The Solitary Twin
Other Books by Harry Mathews
fiction
The Conversions • Tlooth • Country Cooking and Other Stories The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium • Cigarettes Singular Pleasures • The American Experience • The Journalist Sainte Catherine • The Human Country: New and Collected Stories My Life in CIA
poetry
The Ring: Poems 1956–1969 • The Planisphere • Trial Impressions Le Savoir des rois • Armenian Papers: Poems 1954–1984 Out of Bounds • A Mid-Season Sky: Poems 1954–1991 Alphabet Gourmand (with Paul Fournel) • The New Tourism
miscellanies
Selected Declarations of Dependence • The Way Home Écrits Français
nonfiction & criticism
The Orchard: A Remembrance of Georges Perec • 20 Lines a Day Immeasurable Distances • Giandomenico Tiepolo Oulipo Compendium (with Alastair Brotchie) The Case of the Persevering Maltese: Collected Essays
for Ann Beattie
1
Berenice Tinker says, “When wine is to your taste, it has a becoming effect on you. You shine through your reticence,” to which Andreas Boeyens replies, “You’re modest, darling. It isn’t the wine.” “Thank you for your recent attentions; but I’m talking about something real, like a measurable physical effect.” “See what I mean?” “Please, no slick flick dialogue. Do you not drink sourpuss martinis to ‘mortify a taste for vintages’?” “Then no quality-lite bites either.” “If you insist.”
Later that evening, Berenice: “I garbled my thought. I told you I met John today. He lectured me sweetly about feelings for so long I lost touch with what the word means, at least until you unforeseeably slid into my bed. Actually not so unforeseeably, I’ve since realized.” “The hots at first sight?” “Happily so. However, I once saw a picture of you with your sister in a gossip mag. We are decidedly the same type.” “You are nothing like my sister. You are absorbingly new to me.” “Maybe. A feeling, perhaps?” “And have you seen my anticipatory sibling?” “I wondered. No brother. But your hair is the color of the gigantic poodle that belonged to Uncle Dom. When I was still an infant, it used to make me weep tears of terror whenever we visited him. As you approached, your lovely ginger hair filled me with darkest emotion. That must do for the time being.” “Charming! Sweet John, really! Just what else did he say to you?”
Berenice and Andreas, too foolish to sense the truth, were blessed with something of utmost price: a happiness beyond what either of them had ever imagined. They were sitting in Berenice’s house above the town. A strange town. For years it had survived as an extenuated fishing village of immemorial origin. Then, in the 1870s, it had started building itself deliberately (if inexplicably) into a settlement many times its size, in accordance (no less inexplicably) with a layout evoking the frugal plans of medieval towns more than the optimistic spreads of the late nineteenth century. Houses, shops, an inn, a market place, two churches, two bars, and a few public eateries were bonded together in a cluster occupying less than seventeen acres. Around the top of this area ran a road that proved as solid a barrier as any town wall of old: there was never any question of expanding beyond it, fair as the land there became, and free of danger. The coast of the bay mainly displayed jagged outcroppings of laminated schist; inland rose hills of soft-green vegetation punctuated occasionally with stands of beech, maple, and feathery conifers. A few hundred yards from the town one came upon large houses, often faced with yellow brick and fitted with multiple windows, whose purpose, one guessed, was to allow their occupants to feast their eyes on the green space around them, a prospect that even the best-appointed houses of the mother-town could never provide. It was one of these pleasant dwellings that Berenice had rented two days after her arrival.
Berenice: “You must realize that my hypothesis reflects a professional weakness, a penchant for cracking open every nut for study. This was only the first squeeze of the nut cracker. The next one may reveal, if not a chief jewel, at least something more acceptable to you. John said nothing to suggest the hair of the dog. He wanted to persuade me that feelings are our only reality . . .” “How delicious!” “. . . our only currency. Speaking our feelings and not what we think we ought to say is our only way of speaking truthfully. He quoted some poet (I’m not breaking my promise, just reporting his words), ‘And I see in flashes / what you already said, / that our feelings are our facts’.” Andreas groaned. Berenice: “What’s the harm in that? John hasn’t an ounce of malice in him.” “Your word is my rule.” “What about Paul? You mentioned finding him?”
