Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

  'Um, hello,' said Martin. He extended his hand, and Julia grasped it and pulled. She noticed as she let go of his hand that it was bleeding; a thin glaze of blood covered her palm. Martin had expected her to shake his hand, so he was surprised to find himself standing. Julia, in turn, was surprised at how agile Martin was. She found herself staring up at a slender, middle-aged man whose horn-rimmed glasses were askew. He seemed rather knobbly to her; his knees and elbows and knuckles were prominent. He was not at all hairy. Julia noticed that his chest was a little concave. She blushed and looked up. He had short salt-and-pepper hair. He seemed kind.

  'I'm Martin Wells,' he said.

  'I'm Julia Poole,' Julia replied. 'I live downstairs.'

  'Oh, of course. And ... you were lonely?'

  'No, see, the water ... Our bed's right under here, and there was a lot of water coming through the ceiling, and it, like, woke us up.'

  Martin blushed. 'I'm terribly sorry. I'll call someone to fix it, he'll put it right for you.'

  Julia looked away, at the pail and the scrubbing brush, at the wet floor. She looked back at Martin, puzzled. 'What are you doing?' she asked.

  'Cleaning,' he replied. 'I'm washing the floor.'

  'Your hands are bleeding,' Julia told him.

  Martin looked at his hands. The palms were criss-crossed with open cracks from long hours in water. His hands were shiny and bright red. He looked back at Julia. She was looking at the bedroom, at the stacks of boxes that lined the walls.

  'What's in the boxes?' she asked.

  'Things,' he replied.

  Julia abandoned tact. 'You live like this?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're one of those people who wash all the time. Like Howard Hughes.'

  Martin didn't know what to say, so he simply said, 'Yes.'

  'Cool.'

  'Um, no, it isn't, at all.' Martin went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet and took out a tube of lotion, which he began to rub onto his hands. 'It's an illness.' He straightened his spectacles with a lotiony finger. Julia felt that she had made a faux pas.

  'I'm sorry.'

  'That's all right.'

  There was an awkward pause during which neither looked at the other.

  Julia began to feel nervous. I was right before - he's mentally ill. She said, 'I should go back downstairs. Valentina is probably wondering.'

  Martin nodded. 'I'm sorry about your ceiling. I'll ring up someone first thing tomorrow. I would come down myself--'

  'Yes?'

  'But I never leave my flat.'

  Julia was disappointed, even though she had been intent on getting away from him just moments before. 'Not at all?'

  'It's part of ... my illness.' Martin smiled. 'Don't look like that. You are quite welcome to come and visit me.' He guided Julia through the maze of boxes. When they arrived at his front door he let her open it and step into the landing. 'I hope you will come again. For tea? Tomorrow, perhaps?'

  Julia stood on the well-lit landing and peered at Martin, who hung back from the door in his dark hall. 'Okay,' she said. 'Sure.'

  'And your sister is welcome, as well.'

  Julia felt a tiny pang of possessiveness. If he met Valentina he would probably like her better. Everyone did. 'Um, I'll see if she's available.'

  Martin smiled. 'Until tomorrow, then. Four o' clock?'

  'Okay. It was nice to meet you,' Julia said, and fled downstairs.

  Valentina had just emptied the soup pot when Julia returned. The ceiling was still dripping and the bedding was a sodden mess. The twins stood together and surveyed the damage. 'So what happened?' Valentina asked.

  Julia told her, but she had trouble describing Martin. Valentina looked horrified when Julia said they'd been invited to tea. 'But he sounds awful,' said Valentina. 'He never leaves his apartment?'

  'I dunno. He was super polite. I mean, yeah, he's obviously crazy, but in a nice eccentric English way, you know?' The twins began to strip the quilts off the bed. They carried them into the bathroom and tried to wring the water out of them. 'I think maybe these are ruined.'

  'No, it's only plaster. It should rinse out. Maybe we could soak them?' Valentina put the stopper in the plughole and began to run warm water into the tub.

  'Anyway, I said I'd come and have tea and you can come if you want. I think you should at least meet him. He's our neighbour.'

  Valentina shrugged. They finished stripping the bed and left the soup pot sitting on the mattress to collect the drips. They put themselves to bed in the spare bedroom (which was rather clammy) and each went to sleep worrying about home repair and tea.

  THE DELICATE THING

  THE TWINS FOUND virginity burdensome, each in her own way.

  Julia had experimented some. In high school she had let boys kiss and/or fondle her in cars, in the bedrooms of friends' parents at parties when those parents were out of town, once in a ladies' room at Navy Pier, and several times on the doorstep of Jack and Edie's unimpressive ranch house, which she always wished was a gigantic Victorian with a porch - so she could sit with the boy in a porch swing and eat ice cream and they could lick it off each other's lips while Valentina spied on them from the darkened living room. But there was no porch, and the kisses were as lacklustre as the house.

  Julia remembered fending off boys on the beach, behind the shelter in West Park after ice skating, in a music-practice room at the high school. She remembered each boy's reaction, the various shadings of confusion and anger. 'Well, why d'ya come in here, then?' the boy in the practice room had asked her, and she had no answer.

