s.j. In Focus

The only reason
why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice.

A
few years ago he found me. He said he was lost and I believed him. Yet I
couldn’t trust my own eyes. My mother never told me, why would she hide him
after all these years… because, she never knew. We decided not to ask, so we never had any
answers. He was running away from his past, especially from the family who
adopted him. In search of something “real”, as he told me, he was tracing back
his origins, wanting to know more about himself. It took him two years to find
out what I had to realize a numb 30 seconds from the moment he was standing in
front of me. A brother, a twin brother.

For the first couple of weeks I had difficulties
figuring out how to deal having a doppelganger around my neck. It was bizarre, living in a room with a
stranger wearing your visage, a damned moving mirror. But I felt it was
something new for him too.

We
were similar, but different. He preferred to be alone and despised “the society”.
He idolized people who live on their own, like the Spartans with their
simplicity and strict self discipline. I understood him, but I’m a loner simply
because I have a hard time finding people I can relate to. I appreciate good
music of any kind, where the roaring of a high performing engine is music to
his ears. He’s dream was to own a Ferrari Testarossa, in red of course.  He was more of an easy going person with a
hint of an “l’etat, c’est moi” syndrome. He kept on mocking me because I was
still a virgin, but I was smarter than him and he knew that. We had different
point of views, and agreed at best when we shared our sarcasms. After hours of
Q&A we became close, like brothers, and it didn’t matter anymore where he
came from.

At
a point in time we began to think seriously about our newly acquired selves,
but it was me who worried more about him, there where times I felt less a
brother, but his parent. He didn’t want to let anyone know about him, there was
no place for him to go anyway. I was his only family, he once told me, and it
was enough for him that I exist.

I
had classes to attend, and he didn’t mind staying at the apartment
everyday. We then figured that he could try
going out as me. All he had to do is using my glasses instead of his contact
lenses. But the physical appearance was the only easy part.

“It’s
the glasses that make you look smart, now don’t make a fool out of me”, I joked
half seriously. I had to teach him
everything about me, what I eat for lunch, how I talk, get him familiarized
with the people I communicate on a regular basis and how I am related to
them. But no one really would notice the
switch, being a loner worked for us, and we agreed to keep up that image. My
habits and routines became his, it was like wearing a mask for him, and he
liked it that way. It gave me the creeps at first, he soon played my role almost
too perfectly.

Time
passed and the switch became regular. Together we developed ideas that would solve or prevent problems that
would come our way and may uncover our double life. We had to think ahead and
after each switch every single occurrence must be known to the other, the
information accumulated to the point that we had difficulties keeping them in mind,
so we wrote them down, and lead to the idea of a journal, a mutual diary.

At
any cost we would not be allowed to be seen together, outside or inside. When
one did the switch, the other must stay in the apartment. Disguise crossed our
minds but it was not realistic and it was way too risky.

There
were times when my then girlfriend planned to stay with me for her vacations. I
could share my life, but not my girlfriend. He said I shouldn’t worry, and he would handle it on his own. He packed
his things and was gone. But I did worry each day. He shaved his hair short and
stayed somewhere outside the city where no one knew me, he told me afterwards.
And it worked, more than once.

Daily
life became ordinary, boring at times that we began to test people with silly remarks
which would actually give hints to our secret. When my brother would receive
comments like “you look like a good person”. He would reply, “It’s just the
glasses.” And they would interpret it as an amusing answer. Or if someone would
ask me about my nationality I would say that I was a dual citizen with the
double entendre on my mind. My brother had a short temper he hardly could
control, where I’m the one with patience, but we would simply say that I was
moody. People never did bother to notice, the illusion was perfect with the
truth right in front of their eyes. But I knew already that this twofold life
would not work out forever.

The
time came I had no choice but to move to another city, and staying together was
impossible without exposing himself, since I would live with my father and his
family. Eventually, I had to leave, and he stayed until we figured something
out.

I
visited him whenever I could, mostly over the weekends when I didn’t have any
classes. My cover up was having a long-distance
girlfriend, or visiting old friends. And sometimes he would come over here,
stay in some cheap pension outside the city, we couldn’t do the switch, because
he was keeping his hair short, but it didn’t matter since I was new here and no
one knew me yet. I told him that it would not really work out unless he would
show himself. His immaturity pushed me to the limit of my patience, and more
than often we ended up arguing and hating each other.

“What
do you want with your own life??” I kept on pushing him. And the last time we
fought he shared that when he found out, as a fourteen year old boy, that he
was adopted, he wanted to kill himself. He hated his family, and realizing it was not even his own after all, he
never wanted to exist. Finding me gave him something real, at least once in his
life and it was enough for him. He said I shouldn’t worry, and packed his
things. I told him not to do what he had
in mind, and threaten him that I would do the same. He knew I was bluffing and
was gone anyway.

Weeks
passed without hearing something from him. I broke up with my girlfriend from
where he lived with the reason that I needed some time alone to find myself,
which came closest to the truth. I couldn’t
find a start where to search for him, I knew if he would want me to find him he
would let me know. All I could do is prepare for the worst.

Weeks
became months, and I troubled about him everyday. But Faith came and I met someone. It was the
right time to share some company and she helped me to keep my mind from my worries
for a while. I started to like her.

Then
on a Friday night I got a message with an address outside the city and that I
needed to be there tomorrow or the secret would be uncovered, I couldn’t care
less about the secret. Hearing from him after so long, I was upset and relieved
at the same time. He informed me at night, because he knew I couldn’t get
anywhere at these late times since I had to commute, so I had to wait till
morning.

As
agreed I went to the address and I found my brother, with a note. It is still
unbearable for me to write this down. I couldn’t look at him for long and I
didn’t know if I should cry or just get out. But I just stood there senseless.
A dead body is far from what you see on television and movies. And fuck he was
my brother… The note asked me to do the hardest thing I ever had to, and it
still hunts me. It simply said “If you respect me, bury me here.”

Everyday
I tried to compose myself not to break down. Questions of guilt wriggled in my
head and it was hard to keep it all by myself. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this, but with a little help by faith
made it easier to give an answer if ever someone happens to see me having a bad
moment. The girl I started to like a few months ago, decided to leave me three
days after my brother’s death, which was a perfect cover up, plus summer
holidays was near, so I didn’t have to face people. I couldn’t ask for
something better, or did my brother just waited for the right moment?

I
still think of him a lot, and I’m getting better. He wanted me to keep our secret
and live MY life, I do my best. But nothing really matters, I shouldn’t care if
people say this story is fake or stamp me as crazy, I accept my mark of Cain. The
best way to keep a secret is not to hide it and let it become an illusion, or
does it just look like one? Even if someone would find a shred of evidence, it
is still harder to prove that it’s real.

And
the only reason why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate
sacrifice. A sacrifice that gave back my life by taking his, but I can’t grant
his wish me to live mine, because I want to do what he himself never could, to
live his.

(sj)

(h)

And As God asked
Cain where his brother was, Cain responded: “I know not; Am I my Brother’s
keeper?” And God said “what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood
crieth unto me from the ground.” the Lord put a mark upon him so that he would
be identified as the killer of his brother but would also be protected in his
wanderings. Cain is cursed,
always to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth.

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