The Sisters Brothers Read online

  ‘Rag!’ said the old man, and again the pregnant girl emerged to hurl a steaming cloth over the counter, and again she returned, saying nothing. Wiping his forehead, Charlie smiled. ‘That your woman, old man?’

  ‘She is,’ he said proudly.

  ‘That your child in her belly?’

  His face puckered to a scowl. ‘You doubt the quality of my seed?’

  ‘I had no plans to discuss your seed.’

  ‘It is impertinent.’

  Charlie raised his hands to make peace. ‘I am impressed with you, is all. I meant you no offense, and wish the both of you a long and happy life together.’ In this way the matter was settled, and whatever hard feelings that remained were put to rest by our purchases: I bought the hat and also a shirt, and Charlie, in a frenzy of commerce, was outfitted from head to toe. The old man went to bed forty dollars richer, and was glad to have risen from his slumber and seen to our needs. As we rode away in all our finery I said to Charlie, ‘That is a tidy business.’

  ‘It is tidier than killing,’ he agreed.

  ‘I believe I could settle into a life like that. I sometimes think about slowing down. Didn’t it seem pleasant in there? Lighting the lamps? The smell of all the brand-new goods?’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘I would go out of my mind with boredom. That mute girl would come rushing out of her hole for the hundredth time and I’d shoot her dead. Or I would shoot myself.’

  ‘It struck me as restful industry. I’ll wager that old man sleeps very well at night.’

  ‘Do you not sleep well at night?’ Charlie asked earnestly.

  ‘I do not,’ I said. ‘And neither do you.’

  ‘I sleep like a stone,’ he protested.

  ‘You whimper and moan.’

  ‘Ho ho!’

  ‘It’s the truth, Charlie.’

  ‘Ho,’ he said, sniffing. He paused to study my words. He wished to check if they were sincere, I knew, but could not think of a way to ask without sounding overly concerned. The joy went out of him then, and his eyes for a time could not meet mine. I thought, We can all of us be hurt, and no one is exclusively safe from worry and sadness.

  Chapter 14

  We set up in a drafty, lopsided hotel at the southernmost end of town. There was but a single vacancy and Charlie and I were forced to share a room, when we typically kept individual quarters. Sitting before the washbasin I laid out my toothbrush and powder and Charlie, who had not seen these before, asked me what I was doing. I explained and demonstrated the proper use of the tool and afterward smacked my jaws and breathed in deeply. ‘It is highly refreshing to the mouth,’ I told him.

  Charlie considered this. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I think it’s foolish.’

  ‘Think what you like. Our Dr. Watts says my teeth will never rot if I use the brush dependably.’

  Charlie remained skeptical. He told me I looked like a rabid beast with my mouth full of foam. I countered that I would prefer to look like one for minutes each day rather than smell like one all through my life, and this marked the end of our toothbrush conversation. My talk of Watts reminded him of the stolen numbing medicine, and he retrieved the bottle and needle from his saddlebags. He wanted to try it on himself, he said, and I watched him inject a goodly amount into his cheek. Once the medicine settled in he began to pinch and wrench his face. ‘I will be goddamned,’ he said. He beckoned me to slap him, which I did, lightly.

  ‘I feel nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Your face is hanging like a griddle cake.’

  ‘Slap me again, but harder,’ he instructed, and I did this. ‘Remarkable,’ he said. ‘Slap me again, one last time, only do it hard as you please.’

  I pulled my arm back and slapped him with such force that it stung my hand. ‘You felt that one. Your hair jumped. I could see the pain in your eyes.’

  ‘A recoil from the blow, but no pain,’ he said in wonderment. ‘A smart man could make use of this.’

  ‘Perhaps you could go from one town to the next, inviting frustrated citizens to clobber your head for a fee.’

  ‘I’m being serious. We have in this bottle something which makes the impossible, possible. There is a profit in there somewhere.’

  ‘We will see how you feel about the miracle solution when the effects wear off.’

