By Judith Bura

April 2001

~~~An Introduction~~~

My eyes are weak and I never go outside without my almost black sunglasses. But there was no mistaking that voice. He fell in step beside me as I made my way to my car and I believe he had been waiting for me to come out. "Moira's dead" he said. A voice inside my head cried out in pain "Oh, no. not Moira" I had met them both when I was toying with the idea of joining Sinn Fein. But I did not dare let on that I ever knew him or for that matter that I had heard him. I struggled to keep my face expressionless. Thank goodness for the dark glasses. "Oh, so you don't know me now," his eyes seeing my thoughts like they always had. I gave up and looked at him. He looked even better than I remembered. Glasses softened the rage in his eyes and he looked a bit less predatory. Then the tears for Moira came and I know he saw them. He tilted his head slightly, smiled a small half smile and said "I liked you better as a red head, but I suppose, if you are posing as a nobody you have succeeded." Since then I have not stopped wondering what it was that made him come to tell me about Moira. Was he mellowing finally or was it just more pulling wings off flies?

~~~MOIRA~~~

When I told you I had met Charles and Moira through a brief association with Sinn Fein, I was lying. That's the way it is with them. You can't mention either of them without some lie to cover your tracks. Charles taught me that. Better a lie when the truth could get you killed. He also taught me to stand up straight and not to watch my feet when I walk. But those are other stories. This is the story of Moira.

Let me make it easy for you. Moira was Charles' half sister. And why he would make the effort to tell me she was dead is, perhaps, part of the prequel to the story you know from the movie Passenger 57. Moira is the sister they spoke of in that movie and she was as beautiful as Charles is handsome. The only thing she really had in common with him was a father. Charles' ice blue eyes were transmuted to cornflower blue for her. Where his hair is that not quite blond shade hers was vivid strawberry blond. His mole became her dusting of freckles. He habitually wears black but she would have been more comfortable at a garden party given by the Mad Hatter.

Who am I and where do I enter in? I am Sara, though I was generally called Che' back then. Back then… you could say I was a throw back to the sixties, a flower child in tattered bell bottoms and a "Free Huey" T-shirt. My clothes had been my brother's; he did not need them anymore. You might also have noticed that I rarely spoke. I was in this life to observe, or so I thought. Back then…

I was sitting at a corner table in the Student Union reading "Die Verwandlung" a novella by Franz Kafka. It was for my senior paper in Existential Lit. I was reading the German version because my advisor, Herr Doktor Kraus said I should. I doubt he felt that I could write well enough so he wanted me to impress them with the difficulty of the research.

"Is this seat taken?" I looked up from my book and there she was standing on the other side of the table. The light behind her lit up her hair, so it was hard to see her face. I knew she was slender, average height and British.

"Uh, no. G' head." She plopped down in the chair and proceeded to go on at length about her flight over and how the food was lousy and the flight attendants rude. She acted as though we had been boon companions for years and she assumed I was interested. I wasn't, but I had been weaned on the fine art of appearing so and gave her the full benefit of my training.

There are several ways children cope with being raised by alcoholic parents, being perfect, being bad or being invisible. I was the invisible type and since I was with Moira, I was doubly invisible.

It did not take long before her magic began to work on the people around us and what had been just me reading became a noisy group of student (mostly male, big surprise) trying to out do each other's tales of travel horrors. I could have slipped away unnoticed, but I was enjoying myself for a change the way, I think, the moth must enjoy the flame.

"Che'?" her soft voice was now directed at me, "How did you become Che'?" "My brother called me that, after Che' Gueverra, the revolutionary. He was being sarcastic." "Tell me about him."

"I don't remember him all that well, really He died when I was six. Killed in Viet Nam. It's hard to think of him as a soldier. He was a Hippie, and I remember him more as my personal protector. One time, after I had dropped a whole carton of eggs, my Dad started chasing me around the kitchen table while trying to remove his belt to punish me. My brother tripped him. I can still picture Dad flying across the room. Pants around his ass, face nearly purple with rage."

"Your father would beat you for dropping things. You were just a little girl." Moira looked genuinely sad, but brightened immediately. "I have a brother, Charles."

"Charles, you're kidding. That was my brother's name, too. But we called him Chuck." "Oh, we never call Charles anything but Charles. Our father said he did not name the boy Charles for people to go around calling him Chuck like he was an inferior cut of beef." "So tell me about Charles, then."

"Actually, the last time I saw Charles he had his nose buried in the same book you were just reading. I guess that's why I spoke to you." Then she stopped and regarded me solemnly for a while as if sizing me up. I guess I passed, because she began to speak a bit about their childhood, such as it was. Although, her thoughts tumbled over each other disjointedly as though going through some internal edit before she spoke them.

