* * *
When Blanca Cecilia has bursts of nervous energy, her long graying ponytail whips rapidly around her head. Blanca Cecilia had been with her twin nephews ever since they were discharged from the hospital—she was certain that they came home at different times, Jorge before Carlos. The babies were breast-fed, but she gave them bottled milk in between. Blanca Cecilia lived with them and cared for them until they left home when they were nineteen. Therefore, it seems strange that, even though Blanca Cecilia was living with the boys’ sister, Diana, when the switch first became known, she didn’t find out about it until her sister Leonor told her. By then DNA test results had identified the true twins, finally convincing Diana that it was true. It turned out that Blanca Cecilia didn’t know until later because Carlos and Jorge each assumed that the other one had told her. Blanca Cecilia now lives with Carlos and Jorge—and Carlos blames his expanding waistline on his aunt’s great cooking.
Blanca Cecilia was shocked and excited by the news. Reflecting on her feelings six months later, with greater knowledge of how each person was affected, she could not help feeling sad for William, who would never meet his parents and who had lost the education he craved—she had watched Jorge and Carlos advance to the university level and could see how much that experience meant to them. Blanca Cecilia was also unhappy for her sister Luz Marina, who would never know her other twin son, William. But with great fanfare Blanca Cecilia described a dream she had had several months before the discovery. In the dream Luz came to her and asked her to care for all four twins. There had been an exchange and now each twin had a double, brought together by Luz’s spirit. Luz worried that Blanca Cecilia would not love each one, but she assured Luz that she would.
Blanca Cecilia’s dream exemplifies magical realism, a type of fiction that injects elements of fantasy in otherwise realistic settings. It goes beyond entertainment to present observations of social and political conflicts in Latin American countries and in the developing world. The truth of some stories may be questioned, but they are real to the people who believe them, functioning to unite them and help them to overcome fears and restrain violence.21 This style of writing was made famous by Colombia’s Nobel Prize–winning author, Gabriel García Márquez, in his 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and in his other works. Márquez claimed that “surrealism comes from the reality of Latin America.” Today, some promoters of Colombian tourism have recast the term as a brand, “Colombia, Magical Realism,” to attract visitors from abroad.22
Blanca never mentioned the dream to anyone because she was sure no one would believe her.
* * *
The Bogotá household was always packed with relatives, among them the brothers’ aunt Maria Teresa, their mother’s younger sister. She and her daughter, Gloria Andrea, were two of the eight residents in the brothers’ childhood household and lived with them until the boys left home. Maria Teresa recalled that Luz’s doctor felt her sister’s rapidly thickening abdomen during an early prenatal exam and detected two heartbeats. He pronounced the twins identical, although how he reached that conclusion without an ultrasound is unknown. As a twin herself, Luz was pleased but concerned about the financial burdens posed by multiple birth babies. Of course, she delivered identical twins, but brought home a “fraternal” pair. That explains why Maria Teresa “went crazy” when she saw the photographs of the mismatched twins. She cried along with her neighbors, who had known her two nephews since they were infants.
Looking back, some seemingly innocuous observations assumed new meaning. Maria Teresa had entertained the children when they were young, tickling them and making them laugh, but Carlos was more reserved than the other two, neither playful nor participatory. He was just different, playing more with his cousin Gloria Andrea than with his siblings. Then there was the stuffed toy cow named Angélica María that Luz had brought home for her children. Diana, then twelve, and Jorge, eight, loved it, with Jorge becoming Angélica’s voice so the toy could speak to them. But his brother didn’t like such games; he preferred to play school, with his sister as the teacher and he as her student.
According to Maria Teresa, when the twins got older, Carlos was a serious student and stylish dresser, whereas Jorge was a somewhat more relaxed pupil and casual dresser. Their athletic preferences and musical choices also diverged—Carlos liked basketball and rap, Jorge liked football and rock. “They were not typical twins,” she said. The differences between them, while pronounced, are not unusual for fraternal twins, because genetic factors influence personality, sense of humor, sports participation, and musical interests.23 The stuffed cow toy did not hold the same appeal for both brothers, nor did the game of basketball. Everyone responds differently to the things around them, filtered through their own genetic lens. Still, the brothers had some common traits—both were interested in school and in eventually getting advanced degrees, although to different extents. Their mother’s firm hand and strong support helped both of them along, but she probably had to lean harder on Jorge.
Like her sister Blanca Cecilia, Maria Teresa had also had a dream.
How would Luz have reacted to news of the exchange? Apparently, she had a temper, so she would have tried hard to find the nurse responsible for the switch. And she would have done everything in her power to be with William, but she would never have abandoned Carlos.
* * *
Aware that Jorge and Carlos’s friends had teased them terribly about their differences, I wondered how their friends reacted to the news that they weren’t twins after all. One evening, on the spur of the moment, I rounded up two of Jorge’s best friends, Andres and Ricardo, and invited them to my hotel for beer and snacks. This was in July 2016, during my second visit to Bogotá, so the friends had had nearly two years to reflect on how they had reacted to news of the switch, what it meant to Jorge, and how it had affected him.
