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
