Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

'No, I think he was trying to get Elspeth to kill him.' She snorted.

  'I don't like it at all.'

  'No. Do you think he would come away with us?'

  James sighed. 'Do you think we could manage if he had a breakdown in some foreign hotel room?'

  'We ought to do something.'

  Robert reappeared. 'I'm going to walk down the hill and pick up the food.' He sounded completely cheerful and normal. James offered him some money, and Robert said thanks, but it was on him. He walked off, almost sober-seeming. Paris. Rome. Saskatchewan. Robert hummed softly as he came out onto the street and began to walk over to the Archway Road. He walked faster; the evening was cooling off rapidly. Adelaide. Cairo. Beijing. It doesn't matter where I go, she'll still be stuck in that flat, plotting a resurrection. This made him laugh. This is brilliant, I'm walking down the street giggling like Peter Lorre. He had to stop and lean against the newsagent's; he was bent over laughing. Cancun, Buenos Aires, Patagonia. I could get on the tube just across the street and be at Heathrow in an hour. No one would know. He stood up, gasping, closed his eyes. God, I feel ill. He stood that way, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his middle, for a few minutes. Robert opened his eyes. The world tilted, then righted itself. He began to walk down the hill, very slowly. This won't do. I have to fetch the food. James and Jessica will worry. People stared at him as they passed by. The problem is ... I'm too responsible. She knows I'll do it because if I don't ... if I don't ... He nearly passed by the fish restaurant, but habit saved him and he managed to go in and pay for the food. As he trudged back up the hill a thought came to Robert: I ought to read those diaries. Elspeth gave them to me and I ought to read them. He began to repeat over and over again, 'The diaries, the diaries.' When he got back to the Bateses' house the food was cold and Jessica and James were in the kitchen eating soup. Jessica put him to bed in their guest room.

  In the morning he crawled out of bed with a hangover and a feeling of having forgotten something. Jessica made him drink a foul-tasting concoction that included bananas, tomatoes, vodka, milk and Tabasco sauce. Then she fried some eggs and sat with him while he ate. James had already gone to the cemetery.

  Jessica said, 'James and I talked it over last night and we think you need looking after. Would you like to come and stay with us? We have loads of room.' She smiled.

  Robert's heart leapt. Here was the escape hatch he had been searching for; the words of acceptance were nearly on his tongue when he thought, Wait. If I'm staying here I won't be able to go to the cemetery at night. He said, 'May I think about it?'

  'Of course,' Jessica said. 'We'll be here.'

  He thanked her and left the house in the mood of a shipwrecked man who has allowed the rescue ship to pass him by.

  Robert finally remembered his resolution to read the diaries the following morning. With trepidation he heaved the boxes onto the bed and began to go through them.

  Just pretend it's research, he told himself. It won't bite. The diaries began in 1971: Elspeth and Edie were twelve. He was relieved to see that they ended, abruptly, in 1983, long before he himself entered the picture; Robert had not been looking forward to reading about himself. The diaries were a hodgepodge of school gossip, comments on books she was reading, musings about boys; some of the writing seemed to be in code. The author carried out long conversations and arguments with herself; suddenly Robert realised that Elspeth and her twin had written the diaries together. The effect was strangely seamless. It made Robert uneasy. There were symbols in the margins that appeared only during holidays and seemed to mean something about Elspeth and Edie's parents; there was a plan to run away that came to nothing. But Robert knew her home life had been unhappy: there were no real surprises, only an ominous sadness that mixed with ordinary girl things, netball and the school play and such. The later volumes detailed university life, parties, the twins' first apartment. Jack appeared on the scene, at first as one of many handsome, eligible young men, then as someone around whom everything suddenly revolved. As an only child, Robert had a certain curiosity about other people's siblings. Elspeth and Edie seldom wrote in the first person singular; it was almost always 'we' who went to the movies or sat an exam. Robert ploughed on, wondering what he was searching for in Elspeth's juvenilia.

  The bomb came in the last diary; Elspeth had tucked an envelope inside the cover. The envelope was labelled BIG, DARK, HORRIBLE SECRETS. It had a skull and crossbones inexpertly drawn under this inscription. The skull was smiling. Oh, Elspeth. I don't want to know. Robert held the envelope and considered burning it. Then he slit it open.

