TO MARIANNE: December 2013

Saw Borsch that morning. He was hurrying along St. Politz, arms filled with parcels. Initially he pretended not to notice me but eventually stopped perhaps compelled by the goodwill of the season.

“I saw your brother.” He said.

“Vogel?” I said.

“That's him.”

“How was he?”

“Oh you know... ” He said tailing off.

“Not quite,” I said, “I haven't seen him in close to a year.”

“Ah yes...” Borsch rubbed his nose with a glove-less finger as though signaling to an unseen third party. “Ah yes, ah yes...” He kept saying.

“What is it?”

“Nothing forget it entirely.”

“Come on.”

“Well the thing is...”

“Yes?”

“Well when I saw him, I mean to say, when he saw me, as it was...”

“Yes?”

“He was sitting on the street, you know?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well it's like this, he was on the street... with a blanket and a box.”

“A box?”

“Yes a cardboard box. A large one you know the type they might deliver a piece of furniture in or a chair or perhaps a footstool.” He paused, “A new refrigerator even.”

“What are you babbling about Borsch?”

“He was healthy at least, in a manner.”

“Eh?””

“He looked rosy cheeked, in high spirits.”

“Rosy cheeked? A cardboard box? What are you getting at.” I was perplexed by the language, I mean I recognised the words but the context seemed science fiction. Meanwhile Borsch was shifting uncomfortably in his Italian leather loafers. They were entirely the wrong footwear for such weather. I would merely have to tap him on his back and he would surely slide away down the icy street.

“Well it's like I say he was living there.” He said.

“Living there?”

“Yes on the street.”

“You mean...”

“Yes... like a vagrant.”

“On the street?”

“He was outside a shop... a nice shop at least. You know the Beggleys department store, where the doorman wear white gloves. Yes be assured it was a very nice shop. Yes, yes. Oh yes. ”

“Borsch!”

“Well maybe it wasn't him. I can’t be sure. In fact now that we discuss it I’m almost entirely uncertain if it was him at all. I mean he has one of those faces.”

“Yes.”

“An open, honest face. Easily mistaken for.”

“Yes a very honest face.”

“Yes... well perhaps that solves that. Someone else entirely!”

I always detested Borsch but I could see his attempt at lying was as much for my sake as it was for his. Under the circumstances it was a brave lie, perhaps the kindest thing he’d ever done for me.

We shook hands and wished each other a Merry Christmas and I remained fixed to my spot as I watched him slide away through the early evening crowds of Rue St. Clair. The preposterous fiction of it all was forming bitterly into cold fact. Women in fur shawls went clacking past with arms filled with brightly packaged parcels. I stood alone feeling the wind numb my digits. ‘Could it be true- my brother a transient?’ I considered, ‘A wastrel? A down and out? A bum?’

My first instincts were to foot around to where Borsch had described. But to what end? What could be said? To confront him in whatever miserable predicament his life had become would surely only worsen matters. What action could I take that wouldn't crucify him on site? I mean for all his disasters he remained a man of great pride.

The shrill wind bit at my ears and I segued into unconscious recollection of when my brother would dip me headfirst by my ankles into a snow drift following the first fall of the season. Such japes were common place; whether it was hardening snowballs in the freezer to welt inducing rocks or waking me at midnight on Christmas eve to tell me our parents had left home. Or indeed the occasion he made a pass at my wife on my thirtieth birthday. As sour as might have become he was, for all his crimes and misdemeanors, my brother.

I decided to let it alone that evening and returned home to where Marianne was preparing a traditional festive dish of salted cod and the dog was laid up by the fire in the manner he favoured with his hind legs raised in the air. I ate silently and beguiled the remainder of the evening sat in the tall chair beside the window watching the snow drift loosely along the street. Troubled by my silence Marianne asked what was wrong but in no mind to discuss it I feigned a headache and excused myself to bed.

There I lay for some hours not quite asleep but not truly awake either. The room grew cold and glowed with the phosphorus radiance of the moon shining off the deepening snow. I fell into a dream where I stood at the base of a frozen hill littered with headstones. Out of the ground skeletons appeared. Although not terrifying at first appearance there was something disturbing in the manner in which they huddled pathetically together and wrapped themselves tightly in blankets and over sized coats to keep their bones from rattling. Finally my brother appeared also as a skeleton but equally recognisable as himself. He climbed out of the trappings of the frozen ground and proceeded to embrace me in a headlock. He stuffed my mouth with snow before finally releasing me and climbing back into his grave where in he pulled the frozen soil back across him as if a clean white bed sheet.