Free A Well-tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker Page B

sipped at my tea. The strains of the road were beginning to tell on me.
    “Has life,” he asked, having again sat down, “have the stars smiled upon you in recent times?”
    I’m fine, thanks. Dandy. Wonderful. No complaints. Could be worse. In my mind I ran through all the pat responses I would have called on to answer a similar question in New York. With my brother any one of them would have been an insult.
    “A good question,” I replied evasively.
    “A stupid question,” he contradicted. “Forgive me for posing it so thoughtlessly. We often discover only many years later whether life and the stars were smiling upon us or not. Life can take the most surprising turns. What seemed initially to be a misfortune can turn out later to be a blessing, and vice versa, no? I really wanted only to knowhow you are faring? Whether you are happy? Whether you are loved. The rest is immaterial.”
    I looked at him in the candlelight and fought back the tears. I didn’t know whether it was out of sadness that I couldn’t answer his question with a loud, resounding yes, or because my brother touched me so deeply.
    Was I loved? By my mother, of course. In her way. By my other brother, I wasn’t sure.
    By Amy.
    Two people. Two very different forms of love. No one else came to mind.
    Was that enough? For what? By how many people must we be loved in order to be happy? Two? Five? Ten? Or maybe only one? The one who gives us sight. Who takes away fear. Who breathes meaning into our existence.
    There was no one like that for me.
    When does love begin? When does it end?
    U Ba’s gaze rested on me. He stole a look at my hands. My ring finger. I knew what he meant.
    “Sir Michael is a long story,” I said. Sighing.
    No lifelong love. But still a wish for it.
    My brother sensed my discomfort. “Forgive me for asking. How presumptuous of me. How could I have asked so directly and carelessly when you have barely arrived at my house. As if there were no tomorrow. As if we did not have all the time in the world to tell each other whatever we have to tell. I am terribly sorry. It must be the excitement. And the delight finally to see you again. Of course, that does notexcuse my behavior, either. I can only hope for your indulgence.” He put a finger to his lips. “And not another word this evening about these intrusive questions.”
    His way of expressing himself made me laugh. “Promise. But I think that I need to go to bed anyway.”
    He jumped up. “Of course. Another oversight on my part. I will prepare your bed at once.”
    I insisted that I sleep on the couch. After a bit of back and forth he accepted my decision, dug a warm blanket and pillow out of a chest and blew out one candle after another. He put a flashlight on the coffee table for me in case I needed to find my way to the latrine in the night. He asked repeatedly whether I was comfortable, whether I had everything I needed for a good night’s sleep, wished me a good night and stroked my face once gently in the light of the last candle.
    I could still hear him doing something with water in front of the house, then coughing his way up the porch steps and climbing into his creaking bed. Moments later he blew out the candle.
    The couch was more comfortable than I expected. I remembered now how well I had slept on it the first time around. Tonight, though, despite my exhaustion, I was finding it difficult to fall asleep.
    I was thinking about my father, and for the first time in a long time I wished he were sitting next to me, holding my hand, talking to me in his soothing voice. I had left someone out of my tally. The love of a dead person counted, too. No one can take that away from us.
    A reassuring thought, but still I could not sleep. I sensed that I would soon have company. It took a few minutes of lying quietly on the couch and listening to insects before I heard her.
    Please, leave this place.
    It was the first time she’d had anything to say since my departure. I