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[7]
[8]
[9]Espeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending
machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup. Later he would
remember walking down the hospital corridor with the cup of
horrible tea in his hand, alone under the fluorescent lights,
retracing his steps to the room where Elspeth lay surrounded by
machines. She had turned her head towards the door and her eyes
were open; at first Robert thought she was conscious.
In the seconds before she died, Elspeth remembered a day last
spring when she and Robert had walked along a muddy path by the
Thames in Kew Gardens. There was a smell of rotted leaves; it had
been raining. Robert said, "We should have had kids," and Elspeth
replied, "Don't be silly, sweet." She said it out loud, in the
hospital room, but Robert wasn't there to hear.
Elspeth turned her face towards the door. She wanted to call
out, Robert, but her throat was suddenly full. She felt as
though her soul were attempting to climb out by way of her
oesophagus. She tried to cough, to let it out, but she only
gurgled. I'm drowning. Drowning in a bed...She felt
intense pressure, and then she was floating; the pain was gone and
she was looking down from the ceiling at her small wrecked
body.
Robert stood in the doorway. The tea was scalding his hand, and
he set it down on the nightstand by the bed. Dawn had begun to
change the shadows in the room from charcoal to an indeterminate
grey; otherwise everything seemed as it had been. He shut the
door.
Robert took off his round wire-rimmed glasses and his shoes. He
climbed into the bed, careful not to disturb Elspeth, and folded
himself around her. For weeks she had burned with fever, but now
her temperature was almost normal. He felt his skin warm slightly
where it touched hers. She had passed into the realm of inanimate
objects and was losing her own heat. Robert pressed his face into
the back of Elspeth's neck and breathed deeply.
Elspeth watched him from the ceiling. How familiar he was to
her, and how strange he seemed. She saw, but could not feel, his
long hands pressed into her waist -- everything about him was
elongated, his face all jaw and large upper lip; he had a slightly
beakish nose and deep-set eyes; his brown hair spilled over her
pillow. His skin was pallorous from being too long in the hospital
light. He looked so desolate, thin and enormous, spooned around her
tiny slack body; Elspeth thought of a photograph she had seen long
ago in National Geographic, a mother clutching a child
dead from starvation. Robert's white shirt was creased; there were
holes in the big toes of his socks. All the regrets and guilts and
longings of her life came over her. No, she thought. I
won't go. But she was already gone, and in a moment she was
elsewhere, scattered nothingness.
The nurse found them half an hour later. She stood quietly,
taking in the sight of the tall youngish man curled around the
slight, dead, middle-aged woman. Then she went to fetch the
orderlies.
Outside, London was waking up. Robert lay with his eyes closed,
listening to the traffic on the high street, footsteps in the
corridor. He knew that soon he would have to open his eyes, let go
of Elspeth's body, sit up, stand up, talk. Soon there would be the
future, without Elspeth. He kept his eyes shut, breathed in her
fading scent and waited.
Last Letter
The letters arrived every two weeks. They did not come to the
house. Every second Thursday, Edwina Noblin Poole drove six miles
to the Highland Park Post Office, two towns away from her home in
Lake Forest. She had a PO box there, a small one. There was never
more than one letter in it.
Usually she took the letter to Starbucks and read it while
drinking a venti decaf soy latte. She sat in a corner with her back
to the wall. Sometimes, if she was in a hurry, Edie read the letter
in her car. After she read it she drove to the parking lot behind
the hotdog stand on 2nd Street, parked next to the Dumpster and set
the letter on fire. "Why do you have a cigarette lighter in your
glove compartment?" her husband, Jack, asked her. "I'm bored with
knitting. I've taken up arson," Edie had replied. He'd let it
drop.
Jack knew this much about the letters because he paid a
detective to follow his wife. The detective had reported no
meetings, phone calls or email; no suspicious activity at all,
except the letters. The detective did not report that Edie had
taken to staring at him as she burned the letters, then grinding
the ashes into the pavement with her shoe. Once she'd given him the
Nazi salute. He had begun to dread following her.
