LEONARD KRIEGEL
Fathers, Sons, Brothers, Strangers:
A Meditation On Courage, Memory,
And Belonging
I picture the equali
ry
which would then arise between us- and
which you would be able
to
understand better than any other form
of equaliry- as so beautiful because then
I
co uld be a fi'ee, g rateful,
guiltless, upright son, and you co uld be an untroubled, untyrannical,
sympathetic, contented father. But
to
this end everything that ever
happened wou ld have to be undone, that is, we ourselves should have
to be ca nce led out.
Kafka ,
Lmcr 7h Hi,;
Fllllu'/"
Self-portraits are rarely portraits of the self ;lione. For me, it is my younger
brother in whose presence my own mask cracks. In a curiously intimate
sense, my brother's life is where my own truest self stands revealed. And if
Abe's life is not where I necessarily choose to begin, it is where I so fre–
quently seem to end. Reflections upon the past's meaning, speculation
about future possibilities- in the quest to frame a usable self, to see one's
brother is to see oneself anew, alone in the nerve-jangling fun house of
imagination's eye.
It
is there, then, in my own raucous imagination, that I hear my broth–
er, his sense of injustice clenched as tightly as a fist, pounding me until I feel
like a cornered boxer with no place to hide. Through the telephone wires ,
the sullen imperatives of Abe's accusations demand recognition. He wants
an older brother ready to acknowledge that
his
life was forced to accom–
modate itself to
Illy
illness. But what is it I can tell him that he does not
already know? What defense shal l I offer for the course illness took?
])0
I
say to him, " I know that disease is a sharing. Even between brothers?
Especially between brothers."
])0
I announce that I realize a man shou ld
be able to chart both illness and courage on an emotiona l graph that traces
their effects upon each other? I know that we are not speaking of abstrac-
Editor's N ote: R eprinted from
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by Leonard Kriegel. Copyright
©
IlJlJX by Leonard Kriegel. By permission of
Beacon Press.
