V.

She got to the “panaderia” right before it closed and bought a couple of long, skinny loaves of bread for Alana’s supper, then dropped by Jean-Michel’s to take a shower. The water came out in a tepid trickle from an apparatus like a dangling telephone receiver on the wall. In the mirror she looked unfamiliar to herself, with her tangled hair and sun-dazed eyes. Her face actually seemed paler after hours in the sun, but her freckles stood out now, a smattering of dark flecks that would fade by morning. She rubbed her cheeks, wishing she’d had some flattering make-up; she’d found a few hard little lipsticks in the shop by the post office, but their bright colors had looked garish against her pale skin.

     Aaron, Alana, and her roommates were already crowded around the table when she arrived. Victoria, a handsome predatory-looking brunette with sharp, pretty teeth, kept her arm like a tether on Denny, who looked like a teenager. Gwynne, a bawdy, snub-nosed Irish girl, with features skewed to one side, clowned like a vaudevillian. The dinner was already well underway—two bottles of wine drunk and the table littered with breadcrumbs—when a knock came at the door. Seely was picking blood sausage and unchewable bacon out of her second help of garbanzo stew. “That must be Eben,” said Alana. The reclusive brother, thought Seely, home from the hills.

     She twisted around in her chair as he entered, more from politeness than curiosity. The very next instant, however, she became completely disoriented, as dizzy as though she were seeing double, for Eben was dark and disheveled, dressed in a rumpled shirt and white satin vest, baggy corduroy pants, and jute sandals. He had the same odd, pointed face, coarse black hair, and aqueous green eyes that had so startled her on first encounter—he was Aaron’s identical twin. As she gaped at him in disbelief, she began to shake, feeling herself snatched by undertow of improbability that was carrying her where it would.

     He seated himself at the foot of the crowded table. Seely moved her plate to the table corner and sat on the diagonal to accommodate him. She found herself tongue-tied, flustered, whenever their knees and elbows collided. He held himself stiffly as he ate and apologized with formal courtesy after these bony encounters, sputtering in the same telegraphic style as his brother. The one is the mirror image of the other, she thought, as she ogled them surreptitiously. She couldn’t detect a single distinguishing characteristic, except that Eben was unkempt—his hair snarled around his swarthy face and his violet lips even more tightly compressed than his brother’s.

     “One day Vicky and I were on the train,” Gwynne giggled, pausing to plug yet another cigarette into her long amber holder, “and a couple of ‘maricones’ came and sat across from us—beautiful gay boys. And they looked at us so smug and pleased with themselves, as if to say, ‘Eat your hearts out—we know how gorgeous we are,’ that I got cross and grabbed Vicky and said very loudly, ‘Come on, love, give us a kiss!’” Here she puckered up her lips at Seely, who was closest, and petted her hair to reenact the scene. “And when she pulled away, I said, even louder, ‘Why not, sweet? Don’t you think it’s time we came out of the closet too?” Here she grabbed a pinch-full of Seely’s cheek and kissed her roundly on the side of the mouth.

     Eben smiled for the first time, then laughed a soft, taut laugh.

     “I love to see you smile,” Alana remarked gently. ”You don’t smile much, do you?”

     “No,” he said, ducking his head.

     “And Seely,” she went on, “You haven’t said a word all evening.” Seely gulped and was about to make some excuse when Denny, who had drunk himself to sleep, lurched off his chair. Aaron caught him just before he hit the floor, and he and Victoria laid him out on cushions under the front windows. From there he intruded on the conversation with rattling snores.

     That evening Seely went back to Jean-Michel’s early, while the others adjourned to a bar. She couldn’t sleep, though; for hours she thrashed around in her narrow lower bunk, banging into the walls like something imprisoned in a jar. Finally she pulled on a shirt over her nightgown and tiptoed up to the top floor. From the balcony she could see a glow from the main street, where the bars stayed open all night, and hear the sound of revelers.