My schooling program became more and more rigorous over the months, as the twins were responding to it so well. They easily picked up new material and motor skills. They learned the alphabet, the days of the week, the months and seasons, their numbers up to—and even past—one hundred, the names of animals, trees, and fruit, and how to locate Toronto on the globe. The letters they traced were more and more precise and we were starting to combine them to spell words.
However, despite my best efforts, their initiation to reading had been difficult. They made no connection with the stories whatsoever. They didn’t identify with the protagonists and couldn’t understand their reactions. I tried to get them interested in hundreds of books, even turning to traditional Russian stories, thinking that they might relate to them more, without success. They paid no attention to the stories and retained nothing. They couldn’t answer a single question on any text, and didn’t seem to understand them, but I knew they were capable of more complex learning.
This strange resistance was confirmed one night when Gregory finally came home with the issue of Dwell Magazine. We were on the cover. Gregory was in a fever; he held off opening it all day, even as his colleagues lavished him with compliments. He’d waited for us to look at it together.
Ceremoniously, he made us sit on the living room sofa. He carefully opened the magazine. Our article, at seven pages long, was the main feature of the issue. Everything was perfect. Our design was captured at the best angles, our aesthetic was clearly defined and, against our magnificent decor, our family sparkled. Gregory had been right about the stripes for our clothes, which made us stand out even as we blended in with the clean lines of the design. The team of journalists who’d interviewed us had made an excellent selection of our statements. It would be a big publicity boost.
Hunched over the pages, the twins moved through the photos with their fingers as though to read the subtitles of the illustrations. But no story seemed to materialize for them in the pictures.
“Is that me?” asked Daniil, pointing to a picture of his brother.
I smiled. “No, my love. That’s you,” I said, sliding his finger to his own image.
Vanya shot a look at his brother from the corner of his eye, and both of them, in one voice, countered me with a cold, conclusive, “No.”
They’d already lost interest in me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them. How did they see themselves? As one person? They turned the pages of the magazine roughly, as Gregory tried to make them focus on certain photos. A thought stopped me that turned my blood to ice. They didn’t see themselves as one person; they saw themselves as the other. Daniil identified as Vanya, and Vanya as Daniil. I leapt from the chair and ran to get a mirror in the bathroom. I held it briskly out to Daniil.
“Who’s that?”
The twins had let go of the magazine, but still didn’t respond. Gregory didn’t understand what I was doing.
“Daniil, who’s that in the mirror?”
I held his shoulder so he could concentrate. He backed up and pressed against his brother.
“Daniil! Answer me!”
“Come on, Emma, what’s wrong with you? You’re scaring him.”
“Let me do this, Gregory, it’s important. Daniil, look here: who’s the little boy in the mirror?”
He curled up in a ball with Vanya, their two bodies forming a compact shell. I couldn’t get through.
“What are you trying to prove, Emma?”
“I… I thought they had mixed themselves up…” I said, catching my breath.
“But that’s normal, Emma, they’re twins. Babies don’t even recognize themselves in the mirror.”
“Yes, but they’re nearly three years old… And it’s not even as though they look that much alike…”
They were still locked together, staring stonily at me, white-lipped.
Gregory was so impressed by the boys’ progress that he overlooked their eccentricities. From a scholarly point of view, it’s true that they were advanced for their age, and Gregory took every opportunity to brag about it at the firm.
“Philip thinks they’re gifted, like his daughter. That would explain their social difficulties. Those children often have a hard time integrating, because they’re superior to the others.”
The idea that my boys were exceptional filled me with fierce pride. From that point on, I looked at them differently, feeling almost intimidated by their intelligence. Well beyond the little exercises I made them complete, they seemed to understand the world in a unique way.
Their intelligence, however, had its shortcomings. It was still difficult to leave them alone without supervision, even for a moment. I lived in constant fear of an accident. I had one eye on them at all times. At home and outside, I didn’t stray more than a few metres from them. When I showered or went to the bathroom I left the door open so that I could hear what they were doing. The rule was that they weren’t allowed to leave the floor of the house I was on, which they generally respected.
One day when they were about four years old, I was in the bathroom, door open, even though I was on my period. I turned to reach the drawer where I keep the tampons and when I turned back, I found the two of them standing in the doorway, watching me intensely.
“Boys, leave mommy alone, I’m on the toilet. I’m almost finished.”
They didn’t budge, and just kept staring.