  What did she want? What was it she imagined these boys could do to her? And why did she always stop them before they could do it?

  Valentina was more sought after, and not as proficient at saying no. During the twins' teen years it was Valentina who was singled out by the quiet boys, and by the boys who thought of themselves as nascent rock stars. While Julia chose boys who weren't interested in her and then chased them, Valentina dreamily ignored them all and won hearts. She was always surprised when the boy who sat behind her in Algebra declared his love as she unchained her bike; when the editor of the school paper asked her to the prom.

  'You should let them come to you,' Valentina said, when Julia complained about the discrepancy. But Julia was impatient, and cared about being passed over. These things are fatal to romance, especially if a more indifferent version of yourself is nearby.

  Sex was interesting to Valentina, but the individual boys she might have had sex with were not. When she focused her attention on a boy, that boy always seemed to her unfinished, dull, absurd. She was used to the profound intimacy of her life with Julia, and she did not know that a cloud of hope and wild illusion is required to begin a relationship. Valentina was like the veteran of a long marriage who has forgotten how to flirt. The boys who followed her through the hallways of Lake Forest High School at a safe distance lost their ardour when it was met with polite bewilderment.

  And so the twins had remained virgins. Julia and Valentina watched all of their high school and college friends disappear one by one into the adult world of sex, until they were the only people they knew who lingered in the world of the uninitiated. 'What was it like?' they asked each friend. The answers were vague. Sex was a private joke: you had to be there.

  The twins worried about virginity individually, and they worried about it together. But the most basic problem was one they never talked about: sex was something they couldn't do together. Someone would have to go first, and then the other would be left behind. And they would each have to pick different guys, and these guys, these potential boyfriends, would want to spend time alone with one or the other; they would want to be the important person in Julia or Valentina's life. Each boyfriend would be a crowbar, and soon there would be a gap; there would be hours in the day when Julia wouldn't even know where Valentina was, or what she was doing, and Valentina would turn to tell Julia something and instead there would be the boyfriend, waiting
to hear what she was about to say, although only Julia would have understood it.

  It was a delicate thing, their private world. It required absolute fidelity, and so they remained virgins, and waited.

  PEARLS

  JULIA PRESENTED HERSELF at Martin's door at exactly four o' clock the next afternoon; Valentina had had an attack of shyness and refused to come. A man had arrived that morning and had begun to repair their bedroom ceiling, so Julia felt she ought to keep her promise.

  Julia wore jeans and a white blouse. When Martin answered the door she was startled to see that he wore a suit and tie. He was also wearing latex surgical gloves, which made him look like a TV butler.

  'Do come in,' he said. He led her through the flat to the kitchen, which was surprisingly cosy, though the windows were covered in newspaper and tape. 'We always eat in here,' Martin said. 'The dining room has been taken over by boxes.' He said this as though he had no idea how it had come to pass.

  'You have a family?' It had not occurred to Julia that anyone might be married to this crazy person.

  'Yes, I have a wife and a son. My wife is in Amsterdam and my son is up at Oxford.'

  'Oh. Is she on vacation?'

  'I suppose you could put it that way. I'm not really sure when she's coming back, so I've been making shift for myself. Things are a little improvisational here at the moment.' Martin had set out three places at the kitchen table. Julia sat down at the one that faced the back door, in case I need to escape.

  'Valentina couldn't come. She isn't feeling too well,' Julia said; it was sort of true.

  'That's unfortunate. Another time,' said Martin. He felt pleased with himself; he had contrived, at short notice, a very passable afternoon tea. There were fish-paste sandwiches, as well as cucumber and cress; there was a Victoria sponge cake. He had set out Marijke's mother's china, and there was a little jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. He thought it looked quite as nice as what Marijke would have done. 'What kind of tea would you like?' he asked.

  'Earl Grey?'

  He pressed the button on the electric kettle and plopped a tea bag into the teapot. 'This isn't how it's supposed to be done, but one gets lazy.'

  'How are you supposed to do it?'

  'Oh, you warm the pot, you use loose tea ... but I can't taste the difference, and I drink a lot of tea, so the ritual has devolved somewhat.'

  'Our mom uses tea bags,' Julia assured him.

  'Then that must be correct,' said Martin gravely. The water boiled (he had actually boiled it a few times before Julia arrived, just to make sure the kettle was working) and Martin made tea. Soon they were both seated, drinking tea and eating sandwiches. Well-being pervaded Martin. He had not realised how much he'd missed sharing a meal with another human. Julia looked up and saw him beaming at her. He might be insane, but he's very cheerful.

  'So, um, how long have you lived here?' she asked him.

  'Twenty-some years. We lived in Amsterdam when we were first married, and then we lived in St John's Wood. We bought this flat just before Theo was born.'

  'Have you always ... stayed in?'

  Martin shook his head. 'That's a recent development. I used to work at the British Museum, translating ancient and classical languages. But now I work from home.'

  Julia smiled. 'So they bring the Rosetta Stone and all that here to you?' The twins had been to the British Museum the previous week. Julia thought of Valentina bending over Lindow Man, nearly in tears.

