Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

They stared at each other. Robert said gently, 'Can we go into the office to talk? You're going to wake the dead.'

  Jessica lost whatever control she had had over her temper. Why can't he take it seriously? I'll make him see it's no joke! 'No! We are not going into the office to talk! I am going to have your key, please' - she held out her hand, in which she already held her own keys - 'and you are going out the front gate.' Robert didn't move. 'Now!'

  He dropped the key into her palm, turned towards the gate. She followed him as though escorting a prisoner. They reached the gate; she unlocked it; he pulled the massive thing open and slipped out, pulled it shut again. They faced each other through the bars. 'What now?' he asked.

  'Go,' she said quietly.

  He bowed his head, walked away and up Swains Lane. Jessica stood watching him. What now? Her heart beat fast. No one saw him but me - they needn't find out. She watched Robert until he vanished up the road. She had an urge to follow him, to say - what? I'm sorry? No, certainly not. He put us at risk, thoughtless, careless ... She stood at the gate overcome with emotion, but unable to parse it - angry, hurt, anxious with affection, indignant. She could not sort herself out at all. I've got to talk to him immediately, she thought, and then: But I've sent him away. She turned the key in the lock and slowly walked back to her office. It was just after five o'clock. James might be awake. She picked up the telephone receiver, then put it down again.

  Jessica sat in her chair, watching the room lighten. I was right, she thought. I was quite right. When it was day she got up and made tea. Preoccupied, tired, she spilled the milk and thought, That's an omen. Or a metaphor. She shook her head. What shall we do now?

  VITAMINS

  MARTIN WAS STUMPED. He had been working all afternoon on a cryptic crossword in celebration of Carl Linnaeus' three hundredth birthday, but the clues wouldn't come to him and the thing felt inelegant and lumpen. Martin stood up and stretched.

  Someone knocked. He said, 'Yes?' and turned towards the door. 'Oh, Julia. Come in.'

  'No,' she said, stepping into the room, 'I'm Valentina. Julia's sister.'

  'Oh!' Martin was delighted. 'At last! Such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for coming - would you like some tea?'

  'No, I ... I can't stay. I just came to tell you ... you know the vitamins Julia's been giving you?'

  'Yes?'

  She took a breath. 'They ... aren't really vitamins. They're a drug called Anafranil.'

  Martin said gently, 'I know, my dear. But thank you for coming to tell me.'

  Valentina said, 'You knew?'

  'It's printed on each capsule. And I've taken Anafranil before, so I know what it looks like.'

  Valentina smiled. 'Does Julia know you know?'

  Martin smiled back at her. 'I'm not entirely sure. I think perhaps we shouldn't mention this conversation to her, just in case.'

  'Oh, I wasn't going to.'

  'Then I won't either.'

  She turned to go and Martin said, 'Are you sure you won't stay?'

  'No - I can't.'

  'Come back, then, any time you like.'

  Valentina said, 'Okay. Thank you.' He heard her steps receding as she walked through the maze of boxes, and then she was gone.

  PAS DE TROIS

  ROBERT THOUGHT AFTERWARDS that it had been like watching ballet.

  'Are you ready?' he asked.

  Elspeth did not want Valentina to say yes. She wanted to pause in this moment before - before whatever was about to happen, before temptation, before disaster, before Elspeth had to do the thing she did not want to do.

  Robert watched Valentina. She stood quite still. He wondered if he should open a window; the weather was still unseasonably cold for June, but who knew how long her body would lie there until Julia returned? The light was waning rapidly; crows were calling to each other in the cemetery. Julia was upstairs. Valentina closed her eyes. She stood at the foot of the bed, one hand curled around the bedrail. Her other hand clenched and unclenched around her inhaler. She opened her eyes. Robert stood only a few feet away. Elspeth sat in the window seat, elbows on knees, head in hands, her face tilted at an angle that denoted contemplative sadness. Valentina watched Elspeth and felt a spasm of doubt.

  Robert hesitated, then stepped towards her. Valentina put her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his shirt. She wondered if the button of the shirt was imprinting itself on her cheek, and whether it would stay that way once she was dead. He did not kiss her. She thought it might be because Elspeth was there.

