Stuart Woods: Palindrome

Germaine looked at Liz. "Oh, Jesus, honey," she said, "what are we going to do?"

Liz spoke through her numbness and grief. "We're going to get some help," she said.

Liz sat at Germaine's desk and held the telephone, while Germaine anxiously listened in. "That's the worst story I ever heard," Dr. Douglas Hamilton said. "What have you done about it?"

"Nothing, so far," Liz said.

"Then you've done the right thing," Hamilton said. "This man has spent the past twenty years pretending to be-no, not pretending-actually being two people. It's a sort of self-induced schizophrenia, and it's very deeply ingrained. I'll wager that when he is one of the twins, he has no conscious memory of what happened when he is the other."

"That doesn't seem humanly possible," Germaine said.

"The human mind can exclude whatever it wishes, if it's well enough motivated. Your brother's guilt is such that it is unbearable, so he has excluded the memory of his twin's death, and the only way he can keep his twin alive is by living his brother's life, as well as his own."

"But how can we stop this?" Germaine demanded. "How can we help him?"

"You can't stop it, and you can only help him by continuing as before." Hamilton sighed. "Germaine, if you force him to confront reality, you will destroy him. For an identical twin, the act of killing his brother is tantamount to suicide, and the only way he could avoid that was by refusing to acknowledge it. If he is made to acknowledge it, then it's very likely that he would take his own life."

"If you saw him, could you treat him?" Liz asked.

"I doubt it; not everyone is treatable psychiatrically, you know, just as physical illness is sometimes untreatable. From what you've told me, he is successfully conducting two different, but reasonably stable existences, and only if the tissue separating those two lives is torn is he likely to show symptoms of mental illness. If that happened, and if he survived the experience, then he might be treatable, but I doubt very much if he could survive."

"How long is this likely to last?" Germaine asked.

"Until his own death frees him," Hamilton said.

"Thank you, Ham," Liz said. "We won't take any more of your time."

"Liz," Hamilton said, "I gather that you are in love with this man."

"I am," Liz replied.

"Then I had better warn you of something. I think Drummond has found a way to live with himself, and that he can go on functioning that way. But you know something he doesn't, and knowing it is likely to make life with him difficult, perhaps impossible for you.

You're never going to have more than half of him, or, at best, all of him for some of the time. And you're never going to be able to sublimate his secret, as he has; you'll have to live with it every minute. Before you decide to continue with this relationship, you'd better think hard about whether you can live with that."

"Thank you, Ham. Can I call you again sometime?"

"Any time, Liz."

She hung up the phone and turned to Germaine. "Well, Jesus," Germaine said, "this is going to be tough enough on me, but what the hell are you going to do?"

"I guess I'm going to have to find out if I can live with it," Liz said.

Liz got herself ready on the drive back to Stafford Beach Cottage, but when she arrived, Keir was not there. She curled up on the couch, exhausted, and her eye fell on something familiar on the coffee table: Angus Drummond's handwriting; her name. It was the envelope he had given her at dinner, the gift he had asked her to accept. She had left it in a pigeonhole of her desk. Keir must have put it where she would see it. Carefully, she opened the envelope and read the single sheet of paper inside. It was dated the same day as his will. LEASE. As the sole trustee of the Cumberland Island Trust, I do hereby grant a lease on that property known as Stafford Beach Cottage and five surrounding acres marked on a map in my safe, to Miss Elizabeth Barwick, for the term of her life, the lives of her spouse and/or any of her direct descendants. Should she or the last of her descendants die without issue, this lease shall revert to the Cumberland Island Trust. I do hereby direct that the Trust shall pay all of the expense of the upkeep of the exterior of said cottage and the surrounding property, upon request of the leaseholder. Further, I direct that the leaseholder be entitled to keep vehicles on the island, and be entitled to the use of the island's roads, docks, waterways and airstrip, without charge.

It was the second time that day that she had wept. Liz didn't see Keir until the following day. He arrived at the cottage late in the afternoon and looked for a drink in the kitchen. He filled a glass with ice, then filled it with bourbon. She was ready for him; she thought he looked different. "You've heard about your grandfather?"

"Yes," he said, "Germaine told me, and I wasn't ready for it. I suddenly realized that I always thought he would outlive me."

"Oddly enough," she said, "I felt the same way, he was such a vital man. Somehow, I thought of him as much younger."

"I don't think he ever got any older than about twenty-two."

"He was that young again for a few minutes before he died," Liz said, and she told him about it.

Keir chuckled. "He was pretty wild in his youth, you know."

"I didn't, but it doesn't surprise me. He did tell me that he had traveled in Europe for some years.

"Traveled isn't a strong enough word. The story in the family is that he cut a swath from London to Stockholm to Cannes to Rome to Madrid to Paris and back, with a diva on one arm and a prima ballerina on the other. Germaine told me she once found a list Grandpapa had kept of his lovers, and there were more than a hundred of them."

"Good God!"

"It makes me think I've led a sheltered life."

"Haven't we all, compared to him!"

"Did you open the envelope?"

"Yes."

"He gave you the cottage, didn't he?"

"A lifetime lease, the dear. I guess you'll have me as a neighbor." He kissed her lightly.

"That's okay with me."

"Did Germaine tell you about the will?"

"Yes," he said, and quickly changed the subject. "By the way, she asked us to the inn for dinner tonight."

Liz looked at him, amazed. "And you want to go?"

"Sure, why not?" He had shunned the inn since she had known him.

"Why not, indeed? I'd better get into something a little less informal." She looked at the cutoffs he was wearing. "How about you? You going like that, or do you think you should wear the loincloth?"

"Oh, I think the loincloth," he said. "The shorts are so dressy, and the inn is such an informal place."

An hour later they arrived at the inn. Liz snuck another look at Keir. He was wearing baggy linen trousers and an old silk shirt. "You look rather elegant," she said. "Do you know, it's the first time I've ever seen you in trousers?"

"Shhh, what will the guests think?" They climbed the front steps. "Actually, these were my father's clothes. I could manage white tie and tails, if I had to."

At the top of the steps, Liz stopped and looked up at the darkening sky. "Looks like rain," she said.

"A lot of rain, I should think," Keir replied.

There were two couples in the bar, and Germaine was pouring drinks. She looked tired, but chipper. "Evening, you two." She grinned. "What's your pleasure?"

"Bourbon all around, I think,"

Keir said. "Busy night?"

"You bet. On top of everything else, it's the first time in weeks we've been completely full. I've even got somebody in that horrible little single-a man, no less!"

"Careful, Germaine," Keir said, leaning close. "No screwing the guests."

"That's my rule, so I don't have to keep it," Germaine said slyly.

She handed Keir the drinks. "Both the Atlanta and Jacksonville papers will run an obituary tomorrow. I've made the arrangements for Monday."