The Solitary Twin

by Harry Mathews

  “So that’s a sampling of my books, just to give you an idea of what I’ve done professionally. Which brings me to the possible collaboration between us that I mentioned when we first met. I can tell from the way you and your brother lead your lives that generating publicity is the last thing you want. All the same, your behavior, the rapport between you, is a unique phenomenon that I think deserves serious examination — your superficial similarity, which given your genetic identity is no surprise, and your utter independence from one another, which is a colossal surprise. Clearly this paradox is the consequence of thoughtful choice on your part. How did it come about? How does it work? Why are you both living in this small, out-of-the-way place? I haven’t a clue how to answer these questions. I wouldn’t dream of speculating about them, and I’m decidedly not interested in the opinions of self-appointed experts. But what I long to see, what I hope and pray I may someday see, is what you and John have to tell us — my dearest hope of all is that you, Paul, will write an account of what has happened. You could do that in any way you choose — you could even use aliases if you had to, anything at all provided there is an autobiography of the two of you —”

  At this point Paul, in his agitation, spilled a quantity of ale onto his chinos. Andreas later told Berenice, “He gave me a look so ugly it broke out the sweat on me as though I’d been running. I stared at him and felt I was looking into an abandoned mine shaft.”

  Paul snapped, “It’s out of the question.” “OK. I understand. I do, truly, understand. Please, though, try to think of what I said in a simpler form. Think of it as something, just conceivably, not impossible. No more than that, for now — just: not impossible.”

  “It’s impossible.” Paul stood up as if to leave. Berenice: “We’ll talk about something else. Have some more ale at least, to make up for the spillage.”

  “No. No, thank you. And thank you for the feast. I’m afraid you’ve cast your bread before swine.”

  6

  As prologue to their next evening, Geoffrey and Margot had a surprise for their friends. Captain Kipper, the chief of the town’s police force, and Sergeant Kerr, whom Geoffrey described as the Captain’s right-hand man, had been invited for cocktails so they could meet Berenice and Andreas. With them they observed a notable caution in their conversation, probably a professional reflex. The Captain did his best to play the cut-and-dried officer of no particular age and color (he was a hale forty-five and of a florid complexion), with a vaguely Scottish accent and, in his adopted role, about as emotional as a bagpipe. Berenice quickly detected a softness behind this assumed impersonality. The Sergeant rarely spoke and then usually to support an opinion of his superior’s.

  These roles were much in evidence when Margot mentioned the “notorious Wicheria,” who she’d heard was a friend of the unlikely twins that so fascinated their neighbors. Captain Kipper intervened at once: “The Twins are a fascinating subject, but I have to say that Wicheria does not deserve the epithet ‘notorious.’ She strikes a lively figure in our apparently settled community, but she is a very decent person. I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you what she knows about John and Paul — may I suggest to her that you’d like to meet her? You do agree with me, Sergeant Kerr, that there would be no harm in that?” “Absolutely none, sir,” the Sergeant quietly replied. The Captain: “Well then, it’s as good as done.” Margot and Geoffrey had invited the two policemen for this very purpose; it had been accomplished a little too quickly to bring the meeting to an end. Margot poured another round of whisky, and Andreas obligingly asked Captain Kipper about crime, and his pursuit of crime, in what seemed such a peaceable town. The Captain: “You’re right about that, sir —,” “Andreas, please.” “Very well, Andreas. You’re right about that. Isn’t he, Sergeant?” “Right on, sir.”

  “There are scuffles outside the watering holes on Saturday nights. There is one hopelessly clumsy pickpocket on the loose — we can’t lock him up because, first of all, he can’t hold his liquor, which is what triggers his thieving urge; so that, second, we always know who’s responsible when a bungled pickpocketing is reported; and lastly, his reputable family would go into mourning if they learned of his arrest. So we detain him until he’s sober, then send him home. We’ve never had a murder or a rape (forgive me, ma’am) or even a bank robbery, which is ridiculous — there are three banks in town, all of them sitting ducks. We’ve lately had new kinds of crime, though: money-laundering and such (our bankers are dullards) — I’ve had to hire an accountant and a former hacker (homegrown, I’m proud to say) to help me with these. It’s a pleasantly quiet assignment, Andreas, I have to admit; somehow I don’t think it will lead to significant advancement. What do you think, Sergeant?” “I think, sir, that sooner or later you will be tapped for the position you deserve.”

