The Solitary Twin

by Harry Mathews

  At this Andreas perked up. “Aha! Who is that?” “He probably means Wicheria, accented on the second syllable, I believe.” Geoffrey: “Who else?” “And who is Wicheria?” Berenice asked. It was almost the tone of hope. “She is our one-woman bohemia,” Geoffrey replied. “She wears outlandish clothes, like green velvet pantaloons and musketeer boots, if you see what I mean. She often dyes her long full hair a kind of dark smoldering red. Her smile fairly glitters. She is in fact almost beautiful, in her mildly provocative way.” Then, with a slight change of voice, “I approve of her completely.” Margot added, “Do you know Charley Kipper? Our captain of police. He told us that after a clique of old farts insisted he investigate the young woman, he had found her innocent of any hint of troublemaking. She does not traffic in drugs. She does not peddle her charms. She does not pilfer. She does not pursue married men, or wealthy ones. She simply expresses her love of life in a slightly provocative way.”

  Geoffrey: “She has a most beautiful laugh. It starts in the bass register, but as it rises through her body it also rises in pitch, until it spills from her mouth in a diminuendo of short, bright sighs.”

  Like Berenice, Andreas had followed this exchange attentively. He asked, “You said John and Paul ‘shared’ Wicheria. What does that mean?” “It’s an ambiguous word that I probably shouldn’t have used. Both John and Paul are friendly with her, perhaps even close friends. They are often seen with her, separately of course, having dinner and on rare occasions at the Hunting Horn, our ‘palais de la danse.’ The girl dances uproariously, leaping, twirling, her red mane swinging around her head in keeping with a general air of witchiness that was apparently the source of her nickname. When they dance with her, Paul keeps to his more measured if acceptably up-to-date movements. John does his best to follow his partner’s gyrations, or if he doesn’t follow, at least mimics them.” Margot: “I’ve always considered this a token of his charming tact.” Andreas: “Have you spoken to her about them?” Geoffrey: “I feel that it’s wiser for someone in an official position not to show curiosity about private affairs. In any case, I hardly know Wicheria well enough to question her about her friends.” “Yes, that’s more to the point,” Margot concluded.

  On the walk back, Berenice took Andreas’s arm, less out of tenderness than for support. The evening had left her dizzy. She had kept all her intense fantasies concerning the twins intact, but her knowledge of them was still minimal: there was a gap between these extremes like an unmapped pit. She felt she was coming home not from her neighbors’ but from the shore below, or from a day spent on the ocean, or from some place at the end of the world. She exclaimed, “Do those boys really exist?” Andreas answered, “The story will tell. It’s taking an operatic turn, isn’t it?”

  What did he mean? He stopped them on a bridge crossing a little brook and they listened to the water warbling. “Sometimes,” she went on, “I feel this place doesn’t exist either.” “Then we’re making it up rather well. But we’re still only spectators.” They walked on through the night toward their bed.

  4

  The following week Berenice and Andreas in turn invited the Hydes for dinner. Berenice served local fare: smoked red mullet from the Kaufmann smoke house, a shoulder of lamb from the inland highlands (so imbued with the wild thyme and savory it had grazed on, it scarcely needed further seasoning), string beans and salad from their garden, goat cheese, sautéd sweet apples. The wines were imported: Alsatian Pinot Blanc, Morgon from the Beaujolais, non-vintage champagne. They had reached the apples and champagne when Andreas suggested a way they might continue the evening.

  “We may not know each other well, but we do seem to get along. My guess is that we’d enjoy knowing each other better — I certainly would, and I think I’ve found a way of doing that that would be easy and even entertaining. My idea is that each of us take turns telling a story. Not necessarily stories about ourselves, although obviously there’s nothing wrong with that, but also stories we’ve heard from other people, or remember from books and plays. Stories that we’d love to tell or retell ourselves or, perhaps more accurately, that we’d love to hear told. Even stories made up out of whole cloth, why not? All that’s up to the narrator. The one thing that I’d ask of you is not to choose a story because you think it will impress the rest of us. Let the story choose you! What do you think?”

