“. . . and I wondered,” Stéphanie was saying, “if you and Rolf maybe—”
“No, no, of course not.”
“So is it Gabriel?”
Annie released a long stream of smoke. Then she leaned forward to place the packet of cigarettes and a lighter on the table, and sat back. “I thought I could be the peacemaker, you know? That I would heal everyone. Instead, I can’t heal myself and I don’t even want to heal Gabriel. He’s like . . . ants in the cupboard.”
Stéphanie chortled. “Like what?”
“No, really—when I see him, it’s like opening a kitchen cupboard and finding thousands of ants crawling all over my food, so I just slam the door shut, rather than deal with it. If I don’t look, I’ll forget I’ve been infested.”
“Infested? Why such language? He is a nice man, and a good brother, and you love him very much, I think.”
“More than myself. More sometimes than Rolf. I also dislike him now and that’s what’s so difficult. Every day when I get up . . . this new feeling. This dislike.”
“But what has he done to deserve it?”
Holding it in was doing Annie no good. That much was clear. She was constipated with anger. And Stéphanie could be trusted not to spread it across the colony, so she picked up her cup to drink, saying very quickly and matter-of-factly, “He nearly killed our brother Max and in all other respects has destroyed him.”
Stéphanie’s head swung around, her jaw falling.
Leaning forward to flick ash off her cigarette, Annie felt like a schoolgirl divulging her brother’s misdemeanors, but she had earned the right to unburden herself.
“He was to be married, Max,” she went on. “He’d met a lovely girl. Someone to look after him, you know? He wasn’t really made for this world, my big brother. To him, it was all so confounding. The one thing that made sense to him, the thing he loved most and could do well, was music. He played the piano—really very well, but then Gabriel came along and he was, from day one, a natural. Profusely talented. God, he could play. We were blessed, really, to live in a home resonating with sonatas and fugues, toccatas and concertos. I can still remember those pieces wafting up through the floorboards. A couple of times—I mean, I was young, I didn’t know what I was saying, but sometimes I shushed Max, when he was speaking, so I could listen to Gabriel.” She paused, smoked. “Max didn’t mind. He was very proud of Gabriel too. Frequently he moved aside to let Gabriel practice. That’s when he became really awkward in himself, in his late teens, like he no longer knew where to sit, but he didn’t give up. He worked harder. He had no other life, you see. He’d sacrificed everything to the piano, so he took his music degree, ended up teaching in the School of Music, and sometimes gave recitals. He played . . . earnestly, I suppose, as if determined to subjugate the piano, because he couldn’t really do it justice.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Oh, he flourished. The piano owns him, so he sailed through every exam, got scholarships, won prizes, traveled to Europe to perform in junior competitions, but . . . I dunno, maybe the parents pushed him too much, because when he was sixteen, he ceased to care. He lost all sense of application. Wouldn’t practice enough, refused to enter competitions, and eventually stopped performing. Like Max, he took a degree in music, since there wasn’t much else he was good at, he said, but still, whenever he sat down to play, you’d almost wish that Max wouldn’t . . . bother.” She let out the word in a whisper. “Yet on he went, slamming those keys as if Gabriel’s slump was his second chance. It was painful, hearing him practice. Striving. Never quite . . .
“Anyway, we were relieved when Geraldine came along—she showed him there was more to life than work and music, albeit with limited success.”
“Aie,” said Stéphanie. “And Gabriel took her?”
“I suppose that is what happened,” Annie said, after exhaling and inhaling and exhaling again, “but not as you imagine it. He never laid a finger on her.”
“She fell in love with him?”
“Oh, no. No, Max was the love of her life.”
“Go on.”
“Gabriel got very drunk one night and . . . he got very, very drunk. There was an accident.”
“Car accident?”
With another sharp intake of smoke, Annie said, “Yes.”
“My God.”
“Actually, that’s a lie,” Annie went on quickly. “I wish it wasn’t. I mean, young men drink and drive and people get hurt. Max could have broken an arm, or some fingers, and never have played again for that reason. That would be endurable, I think.” Her voice slowed, the words losing their hurry. “Because he doesn’t play anymore.”
A door banged and Gabriel came through the living room toward them.
Later that evening, after Stéphanie had left, they sat on the terrace, while Rolf barbecued.
Gabriel stared at the ice in his glass as if looking for his reflection. “So she knows now?”
“Hmm?”
“Stéphanie.”
A flush of red climbed Annie’s face. “You were eavesdropping?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t worry. I didn’t tell on you.”
“I’m only worried about you,” he said. “Once word gets out, it’ll travel, fast, with varying degrees of accuracy and malice. People have little enough to do here. It’ll attach itself to you and I don’t want you paying more than you already are.”
“We need a story,” Rolf interjected, barbecue fork in his hand. “Me too, I’m asked about you. Are you here on holiday? Drifting? Looking for work? No one gets into Oman unless for a job.”
“I’d love a job,” Gabriel said, over his shoulder.
Rolf grimaced. “There isn’t much call for a pianist.”
“I’m no longer a pianist.”
“Aren’t you confusing yourself with Max?” Annie said tersely. “You at least can play if you want to.”
“If you want to work,” said Rolf, “I can ask Rashid. But you would have to take whatever is offered.”
“Fine.”
“Driving,
