Brothers

Canada, early January 2008

On the plane to Canada, I admired the vast expanses of forest, hectares and hectares of trees, each taller than the next, an environment I knew so well, despite the fact that the forests of Canada and Charente had absolutely nothing in common. It reminded me of those years spent in the forest, surely the best of my life. Years spent just with my brother. My God, my brother. Sirius. Sirius Orion Black. I hadn't seen him for years. Anastasia didn't even know him, although she'd seen him years ago, when he was still performing with his best friends. His band was called ' The Marauders' if I remember rightly. I'd been to practically all his concerts but never went to see him, I was too scared. Too scared that we'd changed, too scared that he'd reject me, too scared that he wouldn't recognise me. And yet here I was, years later, chasing after him, roaming the roads of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in western Quebec. I'd given up everything for this brother who had become something of a stranger, even though I tracked him daily on social networks to see how he was doing. One day I got a call from him, when we were still at school after we'd run away, and he told me that when he was dying, he was going to come and get lost here, at the end of the world, at the end of Canada, and that if I wanted, I could come and see him and we could have one last evening by the fire. He had told me that if he had the chance to finish his life somewhere, it would surely be here, in this immense forest.

I drove for hours on end in the 4x4 I'd hired, my attention always riveted to the frozen road. After hours of driving and when my 4x4 needed it, I'd pull into a car station to refuel as night fell. And when I'd done that, I went inside the shack next door, where the landlady was waiting for customers to come and pay. Next door was a pub, where music was playing and French-speaking voices could be heard, and despite years of not practising, I managed to understand them, despite their strange accent. 

"Good evening", I said as I came in and rubbed my hands together. I didn't have any gloves on, as I hadn't thought of them in my haste.

"Good evening" replied the landlady, a strong woman with two plaits falling on either side of her head. "How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"$1.80 worth of gas?" she asked.

"Yes, that's it," I replied, shaking my head and taking the money out of the pocket of my big black down jacket. "That should be it."

"Thank you" she said in her funny accent as she pocketed the money and put it in her cash register.

I stared at her as she did so, and the look on her face was sympathetic enough for me to take a chance.

"Tell me, you haven't seen a... a French guy these days, have you?"  

"A Frenchman? I don't know, go ask at the bar, maybe they'll know," she pointed.

I turned round, took a deep breath and walked towards the noisy pub. 

"Thank you" I said as I left, to which she replied in return.

The pub was the complete opposite of the room I'd just left. People were laughing, being noisy, playing pool or talking to each other, around the different tables and different alcohols served in their glasses. Old country music was blaring from the speakers and the only sources of light were neon lights and old lamps hanging everywhere. It reminded me of the London pubs I used to frequent to see my brother and his friends perform.

"Good evening" said the barmaid in the same accent that made it somewhat difficult for me to understand.

"Good evening", I repeated. "Can I have a beer please?

She nodded.

"Labatt 50, does that work for you?"

I said yes and she served me. I sat down at the bar, on one of the stools, and began to stare at the various customers, looking for Sirius.

"You haven't had a visit from a Frenchman by any chance," I asked the barmaid.

She looked up at me.

"Did I see a Frenchman?" she asked, looking at me quizzically before smiling and laughing.  "Yeah, we've definitely seen him!"

At her words, the other customers next to her started laughing too.

"A good guy" continued the barmaid, "Is it the new trend in France to come and get lost in Abitibi?"

I didn't laugh at this gentle jibe, having neither the heart for amusement nor the will to admit to her that in fact Sirius and I were born in London.

"Do you know where he is?"

The barmaid finished wiping a glass and hailed a man at a table near the pool table at the back of the bar.

"Hey Vic! Come on here!"

The man she had called, called Vic, stood up and approached. He was a dark-haired man in his fifties with a shoulder-length beard. He was a bit chubby, but you could see that behind this appearance he was a great sportsman. He was wearing a red flannel shirt typical of the image I had of a Quebecer, as well as slightly tight jeans and leather boots. He stood in front of me, looking suspicious.

"I'm looking for a Frenchman," I explained. "He must have arrived, I don't know... a few days ago?"

"Ha! Sirius?" he asked, smiling a friendly, laughing grin. "Quite a sparrow that one" he laughed with the barmaid.

"That's him," I cut him off, in a hurry. "That's my brother. Do you know where I can find him?"

He stopped laughing to listen to me, and still smiling, he answered.

"I'm the one who sold him a cabin in the forest."

