Visibility

by Boris Starling

  “I know. And thank you. But you do the opposite. You grab my arm, I lose my balance—bad, when you try to direct me. I hold on to you, is better. Here.” She clasped Herbert’s arm, just above the elbow. “Ah, wool. My favorite color.”

  It took Herbert a moment to realize that this was a joke. Then they started walking, with him wondering whether Hannah’s strange mixture of sunny delight and blazing defiance would somehow physically light their way through the gloom.

  It was strange, Herbert thought; every time he went out into the fog, it seemed as dense as it could possibly get without solidifying into concrete. Yet still it seemed to thicken, hour by hour. It was like walking through semolina. He felt blind; Hannah was surely the one for whom these conditions were normal.

  She scoffed when he put this to her.

  “Oh, Herbert. You’re like all people with sight—you think only with your eyes. Stop a moment. Listen.”

  He did so. It was eerily quiet.

  “What can you hear?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Exactly. Me neither. Can’t see, can’t hear, the both of us. My favorite weather—what you think it is?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Guess.”

  “Sunshine?”

  She laughed. “You are predictable. You say ‘sunshine’ because it’s your favorite. You think everyone think like you. No, don’t argue, is true. OK, try another way; which weather you hate most? Apart from this fog, obviously.”

  “Rain. Everyone hates the rain.”

  “Not me. I love rain.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. Rain makes me see. Every surface it hit, it sound different; roofs sound different to walls, shrubs to lawns, fences to pavements. It splash in puddles, run in gutters, it hiss when car makes spray. Rain is orchestra, and orchestra where I know every instrument. For me, unless I can touch, world is invisible. But rain makes everything have … have, how you say…?” She paused, searching for the right word.

  “Contours?” Herbert suggested.

  “Exactly. Edges. It is blanket of color over what was invisible. It make whole something before in pieces. It take me from isolation and bring me to world, in manner you take for granted. When you say ‘nice day’ to people, for me, is horrible day. For me, nice day is what you hate: wind in face, thunder like roof over my head. Those are things I love, Herbert. Without them, nothing.”

  Herbert watched her face as she said all this. He had never felt so desperate to be consumed, and yet so conscious of his solitude.

  “Oh,” she said suddenly. “I think we lost. Is your fault, make me talk so much.”

  “My fault? I…”

  She laughed. “I joke, Herbert.”

  They were next to a large block of stone. A plinth, it seemed. When Herbert looked up he saw a long, grooved column disappearing into the fog above their heads, as though this were an Indian rope trick.

  “We’re in Trafalgar Square,” he said. “Nelson’s somewhere in the clouds.”

  “Trafalgar Square? We have come wrong way, no mistake.”

  Herbert remembered that Nelson’s Column sat atop a bunker, supposedly to shelter the government in the event of a nuclear strike. There were others beneath High Holborn, Judd Street in Bloomsbury, and Maple Street in Fitzrovia. The fear of a preemptive Soviet strike was very real.

  As they walked, Herbert tried in his head to sort out what he now knew.

  Stensness had fixed three meetings for Thursday evening by the Peter Pan statue: Kazantsev at six thirty, Papworth at seven, and de Vere Green at seven thirty.

  All three men maintained that they had gone to the statue as instructed, and that Stensness had not shown up for any of them.

  Yet he must have been in Kensington Gardens around that time; as de Vere Green had found him dead there sometime between seven thirty and ten to eight, when Elkington had discovered the body.

  Unless, of course, someone had killed Stensness elsewhere and then dragged him to the Long Water.

  No. That was unlikely, especially in a rapidly thickening fog. Herbert knew he had to be wary of overcomplication. If it waddled and quacked, it was probably a duck.

  So what were the possibilities?

  The first was that Kazantsev was lying, and Stensness had made their meeting. Then either Kazantsev had killed him, or someone else had done so after Kazantsev had gone.

  Second, that Papworth was lying, and Stensness had made their meeting. After that, the same as with Kazantsev: either Papworth had killed Stensness, or someone else had done so after Papworth had gone.

  Third, that de Vere Green was lying, and Stensness had made their meeting.

  Things were slightly different here, for two reasons: de Vere Green said he had found the body (which did not of course exclude him from being the killer); and, as Stensness’ lover, de Vere Green perhaps had more reason, certainly more visceral reason, to have drowned Stensness, in a temper after a lovers’ tiff, say.

  And if de Vere Green was the killer, then that brought with it a whole raft of problems.

  Firstly, his history with Herbert, which hardly helped any claim Herbert might have had as to impartiality.

  Next, the question of de Vere Green’s quiescence. As things stood, de Vere Green was being cooperative for one of two reasons. If he was innocent, because he wanted to keep his own crime of homosexuality quiet; and if he was guilty, because he hoped that Herbert would never find enough evidence to be sure of his guilt.

  If Herbert ever did find such evidence, though, de Vere Green would have nothing left to lose, and then Herbert’s leverage over him would be finished.

  There was a fourth possibility: that they were all telling the truth, and Stensness had been killed by a fourth party, who would be not so much a known unknown—that is, something Herbert knew he did not know—as an unknown unknown, one that he did not even know that he did not know, for this would be introducing an entire other level to the affair of which he was ignorant.

