Her Fearful Symmetry

Robert watched Valentina. She stood quite still. He wondered if he should open a window; the weather was still unseasonably cold for June, but who knew how long her body would lie there until Julia returned? The light was waning rapidly; crows were calling to each other in the cemetery. Julia was upstairs. Valentina closed her eyes. She stood at the foot of the bed, one hand curled around the bedrail. Her other hand clenched and unclenched around her inhaler. She opened her eyes. Robert stood only a few feet away. Elspeth sat in the window seat, elbows on knees, head in hands, her face tilted at an angle that denoted contemplative sadness. Valentina watched Elspeth and felt a spasm of doubt.

Robert hesitated, then stepped towards her. Valentina put her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his shirt.

She wondered if the button of the shirt was imprinting itself on her cheek, and whether it would stay that way once she was dead. He did not kiss her. She thought it might be because Elspeth was there.

“I’m ready,” she said. She stepped back, into the middle of the bedroom rug, and took a puff from her inhaler. Elspeth thought, How insubstantial she already looks, just a shadow in this dim light.

Robert retreated to the doorway. He could not articulate his feelings at all: he waited for something to happen. He did not believe that it would happen; he did not want it to happen. Don’t, Elspeth-

Valentina closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Robert, who seemed far away; Valentina thought of her parents watching her and Julia move through the security line at O’Hare the day they’d left Chicago. Intense cold permeated her body. Elspeth moved through her, simply stepped into her; it reminded Valentina of looking at old stereoscope pictures, trying to bring the images together. I will die of cold. She felt herself seized, detached, taken. “Oh!” An interval of nothing. Then she was hovering close over her body, which lay collapsed on the floor. Ah- Elspeth knelt beside the body, looking up at her. “Come here, sweet,” Elspeth said. She sounds kind of like Mom. That’s so weird. She tried to go to Elspeth, but found that she could not move. Elspeth understood and came up towards her, gathered her in her hands. Now Valentina was only a small thing, cupped in Elspeth’s hands like a mouse. The last thing she thought was: It’s like falling asleep…

Robert saw Valentina go slack. She fell: knees gave way, head lolled. She folded up and hit the floor with a thud and a crack. Then there was no sound in the room except his own breathing. He stood in the doorway and did not go to her because he did not know what was happening, unseen things must be happening, and he did not know what to do next. The girl, crumpled on the carpet, continued to be utterly still. Finally he walked the short distance across the room and knelt beside Valentina. She was not bleeding. He couldn’t tell if she was broken; she looked broken, but he could not touch her; she lay as she had fallen and he knew he must not touch her.

Elspeth looked down at him looking at Valentina. She could feel Valentina, heavy and smoke-like, caged in her hands. Put her back, now. Put her back while there’s some chance of it being all right… She wanted Robert to move Valentina, to straighten her limbs and compose her hands. Valentina’s head was arched back, she lay on her right side with her arms flailed out in front of her, legs tucked neatly together. Her eyes were rolled up, her mouth was open, her little teeth showed. The position of Valentina’s body seemed wrong, an insult. Elspeth wanted to touch her, but her hands were full. What now? If I let go, will she just disperse? I wish I had a little box- She thought of her drawer. Yes, I’ll put her in there. She would take Valentina with her into the drawer. They could stay there together, waiting.

Robert stood up. He left the room. He wanted to forget what he had seen, before he reached the front door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. “Elspeth?” he said. In answer there was a momentary cold touch against his cheek. “I won’t forgive you.” Silence. He imagined her behind him, resisted the urge to turn and look. He opened the door, went downstairs, stood in his kitchen drinking whisky as the light failed, waiting for Julia to come home and find the body, listening for her cry of distress.

Julia came downstairs an hour later. All the lights were off in the flat. She walked through the rooms flipping switches, calling “Mouse?” She must have gone out. “Mouse?” Maybe she’s downstairs. The flat was cold and seemed curiously empty, as though all the furniture had been replaced with optical illusions. As Julia wandered from room to room she trailed her fingers across the dining-room table, lightly touched the top of the sofa and the spines of the books, reassuring herself that everything was solid. “Elspeth?” Where is everybody?

She came to their bedroom and snapped on the light. She saw Valentina lying contorted on the floor, as though frozen in a painful dance. Julia moved slowly; she went to Valentina and sat beside her. She touched Valentina’s lips, her cheeks. She saw the inhaler clasped in Valentina’s hand and pressed her own hand to her own chest, unthinkingly.

