taste. Those painted fruit plates. The bronze boy leaning against a tree stump reading a book. She got them at auctions and I want you to have them too. And if your wife and kids see anything they like, then they can also choose before me.” “And
your
wife and kids; I want them to select things before me too.” Gould and his folks would go to the cemetery every other month for a few years to visit Robert's grave. Then every four months or so. By the time Gould was in his twenties they only went once a year, on Robert's birthday or a day close to it, and only that infrequently, for the most part, because they no longer had a car and had to hire a cab. His mother would always weed the grounds around the grave, brush the leaves and dirt off the stones, pick up any papers and other garbage that might have been blown into their hedges and on the path, cry, ask his father for his handkerchief though she always carried tissues in her bag, cover her eyes with her hands, and say a prayer for a dead son she'd memorized from the little prayer book the funeral home had given out at Robert's funeral, and then open her eyes and say just about the same thing every time: “I will never get over it, Robert dear. Listen to me, my boy, I swear I will never get over the loss of you and that it's forever made me heartsick, do you hear?” His father during all this would usually hold his hat, try not to jingle the change in his pants, stare at the grave a few seconds, and the rest of the time look around the cemetery and at the road nearby if there was a car or truck driving past and at the sky, especially if a plane was flying by. Gould would stand beside his mother just in case she started to collapse, which she did once, and a couple of times when he was in his teens he thought, If this is where your spirit's supposed to be, I don't feel it, though I wish I did. You could be a real help to me now and in my future in all sorts of ways. But if there is an afterlife or just that spirit hanging around, why would you want to stay here? It's so ugly and windy and depressing and cold, and noisy and smelly from the passing cars. Though if you
are
here or anyplace where the folks and I go, could you give me some way to contact you? I'll swear on the Bible, if that's what you want, that I'll keep it just between you and me. After about half an hour, his father would put his hat on and say something like “I think we've been here long enough, paid our respects, and all that, so what do you both say? I'd like to get a bite at that diner around here we always go to before we head back. I don't know about your mother, but you must be hungry, Gould. I know that as much as I have for breakfast before we leave for this place, by the time this is over I'm always starved.” Then his mother would say, “We should get a bench so you and Gould can sit down and then we could stay longer,” and his father would say, “You always say that, and I always say, ‘Do we really need one for the few times we come out here?' But if you really want one, order it, but nothing fancy.” Then his mother would say, “I'll start calling around for one tomorrow. And as long as we're out here, and this won't take much time, I wonder if either of you would mind my visiting my brother's grave at another cemetery on this road.” His father usually couldn't stand any talk of Robert in front of him. When his mother, at the table, once spoke about Robert—that he was a quick eater and ate almost everything you put on his plate, especially carbohydrates, so the trick was not to give him too much initially and to go skimpy on seconds—his father said, “Please, do you have to?” and she said, “I'm just talking, it doesn't have to concern you. Just continue eating,” and he said, “Goddammit, he's dead, the damn kid's dead, not a damn kid but what the hell's talking about him going to do to help you or him?” “His name came up in conversation; you were busy with your soup and missed that part. Gould asked if Robert was fat—that he has this memory—and I was answering,” and his father said, “Baloney, and you know it,” and threw down his napkin and left the table, “probably to cry by himself in the bathroom,” his mother said, “for that's been his problem since your brother died. And later on he'll come out as if he hadn't ruined our dinner and ask me to heat up the food he missed. Look how many years it's been, but I can't so much as say that today's Robert's birthday, if that day is, I'm saying, and that's why I've lit my memorial candles, because as soon as I bring up Robert's name he tells me to drop the subject or else he's closed his ears. If you can't mourn from time to time and admit that you're mourning, and especially to someone who feels as sad about it as you, then you're going to suffer. Because you were so young and didn't get to really know your brother, you never had to go through any of this,” and he said, “I knew him, I remember him a lot. Robert. I remember he was heavy but not so fat. I have lots of other pictures of him in my head, and most of them with him laughing,” and she said, “Probably just the tiniest little memories. And the pictures, I'd think, would be mostly from old photos. He was a plump baby, to answer your question, quite heavy to carry in my stomach and with an enormous head and shoulders when he came out. He always had a large appetite, as I've said, or ate well and with no fuss, and I think he liked everything I made for him. He was always like that: never a problem in anything he did. But by the time you were born, or a year after, I'd slimmed him down considerably, having learned that fat babies make fat adults, and he stayed that way because of the diet and serving methods I'd devised for him, so you couldn't remember Robert as heavy. Always taller than the other children his age, yes. On the growth chart his pediatrician mapped out for him, Robert was going to be six-four. That would have been something to see, since no one in Dad's family or mine has been more than five-nine, and your growth chart has you topping off at five-ten at the most, though those things aren't always exactly accurate and can also change.” But his brother. He'd call him now and speak to him. Or he'd be sitting where he is, at his desk in his bedroom, phone on the dresser, and thinking of Robert but not as if he Were alive. He'd be alive and the phone would ring and Gould would go to the dresser and pick up the receiver and say into it, “Don't tell me, it's my brother. I was just this second thinking of you,” and Robert would say, “That's uncanny, for I was just thinking of you, only a few seconds ago, so decided to call.” Or he