  This last prospect so depressed him that he gave up thinking for a while.

  “It’s too much,” Herbert said to Hannah. “Say something. Take my mind off it.”

  “I remember pea-souper of 1948. I remember how Londoners are accepting of such fogs, they don’t worry about them. Like it is earthquake, or volcano. More, there is pride, weird pride in this. We live in splendid city, so maybe fog now and then is price to pay. In old days they call fog the ‘London particular,’ no? Is pride in that term. People now talk of money and, is this right word, ‘muck’?”

  “Muck is money.”

  “Exactly. Like dirty air is good thing, as it come from industry, and industry mean jobs and profit. But where is government?” She was angry now. “Why they not protect people from this? Why industry not make own cleanings? Everyone do nothing until tragedy happens, and by then is too late.”

  An outsider’s perspicacity and an underdog’s anger; the mixture had felled greater men than Herbert, that was for sure.

  In Herbert’s flat, Hannah asked him to take her to a chair and place her hand on the back of it. The rest she did herself. When she was seated, she asked him to describe the room to her.

  “Oh, you know.”

  “No, Herbert, I don’t know. So I ask you.”

  “Yes. Sorry.” Looking around, Herbert realized how much he disliked this place. It stank of, if not failure, then certainly inertia. He ran quickly through what was where: writing desk, armchairs and sofa, coffee table, radio, television set.

  “What about the pictures on the walls?”

  Blimey, Herbert thought. He had not looked at some of them in years.

  There were a couple of landscapes; a picture of Nelson dying belowdecks at Trafalgar; a large photograph of Pennsylvania miners that he could not for the life of him remember getting; and a painting he had found in Portobello Market of a man banging his fist against a mirror in frustration because there was no reflection in it.

  Hannah
nodded when he told her all this, and said nothing.

  Herbert put more coal on the fire, and then went into the kitchen, poured two glasses of wine, and came back into the sitting room.

  When he handed Hannah’s glass to her, he saw that there was a red blister on her hand, at the point where her index finger met her palm.

  “How did you get this?” he said.

  “How I get what?”

  “This blister, here on your palm.”

  “Herbert,” Hannah said, her eyes suddenly sheened. “You really want to know?”

  “If it’s important, then yes, of course.”

  She laughed. “Oh, it’s important. That, I promise you.”

  The silence leached around them as she composed herself.

  Herbert had no idea what he could have stirred up and, as with this morning, wanted nothing more than to be able to retract it; but how was he to have known that a little blister was the portal to so much?

  “Esther burnt her hand on the stove,” she said.

  “Esther? Who’s Esther?”

  “She burnt her other hand, her left, at exactly the same spot; and at same second that blister appear on me, but on my right hand. I never touch the stove.”

  “Hannah—who’s Esther?”

  “Esther was my twin.”

  We were mirror twin, identical in every way, except that everything was in reverse. Our hair curled in opposite directions; our fingerprint was perfect reflection; I was right-handed and Esther was left-handed, so I never sit at her left in meal or in classroom, and she never sit to my right, as then our arm hit and we start fighting, is impossible for us to do anything.

  When you are twin, your relationship begin before you’re born—is so difficult to understand that. You know the other twin is there, even though you don’t know that you know. Most people come into world after nine month of solitude, but for twin, isolation and everything alone—being individual, being independent, being sufficient in self—is completely alien.

  People always ask: “What is it like to be twin?” For twin, question is this: “What is it like not to be twin?”

  Because from very moment you born, you are “twin”: one unit no one can divide, a little world which only you share and no one can enter from outside.

  To be identical twin is complete privilege, because you carry the other one with you wherever you go. Never are you truly alone. When the outside world becomes difficult, or unkind, uncertain, you retreat, and then everything is safe and bright and without effort.

  As baby, Esther and I suck the other’s finger and toe, it look like we don’t know where one ends and other begins. We look so comfortable together, like we are with each other for whole life after lifetime. We behave as one creature, working together. And with much serious, like young babies are.

  When we are three day old, our mother holds Esther, and suddenly Esther begins to scream and have shakings. No reason for this, it looks; one moment she fine, the next she screams to wake dead people.

  And then my mother see me on sofa, face to the cushions.

  I suffocate, and she saves me.

  The doctor not believe. Not believe I still alive, not believe how Esther save me.

  This kind of thing happens all time, though not again with such drama.

  Someone hits one of us, and the other screams. When we sleep, we move same limb at same time. We have same dream. One sings tune the other think of, one answers question no one ask yet.

  But, but… to be twin is enormous contradiction. Twins are unique because they are two, but being two means you not unique. You look in mirror; is that you, or twin? How to find out? Bite your sister, and see the reflection which cry.

  Now I am blind, I cannot look in mirror and see Esther looking at me, even for one second, before I remember it me not her.

  People see twin as two half of same person, so as follows, they see twin as half a person. All the time, one mistake for the other, and vice versa, like you can be changed one to the other, like you leave no mark of your own. Our headmistress asks Esther one day where is the other half. Esther shout at her: “I am not half, I am one, and Hannah too!”

