All One Horse

and this mirror

I wish to introduce you to my twin brother. If I haven’t spoken of him any earlier it is only because he has been until now quite content to live in my shadow. He doesn’t eat very much. Now that he is to appear in broad daylight, I should like to give him a helping hand. Perhaps I should say ‘re-emerge’ like a shadow from the night, because this brother in fact set foot in Urbos long before me and he still has here a network of friends unknown to me. Since that time immemorial, it is true, I had eclipsed him. And as this is a feudal state where success is a story of pulling strings and drawing straws, that is to say of having an obsequious spine and a ready dirk, I ought at least to try and light him on his way.

When we were born my parents were right short on originality which is why they named him simply Brother.

Physically he is my spitting image. To the extent that when he does a self portrait I often wonder whether he’s not trying to picture me. (I forgot to specify that he’s a painter.)

Let me tell you about his favourite painting. It is the Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda as some people think they know it.

‘Why do you like that one best?’ I ask.

‘Because it is a self portrait,’ he answers. ‘More precisely; because it is a painting of myself. I mean it. You smile? Look at my smile and then try to remember. Isn’t it exactly the same? And the trees and rocks in the background, the dead fish light all over — are they not elements of my mind? Some people claim that the thing was done by Leonardo painting himself without a beard. Bullshit! Did you see him do it? And anyway, Leonardo is a figment of the communal imagination. When I die I shall leave my portrait to the king. Of course one can no longer see the painting as it has become invisible. Too many people with framed expectations have looked at it. When a thing is looked at too often it loses its reality. Too many eyes kill the light and fade the pigment. But that suits me fine. In this way it has become a mirror. The original black mirror. Bring it to your face! Can’t you see the self portrait?’

We have been around the world together. We share and share alike the same experiences, or so very nearly so that you may be fooled, but you will never believe it since we have reacted in such totally different ways. Perhaps it is due to his being so much younger than I. Or is it a matter of language? Each tongue is its own boat looking for its own sea. Sometimes it sinks under the dead weight of memories.

I find him a little primitive still. Primary, you may say. He is a hunter of images. I never know what he thinks and it is hard for me to pinpoint his Africanness. I do know that he is dying to die in a tree like an unfolding of blossoms, that he loves the deserted streets of night and the dead fish light of this town. My wife quite likes him. He may not be the most handsome man or woman on earth, but at least he’s not intelligent. He in turn probably considers me already too smoothed by the life of a Shiny Face in the distant land where you have to explain yourself to be understood, where it is fashionable to be à la mode, where images must be codifiable and digestible. He doesn’t eat very much.

I sincerely doubt if my displaced brother will succeed in being inserted among you, or that he will enter your mind, but I shall nevertheless try and give him his chance. With these words of presentation. And this mirror.