The Devil's Sanctuary Read Free Page A

when he said the correct word was he rewarded. Max actually had a large passive vocabulary and understood an almost alarming amount of what other people were saying. It had just never occurred to him to say anything himself.
    Toward the end of the summer it was time to reunite the two brothers.
    They didn’t appear to recognize each other.
    Daniel behaved the way he would have done with any stranger and was shy and reserved.
    Max appeared to view his brother as an intruder and behaved aggressively when Daniel put his hands on toys Max regarded as his private property. (A not entirely unexpected reaction, seeing as “mine” was the first word Max uttered, and his first two-word sentence had been “Have it!”)
    During the period of separation the parents had unfortunately come to regard the twin in their respective care as “their” boy. Every time the boys came to blows the family was therefore divided into two camps. On one side stood Daniel and his mother, with her parents in the background. On the other side stood the boys’ father, Anna Rupke, and Max. Their mother thought Max was treating her little Daniel badly. Their father and Anna thought that Max’s aggressive behavior was a positive sign of his liberation from his brother.
    In light of the unsuccessful reunion it was agreed, in collaboration with the pediatrician in Uppsala, to separate the boys once more.
    Anna Rupke was supposed to be going back to work on her thesis but decided to take a break and carry on as Max’s nanny. Or pedagogical instructor, as she preferred to call herself. The boys’ father expressed his sincere thanks, well aware that Anna had put her promising career on hold. But Anna assured him that Max was such an interesting child that he was more of a benefit than a hindrance to her research.
    The boys’ mother once again took Daniel to her parents in Uppsala, and in this way the parents lived apart the entire autumn, each with his or her own twin, with daily phone calls about the boys’ progress.
    When Christmas came, it was time to make a new attempt at reunification. But the split in the family was now so deep that it seemed impossible to repair. Besides, during the couple’s long separation, the father had embarked upon a relationship with his son’s nanny.
    He wasn’t entirely sure how it had come about. It had started with him being impressed. By the way Anna dealt with Max, her certainty, her calmness, her intelligence. He concluded with some satisfaction that she, like him, had a pragmatic researcher’s nature and wasn’t an indecisive, emotional creature like the boys’ mother.
    Without him really noticing, he went from being impressed to being attracted. By Anna’s high Slavic cheekbones, the fresh smell of shampoo she left after her in the bathroom, the thoughtful way she twined her necklace, and the audible yawns from the guest bedroom before she fell asleep.
    Maybe there was no more to it than a man being attracted by the woman living in his house and looking after his child.
    During the autumn the mother had made a life for herself in Uppsala. While her mother looked after Daniel, she spent a few hours each day working as a secretary at the Institute of Classical Languages, where her father still worked as a professor.
    One year later this arrangement was confirmed. The boys’ parents divorced, the father married Anna, and the mother moved into an apartment just ten minutes’ walk from her parents.
    So the twins grew up with one parent each and only met once a year on their shared birthday, October 28.
    Everyone was always nervous in advance of these birthday encounters. Did the brothers still look similar? What did they have in common? What were the differences?
    It was clear that the brothers, in spite of being twins, had retained their differences. Max was sociable, outgoing, talkative. Daniel was reserved and cautious. It was odd to think that Max had once been entirely dependent on his brother for all that