  'No, no. I don't often need the actual objects. They take photographs and make drawings - I use those. It's all become so much easier now everything is digital. I suppose some day they'll just wave the objects over the computer and it will sing the translation in Gregorian chant. But in the meantime they still need someone like me to work it out.' Martin paused, then said, rather shyly, 'Do you like crossword puzzles?'

  'We aren't very good at them. Mom does the New York Times ones. She tried to teach us, but we can only do Mondays.'

  'Your Aunt Elspeth was a whiz at them. I used to set special cryptics for her birthday.'

  Julia wanted to ask about Elspeth, but she understood that Martin was actually inviting her to ask him about his puzzles, so to be polite she said, 'You make crosswords?'

  'I do. I set them for the Guardian.' Martin said this as though he were confessing to a secret identity as a superhero.

  Julia arranged her face into what she hoped was an expression of appropriate awe. 'Wow. We never thought of anybody making them. They just kind of appear in the paper, you know?'

  'It is an underappreciated art form.' Ask her about herself, you're monopolising the conversation. 'What do you do?'

  'We don't know yet. We haven't decided.'

  Martin sipped his tea and looked at Julia quizzically. 'Do you often refer to yourself in the first person plural?'

  Julia frowned. 'No - I mean me and Valentina. We haven't found anything we both want to do as a profession.'

  'Do you both have to do the same thing?'

  'Yes!' Julia paused and reminded herself that she was talking to a stranger, not the Mouse. 'I mean, we want something we can do together. So maybe we could do two slightly different jobs that fit together somehow.'

  'What sorts of things do you each like to do?'

  'Well, Valentina likes clothes. She likes to take clothes and make new things out of them, you know, like she might take your suit and slit open the back and make a corset or a bustle or that kind of thing. She's, like, a slave to Alexander McQueen.' Julia glanced at the place setting meant for Valentina and wondered what her twin was doing; Martin pictured himself wearing a bustle and smiled.

  'And you?'

  'Um. I don't know. I like to find out about things. I guess.' Julia looked at her plate as she said this. The rim of the plate was painted with blue morning glories. Why do I feel like I'm at the edge of a hole?

  Martin said, 'More tea?' Julia nodded. He poured. 'You're quite young, aren't you? My son doesn't know what he wants to do yet either. He's studying maths, but he doesn't have the passion for it. I imagine he'll end up in finance and spend all his time planning exotic holidays. Everything he enjoys is somewhat dangerous.'

  'Like what?'

  'Oh - motorcycling. I think he goes mountain climbing, but no one will confirm or deny that. It's just as well I don't know.'

  'You worry about him?'

  Martin laughed. He hadn't felt so light-hearted in months. 'Dear child, I worry about everything. But yes, I worry about Theo in particular. That's just the nature of parents. The moment Theo was conceived, I started to worry about him. I don't think it's done him a whit of good, but I can't help it.'

  Julia thought of Martin washing the floor. You're like a dog licking the same spot over and over. 'So you wash things?'

  Martin leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. 'That's very perceptive. Yes, that's right.' He looked at Julia and she looked back at him. They each experienced a little jolt of recognition. She thought, He's insane and I understand him. But maybe he isn't completely crazy. Like a sort of lucid craziness, like a dream. Martin said, 'You like to find out about things. What sort of things?'

  Julia tried to put it into words. 'Just - everything. I'm curious about things that people aren't supposed to see - so, for example, I liked going to the British Museum, but I would like it better if I could go into all the offices and storage rooms, I want to look in all the drawers and - discover stuff. And I want to know about people. I mean, I know it's probably kind of rude, but I want to know why you have all these boxes and what's in them and why all your windows are papered over and how long it's been that way and how do you feel when you wash things and why don't you do something about it?' Julia looked at Martin and thought, Now he's going to ask me to leave. They sat in uncomfortable silence for what seemed a long time. Then Martin smiled.

  'You're very - American, aren't you?'

  'Is that a euphemism for "very rude"? Yes, I am very rude. Sorry.'


  'No, no, don't apologise. That's my job. More tea?'

  'No thank you. If you give me too much caffeine I totally lose all restraint. Maybe that already happened,' Julia said.

  Martin poured himself another cup of tea. 'Do you actually want to know all those things?' he said. 'Because if I answer all your questions I might lose my air of mystery, and you won't come and visit me again.'

  'I would visit you.' You're the oddest person I've ever met, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried.

  Martin opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, 'Do you smoke?'

  'Yes,' Julia replied. Martin brightened. He left the table and came back with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He shook a cigarette out of the pack and offered it to Julia. She took it and put it to her lips, let him light it for her and immediately had a severe coughing fit. Martin jumped up and fetched her a glass of water. When she could speak she said, 'What the hell was that?'

  'Gauloises. They're unfiltered - I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to kill you.'

  She handed him the lit cigarette. 'Here, I'll just inhale your secondhand smoke.'

  Martin took a deep drag and let the smoke trickle from his mouth. Julia thought she had never seen such an expression of raw pleasure on anyone's face. She understood then how he had managed to woo and marry a girl: He just looked at her like that. Julia wished someone would look at her that way. Then she felt confused.