  'I'm ready,' she said. She stepped back, into the middle of the bedroom rug, and took a puff from her inhaler. Elspeth thought, How insubstantial she already looks, just a shadow in this dim light.

  Robert retreated to the doorway. He could not articulate his feelings at all: he waited for something to happen. He did not believe that it would happen; he did not want it to happen. Don't, Elspeth ...

  Valentina closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Robert, who seemed far away; Valentina thought of her parents watching her and Julia move through the security line at O'Hare the day they'd left Chicago. Intense cold permeated her body. Elspeth moved through her, simply stepped into her; it reminded Valentina of looking at old stereoscope pictures, trying to bring the images together. I will die of cold. She felt herself seized, detached, taken. 'Oh!' An interval of nothing. Then she was hovering close over her body, which lay collapsed on the floor. Ah--Elspeth knelt beside the body, looking up at her. 'Come here, sweet,' Elspeth said. She sounds kind of like Mom. That's so weird. She tried to go to Elspeth, but found that she could not move. Elspeth understood and came up towards her, gathered her in her hands. Now Valentina was only a small thing, cupped in Elspeth's hands like a mouse. The last thing she thought was: It's like falling asleep ...

  Robert saw Valentina go slack. She fell: knees gave way, head lolled. She folded up and hit the floor with a thud and a crack. Then there was no sound in the room except his own breathing. He stood in the doorway and did not go to her because he did not know what was happening; unseen things must be happening and he did not know what to do next. The girl, crumpled on the carpet, continued to be utterly still. Finally he walked the short distance across the room and knelt beside Valentina. She was not bleeding. He couldn't tell if she was broken; she looked broken, but he could not touch her; she lay as she had fallen and he knew he must not touch her.

  Elspeth looked down at him looking at Valentina. She could feel Valentina, heavy and smoke-like, caged in her hands. Put her back, now. Put her back while there's some chance of it being all right ... She wanted Robert to move Valentina, to straighten her limbs and compose her hands. Valentina's head was arched back, she lay on her right side with her arms flailed out in front of her, legs tucked neatly together. Her eyes were rolled up, her mouth was open, her little teeth showed. The position of Valentina's body seemed wrong, an insult. Elspeth wanted to touch her, but her hands were full. What now? If I let go, will she just disperse? I wish I had a little box ... She thought of her drawer. Yes, I'll put her in there. She would take Valentina with her into the drawer. They could stay there together, waiting.

  Robert stood up. He left the room. He wanted to forget what he had seen, before he reached the front door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. 'Elspeth?' he said. In answer there was a momentary cold touch against his cheek. 'I won't forgive you.' Silence. He imagined her behind him, resisted the urge to turn and look. He opened the door, went downstairs, stood in his kitchen drinking whisky as the light failed, waiting for Julia to come home and find the body, listening for her cry of distress.

  Julia came downstairs an hour later. All the lights were off in the flat. She walked through the rooms flipping switches, calling 'Mouse?' She must have gone out. 'Mouse?' Maybe she's downstairs. The flat was cold and seemed curiously empty, as though all the furniture had been replaced with optical illusions. As Julia wandered from room to room she trailed her fingers across the dining-room table, lightly touche
d the top of the sofa and the spines of the books, reassuring herself that everything was solid. 'Elspeth?' Where is everybody?

  She came to their bedroom and snapped on the light. She saw Valentina lying contorted on the floor, as though frozen in a painful dance. Julia moved slowly; she went to Valentina and sat beside her. She touched Valentina's lips, her cheeks. She saw the inhaler clasped in Valentina's hand and pressed her own hand to her own chest, unthinkingly.

  Mouse? Valentina seemed to be trying to see above her; her eyes were rolled up and her head thrown back as though some event of extreme interest was happening right over her head. 'Mouse?' Valentina did not respond.

  Julia whimpered. She felt cold on her face and hit out at it wildly. 'Fuck you, Elspeth! Fuck off! Where is she? Where is she?' Then she began to wail.

  Elspeth sat on the floor with Julia. She watched as Julia clutched Valentina in her arms and keened over her body. I never wanted to do it, Julia. She thought about her own twin, about the phone call someone would have to make to her, soon. Elspeth knew, watching Julia, that nothing would ever be right again. It's my fault, all of it. I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry.

