Originally written in Dutch, The Twins by Tessa De Loo weaves a uniquely complex view of World War II. Estranged elderly twin sisters arbitrarily find each other at a spa. They were separated after being orphaned as young children, one to relatives in Holland and the other to relatives in Germany, before the war. They recount their experiences from opposite sides of the war with such intimate poignancy, trying to explain, trying to understand. The author succeeds in showing the humanity of regular people, no matter how history portrays them after the fact - no matter how we want to cast players in black-and-white simplicity. Here are some lines I collected:
Page 8: They wave and he waves back with a large white hand that passes back and forth in front of his face as though he wants to wipe himself out.
Page 50: The layers of time were grating over each. Before the war, after the war, the Depression years, a century ago...diverse landscapes that Anna hurtled through tipsily, as though in a runaway train.
Page 152: She had read enough to know that crying for a soldier who was departing for the front joined her to the company of millions of women throughout the ages. It had been written and sung about over and over again, but even so her grief was the only one, the worst one of all.
Page 223: Watch out for me! I am even worse than these who openly make war. I am friend and foe in one. I? There is no I, only an ambivalent treacherous we, who deceives itself in itself....
Page 290: Their whole meeting was a film she had failed to walk out of in time; now she wanted to know how it ended.
Page 351: Her powerlessness flowed down her cheeks -- too late, too late.
