Accidental Brothers
Page 9
The religious lives of all identical reared-apart twins do not match at the same time or even at all. Both Mary and Elaine from Great Britain were raised in Catholic homes, but Mary’s family was heavily involved in religious activities, whereas Elaine’s family was far less active. The twins seemed to switch places in their later years—Mary turned away from her faith while her sister stayed connected. Family influences work in mysterious and unpredictable ways, either by instilling religious beliefs and practices in children, or prompting them to question formal religious practices, or leading them to choose some middle ground. However, Mary and Elaine agreed on one point: neither could accept that genetic factors influence a belief in God.11
Lively Laboratories
Twin research takes place at two levels, and both are lively, informative, and fun for the partnership that quickly evolves between twins and observers. Quantitative studies measure twins’ personality characteristics, religious practices, and physical traits by asking them to respond to inventories and questionnaires, and to stand on scales or wear various recording devices. Researchers use these data to estimate genetic and environmental influences on behavior and physique by comparing the responses of identical and fraternal twins; greater resemblance between identical than fraternal twins demonstrates genetic influence on the trait(s) under study. Qualitative research identifies trends and patterns in people’s behaviors and perceptions through structured and semi-structured interviews, surveys, and small group discussions. In Colombia, informal interviews and observations, such as those occurring during meals, travel, or at parties, when the twins were less guarded, also took place. These less formal sessions are often enormously revealing, allowing researchers not only to capture bits of behavior that they might otherwise miss, but also by allowing them to breathe life and meaning into the quantitative work.
The chance events that often lead to twin separations set up natural situations that cannot be duplicated because they would violate either ethical standards or respect for human dignity. The Colombian twins are a great example of such circumstances, but so are the reared-apart identical twins Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr, who were born in 1933 in British-ruled Trinidad. Their Romanian father and German Catholic mother separated when the twins were six months old; Jack remained in Trinidad with their father, and Oskar went to Germany with their mother, so each one knew from an early age that he had a twin brother. Jack was raised Jewish, worked on an Israeli kibbutz, and entered the Israeli navy. Oskar was raised Catholic, joined the Hitler Youth, and labored in the coal mines of the Ruhr. After reuniting as adults—aside from their opposing political and historical views, which they variously argued about or ignored—the twins’ abilities, personalities, and appearance were nearly indistinguishable.12
Most people with such conflicting backgrounds and beliefs could not imagine becoming friends, but identical twins are different. Jack and Oskar were captivated by their similarities and worked hard to develop their relationship as twins. Both wore identical light-blue epauletted shirts and wire-rimmed glasses when they arrived in Minnesota for the study at age forty-six, only the second time that they had met. Their intelligence test scores and personality profiles were nearly the same. The only obvious difference between them was the Jewish star that hung on a thick gold chain around Jack’s neck. As they aged, their thinning reddish-brown hair, moustaches, and broadening bellies matched perfectly.
Jack and Oskar became famous in academic circles and in the press for their striking similarities: sneezing loudly in elevators, reading books back to front, flushing toilets before and after using them, draping rubber bands around their wrists, and shoving floral displays sideways if they blocked their view. All were behaviors each developed independently, without knowledge of what his twin brother was doing. Single genes do not code for these personal oddities, but broad personality dispositions influenced by many genes, each with small effects, may play a role. Jack and Oskar’s noisy sneezes may reflect a humorous streak with a touch of malice, whereas their toilet fixation may speak to an overall fearfulness that covers bugs, bacteria, and bathrooms.
I was mostly fascinated by Jack’s acknowledgment that, had he been raised in his twin’s home, he would have become pro-German and unsympathetic to the Jewish causes he enthusiastically supported. Likewise, Oskar acknowledged that, had he grown up in Trinidad, he would have become staunchly pro-Israel and anti-Germany. The crucial point is that the nature of the twins’ attitudes matched and would have regardless of where they grew up—only the content differed. That is, both twins expressed fierce identification with their country and culture, one in an effort to hide his German roots in Trinidad, and the other in an attempt to hide his Jewish roots in Germany. Identical reared-apart twins can see many aspects of themselves in a life unlived, but the reflection isn’t perfect because having a totally different mind-set and thinking totally different thoughts about important issues is difficult to imagine. I had no doubt that the switched Colombian twins, Carlos and William, would be informative and fascinating in this regard.
