Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

  Elspeth was still clutching the Kitten, who threw herself back and forth and clawed at Elspeth. Valentina couldn't see the Kitten's ghost, but she could see Elspeth grappling with something.

  'Put her back! Now!'

  Elspeth took the struggling Kitten and shoved her back into her limp body as best she could. It was like trying to put a live trout into a silk stocking: the Kitten Elspeth was holding was thrashing and terrified, and the Kitten Valentina was holding was inert and delicate. Elspeth was afraid she would injure the Kitten by trying to insert her back into her body. Then she realised that the Kitten was dead, and would continue to be dead if she was not firm about this. She decided to work on the head and let the rest follow. She felt as though she were using an old camera with a rangefinder, trying to align two images to make them one.

  Elspeth motioned to Valentina to put the Kitten's body on the floor. Elspeth found that the Kitten's ghost was real in her hands; whatever the Kitten was made of, it was like Elspeth's own ghostly self, it made sense to her in a physical way. The Kitten was the first thing Elspeth had touched since she'd died that seemed to exist with her, not in another realm. I'm so lonely, she thought as she tried to push the Kitten into her lifeless body. I wish I could keep her.

  The Kitten stopped fighting and seemed to comprehend what Elspeth was trying to do. Elspeth made small pleating motions with her fingers, trying to seal the Kitten in; it reminded her of the way her mother pinched a pie crust all around the edges. Suddenly the Kitten's ghost vanished. It absorbed itself into the body. The little white cat-body convulsed - the Kitten sat up, lurched sideways and then recovered herself. She looked around, like a child caught stealing a boiled sweet, and then began to lick herself all over.

  Elspeth and Valentina sat on the floor, staring at the Kitten, and then at each other. Valentina left the room. She returned with the Ouija board and the planchette.

  'What happened?' she asked Elspeth.

  IT CAUGHT SHE CAME OUT

  'What caught?'

  HER SOUL

  'Caught on what?'

  Elspeth crooked her little finger like a lady drinking tea.

  Valentina sat thinking. 'Could you do it again?'

  I WOULD RATHER NOT

  'Yes, but if you wanted to, do you think you could do it on purpose?'

  I HOPE NOT

  'Yes, but Elspeth--'

  Elspeth got up - or rather, she was suddenly walking out of the room without any intermediate motions of getting up. When Valentina followed her into the kitchen she vanished. The Kitten mewed loudly and bumped against Valentina's leg.

  'You don't seem any the worse for wear. Do you want your dinner?' Valentina set out the dish, opened the can, plopped the food onto the dish and placed it in the usual spot on the floor. The Kitten waited for it as though she were a member of a cargo cult and began gobbling down the food with her usual enthusiasm. Valentina sat on the floor and watched her eat.

  Elspeth stood in the middle of the kitchen, invisible, watching Valentina watch the Kitten. What are you thinking about, Valentina?

  Valentina was thinking about miracles. The Kitten looked absolutely ordinary, eating her dinner: that was the miracle. You'd never know that ten minutes ago you were dead. You don't seem like you even noticed. Did it hurt, Kitten? Was it hard to get back in your body? Were you scared?

  She heard the front door open; Julia was home. 'Mouse? Where are you?' Don't tell Julia, thought Elspeth. She was ashamed of having killed the Kitten, even though it had been only temporary.

  'Kitchen,' Valentina called out.

  Julia came in bearing Sainsbury's bags, which she slung onto the counter and began to unpack. 'Wassup?' she asked.

  'Not much. You?'

  Julia launched into a long boring story about a woman in the check-out queue at the supermarket, a tiny old person who apparently subsisted entirely on fairy cakes and Lipton tea.

  'Gross,' said Valentina, trying to remember what fairy cakes were.

  'Cupcakes,' said Julia.

  'Oh. Well, that's not too terrible.' She got up off the floor and began to help put away the shopping. The twins worked in semi-amiable silence. The Kitten finished her dinner and wandered off. Elspeth stood in a corner, out of the twins' way, with her arms folded across her chest, thinking. That was extraordinary. That was ... a clue ... to something ... but what? She would have to think about it. Elspeth left the twins in the kitchen and found the Kitten settling down to nap in a pool of sunlight on the sofa. Elspeth curled up next to her and watched her eyelids droop, her breathing slow. It was a charming, ordinary sight, quite incongruous with Elspeth's turbulent mood. Valentina came into the room and whispered, 'Elspeth?' - but Elspeth did not reply or make herself known. Valentina wandered off to peer into all the rooms as though they were playing hide-and-seek. Elspeth followed behind her, an invisible shadow.

