Gemini

Every time 81 people are born, two of them are twins. Some of these twins are identical. Like the twin I am. And my brother. We've been asked: How does it feel to be a twin? Or: How does it feel to be twins? By everyone we ever knew, anywhere, any time. We always had a standard answer: The same as anyone else, I guess. Sometimes, they'd be insistent: But it must feel different. We had a standard answer for that, too: No, for us it's natural. We think it's different not to be a twin. This made some of them angry: You're just trying to be smart--most people aren't twins, and they're not the ones who are different, you are. When we were together. they stared at us. They always stared at us. When we were very little, we liked that. Later, we hated it. Now they don't stare anymore, because we're never together anymore. We put space between us. Miles and miles of geography. We live in two different cities.

Who's older, you or him?

Me! I'm older! He was born at three in the afternoon and I was born ten minutes before three.

He was so glad to get rid of you, he shoved you out!

Or: He was greedy even then. He wanted the whole place to himself.

Some teachers thought it was funny to make mistakes with our names. Why not? It was always good for a laugh. Now, let me see. How will I tell you apart? I can put you in the first row and your brother in the last row, but then I might forget who I put where, I mean whom I put where. Class, any suggestions?

Teacher? Why doesn't one wear a scarf around his neck every day and the other doesn't, and that way we'd always know which is which.

Class, if you keep on laughing while someone is reciting, how do you expect me to hear that person recite?

We tried getting into different classes. It couldn't be done. Everything was alphabetical. Once, one mystical time, the class list actually split between our names.

But: Oh, no. I'm sure you boys want to be together. I don't think anybody will skin me alive for putting one extra in a class this time.

That time we took a stand. Right up to the principal.

But: What's the matter with you fellows? Are you antisocial with each other or something?

How do you explain to a principal that you'd like to be in a different class than your own God-given identical twin? Especially when they've already kindly stretched a rule to keep you together?

We did what we could. For instance, we never walked to school together.

So: Where's your twin brother?

We never walked home together.

So: Why didn't you wait for him?

Clothes. After a certain age, we never dressed alike. It was nice not to have to wait around while salespeople searched their stocks for two alike (imagine, in your own house, having to look for a mark in your own clothing). But that didn't work, either. There were arguments as to who should get which color when; and if I got red last time, I got blue this time. And: What are you guys trying to do, he different? Who ever saw twins who weren't dressed alike?

Or: You guys could really work a racket. One of you stays home and the other answers the roll twice and she'll never know the difference, because there aren't two guys dressed alike anymore.

Who hasn't lived for the first pair of long pants? But long pants made us more twins than we already were. My brother had this birthmark, sort of, above his right knee. I didn't. As long as we wore short pants, you could tell us apart. But when we got our first longies....

How the heck do you expect us to tell you apart now?

Roll up your pants and prove it. Roll up the underwear, too.

Want me to get undressed in the street?

It's no fun being with someone when you don't know who it is.

And always, of course, there was: Do it like your brother did it. Or else: Don't do it like your brother did it.

We had the best luck with our friends. Our close friendships were with different people, we didn't share our friends; perhaps it was the only freedom, the only individuality we ever had. We never even heard the word "identity" until we were much older.

Well, what's past is prolog. they say.

End of prolog.

• • •

I met Joan at a party. She was a redhead, a natural redhead, I found out later, and she was very feminine, she glowed with femininity, and yet she had this almost masculine directness that I admired. I went to the party looking for someone like Joan. I've been looking for someone like Joan all my life, and there she was. It sounds corny when I say it, but from the first moment I saw her, I knew I would love her to the day I die.

She had these big green eyes in this pale, milk-white face, a real redhead sort of face, the skin so vulnerable one touch of the sun would burn it. And all this red, red hair, a mass of it, a wilderness of it, crashing down her shoulders like a waterfall of molten copper. Finely chiseled features, delicately modeled nostrils. Small bones. But, with all this delicacy, a refreshing, big, almost raucous laugh when she was genuinely amused. Not a phony girlish giggle. Not an inhibited titter. A big, loud laugh! I loved that.

I loved her.

And, what was really wonderful, she loved me. How lucky can a guy get? I ask you.

We liked a lot of the same things, which helped. For instance, we both liked Japanese food, hated Chinese food, and our first real "date" (funny, old-fashioned-sounding word) started with dinner in a Japanese restaurant. We shared dislikes, too, such as an aversion to strenuous sports, a tendency to physical laziness and mental alertness, and we both detested Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Antonioni and Utrillo; and when we knew each other better, we mutually confessed that, no matter how hard we tried, we were bored with Mozart.

We ate sashimi and teriyaki and drank sake.

We listened to Bach, Verdi, Mahler, Ellington.

We went to Kubrick movies and Lumet movies, and we avoided movies by Antonioni and by Losey.

We went for long drives, and those were the only occasions on which we had a minor difference of opinion: I liked to drive with the top down, but I had to close it because of the sun and what the sun does to redheads.

"You're the only man in the world I could ever love," she would say.

She would say, "I can't even remember what the others were like, it's so wonderful with you."

"Darling," she would say, "you're so different from other men. I didn't know it could be such fun just sitting and talking to someone."

"My wonderful, different darling," she would say.

And one day she said, "Tell me about your family."

"Not much to tell," I said. "My mother and father died years ago. I have a sister and three brothers who don't live here. One of them is my twin brother."

"Really? Your twin? Tell me about him."

"Nothing to tell. He lives there and I live here."

"There are really two of you?"

"Yes."

"Are you identical twins?"

"Yes, identical."

"That means you look exactly alike?"

"Well, it doesn't mean that, really; biologically, the word 'identical' simply means--but, yes, in our case, we look alike."

"Exactly alike?"

"Exactly alike."