  Dear Robert,

  I hope you won't be too annoyed. You said you hoped you wouldn't find any lurid secrets among my papers - I'm afraid there are a few. 'Lurid' isn't quite the right word - 'awkward' might be better. Anyway, darling, they are old surprises - this all happened long before I met you.

  My name is Edwina Noblin.

  I switched identities with my twin, Elspeth, in 1983. It was mostly her doing, but I couldn't undo it without making her very unhappy. And I certainly was not blameless.

  As you know, Elspeth was engaged to Jack Poole. During the time between their engagement and the wedding, Jack became more and more flirtatious towards me. Elspeth decided to put him to the test.

  I've told you lots of stories about Elspeth and me impersonating each other. But you never saw us together - we were so alike, such a perfect pair. And we knew each other so intimately. When we were young we hardly differentiated between ourselves; if Elspeth got hurt, I would cry.

  Elspeth began to be me when Jack was around. He couldn't tell the difference, and he fell in love with 'Edie'. He broke off his engagement with Elspeth and asked 'Edie' to elope with him, to go back to America with him in Elspeth's place.

  What could she do? She was hurt; she was furious. But the situation was of her own making. She came to me. We decided that she would be Edie and I would be Elspeth, and life would go on.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. I had slept with Jack (only that once - we were drunk, at a party - it was just a stupid mistake, my love, just carelessness and alcohol) and I was pregnant. So in the end I was the one who went to America. I lived with Jack for almost a year, though it was Elspeth he had married. I had the twins, worked out like a maniac to lose the baby weight, cooked and kept house and almost went mad with boredom and rage and a sense of having been trapped in a farce. When the twins were four months old, I brought them to London 'to see their grandmother'. It was Elspeth (now Edie) who returned to Lake Forest a few months later with the twins. I haven't seen them since. I dream about them often. According to Elspeth, they are very much like us.

  By the time I returned to London I disliked Jack intensely, and I was disgusted with Elspeth for insisting that we go through with the pregnancy (I wanted to have an abortion). The whole situation was mad. It was the sort of thing you get yourself into when you're young and stupid. I don't know what would have happened if Jack had ever found out about it. How he managed to overlook all the little differences between my body and Elspeth's I have never been able to fathom. Perhaps he knew and never said anything? We decided not to chance letting Jack see us together again. I still can't believe we got away with it.

  Elspeth occasionally sent me letters, and photographs of the twins. I never wrote back until last year, as I told you. I think her life with Jack has been disappointing. Her letters are full of longing for London, old friends, me. Before she married I urged her to chuck him, or to tell him everything. It's been hard for her. If you meet her, perhaps you'll know what I mean.

  So that's how I became Elspeth. I don't think it altered the course of my life too much. I regret that I never got to know the twins. It was very hard to let her take them. I'll never forget standing at Heathrow, watching her disappear with them through the gate. I cried for days. And I would have liked to have seen Elspeth one more time. It was just fear, and pride, that kept us apart at the end.

  Robert, this was my only
secret from you. I hope you won't think too badly of me. I hope when you meet the twins you'll find a bit of me in them, and that it will make you remember happy times.

  Your loving Elspeth (Edie)

  P.S. I really would have left you everything if you'd wanted it. But I knew you wouldn't. I love you. e

  The letter had been written a week before her death. Robert sat on the bed, holding it, trying to grasp what it meant. Everything was a lie, then? No, surely not. But he had not even known her name. Who was it that I loved?

  He put everything back in the boxes and brought it all to the tiny servant's bedroom at the back of the flat; then he shut the door and tried to put the letter out of his mind, but it intruded on him constantly, no matter what he was doing. Over the next few days Robert took to drinking more often, and stayed in his flat alone.