  SPRING FEVER

  ROBERT SAT AT his desk on a lovely May afternoon, trying to make himself write. He was working on the section of his thesis devoted to Mrs Henry (Ellen) Wood, lady novelist. He found Mrs Wood incredibly dull. He had ploughed his way through East Lynne, pored over the details of her life, and simply found himself unable to care about her at all.

  When he was giving a tour, he always skipped Mrs Wood. She would have fallen between George Wombwell and Adam Worth, not only alphabetically but geographically, and to Robert she seemed unworthy of their peculiar, almost dashing company. He sat gnawing his pen, trying to decide if he could omit her from the thesis. Perhaps not. He could try to make the most of her death, but that was also dull: she'd died of bronchitis. Damn the woman.

  He was relieved when Valentina arrived to interrupt him. 'Come outside,' she said. 'It's spring.'

  Once they were outdoors their steps turned inevitably towards the cemetery. As they walked down Swains Lane they heard a lone tuba player practising scales in Waterlow Park. The notes had an elegiac quality. Swains Lane, being overshadowed by high walls on both sides, existed in a permanent dusk even as the sky above them was blue and cloudless. Valentina thought, We're like a little two-person funeral procession. She was glad when they arrived at the cemetery's gates and stood in the sunshine, waiting to be admitted.

  Nigel opened the gate. 'We weren't expecting you today.'

  Robert said, 'No, but it's such glorious weather, we thought we might go looking for wild flowers.'

  Jessica came out of the office and said, 'If you're going out, take some rakes. And no lollygagging, please.'

  'Certainly not.' Robert equipped himself and Valentina with a walkie-talkie and two rakes as well as a large bag for litter, and they crossed the courtyard and went up into the cemetery. 'Well,' said Robert, as they turned onto the Dickens Path, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you to work.'

  'That's okay,' said Valentina. 'I'm pretty useless most of the time. I don't mind raking. Where do all these empty water bottles come from?'

  'I think people must throw them over the wall,' said Robert.

  They raked in companionable silence for some time, clearing the path and collecting an impressive bag of fast-food wrappers and coffee cups. Valentina liked raking. She had never done it before. She wondered what other kinds of work she might enjoy. Bagging groceries? Telemarketing? Who knows? Maybe I could try lots of different jobs for a week at a time. She was imagining herself checking coats at the British Museum when Robert beckoned her over to him.

  'Look,' he whispered. She looked and saw two small foxes sleeping nose-to-tail on a pile of old leaves. Robert stood behind her and put his arm around her. Valentina tensed. He released her. They walked down the path to let the foxes sleep and went back to raking.

  After some time Valentina said, 'What's lollygagging?'

  'I think that's an American word. Jessica and James picked up a certain amount of American slang during the war.'

  'But what does it mean?'

  'Oh. Well, it can mean being lazy, just fooling around. Or it can mean fooling around, in the oth
er sense.'

  Valentina blushed. 'Did Jessica think ...?'

  'Ah - I'm sure we didn't exactly look like two people who intended to spend the afternoon collecting garbage.' He peered into the bag. 'I think we can stop now. Let's have a walk - just leave the rakes here, we'll come back for them.' He took her hand and led her towards the Meadow, an open, sun-dappled section full of well-tended graves.

  Valentina said, 'It's nice to be out in the sun. I think it's been grey every day since we arrived.'

  'Surely not.'

  'No - I guess it just feels that way. It's like the greyness soaks into the buildings, or something.'

  'Mmm.' Robert felt a bit depressed. You can't make her love London. Or yourself, when it comes to that. They kept walking. A number of graves had flowers newly planted on them, each one a small dense garden.

  'Valentina?' Robert said. 'Tell me. Why is it, whenever I lay a hand on you, you seem to shrink away?'

