Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry

Jessica sat in her chair, watching the room lighten. I was right, she thought. I was quite right. When it was day she got up and made tea. Preoccupied, tired, she spilled the milk and thought, That’s an omen. Or a metaphor. She shook her head. What shall we do now?

M ARTIN WAS stumped. He had been working all afternoon on a cryptic crossword in celebration of Carl Linnaeus’ three hundredth birthday, but the clues wouldn’t come to him and the thing felt inelegant and lumpen. Martin stood up and stretched.

Someone knocked. He said, “Yes?” and turned towards the door. “Oh, Julia. Come in.”

“No,” she said, stepping into the room, “I’m Valentina. Julia’s sister.”

“Oh!” Martin was delighted. “At last! Such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for coming-would you like some tea?”

“No, I-I can’t stay. I just came to tell you-you know the vitamins Julia’s been giving you?”

“Yes?”

She took a breath. “They-aren’t really vitamins. They’re a drug called Anafranil.”

Martin said gently, “I know, my dear. But thank you for coming to tell me.”

Valentina said, “You knew?”

“It’s printed on each capsule. And I’ve taken Anafranil before, so I know what it looks like.”

Valentina smiled. “Does Julia know you know?”

Martin smiled back at her. “I’m not entirely sure. I think perhaps we shouldn’t mention this conversation to her, just in case.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to.”

“Then I won’t either.”

She turned to go and Martin said, “Are you sure you won’t stay?”

“No-I can’t.”

“Come back, then, any time you like.”

Valentina said, “Okay. Thank you.” He heard her steps receding as she walked through the maze of boxes, and then she was gone.

R OBERT THOUGHT afterwards that it had been like watching ballet.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Elspeth did not want Valentina to say yes. She wanted to pause in this moment before, before whatever was about to happen, before temptation, before disaster, before Elspeth had to do the thing she did not want to do.

Robert watched Valentina. She stood quite still. He wondered if he should open a window; the weather was still unseasonably cold for June, but who knew how long her body would lie there until Julia returned? The light was waning rapidly; crows were calling to each other in the cemetery. Julia was upstairs. Valentina closed her eyes. She stood at the foot of the bed, one hand curled around the bedrail. Her other hand clenched and unclenched around her inhaler. She opened her eyes. Robert stood only a few feet away. Elspeth sat in the window seat, elbows on knees, head in hands, her face tilted at an angle that denoted contemplative sadness. Valentina watched Elspeth and felt a spasm of doubt.

Robert hesitated, then stepped towards her. Valentina put her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his shirt.

She wondered if the button of the shirt was imprinting itself on her cheek, and whether it would stay that way once she was dead. He did not kiss her. She thought it might be because Elspeth was there.

“I’m ready,” she said. She stepped back, into the middle of the bedroom rug, and took a puff from her inhaler. Elspeth thought, How insubstantial she already looks, just a shadow in this dim light.

Robert retreated to the doorway. He could not articulate his feelings at all: he waited for something to happen. He did not believe that it would happen; he did not want it to happen. Don’t, Elspeth-

Valentina closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Robert, who seemed far away; Valentina thought of her parents watching her and Julia move through the security line at O’Hare the day they’d left Chicago. Intense cold permeated her body. Elspeth moved through her, simply stepped into her; it reminded Valentina of looking at old stereoscope pictures, trying to bring the images together. I will die of cold. She felt herself seized, detached, taken. “Oh!” An interval of nothing. Then she was hovering close over her body, which lay collapsed on the floor. Ah- Elspeth knelt beside the body, looking up at her. “Come here, sweet,” Elspeth said. She sounds kind of like Mom. That’s so weird. She tried to go to Elspeth, but found that she could not move. Elspeth understood and came up towards her, gathered her in her hands. Now Valentina was only a small thing, cupped in Elspeth’s hands like a mouse . The last thing she thought was: It’s like falling asleep…

Robert saw Valentina go slack. She fell: knees gave way, head lolled. She folded up and hit the floor with a thud and a crack. Then there was no sound in the room except his own breathing. He stood in the doorway and did not go to her because he did not know what was happening, unseen things must be happening, and he did not know what to do next. The girl, crumpled on the carpet, continued to be utterly still. Finally he walked the short distance across the room and knelt beside Valentina. She was not bleeding. He couldn’t tell if she was broken; she looked broken, but he could not touch her; she lay as she had fallen and he knew he must not touch her.

Elspeth looked down at him looking at Valentina. She could feel Valentina, heavy and smoke-like, caged in her hands. Put her back, now. Put her back while there’s some chance of it being all right… She wanted Robert to move Valentina, to straighten her limbs and compose her hands. Valentina’s head was arched back, she lay on her right side with her arms flailed out in front of her, legs tucked neatly together. Her eyes were rolled up, her mouth was open, her little teeth showed. The position of Valentina’s body seemed wrong, an insult. Elspeth wanted to touch her, but her hands were full. What now? If I let go, will she just disperse? I wish I had a little box- She thought of her drawer. Yes, I’ll put her in there. She would take Valentina with her into the drawer. They could stay there together, waiting.

Robert stood up. He left the room. He wanted to forget what he had seen, before he reached the front door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. “Elspeth?” he said. In answer there was a momentary cold touch against his cheek. “I won’t forgive you.” Silence. He imagined her behind him, resisted the urge to turn and look. He opened the door, went downstairs, stood in his kitchen drinking whisky as the light failed, waiting for Julia to come home and find the body, listening for her cry of distress.

Julia came downstairs an hour later. All the lights were off in the flat. She walked through the rooms flipping switches, calling “Mouse?” She must have gone out. “Mouse?” Maybe she’s downstairs. The flat was cold and seemed curiously empty, as though all the furniture had been replaced with optical illusions. As Julia wandered from room to room she trailed her fingers across the dining-room table, lightly touched the top of the sofa and the spines of the books, reassuring herself that everything was solid. “Elspeth?” Where is everybody?

She came to their bedroom and snapped on the light. She saw Valentina lying contorted on the floor, as though frozen in a painful dance. Julia moved slowly; she went to Valentina and sat beside her. She touched Valentina’s lips, her cheeks. She saw the inhaler clasped in Valentina’s hand and pressed her own hand to her own chest, unthinkingly.

Mouse? Valentina seemed to be trying to see above her; her eyes were rolled up and her head thrown back as though some event of extreme interest was happening right over her head. “Mouse?” Valentina did not respond.