Diptych
Tableau 1: The View from the Outside
Marlyse brushed her lips against Jackson’s, closed her eyes, held her breath as she moved her mouth across his cheek, then exhaled moistly into his ear, whispering in her subtly French-accented voice, “You look so much like him.” Her fingernails dug into the flesh of his forearms, hurting him; but he didn’t show it. She disengaged abruptly and turned away from him without another gesture, without another word – as if he were not a person but a thing.
He’d never met her before today; he hadn’t even known she existed until very recently. Yet, as she climbed into her small green automobile, the back seat stuffed with the boxes he’d helped her carry down from what used to be her and Luke’s condo, he felt his heart break; before that moment, he had believed that expression was only metaphorical. It was a painful physical experience, a cavernous ache that, right then, he was convinced could never be mended.
Jackson wanted Marlyse. But he knew, too, that his desire was not really for her, his brother’s petite émigrée with long, flowing dark hair; no, he yearned for intimate knowledge of his brother’s life. Nevertheless, the fantasy unspooled in Jackson’s mind. He ripped off her thin dress, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. Reaching between her legs, he cupped her tiny ass and hoisted her over his shoulder. He threw her on the hood of the car, pushed apart her thighs, and violently explored her cunt and anus with his lips, tongue, and teeth. The sound of the departing car’s engine jarred him out of his erotic daydream before it got any further.
Jackson wanted to be disgusted at himself, but instead he felt alive, raw, masculine. He was a tender lover – too gentle, according to his ex-wife. Even his taste in porn ran to nothing more risqué than full nudes posing coyly. He’d never had such a brutal, animalistic urge toward a woman before. The fantasy, and especially the thrilling intensity with which its images and sensations still roiled within him, perturbed his sense of identity. Loath to diminish the moment with self-indulgent introspection, Jackson did not question this newfound dichotomy.
He reached into his pants pocket and took out his new set of keys. He turned around and made his way up to his recently deceased brother’s condo.
Tableau 2: The View from the Inside
The condo’s top floor was divided into two rooms: a large bedroom dominated by a king-size bed, with a bookcase that had been partially gutted by Marlyse (not that Jackson cared, he’d never been a reader) and an armchair positioned to take maximum advantage of the brightness that flooded from the skylight; and a second room that had already been completely emptied – the smell of fresh paint wafted from its bare and spotless walls. Holding on to the railing at the top of the stairs, Jackson scanned the floor below, an open-concept loft area on the walls of which hung Luke’s paintings. Jackson’s older brother had been a mildly popular artist but a successful set designer. Jackson had followed his career, grateful for the internet, which made it easier to stalk his sibling from the distance Luke had stubbornly refused to bridge.
Jackson walked down the stairs and noticed a thick, well-thumbed notebook on the long table facing the couch. It hadn’t been there earlier, when he’d helped Marlyse move out her last remaining possessions. She must have left it there for him. Jackson sat on the couch and picked up the book.
The cover was black and bare, but the first page revealed what it was, in bold letters written in marker: LUKE’S DIARY. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to read its contents. He hadn’t seen Luke in more than twenty years, since his older brother had left home at the age of eighteen. Their parents, with Jackson’s help, had planned a huge surprise birthday party, inviting both family and friends of Luke’s, but Luke never showed up. His girlfriend, Natasha, was supposed to bring him, but instead they both failed to show.
The next day, both sets of parents had planned to go to the police station to file a joint report. But a postcard arrived in the mail, signed by Luke and Natasha. It was terse: “Goodbye. Good riddance.”
Natasha came back six months later, broke, heartbroken, and desperate. Her parents refused to take her in, but Jackson’s parents offered her Luke’s old room in exchange for her help around the house. She rarely emerged from the refuge of her room, never made any noise or trouble, spent much of her time reading and writing. Soon, she was preparing most of the meals; she was a fantastic cook, while neither of Jackson’s parents had ever shown any skill in the kitchen. Jackson’s parents were too timid to ask after Luke, but he pestered her. But all she’d tell him was that Luke was okay, not to worry about him, but that he was a selfish bastard who was unable to care about anyone but himself and that they were all better off without him. Next autumn, she went away to school. They never saw her again, but annually she sent the family a postcard for the New Year.
Jackson never understood what had motivated his older brother to sever all ties with the family. Their parents were dull, yes, but they’d always been caring. They were good people. He’d heard enough horror stories from friends to understand how fortunate he and Luke had been.
Facing the couch, two paintings of a seashore hung on the wall: the same view at dawn and at dusk. Jackson got up to examine his brother’s other works. All of them had something to do with water. But Jackson knew that already. He’d read reviews of Luke’s gallery showings. Whenever he could manage it, he’d even drive to Chicago, where his brother had lived since fleeing the family, to view Luke’s new paintings, but he’d avoided premiere nights. He didn’t want to cause a scene, even inadvertently. Luke had never responded to any of the letters Jackson had sent, nor to any of the messages he’d left on his voicemail.
The first time Jackson had gone to one of Luke’s shows, he’d offered to bring his parents, but they refused, panic flashing across their faces. He never troubled them with that again.
Jackson returned to the couch and opened his brother’s diary. Half an hour later, he put it down, disappointed. Much of it was written in an illegible scrawl, and even the parts he could make out mentioned people he’d never heard of and contexts he could not understand. The diary offered him no insight into the life of his brother.
Why had Luke left him anything? Despite their shared childhood, they had been estranged for so long. And yet, this condo now belonged to him, mortgage-free, as did everything Marlyse had left behind. He also owned the rights to Luke’s works.
It was as if he’d stepped into another life, another reality. None of this felt real. He had yet to inform his parents of Luke’s early death.
He stood again in front of the diptych. There were no people in the scenes – just the beach, the waves, the sky, and the sea. The pictures radiated a palpable yearning, and for an instant Jackson intuited something profound about his brother, but when he tried to articulate it the insight dissipated, as if it had been nothing but a mirage.