Sign Languages by James Hannah Page B

ingredients… nothing artificial!” He wagged his un-Allan-like, graceful finger at me that had once been as pudgy and short as our mother’s. “No drugs.” He nodded and leaned back.
    I opened my mouth but didn’t speak. Only my legs were working. My feet, under the table, crossing and uncrossing.
    Allan laughed loudly and talked on about the Friends of Beccari and their grand design to “change things back a bit,” as he put it. Politics, religion. Abruptly, he returned to his vehement attack on society. And, just as quickly and firmly, I believed none of this was true; it wasn’t really happening, or, if it were, someone, maybe my real brother, Allan, just outside the door, was having a tremendous laugh at my expense. This private club wasn’t anything to be suspicious about, the book at my knee could be anything—a volume of Jane Austen, an old company ledger—and there were only regular things around, things of this world: servants, billiards, tennis, a swimming pool. Here I was, alone, in Honduras with someone who only vaguely favored my brother as, perhaps, hundreds of people do. And all this absurd Beccari stuff. You want to be this? Read a book and… what? Wish? Add and subtract? Take peyote? Join our secret society? Conspiracy, plot, the convolutions of the late twentieth century. I was deeply confused. I’d left Houston only five hours earlier.
    â€œLook at India,” Allan was saying calmly. “Christ, what a mistake to let the coloreds have it. What would it be like if we were still in charge, old sport? Just think of it!” Then, there was a low voice from the door and we both turned to see the same liveried servant who’d brought me in and, behind him, two military officers in uniform.
    â€œAh, ha.” Allan smiled and stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. These Americans,” he nodded toward the doorway, “show up for strategy sessions now and again. Several of our chaps are really quite something in military ops. Me, I’m plodding along. Sadly it’s necessary these days. Nothing’ll come easy, I fear. Anyway, we’re glad to oblige. Those bloody ‘Nigger-aguans’ are giving us hell.” With a pat on my shoulder, he went through the door and they walked a ways down the hall. I could still hear their mumbled voices.
    But I paid little attention. Instead, without a single completed thought, I stood and put the book in my pocket. Edging quietly around the table, I took two steps and opened the French doors. Again, I didn’t pause to think but crossed the lawn, passed the empty tennis court, and intersected the gravel drive near the gate. The whole way, from the doors to the street to a bus stop down the hill, I imagined the tall angular men standing at the French doors watching my descent. And one of them was most certainly my brother, Allan, his hand on the shoulder of an American Army colonel. The look on his face the old look of disappointment. You’ve no patience, he’d chide. Where’s your self-control?
    You know me, Dave. I’m a mediocre scholar, a better-than-average carpenter, someone who’s meticulous about income taxes, my children’s education. So you know I didn’t run off into Tegucigalpa in shambles, in the state of one of our young protagonists—feverish from starvation, in a rage over money, gasping from the final stages of tuberculosis. True, I was terrified at what I’d done by taking the book, my mind running in highest gear. Downtown I stepped off the bus in front of a hotel, and realized I’d left my suitcase in that room near the door. Fortunately, I had my traveler’s checks and passport in my coat pocket so I managed to check in. Later I hurried out, away from the book, and bought a couple of shirts, some underwear, and an inexpensive nylon overnighter.
    But I was distraught, dismayed. Fully dressed, I sat on the balcony, the