Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

  Robert stood outside the door. 'Are you all right in there?'

  'I'm fine. I think I've broken the phone. Could you unplug it?'

  Robert walked away and came back with the telephone in his hands. 'It's fine, Martin.'

  'No, it's ... it was on the floor.'

  'So it's contaminated?'

  'Yes. Could you take it away? I'll order a new one.'

  'Martin, couldn't I just decontaminate it for you? This is the third phone in what? A month? I was just listening to a report on Radio 4 about how British landfills are chock-full with old computers and mobiles. It seems a shame to toss a perfectly functional phone.'

  Martin didn't answer. He began to wash his hands. It always took a long time for the water to get hot enough. He was using carbolic soap. It stung.

  Robert said, 'Are you coming out any time soon?'

  'I think it might be a while.'

  'Can I do anything?'

  'Just take the phone away.'

  'All right.'

  Martin waited. Robert stood on the other side of the door for a minute, then left. Martin heard the front door slam. I'm sorry. The phrase began to repeat in his head, until he replaced it with another, more secret refrain. The water was satisfyingly hot now. It was going to be a long afternoon.

  Robert went back to his own flat and called Marijke at work. She had told him not to do this unless there was an emergency, but she never answered her mobile and she wasn't returning calls. She worked at VPRO, one of the quirkier Dutch radio stations. Robert had never been to the Netherlands. When he imagined Holland he thought of Vermeer paintings and The American Friend.

  Strange Dutch ringing sounds: a voice, not Marijke's. Robert asked for Marijke and the voice went to get her. Robert stood in his front room with his phone pressed to his ear, listening to the noises of the radio station. He could hear muffled voices: 'Nee, ik denk van niet ...' 'Vertel hem dat het onmogelijk is, hij wil altijd het onderste uit de kan hebben ...' Robert imagined the receiver sitting on Marijke's desk like a marooned insect. He imagined Marijke walking towards it, her plain, gently creased face, her tired green eyes, her mouth red with too-bright lipstick and tense at the corners, seldom quite smiling. Robert pictured her in an orange jumper she used to wear for days at a time every winter. Marijke's fingers were never still, always holding a cigarette or a pen, picking at imaginary lint on someone's collar, fiddling with her limp hair. She drove Robert crazy with her fidgeting.

  Now she picked up the receiver.

  'Hallo?' Marijke had a sultry voice. Robert always told Martin she could have made a fortune in phone sex. In her old job at the BBC she had read the afternoon traffic reports; sometimes men appeared in the lobby of Broadcasting House asking for her. At VPRO she was a very popular programme host on a show that mostly featured stories about human-rights catastrophes, global warming and terribly sad things that happened to animals.

  'Marijke. It's Robert.'

  He felt her discomfort come at him through the telephone ether. After a pause, she said, 'Robert, hello. How are you?'

  'I'm fine. Your husband is not fine.'

  'What do you want me to do? I am here, he's there.'

  'I want you to come home and take him in hand.'

  'No, Robert, I won't do that.' Marijke covered the phone with her hand and said something to someone, then returned to him. 'I'm absolutely not coming back. And he can't even walk downstairs to get the mail, so I don't imagine we'll be seeing each other soon.'

  'At least ring him.'

  'Why?

  'Persuade him to take his medicine. Cheer him up. Hell, I don't know. Don't you have any interest in helping him sort himself out?'

  'No. I've done that. It's not a joke, Robert. He's hopeless.'

  Robert stared out the window at Vautravers' chaotic front garden, which sloped up away from the house so that it was like watching an empty raked stage. As Marijke declared her complete lack of interest in Martin's future, the twins opened the front door of Vautravers and walked up the footpath to the gate. They were dressed in matching baby-blue coats and hats and carried lavender muffs. One twin was swinging her muff on its wrist-strap; the other twin pointed at something in a tree, and both girls burst out laughing.

  'Robert? Are you there?'

  One twin walked slightly in front of the other; to Robert they appeared to be two-headed, four-legged, two-armed. They let themselves out of the gate. Robert closed his eyes, and an afterimage formed on the backs of his eyelids, a silhouette-girl shimmering against darkness. He was enchanted. They were like an early Elspeth, a previous version that had been withheld from him until now. They're so young. And so strange. My God, they look like they're about twelve.

