Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

  Robert opened the door of her dressing room. He put the box down and opened a drawer. He put a few camisoles, a couple of bras and some of her fancier knickers into the box. He stood surveying her shoes. He'll take the pink suede heels, Elspeth thought, and he did. He adjusted the position of the other shoes so there was no gap. Don't forget the letters. He opened a drawer full of jumpers and smelled each one. The one he picked was a nondescript blue cashmere; she imagined it must not have been dry-cleaned since she'd worn it last. He opened another drawer and scooped their sex toys into the box. You missed one, Elspeth said, but he shut the drawer.

  Robert reached up and retrieved a box from the top shelf. Elspeth smiled. She had counted on him to be thorough, and he was. He set it beside the box full of clothing.

  Robert cleared out the bathroom. He threw most of her toiletries in the bin, but stood holding her diaphragm for a moment. What a daft thing to get sentimental about, she thought. Then that, too, went into the bin.

  He shut the bathroom door and stood next to the bed, thinking. Then he lay down on the bed. Elspeth lay beside him, careful not to touch, hopeful. What if I don't see you again? He was taking the things she had given him; he was leaving the flat. Don't be shy, sweet. It's just you and me. She cheered when he undid his belt buckle and unzipped his fly. She imagined herself naked beside him, and she was.

  Sometimes he imitated her technique, but today he was rougher, more utilitarian with himself. Elspeth watched Robert's face. She sat up and leaned over him; his eyes were closed. She touched his hair. She put her face close to his, let his breath warm her. So warm, so solid. She would have given anything to be alive with him then, to touch him. Elspeth knew that her touch was cold to him; whenever she'd tried to touch him he would shiver and shrink. So she knelt beside him, watching.

  She had often marvelled at the play of expression in Robert's face during sex. Desire, concentration, pain, endurance, hilarity, desperation, release: she sometimes felt as though she were watching a pageant of the extremes of Robert's soul. Today it was determination, a kind of grim plea; it seemed to take a long time, and Elspeth began to be anxious. Enjoy it, at least. For both of us. She watched his hands on his cock, watched the way his toes curled, the sideways jerk of his head as he came. His body went slack. Robert opened his eyes and stared through Elspeth at the ceiling. I'm here, Robert.

  A tear rolled halfway across his cheek. Don't, sweet. Don't cry. Elspeth had never seen Robert cry, not even in hospital, not even when she'd died. Oh, hell. I don't want you to be so miserable. She reached down and touched the tear. Robert turned his head, startled.

  I'm here I'm here I'm here. She looked around for something she could move, and began to sway the curtains, slightly. But Robert was sitting up, wiping his hands, fastening his trousers, not watching. She tried to shake the box of sex toys and knickers, but it was too heavy for her. She stood in the middle of the room, exhausted. Robert went into the bathroom and washed, came out holding the bin bag full of her things. He put it down and began straightening the bedclothes. Elspeth sat on the bed while he did this, and when he leaned over she put her hands against his chest, reaching through his shirt, touching his skin lightly. He recoiled.

  'Elspeth?' He was whispering, urgent.

  Robert. She ran her hands over his skin, slowly: back, hips, legs, cock, stomach, hands, arms. He stood with his head turned and lowered, his eyes closed. She imagined what he might feel - perhaps it was like ice cubes moving over his body? She pushed her hands into him and he gasped. You're so warm, she thought, and knew what he must feel; her immaterial coldness must be the opposite of his lovely hot liquid body. She took her hands away. She could still feel his warmth in her hands. She looked at them, expecting them to glow a bit. Robert had crossed his arms over his chest and stood hunched over, shivering. Oh sweet, I'm sorry.

  'Elspeth,' he whispered. 'If that's you - do something - do something only you'd know - an Elspeth thing ...'

  She put the tip of her finger between his eyebrows and slowly stroked it down his nose, his lips, his chin. She did it again.

  'Yes,' he said. 'My God.' He sat down on the bed again, elbows on knees, head in hands, and stared at the floor. Elspeth sat next to him, ecstatic. Finally! She was virtually drunk with relief. You know I'm here!