  Margot: “I think it’s a great idea. I love stories.” Geoffrey: “It makes me a little nervous. Will I have to produce mine this evening?” Andreas: “I imagined one story at a time. I hope we’ll be having more dinners.” Margot: “Of course we will.” Berenice: “That way you’ll all have time to prepare, like me — as a forewarned hostess I thought I’d go first. O.K.?” There were no objections.

  “This is the story of one man, a ‘man’s man,’ a professional valet and a good one. I didn’t witness most of what I’m about to tell you, only one evening towards the end after I’d been called in in a professional capacity.

  “The valet’s name was Hubert. He felt great esteem for his employer, and discreet but genuine affection as well. He did everything in his power to satisfy his master’s small needs and see that he was kept neatly elegant for his social and professional engagements. Hubert enjoyed his work, which — conscientious as he was — kept him as busy as he could wish. He was given every other Sunday off, as well as any workday evening when the gentleman he served had no need of him.

  “On a Sunday in late March, a sunny Sunday full of portents of the nascent spring, Hubert arrived by streetcar in the center of the sizable city where he had always lived. He got off at a stop opposite the main entrance of Fosdick Park, the largest in town. As he stepped to the curb, he at once became aware of a sensation that would gradually envelope him, and would subsequently haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “The spring sun was hot, the air was still — utterly still. There was not the breath of a breeze. It wasn’t only that no leaf or blade of grass so much as quivered: something like an inverse wind had apparently emptied the air of its invisible stuff and fixed leaves and grass in an immobility as absolute as that of a photograph. A ways inside the park, Hubert felt himself sucked into a comparable equilibrium — he could still move without the slightest hesitation, but he sensed, moving or not, packets of an indefinable substance falling away from him into the weightless air, first from the skin of his limbs (calves, small of back, shoulders), then from muscles (slender triceps, stubborn hamstring), from stiff bones (knee caps), and even from his brain and its subversive nerves, until at the end a bar of steel that stretched from shoulder to shoulder across his sternum, of which he had never been aware, was gently lifted from him. This released a spurt of joy, also unsuspected grief upwelling, so as he delightedly smiled, tears rolled down his cheeks to drench his chest. He hid behind a tree so as not to be seen crying. He raised his arms as if in salute, not of any god, idea, or force of nature, just the unnamable source of his release. He quickly thought: ‘I have to tell the world about this.’

  “Still tingling with weightlessness, on his way home he reminded himself, ‘I should let people know,’ and already a seed of doubt dropped into his mind. He could never realize this wish, he admitted — at least not alone: alone he would be merely a ranting idiot. He needed at least one person beside him who had shared, or at least believed in, his improbable experience; that would give him a first semblance of plausibility, which he might then develop. But how could he win over this first disciple? Why should anyone believe him? Why should he have been chosen for such exotic joy?

  “Hubert was not alone for long. One person in the Sunday park had noticed him; she never quite understood why, or why she kept watching him and so witnessing a transfiguration that bewildered and intrigued her. A small, slender man, fine-featured but less than handsome, was slowly invested before her eyes with a visible ecstasy that had no visible cause. She did not understand, but he radiated such happiness as made her yearn to partake of
his feelings. When he left the park, she walked after him, took the same streetcar as he, and followed him all the way home.

  “Her name was Rachel. Comely, not tall or short, her head capped with auburn curls, her body compact, lithe, and soft. That day she wore a yellow blouse, blue jeans, and penny loafers. She worked in a scholarly bookstore, selling the works of Spinoza, Walser, and Groddeck to ‘serious’ readers young and old. She lived alone in a very small flat near the university.