  Elspeth and Valentina stayed in the drawer together while Valentina's body was confirmed dead by paramedics, then certified dead of natural causes by the doctor she had seen at the hospital, and removed from the flat by Sebastian, while Julia cried and Robert phoned Edie and Jack. There were hours of stillness, light, dark.

  Robert had a long talk with Sebastian that resulted in mutual tension. 'I can understand that you don't want her embalmed,' Sebastian said. 'I can understand why you don't want me to set her features - that's fine. But why on earth do you want me to shoot her up with heparin?'

  'It's an anticoagulant.'

  'I know that. But you aren't having her cryogenically preserved.'

  'Not exactly. But we'd like the coffin packed with ice, please.'

  'Robert!'

  'Humour me, Sebastian. And please keep her in cold-storage as much as possible.'

  'Why? Robert, I don't like this.'

  'It's nothing like that ...'

  Sebastian regarded him sceptically. 'I'm sorry, Robert. But either tell me exactly what you've got in mind, or find someone else to do it.'

  Robert said, 'You won't believe me - it sounds crazy. It is crazy.' Sebastian said nothing. Robert took a deep breath and tried to organise his thoughts. 'Do you believe in ghosts?'

  'As it happens,' Sebastian said softly, 'I do. I've had some ... interesting experiences. But I seem to recall that you don't - believe in ghosts.'

  'I've been forced to reconsider.' Robert told Sebastian about Elspeth. He omitted any mention of a plan; he told Sebastian that Elspeth had caught Valentina's spirit when she died, and now she was going to put it back into Valentina and bring her back to life.

  Sebastian had a number of objections. ('Why didn't Elspeth just revive her right away?' was the most formidable, and Robert could only say that he didn't know.) In the end Sebastian agreed to do his best to keep Valentina cold; he also agreed to say nothing to the family, in case the attempt did not succeed. But even so, Robert went away wondering if Sebastian might be calling Jessica, or the police, the moment he was out of sight.

  The next morning Edie and Jack arrived.

  Standing at his window, Robert watched them walking up the front path. They disappeared into the building and he heard them treading the stairs. Elspeth's ban on Jack and Edie entering her flat was inappropriate now. Robert wondered what Elspeth was doing; he wanted to drink himself to distraction, to die; anything would be preferable to meeting Valentina's parents. He had agreed to go with them to the funeral parlour.

  In the cab they hardly spoke. Robert could not look at Edie. She was unbearably like Elspeth; the only significant difference was her Americanised speech. Julia was dazed. She sat next to her father, leaning her head on his shoulder. Edie began to cry quietly. Jack put his arm around Edie and looked at Robert, stricken. Robert was sitting in the fold-down seat opposite the three of them. He kept his eyes on Jack's shoes for the rest of the ride.

  When they arrived at the funeral parlour Sebastian was waiting for them. He took Edie and Jack to view Valentina's body. Robert and Julia sat in Sebastian's office.

  'How are you?' Robert asked her.

  'Peachy,' Julia said, not looking at him.

  Sebastian returned with Edie and Jack. He began to carefully lay out the procedures and options, the prices for interment and cremation, the various certificates and signatures that would be needed. Robert listened with what he hoped was an impassive expression. He had forgotten that Valentina's parents might have their own ideas about her remains, and that Sebastian was required by law to explain all their choices. Robert's heart was racing. What if they decide to cremate her?

  Edie said, 'We want to take her home - Jack's family has a plot in the Lake Forest Cemetery. It's right on Lake Michigan. We were thinking we'd like to bury her there.'

  Sebastian nodded and began to explain how to go about shipping a body by air. Robert thought, Well, that's it, then. I tried and I failed. It was out of his hands now.

  Curiously, it was Julia who saved the situation. 'No!' she said. Everyone looked at her. 'I want her here.'

  'But Julia--' said Edie.

  'But it's not your decision--' Jack said at the same time.

  Julia shook her head. 'She wanted to be buried in Highgate Cemetery.' Julia looked at Robert. 'She said so.'

  Robert said, 'That's true.'

  'Please,' Julia said. And in the end it was decided that Valentina would be interred in the Noblin family mausoleum, just as she had requested.