"But that's so fascinating! And you never told me!"

"Why should I have told you? It's nothing."

"How marvelous! To be a twin! One half of a pair! Tell me, what does it feel like?"

"Look, honey, not from you. I've had that every day of my life, and I don't want it from you."

"I'm sorry, darling. It's just that I can't see how there can be two in this world as sweet as you are. You're not angry with me?"

"No. Of course not."

We dropped the subject.

That is, we dropped the subject, but I didn't; my own mind kept bringing up the subject. I kept hearing the voices of those kids at school, years before:

Here comes the Gold Dust Twins.

Mike and Ike, they look alike.

(continued on page 200) Gemini(continued from page 144)

You guys should have been named Pete and Repeat.

And the salespeople. Well, we usually get only one of each size in the same color, ma'am. I can see you have a problem when you have to dress two alike, so I can try to order another one for you special.

And the teachers. I don't mind having two students with the same last names, or names, but when they also look as alike as two peas in a pod--well, did you ever try to tell the difference between two identical peas?

I tried not to let it spoil things.

We hated to be separated.

One time, I had to go out of town on a business trip. Before I met Joan, I used to like these trips on the expense account; I used to milk them, make them last as long as I possibly could, get out and see the sights, live it up. But now I hated every minute of it. I wanted to be with her. I finished my business in a hurry, cut my trip short, rushed back.

"Oh, how I missed you," she said.

"Don't ever go away again," she said.

I never did.

But then she went away. I had two weeks of vacation coming, and I thought she could arrange to take her vacation at the same time and we'd go away together. Mexico, Hawaii, maybe even Europe, it didn't matter; the main thing would be to be together, for a lot of days, all day long, from sunup to sundown, and all through the night, the nights, the delicious plurality of nights.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, I can't! I'd love to, but I can't, not this time!" She told me about the long-awaited trip with her girlfriends, something that had been planned before she met me, and she just couldn't let them down.

"It will just be two weeks, darling. Oh, I know it's a long time, and I'll ache for you every minute, but in two weeks I'll be back, and then...."

So I let her go.

The days were empty. It was worse than the time I was out of town, because then I had business, sales conferences, packing and unpacking and packing again to keep me busy.

I stayed late at the office, I killed time at a double-feature Bogart revival, I watched a lot of stuff on television, anything to fill up the hours, deaden the pain. I didn't see anybody. I didn't want to see anybody. Only her. I used to think that "counting the days" was just a figure of speech. But I literally counted the days. One day, two days, three days.

On the third day, the first letter came. It was full of love, full of chatter. And, somewhere in the middle, on the fourth page (I should have realized it could happen, knowing what city she went to), she wrote: I had the strangest experience today. I was walking down the street and I was sure I saw you coming toward me, but I knew it couldn't be you. Because this man walked right past me without recognizing me, and he was wearing a corduroy car coat, and you don't have one. Well, I stopped him and, sure enough, he was your twin brother. I told him who I was. Oh, darling, you two really do look alike. We couldn't have lunch, because he was busy, but he said he'd call me. You know, though, you're better looking.

There was a little more, and then, All my love, Joan, and XXXXXXXXXXX.

I suppose it had to happen.

The next letter said, in part. He finally called, and we had dinner together last night. It was very nice of him, I thought, and I didn't think you'd mind. I mean, it's not like he's a complete stranger, is it? It's funny, I feel as if I almost know him. But he's not as much fun as you, even if he is just a little bit better dancer. My darling, I do miss you.

There was one more letter, and then she returned.

I knew she was back, because my phone kept ringing and ringing. I wouldn't answer it. Later that evening, I heard her at my door, ringing the bell, knocking, pounding, calling my name. I sat there, silent, in the dark. After a while, she went away. Some time passed and then the phone started ringing again. I let it ring.

Each shrilling of the telephone bell was a long sharp icicle that stabbed my heart, froze my heart, killed me again and again and again.

After a while, it stopped.

Then it started again, the pointed stick of ice, jabbing into my heart, time after time after time after time.

I took the phone off the hook (thinking, wryly, as I did it, how odd it is that we still use that word "hook," even though telephones haven't had hooks for years).

I had some Scotch, about half a bottle, left over from the previous Christmas, a gift from someone. I don't know who. I drank most of it. It took a long time. It had no effect on me whatsoever.

He was greedy even then. He wanted the whole place to himself.

How does it go--"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have" --but that's nonsense. To have a love like ours and then to lose it, that's like the story of two blind men someone told me a long time ago. "I asked two blind men how it felt to be blind. One said he didn't know--he was born blind. The other said miserable--he just got blinded."

Sitting in the dark, in the silence that was broken only by the hum of the uncradled phone.

It's not that I hate her. I couldn't hate her; I love her. I understand why she did it. The strangeness of it, the uniqueness, the curiosity. In her place, I might have done the same.

I don't even hate him. I used to think I hated him, when we were kids, but now I know that I can't hate him without hating myself.

But it can't go on like this. For his sake, as well as for mine. Mike and Ike, Pete and Repeat, the Gold Dust Twins. It's got to stop.

And it will stop.

Sweetheart, she said in the last letter, you'll get a kick out of this. We played tennis yesterday and I saw this mark he has above his knee. It's kind of funny-looking, and I'm glad you're the twin I'm going to marry; I wouldn't want all my kids to have knees like that. (I'm only kidding; there are other reasons I prefer you, too!)

I knew I would have to do it when I read that letter. Tennis. And she hates sports, hates the sun for what it does to redheads. There was only one way she could have seen that mark on his knee, and I knew I would have to do what I'm going to do tonight.

I'm going to toss a coin.

Heads I kill him, tails I kill myself.

It really doesn't matter, just as long as one of us is free.