Читать книгу The Brother - Rein Raud - Страница 15

The notary was the first to stir. His letter, sealed in an almost starched snow-white envelope and marked with his large initials, was delivered to Brother while he was in his hotel room watching an old Western about a nameless gun-slinging hero, who had been hired by the men of a small town to defend it against robbers being released from prison. The hero had just been promised a free hand in the town to do as he pleased as compensation, and one of his first acts was to appoint the dwarf barber’s assistant as both the new sheriff and mayor.

“I was asked to wait for a reply,” the courier said at the door.

Brother had already seen the film once before and knew what happened next.

“Tell him I’m coming,” he said.

“And so, you say,” the notary continued, gracefully holding the ornate handle of a heavy teacup, through which his finger didn’t fit, “that is, you claim, that the point of your visit is not to dispute your sister’s rights to have acted exclusively as inheritor of your parents’ estate, and naturally proceeding from that also not to appeal for the annulment of the amendments in ownership that transpired as a result of legal acts executed on the basis of mandates signed by your sister?”

“I already said that I came to visit her.”

“Because—I hope that as a reasonable individual you understand me in this—if you ever should, by chance, happen to develop a similar intention, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least, by the way, because it would be natural that you require the utmost clarity in these matters, meaning, if you should ever decide to undertake something along those lines, then I would simply like to tell you—not that I might be trying to somehow hint at anything, certainly not that—but I would simply like to say that firstly, you should, in that case, be prepared to prove any of your claims on the basis of significantly more documentation, you see, because as long as you’re simply a brother who is simply visiting his sister, then it’s, so to say, your personal matter—you do understand what I mean—but if you decide to be a brother who wants to dispute your sister’s signature to certain documents, then the matter becomes, so to say, public—you do understand the difference, don’t you—and that would in turn lead to a consequence, which indeed brings me to the second point that I’d like to make, for you see, you’ve only been in this town a few days, while I, on the other hand, have spent my whole life here, as a result of which I do believe that in some sense it might be prudent for me to advise you in this, you understand—to enlighten you about the circumstances, so to say.”

“You invited me to tea. I came. Let’s drink tea.”

The notary’s hands trembled slightly as he refilled both cups from the heavy teapot.

“What I’m trying to say is that several very esteemed persons in our town, I would say so much as the very pillars of our little community—you can probably imagine whom I’m talking about, can’t you—in short, if things should, for some reason, go the route I mentioned before, if the circumstances should maybe change and you develop the desire to become involved in this issue, then several people could be, how should I put it now, unpleasantly surprised, which might not necessarily be the most favorable course of events, neither for your sister nor yourself, because, you see, there are particular rules in the capital and elsewhere around the world in general, but we have our own here, you do realize, and we’ve become accustomed to them, although you yourself might not be, nor should you, since I certainly understand that you’ve had more of a nomadic lifestyle, but on the other hand, your sister really hasn’t, now, has she, and she also has the greater share of her life still ahead of her, so I can only hope that you will, by all means, give full consideration to any step you take beforehand. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you? Right? So, what do you say?”

“For us, things have gone the way they’ve gone. Now, we’ll see how they go for you. Pass the sugar, please.”

“Things are bad,” the notary said, and lit a cigarette.

“Things are worse than bad,” the lawyer said, waving to disperse the cloud of smoke. “Things are worse than worse than bad.”

“Easy,” the banker said. “First of all, we should find out more about him.”

A rat-faced young man—the lawyer’s assistant, whose name was Willem—came to empty the ashtray. He said nothing.

“We should figure out who he is,” the banker continued.

“How, I wonder?” the lawyer asked.

The banker was a strong man who had already begun to watch his health and had managed to achieve enough in his lifetime to answer yes-or-no questions with a single word.

“We should play cards with him,” he said.