  Robert groaned. Elspeth looked at him: his eyes were screwed up tight and he was rhythmically hitting his forehead with both fists. 'I've completely - lost - my bloody - mind. Shit.' He got up, grabbed the boxes and the bin liner, and walked quickly back to her office. Elspeth followed, disbelieving. Wait - Robert - don't -

  He hefted each box, strode down the hall and across the landing and carted it all down the stairs to his flat. She stood at her open front door, listening to his footsteps moving through his flat and then back up the stairs. She let him walk right through her each time he came up, and trailed after him, catching stray mutterings as he stalked along.

  'Jessica said I was losing the plot, and right she was! "You're going to make yourself ill," she said, and damned if I haven't ... What have I been playing at, she's not coming back ... Oh God, Elspeth.'

  The door shut. Elspeth was alone, again. Tears, she thought, as though she were summoning a jumper. She put her hand to her face and felt tears. Gosh, I'm crying. She paused to marvel at her new accomplishment. Then she turned to face her silent flat.

  PART TWO

  THE MIRROR TWINS

  JULIA AND VALENTINA Poole walked off the plane and into Heathrow Airport. Their white, patent-leather shoes hit the carpeting in perfect step, with movie-musical precision. They wore white knee socks, white pleated skirts that ended four inches above their knees, and plain white T-shirts under white woollen coats. Each twin wore a long white scarf and wheeled a suitcase behind her. Julia's suitcase was pink and yellow terry cloth, and had a Japanese cartoon-monkey face that leered at the people walking behind her. Valentina's blue-and-green suitcase's cartoon face was a mouse. The mouse looked both regretful and shy.

  Outside the airport windows the morning sky was blue. The twins made their way through the endless corridors, stood to the right on people-movers, followed exhausted passengers down ramps and stairs. They stood in the queue for the Immigration officials, holding hands, yawning. When their turn came, the twins handed over their virginal passports.

  'How long will you be staying?' asked the tired woman in the uniform.

  'Forever,' said Julia. 'We've inherited a flat. We've come to live in it.' She smiled at Valentina, who smiled back. The woman scrutinised their residency visas, stamped their passports and waved them into the UK.

  Forever, Valentina thought. I will live forever with Julia in our apartment in London, which we have never seen, surrounded by people we haven't met, forever. She squeezed Julia's hand. Julia winked at her.

  The black cab was draughty and cold. Valentina and Julia dozed in the back seat, their feet crowded by piles of luggage, still clutching each other's hands. London streets flashed by or stood still; other drivers whooshed along, following incomprehensible traffic laws. Julia and Valentina had learned to drive, but as the taxi wove through congested serpentine streets, Julia realised that driving in London was going to be impossible, even for her, and certainly for the Mouse. The Mouse didn't like to get lost, didn't like to be in strange places. Plus they didn't own a car. Julia resigned herself to taxis and public transportation. She watched a red double-decker bus swaying along beside them. Everyone inside looked tired and bored. How can you be bored? You live in London! You're breathing the same air as the Queen and Vivienne Westwood!

  The taxi passed a tube station. People swarmed out of it. Julia looked at her watch, which read 4.15. She reset it to 10.15. They turned onto Highgate Road, and Julia thought they must be getting close. She looked at Valentina, who was sitting up now and staring out the window. The taxi began to climb a steep hill. SWAINS LANE. 'Is that like Lover's Lane?' Valentina asked. 'More like swine, miss,' said the driver. 'They used to drive the pig
s along here.' Valentina blushed. Julia took out her lipstick and applied it without a mirror, offered it to Valentina, who did the same. They looked at each other. Julia reached out and wiped a tiny bit of errant pink lipstick from the corner of Valentina's mouth. Over the radio came a long string of code-like names and numbers: Tamworth one, Burton Albion one; Barnet nil, Woking nil; Exeter City nil, Hereford United one; Aldershot two, Dagenham and Redbridge one ... 'Football scores, miss,' said the driver when Julia asked.

  They reached the top of the hill and drove along a narrow street with a park on one side, brick houses on the other. A large church stood in the middle of the block, and the cab pulled up halfway between it and the blank-faced stucco building just after it. 'Here it is. Vautravers Mews.' The driver took Julia's money. She was shocked when she realised they'd just spent almost $120 on a cab ride. She tipped ten per cent. 'Thank you,' said the driver. Valentina opened the taxi door and cold wet wind rushed at her.

