Her Fearful Symmetry

THE TWINS found virginity burdensome, each in her own way.

Julia had experimented some. In high school she had let boys kiss and/or fondle her in cars, in the bedrooms of friends’ parents at parties when those parents were out of town, once in a ladies’ room at Navy Pier, and several times on the doorstep of Jack and Edie’s unimpressive ranch house, which she always wished was a gigantic Victorian with a porch so she could sit with the boy in a porch swing and eat ice cream and they could lick it off each other’s lips while Valentina spied on them from the darkened living room. But there was no porch, and the kisses were as lacklustre as the house.

Julia remembered fending off boys on the beach, behind the shelter in West Park after ice skating, in a music-practice room at the high school. She remembered each boy’s reaction, the various shadings of confusion and anger. “Well, why d’ya come in here, then?” the boy in the practice room had asked her, and she had no answer.

What did she want? What was it she imagined these boys could do to her? And why did she always stop them before they could do it?

Valentina was more sought after, and not as proficient at saying no. During the twins’ teen years it was Valentina who was singled out by the quiet boys, and by the boys who thought of themselves as nascent rock stars. While Julia chose boys who weren’t interested in her and then chased them, Valentina dreamily ignored them all and won hearts. She was always surprised when the boy who sat behind her in algebra declared his love as she unchained her bike; when the editor of the school paper asked her to the prom.

“You should let them come to you,” Valentina said, when Julia complained about the discrepancy. But Julia was impatient, and cared about being passed over. These things are fatal to romance, especially if a more indifferent version of yourself is nearby.

Sex was interesting to Valentina, but the individual boys she might have had sex with were not. When she focused her attention on a boy, that boy always seemed to her unfinished, dull, absurd. She was used to the profound intimacy of her life with Julia, and she did not know that a cloud of hope and wild illusion is required to begin a relationship. Valentina was like the veteran of a long marriage who has forgotten how to flirt. The boys who followed her through the hallways of Lake Forest High School at a safe distance lost their ardour when it was met with polite bewilderment.

And so the twins had remained virgins. Julia and Valentina watched all of their high school and college friends disappear one by one into the adult world of sex, until they were the only people they knew who lingered in the world of the uninitiated. “What was it like?” they asked each friend. The answers were vague. Sex was a private joke: you had to be there.

The twins worried about virginity individually, and they worried about it together. But the most basic problem was one they never talked about: sex was something they couldn’t do together. Someone would have to go first, and then the other would be left behind. And they would each have to pick different guys, and these guys, these potential boyfriends, would want to spend time alone with one or the other; they would want to be the important person in Julia or Valentina’s life. Each boyfriend would be a crowbar, and soon there would be a gap; there would be hours in the day when Julia wouldn’t even know where Valentina was, or what she was doing, and Valentina would turn to tell Julia something and instead there would be the boyfriend, waiting to hear what she was about to say although only Julia would have understood it.

It was a delicate thing, their private world. It required absolute fidelity, and so they remained virgins, and waited.

Pearls

JULIA PRESENTED herself at Martin’s door at exactly four o’clock the next afternoon; Valentina had had an attack of shyness and refused to come. A man had arrived that morning and had begun to repair their bedroom ceiling, so Julia felt she ought to keep her promise.

Julia wore jeans and a white blouse. When Martin answered the door she was startled to see that he wore a suit and tie. He was also wearing latex surgical gloves, which made him look like a TV butler.

“Do come in,” he said. He led her through the flat to the kitchen, which was surprisingly cosy, though the windows were covered in newspaper and tape. “We always eat in here,” Martin said. “The dining room has been taken over by boxes.” He said this as though he had no idea how it had come to pass.

“You have a family?” It had not occurred to Julia that anyone might be married to this crazy person.

“Yes, I have a wife and a son. My wife is in Amsterdam and my son is up at Oxford.”

“Oh. Is she on vacation?”

“I suppose you could put it that way. I’m not really sure when she’s coming back, so I’ve been making shift for myself. Things are a little improvisational here at the moment.” Martin had set out three places at the kitchen table. Julia sat down at the one that faced the back door, in case I need to escape.

“Valentina couldn’t come. She isn’t feeling too well,” Julia said; it was sort of true.

“That’s unfortunate. Another time,” said Martin. He felt pleased with himself; he had contrived, at short notice, a very passable afternoon tea. There were fish-paste sandwiches, as well as cucumber and cress; there was a Victoria sponge cake. He had set out Marijke’s mother’s china, and there was a little jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. He thought it looked quite as nice as what Marijke would have done. “What kind of tea would you like?” he asked.

“Earl Grey?”

He pressed the button on the electric kettle and plopped a tea bag into the teapot. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be done, but one gets lazy.”

“How are you supposed to do it?”

“Oh, you warm the pot, you use loose tea…but I can’t taste the difference, and I drink a lot of tea, so the ritual has devolved somewhat.”

“Our mom uses tea bags,” Julia assured him.

“Then that must be correct,” said Martin gravely. The water boiled (he had actually boiled it a few times before Julia arrived, just to make sure the kettle was working) and Martin made tea. Soon they were both seated, drinking tea and eating sandwiches. Well-being pervaded Martin. He had not realised how much he’d missed sharing a meal with another human. Julia looked up and saw him beaming at her. He might be insane, but he’s very cheerful.

“So, um, how long have you lived here?” she asked him.

“Twenty-some years. We lived in Amsterdam when we were first married, and then we lived in St. John’s Wood. We bought this flat just before Theo was born.”

“Have you always…stayed in?”

Martin shook his head. “That’s a recent development. I used to work at the British Museum, translating ancient and classical languages. But now I work from home.”

Julia smiled. “So they bring the Rosetta Stone and all that here to you?” The twins had been to the British Museum the previous week. Julia thought of Valentina bending over Lindow Man, nearly in tears.

“No, no. I don’t often need the actual objects. They take photographs and make drawings-I use those. It’s all become so much easier now everything is digital. I suppose someday they’ll just wave the objects over the computer and it will sing the translation in Gregorian chant. But in the meantime they still need someone like me to work it out.” Martin paused, then said, rather shyly, “Do you like crossword puzzles?”

“We aren’t very good at them. Mom does the New York Times ones. She tried to teach us, but we can only do Mondays.”

“Your Aunt Elspeth was a whiz at them. I used to set special cryptics for her birthday.”

Julia wanted to ask about Elspeth, but she understood that Martin was actually inviting her to ask him about his puzzles, so to be polite she said, “You make crosswords?”

“I do. I set them for the Guardian.” Martin said this as though he were confessing to a secret identity as a superhero.

Julia arranged her face into what she hoped was an expression of appropriate awe. “Wow. We never thought of anybody making them. They just kind of appear in the paper, you know?”

“It is an underappreciated art form.” Ask her about herself; you’re monopolising the conversation. “What do you do?”

“We don’t know yet. We haven’t decided.”

Martin sipped his tea and looked at Julia quizzically. “Do you often refer to yourself in the first person plural?”

Julia frowned. “No-I mean me and Valentina. We haven’t found anything we both want to do as a profession.”

“Do you both have to do the same thing?”

“Yes!” Julia paused and reminded herself that she was talking to a stranger, not the Mouse. “I mean, we want something we can do together. So maybe we could do two slightly different jobs that fit together somehow.”

“What sorts of things do you each like to do?”