  His mouth was slack and a stringy length of spittle ran down his chin. ‘Makes me drool,’ he said, sucking this up. Shrugging, he put the bottle and needle away and said he wished to cross the street to the saloon. He invited me along, and though I did not much want to watch him grow hoggish with brandy I likewise did not wish to spend my time in the hotel room by myself, with its warped wallpaper, its drafts and dust and scent of previous boarders. The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.

  Chapter 15

  I awoke at dawn with a nagging pain in my head, not so much brandy-sickness as general fatigue, though the drinking had not helped the situation. I dunked my face in the water basin and brushed my teeth, standing beside an open window to feel the breeze against my skull. It was cool out but the air was enveloped in warmth; here was the first taste of spring, which brought me a satisfaction, a sense of rightness and organization. I crossed the room to check on Charlie’s progress against the day, which I found to be poorer than my own.

  ‘I was feeling shaky myself,’ I told him, ‘though I am better all the while. I believe there is some healing element to that tooth powder.’

  ‘Call me a bath,’ he croaked, hidden in quilts and sheets. ‘Tell the woman I want it scorching.’

  ‘A bath cost twenty-five cents,’ I said. I knew this because I had seen the sign in the lobby; I mentioned it because back home a bath cost a nickel. But Charlie was not concerned with the price: ‘If it costs twenty-five dollars, I don’t care. It will save my life, if it’s possible to save my life. I want the water hot enough to cook a bird. And I will ask you to fetch me medicine from the chemist’s.’

  I said, ‘I wonder what the Commodore would think of a lead man so frequently sick from alcohol.’

  ‘No more talking,’ he pleaded. ‘Go and find the woman. Scorching, tell her.’

  ‘I will be back after the chemist’s.’

  ‘Hurry, please.’

  I found the woman downstairs in the lobby, sitting behind her counter, mending a pillowcase with a long needle and thread. I had noticed her only perfunctorily when we checked in, but now I could see she was somewhat pretty, young and pale and plump and firm. Her hair was sweat-pasted to her forehead and her arm worked speedily, extending to its limit as she pulled the needle back. I knocked on the countertop and her eyes landed upon me with undisguised annoyance.

  ‘My brother is brandy-sick and in need of a scorching hot bath.’

  ‘Thirty cents,’ she said monotonously. I looked at the sign above her, which still read twenty-five cents, but before I could speak she told me, ‘It was twenty-five yesterday. It is thirty, now. Someday soon it will be thirty-five.’

  ‘A boom time for the painters of signs,’ I said. But the woman only continued her sewing. Pushing on, then: ‘I had better pay immediately, before the prices get away from me.’ Not so much as a smile from the overworked hotel maiden. To irritate her further I paid with a twenty-dollar piece. She regarded the heavy coin for several long seconds before sweeping it into her filthy smock pocket and fishing out the change. She made no effort to camouflage her dislike of me and I thought it prudent to warn her, ‘My brother is not so patient as I am, ma’am, and he is in poor spirits this morning. He asks for a scorching hot bath and he had better get one. He is not one you will wish to upset, and you can take my word for it.’

  ‘It will be scorching,’ she said. Tucking the pillow under her arm, she turned to fulfill her duties. As she ducked behind the beaded curtain separating the lobby from the kitchen and boilers, I noticed a sliver of her dress was stuck between her buttocks. She removed this with a single dainty tug—a t
houghtless, automatic action on her part, but I felt a great fortune to have witnessed it and began whistling a wild, snappy tune.

  I left the hotel, searching distractedly for a chemist’s or a doctor’s, but found myself focusing mainly on the subject of women, and love. I had never been with a woman for longer than a night, and they had always been whores. And while throughout each of these speedy encounters I tried to maintain a friendliness with the women, I knew in my heart it was false, and afterward always felt remote and caved in. I had in the last year or so given up whores entirely, thinking it best to go without rather than pantomime human closeness; and though it was unrealistic for a man in my position to be thinking such thoughts, I could not help myself: I saw my bulky person in the windows of the passing storefronts and wondered, When will that man there find himself to be loved?