"And you can take me there?"

"Okay, dressed like that?"

I glanced at my down jacket and leather boots.

"Don't worry about me, I'm used to it," and when he looked at me, I thought I'd add. "In France and England, I go camping."

The two Quebecers in front of me burst out laughing, under my intrigued gaze.

"Another damn sparrow," laughed Vic. He regained his composure. "Tomorrow, six a.m., in the parking lot."

"Can't we go straight away?"

Vic put a hand on my shoulder.

"It's too late, it's too far, we won't see anything. Tomorrow, six a.m."

And he returned to his table. I asked the barmaid to put his drink on my bill as I finished my beer. 

The next morning I woke up in my car, feeling cold and uncomfortable. I'd woken up on time, with the lights in the sky, even though the sun wasn't really visible. I rubbed my hands and shoulders to tone myself up a bit. I also took off my hood and stretched, stuck in this poor 4x4 that didn't leave me any room to stretch in the best of ways. I got out of the car and sat down on the bonnet to wait for Vic. I took the opportunity to close my eyes and listen to the distinct sounds of the forest, sounds that took me back to childhood, at my brother's side. For God's sake, I prayed that nothing serious had happened to him here, while he was alone. I was jolted out of the peaceful calm of the various forest sounds by the screech of another 4x4's tyres. I turned to see Vic inside his big white car. He pulled up alongside me and opened his window. I approached as he waved at me.

"Hey Sparrow! How are you?"

"I wasn't very comfortable in my car, but relatively speaking, I'm fine.

"Good," he said, nodding. He looked up at the trees behind me, sniffing the air with his big red nose. He cast his gaze over me, worried about his words. "Can I ask you what you and your brother came here to do?"

I shoved my hands in my pockets and rubbed one of my feet on the ground to scrape off the snow and the frosted glass.

"I said, shrugging my shoulders with an attempt at casualness that wouldn't have fooled anyone. But Vic accepted.

"Shall we go?" he asked gently in his slightly gruff tone.

"Come on!"

"Get in your car and follow me!"

We drove along the snow-covered roads for at least an hour and a half, with the sun appearing beside us, bordering the immense trees that rose from the bowels of our Earth. At one point, Vic explained that we couldn't continue by car and that we'd have to walk with snowshoes to reach the chalet where Sirius was staying. But walking didn't frighten me and I actually had a good cardio system, which is surprising because I used to smoke. We walked for about thirty minutes in this giant powder, my feet sinking into the twists and turns of this white paradise. My imposing pannier, which doubled as my luggage, hung at my side, swaying to my rhythm. Vic was carrying a hiking bag. He stopped in front of me and waited. I quickly joined him.

"Are you still okay?" he asked, his words turning into a visible gasp because of the cold. I nodded in reply. He pointed in one direction and continued, "Over the hill there, we won't need the snowshoes anymore. You'll be joining your brother soon." I nodded again, my eyes fixed on the hill. Sirius wasn't far away. I'd see him again at last, and a ball of terror and excitement formed inside me. Sirius, wait for me, I'm here to save you. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to save myself!

We continued our walk, faster than before, my eagerness to see my beloved brother having got the better of my incipient tiredness. We reached the forest, where we could take off our snowshoes and continue more easily. And at one point I saw it, Sirius's chalet. I turned my head towards Vic, who smiled. I took a deep breath to walk the hundred or so metres to my brother. The cabin, which I could see as I approached, was made of dark wood, built on a flat area and a wooden platform that Vic had had to build himself, and that must have taken him a long time. The roof sloped on either side of the centre line of the hut to make it easier for snow and rain to slide off. A large metal heater, or what looked like one, took up most of the length I could see of the wall. Breathless, I got closer and closer. And just as I was a yard from the platform, closely followed by Vic, the door opened and Sirius stepped out, closing his huge red coat, cigarette in hand. He hadn't seen me and was walking towards the other end of the terrace, his long black hair cut at the shoulders, following the movement of his head. I fell silent and Vic did the same, enough so that we could hear Sirius take a drag from his cigarette and puff away. But suddenly he stopped and turned around slowly. His instinct, which had saved us so many times as children, resurfaced to alert him to our stealthy presence. And when he had turned round completely, he was staring only at me and not at Vic. Sirius only had eyes for me and for the first time in years he was looking at me, he SEEED me!  He crushed his barely-started cigarette in the ashtray and stared at me. With a barely visible sneer, he breathed out:

"Can't we be in peace any more?"

