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By Root 6061 0

operator in Corpus Christi, Texas. I loved my stout and now elderly brother. Perhaps he loved me too. In principle he was not in favor of strong family bonds. Possibly he saw brotherly love as an opening for exploitation. My feelings for him were vivid, almost hysterically intense, and I could not blame him for trying to resist them. He wished to be a man entirely of today, and he had forgotten or tried to forget the past. Unassisted he could remember nothing, he said. For my part there was nothing that I could forget. He often said to me, “You inherited the old man’s terrific memory. And before him there was that old bastard, his old man. Our grandfather was one of ten guys in the Jewish Pale who knew the Babylonian Talmud by heart. Lots of good that did. I don’t even know what it is. But that’s where you get your memory.” The admiration was not unmixed. I don’t think he was always grateful to me for remembering so well. My own belief was that without memory existence was metaphysically injured, damaged. And I couldn’t conceive of my own brother, irreplaceable Julius, having metaphysical assumptions different from mine. So I would talk to him about the past, and he would say, “Is that so? Is that a fact? And you know I can’t remember a thing, not even the way Mama looked, and I was her favorite, after all.”

“You must remember how she looked. How could you forget her? I don’t believe that,” I said. My family sentiments tormented my stout brother sometimes. He thought me some sort of idiot. He himself, a wizard with money, built shopping centers, condominiums, motels, and contributed greatly to the transformation of his part of Texas. He wouldn’t refuse to help me. But this was purely theoretical, for although the idea of help was continually in the air between us, I never actually asked him to give me any. In fact I was extremely reserved about making such a request. I was, if I may say so, merely obsessed, filled by the need to make it.

As I was picking up my coat, Urbanovich’s bailiff came up to me and took a piece of paper from the pocket of his cardigan. “Tomchek’s office phoned this message in,” he said. “There’s a fellow with a foreign name—is it Pierre?” said the old man.

“Pierre Thaxter?”

“I wrote down what they gave me. He wants you to meet him at three at the Art Institute. Also a couple came to ask for you. Fellow with a mustache. Girl with red hair, mini-skirt.”

“Cantabile,” I said.

“He didn’t leave no name.”

It was now half past two. Much had happened in a short time. I went to Stop and Shop and bought sturgeon and fresh rolls, also Twining’s breakfast tea and Cooper’s vintage marmalade. If Thaxter was staying overnight I wanted to give him the breakfast he was accustomed to. He always fed me extremely well. He took pride in his table and told me in French what I was eating. I ate no mere tomatoes but salade de tomates, no bread and butter but tartines, and so it went with bouilli, brûlé, farci, fumé, and excellent wines. He dealt with the best tradespeople and nothing disagreeable to eat or drink was ever set before me.

As a matter of fact I looked forward to Thaxter’s visit. I was always delighted to see him. Perhaps I even had the illusion that I could open my oppressed heart to him, although I really knew better than that. He would blow in from California wearing his hair long like a Stuart courtier and, under his carabiniere cloak, dressed in a charming blue velvet lounging suit from the King’s Road. His broad-brimmed hat was bought in a shop for black swingers. About his neck would be apparently valuable chains, and also a piece of knotted, soiled, but uniquely tinted silk. His light-tan boots, which came up to the ankle, were ingeniously faced with canvas, and on each of the canvas sides there was an ingenious fleur-de-lis of leather. His nose was strongly distorted, his dark face flaming, and when I saw his leopard eyes I’d give a secret cheer. There was a reason why, when the bailiff told me that he was in town, I immediately laid out five dollars on sturgeon. I was extremely fond of Thaxter.