Untwine

Arya Samuelson

“You’re not going to live,” I say.

“I could’ve told you that,” she says, smiling.

“I wish I’d known” I say.

I want to cry but I can’t. It is as if crying is forbidden in that type of dream. So instead I say, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says.

I don’t remember us ever saying “I love you” to each other before. We never needed to.

This dreamed exchange between Giselle and Isabelle is the most powerful moments of the novel. I was so moved by how Danticat captures the intimacy of their sister/twinhood with stunning simplicity. To say “I love you” marks otherness, a distinction between “I” and “you.” We often say “I love you” when there is an impending separation, or because we feel the need to express how we feel, or because we want someone else to know how we feel. But Giselle and Isabelle are so close, so entwined, these words have apparently felt unnecessary – something Giselle realizes only after Isabelle has died. Their love is embodied, if not verbalized.

Someone recently said to me, “We can feel absence just as we feel presence.” This is so true in Untwine, in which Giselle carries Isabelle in her body even after Isabelle’s death. Even while Giselle is in the hospital bed, unable to move or speak, Giselle is haunted by memories of Isabelle and her life before the accident. The narrative – in particular, the subconscious dream sequence - seems to suggest that Giselle must confront her sister before she can re-inhabit her own body. As Giselle recovers and returns to the routines of daily living, there is no avoiding the millions of opportunities to think about her sister. After all, they are virtually identical – so much so that their aunt mistakes Giselle for Isabelle in the hospital. And Giselle herself has a moment of wondering: “Maybe I’m the one who’s all turned around and I actually am Isabelle. Mayhbe it’s all part of having this concussion. How do I know for sure I’m not Isabelle?” (43)

Danticat’s novel shows us how bodies tell the stories of our origins. Giselle’s twin sister, Isabelle, may no longer be alive, but Giselle will never not have been a twin. She must learn to see her body not as the mirror image of her sister’s, but as truly as her own. This individuation is a necessary dimension of growing up and part of the developmental process, which, calamity aside, all of us must go through. Even though Giselle’s separation from her sister is the result of a tragedy, Danticat makes this evident that adapting to loss is simply part of the human experience. Giselle’s decision to offer her blessing to Tina and Jean Michel is presented as part of her maturation: “Sometimes you just have to know when to let go” (277). This doesn’t mean letting go is easy, but it is wise.

Later in her recovery, Giselle asks Aunt Leslie if she can still call herself a twin, and Aunt Leslie responds, “I imagine you’ll be a twin forever” (214). Even as Giselle slowly learns to “untwine,” she can never eliminate her past. She can only be transformed by it.

Danticat also draws from the whole body as a source of inspiration by showing how the body can experience such profound levels of grief and sadness – a “sextillion” on the pain scale – while also being capable of so much pleasure and joy. Even while discussing Giselle’s parents’ divorce and grief about losing her twin, there is levity to be found. Aunt Leslie begins to laugh and Giselle reflects, “I’m surprised how easy that laughter comes, how easy laughter has always come to people in our family, even when we are arguing, or fighting, or even mourning” (215). It feels to me there is a life lesson, as well as a craft lesson in this: to invite the full range of body experiences to our writing. Where there are tears and numbness and pain, there can also be laughter.