Long before the switch was known, Jorge, Andres, and Ricardo had formed an exclusive triumvirate that they call the Trio Miseria (the Miserable Three), a chat group that they use for exchanging personal news, stories, ideas, and jokes. The three also take trips together throughout Colombia and Brazil and have supported each other through girlfriend breakups, family deaths, and financial crises. Both Andres and Ricardo hold Jorge in high esteem for his generosity, support, and ability to find solutions to his problems and theirs. His chronic tardiness makes their eyes roll and their hands clench, but they put up with it because they value his friendship so tremendously.
Andres Sanchez Torres was the first to arrive. He is a warm, friendly guy who eats and drinks with great gusto, which made me wonder whether I had enough salami, cheese, and brew to last the night. He and Jorge have known each other for eight years, ever since they took a drafting class together, and they display the kind of easiness and familiarity with one another that comes from their long history of shared experiences.
At first, Andres thought that Jorge’s crazy tale of the twin switch was just that, nothing more than a silly joke. Andres, a project analyst, was busy at work when Jorge’s message, marked IMPORTANT, showed up on his computer screen, announcing that “our family has grown.” Andres instantly thought that Jorge had had another child, exactly what Aunt Leonor had assumed when she heard those same words from Carlos. Next, Andres examined the Facebook photos and profiles of Jorge and William to which Jorge had directed him. Then he called Jorge. “Come on, don’t fuck around!” Andres shouted, knowing his friend was a perennial prankster. Andres was certain that Jorge had used Photoshop to create an identical image of himself or had set up a fake Facebook page, but when he saw the pictures of Carlos and Wilber, “it went from being just a story to being something.” At first Andres wondered if there might merely be lots of look-alike people in Colombia or maybe in the rest of the world. But he knows Jorge well enough to know when he is being serious, and Andres came to understand that there was a real possibility that Jorge had an identical twin brother, William, who had been switched at birth with another infant.
It was crazy.
Jorge had invited Andres to come with him to Lourdes Plaza that night for the twins’ first meeting, but Andres couldn’t go because he had a test in one of his university classes. “I think I failed my quiz because I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Andres said.
* * *
Ricardo Andres Rincón Castro is tall and lean, with big eyeglasses, a mustache, and a trimmed beard, and exudes a more thoughtful and serious demeanor than Andres. A part-time project manager and part-time engineering student, he had logged on to the Trio Miseria chat site when he saw the message flagged as important and assumed it was something personal, having to do with Jorge’s family, maybe his son, Santi. “Why can’t Jorge be more specific?” Ricardo wondered. Jorge had also directed him to Facebook, and when Ricardo came across the photos of the two accidental brothers, he correctly figured out that Jorge and William, not Jorge and Carlos, were the real twins—but it took Ricardo a few extra minutes to realize that Carlos also had an identical twin who had grown up somewhere else. Feeling shocked and overwhelmed, Ricardo was eager to meet William and to support his friend, but Ricardo had to miss the reunion because of his uncle’s fiftieth birthday celebration.
After more beers, meat, and cheese, Andres and Ricardo started a lively discussion of the behavioral similarities and differences between their old friend, Jorge, and his new twin brother, William, whom they had gotten to know. Politeness and kindness led the similarities list, followed by fondness for injecting humor into most situations, even serious ones. But when they go clubbing, the twins’ differences become apparent. William is outgoing, but less so than his twin, displaying a quieter version of Jorge’s social spark. Jorge is quicker to approach pretty women, but they say that William is a better dancer and can be found more frequently on the dance floor. (I have danced with both twins myself and found them to be equally adept in this area. In fact, twin studies show that physical skills and athletic performance are substantially affected by genetic factors.)24 William is fond of traditional Colombian country music, whereas Jorge is fanático about hard rock, especially that of Iron Maiden. And, of course, their different accents reveal their different backgrounds, although William speaks more clearly and less rapidly than his other family members. Above all, both twins are expressive about anything they love, such as William’s seeing the ocean for the first time on a trip to Cartagena, when his unabashed joy turned him into a little kid, bursting with glee.
When the two are together, Jorge does most of the talking, leaving William to read his text messages or walk away. This might strike some people as selfish or unfair, but the twins say they are content with this arrangement, which reflects trust and comfort on both sides. Not surprisingly, William speaks up a lot more when he is not with his identical twin, which often makes it hard to remember which twin you are talking to. It is often the case that when identical twins are apart, they seem more alike than when they are together. In fact, a 1962 study reported the same paradoxical finding, that identical twins reared apart are more alike in extroversion (assertiveness, gregariousness) and neuroticism (anxiousness, moodiness) than identical twins reared together. It may be that because reared-apart twins have not had a lifelong relationship with one another, they can express themselves more freely and similarly away from the influence of the other, when they have less need to distinguish themselves. William and Jorge have many traits in common, such as kindness, thoughtfulness, and leadership, and they may have expressed these so clearly because they were raised apart. Recent twin research has not replicated the finding of greater personality similarity in reared-apart than reared-together twins, perhaps because these studies have used different inventories and questionnaires.25 However, anyone who knows identical twins can sense the subtle behavioral changes that surface when they are apart or together.