Not all identical reared-apart twins are as similar as Jack and Oskar, and Debbie and Sharon, but many are. Twin pairs like these, when compared with fraternal sets, show that genetic factors explain about 50 percent of the individual differences in most characteristics, although some traits, such as height, are more “hard-wired”—genetic factors explain nearly 90 percent—and others, such as job satisfaction, are more malleable, with genetic factors explaining 30 percent. Our genetic findings from reared-apart twins about intelligence hover between 73 and 77 percent, consistent with previous reared-apart twin studies in the United States, England, Denmark, and Sweden. Of course, genetic influence does not mean that people cannot change or improve with practice and training, although some behaviors are harder to alter than others, but it does mean that we cannot all be the same.13
It is mostly the reared-apart identical pairs who express the unusual idiosyncratic behaviors that the Minnesota investigators and other researchers have observed, such as eyeball rolling and rubber band wearing; this is less true for fraternal pairs, showing that genes partly affect even our odd habits and mannerisms. If you like your coffee warm (not hot), scratch your ear with a paper clip, or brush your teeth with Vademecum toothpaste—similarities observed in separated identical twins—it is likely that if you had an identical twin, she or he would be doing that too.
What Might Be
The story of Jack and Oskar brought my thoughts back to the Colombian twins, whose post-discovery lives were still new. I wondered how Carlos, raised by chance in Bogotá’s rich cultural milieu, which he relished, thought about the life he would have had in La Paz’s remote rural landscape. He would have known a loving father, rather than the one who deserted his family, and four older siblings. But he would not have gone to high school, attended college, or become an accountant. And he would not have participated in organized sports, grown up in a house with plumbing, or worn fine suits. Did Carlos realize this or did he deny it in the belief that he would become the same person no matter where he grew up? Was he horrified or relieved, angry or complacent, regretful or accepting of his circumstances? Carlos had only to look to Wilber, his identical twin, to see himself as he would have been with a limited education, a different accent, and a habit of commuting by horseback. But even identical twins would find it hard to feel like their twin because our identities are inside our head and are all that we know.
I wondered whether the reared-apart Colombian twins would, like Jack and Oskar, set aside their differences and celebrate their lives as twins. Colombia’s citizens are highly conscious of regional and social differences. People living outside Bogotá tend to view its residents as arrogant and distant, while people from Bogotá generally regard rural people as unrefined and somewhat aggressive, qualities reflected largely in their speech.14 The striking differences between the La Paz and Bogotá families were on display from the time they met, but especially during their first vis
it. The La Paz twins’ childhood home was made of wood and open on one side, with an angled roof that reached out over a flat space resembling a patio. It stood alone with no other buildings in sight. The home of the Bogotá twins was a two-story brick structure with a large front door, two windows, a gate, and a house number over the entrance, and it was located in a densely populated residential district.
The other twins’ stories also prompted me to think more about William, who was destined for life in the city but ended up in a rural environment. Was he bitter about his lost educational opportunities? Did he worry about rejection by the parents and siblings with whom he grew up? How did he break the news to his now accidental parents? And was he angry at Carlos for “taking” his place? I hoped to have answers to all these questions.
* * *
I did some research on La Paz because I was raised in the heart of New York City and wanted to have a better feel for the nature and quality of life in rural Colombia. Searching “La Paz Colombia” led me to TripAdvisor. As I hunted for hotels, I received the message, “We’re sorry, La Paz doesn’t have any hotels.” I eventually found that the closest hotel was the Hotel Mayales Plaza located six and a half miles away in another town (Booking.com). Two people can stay there for US$38 per night, including a complimentary breakfast, Wi-Fi, shuttle service, and no advance payment. I later learned that there is one hotel in La Paz, the Hotel Karol, a property with no Internet connection. The list of things to do when visiting La Paz had just one entry, but it is a geological wonder.
The Hoyo del Aire (air hole), described by the Colombian lawyer, writer, and journalist Manuel Ancizar in 1850, is a land formation located on a mountain. It is believed to have resulted from a falling asteroid that created a hole with a diameter of about 394 feet and a variable depth of about 656 feet. It appeals to campers and hikers and is about an hour’s walk from the road.15
I was sure that the La Paz brothers had visited the Hoyo del Aire at least once, but how often can people visit the same place for artistic, literary, or emotional fulfillment? I found no museums, monuments, libraries, theaters, concert halls, or sports stadiums listed for La Paz, and Bucaramanga, the capital of Colombia’s state of Santander, is 270 miles away. Life in La Paz offered opportunities that had little in common with what the interested, motivated, and spirited William would have enjoyed had he not traded places with Carlos. I wanted to know about the prospects William had created, tried to create, or had hoped to create from the resources available to him. I imagined that social gatherings would assume greater importance in isolated areas than in populated areas, where more activities are available. Social gatherings can be rich repositories of certain types of information and enlightenment, although rural inhabitants may have to work harder to find them or to make them happen. In the process of doing so they form close relationships with the people around them, as did William and Wilber, who maintain many childhood friendships that will probably last a lifetime. It is also wrong to suppose that all city people are fully immersed in the educational and cultural activities around them; city living can be lonely and isolating if one is not a social mixer. Some people who live in apartments never know their neighbors. The Bogotá brothers had friends, but they could not know everyone in town.