  ANTICIPATIONS

  VALENTINA AND ELSPETH spent long hours conferring over the details of their plan. Everything had to be natural, casual. Elspeth worked out a way for Valentina to take some money from the account she shared with Julia; it would be enough for a year or two, if Valentina was frugal, and the money would not be missed until after the funeral. Valentina found a few anatomy books in the flat and spread them on the floor of the guest room for Elspeth. It was almost a game for them, to anticipate all the potential difficulties, to circumvent Robert's objections, to avoid alarming Julia. What if ...? one of them would begin, and they would converge on the problem like detectives until they had cracked it. They had private jokes, a secret language. It was all immensely satisfying, or would have been, if they had been planning a picnic, or a surprise party, anything other than Valentina's death. Elspeth was amazed at Valentina's relish for the details of the plan, and her ability to inflict grief thoughtlessly. But I'm no better. I'm helping her to do it. She wouldn't do it if she knew ... And what if it doesn't work? What if it does? Elspeth watched Valentina and debated with herself. She thought, We mustn't, it's terribly wrong. But each night Robert would come and take Valentina away for dinner, for a walk. They always came back late, and whispered together in the hallway. Elspeth hardened her heart.

  RESURRECTION DAY

  ROBERT DREAMT THAT it was Resurrection Day at Highgate Cemetery.

  He stood at the top of the steps next to the grave of James Selby, the coachman. Selby sat on his grave, oblivious to the heavy chain running through his chest from grave post to grave post. He was smoking a pipe and tapping one booted foot nervously against the ground.

  Trumpets brayed in the distance. Robert turned and saw that the path into the cemetery was covered with a long canopy of red fabric, and the dirt and gravel and mud of the path itself were draped in white silk. It was winter again, and the silk was almost the same white as the snow that lay over the graves. He saw through the trees that all the paths were swathed in red and white. Robert found himself walking. He looked down anxiously, afraid that his muddy boots would stain the silk, but he wasn't leaving any tracks.

  He came to Comfort's Corners and found tables set out for a banquet. There was no food, only places laid with china and cutlery, empty wine glasses and empty chairs. The trumpets stopped, and Robert heard trees rattling in the wind. There were voices, but he couldn't gauge where they were.

  Sit down, someone said, but it wasn't a voice, really; it was more like a thought that came from outside his head. He sat at a place near the edge of the cluster of tables and waited.

  The ghosts arrived slowly, picking their way along the silk paths with unsure steps. They crowded around the tables, translucent, dressed in their grave clothes, winding sheets, their Sunday best. The air became dense with ghosts. More than one hundred and sixty-nine thousand people were buried in this cemetery. Robert wondered if all of them could fit around the tables. The ghosts shivered in the morning light. They look like jellyfish. There was a ripple of dissatisfaction: the ghosts were hungry; there was no food. He thought he saw Elizabeth Siddal and began to stand up with a thought of going to speak to her, but a hand on his shoulder kept him in his chair.

  There were immense numbers of ghosts now. The tables had multiplied as well. A voice, well known, long wished-for, spoke just behind him. 'Robert,' said Elspeth, 'what are you doing here?'

  'I'm not sure. Looking for you?' He tried to turn, but again he was restrained.

  'No - don't. I don't want ... not here.' She was pressed close to him. He felt uneasy, confined. Suddenly he had the sense that something horrible, monstrous, was standing behind him, pressing its disgusting hands on him.

  He shouted out her name, so loudly that he woke the twins in their bedroom; so loudly that Elspeth herself lay on the floor above his bed for hours in the slowly increasing grey light, waiting to hear him call her again.

  LAST CALL

  THE PHONE RANG. Edie stretched out her hand and brought it to her ear, but did not immediately say anything. She was curled on her side, in bed; it was almost nine in the morning. Jack was at work.

  'Mom?'

  Edie sat up. She smoothed back her hair with her fingers as though Valentina could see her. 'Hello?' She sounded as though she had been awake for hours. 'Valentina?'

  'Hi.'

  'Are you all right? Where's Julia?'

  'She's upstairs. Hanging out with Martin.'

  Edie felt the adrenaline subside. She's fine. They're both fine. 'We missed talking to you on Sunday. Where were you?'

  'Oh ... I'm sorry. We just ... lost track of the days, you know?'

  'Oh,' said Edie. She felt a pang of neglect. 'So, what's up?'