  I located the chemist’s and purchased a small bottle of morphine. Returning to the hotel, I met with the woman clomping down the stairs. She held a tin tub under her arm and her side was damp with bathwater. She paused a moment; I thought she wished to greet me and I took off my hat, offering my version of a smile. But now I saw she was breathing heavily and harboring some bitterness or unhappy feelings. When I asked her what was the matter she declared, and loudly, that my brother was a heathen, and that the hottest waters of hell would not cleanse him. I asked what he had done but she did not answer, she only pushed past me into the lobby. I heard the sound of her beaded curtains, and the crash of the tub hitting a wall. Now I stood awhile on the stairs, listening to the hotel sounds floating all around, the invisible footsteps and creakings, doors opening and closing, muffled laughter and talking, a baby crying. I noticed an unlit candle on the stairwell wall before me. I lit it, then blew out the match, propping this against the candle. Looking to the top of the stairs, I saw that my and Charlie’s door was ajar; as I approached I was surprised to find him speaking, and speaking to me, though for all he knew I was not there. He was speaking aloud in the bathtub, a habit he had picked up in childhood. I snuck to the door and listened:

  ‘But I am the lead man. Yes. Well, I am. You? You cannot lead your horse without assistance. Also you are sickly. Yes, you are. You invite sickness and worry. If you were not a blood relative I would have kept you back a long time ago. In fact the Commodore asked me to do just this, but I said no. He admired my faithfulness. It seems I cannot lose with him. “Faith will be repaid with faith,” he said. He has faith in me. Yes, he does, brother. There you go, laugh. You laugh at everything. But I ask you this question, and it is a serious one. Who do you know that has faith in you?’

  He paused to dunk and scrub his body. I knocked upon the door as I opened it, stamping my feet ridiculously and clearing my throat. ‘Charlie,’ I called out. ‘I have your medicine with me.’ I puffed myself up to make my voice sound natural but my tone reflected the hurt I had suffered by the unkind words of my brother. When I entered the bathroom he was leaning halfway out of the tub, his body bright red from the waist down as though he were wearing pants. He was retching into a spittoon and I watched his sides spasming as he pushed out his poison bile. Holding up a finger and gasping, he said, ‘Don’t go anywhere.’ He continued his retching and I pulled up a chair to sit beside him. My knees were shaking and I wished, impossibly, I had never heard his speech. Finally I decided I could not stay in the room with him. I stood and laid the morphine on the chair, pointing to the door as though some pressing task awaited me on the other side. He did not notice my leaving, I do not think, preoccupied as he was with his vomiting and unwellness.

  Chapter 16

  I had nowhere to go, and did not wish to be seen by anyone for fear they would recognize my sadness, and so for several minutes I simply stood in the hall, shifting my weight and breathing and attempting to clear my mind of every recognizable thought. I noticed the candle I had lit was once again out. I assumed a draft had snuffed the flame but on closer inspection I saw my match was gone; I repeated my previous action of lighting the wick and propping the spent match against the candle in its black metal holder. I had the sensation of conversing, with whom I did not know, likely the hotel woman. Might I leave her a secret note? But I had no paper or ink and at any rate what would I say to her? Dear Miss, I wish you would wash your face and be nice to me. I have money. Do you want it? I never know what to do with it.

  I sat on the stairs for twenty more minutes before returning to the room. Charlie was sitting on his bed, wearing his new shirt but no pants. He held one of his new boots in his hands, patting and admiring it. He had drunk a third of the morphine and its powers had taken hold; his eyes were sagging at their edges and he looked pleased as a pig on holiday.

  ‘Headache’s gone, brother?’

  ‘No, she’s still there, but the medicine makes it so I don’t mind her.’ Flipping the boot to study its interior he said solemnly, ‘The skill and patience involved with the making of this boot humbles me.’

  I felt repulsed by Charlie then. ‘You make for a pretty picture.’

  His lids were rising and falling like a pair of blinds being lifted and dropped. He shrugged and said, ‘Some days we are stronger . . . than others.’

  ‘When do you want to get moving?’