  'I don't see it,' she called to Julia. The church was on the left, and the stucco building was number 72. Between them was a narrow asphalt path that descended precipitously into gloom. It was overshadowed by a huge brick wall that bounded the church's property. But Valentina couldn't see any house that might be theirs.

  'It'll be along here,' said the taxi driver. 'Shall I help you with those?' He picked up an impossible number of suitcases and walked down the path. Julia and Valentina followed, wheeling their terry cloth suitcases. The little path led them behind the stucco house, and then they saw a high stone wall with spikes set on top. Rampant birch trees spilled over it. Valentina smelled damp earth, and it made her homesick. Julia was opening a heavy wooden gate with a large key. The gate swung silently, and Julia disappeared behind the wall. The driver had placed the suitcases in a neat row; Valentina stood on the asphalt near them, reluctant to go in. The driver looked at her curiously. He was a thinnish, oldish man with watery blue eyes. He wore a bright green cardigan and brown plaid trousers. 'Are you all right, miss?' he asked.

  'Yes. I'm fine,' said Valentina, although she actually felt somewhat nauseated.

  'Come on, Mouse!' Julia yelled. Her voice sounded muffled and remote.

  'You're Americans?' said the driver.

  'Our aunt left us her apartment in her will,' Valentina said. Then she felt foolish. Why should he care?

  'Ah,' said the driver. This seemed to satisfy his curiosity about them. Valentina felt a surge of gratitude. He wasn't going to ask about them being twins. Maybe he felt that would be too personal. Or maybe he hadn't noticed. She loved it when people failed to notice.

  'Mouse!'

  The driver gave her a little smile. 'Go on, then.' Valentina smiled back, and dragged her suitcase through the gate.

  Julia was standing at the front door with her hand on the doorknob. She waited for Valentina to make her way over the squishy moss that covered the stones in the footpath. Valentina looked at the great dark bulk of Vautravers, at the black windows and elaborate ironwork, and shivered. It wasn't quite raining, but it wasn't exactly not raining either. She heard the driver squelching along the path behind her. Julia opened the door.

  They stepped into the front hall. In contrast to the outside of the building, it was warm, neat and virtually empty. The walls were painted a pinkish grey, a colour that reminded Valentina of brains. To the right was a closed oak door with a tiny hand-lettered card that read FANSHAW. In front of them a small table held three empty baskets; an umbrella leaned against the table. To their left was a staircase, which curved and rose above their heads. Valentina thought there ought to be a little bottle labelled DRINK ME, but there wasn't.

  'You can just leave those here,' said Julia to the driver. Valentina said, 'Thank you.' The driver replied, 'Good luck, then,' and was gone. Valentina felt a little bereft. 'Come on,' said Julia. She bounded up the stairs as though she'd been released from gravity. Valentina followed more sedately.

  On the next landing a faded Oriental carpet appeared. The stairs continued, but the twins stopped. The card on the door was pale green, and NOBLIN was typed on it, apparently with an actual typewriter. Julia inserted the key into the keyhole. She had to wiggle it back and forth a few times before she got the lock open. She looked back at Valentina. Valentina took Julia's hand, and together they walked into their new home.

  The front hall was full of umbrellas and mirrors. The twins were reflected eighteen times in as many mirrors, and their reflections were reflected, and on and on. They were startled by this; both stood perfectly still and were each unsure which reflection belonged to which girl. Then Julia turned her head: half of the reflections also turned; the effect was diminished. 'Spooky,' said Julia, to mar the silence. Valentina said, 'Uh-huh.' She put a hand out in front of her like a blind person and moved through the passageway from the hall into a large dark room.

  Elspeth was dozing in her drawer. Voices woke her.

  As Julia stepped into the front room behind Valentina, she had a sensation of being underwater, as though the room were at the bottom of a pond. All the things in the room were bulky shadows; Valentina was a slim shadow moving in the gloom. Julia heard a noise (which was Valentina tripping over a pile of books), and then light entered the room as Valentina drew the curtains on the tall wide windows. The light was cold and grey and sort of particulate. The room was very dusty.

