Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry

At Lauderdale House most of the conversation was provided by people who had known Valentina only slightly. Jack had gone back to Vautravers with Edie so Edie could lie down. Julia sat bewildered and silent in a small circle of young Friends of Highgate Cemetery; Phil brought her tea and sandwiches and hovered nearby, waiting to be asked for something. Finally Robert came over.

“Can I walk you back to the house?” he asked. “Or Sebastian can give you a ride, if you’d rather.”

“Okay,” she said. Robert looked at her and decided it would be best to put her in the car. Julia had switched off; her eyes were blank and she did not seem to have understood the question. He helped her extricate herself from the Friends. They walked in silence to the street and waited together while Sebastian brought the car.

“How long did it take Elspeth before she was a ghost?” Julia asked quietly, not looking at him.

“I think she must have been a ghost right away. She says she was a sort of mist for a while.”

“I thought Valentina was there, this morning. In the bedroom.” Julia shook her head. “It just felt like her.”

“Was Elspeth with her?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t see Elspeth.”

“No, I can’t either.” The car arrived. They rode up the hill in silence.

That afternoon seemed to go on and on. Robert sat at his desk, not thinking or moving. He wanted to drink, but he was afraid he’d get drunk and things would go wrong, so he sat there silently, doing nothing. Edie was asleep in the twins’ bed. Jack sat in the window seat with the curtains almost closed, listening to his wife’s soft snores and reading an American first of The Old Man and the Sea . Julia found that she could not stand to be indoors. She went and sat in the back garden, knees tucked under her chin, arms wrapped around her. Martin was practising standing near the windows. He saw Julia; he hesitated, then rapped on the window and beckoned to her. She jumped up and ran to the fire escape. He heard her thumping footsteps and unlocked the back door just as she reached it. Julia came in wordlessly and sat in one of the kitchen chairs.

“Have you eaten?” he asked her. She shook her head. He began to make a cheese sandwich. He poured her a glass of milk, set it in front of her. He turned on the stove and put the cheese sandwich in to melt.

“You’re using the stove,” Julia said.

“I decided it was okay. I had the gas company reconnect it.”

“That’s great.” She smiled. “You’re getting a lot better.”

“It’s the vitamins.” Martin searched his pockets for his lighter and cigarettes, extracted one and lit it. He sat in the other chair. “How are you? I’m sorry I didn’t come to your sister’s funeral.”

“I didn’t expect you to come.”

“Robert asked me-I went and stood on the landing, but I couldn’t go any farther.”

“Um, that’s okay.” Julia imagined Martin standing there, surrounded by newspapers, trying to walk downstairs by himself, failing.

Martin had been thinking all day of how he might persuade Julia to stay with him that night. He had plotted out various conversations, but now he blurted, “What are you doing tonight?”

Julia shrugged. “Having dinner with Mom and Dad, probably at Café Rouge. Then, I don’t know. I guess they’ll go back to their hotel.”

“Shouldn’t you go with them?”

Julia shook her head stubbornly. I’m not a child.

Martin said, “Will you come up and stay with me? I don’t think you ought to be alone.”

Julia thought of Elspeth lurking around the flat and said, “Yeah, I’d like that.” She sipped her milk. Neither of them said anything until the timer rang and Martin carefully extricated the toasted cheese sandwich from the oven, put it on a plate and set it in front of Julia. She looked at the sandwich and the milk and thought how odd it was for someone to be taking care of her for a change. Martin stubbed out his cigarette so she could eat. When she was done he cleared the dishes and said, “Would you like to play Scrabble?”

“With you? No, too humiliating.”

“Cards, then?”

Julia hesitated. “It seems weird to play anything when she’s-you know. I feel like I shouldn’t.”

Martin offered her a cigarette. She took one and he lit it for her. He said, “I think play must have been invented so we wouldn’t go mad thinking about certain things-but I have another idea: let’s have a memorial service of our own, since I missed the other one. Won’t you tell me about Valentina?”

At first he thought she wouldn’t reply. She stared at the tip of her cigarette, frowning. But then Julia began to tell Martin about Valentina, in halting words; he coaxed each story from her until the words began to create the Valentina who would now live in Julia’s mind. Julia spoke of Valentina for hours, the afternoon slipped into evening, and Martin mourned for the girl he had met only fleetingly, a few afternoons ago.

Jessica had his key, so Robert had taken Elspeth’s. The key to the door in the back-garden wall had hung, unused, in her pantry for as long as he had known her. He had taken the key to the Noblin mausoleum from Elspeth’s desk a week ago. The two keys rested with the key to the twins’ flat inside his overcoat pocket. Robert stood at his window looking out over the front garden, waiting for dark.

Julia and her parents walked up the path and through the gate, on their way to dinner. Robert thought, Now. If I don’t do it now, I won’t be able to do it at all.

He went out his back door, leaving it unlocked. Though Martin’s windows were papered over, Robert still looked up at them as he crossed the back garden. That’s odd. He’s taken down some of the newspaper. There was light in Martin’s office; all the other rooms were dark. Robert slipped through the green door, left it ajar.

The most direct way to the Noblin grave was to cut through the Circle of Lebanon and the Egyptian Avenue. He used his torch in order to go more quickly. There was a half-moon, but the trees over the Avenue made it ink black. He switched off his torch and listened. He was not afraid then. He was aware of being pleased to be in the cemetery. The only noises were the usual night noises: light traffic up and down the hill, a few insect sounds, muted in the chill of the night. Robert walked out of the Avenue and uphill to the Noblin mausoleum.

The key did not work easily. I ought to have oiled the lock. He got it to turn and swung the door open. He stepped inside the little room, put on a pair of latex surgical gloves and pulled the door almost shut behind him in case anyone came by. Though they might be more afraid of me than I of them. He knelt by Valentina’s coffin. He felt enormous and intrusive in the tiny space, like Alice grown huge with her arm up the chimney of the White Rabbit’s house. The coffin had been pushed back into its niche, so he tugged and pulled until it was out where he could work on it. There is no respectful way to do this, he thought as he took a screwdriver out of his pocket and began to unscrew the lid. It seemed to take forever. He was sweating by the time he managed to pry up the lid. It gasped as it came undone, as though he had opened an enormous jar of pickled gherkins.

Valentina’s body lay ensconced in white silk. She looks comfortable. Robert reached into the coffin with both arms and scooped Valentina up; she weighed nearly nothing. She was slightly damp from the plastic-wrapped ice Sebastian had concealed underneath her. She was pliable, though very cold. Sebastian had kept his promise: Valentina gave off no whiff of decay. Robert was not sure where to put her. He stood awkwardly, turned and put her down on the floor. He took the ice out of the coffin and threw it into the bushes, then put the screws inside the coffin and lowered the lid. He pushed the empty coffin back into its niche. Robert gathered his screwdriver, torch, looked around for any other signs of his visit, found none. He took off his overcoat and laid it on the floor. He placed Valentina’s body on the coat and wrapped her up in it. Now she was hidden.