Brothers

Summer 1966, French south-west coast

We ran through the fields, never wanting to stop. We'd get away from the sea and its beauty to taste the forest and the terror it inspired in us. We walked past dead trees and fallen branches. Sirius guided me, as he always had. He refused to let go of my hand, forcing me to keep walking despite my fatigue. The summer sun gave way to heavy rain in just a few hours and we found ourselves alone in the middle of the trees, soaked to the skin in our tailor-made clothes. We sat down, exhausted, and at the age of five, I put my head on the shoulder of my hero, my guide, my brother.

"Did you kill him?" I whispered in the voice of a frightened boy.

"I didn't do it on purpose" he replied, his gruff tone hiding his terror and sadness.

His words had fallen between us while only the sound of rain reigned around us. But it didn't soothe our hearts or our souls.

We stayed in the same spot for the rest of the night, the rain never letting up. To counter the cold that kept us awake, we embraced in a frightened but courageous hug. Sirius had his head on my shoulder and I had my head on his shoulder. In this way, we supported our shared fears, our loneliness and the cold that fell on our puny shoulders. 

I remember my curls falling over my eyes, but Sirius always had this soothing gesture of pulling them up whenever I moved a little too much, without ever stopping our embrace. He was my pillar and I was his. I was Atlas supporting his fear of being a murderer and he was Atlas supporting my fear of the dark, showing me that together we would stop at nothing, especially when the stars were shining above our cherubic heads. It was a clear message he was sending me: "We'll always be together, one there for the other". And I firmly believed it, attached to the conviction of the unshakeable strength of a 6-year-old big brother.

The next morning, when the sun resurfaced and warmed our chilled little bodies, we set out to discover our new environment, that of our cache. It was a vital need that our toddler brains had understood. We spend a large part of our lives discovering who we are, what we're made for. I knew straight away. No one was obviously moved by our escape. I found out years later that our parents hadn't reported our disappearance to the local police. Our Uncle Alphard, for all his affection for us, had finally given up the search he'd been doing on his own when he ran out of clues to follow, even though he was still waiting for us to return. Our parents took the opportunity to rebuild their lives and gave birth to another child two years later, a little girl called Vega, whose upbringing away from the meanderings of our memories or undesirable members of our family, such as Alphard or Andromeda, made her a perfect heiress for our parents and family. In my memory, our adaptation lasted about three months. Three months of trying different foods, from slugs to berries to snakes, which sometimes made us vomit in disgust. Three months of building and improving our wooden hut, which was more of a shelter than a hut, by collecting dead branches and branches full of leaves for the roof. Three months of realising that the moss we picked up everywhere could also help protect us from the elements. My practicality and ingenuity quickly took over, while Sirius' instinct and courage did the rest. His sharp eyes and doubtful demeanour helped us to miraculously find the right, edible food and avoid poisonous mushrooms and berries. He also began to create traps for small snakes and rare rabbits out of nothing. For the cold, and without knowing how, I thought of fire by rubbing wood. How did I get the idea for this? I never knew. I just had to do it. Because at night we were cold. For me. For Sirius. Especially for Sirius. I'd told him "Siri, I'm hungry" and he'd brought me food. He didn't dare tell me "Reggie, I'm cold" and I made him a fire. That was what saved us. The other one.

We used those campfires to heat our catches. I remember my hands digging into the snake entrails, eating everything that seemed edible, under the watchful eyes of Sirius, who was always checking that I was getting enough to eat. 

Within six months of our escape, we discovered Father Barbet's junkyard on the edge of the forest. For us, it was like Las Vegas in the middle of the desert. We found everything there, large and small scrap metal, old blankets with holes in them, empty cans, old denim shirts and, later, old car seats. Everything was useful and we needed everything. Two major problems stood in the way: Father Barbet's constant or almost constant supervision of the junkyard and our physical capacity due to our age. So some rules were laid down:

1 - Sirius was the only one to go, because he was bigger and stronger, and according to him, more thoughtful.

2 - Sirius could only go at night, on pain of being caught and possibly arrested by the police when they discovered he was a murderer.

3 - Sirius couldn't take anything bigger and taller than him, and had to agree to leave things at the junkyard if he feared being caught red-handed.

I had warned my brother never to deviate from the rules we'd drawn up together, for his own safety and for mine, which was less important as I stayed in the shelter of our picturesque hut in the middle of the forest.

The months of acclimatisation relieved us of our constant stress and we began to wash, in particular. The river that ran a few minutes' walk from our new home gave us a chance to wash, and with the weapons I made from what Sirius brought me, we started fishing when the fish were there. The cold of our baths and the fishing limited us, but our hunger and our self-awareness of our bodies and how dirty we were, combined with the harsh upbringing we'd had, pushed us to do it all the same, at the risk of getting sick. Sirius often warned me to wait until my clothes were dry before putting them back on after a swim and I always listened, well almost always. I'd never forget that cold. The bitter cold that lasted for days on end. Those clothes that never completely dried, despite our terrible wait, and that froze my body day and night. Sirius understood all by himself that time, understood that I had fallen ill. He thought that the meagre campfire would cure me, but the more I shivered, the more he understood my condition without me saying a word. 