  'Look, Julia - an owl!' It hung suspended from the high ceiling, in place of an absent light fixture that had left a small hole with wires coming out of it. The owl's wings were spread and its talons were open to grasp some small prey. Julia reached up and carefully touched one of the feet, which set the owl spinning, slowly. 'It's an owlicopter,' she said, and Valentina laughed.

  Elspeth stood in the doorway, watching the twins. Oh, I missed you. I wanted to see you again, and now you're here. She hugged herself, eager and apprehensive.

  As Edie had predicted, all of the furniture was heavy, ornate and old. The sofas were pale pink velvet, beast-footed, many-buttoned. There was a baby grand piano (the twins were distinctly unmusical) and a vast Persian rug which was chrysanthemum-patterned, soft to the touch, and had at one time been deep red, now faded in most places to dull pink. Everything in the room seemed to have been drained of colour. Julia wondered if the colour had all collected somewhere else; perhaps it was in some closet, and when they opened that door it would all flood back into the objects it had deserted. She thought of Sleeping Beauty, and the palace, still for a hundred years, full of motionless courtiers. Edie and Jack preferred new things. Julia ran her finger across the piano, leaving a trail of shining black amid the dull dust. Valentina sneezed. Both girls looked at the doorway as though expecting to be caught intruding on the silence of the flat.

  Elspeth stepped forward, about to speak, then realised they couldn't see her.

  There were books everywhere: entire walls of bookcases, piles of books on tables, on the floor. Valentina knelt to collect the pile she had tripped over, a little island of bestiaries and herbals. 'Look, Julia, a manticore.' The twins wandered back into the hall. Elspeth followed them.

  They crossed a rather bare dining room, which contained only a formal table and chairs and a large sideboard; a little tufted ottoman stood orphaned in a corner. Bleak daylight seeped in through huge French windows that led to a diminutive balcony. The twins could see the church rising over a wall of ivy.

  Next, a room that was meant to be a parlour but had been used by Elspeth as an office. There was an enormous, ornate desk with a clunky fifties office chair. On the desk sat a scruffy computer, heaps of papers, more books, a credit-card-processing machine, a delicate white-and-gold teacup with long-evaporated tea at the bottom and apricot lipstick staining the rim. Bookcases lined the walls, stuffed with reference books and a complete OED. An anomalous shelf was bare and dust-free. The room was bursting with flattened packing boxes, bubble wrap, file cabinets and a small stuffed ermine, which peered at them from its perch atop a set of library-card catalogue drawers. The r
oom seemed to have been neatened without actually becoming neat. Valentina sat down at the desk and pulled out the centre drawer. It contained invoice pads, Smints, paper clips, rubber bands and business cards:

  ELSPETH NOBLIN

  RARE AND USED BOOKS

  BOUGHT AND SOLD

  enoblin@bookish.uk.com

  Valentina said, 'Do you think all these books were for her, or to sell? I wonder if she had a shop?'

  'I think this was the shop,' said Julia. 'None of these receipts has an address on it. I bet she worked from here. Besides, the will didn't mention anything besides this place.'

  'I wish Mom knew more. It's so lame that they didn't talk to each other.' Valentina got up and examined the ermine. It stared back at her, insouciant. 'What do you suppose his name was?' Valentina asked. She thought, It's sad that we don't know.

  Margaret, Elspeth thought. Her name was Margaret.

  'He looks like George Bush.' Julia headed back through the dining room as she spoke, and Valentina followed her.

  A swinging door at the far end of the room led to the kitchen. It was old-fashioned, and the appliances were, by the twins' American standards, dollhouse-sized. Everything was compact, serviceable, white. The only thing that seemed new was the dishwasher. Valentina opened a cupboard and found a washing machine inside. There was a contraption that sprung into a complicated configuration of clothes line and metal. 'Guess that's the dryer,' said Julia, refolding it. The electrical outlets were shaped differently here. All the kitchen implements were subtly weird, foreign. The twins exchanged uneasy looks. Valentina turned on the tap, and water spurted out with a grunt. She hesitated, then ran her hands under the rust-coloured stream. It took a while to get warm.