Shadow Sister (3 page)

I would have got by on my salary, but my husband’s company would never have got off to such a flying start without the cash injection from my parents. I wonder whether Elisa could actually make a living from her photography.

To help her along I regularly have a series of portraits of Valerie taken. She never wants to charge me, but of course I pay the going price.

My husband has a successful software company and I asked him to give Elisa as many advertising commissions as he could. It turned out he’d been doing that all along, which I should have known because Raoul and Elisa get on really well.

I’m happy about that because Elisa is just as important to me as Raoul, perhaps even more so. The idea that identical twins have a special connection is true for us.

I’m often asked what it’s like being a twin. It’s a curious question. It’s not that I’m unaware of how unusual it is to have an identical twin, but other people’s reactions always remind me of how disarming our likeness is. I do see the physical resemblance, of course, but we are so different in nearly everything else. For example, Elisa is sportier than me. I rarely wear trousers, and she rarely wears a skirt. I’m extroverted, energetic and spontaneous; Elisa is relaxed and self-contained. I like shopping and going out, she’d rather go for a long walk in the countryside, and I could go on…

Elisa’s studio is on Karel Doorman Street, next to the Coolsingel Canal and Raoul’s offices. I park at Software International because finding a parking space in the centre of Rotterdam is nigh on impossible. When I get out of my car, my
eyes follow the fire escape up to the third floor, to Raoul’s office. I half expect his face to appear at the window, as if he might have sensed that I need him, but he’s not there. Should I text him? Perhaps the meeting has finished or was cancelled.

I hesitate for a moment and then decide not to. Even if Raoul isn’t in a meeting, he doesn’t like to be disturbed at work. We made a deal about sharing the household chores and looking after Valerie and he never breaks it. If it’s my turn to do the shopping and I forget the milk, I have to go back to the shop to get it, I mustn’t bother Raoul. If I have a problem picking up Valerie from school, it’s not his problem. It works the other way too though: I can always count on him getting Valerie to school on time each morning, with her gym kit, a boxed drink and a biscuit. She’s just turned six and is in the second year of primary school. Two weeks ago she went on a school trip with her class. I was on a course that day, so Raoul was the one who carefully read the instruction sheet from the school and made sure that Valerie had everything she needed. They were first in the queue at the playground waiting for the bus, and when I got home from my course, she’d already had her bath and was eating her dinner. That’s what Raoul is like. You know exactly what you’re getting with him. Right now I only want one thing – to tell him what happened, and for him to comfort me and reassure me that I did the right thing by not going to the police.

I cross the Coolsingel in low spirits and walk towards Karel Doorman Street. Elisa occupies the ground floor of a small, narrow building with Elisa’s Photographic Studio painted on its window in pretty black lettering. It’s not a very imaginative name for someone as creative as my sister, but she thinks it works.

I push open the door and a bell tinkles. I always feel like I’ve wandered into an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, like the ones in the television adaptation of
Pippi Longstocking.
When we were children, Elisa and I used to be mad about
Pippi Longstocking.
For at least a year I got up to the same kind of tricks as Pippi, with
Elisa following in my wake like a second Annika. Whenever I hear the theme tune, I get the urge to do something rebellious.

The front room of the studio is empty. That’s to say, the walls are covered in photographs, but Elisa isn’t here.

‘Elisa?’

‘I’m out back.’

I make my way out the back. She’s at her computer, dressed sportily as usual, wearing khaki trousers and a white sweater. Her brown hair is gathered up in a ponytail and she pushes one escaped curl away from her face.

‘Hey, sis,’ she says. ‘Don’t you always finish much later on Mondays?’

‘Yes,’ I say simply.

My twin looks at me in alarm. ‘Has something happened?’

The emptiness is waiting for me after the funeral, a terrible, apathetic emptiness. In the first few weeks after her death, I was too dazed for it to really sink in. It was as if I’d run full speed into a wall and just stood there swaying, too stunned to feel the blow.

