The Terms of an Apology

My brother's apology arrived with qualifications extensive enough to suggest that its author was preparing not to be forgiven but to survive cross-examination. He regretted the distress caused by "what had been understood" from his remarks. The remarks themselves remained at liberty.

For eleven years we had disagreed about the evening on which he announced, in front of our friends, that my small publishing business was a hobby. His defence was that he had intended to relieve me of the pressure to succeed. Mine was that unsolicited relief could resemble demolition remarkably closely.

I drafted a reply dismantling each clause. Then I found an old message of my own in which I had described his teaching career as a refuge from ambition. It had been a joke, naturally. Our family had an impressive record of jokes whose humour became visible only to their authors.

This discovery did not make the offences equivalent. I resisted that easy arithmetic, partly because it was inadequate and partly because I was reluctant to surrender a grievance I had kept in good condition for so long.

When we met, I asked him to say what he had said without the passive constructions. He did. I repeated my own remark. For several minutes we sat with the unpleasant novelty of having nobody else's misunderstanding to discuss.

He asked whether we could start again. I said I did not think beginnings were available on request, but perhaps we could stop rehearsing the same scene.

We talked about a book he was teaching. I disagreed with his interpretation and noticed him hesitate before answering. The hesitation was not reconciliation. It was a small interruption in a familiar habit, and for once neither of us hurried to fill it with a joke.