As he said these words, his right eyebrow rose, just as it always did when his sarcasm or cynicism resurfaced.

"You've never been able to hide," I replied in a whisper.

And without knowing which of us approached faster, we both threw ourselves into our brother's arms. I didn't want to let go of him and, conversely, he didn't want to let go of me. His scent reached my nose, the sweet smell of cologne, cold tobacco and a hint of leather.

"I missed you," I whispered so Vic wouldn't hear us.

"I missed you too, Reggie," he whispered back.

When we parted, Vic laughed a little.

"Are you okay? Was it a shock?" 

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sirius replied, his breath coming in short gasps from the cold.

"Good," said Vic, shrugging his shoulders. "Don't let me dawdle. Does everything work in the chalet?"

Sirius nodded and turned quickly towards the chalet. He returned with an acoustic guitar.

"But you forgot your guitar!"

Vic dismissed his sentence with a sympathetic wave of his hand.

"Leave it, it's a gift! I've never used it!"

"Thank you," my brother smiled gently.

"I'll be off again, but I'll leave your car downstairs, but make sure the snow doesn't damage it too much," he warned us.

"You can spend the night here, if you like," offered Sirius, pointing to the cabin behind him.

"Thanks, but I've got to go home. My wife and kids are waiting for me at home." Vic smiled. But his expression became more serious again. "I hope you've got an idea of what it's like out here in winter, the temperatures are harsh. The forest is rough."

Sirius looked at Vic, then at me, and we exchanged a knowing glance. Sirius turned back to Vic with a smirk.

"In France and England, we go camping."

Vic burst into a thunderous laugh, holding his ribs and pointing at me.

"That's exactly what he told me too!" He continued laughing and gasping for breath. "You two are one hell of sparrows!"

He turned and began the descent back to the car, still laughing.

"Thanks Vic" I shouted, and he turned to wave goodbye, which we both returned.

"Watch out guys" he shouted without turning round. "It's when you're face to face with yourself that you can't lie to yourself!

We watched him go and Sirius turned to me.

"He's right," he whispered to me, before entering the cottage and holding the door for me to follow.

Later that evening, as Sirius played a tune on the guitar Vic had given him, sitting on a wicker chair next to a huge campfire, I left him and went inside the cottage. I was thirsty and looked for a glass of water. This mini-chalet made my blood run cold. It reminded me of Islington House, 12 Grimmauld Place, a cursed spot. Vic had no doubt tried to give this two-roomed house a cosy atmosphere, but Sirius had no intention of doing so. He hadn't put away the dishes from our dinner, which still littered the wooden table in the centre of the largest room. I took a glass from the small shelf in the kitchen area, just beside the door, and my brother's absence allowed me to let my gaze wander a little more than the hours that had passed. An oil lamp on the table provided the only light, adding to the gloom. Behind the table was a slightly battered red armchair, the upholstery protruding over the bottom of the armrest, and next to it an upturned crate that served as a small table for bottles of alcohol and books. All the bottles were empty. A little further back against the wall was a rifle, with a box of cartridges at its foot. In the room behind, just my brother's bed, a single bed into which we would pile, like in the good old days. Sirius had still taken the time to make his bed this morning. 

I grabbed the jug of water and went back out to join my brother by the fire. Sirius's music reached my ears for the second time, and against my will, my heart warmed at the thought of hearing him play again.

"There's no Chess" I said, to excuse the time I'd taken and to lighten the heavy atmosphere of his sad guitar playing. Sirius looked at me, cigarette in mouth, and said nothing, his fingers continuing to slide over the strings. "I'll see if I can create one myself out of wood."  

"I hope you're playing better than you used to," Sirius said, smirking as he took a drag.  

I sat down opposite him. "I've always been better at chess than you."

Facing me, he laughed, shaking his head. "Don't lie to yourself like that, Reggie. You know you'll never beat your darling big brother."

I poured myself a glass of water and spread my arms. "It's the lap of luxury in here."

"Without vodka..." Sirius blamed.  

He stopped playing and picked up the jug of water to drink straight from it, which made me frown a little. Sometimes his manner disgusted me. I drank my glass of water in silence as he went back to strumming the strings on his guitar, himself curbing all the talent I knew he had. He didn't look at me, his eyes riveted on his instrument as if he'd never seen anything more beautiful. 

"Did you come here to die?", my tone more acerbic than I would have liked.

