Based very loosely on a Japanese short story. Manga note to remember: There
are four brothers of the Ganma family- Magic, Luzar, and the twins Harlem
and Servis. Takamatsu's beloved teacher Luzar died mysteriously in battle
before his son was born. Takamatsu and Servis blamed Magic for sending him
to war, or at any rate not stopping him. In revenge, when Magic's child and
Luzar's were born close together, Takamatsu changed the babies over so that
Luzar's son Shintaro would be raised as Magic's heir, while he himself took
charge of Magic's true son, Gunma.

Sons of... (Hommage: Hiyochi, Flowers for Luzar)

     It was cold and threatening, as so often in November. The family plot
was on top of a small rise at the edge of the cemetary, separated by
distance and a line of laurel trees from the sea of flat metal plaques that
marked the graves of the enlisted men. Takamatsu stood patiently with his
back to them, only half listening to the incomprehensible chanting. His
gaze wandered past the monument with its sweet-faced marble angel-- Magic's
taste, and bad-- out to the long view of brown hills and the wide sweep of
the sky. Black tatters of cloud, hunched like running wolves, were scudding
across the flat pewter grey on the heels of a freezing wind. There would be
rain soon, probably, or maybe even snow.

    Luzar's cenotaph was in a low walled area by itself. Magic's two aides
stood at attention by the entrance, eminently ignorable. But Takamatsu,
from his place in back of the family members, was pricklingly aware of the
large dark soldier that Harlem had brought with him from his own corps in a
small gesture of defiance. The massive German stood rock-like a pace or two
in front of the young men, obliterating them entirely, and only a few feet
behind himself. There was something obscurely threatening in that silent
presence, and Takamatsu looked at the Commander to see if he was showing
any awareness of it at all.

    Chances were, not. Magic was always at his best on formal occasions.
Now his red jacket glowed at the front of the party, the only spot of
colour in the landscape, in pointed contrast to the rest of them in their
sombre winter black. He held his shoulders soldier straight, seemingly
oblivious to the cold in spite of his bare chest, and bent his golden head
to just the right angle to indicate the solemnity of the occasion. No,
Magic was behaving perfectly.

    So was Gunma, of course. The long bound hair blew in the wind, and
Takamatsu could see him shivering a little in spite of the heavy underwear
he'd put out for him that morning. But Gunma stood quietly beside his
uncle, head bent, hands folded in prayer. Uncle, Takamatsu told himself. He
had no trouble with that now, after fifteen years, except once a year,
every year, on this day, when he saw them standing side by side together
and was reminded of the truth. And as ever, the sight filled him with
satisfaction. If there was anything to this nature versus nurture
controversy, it was clear that nurture- and Takamatsu- had won. Gunma's
sweetness, his childlike openness and candour, his intellectual brilliance
just coming to the fore- that had nothing to do with Magic and everything
to do with himself. A smile touched Takamatsu's mouth, and he quenched it
hastily. It sank down to his heart instead and glowed there like a candle
light. Gunma is **my** child, he thought in that secret recess of his soul
where not even Luzar was allowed to come. Gunma is mine- and he does me
credit.

    Movement drew his eyes to the row in front of him. Shintaro was
fidgeting, trying to get the attention of his uncle Servis, and failing
miserably. Nurture, indeed. **That** was Luzar's son? That disdain for any
kind of brain work, that bullying arrogance, that loud cockiness only too
plainly covering a massive insecurity? No, he was Magic's- all Magic's. And
Magic could have him.

    Unless Servis took him first. Would he? The two were on increasingly
good terms. Without seeming even to try, Servis was slowly but surely
separating him from Magic. Because he was Luzar's? or because he was
Magic's? It couldn't just be for his face, uncanny as that resemblance was
getting to be. There was just no telling... Servis was a mystery to him
now, completely closed off behind that cool smiling exterior. Takamatsu
could do no more than guess at what he was thinking. He stood now, mere
inches away from his nephew on one side and his twin on the other and
looked as though he were alone in the world. Well, naturally- Servis and
Harlem hadn't spoken to each other in over a decade. Each had perfected the
art of pretending the other wasn't there. But it was odd that he wasn't
responding to Shintaro- except that that was the surest way of drawing his
nephew to him. Clever Servis. Clever and remorseless; and not to be
underestimated just because he fought with different weapons than his
brothers.

    There was a stir behind him as Magic's aides came forward. One brought
a bouquet of white lilies and handed it to Gunma, who walked gracefully up
to the cenotaph and laid them at its base. The second aide proffered the
incense sticks. Gunma took one, lit it, fanned out the flame, and placed it
in the sand-filled holder. He stood a moment with his head bowed over his
hands, then walked back as Magic came forward to take his place.