"I've got to get you some medicine," he whispered to me one afternoon.

"Nah, stay. Please, Siri."

He looked at me with his steel-blue eyes, the ones I knew so well because I had exactly the same ones. I'd always remember how worried and frustrated he looked.

"Don't worry little brother, it'll be quick, like all the other times when I go away."

"You told me they'd catch us if we went out during the day" I'd moaned, sick and scared.

Again his gaze frowned.

"Not this time Reggie, I'll be quick. I promise." He whispered, kissing my forehead and pulling up my damp blanket. "If you die on my watch, I'll be a murderer for the second time. And I would never let my little brother die before me, especially not so young. You can die when you're 100, and not a day before!"

With these words of fear, he went off into the woods, away from me, while I fell into the arms of Morpheus from my fatigue and fever. He shouted into the distance, "I'll be back before you wake up", and that soothed me, because my brother would never lie to me.

That night, when I woke up, Sirius wasn't there.

"Sirius!" I cried and screamed, as loud as I could, shaking with fever. "Sirius!"

I screamed and screamed his name in agony. I hoped I'd woken up from what I wanted to be a bad nightmare and I wanted to realise that Sirius was by my side, cradling me in his arms like he used to do when the beatings our parents inflicted on us were too violent for me to walk alone or fall asleep. I wanted him to whisper comforting words in my ear, as he knew how to do so well, and I wanted to feel his warm arms around my trembling shoulders.

"Siri! Siri ! Sirius! Sirius! SIRIUS!!!"

But it was no use, my voice only reached the tops of the trees whose foliage blended in with the clouds of that dark night. I fainted again and when I finally got up, still feverish, I decided to walk through the snowy forest, my head burning and my eyes blurred. I walked and walked, my footsteps heavy in the snow that sank beneath my childish feet. I kept shouting my brother's name, until my vocal cords hurt and my voice broke. All I could do was frighten the animals who looked at me from afar with their black eyes that terrified me at the time. I cried and shouted and argued with myself, believing that my brother had abandoned me to my illness because neither of us was a doctor and the seven years of Sirius's life (November 3 having passed during our stay in the forest) hadn't helped him understand how to heal more than just the scars he shouldn't have known how to heal. My blanket was falling from my shoulders and my puny arms had the reflex to pull it up over my shoulders, without me thinking about it again. My curls had grown and were falling even more over my eyes, but I didn't have the strength to move them out of my line of vision.

"SIRIUS WHERE ARE YOU?!!"

But here again, my words were sucked away by the silence of the trees, the only witnesses to my misfortune. I mourned my brother and his disappearance, as well as his broken promises.

"You promised, Sirius" I cried, tears streaming down my sick face, aggravating my headache.  "You have no right to leave me all alone behind!"

I was belching, moaning and shouting, still wobbly. And suddenly, the storm. It began to rumble, as if in response to my lamentations, and it too began to speak out. I knew I couldn't continue my search in this weather and I hoped, prayed even, that I'd find my brother at the shack, that he'd be safe and sound. And if he wasn't in our shelter, I implored the divinities that he would be in a dry place and wouldn't catch cold or go hungry or thirsty, and that he wouldn't be as sick as I was. I also prayed to a higher power that my brother would be brought back to me soon, because I couldn't stand being alone any longer. I went back to the hut and the rain poured down just afterwards, as if waiting for the toddler that I was to be sheltered before letting its cries and grotesque stormy emotions burst out. That night, I really thought it was my last. I was ready to give up. Without Sirius, I had nothing left to fight for. I waited for him to come back until I was exhausted. I barely fed, only when a few worms climbed onto an easily-reachable part of my hands. I even lost a tooth. 

"Reggie! Reggie!" a voice had woken me up one morning, a hand on my shoulder shaking me. And when I opened my eyes, I saw him.

"Sirius?" I asked, almost unable to tell myself that it was real, and I threw myself into his arms and immediately he enveloped me in his reassuring big-brother aura. I didn't want to let go of him and I could hardly hold back the tears as I felt them welling up in my eyes, blurring my vision. My brother, my big brother, my Sirius, hadn't abandoned me, he was there, right next to me, against me, and for the first time in days I could feel the comforting warmth of his body.

"I couldn't find any medicine," he apologised, in a sheepish voice I didn't know he had. "Father Barbet's mechanic locked me in. I'm sorry, you must have been frightened, my little Reggie."

I shook my head, because I never in my life wanted to appear weak in my brother's eyes, and he laughed sadly. No matter how many times I asked him what had happened during those three days, he would never tell me.

It's the only secret that keep existing between us.