Confessions of a Failed Fratricide Short fiction
Madathil Narayanan Rajkumar
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Part-1 You may think I was fortunate that I failed killing my brother. You will prefigure so. But I have mixed feelings.
Twice did I this hard-bitten task. And flunked and this though did not make me an honourable person in front of family, could win back the heart of that old block. Perhaps I was lucky, that way not counting logarithms or finding the value of µ in prison hollow.
You guessed right, I am a mathematician who carted my career off to the corporate zone...
And there he pretty much died. This was on one of our treks by the Scottish trails past…Lothian hibernation in September, when the lowland lass might have cast her old tunes or Sir Walter would have his…
And I undertook that mission, which began as a homely colloquy and fast-forwarded into an altercation, and a fight of sinful permutation.
What was it all about, just a predilection to certain writers. I told that Goethe is the greatest author in German literature and he said,
Arno Schmidt.
He said you must read him. His Bottom’s Dream (Zettel’s Traum]
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And fracas ensued and I stabbed him on his stomach and he uttered a few scathing remarks about my lack of culture and swooned.See, I always carry a shank by the cover of dhoti, a habitude got from college where there was more politics than education. He crouched down to knees, my wife who is a nurse before she hitched knew how to hinder wounds from bleeding unco, did the right feat and after first aid called taxi.
And she had a lot of premonitions that morning when we three started together, and she told me before we set off-
Something will happen today, either I will fall from the cliff or fall for your misleared brother or I don’t know.., she said.
In our family, we decided things over the chessboard. Whoever wins the sport will determine the proceedings of the rest of the day, which practice our dad bequeathed, because he was a chess champ and my mom who was a better one shrouded from him her talents in the earlier years of nuptials. This was because in certain segments of our society, a woman becoming a better person than the man was ranked a graver thing to happen in a family. And wives too did not aspire to hurt their beloveds by too much smartness. The fact until she learned some supervenient tricks from him and after a few lurches in the initial years started winning in successive quintiples,…this part I will touch later-
And you can rest assured that nothing great happened.
You know my brother was free from danger.
Then it was after thirteen long years when my elder brother lost his love as well as his job and he started to live with us…
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And in the beginning, it was a good time, then the piffling jealousies slithered between us, and he scolded my wife in one of the volleys of rage as he could not repress it…
And my wife declared to me, I am here not as a domestic, but a legally wedded wife and should get respect. In the marriage, I demanded a huge dowry, and her father was adamant, I will not give a copper from my poke, if he starves I will provide that son of a --.
And he told these words aloud in front of the Chaudharys next door and the lady was all-fired laughing, and this I knew I did not carry her vegetable hamper while coming home..and I swallowed my anger like sugarcane juice and told her, very tasty and enlivening words, are they not, and my wife blushed…
And that night I was too spent with her and told her vehemently, I married without honour, now the fellow, meaning her father, will come to my home like a begga-. As I predicted two of his haberdashery were taken by the government since it was a road expansion, and I laughed from the depths of my heart, the fellow deserves…And I sent my mother in law rose bouquet and Kancheepuram saree with Bareilly zari embroidery.
Let her attire well, at least…
But to my dismay, my dad in law had great pull in high stations, and though he lost the shops in the cardinal area, he got two delicatessens on another developing square in city…
Still you see, his only daughter is with me and I thought to drill him a lesson. But to my consternation, that was the season my brother entered the household with a beaming head and a clean-shaven mug.
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I bucked him up, you seem to be quite handsome bro, you look nice without beard. Your zygomatic bones[I could have told cheekbone,this is my usual style,when the idea is poor I use high sounding words] shine like a man.
I know that. I just shaved from the Capitol.
You could afford it, I asked. Because Capitol was the best saloon in the city. Only rich people could afford it.
I go there twice a year just before the Board meeting, where I had to be present in Mumbai with top investors, and the Board consisted of daughter of a film star who invested monstrously in the company…
And this movie actor was the matinee icon of my college seasons. I wanted to create a good impression before daughter, and paid huge for the hairdresser.
Any good news, I asked him
Not much, he said, I lost my job.
For that, you have dressed with so much charm and appeared at my gate? I did not hide my vexation.
You must dress well, chinna(little one), even though you are sinking, for this body you know is a divine vehicle, vented the dauntless he.
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Then ventilated,don’t forget how I paid your fees in the last year of the M.B.A.course.
This made me humble. It was a well-known truth that he paid my whole year’s fee at the topmost business school in the country from where I received the M.B.A. degree…
Because my dad was dead then, and he was my godfather.
Come inside, I told in grateful tongue.
He strode into my McMansion like a monarch who had won a big war in the North.
…………………………
Part-2
My brother, let him be blessed forever, in honour of my esteemed late father and my beloved late mother--
Yes, it is not that he came one day and ate sorbet and left. On the other hand, he has come intending to live with me in perpetuity. This was probably the occasion for my second whack at murder-
He was, by all means, a cherub and grinned at the yardman like a lad unlike me who nagged him all the time for his inefficiency. He spoke only the truth which disconcerted me a lot.
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When I defaulted in my credit card instalment for the third consecutive time, the executive looked into the extra bedchamber and asked me harshly, Is your elder kinsman at home-
Of course, he is, I said not apprehending the compatriot's vulpine purports.
I beckoned my brother aloud- Brother Cherabeque -will you please appear from the cloister-Don't think this was in a way deriding at him, on the other hand, it was fitting deference to his original stature, which was unknown to others or even to himself-
We greet each other courteously at the ball and in front of strangers. And brother enters not concealing a yawn.
The official turned to my sibling, and asked in an overtly deferential tone, When will this gentleman[myself ] clear the credit card overdue, he gives bogus scrapers-
And now the splurge was more burlesque than real.
Apprises brother-See my younger one did not get payroll in the past two months because he insulted a female colleague.
Again after a caesura- However, the case is withdrawn and he will get the salary in the coming month and he will repay you on March third by all means-
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In case he did not pay- oppugns the executive. In that matter, I will disburse from my pocket, my brother declares assuredly.
My sibling's gaze was so stern that it quashed the other and he made a headlong exit. And while leaving, as an aside he said in a faint timbre-
I knew your blood brother will speak the truth and fled for his bike with a surreptitious wink.
This was like a dual affront to me, and I ached to kill him instantly and was rummaging for the overlap of the dhoti. But the blade was in the other cummerbund my wife gave for laundry yesterday. Where is my hatchet, I yelled from a Jacobean drama. This hoary grunt that devours breakfast and dinner at my table is more trustworthy than the V.P. of a huge corporation- I want revenge. My hysterical cries with snuffles and heaves roused the landscaper from midday slumber. Blanch and panic-stricken he presented at the porch. Remus meanwhile pulled back to the inward chamber with a Mona Lisa simper...
-[To continue]
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