   Of course, Takamatsu thought, Servis must think this means something.
They all do- Magic and Harlem and the rest. The anniversary of Luzar's
death, the visit to his grave- they think it has something to do with him,
somehow. He looked at them in pity and amusement. Harlem strode forward
after Magic, his movements brusque and impatient. He didn't stop to pray
after thrusting his incense in the sand. Servis's contrasting carefulness
had the effect of a slap. Maybe he didn't intend it that way- maybe he
didn't even notice. Servis loved his older brother- maybe he still misses
him, he thought sadly, and watched in resignation as Shintaro dropped his
incense and returned, red-faced and muttering, to his place. 

    His own turn. He went through the motions gravely. This was a show,
part of the tissue of deception that was so woven into the fabric of his
life that he no longer bothered his head over which part was real and which
wasn't. But he knew it meant nothing. Luzar wasn't here. He pretended
mostly for Gunma's sake- to show him how one should behave- and a little
because Magic expected it. But it was meaningless. He knew where Luzar was,
and it wasn't here. He placed the incense carefully in its base, bent his
head and counted the seconds off, then made a formal bow and walked back to
the rear of the party. The German was watching him with an expressionless
face. Trust Harlem for something like that...

    The ceremony was over. Harlem collected his man and left without
farewells.
    "Coming, Shin-chan? I'll give you and Gunma a lift back," Magic was
saying.
    "I'll go with my uncle."
    "Sorry. I have business in town," Servis said shortly. "I'll see you at
dinner, nii-san."
    "You'll go with the Commander?" Takamatsu asked Gunma, standing
silently beside him.
    "Yeah- if Shin-chan...
    Magic turned to him.
    "Takamatsu, you'll come back with us? Seeing that it's a holiday, I
thought- just the family together..."
    "Thank you, sir, but I don't want to intrude-"
    "It's no intrusion-"
    "-and I'm afraid I have an experiment in progress that needs constant
monitoring. I'm sorry, Commander. Another time, perhaps? Will Gunma-sama be
spending the night at the house?"
   "Well, if you're not coming, probably-"
   "I'll have one of the men bring your things up, Gunma-sama."
   "Oh, alright, Takamatsu. See you tomorrow." Gunma's eyes had already
gone to Shintaro where he was sulking a little apart.
   Takamatsu sighed internally. Not a friendship he wanted to encourage,
but-- I'm sorry, Gunma. Today belongs to Luzar-sama. Tomorrow we'll be
together again. He watched the Ganma family departing, its various members
all at odds with each other, and slowly made his own way down the other
slope, to the river.

   He walked along the bank, taking his time and the long way back to
headquarters. Luzar-sama... those few years together, back in his heedless
youth... if he had only known how few they were to be... but still the
sweetest time of his life. The days in the lab, working silently together
in an unspoken communication... the endless warm afternoons, dust motes
dancing in the long rays of the sun that slanted above his desk as he
watched and wrote, changed the composition fractionally, observed and wrote
again, with his attention fixed on the beaker before him  but aware all the
time, underneath the level of thought, of Luzar's presence nearby and the
solid background of contentment it gave to everything he did. From time to
time Luzar came to stand behind him and watch his progress, intervening
sometimes in his experiment. "Here," his voice would say, the long finger
indicating a minute change in the colour of a precipate or the shape of a
cell, "look at this diversion, Takamatsu-kun...": pointing, explaining,
teaching- his sensei. The most beautiful word in the world for him, then as
now- sensei.

    Then the casual, occasional, invitations to dinner at the house,
confined to the single word 'Coming?,' and his own neutral response, a
colourless 'Yes, sir'. Nonetheless his heart bounded at the question, and a
happiness that he never showed in his face ran like quicksilver through his
veins as they walked together up the hill in the evening dusk. In the
dining room with its carved oaken sideboards and velvet chairs, he sat near
the bottom of the large table and ate in invisible silence. The brothers,
even Servis, took his presence for granted and ignored it, giving their
attention instead to the endless wrangling quarrels with which the family
occupied its meals. He observed them with scientific interest, as if they
were the chemical reactions of unknown substances or the paths of colliding
molecules. Those unstable shifting compounds: Magic and Luzar, Luzar and
Servis, Magic and Harlem, Servis and Magic- each with its own properties,
its own effect on the other elements... A source of perpetual fascination,
the interactions of the Ganma family. He'd once vaguely thought of charting
them into a periodic table and getting them firmly classified once and for
all, but had had to give it up: there was just too much variation in each
of the elements.

