“Kleptophobic” by Stela Dujakovic

She didn’t want us to be the same person. It was evident. She didn’t have to say anything. Frustration kept swelling like angry fluids in torn tissues until it was too visible to deny. And she drained the supply chain until it was bled dry—over weeks, even months, conducting her meticulous operations like a trickster. At the same time, she was morphing into a different person, taking on unfamiliar attributes, applying masks. Trying on identities and slipping into new passports. Pretending she had been this other self all along.

But I knew it wasn’t real.

I know it wasn’t.

 

Unlike conjoined twins, we each had a separate body: a full-functioning organism, biologically wired to survive on its own. Unlike identical twins, we each had our own features, our own frames. The only physical semblance concealed in anthropological traces. Maybe descendants from the same ancient village. Maybe from nomads who had traveled on thick-hoofed mammals from the Far East. Maybe Arabs. Maybe Mongols. Maybe a cross-pollination of Romans and Greeks; isn’t that what they’d prefer to believe. In print, we had different mothers, different fathers. This was a simple fact. We knew our creators. We were two human beings born into the world on different days, in different hospital rooms, pulled out by different midwives in different-colored gowns, far from each other, in different countries.

Our memories separate in the beginning.

 

In the beginning, you look for someone who’s a little bit like yourself. Just a little bit. Someone who speaks the same language. Laughs at the same jokes. Earmarks the same pages. At birth, we melted into one language—the language of our forebears, proud fathers with large plans and serious commands. That was before the war cut our language into two. There was no need to talk, the fathers were occupied with killing.

 

We had to be refashioned to fit into a new tongue. Different land. Same purpose.

“Speak, child. Why don’t you speak!?”

There was nothing to speak. He was seven and felt like he had already said all there was to say. Transitioning from one language into another requires the unbreakable will to swallow old thoughts until new ones are formed, until they are ready to roll off the tongue. First awkwardly, then hopefully eloquently. It takes getting used to. Courage, too.

 

“Can I just say that this is utterly stupid.”

“Stupid?” One raised brow demands explanation.

“Look—it wasn’t meant to be. Just let it go—will you?”

“No!”

Ah—letting go. Just letting go. Just let it go. Just. It’s not just. Not until I know. I just need to know.

 

In the beginning, you look for fragments of yourself in the other. Do we have the same interests? Do we watch the same shows or read the same books? Do we come from similar backgrounds? Do we share human secrets, peculiarities? Woven out of odd little traits like ticks and flaws, wonderful habits. Tiny reflectors revealing tiny conformities. We were sitting on trains and buses, on long plane travels sharing earphones, one plug each. We were riding in cars without boys, just the two of us, thousands of miles, along the coast, through the maze of city streets into the desert driven to disentangle how Blood, Tears, and Gold correlate.

“Goes. Grows. Same thing—it’s dead, isn’t it?”

But the truth lies in the details. And you knew that.

 

You let me down. I wanted to say, but couldn’t.

 

Native speaker competence remedial teaching. In German, there’s a single word for it. Just one word. We used to call it srpskohrvatski or srpsko-hrvatski. Not even close, but in those childhood days, we didn’t pay too much attention to the missing bits, nor the hyphens. Reluctantly, we met in somebody else’s classroom every Wednesday after school to practice our native skills, both parts of it. Srpsko-hrvatski. Srpsko and hrvatski. And we shared that first-row bench until we had passed with flying colors, holding our little diplomas, proud teenagers after ten years of lost Wednesday afternoons.

German was just there. Everywhere. There was no way around it. Little creatures like sponges, we inhaled the endless words. We were somewhat younger, hadn’t passed the seven-year mark, so there was no need to study. It came naturally, conquered the brain as if born from eloquence. We simply knew.

Is’ ja schon gut.

I surrender.

 

In the beginning, you want to become one. You want to be heard. Understood. And suddenly, whenever you think you’re alone, you find that you’re not. And sharing becomes your favored habit. The most minute detail is bestowed and accepted like a scepter, a precious gift, sometimes passed with utmost urgency, always with the utmost precision.

I told you a secret once. Have you kept it safe?

 

Language no. 3

Vocab books and grammar rules and pronunciation training and draconian superiors demonstrating tip of the tongue tactics—the structure of things came effortlessly to you. Whereas my scatterbrain asked for more patience to connect the dots. It took me a while. It always took me a while.

A mathematician’s brain, you bragged aloud. Calculation your strong suit.

And while you were training to become God’s prodigy, I was busy breaking apart.

Not fair? You should write your own story then.

 

We were an 85% match. Remarkably compatible. A long catalog of commonalities tying the knot. Would each have been a great suitor for the other. And thus another marriage pact was arranged. At heart, we were both poor lovers of words, though I’m still convinced that I loved them more. Love them, still love them.

But this is one of the insignificant details. The 15% that marks the difference.

We shared so many things—would be easier to itemize those we didn’t. I look at my bookshelf and nearly every piece bears a joint memory.

The God of Small Things.

Right there. In the small things.

We should have listened and learned instead of parading intellect like a shiny trophy, thinking we were entitled to this fortunate possession.

We paraded each other, too. Introduced each other as besties. Bragged about how much alike we were, naming all the common features like tiny proclamations, finishing each other’s thoughts and sentences, of course, like besties do. We became an item. Not in a sexual way, nevertheless, people suspected.

And suddenly, whenever you think you’re unique, you find that you’re not.

 

Spitting image, they snicker.

Can kleptophobia be cured?

This is where sisterhood came undone. We grabbed hold of our own possessions, stashing precious new discoveries out of the other’s sight like singletons, refusing to give, refusing to speak.

All the world’s languages, couldn’t put them together again.

 

The spell broken, you drifted off peu à peu.

Ah, little Jeju, anxious thing. Somehow always a step ahead but still trapped in the shadow of the other Boleyn girl, tearing at what you needed to be yours.

A tear. A shake of the head. And a shrug. Will do.

So I pack up and leave the scene with a battered heart and conclude:

Take it.

I cede the town.

Take it all—it’s yours.

 

∞

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Stela Dujakovic is a university teacher and humanities scholar, currently exploring the magnificent world of old white men in literature for her PhD. She also writes fiction, for which, on the other hand, she doesn’t get paid, but not so much about old men, maybe that’s why. She’s not very good at writing short bio notes.

Follow her on Twitter @stduj and Instagram @stelduj!