  'Robert?' His eyes flew open; the twins had gone.

  'Sorry, Marijke. What were you saying?'

  'I have to go. I'm on deadline.'

  'Er - right, then. Sorry to have bothered you.'

  'Robert, is something wrong?'

  He thought about it for a moment before he answered. 'I just saw something rather marvellous.'

  'Oh,' said Marijke. 'What was it? Where are you?' For the first time she sounded interested in the conversation.

  'Elspeth's twins have arrived. They just walked through the front garden. They're a bit ... surprising.'

  'I didn't know Elspeth had children.'

  'They belong to Edie and Jack.'

  'The famous Edie.' Marijke sighed. 'I never quite believed in Edie; I always suspected Elspeth might have invented her.'

  Robert smiled. 'I was never sure about Jack, myself. The legendary fiance who eloped with the demon twin to America. It seems they were real after all.'

  Marijke covered the phone with her hand. When she spoke again it was to say, 'I really do have to go, Robert.' She paused. 'Do they look like Elspeth?'

  'If you come home you can see for yourself.'

  She laughed. 'I'll call him, but I'm not coming to London. It never quite was my home, you know, Robert.' Marijke had lived in London for twenty-six years. For twenty-five years she had lived with Martin. Robert couldn't imagine how she had done it. He pictured her with other Dutch people, tall sturdy people who spoke five languages and ate herring they bought from little carts on the streets. In London Marijke had always seemed worried and deprived. Robert wondered if her return to her own city had restored what she had craved.

  'He's waiting for you, Marijke.' Silence, static over the phone. Robert relented. 'They do look rather like Elspeth. They're more blonde, though. They aren't as fierce as Elspeth, either, I don't think. They look like kittens.'

  'Kittens? How incongruous. Well, kittens will be good for the place. You gloomy men could use some kittens. I must go, Robert. But thanks for calling.'

  'Bye, then, Marijke.'

  'Bye.'

  Marijke stood in her cubicle with her hand on the receiver. It was a little after three o'clock, and she could spare a few minutes, despite what she'd said to Robert. She should do it now. Martin had caller ID, so she would only call him on her mobile. She felt a pang of guilt. When she'd left, a year ago, she had called every few weeks. Now she had allowed two months to go by without calling. She held the phone to her ear, counting the rings. Martin always answered on the seventh ring; yes, here he was.

  'Hello?' He sounded interrupted; she wondered what he had been doing when the phone rang, but she knew better than to ask.

  'Hallo, Martin.'

  'Marijke ...'

  She stood with the phone pressed hard against her ear. She had always loved to hear him say her name. Now it made her sad. Marijke leaned over with the mobile still pressed against her ear and then crouched down next to her desk, so that when she looked up she saw only the walls of her cubicle and the acoustical tiles of the ceiling. 'Marijke, how are you?' He did not sound any different than the last time she'd spoken to him.

  'I'm fine. I got promoted. I have an assistant now.'

  'Stellar, that's excellent.' There was a pause. 'Male or f
emale?'

  She laughed. 'Female. Her name is Ans.'

  'Hmm, okay, well, that's great. I don't want you being swept off your feet by some young Adonis with' - here Martin lowered his voice - 'fab-u-lous e-nun-cia-tion.'

  'Don't worry, you, there's nobody here but us radio geeks. The young ones are too busy chatting each other up to be bothered with the likes of me.' Marijke felt oddly pleased that Martin imagined she was beset by suitors. She could hear him lighting a cigarette, and then the soft exhalation of smoke.

  'I quit smoking,' she told him.

  'Surely not. What will you do with your hands? Your poor hands will go crazy without a ciggy to occupy them.' Martin's tone was caressing, but Marijke could hear the effort to be casual. 'When did you give up?'

  'Six days, twelve hours, and' - she looked at her watch - 'thirteen minutes ago.'

  'Well, marvellous. I'm jealous.' At the word jealous there was a mutual pause.

  Marijke combed her brain for a new topic. 'What are you working on? The Assyrians?' Martin occasionally worked for the British Museum, and the last time they'd talked he had mentioned some Aramaic inscriptions that he was translating.

