times like these we speak in cliches and mind it not a bit. Cliches are
comforting; they’re well-worn grooves through which we can move easily,
unthinkingly.
Max had at first reacted not at all as Ben had expected: the old man’s
expression was stern, his eyes flashed with anger, not grief; his mouth
came open in an O. Then he shook his head slowly, closing his eyes, and
tears coursed down his pale lined cheeks as he shook his head and then
collapsed to the floor. Now he seemed vulnerable, small, defenseless.
Not the powerful, formidable man in the perfectly tailored suits, always
composed, always in control.
Max didn’t go to comfort his wife. The two wept separately, islands of
grief.
Now, like his father at the funeral, Ben squeezed his eyes shut, felt
his extremities give out, unequal to the task of supporting him. He
toppled forward, hands outstretched, touching his brother as he crumpled
into his arms, feeling him to see if this phantasm were real.
Peter said, “Hey, bro’.”
“Oh, my God,” Ben whispered. “Oh, my God.”
It was like seeing a ghost.
Ben took in a deep gulp of air, embraced his brother, and hugged him
hard. “You bastard … You bastard!…”
“Is that the best you can do?” Peter asked.
Ben released the hold. “What the hell ”
But Peter’s face was stern. “You have to get out of here. Get out of
the country as fast as you can. Immediately.”
Ben realized that his eyes were flooded with tears, which blurred his
vision. “You bastard,” he said.
“You have to get out of Switzerland. They tried to get me. Now they’re
after you, too.”
“What the hell… ?” Ben repeated dully. “How could you … ? What
kind of twisted, sick joke? Mom died … she didn’t want to… You
killed her.” Anger surged into his body, his veins and arteries,
flushing his face. The two of them sat on the carpeted floor, staring
at each other: an unconscious reenactment of their infancy, their
toddler days, when they’d sit facing each other for hours, babbling in
their invented language, the secret code no one else could understand.
“What the hell was the idea!”
“You don’t sound happy to see me, Benno,” Peter said.
Peter was the only one who called him Benno. Ben rose to his feet, and
Peter did the same.
It was always strange, looking into his twin brother’s face: all he ever
saw were the differences. How one of Peter’s eyes was slightly larger
than the other. The eyebrows that arched differently. The mouth wider
than his, downwardly curved. The overall expression more serious, more
dour. To Ben, Peter looked completely different. To anyone else the
differences were microscopic.
He was almost bowled over by the sudden realization of how much he’d
missed Peter, what a gaping wound his brother’s absence had been.
He couldn’t help thinking of Peter’s absence as a form of bodily
violence, a maiming.
For years, for all of their childhood, they had been adversaries,
competitors, antagonists. Their father had brought them up that way.
Max, fearing that wealth would make his boys soft, had sent them to just
about every “character-building” wilderness school and camp there
was–the survival course where you had to subsist for three days on
water and grass; camps for rock-climbing and canoeing and kayaking.
Whether Max intended to or not he pushed his two sons to compete against
each other.
Only when the two were separated during high school did the
competitiveness wane. The distance from each other, and from their
parents, finally allowed the boys to break free of the struggle.
Peter said, “Let’s get out of here. If you checked into this place
under your own name, we’re screwed.”
Peter’s pickup truck, a rusty Toyota, was caked with mud. The cabin was
littered with trash, the seats stained and smelling of dog. It was
hidden in a copse a hundred feet or so from the inn.
Ben told him about the horrific pursuit on the roadways near Chur. “But
that’s not all,” he went on. “I think I was followed most of the way
here by another guy. All the way from Zurich.”
“A guy driving an Audi?” Peter asked, gunning the old Toyota’s
arthritic engine as he pulled onto the dark country road.
“Right.”
“Fiftyish, long hair sort of tied back, kind of an old hippie?”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s Dieter, my spotter. My antenna.” He turned to Ben, smiled.
“And my brother-in-law, sort of.”
“Huh?”