There was something about Edwina Poole that disturbed the
detective; she was not like his other subjects. Jack had emphasised
that he was not gathering evidence for a divorce. "I just want to
know what she does," he said. "Something is...different." Edie
usually ignored the detective. She said nothing to Jack. She put up
with it, knowing that the overweight, shiny-faced man had no way of
finding her out.
The last letter arrived at the beginning of December. Edie
retrieved it from the post office and drove to the beach in Lake
Forest. She parked in the spot farthest from the road. It was a
windy, bitterly cold day. There was no snow on the sand. Lake
Michigan was brown; little waves lapped the edges of the rocks. All
the rocks had been carefully arranged to prevent erosion; the beach
resembled a stage set. The parking lot was deserted except for
Edie's Honda Accord. She kept the motor running. The detective hung
back, then sighed and pulled into a spot at the opposite end of the
parking lot.
Edie glanced at him. Must I have an audience for this?
She sat looking at the lake for a while. I could burn it
without reading it. She thought about what her life might have
been like if she had stayed in London; she could have let Jack go
back to America without her. An intense longing for her twin
overcame her, and she took the envelope out of her purse, slid her
finger under the flap and unfolded the letter.
Dearest e,
I told you I would let you know -- so here it is --
goodbye.
I try to imagine what it would feel like if it was you --
but it's impossible to conjure the world without you, even though
we've been apart so long.
I didn't leave you anything. You got to live my life. That's
enough. Instead I'm experimenting -- I've left the whole lot to the
twins. I hope they'll enjoy it.
Don't worry, it will be okay.
Say goodbye to Jack for me.
Love, despite everything,
e
Edie sat with her head lowered, waiting for tears. None came,
and she was grateful; she didn't want to cry in front of the
detective. She checked the postmark. The letter had been mailed
four days ago. She wondered who had posted it. A nurse,
perhaps.
She put the letter into her purse. There was no need to burn it
now. She would keep it for a little while. Maybe she would just
keep it. She pulled out of the parking lot. As she passed the
detective, she gave him the finger.
Driving the short distance from the beach to her house, Edie
thought of her daughters. Disastrous scenarios flitted through
Edie's mind. By the time she got home she was determined to stop
her sister's estate from passing to Julia and Valentina.
Jack came home from work and found Edie curled up on their bed
with the lights off.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Elspeth died," she told him.
"How do you know?"
She handed him the letter. He read it and felt nothing but
relief. That's all, he thought. It was only Elspeth
all along. He climbed onto his side of the bed and Edie
rearranged herself around him. Jack said, "I'm sorry, baby," and
then they said nothing. In the weeks and months to come, Jack would
regret this; Edie would not talk about her twin, would not answer
questions, would not speculate about what Elspeth might have
bequeathed to their daughters, would not say how she felt or let
him even mention Elspeth. Jack wondered, later, if Edie would have
talked to him that afternoon, if he had asked her. If he'd told her
what he knew, would she have shut him out? It hung between them,
afterwards.
But now they lay together on their bed. Edie put her head on
Jack's chest and listened to his heart beating. "Don't worry,
it will be okay."...I don't think I can do this. I thought I would
see you again. Why didn't I go to you? Why did you tell me not to
come? How did we let this happen? Jack put his arms around
her. Was it worth it? Edie could not speak.
They heard the twins come in the front door. Edie disentangled
herself, stood up. She had not been crying, but she went to the
bathroom and washed her face anyway. "Not a word," she said to Jack
as she combed her hair.
"Why not?"
"Because."
"Okay." Their eyes met in the dresser mirror. She went out, and
he heard her say, "How was school?" in a perfectly normal voice.
Julia said, "Useless." Valentina said, "You haven't started
dinner?" and Edie replied, "I thought we might go to Southgate for
pizza." Jack sat on the bed feeling heavy and tired. As usual, he
wasn't sure what was what, but at least he knew what he was having
for dinner.
Excerpted from HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY © Copyright 2011 by
Audrey Niffenegger. Reprinted with permission by Scribner. All
rights reserved.
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Her Fearful Symmetry