  “Hubert had disappeared through a back door of the house where he lived. She walked up to the door and knocked on it firmly. There was no response, the door was unlocked, she walked into a kind of shadowy storeroom (racks of bottles and fruit) that led to a large, bright kitchen. A plump middle-aged woman put down the celery stalks she had been chopping and turned to face Rachel with not unfriendly surprise. Rachel: ‘Forgive me for barging in, but a gentleman was here a moment ago — I don’t know his name, but I need to speak to him, if he would consent to receive me. I’m Rachel Auerbach — that will mean nothing to him.’ ‘And I am Rosina. Please to be seated. I go to make him know you are here. Without doubt he will be content in the company of such a pretty young lady.’ Exit Rosina.

  “A few minutes later she returned with Hubert. ‘Signor Hubert, here is Signorina Rachel.’ Rachel apologized for seeming impudent: she summed up her observations in the park and her curiosity to learn what was going on. Hubert: ‘We can talk in the servants’ sitting-room. Please excuse us, Rosina.’ ‘Naturally. Ought I to make tea?’ ‘Coffee, perhaps — and for you, Miss Rachel?’ ‘Oh yes, coffee for me, too.’

  “When they were settled, Rachel asked, ‘Are you really a servant?’ ‘Very much so: valet to the master of the house, a distinguished gentleman, Sir Bellamy Boyens. A very kind man, too, and his wife, Constance, an equally kind woman. Not perhaps kind enough, either of them, to appreciate my fit this afternoon.’ ‘It didn’t look like a fit.’ ‘I’m very glad you’ve come. Did you notice anything peculiar about the place?’ ‘I did notice the stillness. Unfortunately it didn’t affect me like it did you. I didn’t guess it was what had stirred you.’ ‘But you’ve guessed it now!’

  “Rachel began to feel that they were concocting a very Jamesian situation. Since he was still ‘off’ that evening, Hubert suggested they dine together. She accepted. Afterwards he in turn accepted her invitation to take her home, where he stayed till break of day.

  “So their love affair began, and their alliance. She was thirty-three, he fifty-one; he was a bearer of new truth revealed, she his disciple and scholiast; but differences of years and roles became no more than complements to their unpredicted, passionate love.

  “His employers couldn’t help noticing a change in Hubert: his nightlong absences whenever he was excused from his duties were accompanied by his evolution from pleasant and conscientious helper into a confident, virile individual, his somewhat drawn features and pale complexion filling out with almost ruddy healthfulness.

  “One day Constance asked Hubert to join her for a private talk in the living room. She had him sit next to her on the sofa by the window overlooking the garden. She began by emphasizing how sincerely she and Bellamy were fond of him: there had been so many years of steadfast loyalty on his part, during which he had revealed his generous, thoughtful character in a multitude of small but eloquent contributions to their lives. Of late they had recognized a shift in his comportment: a shift towards happiness, or so they felt, which they could only welcome. Constance confessed they were also itching with wonder. What had happened? She begged him to confide in her. She promised not to object to anything he told her — no, she wanted to back him to the hilt.

  “Perhaps Hubert’s sense of decorum may have been troubled by Constance’s words; he could not help being moved by them. He consented to her request, relating how one Sunday afternoon he had undergone a strong, strange interior experience that had somehow been observed by a person unknown to him — a younger woman who was curious enough to follow him here: she was intelligent and charming. They had quickly fallen in love. He hoped his infatuation had not affected the quality of his service, which was as ever the cornerstone of his life.

  “Constance exclaimed, ‘Not any more it isn’t! I shall tell Bellamy what you just told me. I now tenderly implore you to let us meet your young lady. Tea tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?’

  “So Rachel was invited into the household, first to tea, soon after to dinner; at which Bellamy asked if she had secretarial talents. Rachel answered that she typed well enough and she could learn shorthand if that should be necessary. ‘It won’t be. I just need help getting out from underneath the paperwork that’s cluttering my life. I can pay you more than what you earn selling books. What do you say?’ Constance then added, ‘And we can cede you and Hubert the second guest room. He will thus be relieved of having to scurry away nights to wherever it is you live.’ Until then Rachel had been a model of courtesy and demureness; she now cried a little. ‘Yes, yes — you do agree, darling Hubert?’ He replied with a laugh of astonishment — his old life and new life were suddenly one.”

