Malik Pancholi (31:57)
Soon after I was born, my parents bitterly divorced, and they divided up their possessions with a relentless energy, hoping to impel themselves from each other with such force that they would never be drawn back again. I have always imagined that they made two great equal piles in each room as they sorted in a rage to everything in the house, from from curtains and large sets of furniture to the knick knacks in the kitchen drawers. When they were done, only their two small sons were left, and for reasons that even now they can't adequately express, they divided us up as well. Father took Paul, my twin brother. Mother kept me we were just a year old at the time, a single child conveniently doubled for that terrible wrenching split. As I grew up, all that I knew of Paul was his name that I could faintly remember once chasing, as if after myself, a toddler who wore the same clothes as I. If this wasn't a memory, I had surely made it up from longing for I was always wanting to bump into the empty space of my absent brother with my small, chubby body. When I sat on the couch watching TV and eating an entire bag of potato chips, I pretended Paul was sitting beside me, asking me for some chips or to change the channel. I refused, of course, and we would then argue in the nagging manner of older brothers whom I had observed. Or I went outside and threw a tennis ball against the garage wall and imagined that we were playing catch. I became my brother and aimed the ball at the edges of the shingles, making it bounce back at an odd angle, and as myself, I caught it skillfully. Yet when my mother called me in to dinner, there were only two place settings, not three. I sat lonely at the table and watched Mother shift the pots and pans on the stove, and when she turned around to fill the place with food, she squinted, for she never wore her glasses when we ate, claiming that the steam from the hot food clouded them up. But I often wondered if, with her glasses off, Mother saw double and I became both twins eating before her. Perhaps that was why she fed me so much and so often to sustain that vision. I had learned not to ask Mother about my father, for her silence on this matter was worse than any shouted, angry refusal, and I was forced to invent him as well. I saw him as tall, with a cruel, pointed hairline, and he wore the kind of suit with painfully sharp creases that mannequins modeled in shop windows. If I tripped on the basement steps or bumped my head against the freezer in the refrigerator, I would hear his disembodied laughter, his pleasure at my misfortune. And at night, with the grave, frightening forms of furniture around me, I tried to understand why my parents had left each other, though now I believe they simply began treating each other as poorly as they treated themselves. During these lonely nights I conjured up outlandish quarrels full of desperate acts and hurled objects between the mother I knew and the father I imagined left with my own insufficient memory and my mother's pervasive silence. Occasionally during the day I examined the furniture in each room and tried to decipher the house's secret scars, what had been taken away to Father's distant home and then replaced. While gnawing on some snack, I circled the dining room table and its surrounding chairs. I fingered the plates and the silverware that framed them. I spread my hand across the recliner and accompanied ottoman as if objects had a language that could be translated. But instead I found behind the shadowy corner of the couch a small spider that hovered over an intricate, nearly transparent web. Using a half chewed pencil, I discovered the addictive pleasure of destroying that web, and while I rubbed to nothing the thin, vaguely sticky thread that clung to my fingers, I watched the spider slowly, carefully rebuild. I remember when I was 8 years old, the phone calls late at night, the hushed visits of Mother's relatives, and her vacillating, tearful refusals during conversations behind closed doors. I soon learned that it had been decided, without consulting me, that at the beginning of the summer I would visit my father and Paul for two weeks, and at the summer's end Paul would visit us, though there were complications and delays. Letters were exchanged, and finally, during dinner one night Mother spoke directly to Father over the phone to make the final agreements. She began to talk with a twisted frown that then, defying gravity, slowly lifted into what might be called a smile. I realized that she was speaking to Paul. I didn't like the warm tones of her voice or how her hands seemed to caress the receiver, so I began to choke on a piece of my pot pie, and she had to cut short the conversation, her glasses on as soon as she slapped the back of her single son. Mother said goodbye to me at the airport with a studied casualness, and I clung to her longer than was necessary. Then I walked down the narrow hallway to the plane. I had never flown before, yet I