  'Mmm, I finished those. They've got me onto a little trove of poems, an Augustan lady named Marcella is supposed to have written them. If they were real they would be rather exciting; there are hardly any surviving works by women from that period. But they aren't quite right. I think that Charles has been hoodwinked, alas.'

  'How do you know they are not right? Surely Charles had them vetted?'

  'As objects, they seem fine. But the language is wrong in all sorts of small ways. It's sort of how it would be if you decided to forge some new Shakespearean sonnets; even though your modern English is lovely and charming, you would make odd little mistakes with the archaic turns of phrase, the grace notes that would have come naturally to a writer of that time. I think the writer is a twentieth-century Frenchman with an excellent command of nineteenth-century Latin.'

  'But aren't they copies of copies? Perhaps the mistakes were introduced ...'

  'Ah, well, they were found at the library at Herculaneum, you see, so they were supposed to be the genuine article. I must call Charles today. He'll be hopping ...'

  Marijke's boss appeared in the entrance of her cubicle, looked around confusedly and discovered her sitting on the floor. Marijke looked up at Bernard from her crouch and mouthed, Martin. Bernard rolled his eyes and continued to loom over her, his sparse grey hairs standing up as though he were a cartoon character who had been electrocuted. He pointed to his watch. She stood up and said, 'I've got to go, Martin. I'm on deadline.'

  Martin experienced a jolt - talking to Marijke was so comforting, so normal and right, that he had almost forgotten; it had been so much like the conversations they used to have every day, he had forgotten that it would soon be over. And when would she call again? He panicked.

  'Marijke ...'

  She waited. She wished Bernard would stop looking at her. She made a little rotating motion with her free hand: Yes, I know. I'll be off in a moment. Bernard wiggled his enormous eyebrows at her warningly and went back into his office.

  'Call again soon, Marijke.'

  'Yes.' She wanted to. She knew she wouldn't. 'Groetjes, my love.'

  'Doeg! Ik hou van je ...' They both paused. She hung up first.

  Martin stood in his office, holding his mobile. A crowd of emotions filled him. She called. She said 'my love'. I should have asked her more questions, I talked too much about my work. She said she would call soon. How soon? But she didn't say she would call until I asked her to call. But she called today, so she will call again. When will she call? I should write down questions to ask her. She gave up smoking - that's amazing. Maybe I should too. We could do it together, next time she calls I could tell her. But when will she call? Martin shook another cigarette from the pack and lit it. She called me. A minute ago, we were talking. He pressed the mobile to his cheek. It was warm. He felt affection for the little phone; it had brought Marijke's voice to him. Carrying the phone in one hand and the cigarette in the other, Martin walked to the kitchen. When he got there he walked back to his office again. She called me. She promised to call again. She called. When will she call again? Maybe I should give up smoking ...

  Marijke flipped her phone shut and put it in her pocket. She finished the piece for Bernard, emailed it to him. She heard the ping from his computer that said the piece had crossed the twelve feet between their desks. Someone said, 'You're on air in fifteen minutes.' She nodded and made her way towards the studio, but detoured into the loo, where she leaned against the wall and cried. He doesn't change. She wished she hadn't called. On the phone it was too easy to remember Martin as he had once been. Marijke washed her face and ran to the studio, where her engineer gave her an annoyed look. Months would go by before she called Martin again.

  STALKING

  ROBERT HAD BEEN imagining the arrival of the twins for a year. He had whole conversations with them in his mind: he told them about London, the cemetery, Elspeth; he chatted to them about restaurants, his thesis, all sorts of things. As he went about his days in the long year of their imminent arrival, Robert noted points of interest - There's Dick Whittington's cat. They'll want to know about that ... I'll take them to Postman's Park, to the Hunterian Museum, to the John Soane. We'll ride the London Eye at sunset. He and Elspeth had done all these things together. We'll go round Dennis Severs' house at Christmas. And the Foundling Museum. Robert became, in his imagination, the tour guide of the twins' London lives, their indispensable sherpa, their native speaker. They would naturally come to him with their little dilemmas and queries; avuncular, he would advise them and aid them in their London initiation. Robert had looked forward to the twins. He had enveloped them with so many witticisms, expectations and hopes that now, when Julia and Valentina had finally actually arrived, Robert was quite frightened of them.

