Sign Languages by James Hannah

and the Honduran quickly appeared behind his chair. He gave clipped commands, the voice completely foreign. His accent most definitely English.
    â€œWe’ll have coffee, all right? Then I’ll tell you something.” Dismissing me, he turned his face toward the French doors.
    What do I do? I kept thinking as I watched his face. Should I run screaming for the police? I must have moved again, perhaps straightened my legs from under the table, because the man looked around, and, for the first time, the light outside brightened and fell full on his face.
    â€œAllan,” I shouted, my voice ringing the cups by the door. His hand again on my shoulder, I looked into a face that matched the disquieting voice. He’d favored my mother most; his face a bit plump, his chin fairly strong, his cheekbones hidden, porous skin scared by severe acne when he was a teenager. But in this man those most familiar features had blended with others. The chin was more pronounced. The skin softer, more finely grained. The entire face gracefully elongated. The pale blue eyes of my brother were now cobalt.
    Perhaps I actually did faint. There is some brief gap here filled with the sounds of distant voices. Then, quite suddenly everything was happening again as if someone had simply adjusted the volume and picture. There was a cup of coffee in my hands, and I drank the strong liquid.
    Dave, I know I’ve taken too long getting here, to the point. But you’ll understand why in a moment. You’ve known me for years now. You know my smallest defects. I’m a poor sport and a bad player—an embarrassing combination. I’ve been unfaithful to B., and you, the man of principles, have never once chided me. I drink and clutch my enlarged liver. You’ve understood my own feeble writings and bolstered my often flagging career. I’d never do anything to cause you or anyone alarm, grief, upset. I’ve written this damned letter a half-dozen times. I’m not frantic now; I don’t think I ever really was. I finally flew back to Houston and went home and lied to everyone. Later I drove up to his office in Patroon and went up the stairs to his apartment above and rattled the door. He’s left all of that behind like a discarded carapace, a shed skin.
    Jesus Christ, this draft’s no better than any of the others.
    I drank the coffee, my hands trembling. It wasn’t a conversation. Allan spoke, his face, as it moved in and out of the light, like his voice—a mixture of my brother and things foreign, graceful, sophisticated.
    â€œI’ve come back to tell you,” he began, refilling my cup. “I wanted you to understand, old man. Thought you ought to know.” He grinned, his teeth long and straight, no chip on the left incisor from my pushing him, at the age of fifteen, off the foot of our parents’ bed.
    It was all monologue. He didn’t expect me to respond. Soon into it, he grew still and looked out the window. His awesome voice in the quiet tone one uses for moments of passion, terror, or despair.
    My own thoughts jumbled and choking. Listen, I had to keep telling myself. My bowels rumbling, hurting.
    Allan didn’t mention Odoardo Beccari for a long time; he didn’t take the long, thin book from his jacket until later.
    Instead he issued a torrent of invective. His usual complaints even more harsh, bitter, unyielding. He ranted about the blacks at home. But it’s the same all over, and he waved his long fingers in exasperation. The country gone to hell. The liberals still thinking everything’s valuable and worth saving. Such disgusting concern for the puny and weak. “By God,” he kept saying, “what’s a healthy, strong white man to do?”
    The diatribe grew stronger, more vehement. He quickly passed the point where one could dismiss it all with some offhand remark. I’d argued with him a thousand times, you know that, but now he was so