I didn’t hear a word of my father’s funeral address, which made me more keenly aware of his pallid face and quivering voice. I tried to listen, leaning against my mother, mute with distress. She gripped my hand; her other arm was wrapped around Valerie. Raoul sat doubled over, his face buried in his hands.

Every pew in the church was full. And the sea of flowers! Lilies everywhere, giving off their heavy, sweet smell. The procession to the grave crossed a sun-drenched yard. It was early May and already twenty-five degrees.

We stood around the coffin, Raoul in his black suit, holding Valerie’s hand. She wasn’t crying; she didn’t seem to understand.
She clutched a lily, Lydia’s favourite flower, which she didn’t want to leave behind at the grave. We let her take it. She’d already done a drawing which we’d put inside the coffin.

I remember the warmth, the birdsong, the fresh green leaves on the trees, and Raoul’s tears when he threw the first shovel of soil onto the coffin. My father’s contorted face, and my mother, who appeared impassive, a heavy dose of valium helping her get through that day.

I was wearing an orange and pink skirt and a matching sweater, and the boots Lydia had bought for me. Both inside the church and in the graveyard, I’d been conscious that I looked like I was going to a party and I felt many shocked glances directed towards me, which made me feel ill at ease. Should I have worn black?

It was only after the funeral, at the restaurant, as I caught my reflection in the window, that I understood the real reason behind those glances. I looked so much like Lydia right then. It shocked me too.

The last time I saw my sister, I was aware of the irreversibility of each passing second. I studied her dead face through a mist of tears – my twin sister.

They sometimes say that people who have died look like they’re asleep, but it’s not true. Lydia looked like what she was: dead. Her eyes were closed, her hands were folded and her skin pale. But the most shocking thing was the rigid way she lay on that white satin.

Suddenly the meaning of the expression ‘deadly silence’ sank in. And of the word ‘forever’.

Before the funeral I was numb. Afterwards my new reality began to take shape. Despair overwhelmed me and dragged me under. For the first few weeks, I barely felt like I existed. May had promised a beautiful summer, but I spent the month in bed, staring at the white walls and ceiling. White is a comforting colour: so calm, empty and pure.

I found myself in a state that could be called neither sleeping nor waking. In any case, real sleep was elusive. The nights were only distinguishable from the days by a paper-thin film. Sometimes I barely knew whether I was awake or dreaming. I listened to the silence, to the indescribable lull in which I found myself, safe in my own little world.

Before her death, I had felt that something was about to happen, something that would have far-reaching consequences for me and for those dear to me. Something unnameable, but nevertheless unavoidable. The feeling had been strongest when I woke up in the mornings.

When I woke up that Monday at the end of April, I remained very still and didn’t open my eyes. As if my childish refusal to look at the day would have any influence! Of course I did have to open my eyes eventually. My gaze went first to the alarm clock – it was still early – and then to the ceiling. For a quarter of an hour I looked at that white surface and tried to rationalise my feeling of discomfort. Where was it coming from?

Lydia.

Something had happened to Lydia.

I could have thought about any number of people who were dear to me: my parents or Thomas or Raoul. But Lydia’s name was the one that burned itself into my mind and, in a fit of panic, I grabbed my mobile from the bedside table and called her. There was no ring tone, it wasn’t switched on.

But of course it wasn’t, it was a quarter past eight, her first lesson had already begun.

Had I dreamed something that had made my head so full and heavy? It was possible; if only I could remember the dream, it might explain the feeling that something was wrong.

That day I was going to Capelle aan den Ijssel, to photograph a wedding with Thomas. Thomas is a photographer as well,
and his sister, Laurien, was the bride.

By the time I got out of the shower, I was late. I raced out of the house dressed in green combats and a white sweater, my hair still wet. I grabbed my stuff, it was all there ready – my camera, tripod, light reflector. I was soon in the car; it belonged to my friend Sylvie. She lives and works in Rotterdam, where she can walk everywhere, so she lends it to me at times.