“At last! I’d gone for a ramble through the fish markets, which were gleaming with fresh catch and crowded with buyers and flaneurs, even though it was early on a Sunday morning. I recognized Paul at once — I recognized a twin. He was standing among a small group of locals gathered around a steaming pot half as big as an oil drum, from which a vendor was spooning out small blobs that his customers swallowed with relish. I could not identify them until I was close by: baby octopuses boiled in their broth. I ate two. To no one in particular I offered to provide a bottle of white wine to complete our pleasure. There was a murmur of assent. I soon returned from the nearest hostelry with a bottle of muscadet and half a dozen glasses. After identifying ourselves, Paul went off to buy himself a pint of McEwan’s (he told me he had no liking for wine), and I went with him. I insisted on paying for his beer; it was a welcome occasion to introduce myself. I told him I had been hoping to meet him since I had arrived. I would explain why later; this was perhaps not the moment to be talking business.”
Berenice: “What is your business? At least your business with him?” “It’s true you know nothing about me except what my sister looks like. I had a chance to tell Paul, but I wasted it. I did hear a lot about his business. No sooner had I mentioned that my interest in him was professional than he took me firmly in hand. He turned us away from our little group and the glittering heaps of fish and led me to the docks nearby, where he put me (unquestioned and unquestioning — he correctly assumed that I knew he dealt in textiles) aboard a fifteen-foot, square-sterned skiff powered by an outboard motor. It bore us efficiently to the little island six hundred yards out in the bay — you’ve undoubtedly noticed it. On the way, Paul told me that on his journey here he had found himself in the company of two men from the Levant, a father and son named Mehmed and Ahmet; they had long lived in communities of spinners and weavers, they had even worked with a master rugmaker. ‘Meeting them seemed like a stroke of luck, and I’ve always taken my luck seriously. I told them of my trade and offered them the option of coming to work for me if they needed jobs. They did. You are about to see them in action.’
“Paul was beginning to interest me in ways I hadn’t foreseen. I can’t say I liked him. He made no effort to be likeable, but forthrightness isn’t necessarily a fault. Approaching the island, I saw that there were no buildings except for one large wooden structure — his ‘modest factory.’ Paul explained that he had converted it from what used to be a fisherman’s refuge-cum-depot. He had done this work immaculately, as was evident even in the little yard that preceded the factory proper. Any ravages of time and random visitors had been expunged. Inside, the walls had been neatly repainted, and the various machines placed in a way that allowed easy access to them and left the overall space uncrowded and almost elegant, clearly a labor of love, and of some underlying commitment to the perfectibility of work. In the second room Mehmed and Ahmet were busy at their tasks, so busy that Paul refrained from interrupting them. Aside from one rapid glance, concentrated on what they were doing, they paid no attention to us anyway.
“Paul immediately began explaining their purpose in what soon bec
ame mind-numbing detail. A preparatory cloth had already been made from two different kinds of fleece washed and mordanted with madder, weld, and pomegranate skins and combined into denser fabric than either wool could form alone. Ahmet had cut this colored cloth into ornamental shapes that he then laid on the floor on mats of appropriate size assembled from local reeds, onto which Mehmed, using a forked cherry-wood tool called a cubuk, was now tossing clumps of carded wool with prodigious accuracy. Paul then launched into a description of what would happen subsequently, but this I will spare you. In fact I spared myself as much of it as I decently could, pretexting an appointment in town that I thought was invention but which became real enough soon after Paul had returned me to shore (a providential east wind made further talk impossible): meeting you. I’m happy to have been in time for that. There you were, standing out of the wind in the shade of your parasol, I walked up to you as though I’d known you forever, the woman I’d longed for since the dawn of time.”