“Liesl’s older brother and protector. Only recently has he decided I’m
good enough for his sister.”
“Some surveillance expert. I picked up on him. Stole his car, too. And
I’m an amateur.”
Peter shrugged. He looked over his shoulder as he drove. “Don’t
underestimate Dieter. He did thirteen years in Swiss army
counterintelligence in Geneva. And he wasn’t trying to stay out of your
sight. He was doing countersurveillance. It was just a precaution,
once we’d learned that you’d arrived in the country. His job was to see
if anyone was following you. To watch you, follow you, make sure you
weren’t killed or abducted. It wasn’t a police car that saved your ass
on Highway Number 3. Dieter put on the cop siren to fake them out. It
was the only way. We’re dealing with highly skilled professionals.”
Ben sighed. ” “Highly skilled professionals.” “They’re after you.”
“They.” Who’s they? Jesus!”
“Let’s just say the Corporation.” Peter was looking in the rearview
mirror. “Who the hell knows who they really are.”
Ben shook his head. “And I thought / I was imagining things. You’re out
of your god damned mind.” He felt his face flush with anger. “You
bastard, that accident… I always thought there was something fishy
about it.”
When Peter spoke after a moment, he seemed distracted, his words
disjointed. “I was afraid you’d come to Switzerland. I’ve always had
to be so careful. I think they were never really convinced I was dead.”
“Will you please tell me what the hell is going on?” Ben exploded.
Peter looked straight ahead at the road. “I know it was a terrible
thing to do, but I had no choice.”
“Dad’s never been the same since, you bastard, and Mom …”
Peter drove for a moment in silence. “I know about Mom. Don’t…” His
voice turned steely. “I really don’t give a damn what happens to Max.”
Surprised, Ben looked at his brother’s face. “Well, you proved that,
all right.”
“It’s you and Mom I felt… sick about. What I knew it would do to you
two. You have no idea how much I wanted to contact you, tell you the
truth. Tell you I was alive.”
“Now do you want to tell me why?”
“I was trying to protect you, Benno. I would never have done it
otherwise. If I thought they’d just kill me and that would be the end
of it, I’d have gladly let them do it. But I knew they’d go after my
family, too. Meaning you and Mom. Dad–as far as I’m concerned, Dad
died to me four years ago.”
Ben was at once thrilled to see Peter and furious at the deception, and
he was finding it hard to think logically. “What are you talking about?
Will you tell me a straight story already?”
Peter glanced over at what looked like a lodge set back from the road, a
halogen light flooding its front entrance.
“What is it, five in the morning? But it looks like maybe someone’s
awake here.” A light was on above the inn’s front door.
He pulled the truck into a hidden clearing in the trees near the auberge
and shut off the engine. The two men got out. The predawn morning was
cold and quiet, with just the faint rustle of a small animal or bird
from the woods behind the inn. Peter opened the front door, and they
entered a small lobby. A reception desk was lit by a flickering
fluorescent light, but no one was there. “The light’s on, but nobody’s
home,” Peter said. Ben smiled in appreciation: that was one of their
father’s favorite insults. He reached out to tap the small metal bell
on the counter, but stopped when a door behind the counter opened, and a
rotund woman emerged, cinching a bathrobe around her belly. She was
scowling, blinking in the light, angry at being awakened, “/a?”
Peter spoke quickly, fluidly in German. “Es tut mir sehr leid She zu st
oren aber wir hdtten gerne Kaffee.” He was sorry to disturb her, but
they wanted some coffee.
“Kaffee?” the old woman scowled. “She ha ben which geweckt, well She
Kaffee wollen?” They’d woken her because they wanted coffee?
“Wir werden She fur ihre Bemuhungen bezahlen, Mudame. Zwei Kaffee
bitte. Wir werden uns einfach da, in Ihrem Esszimmer, hinsetzen.” They
would pay her for her trouble, Peter assured her. Two coffees. They’d
simply like to sit in her dining room.