If you are a photographer, there’s always some family member with something to celebrate and they remember you just in time. Because of course you don’t charge them the full rate – you wouldn’t do that to family. You’d be invited anyway, so while you’re there, you might as well take pictures, right?

I’m positive that another professional photographer wouldn’t get as many requests for ‘just one more shot with Uncle Jim’ or of the five girlfriends of the bride with their children, who look so pretty in their new clothes.

A commissioned professional records only the official events: the church, registry office, reception and a few posed pictures in the park. They wouldn’t be asked to stay until the bitter end, because that would be much too expensive. But you, dear friend or family member, you can’t leave until the grand finale – the guests standing in a ring around the married couple, waving their lighters in the air, bellowing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, which you can’t join in with because you’re supposed to be taking pictures of it.

I hate weddings and so does Thomas. That’s why we go together. We’ve agreed never to shoot them alone.

So off we went together that Monday, which was a good distraction from my vague sense of dread.

‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’ Thomas mumbled.

We’d greeted the bride and the rest of Thomas’s family in his parents’ house and were drinking coffee while we waited for the groom to arrive. We sat a little apart and barely had to lower our
voices through the constant chatter of Thomas’s mother and grandmother.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘I can imagine you in a white dress,’ Thomas said, a touching seriousness in his brown eyes.

I looked away with a smile on my lips, it was something I couldn’t imagine at all and for various reasons the subject made me feel embarrassed.

‘It would suit you.’

‘I’m not getting married.’ My voice sounded a little too harsh and the crash as I put my cup down on its saucer was perhaps a little over the top, but Thomas didn’t seem bothered.

‘I know that,’ he said calmly. ‘It doesn’t mean that much to me either. Why shouldn’t you just live together? That’s much simpler, isn’t it?’

‘But our society is set up so that it’s easier if you get married,’ I said. ‘If you just live together there’s a lot more red tape to get the same rights.’

Something that looked like pain flashed across Thomas’s face. ‘Red tape? Rights? What on earth happened to romance and being faithful until you die?’

‘They don’t exist. You’ve settled down until you die, that’s all.’

Thomas glanced at his sister. ‘But Laurien looks really happy.’

‘Wait and see whether her fiancé turns up,’ I said, and he had to laugh.

I didn’t really think the groom would fail to show up, that’s just the kind of conversations Thomas and I have – a little rebellious, kicking against the establishment. If we’d been young in the seventies, we would have fitted in quite well. I pictured Thomas cycling to the registry office, dinking his bride-to-be. Or even better, Thomas carrying his bride on a delivery bike, swerving along the canals. Only I didn’t see myself as that bride,
though for some time I’d been getting the impression that Thomas did.

We’d been hanging out together for years because we’d both gone to art college in Amsterdam; even back then we’d been really close.

‘There’s Cyril. Thank god!’ Thomas winked at me and stood up. He took his camera from the table and walked outside. I began to mount my camera on the tripod.

Thomas is a great guy, but he’s difficult, a real artist. You wouldn’t call him handsome; his eyes are a bit close together for that and his face is long and thin, but his dark eyes and athletic build make up for quite a bit. If he had a more cheerful personality, he might be really attractive, but Thomas and light-heartedness don’t go together. When we were students, he was a loner. He suffered from depression and he didn’t make friends easily. During his depressive episodes, which could last for weeks, he would withdraw and become unreachable. I only discovered that when I got to know him better, and it was years before he told me that his father had had similar mood swings. His father committed suicide. Thomas wasn’t as bad as that, thanks to drugs and intensive therapy, but you would never call him carefree.

I didn’t like him at first. I thought he was a grouch, an egoist, uninterested in other people – but then one day he came to my rescue. I was in a crowded tram, blocked in by the crush of
people and unable to get away from the man behind me, who took the opportunity to make a grab at me and have a feel. People around me saw it happening, but nobody said anything or intervened, until Thomas pushed his way over to me. I hadn’t known he was on the tram. At the next stop he pressed the button to open the doors, punched the guy in the face and threw him out, shouting after him, ‘Go fuck your mother, you prick!’