2
John and Paul were also visitors to the town. They were twins, as identical as can be. They wore the same clothes, chino trousers and open-neck sweaters, in John’s case adorned with a faded maroon neckerchief. Both were addicted to the shellfish harvested year-round from the rocks and sands of the coast: little clams, winkles, cockles, crabs, and above all sea urchins — their dessert, as both said. They drank only McEwan’s India pale ale and smoked the same thin black Brazilian cigars. They drove identical cars, beige postwar Dyna-Panhards from France, indistinguishable except by their license plates. Neither ventured out late in the evening: they were hard workers, Paul at his island factory, John off long before dawn as mate on a fishing boat, where he earned good wages and an enviable reputation. Each had taken lodgings in rather shabby boarding houses. Each read the International Herald Tribune, sent by mail; never — at least in public — a book of any sort. Their intonation and accent afforded no key to their identities, although they said very different things. The only clues were John’s neckerchief and his occasional wearing of wire-rimmed reading glasses.
Their boarding houses lay far apart, at opposite sides of the town. John attended the Methodist church, Paul the Roman Catholic. They drank their pale ale at different bars. They were in fact never seen together and apparently avoided all commerce with one another. This puzzled but did not disturb the native inhabitants — “an odd story” was the general remark on their relationship, or the lack of one. John and Paul had been accepted on their own terms by the community: John being accounted the more genial of the two, Paul’s tendency to gruffness excused as a sign of seriousness; and, of course, his bringing his small industry to the town counted in his favor.
“Won’t you tell me, Andreas, what you think of them? For starters, what is your secretive business with Paul?” “There’s nothing secretive about it — it’s simply that the subject never came up before. I’ve never mentioned my politics either, or my favorite books or operas. Between sweet love-making and sweet sleep (at least speaking for myself) . . .” “Yes, that is a trait of perfect manliness!” “. . . we’ve had little enough time for conversation. So I shall tell you now: I am by profession a publisher, a very modest one, where I am the sole editor, my only employee being a secretary — more an indentured servant, but I overwork her in the kindest way and make up in attentiveness and sympathy for her minute wages. I regret not making more than a sufficient but careful living. No best sellers, which is a shame. No: it isn’t. My joy is in publishing books I like, and I know that’s a lucky privilege in my line of work.
“When I heard about John and Paul, I thought that theirs was a story that should be told; best of all by them. Not the story of their similarities — fascinating enough but no surprise to anyone the least bit familiar with the lore of identical twins — but the story of their obstinate separation from one another, something hardly imaginable. Ideally, an account by each of them would be the best, but I realized that initiating such a project would inevitably make me an actor in their relationship, whether for good or bad — it has become almost a scientific cliché that one cannot ‘objectively’ evaluate a question without modifying its givens, something I earnestly hope to avoid. So it would have to be one or the other who told the tale, at least initially; and from all I was able to glean about their temperaments, Paul struck me as the better choice. I was afraid John’s reputedly generous nature would tinge with sentiment whatever might be dark and difficult in their relation; whereas Paul’s openly stubborn, bluff drive had something of a juggernaut in it, meaning less caution and more frankness in his account. What I saw of him today seemed to confirm my intuition. We’ll see. I’m here in any case to try and convince him to write his version of events. It should be a great occasion if he accepts.”
“Thank you. I heartily agree. Now I must tell you at once that I too came here because of them, although with no purpose as practical as yours. As you may have guessed, I am a professional psychologist, of the behaviorist school. I study and teach how and why people do what they do independently of their feelings and will. It’s not only genetics. Think of my uncle’s ginger poodle.” (If Andreas let the reference pass without a smile, it was also without irritation.) “The behavior of identical twins has long exerted a fascination on those in my profession — and, darling Andreas, I must confess that I am hopelessly fascinated by people’s behavior, and not only in my work — I go around peering at the habitants of our world and at every step my scientific precautions desert me.
“And these two! They’re not conducting themselves the way they’re supposed to! When I first read about identical twins, perhaps in the same journals you did, impetuous curiosity, and a desire to observe and, if I could, know them, started worrying my brain and my nerves. Why this compulsive separation of two lives that are in agreement about virtually everything? Can they be happy? If not, why did they both settle in the same distant little town? What might I do for them if ever they confided in me? (I admit to that unlikely dream.) So I’m here for no reason but the impression — a distant impression — gleaned or more likely fantasized from anonymous gray printed matter. And I expect that in the end there will be nothing to show for this expense of enthusiasm. Except you.”