  Andreas asked a few more questions; the Captain gave him Wicheria’s phone number and email address; the policemen finished their drinks, thanked their host and hostess, and departed. The four friends sat down to dinner, after which Geoffrey proposed to tell his story.

  “Like Berenice’s, my story concerns a man, one very unlike hers. I met him on a long flight from Sydney to Zurich. The airline was Pan Am, still surviving in the early eighties, after its first rough spell. It had kept its upper deck reserved entirely for business-class passengers, at least those smart enough to request it. It felt like a kind of club. It was there I found myself seated between the spacious aisle and Malachi — Malachi is the name of the ‘messenger’ who closed the prophetical Canon of the Old Testament. We struck up a conversation that, as often happens between strangers who meet outside their usual circuits, quickly became intimate; and so Malachi told me about his singular life.

  “His parents had brought him to Belgium when they left Poland in the early months of 1939, as soon as the Nazis began growling about Danzig — they knew all too well what might happen to them. They made the mistake of settling in Antwerp, where the large Jewish community helped them get started in the diamond trade. Most of its members, together with Malachi’s parents, were arrested by the Gestapo and its Belgian auxiliaries during the summer and fall of 1942; they were sent to Dossin, a detention and transportation camp; the majority of its inmates were shipped off to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  “Malachi had been out shopping for fresh herring at the time of his parents’ arrest. He had the sense to take refuge with a Christian family whose sons were friends at public school. Their father helped him obtain identity papers under a new name. To avoid attracting attention by dropping out of school in mid term, he waited until Christmas vacation to leave. The school board certified a medical explanation for his departure.

  “He was thirteen years old when he voluntarily began his life as an orphan on the streets. This experience, he told me, taught him all he needed to know about business. He peddled whatever he could find, working the pathetic appeal of his age for all it was worth. His first breakthrough came when he forced his way into a warehouse stocked with jerry cans full of gasoline. He was able to spend six days lugging all he could into a storeroom he’d rented. (He’d wheedled a shopkeeper down to a ridiculously low price: two jerry cans sold paid a month’s rent.)

  “When the steady increase in the price of gasoline started flattening, Malachi sold his remaining stock and bought a supply of hard-to-find foodstuffs on the black market; and long before truffles, oranges, and corned beef lost their exotic attraction, he had shifted into real estate, renovating abandoned apartments that he sold or rented through the first house-poor postwar years; and thus, success following success, he climbed the hierarchy of profitable commodities. He finally transformed a business in consignment clothing into a brilliant ersatz of high fashion, cornering the trade of a new class of aspiring women, and this earned him enough money to pay his way to Canada, a useful step toward gaining entry to the United States, the mecca of ‘hardened entrepreneurs’ like himself. His plan worked. Two years later he had reached Bosto
n, which he soon left for the temperate climate of Miami.

  “While still in Antwerp, he had introduced himself to the reconstituted Jewish community; and he had made many friends there and, even better, admirers: they heralded his arrival in Toronto with effective recommendations; similar ones eased his advent in Boston; when he appeared in Miami, he was wreathed with the honor of having survived the Shoah and with the prestige of a businessman who had demonstrated how Jewish courage, intelligence, and chutzpah could overcome dismaying obstacles. The Jewish financial community in Miami welcomed him with a sympathy that Malachi’s wit and youth (he had then just turned twenty-three) transformed into an informal consensus of support. He was provided with an accurate survey of business possibilities where he might exercise his talents; more remarkably, he was assured of a guarantee of bank loans that would give him a satisfactory measure of independence in choosing and managing his ventures. Malachi demonstrated his gratitude by remitting whatever capital he had saved to the members of the unofficial consortium that was promoting his career; and when the vouched-for loans came through, he willingly signed promissory notes that bound him to their early repayment.

