Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry

“Oh dear,” Nigel said, noticing the cake. “What happened there?”

“Hey, now,” said Phil, “don’t disrespect the cake.” He took a picture of it with his phone-“for the archives.”

Felicity lit the candles. Everyone clustered round Robert who stood looking self-consciously pleased as they sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Valentina sang and felt as though she’d known all these people for years: Phil with his leather trench coat and tattoos; George with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his baritone voice, a pencil sketch of a gravestone loosely held in his graphite-smudged hands; Edward who reminded Valentina of a leading man in an old black-and-white movie, dignified in his suit and tie, singing with his hands clasped in front of him, as though he were in church; Thomas and Matthew in their high boots and braces smiling as they sang; Nigel sad-faced as though the singing was a very solemn task which might have unpleasant consequences; Felicity kind and clear-voiced; Jessica and James singing breathily like overblown flutes-all singing together, Happy birthday, happy birthday to you. At the end of the song Robert closed his eyes and wished just to be happy again and blew out all the candles but one. There was a murmur of not-quite-concern in the group, then he took another breath and finished off the last candle. Applause, laughter. Robert cut the cake and gave Valentina the first piece. She held the paper plate in one hand and the plastic fork in the other, and watched him hand out slices. Felicity poured tea into the cemetery’s motley collection of mugs and china cups. Robert ate a bite of cake; the grey icing tasted just like any other colour. He glanced at Valentina and found her staring at him, solemn and silent in the midst of the conviviality. Suddenly Valentina smiled and he felt lighthearted: the past seemed to dissipate and it was all about the future now. Robert walked over to Valentina and they stood side by side, eating cake, happily quiet together amid the humming birthday party. It’s going to be all right, he thought.

Jessica watched them. She looks so much like Elspeth, she thought. It’s quite unnerving. She thought of the couple she had just met, the young parents. They had leaned into each other as they went out through the cemetery’s gate as though confronting a strong wind imperceptible to anyone else. Robert and Valentina were not touching at all but Jessica was reminded of that leaning together. He seems happy enough. She sighed and sipped her tea. Perhaps it will be all right.

E LSPETH WAS working with dust. She couldn’t think why she had not understood before the communicative powers of dust. It was light and she could move it easily; it was the ideal medium for messages.

When the twins first arrived in the flat, Julia had idly run her finger across the dust on the piano, leaving a shiny trail. It had been bothering Elspeth, and she had begun to laboriously put the dust back, to erase Julia’s thoughtless defacement, when she realised that she had stumbled across what amounted to a tabula rasa . Dust was a megaphone that could amplify her distress call. She was so excited that she immediately went to her drawer to think over the possibilities.

What to say, now that she finally had the chance? “ Help, I’m dead.” No, they can’t do anything about that. It’s better not to seem too pathetic. But I don’t want to frighten them. I want them to know it’s me, not a trick. She thought of Robert. She could write to him; he would know she was here.

The next morning was Sunday. It was raining and the front room was suffused with an even, feeble light. Elspeth floated above the piano. If she had been visible to anyone, she would have appeared as only a face and a right hand.

The twins were in the dining room, lingering over coffee and the remains of toast and jam. Elspeth could hear their amiable, desultory conversation, the midmorning debate over what manner of amusements to pursue today. She shut them out and concentrated on the dull dusty expanse before her.

Elspeth placed a tentative fingertip on the piano. She recalled reading somewhere that household dust was largely comprised of shed human skin cells. So perhaps I’m writing with bits of my former body. The dust gave way, soft particles yielding as she traced a shiny path. She exulted in the ease of it; she took care with her writing, so that Robert must know it as hers. She spent almost an hour writing a few lines. The twins had gone out by the time she was finished. Elspeth hummed and hovered over her work, admiring the flourish of her signature, the exactness of her punctuation. With great effort she switched on the floor lamp she had once used to illuminate sheet music. They can’t miss that, she crowed, and took a celebratory flight around the flat, shooting through doors and skimming ceilings. She managed to drop a lump of sugar on the Kitten’s head as it slept on a chair partially tucked under the dining-room table. What a glorious morning!

Robert spent the day, which happened to be May Day, at the entrance to the Eastern Cemetery pointing a great many people, most of them Chinese, towards Karl Marx’s grave. That evening he sat at his desk, exhausted. He stared at his computer and tried to work out what it was exactly that irritated him so about Chapter III. There was something wrong with the tone of the thing: it was a rollicking, almost jolly chapter about cholera and typhoid. It wouldn’t do. He couldn’t fathom why epidemics had once seemed so delightful.

He was highlighting all the essential bits in red when he heard someone banging on his door.

Both twins stood in the front hall looking solemn. “Come upstairs,” said Valentina.

“What’s wrong?”

“We have to show you something.”

Julia followed Valentina and Robert upstairs. She was conscious of feeling hopeful.

The flat was blazing with light. The twins escorted Robert to the piano and stepped back. He saw Elspeth’s handwriting:

GREETINGS, VALENTINA AND JULIA-

I AM HERE.

LOVE, ELSPETH

and:

ROBERT-22 JUNE 1992-E

Robert stood there, blank-minded. He put his hand out to touch the writing but Valentina caught his wrist. “What does it mean? The date?” asked Julia.

“It’s something…only she and I would know.”

Valentina said, “She turned on that lamp.”

“What happened that day?” said Julia.

Valentina said, “The writing looks just like Mom’s.”

“What happened-”

“It’s private, okay? It’s between Elspeth and me.” Robert spoke sharply. The twins looked at each other and sat down on the sofa, hands folded. Robert read and reread the message. He thought about that first day: he stood in the front garden, taking down the estate agent’s number off the To Let sign. Elspeth was looking down at him through her front windows. She was waving and he’d waved back; she disappeared and came almost immediately-she must have run down the stairs. She was wearing a white sundress; she had her hair pulled back with a clip. She wore those cheap rubber sandals- What were those called? They flapped at the bottoms of her feet as she went ahead of him up the steps, into the flat. It was completely empty, that day, his flat. She took him through it but they talked about other things. What had they said to each other? He could not recall. He remembered only following her, the way the sundress revealed the wings of her back, the delicate vertebral knobs that vanished into the trough of her spine, the zipper of the dress, the tight waist and the full skirt. She had a slight tan that summer. Later they had gone upstairs, to her flat, and they had drunk shandy in this room and later still they had gone to her bedroom and he had unzipped that dress and it had fallen off her like a shell. She was warm under his hands. Later he rented the flat, but that afternoon he forgot why he was there, forgot everything but her bare feet, the way her hair kept escaping from the clip, her face without make-up, the way her hands moved. I’m going to fall apart, Elspeth. I can’t-I don’t know what to feel.