  Margot asked if Hubert hadn’t taken the place of the son the Boeyens never had. “Oh, they had a son, but he’d gone off on his own while still a young man. He wanted to start a publishing house. Bellamy did not approve.” Andreas held his tongue.

  “A colleague at the bookshop agreed to take over the lease on Rachel’s apartment, so that within days she brought her clothes and a capacious trunkload of books to her new home. She began her work with Sir Bellamy immediately, determined to quickly learn how she could best save him time and bother. This soon led to her accepting responsibility for nearly all his activities insofar as they involved writing: editing much private and most professional correspondence, paying bills, drafting proposals, speeches, and articles — she loved it all, exploring a world that she had heretofore regarded as foreign and vaguely threatening. Occasionally she found time to help Constance in the cutting garden, or in planning her menus. And if she had finished her work for the day, she joined Rosina in the kitchen to help prepare the evening’s dinner. She and Hubert spent happy days, their paths often crossing as they busily plied their respective tasks, and happy nights in their bigger bed.”

  Berenice interrupted her tale with a sigh. “I wish I could stop right here. But a story must be as true to itself as any fiction.

  “There was, after all, a third strand in Hubert’s life that the Boyens’ generosity couldn’t immediately benefit: his ardent wish, actually more of a tyrannical obsession, to somehow transmit to his fellow human beings his inspiring experience in the park. This was a project that Rachel was eager to abet. He had spoken cautiously to Constance and Bellamy about what had happened. They had listened encouragingly, but with no sign of recognizing the magnitude of the experience in Hubert’s life.

  “With Rachel, Hubert at first tried to determine places and times where the original conditions of his revelation might reappear (its effect on him was still vivid). They studied weather reports and forecasts, they took trips to places near their town where windless sunshine was predicted. They found only very faint winds and pleasant warmth, never the ‘reverse wind’ that immobilized the air and all it touched. This was no way to bring Hubert’s new cognizance to the world.

  “They sought professional help. They called on communicators in various fields, teachers, priests and pastors, publicists, journalists, theater people. Since the two of them were serious and polite, most of those consulted listened to them and then invariably tried to enroll them in their own work. The teachers invited them to participate in their seminars (that is, work as unpaid assistants); the holy men urged them to convert; publicists insisted the couple hire them; journalists looked for a story. Hubert and Rachel also wrote to noted iconoclasts in other fields — R. D. Laing, for instance, and Werner Erhard, then living in England. The ‘antipsychiatrist’ hailed Hubert’s story as further evid
ence of the primacy of personal experience. The founder of est recognized their need as a familiar one: he recommended creating a succession of artificial situations that would stimulate sensations and feelings like Hubert’s. He thought it would help if they grounded their work on a firm, if discreet, philosophical basis, the way Plato in the dialogue called Meno justified his teaching a young slave geometry by the mechanics of anamnesis.

  “Neither Hubert nor Rachel had such precise knowledge of philosophy and knew better than to try acquiring it now. They decided to apply Erhard’s suggestion utilizing simple description. With Sir Bellamy’s help, they found a small auditorium they could rent by the day; they had a flyer printed announcing the presentation of a personal ‘life experience’ that they considered ‘highly interesting and potentially useful to anyone with an open mind.’ They placed the flyer in neighborhood shops and restaurants. Constance sent invitations to friends she felt might respond favorably — in doing this her expectations were low, but she encouraged their guests with the reassurance that she and Bellamy would both attend.

  “So it was that at six o’clock on a weekday evening twelve people were assembled in the rather bleak room that Sir Bellamy had rented. Constance had brightened it up with vases of chrysanthemums set on either end of the long table behind which Rachel and Hubert were seated. The audience consisted of Constance and Bellamy, three of their friends, and — presumably drawn by the flyer — three down-at-heels middle-aged persons as well as a couple about twenty years old, well-dressed in the untraditional fashion of the decade.