  'Nothing ... I just felt like calling you.'

  'Mmm, you're sweet. So what's going on?'

  'Not much. It's kind of rainy and chilly here.'

  'You sound a little down,' Edie said.

  'Oh ... I dunno. I'm fine.' Valentina was sitting in the back garden, shivering in the drizzle. She hadn't wanted Elspeth listening in on this conversation, but it was suddenly awfully cold for June and she had to make an effort to keep her teeth from chattering. 'What's up with you and Dad?'

  'The usual. Dad just got a promotion, so we were out last night celebrating.' Edie could hear birds through the phone. 'Where are you?'

  'In the backyard.'

  'Oh. Have you and Julia been anywhere fun lately?'

  'Julia's got almost the whole city memorised now. She can walk around without the map.'

  'That's impressive ...' Edie thought, There's stuff she's not telling me. But then she thought that was inevitable: They move away and soon you have no idea. They make their own world and you don't belong any more. Valentina was asking a question about a dress she was trying to make; Edie told her to email the sketch and then remembered that the twins had no scanner.

  'Yeah, oh well. Never mind,' said Valentina. 'It doesn't matter.'

  'Are you sure you're okay?' Edie said. She just sounds strange.

  'Yeah. I've got to go now, Mom. I love you.' If I stay on the phone I'll cry.

  'Okay, sweetie. I love you too.'

  'Bye.'

  'Bye.'

  Valentina dialled her dad's work number and got his voicemail. I'll call later, she thought, and didn't leave a message.

  CAUGHT OUT

  IT WAS ALMOST dawn. Jessica stood at the window in the cemetery's Archives Room, looking out over the courtyard at the Colonnade. The room was dark. She had lain awake most of the night worrying over the letter she had written to one of the cemetery's vice presidents. Finally she had left a note for James and walked down here to put it right, but even though her head was crowded with the phrases that would convince the vice president of the logic of her request, she had not been able to sort out the tangle of her argument. Jessica leaned against the window sill, her hands clasped together in front of her and her elbows jutting at right angles. The trees and graves above the Colonnade were dark and hazy in the indeterminate light. The courtyard reminded her of an empty stage. So much work, she thought. No one realises how we worked. Every sett in that courtyard laid
by hand--

  Suddenly the courtyard was filled with light. Foxes, she thought and swept her eyes left and right, to see them. They've set off the motion detectors. But then a man walked across the courtyard. He didn't seem fussed by the lights, didn't hurry or change his course. Jessica craned her head forward, trying to see him better. It was Robert.

  Damn the boy. I've told him not to use that door! Jessica rapped on the window as hard as she could, not minding the pain of arthritic joints on cold glass - she was angry enough not to notice; later she would wonder why her hand was swollen and throbbing. Robert continued walking, unheeding. Jessica grabbed her keys and torch and got herself down the stairs and through the office, into the courtyard. She stood not quite under the chapel archway and shouted his name.

  Robert stopped. I'm for it now. Jessica walked quickly towards him. He thought, She'll fall, walking so fast. She had forgotten to switch on her torch and carried it as though she had brought it along as a weapon rather than a source of light. He roused himself and walked to her to shorten the distance between them. They met by the Colonnade steps, as if choreographed. Jessica paused to catch her breath. Robert waited.

  'What on earth do you think you are doing?' she finally said. 'You know better. We've discussed this, and yet here you are - flagrantly strutting about at the crack of dawn in the cemetery - where you have absolutely no right to be! I trusted you, Robert, and you have let me down.' She stood hatless and fuming, glaring up at him, her hair spiky; she was wearing her gardening clothes. Robert was startled to see the glint of a tear on her cheek. It undid him.

  'We have rules! The rules are there for legal and safety reasons!' Jessica was yelling now. 'Just because you have a key does not entitle you to come in at night! You might be attacked by intruders, or fall into a hole. You might trip on a root and concuss yourself - you don't even have a radio! Anything could happen: a monument might fall on you, anything - think what the insurers would do to our rates - the publicity if you got yourself injured, or killed! You're just bloody selfish, Robert!'