was barely amazed at the swift climb of the plane that dwarfed the houses and towns below, or at the otherworldly landscapes of the clouds as we flew above them. All my attention was on my approaching destination, and I felt the plane was speeding forward by the pull of the mysterious other half of my family. When the plane landed, I walked down the ramp with the rest of the passengers, not quite sure where I was supposed to meet my father and brother. I entered the long, domed airport building, and there seemed to be people everywhere, and then I felt a touch on my shoulder, and I turned to see myself in different clothes. Mark, I'm Paul, my brother said. He was just as overweight as I, the shirt above his belt bulging with baby rolls of flesh. Though I'd always known I had a twin, I had never fully imagined someone who looked exactly like me. He stood there, stiff and quiet, and somehow I knew he was thinking the same thing. I wanted to extend a hand, but I thought that his hand, reaching to receive it, would be the same, and every detail stopped me. It would be like touching the cold surface of a mirror, and I was afraid. Dad's waiting, paul finally said with my voice. We walked together through the crowds and tried not to look at each other, embarrassed by the frightening attraction of our complete resemblance. A man in a shapeless gray jacket approached us cautiously, his rounded face somehow familiar. Dad, I ventured, and I stood there. Could this ordinarily looking man be the horrible creature who had left my mother? Son, he replied, but he looked back and forth nervously at Paul and me. I thought he might have forgotten what Paul had worn that morning and wasn't sure which of us was his new son. Thanks for inviting me, I said, and he smiled and strode forward. He crouched down, and I let him embrace me. Paul stared at us, and I stared back at him, my chin on my father's shoulder. And then Paul began to cough violently, and Father released me to pat my brother's back. Yes, I then realized this was a mirror that knew my own tricks. We walked together to the baggage wheel and waited stiffly for my two small suitcases to appear. I looked at my father. He could have been anyone at the airport, though I didn't quite trust his harmless exterior. Then I noticed with fear that his hands were twitching in his pockets, but how could I have understood then the subtle movements of guilt and remorse? When the suitcases arrived, we walked to the car and Father talked all about the plans he had for the coming weeks. I nodded my head, pretending interest, but I kept glancing at Paul. He was more than a mirror, I decided, unsettled, for mirrors have no voices, no independent movements. Mirrors, you can leave and your image disappears. But Paul walked along beside me, rubbing the edge of his nose with a fist, my own habitual gesture. Father could sense my distraction, and when he put my bags away in the car trunk, he almost closed the lid on his fingers. Damn. He shouted, and smacked the trunk with his other hand. Here my real father connected with my imagined one. He was the sort of man who beat objects if they didn't do what he wanted, and he might mistake me for a broken chair or a stuck window. As we drove along and I tried to answer Father's questions about my school and about my grades, subject about which I cared absolutely nothing, I thought that his ordinary hands around the steering wheel might just be waiting to strike me, or perhaps he would suddenly play chicken with an oncoming truck, not turning away until both of us begged him to stop. In our identical voices. I fashioned my seatbelt and looked out at the Midwestern landscape. I had never seen anything so flat, and the enormous sky seemed to press down upon us. Soon we drove into a town and stopped before a large, white shingled house. We're home, father said when we entered. I stared avidly, for I knew that half of everything inside had been transplanted from my own house, and I hoped to finally see the invisible connections between what had been removed and what had remained. Yet Father's own replacements were as cleanly matched as Mother's, and no discordant styles could serve as fault lines exposing the initial upheaval. Father saw my carefully directed curiosity, and his hands twisted anxiously again in his pockets. He finally led us to Paul's room, where the walls were lined with shelves of expensive toy soldiers, and there was a second bed, a fold up kind in a corner. You'll be staying here, Mark, father said. Best way for two boys to get to know each other is to share a room. Paul and I looked at each other warily, uncertain that we wanted to be left alone. Well, father continued, confused by our silence, it's a bit late. I'll go fix us some dinner. You two play or something. Father left and I sat on the edge of my temporary bed, fiddling with the handle of one of my suitcases Would you like to look at my soldiers? Paul asked. Yeah, I answered, and as he led me through the room, I discovered