Doppelgängers
A short story found on a hard drive along with 87 photos of a ginger cat.
There’s a subset of songs that are about how the singer doesn’t believe that love actually exists in the way it does in stories or whatever until they themself undergo it, and I’ve never written such a song, but I’m about to say something to the effect and I wanted to preface it with this fact to make it less annoying to read:
I used to hear songs about how one might think love is overblown in fiction, or doesn’t really exist in the way you hear about in stories, fairytales, music, and so on. I too used to think that love was like this, but in addition, I used to think that experiencing love wouldn’t be surprising in the way those songs describe:
I used to hear songs about how love is surprising once one undergoes it, and I didn’t expect it to actually be so once I’d undergone it myself. I didn’t expect to suddenly understand or relate to love songs the way other people had sung that they suddenly had:
I used to hear songs about how love feels once undergone, and I just didn’t expect these songs to be accurate to the extent that they are. I’ve read that the average person falls in love x amount of times in their life, and I can’t remember the number but it’s either two or three. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve already beaten this average.
The fourth time I’d fallen in love was like in the songs: I just didn’t expect it to feel so, and I didn’t expect it to happen so suddenly, like so romantically suddenly. I’d already felt love, and of course heartbreak, but I still held this notion that the love in fiction was some thing apart that could just never come to be in my, or maybe anyone’s, life. I understand that you, the reader, could hold the same kind of view about my story, that it’s overblown or unrealistic, or romanticised, but: I want to recount what happened to me to change my view on this matter.
I’m a man, and I met a woman using the internet in the summer, a day or two after my 31st birthday, in fact. I’m not the luckiest when it comes to attracting the feminine types, but it has always happened in the summer. She made it very clear to me that she thought I was, as she put it, “a great guy”, but that she wasn’t interested in finding a man for a relationship. She said in addition that she was very bad at maintaining healthy relationships. I wasn’t attracted to her, and she’d already made it clear in her description of herself on the internet, so of course, I didn’t mind, and I’m always ready to welcome a new friend into my life.
We went for a meal at a squat not far from mine. A three-course meal for €5 is hard to argue with. She spent an hour on the train to come and see me. She’s American, so I suppose an hour’s travel wasn’t that much to her.
When she arrived, she revealed that she’d been sneaking bits of gin out a bidon to cope with the nerves from meeting me. I didn’t feel one way or the other about that. She came off as nervous either way but I didn’t mind; people are nervous. She’d come a bit early for the meal so we went for a quick drink. We found it easy to talk to one another, and even though I didn’t want to impress her in the way I want to impress some people, we made each other laugh and I made pains to hide my missing tooth, which I’d lost in a horrible accident years beforehand that had rendered me all but numb to the emotional goings-on around me and prevented me from establishing a connection with another individual. When it came to pay, I thoughtlessly got my wallet out, but she interjected to ask if she could pay. She didn’t insist; she asked. I was taken aback. I’ve seen one other person do that since, again a nervous American woman.
We had the meal and enjoyed it. It turned out we both had degrees in visual art disciplines and so we shared a piece of paper to doodle on. She asked me if she could do her own dishes. There was a moment where I took her bowl in order to donate my soapy water to her, and she seemed visibly dejected that I might do her dishes for her. I didn’t think anything of it; it’s not nice if you want to establish your independence in some small way and your request just goes ignored. I gave her her bowl back with my soapy water; I hadn’t intended on doing her dishes but I did notice her disposition. We drank more, and she turned out to be extremely charming, abused by just about every man she’d ever known, artistic, genuinely interested in being kind to others, good at pronouncing words in foreign languages. I saw her back to the bus stop to catch her train home and she’d later tell me that she was extremely drunk at that moment. I didn’t think anything of it.
We continued sending each other messages, as friends do, saying nothing in particular but revealing our particularities. Some people are very ready to give their friends compliments, and we happened to be two such people. I often have this problem of people thinking that I’ve been flirting with them, and I imagine that she has the same problem. There were moments when I was sure we were flirting, but I stayed unattracted though charmed. After a while, she had grown insistent on cooking a meal for me, so the following month, I took my turn to take an hour’s train ride to visit. I’m not American, but an hour on the train isn’t much to me. I brought a novel and it was fine. The woman had dressed quite nicely when we first met and I’d dressed for the weather, so to speak, so I decided to dress a bit more to impress. This was at the height of global warming, and the city she lived in had little vegetation, so I was fucked in no time flat. She was dressed for the weather. She hugged me and said it was good to see me, which raised my spirits.