wouldn't be thinking of Robert. He'd be sitting at his desk typing or staring at the clean paper in the typewriter and thinking of his work or reading over what he'd just written and the phone would ring and he'd say, “Damn, always interruptions…. Sally!” he'd yell out, “could you answer it?” and get no answer and go to the phone and pick up the receiver and say, “Hello?” and Robert would say, “Hey, there, you don't sound too happy. Anything wrong?” or “Hiya, Gould, how you doing? I'm not interrupting anything, am I? Something in that hello,” and he'd say, “I was working, but nothing important,” and Robert would say, “And I'm not calling about anything important. Just to talk to you, which I like doing—I didn't mean that disparagingly—and I can call back later, or when you want to you can buzz me,” and he'd say, “No, no, let's talk now while we got the chance. I'm not working on anything that can't be helped if I come back to it, after the breathing space a phone talk could give me, with more enthusiasm or greater and/or better ideas or whatever's missing now and the piece needs.” Oh, jeez, how do brothers speak? But ones their age, both in the low sixties. If they like each other, maybe the way he just had it: affectionately, solicitous of the other's feelings and time, and so on: you first; no, you. Hi, hey, how ya doing, what's new? Nothing's going on with me these days and I just felt like talking to you. But if you're busy…. And he would have liked Robert. Everything that's been said about him—well, he's said that. “Such a sweet boy, and so beautiful,” his mother used to say. “His eyelashes, for instance. All children have beautiful eyelashes, but his went beyond that. They were like painted on, but real. There was never a sweeter, more beautiful boy in the world, excluding you. So let's say you both—though to be totally honest, and this isn't anything, so don't worry, his eyelashes were more striking than yours—two beautiful, sweet, gentle, and intelligent boys. What unwanted competition you would be to each other. The girls would flock to you both when you hit your twenties and wouldn't know which one to fight over,” and he said, “He could have them all, I wouldn't mind. And my eyelashes are nothing; I never thought of them and I don't want them to be pretty.” “Wouldn't he have been a wonderful brother to have grown up with,” his mother said, years later. “The best, I'm sure, and to have around now, no matter how far away from each other you might have lived. No, that was a terrible thing to say, as if I had intentionally wanted to make you sad, which you know I didn't,” and he said, “No, it's all right and probably true.” So, say Robert had lived. He calls and says, “I'm flying in, if you've room for me. No big reason I'm coming. Haven't seen you all in a long time, and I have a few days off and these Frequent Flyer benefits to use up in a month, and my desk and home life are clear. But if you're busy …” He picks him up at the airport; they go out for dinner with Gould's family, Gould paying for everything everywhere they go and Robert saying, “Come on, you gotta let me cough up once and to the best restaurant in town,” or however he says it. “It's such a treat having you here,” Gould says, driving him around, showing him the city. “But you're not interested in seeing things like the harbor and tulip garden and such, are you? I know I wouldn't be if I came to your area, except for the art museum, and all I could take there is an hour before I'd want to go to its coffee shop for coffee.” “No, I came just to see you and your family, and maybe, while I'm here, your art museum also, but that's all.” They say more, but what? Robert likes good wine and brings a few expensive bottles from Washington. That's where he lives, not California or wherever he said. Also gifts for the kids: books he thought they'd like—“I checked with Sally first to see what they've been reading”—and books for Sally and him that Robert had recently read and liked. “What are you reading these days?” Robert would say on the phone before he left to see them. (‘“What books are you reading these days?' Robert had said,” he means.) “We've got one of the best bookstores in America here, better and bigger than anything on the East Coast. You looking for something you can't find there, just tell me. It's got everything, even rare ones mixed in with the new, and you're my brother and Sally's my sister-in-law, so don't worry about the cost.” What else do they talk about when he gets here and on the phone? When they were young: their parents, friends, block, neighborhood, shared memories and same public school through the eighth grade and bar-mitzvah teacher who rapped their knuckles with a ruler or swatted their palms with a pointing stick. “Remember the time you hit me over the head with your violin?” Gould says. “Mom threw a fit and the damn thing split in two, ending your music lessons and putting a deep gash in my head, one of about a dozen scars I have there but the only one from you.” “I never laid a finger on you like that,” Robert says, “not in my whole life, so wrong brother, brother. At most we recurrently wrestled on our bedroom floor, all the furniture pushed back, till the tenant below complained about her chandelier shaking and the noise. But only like athletes wrestled, for the sport and fun and no one getting hurt.” “You didn't always beat me either,” Gould says. “And the older I got, the more evenly matched we became, till I was almost pinning you,” and Robert says, “I was always bigger but you got stronger than me. But I stayed heavier and sweated more, which was the key. A tough shrimp, I called you, and then, a tough lobster.” Gould flies to Washington to see Robert or because his work takes him there. Takes bottles of Spanish and Portuguese wine, paying much more for them than he ever paid for wine for Sally and himself, except on their wedding anniversaries. Takes a few books he read in the last few months. “You like to keep all your books and buy copies of the ones you liked for me, while I like to give mine away once I read them and to have an empty bookcase. In that respect, as Mom said, two brothers couldn't be more unalike, since according to her we were always that way. Make what you want of it, but I married a hoarder like you. Anyway, read these and tell me what you think. Or just start this one and say why you tossed it away. There are only five really good writers going at any one time in the world, and she's one of them.” “That's ridiculous and so limiting, and being the reader you are I can't believe you think this, unless it's only your way of keeping your book