that he had toy figures for every imaginable conflict. Some I'd barely heard of the French and Indian wars, the Boxer Rebellion, even something called the Russo Japanese War. I stared at his soldiers greedily. Many had movable arms and heads, even detachable weapons, while others were metal, their details intricately painted. My own were generic plastic things, and I had only two kinds, the good guys and the bad guys. Paul talked me into playing with his knights for the War of the Roses, but I agreed only reluctantly, because I didn't know who had won, and I was afraid he was giving me the knights for the losing side. And so we played, but soon with little enjoyment, for we discovered that we were evenly matched. My flank attack of cavalry from behind the night table was warned off by his archers, and his frontal offensive across the rug was checked by a pincer movement of my best troops. We had even anticipated each other's anticipations. We plotted so much alike, and all our machinations proved as futile as trying to hide a secret from oneself. Move, Val. Attack, Roland. Paul whispered to his soldiers, foiling my sneak attack. And as I hadn't been formally introduced to my knights, I silently let a retreat that was actually a trap, but Paul didn't allow his troops to follow. It was with relief that we heard Father call us to dinner. Have a good time, you two fellas? He asked, serving us. Yeah, I replied without much energy. Paul remained silent, his mouth full, and when I looked at him, I could see myself eating. While I chewed my way through combined mouthfuls of pork, potatoes, and succotash. I watched Paul's own bloated cheeks as I licked the last traces of sauce off each forkful. I looked to see Paul's lips pucker around the tines. He caught my gaze and, as if a mirror could have opinions and make a face at what it saw, scowled at me, his lips moist with solid dressing. I was suddenly ashamed of my appetite and my small, overweight body. I wanted to lose pound after pound, collapse into another self, and then leave the strong pull of Paul's image behind. I began to eat slowly, and from each portion I pushed aside a bit that I wouldn't let myself touch. But to my despair, I saw that Paul also ate sparingly, and I understood his intentions were the same as my own. We continued to pick at our food until Father said, you're both not very hungry, are you? Not really, paul managed to answer and I nodded. Well then, how about dessert? Father asked nervously as he took our plates to the sink. He walked to the refrigerator and returned with desserts. Yummy creams, he announced. Paul's favorite. I hope you like it, Mark. The huge delicious eclair like thing was my favorite too, but as I looked at the spacious mirror of my brother, I knew I couldn't eat it. Instead, I tried to think of every disgusting, unsanitary process that might have gone into its making the dirty hands that probably rolled the pastry, the caked fingernails that must have slipped into the dough, leaving dark smudges that would later be covered by the chocolate frosting. But I was hungry and the yummy cream was warming on my plate. What if it was streaked with secret dirt? I thought. Yet as I lifted it to my lips, I made myself see huge crusted, fly ridden vats of chocolate that hadn't been cleaned for days. And that was when I let my dessert slip to the kitchen floor. You dropped it, paul said. It fell, I replied. I looked down at the pastry on the floor. It was still salvageable, so when I shifted my chair to reach down and pick it up, I let one of the legs land right on it, smearing the dessert across the clean linoleum tiles. Father grabbed some paper towels and we cleaned up the mess together. I'm sorry, I said, still not sure of him and afraid he might suddenly hit me. It's all right, it's all right, he kept repeating. When we returned to the table, I saw half of a yummy cream lying on my plate, the other half on Paul's. You can share mine, paul said, smiling. It's okay, I'm not hungry. I pushed away from the table. Funny. I'm not either, paul said, and he rose too. Father watched us, perplexed. After washing the dishes, we all walked to the living room and watched the television silently, as though we'd known each other for years and we hadn't a thing to say. When the closing credits rose on the screen for yet another situation comedy, Father said with an exaggerated enthusiasm, hey, tomorrow's going to be a big day. You boys should be getting to bed. Okay, Paul said, and he kissed Father on the cheek. I realized I should do the same. My father's hands rose to embrace me when I kissed him, but I pulled away slightly from the strange sensation of beard stubble against my lips and his arms, then returned to the sides of his chair. I looked away and said good night. While Paul made toothbrush noises in the bathroom, I stood in my pajamas before his small dresser mirror, comb in hand. I made threatening gestures at my image, pretending it was my brother, but it simply made