  He had thought that he would simply walk upstairs, knock on their door and introduce himself. But the sound of their footsteps and laughter paralysed him. He watched them come and go, traipsing through the front garden in matching frocks, carrying bags of groceries, flowers, an ugly lamp. Why do they need a lamp? Elspeth has plenty of lamps.

  They knocked on his door once or twice a day. Each time, Robert stood motionless, interrupted at his desk, or during his dinner; he could hear them speaking softly to each other in the hall. Just open the door, he told himself. Don't be such a wanker.

  He hesitated before their twinness; they seemed sublime and inviolable together. Each morning he watched them navigating the slippery path to the gate. They appeared so self-sufficient, and conversely so reliant on each other, that he felt rejected without having ever exchanged a word with either of them.

  One bright chilly morning Robert stood at his front window, coffee in hand, wearing his coat and hat, waiting. Eventually he heard the twins galumphing down the stairs. He watched them cross the yard and let themselves out of the gate.

  Then he followed them.

  They led him across Pond Square, through Highgate Village and along Jackson's Lane to the Highgate tube station. He hung back, let them disappear, then panicked that a train might come and whisk them off. He ran down the escalator. The station was nearly deserted; it was half eleven. He found them again on the southbound platform, positioned himself just close enough to get into the same carriage. They sat near the middle doors. He sat across from them, fifteen feet away. One twin studied a pocket tube map. The other leaned back in her seat and studied the adverts. 'Look,' she said to her sister, 'we could fly to Transylvania for a pound each.' Robert was startled to hear her soft American accent, so different from Elspeth's confident Oxbridge voice.

  He avoided looking at them. He thought of a cat his mum had, Squeak; every time they took it to the vet's surgery, that cat tucked its head under Robert's arm and hid. She seemed to think that if she couldn't see the vet, the vet couldn't see her. Robert did not look at the twi
ns, so they would not see him.

  They got off at Embankment and changed for the District line. Eventually they emerged from Sloane Square station and wandered haltingly into Belgravia, stopping often to consult their A-Z. Robert never came to this part of London, so he, too, became quickly lost. He hung back, keeping his eye on them and feeling pervy and gormless, not to mention highly noticeable. Smart young Sloanes of both sexes marched past him, toting inscrutable shopping bags, mobiles clamped to their ears. Little fogs of breath emanated from their mouths as they rushed by, chatting to themselves like actors rehearsing. The twins seemed tentative and childish by comparison.

  They wandered into a side street and became suddenly excited, skipping along and craning their necks at the shop numbers. 'Here!' said one. They went into a tiny hat shop, Philip Treacy, and spent an hour trying on hats. Robert watched them from across the street. The twins took turns with the hats, turning in front of what must have been a mirror. The shop girl smiled at them and offered an enormous lime-green spiral. A twin put it on her head and all three of them looked quite pleased.

  Robert wished that he smoked, as it would have provided an excuse to stand about in the street looking pointless. Maybe I should go and have a pint. They look as though they'll be at this all afternoon. The twins were exclaiming over a plastic orange disc that reminded Robert of the dinner-plate-like halos in medieval paintings. I need a disguise. Maybe a beard. Or a hazmat suit. The twins came out of the shop without any bags.

  Robert trailed them all over Knightsbridge, watching them window-shop, eat crepes, gawk at other shoppers. Mid-afternoon, they vanished into the underground. Robert let them go and took himself to the British Library.

  He put his things in a locker and went upstairs to the Humanities 1 reading room. The room was crowded and he found a seat between a beaky woman surrounded by books about Christopher Wren and a hirsute young man who seemed to be researching Jacobite housekeeping practices. Robert did not order any books; he didn't even check on the books he had previously ordered. He put both palms flat on the desk top and closed his eyes. I feel odd. He wondered if he was coming down with the flu. Robert was aware of a split within himself - he was filled with contradictory emotions, which included shame, exhilaration, accomplishment, confusion, disgust with himself and a strong desire to follow the twins again tomorrow. He opened his eyes and tried to pull himself together. You can't spy on them like this. They'll notice sooner or later. Robert imagined Elspeth chiding him: 'Don't be gutless, sweet. Just open the door the next time they knock.' Then he thought she would have laughed at him. Elspeth never understood shyness. Don't laugh at me, Elspeth, Robert said to her in his mind. Don't.