  'What do you mean?' she replied. 'I don't.'

  'Not always. But you did, just then, when we saw the foxes.'

  'I guess.' They left the Meadow and came back to the path. Valentina said, 'It just seemed ... weird. Disrespectful.'

  'Because we're in the cemetery?' asked Robert. 'I don't know ... when I'm dead I want people to make love on my grave on a regular basis. It will remind me of happier times.'

  'But would you do it on someone else's grave? Elspeth's?'

  'No - not unless I was with Elspeth. However that would work. Maybe if we were both dead,' he said.

  'I wonder if dead people have sex.'

  'Perhaps that would depend on whether you ended up in heaven or hell.'

  Valentina laughed. 'That still doesn't answer my question.'

  Robert pinched her bum and she shrieked. 'All the boring Joy of Sex-type sex in hell and all the good naughty sex in heaven,' he offered.

  'That seems upside down, somehow.'

  'There's your American Puritanism showing; why shouldn't heaven consist of all the great pleasures? Eating, drinking, making love: if it's all so wrong, why do we have to do it to stay alive and propagate the species? No, I think heaven will consist of non-stop bacchanalia. Down in hell they'll be worrying about STDs and premature ejaculation. Anyway,' Robert continued with a sly sidewise look at Valentina's cool profile, 'if you don't watch out you'll have to go to a special, fenced-off area where they keep all the virgins.'

  'In heaven or hell?'

  He shook his head. 'I'm really not sure. You ought not to chance it.'

  'I'd better get busy.'

  'I wish you would.' He halted in the path. They were near the little turning that led to the Rossettis. Valentina stopped a few feet away when she realised that Robert wasn't walking with her. She held his gaze for a moment and then looked down in confusion.

  'You don't mean ... here?' Valentina's voice was hardly audible.

  'No,' Robert said. 'As you said earlier, that would be disrespectful. And I imagine Jessica would have me arrested if she ever found out. Lord, she doesn't even like it when the visitors wear shorts.'

  'I think she'd just fire you.'

  'That would be worse. What on earth would I do with myself? I'd have to get a proper job.' He began to walk again, and she fell in beside him. 'Valentina, do you like it when I talk to you that way?'

  She said nothing.

  'You invite it, and then you seem upset. I'm not ... no one has dealt with me this way ... at least not since I was in the sixth form. I guess the problem is the age difference.' He sighed. 'Although most of the girls I knew then couldn't wait to get shagged. It was a glorious era.'

  Valentina shook her head. 'It's not about shagging.' She hesitated, both at the unfamiliar slang and at what she was trying to say. 'It's about Julia.'

  Robert gave her a look of pure surprise. 'What could this possibly have to do with Julia?'

  Valentina said, 'We've always done everything together, everything important ...'

  'But you're constantly telling me how much you want to do things on your own.'

  'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm just afraid.'

  'Okay. That's understandable.'

  'No, it's stupid,' said Valentina. 'I wish I could leave her.'

  'You're not married to her. You can do what you like.'

  'You don't understand.'

  'No, I don't.' They walked on in silence and then Robert said, 'Wait - I have to collect the rakes.' He ran back up the path, leaving Valentina standing in a patch of sun. It's nice here, she thought. If I were Elspeth I'd rather be here than stuck in the flat. Robert reappeared, rakes and bag in hand. She watched him trotting towards her. Do I love him? I think so. Then why not ...? But it was impossible. She sighed. I have to get away from Julia. Robert slowed as he came up to her. 'Shall we have tea in the office?'

  'Sure,' she said, and they walked back to the chapels together in mutual perplexity.

  Julia wanted to frolic in the beautiful weather, but she didn't feel like going out alone and Valentina had run off somewhere with Robert. So she took herself upstairs, determined to inflict her mood on Martin.

  'Hello, my dear,' he said, when she appeared in his stuffy, darkened office. 'Just give me a minute or two, I'm almost finished with this. Will you make us some tea?'

  Julia marched into the kitchen and began making tea. Usually she enjoyed laying out the cups and saucers, boiling the water, all the soothing habitual motions that added up to tea, but today she had no patience. She piled everything onto the tray willy-nilly and brought it back to Martin's office.