There is little question that the twins’ drastically different rearing environments created some differences between them, such as William’s greater trust in people and Jorge’s constant vigilance. People in remote rural towns know everyone for miles around, not just because their families have deep roots, but because they need companionship, resources, and assistance. In contrast, city dwellers move around, live in closed-off apartments, lock their doors, and watch out for assailants—recall that Jorge chose to meet William near a police station.
* * *
Several weeks after the twins first met, they rented a hall for friends and relatives from both families to meet the switched twins for the first time. One person present who was not part of either family commented that there were no moments of sadness, only joy. Jorge and William dressed alike, whereas Carlos and Wilber did not. Hilarity followed initial confusion when people mistook William for Jorge and thought that Carlos was Wilber. People were dancing and hugging amid the bright balloons that were everywhere.
But unreasonable expectations, tough challenges, and unsettled questions resurfaced once the party ended. For one, Carlos could not instantly become Ana’s son, despite the love she promised him. When he was first introduced to his biological parents, Carlos said how nice it was to meet them, but his words were not completely heartfelt. The parent-child bond grows out of years of caring and companionship, and Carlos had lost his beloved mother to cancer five years earlier, when she was fifty-seven and he was just twenty. He needed to wait and see, taking baby steps toward establishing a meaningful parent-child relationship so long past due. William had to confront his lost educational and professional opportunities, aware that his difficult farming and military life had really belonged to someone else. Everyone wanted to know how the switch had happened. It would not have made a difference, but it might have provided some closure. And all four twins had to get used to calling someone else’s twin brother his own.
Jorge’s friends, Andres and Ricardo, increased their social capital through their association with him after the twins’ story became known—their prospective dating partners were impressed that they knew a person as famous as Jorge. However, fame brought a dark side when Ana and Carmelo’s home was robbed in the summer of 2016. Masked thieves carrying weapons stole cell phones and attacked their grandson, and one robber warned the couple not to come after them because they all knew each other. Wilber believes his family was targeted because people in their town had seen the twins ferried around in expensive cars by the foreign TV producers who eventually found their way to the twins and their story. Consequently, neighbors assumed that the family was rich, and even Ana’s doctor told her she no longer needed national health insurance because she could pay for medical care herself. This robbery was the first anyone can remember, either in La Paz or in the towns nearby. Ana and Carmelo are no longer comfortable talking about the twins’ opportunities outside their four walls.
* * *
All four twins are amazed that their lives have attracted so much attention—so it is worth thinking about why their story has captivated the world. I believe that identical twins are intriguing because the sight of two people who look and act so much alike challenges our beliefs in individual differences. And people often envy the ease with which most identical twins develop mutual love and trust. Therefore, when parents cannot keep identical twins, their adoption by different families strikes us as wrong and unfair. But the Colombian twins were accidentally switched, and the exchange involved two identical twin pairs, the odds of which are impossible to calculate. Furthermore, two twins had to meet for the truth to become known, raising the odds even higher. And the right sequence of events had to unfold—if Wilber rather than William had been working at the butcher shop the day Laura walked in to buy barbeque meat, the twins might never have met—because Laura knew Jorge, but she did not know Carlos, Wilber’s identical twin. The seemingly minor occurrences that happen in our lives can have profound consequences.
Meeting the Families: A Celebration—of Sorts
Wilber and Carlos climbed the stairs to Wilber and William’s apartment, where their parents were waiting. Wilber en
tered first, then turned to Carlos and said, “These are my parents—and these are your parents.” Carmelo, wearing his best suit, stood up, put his hand on his new son’s neck, and hugged him, the first time Carlos ever experienced genuine fatherly affection. Ana covered her face because she was crying, then reached for her son’s hand. She asked God to bless her precious son and to be with him every day. He gently asked her not to cry, saying that such things come from God. Ana, Carmelo, and Carlos held their heads close together.
William entered next, followed by Jorge. William then introduced his parents to his brother. The rewriting of relationships was staggering.
Several days after Ana learned the truth, she arranged and paid for a special church mass commemorating Luz Marina, William’s biological mother and the mother she now knew had cared so well for her son Carlos. All four twins were with her at the service in Bogotá. In her heart Ana felt Luz’s presence and prayed that God would keep her in peace. Ana was grateful for all Luz had done so selflessly to make sure that Carlos would grow up to be a fine young man. Ana received some wise words from the priest who led the service: to keep conversations going with all four young men, and she has.
Accidental Brothers Page 15