"Well, it was Charles who made feel better about these horrid freckles. He said, ' You have freckles because God took a little extra time with you. He must have wanted everyone else to know how special you are to Him.' I have heard that since then from other people but when my big brother told me it made me feel extra special. Charles is really only my half brother. He saw his mother murdered when he was four. There was talk that he knew more about how it happened than he would or maybe could say. After that he was sent away so our father could run his import business without the distraction of a small child; and, I guess so he could court my mother. The servants had no hesitation about letting me know that my mother was in the wings long before Charles' mother left the stage."

"After seeing something so horrible, he was sent away? I can't imagine that. I'd have thought your Dad would want to keep him close." "Our father is not exactly… nurturing. Life for him is only business, money and power. It was probably best for Charles to be away from him…" Her eyes lost their focus and she seemed a million miles away for a moment, but then she chuckled and said, "You said your brother was your protector? I remember once Charles caught Dickie Chamberlain trying to look under my frock. I must have been five then and Charles was eleven or twelve. Anyway, Charles boxed his ears and sent him crying home to his mother with a bloody nose. We thought Charles was a goner for sure but Daddy just laughed and congratulated him for finally acting like a man."

In retrospect it seems odd that a friendship bloomed between two such different people, but Moira and I did become nearly inseparable. I could spend hours telling you about out daring daylight jockstrap raid on the Sig Ep frat house or trips to every amusement park in the tri-state area. We even went to Monroeville Mall and reenacted "The Dawn of the Dead" complete with zombie make up and fake blood. And it never really bothered me that people referred to me as Moira's puppy. I think it was mostly the guys she showed no inclination to become intimate with who decided we might be "girl friends."

Moira did not have any such relationships and, well, being in her shadow, I just never had any offers. It was not that I wasn't ok looking, but with her around I really was just a shadow.

It was no surprise when Moira asked me to come back to England with her for Spring break. Since my mother had died I did not have any reason to go home so it was a no brainer.

It was an incredible sight for a working class girl from a Pennsylvania coal town. Right there on the tarmac as we got off the company jet was Silver Cloud Rolls Royce with a uniformed chauffeur standing at the ready. "Charles!" Moira screeched, "What are you doing here. I thought you said you'd never set foot in that house again." Sitting alone in the back sit of the waiting car was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

"Our father wanted me to attend to some family business for him. Since I'm a bit behind on a few debts, I had no choice but…well, of course, you see. And who is your little dark friend?" His gaze bore through me, making me more uncomfortable than I had been even when I knew my dad was looking for me. Moira pulled me into the car and sat me next to him.

"Her name is Sara, but she goes by Che'. Be nice Charles, she's one of us. And besides she is no darker than you. Why you have the same coloring except for your eyes, hers are green." "Hazel," I corrected, but she went on as if I had not spoken. "What kind of mood is Father in?"

"She's right, Moira, her eyes are hazel. You should pay better attention." Charles looked deeply into my eyes as if seeing more than the colors there. "Our father is in his usual mood. The Japanese and the Russians are both after him for special trade considerations and he can't vote both ways. He's beside himself. That's why I'm here. He needed someone to persuade the Japanese to back off. Make it look like the Yakusa, but leave a clear message." I stopped listening around then, being too busy watching the rolling green hills with their grazing sheep interspersed with storybook villages and tract housing.

"Che', we're here," Moira's voice broke into my reverie. We were pulling into a circular drive in front of an old half-timbered Elizabethan manor house. I can't say that it really was manor house; it just seemed like one. Charles and Moira got out and hurried in because it had begun to drizzle. Left to fend for myself, I had started to drag my duffel bag from the front seat of the car when the chauffeur took over, "I'll handle that, Miss."

As I entered the front door, my eyes were met with an entrance hall, which seemed not to have changed since Victoria was Queen. There was brica brac and too much furniture. I could see stuffed animal trophies on the walls of the room to my right.

"And who are you, girl?" a rough voice came from one of the chairs in the trophy room. "Moira didn't say we'd have a guest or are you one of Charles' whores?" Sitting in the chair was an older man. He looked like a boxer gone to flab with the unmistakable broken capillaries of a drunk across his nose and cheeks. The air around him was filled with the smell of stale sherry and cigars. Before I could croak out an answer Moira rescued me.

"Daddy, this is Che'. You remember, I told you I was bringing a friend from school." He just grunted and Moira pulled me away. "Come on; I'll show you your room. Don't let Daddy scare you. He's just difficult when he forgets things. We have dinner at eight. You'll need to dress for it."