threatening gestures back at me. Then I slowly, carefully parted my hair on the other side so I would look different from Paul. But when he returned from the bathroom, I saw that he had moved his part. Paul stared at me glumly. There was no escape. We were still identical, resigned, but also secretly impressed. We got into bed without a word, and Paul turned to the light. We lay in the dark, listening to each other's breathing for a long time. Finally Paul asked, what's she like? I didn't know how to answer. I could have said of Mother, she cooks, she washes things. But that was all wrong. I could have mentioned her job, but I'd never really listened when she discussed it. I was too young to be able to detail her nervous laughter or the cautious gestures of her hands through her hair, and so, frustrated, I simply said, she's great. Paul remained quiet, and I was sure he was measuring his imagined mother against my inadequate description. Had he invented someone as forbidding as the father that I'd visualized? What's dad really like? I asked, hoping to interrupt Paul's thoughts. Silence. He was having the same difficulties I'd had. And then he replied, you saw? He's great, Just great. Surprising myself, I said with terrible calmness, that's not what I heard. Oh, who says so? Mom, I lied. And then, frightened, I found myself voicing my most secret suspicions about Father. He used to put acid in her nail polish. Yeah, Paul responded after some hesitation, his words clipped with contained anger. While she put Drano in his shaving cup, I couldn't see my quiet, distracted mother plotting so destructively. Furiously, I replied, he put broken glass in her purse. I thought that soon we might be grappling blindly in the middle of the room. She threw a radio right at his head. Paul returned. My mother, however, was devoted to easy listening stations, and I could only imagine a sentimental melody hurtling towards Father's ear. He cut all her dresses in half with scissors. She set fire to Dad's newspaper while he was reading it. Paul almost spit back, but I was suddenly silent, for I knew Mother was afraid of any sort of flame when she cooked. She even had me light the gas burners, dangling a potholder before my face for protection. Paul was lying just as I was. And then I understood. In our separate isolations, we had shared the same private fears. I said half heartedly. He slammed the silverware drawer right on her fingers, and I waited for a Long time for Paul's reply, not sure if my twin had heard the doubt in my voice and was experiencing his own. Finally, he offered without passion. She glued his briefcase shut. At that moment, our vicious invented parents began to dissolve in the the darkness. He put flies in her mashed potatoes, I said cautiously. She put a frog on his pillow, paul replied, a silly accusation. He put her address book in the toaster, I said, and then added, poof. We both giggled, relieved. We continued to confess our childish images of what could make a marriage go wrong. He put her parakeet in the dryer, I said loudly, imagining a squawking, circling thing. She put her toilet water in his tang. Paul whooped. In my innocence, I offered with a shout. He peeked at her while she was undressing. She hid his underpants. Paul howled, thumping his bed. He barfed on her shoes. I hooted, gagging for dramatic emphasis, and we shared great snorts of laughter. We heard heavy footsteps. Hey, who's making all that noise in there? Father shouted, though with an edge of satisfaction in his voice. We lay as quietly as we could, suppressing our giggles as he growled with obvious pleasure. Some boys may not know that it's way past time for fooling around. We were silent, and somewhere down the block a door shut and a car started up. And then we heard Father's confident footsteps return down the hallway. He didn't know he was now outnumbered. We were exhilarated by our conspiracy of silence during Father's chastisement, but we remained quiet, and I thought of how the next day we could do or say everything in unison around Father, pretending to be as surprised by this as he was. I shifted under the COVID and Paul did too, as our stomachs began to slowly rumble and go gurgle. Already we were anxious for tomorrow's breakfast. Our movements echoed each other's when we turned our pillows over, when we rubbed itchy ankles against the mattresses. As I listened, I imagined that we were interchangeable. When it was time for me to leave, Paul could return, having been coached in whatever small quirks of mine weren't identical to his own, and I could stay. And at the end of the summer I would visit, pretending to be Paul, pretending I was seeing Mother for the first time. Somewhere outside, an unfamiliar dull metal noise repeated itself, and I had the unaccustomed pleasure of knowing that my twin was sharing the same frightening dark Paul yawned, I yawned, and we slowly adjusted our breathing to each other. Inhale, silence, exhale silence as we drifted together in sleep.