My phrase must have surprised him because his fingertips changed slightly, his music less loquacious. But he still wouldn't look at me.

"There are worse places to be, aren't there?"

The crackling fire in our midst was the only source of warmth in the whole scene.

"Would you have left without saying goodbye?"

And then, just then, he stopped playing and slowly looked up at me. His steel-blue eyes stared at me. His steel-blue eyes reflected the blazing flames of the campfire, but no longer revealed any will on his part.  

"Now that you're here, we'll never know," he said, his tone acerbic and sarcastic, with a sneer that didn't reach his eyes.

I looked at him, angry and sad that I hadn't contacted my brother before to see all the distress signals I'd always known he was going to get. And I was furious to find only a shadow of what he had been as a child and teenager.

"Was it Moo-... Remus who called you?" he asked, his gaze no longer shying away from me.

"I don't know, the man didn't introduce himself. He was with a teenager, a guy called Harry. But he had a bit of a Welsh accent, the adult I mean, not the kid."

Sirius smirked and looked down.  "It was Remus then..."

And I could see by the look on his face that Remus wasn't just one of his friends, but, as I'd imagined, his boyfriend, his partner.

"I'm glad you're here Reg. But you can't stay. Think of your kids."

"That, I'll manage. And the children are grown up. Lyra is just 20, and Antares is 18. Anyway, they'll be able to understand."

Sirius looked me straight in the eye, his gaze serious, almost cold.

"How do you expect them to understand? I bet you never told them!"

I looked at him. He was right, he and I were the same. We'd never said anything to them. But I didn't have any good words or answers for him. Meanwhile, he, who couldn't stand silence, started playing the same tune on his guitar again. It must have been a tune he'd composed. And without stopping, he added:

"You've got to understand, Reggie, I don't believe in this anymore."

"How can you say that? Look at the rage it took you to get all this, to build all this!"

He lit a new cigarette and took a big drag. "That's just it. I thought becoming someone would fill the void. Rock, guitar, cigarettes and the delirium of youth would take this black hole out of my chest. But what's next?"

"Well, I don't know, Siri, but I'm here."

He smiled, but once again his smile didn't reach his eyes.

"We started at the end," he said, almost sad. "We started with the best."

The evening went on, strangely enough, without being the worst evening of our lives. Sirius had just played various tunes on his guitar and even sung, but we hadn't spoken. I'd just admired his musical talent for hours. And strangely enough, he'd ended the evening on Nirvana's Come as You Are, and his voice lent itself incredibly well to it. Shortly afterwards he fell asleep. I had watched over him. And when the fire began to die down and I couldn't get it going again, I took Sirius by the arm and carried him back to the cabin. He wasn't wide awake and it was hard for him to see things

"I'm cold, Reggie".

"We'll be at the cabin soon Sirius, just walk straight and trust me."

"I trust you with my life Reggie, I'd give up everything for you." he breathed into me, his voice hoarse from the cold and the singing. Maybe alcohol too.

"Me too Siri, me too."

And as I finished my sentence, he started to laugh. And that woke him up a little.

"I haven't been Siri for so long... since at least the time we left the forest."

"And who are you now?"

"Padfoot!" he said confidently. "Everyone calls me that now. And you, Reggie, who are you?"

"Reg, or Regulus, and sometimes Archie for Arcturus. Not as original as you, Padfoot."

He laughed as we entered the cottage.

"I give you permission to keep calling me Siri, you know. It's my nickname but it's yours, you gave it to me."

I put the guitar down against a wall as I moved Sirius's arm back on my shoulder.

"What if I want to call you Padfoot?"

"Then no. Because you're not a Marauder. And you're not Mary either. Nor Lily. Nor Marlene. Nor their spouses."

I huffed, a little sadly.

"You're right. I'm not a Marauder. But neither are you a member of my gang of friends, although we don't have names like you. So you'll never have the pleasure of calling me Archie."

He laughed as I set him down on the bed.

"That's good because you're not Arcturus or Archie. You're Reggie. Little Reggie. I bet whoever calls you Archie is a fucking daddy's boy with a shitty first name."

I smiled slightly at the thought that it wouldn't please a certain someone to be called a daddy's boy.

"His name is Bartemius."

"Ah!" cried Sirius, as if he'd made a point in a debate that wasn't taking place. And he fell asleep. On the heap, like that, right in the middle of the bed.

"If I'm not Arcturus, then you're certainly not Orion," I breathed to myself as he began to snore.