“I do hope and pray that ‘we’ last. How did you meet John? You’re half way, let me point out, to realizing your first wish.”
“On my way into town I stopped at a café just past the upper road. It’s in a run-down neighborhood, which sets it off effectively — its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, its general cleanliness and gaiety of note. It is pleasantly run. It offers acceptable wines and good coffee, of which I was drinking a cup when John unexpectedly accosted me and asked if he could sit for a moment at my table. Of course I said yes, trying not to show my pleasure. He spoke to me most gently, at first asking me obvious questions: When had I arrived here? How long was I planning to stay? I suspect he is attracted to older women. (I spoke of you as soon as I could tactfully do so.) We soon went on to less obvious matters, a conversation that after half an hour or so led to his eulogy of feelings, remember? To which he may have been helped by the wine we were by then drinking. I liked him extremely and am glad to think he liked me too. I made no mention of Paul. Next time, perhaps.”
“Congratulations! My feelings are: singly we may know only one of them, together we know them both. It’s a start. What wine were you drinking?” “Sardinian Vermentino.” “Excellent. What do we do now? I thought of dropping a note at Paul’s lodgings and asking him to have dinner with me, or with us, as you think best.” “Shall I ask John to join us?” “Given what we know of them, he’ll surely refuse. In time maybe, when they know us better.” “I suppose you’re right. By the way, the Hydes have asked us to dine with them tomorrow evening. We’ll see what they have to say about our young men.” “I fear I know all to well what they’ll say. In the meantime I suggest that we draw up a list of subjects — books, politics, and so forth — to start filling in
the blanks of what we don’t know about one another.” “If you like. I must say I think it’s a silly plan. Whenever I’m asked such questions — say, what books do I like? — I invariably forget the Brontës. Furthermore, it’s a way of sowing the seeds of potential discord. If you’re a royalist and I’m a communist — well, we must swear never to argue.” “I swear it will never matter to me. Are you a communist?” “Not at the moment. I’m simply a slave of Eros.” “Please don’t get over it. Do you know the song, ‘Love is sweeping the country’?” “I’m adding it to my favorites, if songs appear as a category on your list of blanks.”
3
Geoffrey Hyde was saying, “Certainly there’s something odd behind the twins’ relationship, but I can’t begin to imagine what.”
Berenice and Andreas had walked the half mile to the Hydes’ house. On their previous visit they had found the front door locked, without bell or knocker. This time it lay invitingly open, and they had walked straight in to a cheerful welcome from their hosts. They were now at table, enjoying the main course: baked fish, locally called hunting horn, white-fleshed and strong-flavored, garnished simply with salt, pepper, and olive oil. With it they drank a chilled aligoté burgundy from the Côte Chalonnaise.
To Andreas’s ears, Geoffrey’s comment on the twins only echoed the town’s opinion. Margot shook her head rather somberly and half demurred: “I find their behavior more than a little upsetting.” Berenice asked, “Because it was such a scare?” “Oh no, not a scare. The way they made places for themselves in the community was so natural and, well, elegant. Hardly scary. It’s the utter unlikeliness of their attitude towards one another that bothers me — saddens me, actually.” “Have you come to know them at all?” “Not really. Geoffrey sees Paul from time to time in his position as the town’s economic supervisor — what is your official title, dear? I’m never sure of getting it right.” “‘Mercantile Assessor for the Borough.’ It dates from an earlier age.” Andreas: “And when you assume your function, how are you to be addressed? Mr. Assessor? Mr. Mercantile Assessor? Mr. Mercantile Assessor for the Borough?” “Geoffrey usually, frequently Jeff.” “I mean,” Margot continued, “they never even communicate, or not in any detectable way.” “That’s not quite true, Margot. They do share one very visible companion, who might well act as a go-between.”
The Solitary Twin Page 1