   The nights that followed, in Luzar's blood-coloured bedroom with its
wine-red carpet and burgundy curtains, like the chamber of a heart. In the
sea of sheets below the mahogany headboard he gave his body over to his
sensei's use, unthinkingly obeying the brief orders- "Up", "Over", "Here"-
and the silent commands of Luzar's hands. Only with Luzar could he be free
at last from himself, from the burden of being an 'I', of being Takamatsu
with all of Takamatsu's incessant and unfulfillable wants and needs and
desires. For those brief endless moments Takamatsu didn't exist: there was
only the body from which Luzar drew his own odd pleasures. For him, there
was no pleasure- or disappointment, or responsibility. He was simply there
for Luzar to do as he pleased with, and every time his soul relaxed into
the state as into a profound and refreshing sleep. Only enough of himself
remained to let him relish the relief of not-being, and to wonder at the
miracle Luzar had wrought in delivering him from himself.

    His body reacted automatically, and many times, ignored by them both.
Sometimes, if Luzar was rough, tears fell from his eyes in the same
automaton fashion. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but to be here, in
the red darkness at the center of the mystery, with Luzar inside him, two
bodies fused into one, two consciousnesses become one, as if- as if- with
only a little more effort, he could cast the husk of Takamatsu entirely and
melt completely into that one and only person in the world...

    His climax finished, Luzar let him go. One large hand turned his chin,
and the grey eyes looked him over, a small smile on the otherwise
expressionless face. A cool finger dried the line of tears down Takamatsu's
cheek. At such moments he almost dared hope that maybe Luzar himself might
have felt something of that dissolution, that becoming-one. But the return
of hope meant the return of self, and he sighed a little, inwardly, for
that lost transcendence. Inevitable- it couldn't be helped- as Luzar pulled
the quilt up over them both and turned them onto their sides, and Takamatsu
drifted into sleep, a contented animal, with Luzar's arm around his
shoulder and Luzar's warm breath against the back of his neck.

    He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, and dried his eyes as he
came up on the gates of headquarters. There was a reason why he allowed
himself the indulgence of memory only once a year. But now it was done.
Small white flakes were beginning to drift down from the sky, randomly in
ones and twos. He had to stop by the house- shower, change out of his
formal clothes- and keep his rendezvous for this afternoon.

                               *   

    The brief flurry was over. Outside the dark clouds were moving away,
like mourners leaving a funeral, and a band of pearly stratus was spreading
up from the horizon. Dry sunlight filtered through it, and one long silver
ray slanted through the tall windows and shone on the desk at the front of
the lab. Takamatsu put the white gardenias where that one ray fell, and
stood back, hands folded formally in front of him.

    'Good afternoon, sir. It's your anniversary again. I brought the
flowers you like, from the greenhouse. They're beautiful, aren't they?
They're descended from those hybrids you developed, the month before you
went away.'

    'It's been fifteen years, this year. We had the usual ceremony this
morning, at the cemetary. The boys were there, of course. They're well.' He
felt a minute constriction about him, a tightening of the atmosphere. 'I'm
sorry it turned out the way it did, sir. But we were acting for the best.
Please try not to mind too much.'

    'Are you well, where you are, and happy? I wonder, do you ever think of
me? Do you remember what it was like, before...? Time passes, down here. It
still seems strange to be older now than you are. I don't suppose I'll ever
be able to believe that. You were always so much ahead of me.'

    'I won't keep you much longer, sir. I just wanted to say hello again,
and good-bye. Until next year, sir.' He bowed, formally, to Luzar's spirit.
Then he walked around the desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down.

    This desk, this chair- the laboratory itself- once Luzar's, now his. He
was heir to all this: the kingdom of knowledge that had been his sensei's;
the band of dedicated men battling to discover the secrets of the universe
with an arsenal of beakers and retorts and microscopes and the infinite
patience of the scientist. Our army, our special tactical squadron. His and
mine. What remains of Luzar-sama is here: here, where he was most alive
when alive, here where his heart was even when his body was elsewhere. Here
in the research and the lab notes and the breakthroughs we made- I made-
under his guidance.

    Luzar-sama, he thought, privately, in that place where not even his
spirit could hear. I love you. I know you never wanted to know it- I
couldn't say it to you when you were alive- I can't say it now when you're
dead. I love you: even now, after all these years, even now when I'm not a
boy anymore but a man older than you ever were. I love you. If I betrayed
you- betrayed your wishes- it was for that reason. Would you really have
wanted me to give your son to Magic, to turn him into his own? I let Servis
convince me you would- I told myself how much you would relish that
revenge, so perfect, so complete. I was lying. I know it now. I couldn't
have raised your son to succeed you, to become the scientist you were. It
was too much. It would have killed me if I'd failed- and killed me if I'd
succeeded. I wanted his place for myself. I was your son, Luzar-sama; I was
your heir. You owed me that. Forgive me, sir. If you ever want me to make
amends, I will. But for now... You can rest quietly, sir. Everything here
is under control.

    He reached for his pen and began writing. In the silence of the lab,
just below the level of thought, he seemed to hear a small sigh, and to
feel the warmth of someone's sleeping breath on the back of his neck. 

MJJ                                                                       
May, 1995