The Twin by Gerbrand Bekker; trans. by David Colmer

In a poem entitled “Poem,” Elizabeth Bishop writes about a small painting she finds, “a minor family relic,” of a Nova Scotian landscape. With each verse, the painting acquires more detailed description as it approaches familiarity, until Bishop realizes, “Heavens, I recognize that place, I know it!” This realization brings a greater intimacy between her and the painter, and between the reader and the poem, in the ensuing lines. While she never knew the artist, the painting is a point of meeting; “Our [looks] coincided: art “copying from life” and life itself, life and the memory of it so compressed they’ve turned into each other. Which is which?”

Revisiting this poem after reading The Twin, the first novel from Dutch writer Gerbrand Bekker, each gains greater meaning. The book progresses in its intimacy and detail, moving from scraps in the beginning to crucial mountains that border the landscape. And Bishop’s question addresses one of the most important themes of Bekker’s beautifully written story—the relationship between memory and life.

Narrated by Helmer Van Wonderen, The Twin takes place in present-day Netherlands. When the book begins, Helmer is moving his aging father upstairs. They are the last two living on the family farm, which Helmer maintains alone. Bekker reveals information indirectly but hides nothing purposefully. We learn his mother is dead by his description of his father’s bed; “One half of it has been cold for more than ten years now, but the unslept side is still crowned with a pillow.”

The character that is most central to Helmer’s life and memory is the one who has been dead the longest: his identical twin, Henk. He died in car accident when they were 18. His fiancée, Riet, who was driving the car, survived. Shortly after the accident, the boys’ father banned her from the house. Helmer and she have had no contact since then, until she writes him a letter.

This contact leads to their first meeting in over thirty years, which in turn leads to her son coming to live on the farm with Helmer. The son’s name is Henk, though he is not the son of Helmer’s brother. It is not surprising that this affects Helmer, what he thinks about, the memories he has, and his relationship with his father, but this lack of surprise does not result in boredom for the reader. For the first time Helmer has to interact with someone new, someone young. As he tries to bring Henk into the daily routines of the farm, Henk’s presence results in little changes in Helmer’s life. He buys his first television. He purchases it, brings it home, and immediately but not hurriedly, reads the brochure, sets it up, and programs twenty channels.

Henk’s presence causes deeper stirrings of Helmer’s memory, and, as in Bishop’s poem, we gain entry into increasingly intimate parts of his life. Through the vignettes of memory he relives in his head, we learn of the characters that populated his life, and of the moments that changed him. At the same time, we see him learn about himself and identify the points at which he could have acted differently but simply, did not act at all.

Most centrally to the story, and to what Helmer’s life consisted of and continues to consist of due to the intertwining of memory and life, is what the fact of being a twin, and losing his, means to him, how he thinks of himself, how he relates to others, and to how he inhabits the spaces he lives and works in. It is almost the end of the novel when he says to himself, “We belonged together, we were two boys with one body. But along came Riet…We [became] a pair of twins with two bodies.”

The novel is of a nordic spareness, but never lacks detail. Even though no great action occurs until Riet’s letter about seventy pages into the story, there is no sense that Bekker is dragging his feet. To understand the full impact of Henk’s death and the disruption of Helmer’s life Riet’s reentry causes, we have to understand what Helmer’s life is. We learn how he is both very aware of time and yet we only know months have passed due to a passing comment; we experience his particular relationships with each of the different kinds of farm animals, and bit by bit, we gain a great deal of insight about and from his relationship with his father.

“Life and memory so compressed they’ve turned into each other.” This is ultimately what Bekker is talking about in his story. Helmer’s life is completely in relation to his dead brother, the memory of whom is an ever present reminder that Helmer is alive as half of what was once a whole. Bekker succeeds in telling a story that is too steadily paced to be gripping, but none the less keeps your eyes to the page, absorbing the details and turning the pages, curious to see where the characters’ personalities and relationships will lead them.

Reviewed by Lauren Goldenberg

The Twin by Gerbrand Bekker; trans. by David Colmer
Archipelago Books, 2009
Cloth, 250 pp., $25.00
ISBN: 0980033020