I must have looked confused because she started to laugh. "Oh dear, I forgot to tell you to bring a dress, didn't I? Don't worry I'm sure I have something that will fit you."

Now that was highly unlikely. I am two inches taller and about fifteen pounds heavier than Moira was. Unless she had a sack lurking in her closet or maybe had a fat phase she had not told me about, there was little chance of finding something that would fit. After trying on her clothes for about an hour, we finally found something that was not scandalously short and still allowed me to breathe. It was a "little black dress" that was a tad too little, but thankfully, black. If the dinning room was darkish, I would be fine.

Dinner was awful, something boiled beyond recognition accompanied by something green and potatoes. The only one who did not push his food around on his plate was his Lordship, who actually skewered a few things off my plate. I could not believe it; he must have bought the title. To make matters worse Charles seemed to be staring at me the whole time. The only thing I could choke down was the wine and I'm afraid I was too successful at that.

The next thing I remember was lying on my belly across my bed in my underwear. I heard Moira saying, "See those scars on her back, her father applied those with his belt buckle. I told you she was one of us." I was afraid to move in fear of setting the room to spinning again. I felt a warm dry fingertips trace the marks on my back and Charles said in a tight voice that sounded like his jaw was clenched, "Poor thing; poor little mouse." Someone pulled the cover over me and then I was alone.

Later I got up to put on my nightclothes and went down the hall to wash up. Coming from behind the door to Moira's room, I heard her voice pleading and crying.

"No, Father, no. Please, don't do this again; this is wrong." After that a sound I knew too well followed by a yelp of pain and fear.

"Shut up, slut. You want the whole house to hear?" I don't know what came over me. I charged into the room to see the old man with his trousers around his ankles assaulting Moira. I ran over and tried to pull him off. He flung me across the room and Moira screamed for Charles.

Lord Rane sneered, " We don't need him; I can satisfy you. This is our secret just like always."

I got up and came at him again. My hand landed on a brass statue of Pan. I grabbed it and raised it toward the ceiling, watching the light flash off Pan's pipes and I brought it down on the old man's head. I hit him again and again and again, "NO DADDY, YOU LEAVE MOMMA ALONE." I raised the statue again and my arm was stopped; the statue was taken away and strong arms enfolded me. I felt as though I was being encased inside a warm rock, safe finally, safe; and I could not stop crying. "There, there… There, there" softly and gently spoken. And much softer into my ear Charles said "Thank you." I was dimly aware of Moira leaving to get herself cleaned up and I think I heard her humming to herself. I had just killed their father and I was the only one who was upset. Moira called from the hall, "You better get some rest, Che'. I think we'll all go Cairo tomorrow." "Yes, yes, of course." I allowed myself to be led back to my room and put to bed.

"Good night, Sara, sleep well." I went to sleep with the image of Charles silhouetted in the doorway after he turned out the light. The next morning there was no sign of what I had done. I started to cry again at breakfast because I wanted scrambled eggs. I guess I was really losing it. Charles put his finger to his lip to quiet me and then got up and made me scrambled eggs. He even anticipated that I'd want ketchup. Well, that's the story. Is Charles insane? Probably, but they both were and with good reason. I have thought long and hard about all I remembered from those days and I believe that Charles has simply taken over the family business. His Lordships death was ruled "accidental," presumably the coroner was on the family payroll.

Moira remained in England and hung out with the jet set. She'd write to me about them and Charles now and then and I believe it was she who coined the term Eurotrash. I think she enjoyed their "vacuousness" and found them undemanding. She gave a lot of money to charity and always paid her taxes on time. She once told me it was because she did not want to end up like Al Capone.

We did see each several more times. We even went to see the movie about Charles together. When the actor who played Charles, who could have been his clone, great casting, said of his father "Died…Violently" we both laughed so hard they nearly had us ejected. This is her last letter to me. It arrived a few days after my encounter with Charles.

Dear Che',

Isn't about time I started calling you Sara? Nope, you will always be my liberator. Life is slow and with the Liberals in control I can't even complain about the government. But do I have news! Seems Charles' old nurse broke her silence to the press. Yep, you guessed it. Daddy dear killed Charles' mother. The "school" they sent him to. To keep his mouth shut, kept him drugged until they were sure there was no way he'd talk. Looks like I'll be back in the lime light for a while. Thank heavens they all think Charles is dead. Maybe this will win him some understanding, I guess it's too late for sympathy. Ah well, as Charles would say "life is meaningless, death inevitable." Gotta fly, time to pick those nasty children up from their equestrian school, you know I adore them.

Love, Moira