  “However, he did not listen to his benefactors when deciding on his next enterprise. They foresaw him entering new fields that held a prospect of imaginative development, like transistors, or ceramic materials for machinery. Instead, Malachi opted for a very conventional business: a Ford concession selling cars and trucks, in the relatively drab community at the edge of Coral Gables, more precisely on the corner of Red Road and 41st Street. The automobile industry’s future, already none too promising, was further jeopardized in 1973 by the first oil shock and the mini-recession that followed. Malachi turned this crisis to his advantage, buying the business for less than its lowest estimate. He also justified his decision to his backers with his past record: ‘Believe me, I know how to sell. I made a pile hustling so-called pâté de foie gras to Belgians who’d naturally never even heard of it.’

  “He showed what he meant with a novel promotional stratagem he invented. He used a second loan to buy a controlling interest in a local TV channel that was about to go out of business. Its programming consisted of regional news, weather forecasts, and extensive reports on neighborhood sports teams; the channel made its small profits from advertisers in Miami-Dade County.

  “Malachi programmed an ad for his Ford concession at 9 p.m. on Sunday evenings. It began conventionally enough, with Malachi himself conducting a quick tour of his sales rooms and repair shop, which he’d had minimally spruced up, concluding with a list of his advantageously priced models. At exactly two minutes and thirty seconds into this routine commercial, viewers were without warning or explanation confronted with the opening episode of a serial that they would learn (if they listened carefully) was called The Medical Wars of Metro-Dade County. Many viewers surely assumed there had been a technical glitch and would have probably turned off their sets if what they were watching hadn’t been so baffling; and those who continued were treated to a second surprise when, after exactly four minutes and fifteen seconds, the episode was abruptly broken off to reveal the malicious face of Malachi smiling out from his array of glistening Fords. He reassured his audience that the story it had been watching would be resumed on the second Sunday of the following month. The first episode would be repeated on the intervening Sundays for viewers hoping to spot clues to the mystery that they’d missed at the first showing. Any spectator too impatient to wait for the next episode would be welcome to pay a visit to the Ford offices at the corner of Red Road and 41st Street during working hours; there Malachi himself would be happy to answer all and any questions.

  “Some viewers were puzzled enough to take up Malachi’s offer — not many, not right away; but after a few weeks their number passed the hundred mark.

  “Malachi had intuitively identified a basic, hard-wired impulse: the desire to resolve the irresolute, to conclude the incomplete, to have the crooked made straight; and (surprise, surprise!) he had located in syntax a nexus of this desire as strong as that in melodrama. Malachi knew that where love is not yet fulfilled or disaster looms, a situation can be left dangling at the end of an episode as yet undecided. Logically the worst must happen; but there rises in the viewer an insidious hope that the story will challenge improbability and outwit it. Near the end of the episode that was shown, when a man leans forward into the shadows, a narrative voice-over asks, ‘Will he place his lips on Mary Ann’s expectant mouth? or will he place his foot on the next step of the stairway?’ where we have seen that a gunman awaits him and where his curiosity is irresistibly drawing him. The voice continues: ‘Dr. Sean now places — ’ but the film breaks off here. It cuts back to the Ford commercial, where of course there is no hint as to how the sentence will be completed.

  “This generated instant, intense frustration. Malachi had discovered that the need to have the sentence completed, no matter how, was as strong as the resolution of psychological suspense. He proved this later, when the serial was in full production: his interruptions then concerned not only questions of love and death but ones like: which ingredient made a gumbo great? or had there been collusion in the choice of hymns and canticles in the services celebrated in Greater Miami that very Sunday? or, the following March, on a special broadcast twenty minutes before the start of the race, who would win the Widener Handicap at Hialeah? ‘Why,’ a sultry black lady confided after a three-minute-and-six-second tour of Malachi’s Ford Plaza, ‘Good Counsel, from Darby Dan Farm, Angel Cordero up.’ (It helped that the prediction turned out to be right — the winner’s odds were significantly shortened, but the canny forecast brought a large contingent of newcomers to Malachi’s doors.)

  “For the opening episode Malachi had had to work with material and technical help that was readily available: one of the low-grade serials that had come into his possession along with the TV channel, and a sound engineer who added a minimal voice-over track to the sound mix that coordinated the images on the screen with Malachi’s needs. Malachi himself supplied the voice: his still-prominent North European accent lent a suitably foreboding tint to his speech.

