Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry

Julia looked at Edie and relented. She walked into the dressing room in her underwear and began taking things off their hangers, tossing them at the bed.

Elspeth heard Edie and Julia talking. She came out of her drawer and slowly made her way to the bedroom. She kept Valentina cupped in her hands. Yesterday Elspeth had stayed away from everyone. All night she had bargained with herself, confused and defensive. I’ll never see her again. She’ll be unhinged. I don’t want to see her. It’s my fault. She’s here and I should see her. If she knew she would never forgive me. Coward, coward. Murderer. Valentina had seemed to catch her mood and became subdued, a little sad apprehensive cloud wrapped in Elspeth’s dark musings. Now Elspeth crept towards the bedroom in a chastened state of mind.

Edie and Julia stood on opposite sides of the bed, flipping through a pile of clothing. Oh…there you are. Elspeth stood in the doorway, staring. Valentina became brighter, seemed to beat like a heart. Oh, you. What happened? How could this have happened to you? The last time she had seen her twin, it was 1984 and they were sobbing in each other’s arms at Heathrow, the babies in a double pram beside them. Twenty-one years later and here we are…You’re so different. Older, but there’s something else; harder. What is it? What happened? Elspeth stared and thought, He didn’t take care of you; you had to take care of yourself. No one loved you the way I did. If we’d been together…Oh, Elspeth.

She slunk around the edge of the room. Julia looked right at her and became still, watching. Can you see me, Julia? Or is it Valentina? Elspeth sat down on the window seat and tried to efface herself. Valentina twisted and throbbed in her hands. Julia walked over to where Elspeth sat and put a hand out, towards Valentina. Valentina stilled as Julia touched her. Julia closed her eyes. “Mouse?”

“What are you doing?” asked Edie. Julia stood at the window with one hand extended. “Julia?”

“She’s here!” Julia said, and burst into tears.

“What? No, Julia…here, come here.” Edie went to Julia and held her. Jack appeared in the doorway and Elspeth was shocked; he was so much older, softer; domesticated. Edie looked at Jack over Julia’s shoulder and shook her head slightly. He withdrew. Elspeth heard him walking through the flat and down the stairs. He’s gone to have a smoke, she thought. She watched Julia and Edie. Julia had stopped crying. They embraced, swaying back and forth slightly. Elspeth was envious. Then she was ashamed. She’s their mother. It doesn’t matter. It’s too late to fix anything. Things that had once seemed important now revealed themselves as idiotic. We thought we were so clever. We were stupid. We bollixed it all up. Elspeth wondered if she could put things right again. If Valentina came back; if the twins went home? She would make Valentina go with Julia. She would sacrifice everything. All this sadness for nothing. She got up and left the room. She felt a kind of yearning, then realised that it was Valentina’s; Valentina wanted to stay, wanted to be with Julia and Edie. Sorry. I can’t bear to watch them any more. You have to come with me. Elspeth went to the office windows and looked out without seeing, clasping her writhing daughter to her chest.

Robert answered the knock at his door, expecting to see Julia. Instead it was Jack.

“I hope you don’t mind. I’ve been shooed out and thought maybe…”

He doesn’t want to be alone, Robert realised. “Right, of course. Come in.” Robert had been sitting at his desk, staring at his enormous manuscript. Anything was better than being alone. He led Jack to the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Jameson’s?”

“Yeah. The last.”

Robert put out two glasses, and the bottle. “Water? Ice?”

“Yes, and no, thanks.” Robert ran some water into a carafe and put it in front of Jack. They sat across from each other. The kitchen seemed strangely cheerful, sun-bleached and empty. Jack wondered if anyone in this building had any food. Robert saw him looking at the bare cupboards. “I haven’t felt much like eating. I could make toast, though, if you’d care for any?”

“Sure. There’s no food upstairs. Julia looks gaunt.”

Robert didn’t reply but got up and began to make the toast. He opened the fridge and set out a jar of marmalade and a jar of Marmite. Then he sat at the table. Jack leaned back in his chair. The chairs were of the small fifties metal and vinyl variety. Robert wondered if the chair would fold up under Jack’s bulk. He got up again and fetched cutlery.

Jack said, “I wonder if I could ask you a kind of personal question?”

Robert made a noncommittal sound and sat down.

“You were Elspeth’s…?” Boyfriend? Significant other? What do they call an unmarried lover here?

“Yes.” I was Elspeth’s. Creature is the word you’re groping for. The toast popped up violently and startled them both. Robert put three pieces on Jack’s plate and one on his own. He handed the plate to Jack. There was a pause while they each spread marmalade on toast. Neither of them spoke until Jack had finished his toast. Robert handed him the fourth, untouched piece. Jack thought, He seems very detached. Robert thought, I’m going to be sick.

Jack poured himself a few fingers of whisky and added water. He began again. “Did Elspeth ever tell you what happened between her and Edie?”

Robert shook his head. That’s not what I expected, mate. “Not while she was alive. She left me all her personal papers, and in the papers were her diaries. And a letter to me, explaining some things.”

“Ah. I don’t suppose you’d let me look at any of it? The letter, maybe?”

“Erm, you’ve seen Elspeth’s will. She most particularly did not want you or her sister to have access to any of her papers.”

“Uh-huh.” Jack ate the last piece of toast. Robert watched him. Jack said, “I really just need the answer to one question. I know everything else.”

“What’s that, then?”

“ Why did they do it?”

Robert said nothing.

Jack said, “I would like to know the point of this whole-stupid game we’ve been playing all these years. Because, as far as I can tell, nobody was fooled, but for some reason we all have to go on pretending we don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Don’t you know about the switch?”

“I do, but according to Elspeth you don’t.”

“But she knew I knew. I mean, pregnancy really changed her body-apparently Edie was the only one who didn’t realise…Maybe this was all some weird thing Elspeth was doing to Edie? Look, I know you can’t tell me anything,” Jack said. “But what if I tell you the situation as I understand it? And you can just, you know, elevate your eyebrow a little when you hear something that makes sense. Could we do that?”

“All right.”

“Okay.” Jack sipped the whisky. “I don’t drink at this hour. Usually.”

“No. I don’t either.” Until recently. Robert poured some whisky for himself. He thought the smell might turn his stomach, but it didn’t. He drank, cautiously. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

“So,” said Jack, “it’s 1983. Edie and Elspeth Noblin live together in a little flat in Hammersmith, in bohemian squalor and at great expense to their mother. The twins are recently down from Oxford, and I am working at the London branch of the bank I still work for. I am engaged to the woman we both know as Edie, but who back then was known as Elspeth. I’ll stick to calling them by their current names, to avoid confusion.”