We had to walk her dog first of all, so she led us to a modest, quiet woodland with an algae-filled stream running through. Drug paraphernalia littered where you could just about still see beyond the foliage, and we had to be on high alert in case the dog wanted to eat a shite off the well-trodden mud floor. The conversation was as it always had been. The woman ascended a staircase serendipitously created by a tree’s roots, continuing uphill, and the path was narrow so I followed behind. The way her hips moved as she did so, it shamed me to realise about a friend, took real effort not to watch. I succeeded in not staring, but it was the first inkling that this woman might be attractive. I supposed it was something to do with the season; it always happens in the summer.
Dog walk successful, we returned and began to make this meal. We had to choose from the assortment of processed foods in a plastic crate she’d impulse-bought on various shopping trips and later not found occasion to eat, with such little appetite brought on by one anxiety or trauma or another. It turned out she didn’t like onions which, sans allergy, I had never seriously conceived of as a possibility. She didn’t like anything spicy but had been given a whole jalapeño by a friend, and the dog couldn’t have it, so I made a simple salsa with that and some salt and vinegar. I used the toilet and apparently hadn’t washed the capsaicin off my hands completely. The conversation went on as expected. I made the appropriate joke when she expressed surprise at me being able to wash myself off in the kitchen sink.
She went on to tell me more about her own mental health problems. She’d asked me how I’d coped with my mental health problems and so I was happy to help her understand her own. We finished this meal and she made pains to thank me for making it for her, while I insisted that she’d done the lion’s share of the work, which I continue to insist. We retired to the couch, where she brought some tea she’d bought in a souvenir shop in London and I brought some vegan brownies, which turned out to be too heavy, from the restaurant where I worked as chef de partie.
She told me more about the abuse she’d undergone. I took the occasion to put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. It didn’t comfort her; she tensed up very noticeably, timid like a beaten dog. It hadn’t yet occurred to me how deep the blue in her eyes was, the deepest I’d remembered seeing. She then told me she didn’t feel that comfortable with eye contact. I stopped looking. I felt powerless and twiddled my thumbs while looking out the window at the unusual characters she’d told me about on the street outside. We’d agreed not to drink any alcohol that day, and she then made her first jocular but nervous reference to wanting a drink.
The idea occurred to her that she would like to cuddle, but that it would be more comfortable if she were behind me. I reasoned that this made it easier to stop me if I wanted to attack her. She loosened up straight away and we talked. We talked and fucking talked. She caressed my arms and chest in a loving way as she casually convinced me of how kind, talented, intelligent, intuitive, inquisitive, understanding, and all the rest of what she was, was; she caressed me more pointedly when I must’ve given away whatever it is I am. I could feel her body responding to mine. I could feel her heartbeat in four different places at once. We talked until the sun had completely fucked off and the moon had risen behind the birch tree planted in the street outside, as if hoisted by the chain for which it was now famous as the source of the world’s most pressing consternation, and I became only more impressed with my new friend. Her vulnerability drew me to her inexplicably. I postponed going for a piss for at least a few hours just to talk more.
Eventually, the day was coming to a close, and the dog needed one last walk before bedtime. I reasoned that it was better to go home that night rather than stay the night when offered the choice, since I’d paid for a return ticket. So we went outside to walk the dog. It was warm, but bearable in my skinny jeans and short-sleeved, floral shirt. I offered out my hand, hoping for a sort of low-five slap gesture, but instead, she tenderly reached her own hand out and intertwined it with mine, fitting them quite perfectly together. My heart absolutely melted, like a bar of chocolate in a bain marie. That was the moment, just like that.
That was what was surprising about it, and where the story gets a bit less bearable to those with any soupçon of cynicism in their veins: it wasn’t a slow build-up of some quantifiable humour eventually reaching a haystack-problem point whereby it was known as love; it was a sudden strike, like in the pop songs, in the cheap novels, in the expressions in various European languages, a subito flourish in the composition of an interesting life like the punch that killed Houdini, an almighty smack like the most painful and traumatic things that had theretofore happened to me, a kick in the senses like neglected capsaicin on the fingers. I uttered a noise that may or may not have conveyed all this information. We walked the dog.
The dogwalk itself was uneventful, bar a few stoned kids who were paranoid of this harmless lummox coming to sniff their hands, and we went all the way inside the house upon return.
I suppose I should make my way to the station, then, I said. She was looking at the ground between us, a space less than the length of my leg. She nodded non-committally. I hesitated.