  In the drawer Elspeth encircled Valentina, pressed her into a soft shapelessness, kept her from diffusing, kept her close. Here we are, Valentina, like marsupials in a pouch, waiting for developments. She wondered what Valentina knew, what she would remember. It was like being with a baby, not knowing what this tiny being was thinking, whether it could think at all. Elspeth did not remember the first days of her afterlife. Things had come on gradually; there was no moment of awakening, of sudden consciousness. She held Valentina close, sang her little songs, chattered to her about nothing. Valentina was like a hum, a buzz of being, but no words or thoughts escaped from her to Elspeth. Elspeth thought about the twins as infants. They had never slept or fed at the same time; they had drained her of energy and milk; they had seemed even then inseparable but individual. Well, you've managed to separate yourself rather thoroughly now, Valentina. In the drawer nothing much happened. The days went by. Soon - though time meant little to the ghosts - soon it was the day of Valentina's funeral. It was time for something to happen.

  RESURRECTION DAY

  AT EIGHT O'CLOCK on the morning of the funeral Robert stood at Martin's door, engulfed by the spill of newspapers. He tried to straighten them into piles but gave up when Martin appeared.

  'Come in.' They moved through the flat to the kitchen. Robert sat at the table and Martin put the electric kettle on. Robert thought he seemed refreshingly normal and domestic compared to what was going on downstairs. You know you're in trouble when Martin is the most functional person in the place.

  'The funeral is at one, today.'

  'I know.'

  'Would you like to come? It's all right if you can't, you know, but I think Julia would appreciate it.'

  'I'm not sure. I'll call down if I can do it.'

  'So I'll put you down as a "No"?'

  Martin shrugged. He held up two boxes of tea. Robert pointed to the Earl Grey. Martin put a tea bag in each cup. 'How is Julia?'

  'Her parents have arrived. Listening to Elspeth, I'd imagined they'd have three heads apiece and shoot fire from their eyes, but they've taken Julia in hand and they're all, I don't know, subdued together. None of us really believe it - they keep walking around the flat like they're going to run into Valentina in the hall. Julia's practically catatonic.'

  'Ah.' Martin poured out. Robert stared at the strea
m. 'They are staying in the flat?'

  'No, at a hotel.'

  'So Julia's by herself in the flat?'

  'Yes. Her parents tried to get her to come to the hotel with them, but she wanted to stay in her flat. I don't know why.'

  'She shouldn't be alone.'

  'Well, that's what I came up to talk to you about. I want you to ask Julia up here tonight, and keep her here until I tell you it's okay to let her go.'

  Martin regarded Robert sceptically. 'Why?'

  Robert maintained what he hoped was an innocent air. 'Julia shouldn't be alone.'

  'No, she shouldn't be. But surely she'd rather be with her parents?'

  'If necessary you can ask them up too.'

  'You're joking. You expect me to have Edie and Jack here? Have you looked at this place properly?'

  'Yeah, but I didn't realise you had.' Robert switched tactics. 'Look, Martin, it's life and death: you've got to help me keep Julia out of her own flat for a few hours. I can't depend on Edie and Jack.'

  'What are you up to?'

  'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

  'Try me.'

  'It's ... a seance, of sorts.'

  'You're trying to contact Valentina? Or Elspeth?'

  'More or less.'

  Martin shook his head, exasperated. 'Surely this is not the moment? If you're going to play about with that, can't it wait?'

  'It absolutely can't wait.'

  'Why can't Julia be there?'

  'I can't explain. And you can't tell her.'

  'No. I won't do it.'

  'Why not?' Martin got up and paced around the kitchen. Robert instantly wished he had done this first, but they couldn't both pace at the same time. That would be peculiar.

  Robert said, 'It won't hurt Julia not to know. Here: I'll make a bargain with you. If you'll keep Julia here tonight, I'll give you something you desperately want.'

  Martin sat down again. 'What's that?' he said suspiciously.

  'Marijke's address in Amsterdam.'

  Martin raised his eyebrows. He got up again and left the kitchen. Robert heard him walking across the hall into his office. He was gone for a while. When he reappeared he had a lit cigarette in one hand and a map of Amsterdam in the other.

  'I thought you'd given up?' Robert said.