  But of course, always one big difference between twins, and can never be escaped: who is first? Being twin is race, and I won. I am first, I have more age, and Esther never forgive that. Me, I not care, which make her more angry.

  With learning the potty, our mother teaches me, so Esther follows. She follow, sure thing; she make the potty empty, all over my head.

  Every Passover, Esther must tell the Four Questions, because she is youngest child, and that is Jewish tradition. Always she try not to do it, because it make her know too much that she second.

  In some part of Africa, the younger twin is thought more important. People they think he make his twin go out first to certify that the world is ready for him. Esther like that story very much. Always she ask when we move to Africa.

  Of course, the good is more than the bad, always.

  The good is this: amazing relationship, affection, support, doing things together, encouraging, stimulate, sympathy. Always someone for playing games, and to help in house with boring jobs. Always someone who understands you, someone with total honesty for you. You have soul mate.

  Then the bad. Which one dominate, which one depend? Help the other, or compete against them? Sometimes, being close like this feels bad. No distance make you unhappy. Always you interfere, them too.

  We are older. More difference now. We are more different, we want to be more different than that, even. People put us in box; this the good girl, this the bad. We like the box, we make it be true. Esther is loud one, me the quiet; she is bad and always make rebellion, I am good and obey; she plays the sports, I make the studies. Only difference from here is swimming; she not good swimmer, so I make myself best swimmer in school, of course.

  When we walk to school, I want to go in line with other children, proper line, organize; she want to run, jump, hide, make trouble.

  When teachers separate us in class, it pleases me. When Esther not with me, no one make me responsible for things she does.

  I am scholar, she must do exam once and again, not because she is stupid, but because she do a million thing in one time. Always she look for adventure.

  I am cardboard imitation of her. I have no passion, am not wild; she is.

  You look for killer in fog, Herbert; if she alive, she come to help you. Not me. I make the horror and sit by fire with a book I like.

  And then came Auschwitz.

  Jewish stories make tales of the Malach Hamavet, the Angel of Death. He disguises as doctor, brilliant doctor. Come to earth in white doctor coat, and he destroys everything, but he charms and seduces all the time.

  The Malach Hamavet waits for us at Auschwitz, on the ramp as the trains arrive.

  He is handsome devil: hair dark, skin like olive. He look like Gable, or Valentino. He has gold flower in lapel, his boots polished and bright, his shirt cornflower blue.

  Like a host who greets his guests, he ask how our journey is, looks horrified to the discomfort we have suffered. He makes the dictation for postcards, us to send home, telling people the Nazis treat us well.

  He whistle with his mouth the “Blue Danube” waltz, and says that children to call him Vater, Vaterchen, Onkel—Father, Daddy, Uncle.

  When he speak to women, they try to impress him. They pat their hair and smile; they imagine the rags of their clothes as white gowns, and their feet which swell as ballet shoes. Some break bricks and put red dust into their cheeks, like rouge.

  The Angel divide us into two groups.

  To the left go old, sick, women with children under fourteen.

  Everyone else go to right.

  He say nothing to worry about, a simple division: those who can work and those who cannot. Necessary for the bureaucrats, that is all.

  He rolls eyes. Bureaucrats, he say, and we laugh, he is with us against bureaucrats, everyone hate the bureaucrat. />
  His finger go left, right, left, right. He shout that families to find unity again after administration finished.

  His hand soft, his decision quick; he is like conductor of orchestra.

  Group on the left go to gas chamber.

  In one hour, they are dead, mothers with their children. No mother will work if child is dead. Some children scream, they know what will happen. Adults believe in reason, they not see what comes.

  The Angel squat down, his face at level with yelling child, and he say with voice of honey that there nothing to worry about. To make them feel better, he make a little game called “on the way to the chimney”—that is chimney there, that b-i-i-i-i-g tall one, to make warm all people working in that building. He can play game with the child. The child like that?

  Of course, the child like that.

  Group on right go to work, and to every horror in Auschwitz. They bleed from thousand sore. Hunger makes belly into strange shapes. Eye bad, making moans and screams like mad people. Even lice in camp leave them alone at end, because nothing left in their bodies for food for lice. Most dead in four month.

  Often, I think that better, to be in first group.

  The Angel knows. He makes choice like directing waltz, and he makes them sober. Other doctors in camp, Koenig and Rohde, make to be drunk before. Angel never drunk.

  His name was Josef Mengele.

  His name was Josef Mengele, and he was God. We discover that very fast.

  An old Jewish prayer tells story of the flock which pass beneath the rod of the shepherd, the Lord, who decides who will live and who will not. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Mengele make a board at certain height above ground, and make us all walk below it. You must reach board with head to live. People put stones in shoe or stand on tiptoes to succeed.

  What is the point to this? There is no point. That is the point.

  Mengele takes pleasure in power of life and death; he wants to control everything, every person, every behavior.

  Always with him is aura of dreadful, dreadful menace. I cannot tell you what it was like, not in proper terms. Be happy you never experience it. Never do I feel such thing before; if ever it come to me again, I think I die of fright, simple as that.