You want me to stay, don’t you, I said. She nodded without meeting my gaze except for a furtive moment. That was the second melting of the now weathered heart, less effective than the first. I wanted to stay too. I wanted to fall asleep in her embrace.
The embrace came after clumsily undressing in the dark. I lay in wait, facing the opposite way, as she resigned to taking off her bra to sleep, and the embrace was no euphemism; she got in behind me and her arms and legs assumed their positions around my body. She continued to caress my arms, my legs, my chest, my hair. She kissed my shoulder. I kissed her arm. She kissed my neck. I turned to face her and our mouths sealed up my first connection with another person since having my face smashed inside-out six years prior. We looked each other in the eye through the impenetrable dark. I caressed the hips and buttocks that had mesmerised me as if I had a right to it. I kissed the neck and breast where I’d felt the heartbeat, again so pronounced and telltale. It occurred to me that I was taking too much control, so I asked her what I should do next.
Nothing, she said. I replied with a surprised oh. I don’t want sex, she said. I oh’d again. She apologised for leading me on. I didn’t know what to say, so I insisted that I hadn’t come with ideas of conquest. I could sense her deepest blues contorted by a sorrowful expression. It was true what I’d said: the idea was less sexual gratification and more to let her feel loved and less lonely in some way. She kissed me and we slept. She kissed me when she left for work the following morning and the relief I felt was palpable: the relief of reciprocity and relief that I hadn’t lain waste to her sense of autonomy. She was later very impressed that I’d done the dishes for her; she hated doing it. She sent me a little picture of a face with hearts for eyes. I hadn’t thought anything of it.
After the fact, she told me that she’d decided that she was uncomfortable with so much kissing and so on. I understood; so it goes, sometimes. She reiterated that she wasn’t in search of a relationship and asked me not to get too attached to her. I told her I wouldn’t. I tried with Herculean effort not to become attached over the pursuing months to little success. She came to mine at one point so I could return the favour of cooking a meal; I made carrot and coriander soup, which she found spicy. She was noticeably more distant from me and my anxiety only worsened to realise it.
It turned out a few months later that she’d been seeing another man, and I suppose that was why. That was the second most painful thing to ever happen to me, knocking the smashing of my face inside-out down to third place. She said she had no idea I felt so strongly about her. I said I thought it was obvious. I said I wouldn’t have kissed her had I known she was seeing someone. She said she thought it was obvious. I appreciated the honesty but hated the rhetorical delivery. It wasn’t entirely clear to me what had happened and when. My friends, and indeed everyone I tell about the whole thing, insist that I should hate this woman, or at least that I should accept that she had been dishonest with me. I really believe that it would do me better to continue believing that she had been telling the truth the whole time.
The usual outcome of so much pain came forth: seemingly incessant crying, crying when alone, crying on public transport, crying my heart out into the bain marie at work while filling it with tap water, crying in the toilets, the woman occupying my thoughts at the least appropriate moments, lack of sleep, lack of appetite, and so on. I realised at least that I had very good friends in this city I’d only emigrated to two years beforehand.
What was unusual, however, was in a similar vein to when one realises that the object of their desire isn’t as one-of-a-kind as once thought.
I visited my home city in time to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the death of an as-yet-unnamed smirch on the country’s political history. On the night of the festivities, we went into a bar with no sign on the front and blacked-out windows. A woman came to usher us to our seats and went on to carry out table service. She was remarkably gregarious and the thing I couldn’t put my finger on at first about her hit me quite suddenly. She had extremely deep blue eyes, like I’d only seen once before. She had the same shape face. She had the same demeanour both when talking and when idly staring into space. Herself with a Polish surname. The same voice but with my accent. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days.
I went to see a band live. I was waiting for my friend on a very high set of steps outside and a woman approached with the same colour hair. The deep blue of her eyes stood out against the rest of the figure, with the same shape face, the same gait carrying it into better focus. Different woman.
I take the ferry across the river. I hear the same voice in a different language. I look over my shoulder to see the same colour hair. I hear the same laugh. Different woman.
I go on a day out in a faraway city. It’s pouring with rain. I see the same raincoat from the summer with the same hair poking out. A squall reveals the face. Different woman.
I see a report on the news about some protestors saying we should do more about the Moonlooming. Same eyes. Same colour hair. Same shape face. Same demeanour. Same kindness, intelligence, talent, gregariousness, same beauty. Same woman. I’m not prepared. My heart is smashed inside-out. The once-thought drawn-out death by doppelgänger was a visitation from the genuine: the woman.