  Now he spoke with his eyes closed: ‘I cannot travel in this state. Another day in town won’t matter. The woman mentioned a duel in the morning. We will leave just after that.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  He opened his eyes to slits. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re acting differently.’

  ‘I feel the same as before.’

  ‘You were listening to me in the bathtub, weren’t you?’ I did not reply and his eyes fully opened: ‘I thought I heard you out there. Here is the fate of the sneak and the eavesdropper.’ Suddenly he doubled over, and a thin column of yellow bile poured from his mouth and onto the floor. His face was dripping when he raised it, his wet lips arched in a devilish smile. ‘I almost vomited in the boot! I was just about to vomit in the boot! Can you imagine how upset I would have been?’

  ‘I will see you later on,’ I told him.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘No, stay here with me. I am not feeling well. I’m sorry if I made you feel badly before. They were just some thoughtless words.’

  ‘No, I would like to be alone. You drink your morphine and go to sleep.’

  I turned for the door but he, either not noticing this or pretending it was not happening, continued to speak to me. ‘There was some type of poison in that brandy, I think.’ He retched in his own mouth. ‘This is the worst I’ve ever felt from alcohol.’

  ‘I drank the same brandy and I am not poisoned.’

  ‘You did not drink as much as I did.’

  ‘There’s no percentage in arguing with a drunkard as per whom should be blamed.’

  ‘So I’m a drunkard, now.’

  ‘I’m through with you for the day. I must attend to my stitches and wounds. I will see you later on, brother. I advise you to stay away from the saloon in the meantime.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able, being so depraved a drunkard as I am.’

  He only wished to fight and cultivate an anger toward me, thus alleviating his guilt, but I would not abet him in this. I returned to the lobby (the candle, I noticed on my way down, had remained lit, the match untouched), where I found the woman behind her desk, reading a letter and smiling. Apparently this note brought welcome news, for she was in better spirits because of it and she greeted me, if not warmly, then not nearly as coldly as before. I asked to borrow a pair of scissors and a looking glass and she did not answer but offered to cut my hair for fifty cents, assuming this was my reason for needing the tools. I declined with thanks, explaining about my stitches; she asked if she might follow to my room and witness the gory procedure. When I told her I had hoped to spend some time apart from my brother she said, ‘That I can understand.’ Then she asked where I was planning to perform my minor surgery; when I admitted I had not thought about this, she invit
ed me into her quarters.

  ‘Haven’t you some other pressing business?’ I asked. ‘You hadn’t a moment to spare, earlier this morning.’

  Her cheek flushed, and she explained, ‘I’m sorry if I was short with you. My help disappeared last week and I’ve been losing sleep hoping to keep up. Also there has been a sickness in my family that I have been anxious to know about.’ She tapped the letter and nodded.

  ‘All is well then?’

  ‘Not all but most.’ With this, she invited me behind her sacred counter and I followed her through the beaded curtain and into her private world. The beads felt lovely and tickling on my face, and I experienced a shudder of happiness at this. It is true, I thought. I am living a life.

  Chapter 17

  Her room was not the room I would have imagined, if I had had time to imagine her room, which I did not. But there were no flowers and niceties, no silk or perfume, no lady things hung with a lady’s decorative hand; there were no volumes of poetry, no vanity and brush set; there were no lace-edged pillows featuring heartening proverbs meant to calm the spirit in times of distress or else lead us through the monotony of endlessly redundant days with their succoring words and tones. No, her room was a low-ceilinged bunker, without any windows or natural light, and as it was located just next to the kitchen and laundry it smelled of grease and brown water and moldy soap flakes. She must have noticed my dismayed expression, for she became shy, and said quietly that she did not suppose I was impressed with her quarters; this naturally sent me falling over myself to praise the room, which I told her gave one the feeling of safety by way of impenetrability and also that it was perfectly private. She said my words were kindly spoken but not necessary. The room was lacking, she knew this, but she would have to put up with it for only a short while longer, for owing to the constant stream of prospectors she was doing a remarkable business. ‘Six more months, then I will move into the finest room in this hotel.’ The way she spoke this last sentence informed me it was a significant ambition for her.