The parents who raised William and Wilber were comfortable in the country, as they had lived there all their lives. Some of their older children had moved to or visited Bogotá for a while (it’s a six- to eight-hour journey by car, not to mention getting to a car by hiking or horseback), but most had moved back after finding city life stressful and dangerous. Two older sons were still living and working on the farm they grew up on, and one brother still lived with his parents, who had moved to another house in the La Paz area, a three-hour walk from their farm but closer to neighbors.
William moved to Bogotá in his late teens. His motivation for doing so was the same motivation that drove him to join the military—it was a way out of La Paz. Becoming a soldier allowed William to escape his hard life on the farm and avoid the illicit drug crops and culture that were spreading across the region. But it did not provide him with the education that he desperately desired and that Colombia provides to qualified soldiers at no cost upon discharge.
Because he had not advanced beyond the fifth grade, he was ineligible for training as a military deputy, although a senior officer had recommended him for the course. In fact, William had been recognized as the best soldier in his platoon of ninety-two men at the Tolemaida military base. But having a high school diploma was an essential requirement for acceptance into this training program. Complicating William’s situation was that near the end of his military service he contracted leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease found in parts of Mexico, Central America, and South America.16 Leishmaniasis is treated with glucantime, a drug whose side effects can include weakness and muscle pain, as well as heart and kidney damage if used for extended periods.17 William recovered, but that would make little difference when it came to his goal of having a professional military career. Not knowing that, he persisted.
William moved to Bogotá and earned his high school credentials during the next eighteen months. He returned to the military base to apply for the noncommissioned officer course and to complete a second medical examination, but when it was discovered that he had had leishmaniasis, he was told that he did not qualify for further training. It was one of the saddest things that had ever happened to him. Refusing to give up easily, William remained in the barracks until he was thrown out, but a cousin helped him get back in, where he hid among the similarly attired two thousand soldiers stationed there. This final attempt lasted a week, until a colonel who was a personal friend made it clear that William had to leave. He was twenty-one.
When William lived in Bogotá, he sold arepas, a staple Colombian food made of ground maize dough or cooked flour. For the next year or so he and his cousin Brian operated their small business from a food court on a busy street. But when an old friend needed to fill a vacancy in his butcher shop, William took the job. A year later he became the manager of yet another butcher shop—Carnes Finas de Colombia, in the back corner of the La Gran Manzana market. This decision had the unforeseen consequence of adding his name to the short list of switched-at-birth reared-apart twin pairs.
Switched-at-Birth Twins: A Brief Chronology
Nine switched-at-birth twin pairs, in Switzerland, Canada, Gran Canaria (Spain), Poland, Puerto Rico, and now Colombia, are known to researchers, but there are probably more. Cases involving identical twins have a greater chance of discovery than those involving fraternal twins because of the confusion caused by mistaken identities. Fraternal twins do not look exactly alike, and some do not look at all alike, drastically lowering the odds that an exchange of nonidentical twins could be uncovered.
The first reported occurrence came from Fribourg, Switzerland, one of the largest medieval towns in that nation’s western Üechtland region. The town is divided into French-speaking and German-speaking districts, known as the “twin towns” of Fribourg and Freiburg, respectively. On the night of July 4, 1941, Fribourg’s Hopitale de la Miséricorde added three new babies to the nursery. Madeleine Joye delivered identical twin boys, Philippe and Paul, her first children, and another new mother, Berthe Vatter, gave birth to a son, Ernstli. The following morning Joye was told that Paul’s birth weight had been incorrectly recorded but that the error had been rectified, reflected by a revised entry in the infant’s chart. In reality the identification tags draped over the foot of each baby’s crib had been accidentally switched.18
The five years that followed were a delight for both families. Joye celebrated the physical and behavioral differences of her fraternal twin sons, and Vatter bonded closely with Ernstli, whose gentleness and charm she found irresistible. Philippe and Paul, raised in Fribourg, spoke only French, while Ernstli, raised in Freiburg, spoke only German.
When the French-speaking brothers in Fribourg turned five, the Joyes enrolled them in one
of Freiburg’s German-speaking schools to broaden their language skills. Ernstli was a student at that school. Teachers and classmates immediately noticed Philippe’s double, a source of great amusement even to the twins’ parents. For fun Madeleine Joye insisted that her husband bring along a camera on the day the children would be marching in the Fête-Dieu, a celebration honoring those receiving first communion, and he agreed. But Monsieur Joye, startled by the two boys’ physical likeness, instantly sought out Berthe Vatter and posed some hard questions: Was her boy born on July 4, 1941? Was he delivered at the Hopitale de la Miséricorde? And was he born sometime during the night? Her answers—yes, yes, and at 6:00 a.m.—told M. Joye what his wife refused to believe: A baby exchange had occurred. Even Madeleine Joye could not ignore the evidence for long because she noticed that Philippe, but not Paul, was missing two lower teeth because they had never developed. Approaching her son’s look-alike, she examined his mouth and found that they shared this same rare dental anomaly, known as hypodontia.19