  “Malachi paid careful attention to the diverse elements of his neighborhood, and as his success increased, extended it further and further afield. He was partial to the young — he remembered what it was like to be one of them. He grew his blond hair shoulder-length, until at a judicious moment, he switched to a shaved skull. He sported jeans (tailor-made), Nehru shirts (ditto), and solid black cowboy boots. He liked giving tips on good buys to people his age and if necessary helping them find out ways to meet the price of the cars. He didn’t neglect the elderly, who unfailingly reminded him of his dead parents. He knew that many of them were early risers, so he convinced a crazy Hong-Kong-born Chinese-American called Adelaide Lin to lead a tai chi class on the beach twice a week. They loved him for that. He arranged a special rate at Las Delicias de España, the good eatery next door, and sent many of his Cuban visitors there. (In exchange, he requested the use of the restaurant’s space for filming occasional scenes of his serial.) He helped finance a Black-Hispanic semipro football team.

  “And so it went, with more and more people of all ages and colors crowding into Malachi’s concession. Some came for its conviviality. ‘Coral Gables Ford’ had become ‘Malachi’s Ford Plaza’ after he had purchased an adjoining parking lot. But behind Malachi’s secondary ploys lay the essential hook of the fractured serial; and to make that work, to have his clever insight become the irresistible lure that would pull in live bodies, Malachi needed efficient interpreters. (In Antwerp he had hired the best seamstresses in the city to ensure his success in the rag trade.) And here, as he was the first to admit, Malachi was abetted by rare luck.

  “One evening during the week that followed the screening of The Medical Wars of Metro-Dade County, episode 1, some business friends took him to see a show that many of the local glitterati were touting. You must re
member that in the early seventies South Beach showed no inkling of its present glamour. There were perhaps two small hotels, surrounded by boarding houses and modest dwellings to which refugees (mostly Jewish) had been guided by their American brethren. There was the beach, however, easily accessible from all parts of the city; and that pleasant setting had been chosen by a company of improvisational performance artists to put on an ‘entertainment’ every evening at sunset hour. They called themselves The Beach Buoys — a facile name, I suppose, but nothing else about them could be called facile. They were true pros, about twelve regulars — five women and seven men, of which three were gay, three bi, four straight, two undecided; sometimes there would be one or two performers more or less if friends were passing through or regulars went off on temporary gigs. Three of them were veterans of The Second City, most had worked in legitimate theater, in film or on TV, most of them could sing if asked or at least pretend to, one played a creditable tenor sax for dramatic punctuation, another an emphatically sentimental harmonica for mooning and kisses; some were brilliant mimics (but they considered doing celebrity mannerisms a last resort for getting laughs), and every last one was a formidable improviser — they’d sometimes ask for subjects or words from their audience, and off they’d go, not knowing what the others might stick them with but relishing the challenges, ready to give better than they got. They were moderately obscene in performance; off stage, not so moderate.

  “Malachi attended the Beach Buoys’ show with no more than a polite pretence of curiosity. Ten minutes after its start he knew he’d found fit executants for his project. Their first skit was a reenactment of the original moon walk, accompanied by a deconstructed ‘Penny Lane,’ with saxophonic riffs on its charming tune and fragments of its lyrics (as Neil Armstrong sets foot on lunar soil, he sings, ‘And the fireman rushes in’). Any remaining reservation on Malachi’s part vanished when the two astronauts walked into the barber shop as if still moving in a weightless world, a sight both funny and beautiful. At the end of the performance he quickly joined the disbanding troupe: he told them he was so elated by their work that he was inviting them then and there to dinner at a modest but excellent Cuban restaurant in Coral Gables — ‘superb roast suckling pig, beer, wine, and booze on demand’ — where not only would their talents be celebrated but where he planned to make them a proposal they couldn’t refuse. He gave them the address of the restaurant, which he called from a nearby phone booth with a request for the imminent arrival of a party of twenty, and be sure to put enough lechonas for that number in your capacious ovens.