Mouse? Valentina seemed to be trying to see above her; her eyes were rolled up and her head thrown back as though some event of extreme interest was happening right over her head. “Mouse?” Valentina did not respond.

Julia whimpered. She felt cold on her face and hit out at it wildly. “Fuck you, Elspeth! Fuck off! Where is she? Where is she?” Then she began to wail.

Elspeth sat on the floor with Julia. She watched as Julia clutched Valentina in her arms and keened over her body. I never wanted to do it, Julia. She thought about her own twin, about the phone call someone would have to make to her, soon. Elspeth knew, watching Julia, that nothing would ever be right again. It’s my fault, all of it. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.

Elspeth and Valentina stayed in the drawer together while Valentina’s body was confirmed dead by paramedics, then certified dead of natural causes by the doctor she had seen at the hospital, and removed from the flat by Sebastian, while Julia cried and Robert phoned Edie and Jack. There were hours of stillness, light, dark.

Robert had a long talk with Sebastian that resulted in mutual tension. “I can understand that you don’t want her embalmed,” Sebastian said. “I can understand why you don’t want me to set her features; that’s fine. But why on earth do you want me to shoot her up with heparin?”

“It’s an anticoagulant.”

“I know that. But you aren’t having her cryogenically preserved.”

“Not exactly. But we’d like the coffin packed with ice, please.” “Robert!” “Humour me, Sebastian. And please keep her in cold-storage as much as possible.”

“Why? Robert, I don’t like this.”

“It’s nothing like that…”

Sebastian regarded him sceptically. “I’m sorry, Robert. But either tell me exactly what you’ve got in mind, or find someone else to do it.”

Robert said, “You won’t believe me; it sounds crazy. It is crazy.” Sebastian said nothing. Robert took a deep breath and tried to organise his thoughts. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“As it happens,” Sebastian said softly, “I do. I’ve had some-interesting experiences. But I seem to recall that you don’t-believe in ghosts.”

“I’ve been forced to reconsider.” Robert told Sebastian about Elspeth. He omitted any mention of a plan; he told Sebastian that Elspeth had caught Valentina’s spirit when she died, and now she was going to put it back into Valentina and bring her back to life.

Sebastian had a number of objections. (“Why didn’t Elspeth just revive her right away?” was the most formidable, and Robert could only say that he didn’t know.) In the end Sebastian agreed to do his best to keep Valentina cold; he also agreed to say nothing to the family, in case the attempt did not succeed. But even so, Robert went away wondering if Sebastian might be calling Jessica, or the police, the moment he was out of sight.

The next morning Edie and Jack arrived.

Standing at his window, Robert watched them walking up the front path. They disappeared into the building and he heard them treading the stairs. Elspeth’s ban on Jack and Edie entering her flat was inappropriate now. Robert wondered what Elspeth was doing; he wanted to drink himself to distraction, to die; anything would be preferable to meeting Valentina’s parents. He had agreed to go with them to the funeral parlour.

In the cab they hardly spoke. Robert could not look at Edie. She was unbearably like Elspeth; the only significant difference was her Americanised speech. Julia was dazed. She sat next to her father, leaning her head on his shoulder. Edie began to cry quietly. Jack put his arm around Edie and looked at Robert, stricken. Robert was sitting in the fold-down seat opposite the three of them. He kept his eyes on Jack’s shoes for the rest of the ride.

When they arrived at the funeral parlour Sebastian was waiting for them. He took Edie and Jack to view Valentina’s body. Robert and Julia sat in Sebastian’s office.

“How are you?” Robert asked her.

“Peachy,” Julia said, not looking at him.

Sebastian returned with Edie and Jack. He began to carefully lay out the procedures and options, the prices for interment and cremation, the various certificates and signatures that would be needed. Robert listened with what he hoped was an impassive expression. He had forgotten that Valentina’s parents might have their own ideas about her remains, and that Sebastian was required by law to explain all their choices. Robert’s heart was racing. What if they decide to cremate her?

Edie said, “We want to take her home-Jack’s family has a plot in the Lake Forest Cemetery. It’s right on Lake Michigan. We were thinking we’d like to bury her there.”

Sebastian nodded and began to explain how to go about shipping a body by air. Robert thought, Well, that’s it, then. I tried and I failed. It was out of his hands now.

Curiously, it was Julia who saved the situation. “No!” she said. Everyone looked at her. “I want her here.”

“But Julia-” said Edie.

“But it’s not your decision-” Jack said at the same time.

Julia shook her head. “She wanted to be buried in Highgate Cemetery.” Julia looked at Robert. “She said so.”

Robert said, “That’s true.”