  'Thank you, Julia. Let's put it here on the desk, and pull up a chair for you. There, that's cosy.'

  She plopped onto the chair. 'Don't you ever get tired of sitting in the dark?'

  'No,' he said pleasantly.

  'Why do you have newspaper taped over the windows?'

  'Our decorator recommended it.' Martin smiled.

  'Yeah, right.'

  Martin poured the tea. 'You seem a bit put out, Miss Poole.'

  'Oh - Valentina's out somewhere with Robert.'

  He handed her the teacup. 'And why is that a problem?'

  'Well, she's dating him.'

  Martin raised his eyebrows. 'Is she? That's interesting. He seems old for someone her age.'

  Julia said, 'If you weren't married would you date me?'

  Martin was so startled by the question that he didn't answer.

  Julia said, 'I guess that's a no, huh?'

  'Julia--'

  She put her teacup down, leaned over and kissed him. After she did this Martin sat quite still, deeply confused. 'You shouldn't do that,' he finally said. 'I'm a married man.'

  Julia got up and walked around one of Martin's smaller piles of boxes. 'Marijke's in Amsterdam.'

  'Nonetheless, I'm married to her.' He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief.

  Julia circled the boxes again. 'But she left you.'

  Martin indicated the towers of boxes, the windows. 'She didn't like to live this way. And I don't blame her.'

  Julia nodded. She felt it wouldn't be polite to agree too emphatically.

  The words flew out of Martin's mouth despite himself: 'You're very attractive, Julia.' She stood still and looked at him, dubious. 'But I love Marijke, and no one else will do.'

  Julia resumed circling. 'What exactly ... How does that feel?' Martin didn't answer and she tried to clarify. 'I've never been in love. With a boy.'

  Martin stood up and ran his hands over his face. His eyes were tired and he had an urge to shave. It wasn't a compulsion, just a feeling of untidiness and five o'clock shadow. He glanced at the computer; it was almost four. It was time - would have been time - for him to shower if Marijke were coming home after work. He could wait a little while. Julia thought, He isn't going to answer and felt relieved. Martin said, 'It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it - she - is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?' Julia nodded. 'There's pain where she ought to be.
It's feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see?'

  'But wouldn't you feel much better if you went and found her?'

  'I'm sure I would. Yes. Of course, I would be very happy.' He looked anxious, as though Julia were about to propel him outdoors.

  'So?'

  'Julia, you don't understand.'

  'You didn't answer my question. I asked you about being in love. You said what it was like when your wife went away.'

  Martin sat down again. How young she is. When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing. Julia stood with her hands clenched, as though she wanted to pound an answer out of him. 'Being in love is ... anxious,' he said. 'Wanting to please, worrying that she will see me as I really am. But wanting to be known. That is ... you're naked, moaning in the dark, no dignity at all ... I wanted her to see me and to love me even though she knew everything I am, and I knew her. Now she's gone, and my knowledge is incomplete. So all day I imagine what she is doing, what she says and who she talks to, how she looks. I try to supply the missing hours, and it gets harder as they pile up, all the time she's been gone. I have to imagine. I don't know, really. I don't know any more.' He sat with his head lowered into his chest, and his words became almost inaudible. Julia thought, He feels for his wife what I feel about Valentina. This frightened her. What she felt about Valentina was insane, broken, involuntary. Julia suddenly hated Marijke. Why did she leave him here, sitting in his chair with his shoulders shaking? She thought of her dad. Does he feel this way about Mom? She could not imagine her dad on his own. She walked over to where Martin sat, his eyes closed, head down. She stood behind him, leaned over him and put her arms around his shoulders, rested her cheek against the back of his head. Martin stiffened, then slowly crossed his arms and laid his hands over Julia's. He thought of Theo, tried to remember the last time Theo had embraced him.

  'Sorry,' Julia whispered.

  'No, no,' Martin replied. Julia released him. Martin stood up, walked out of the office. Julia heard him blowing his nose several rooms away. He came back and did his odd sideways movement through the door, sat down in his chair again.

  Julia smiled. 'You left the room without doing that.'

  'Did I? Oh dear.' Martin felt momentarily consternated, but the feeling faded. I should remedy that, he thought, but the underlying urge was not there.