AN ANGEL IS SITTING NEXT TO MY BED

by Marianne Carlson

My twin sister, Hannah, and I  were born 12 weeks ahead of our due date. Needing intensive care, we were placed in separate incubators. Hannah began to gain weight and her health stabilized but I  only weighed 2 lbs, had trouble breathing, heart problems and other complications. I was not expected to live.

Our nurse did everything she could to make my health better, but nothing she did was helping me. With nothing else to do, our nurse went against hospital policy and decided to place both of us in the same incubator. She left us to sleep and when when she returned she found a sight she could not believe. She called all the nurses and doctors and this is what they saw.  Hannah had put her small little arm around me as if to hug and support me. From that moment on, my breathing and heart rate stabilized and my health became normal.

From the day we were born we were always together, Hannah and Sonia, the Bauer twins. Hannah watched over me as if her mission in life was to be my protector. She was 21 when she died, and I have been an empty shell ever since because when she died, my soul died with her.    We were born in Berlin and moved to America when we were toddlers, we spent our childhood in a modest home outside  Washington DC in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Because we left Germany when we were so young, Hannah and I never carried any guilt resulting from the horrors of the war.  In a way you could say we were collateral damage because our fellow classmates always regarded us with suspicion. We knew something bad had happened but we didn’t know what, and had no idea what it had to do with us. 

My parents grew up in a parallel universe. The war had impacted both their lives on a daily basis, they were heartbroken; their beloved Berlin in ruins, so many friends and relatives taken, their homeland despised. Because of this they never felt safe while growing up and were determined to create a stable, healthy home life for us while maintaining our German heritage.  Our family was extremely close, and my twin sister and I were inseparable.

My father, a career officer, worked  as an attache at Quantico, the Marine Base. Throughout his long career in the military, he always remained a gentleman,  a very gentle man, who loved poetry and must have found his position on the base difficult to say the least. The military did not suit him, he was a pacifist in a uniform, and he wrestled with this paradox throughout his entire career. The war had ended too recently for the passage of time to  even begin to heal all wounds, but both my parents managed to handle a delicate transition with grace. 

It was important to our parents that we maintain our German heritage, we spoke English at school but always German at home, and Hannah and I always spoke German to each other, creating an air of secrecy between us in school.  No one understood us which was the way we wanted it.  It must have been hard for my mother because we had each other but she had no one. Her thick hair always tied back in a knot, her calm, competent aura always created for us an environment of safety, like a comforting mother robin in her nest. My father worked long hours while my mothers’ days were spent cleaning the house. I can’t remember her having any friends, she must have been very lonely, but she never complained. She had  great dignity, great beauty, and there was a certain sweetness about her , a softness, which revealed itself every time she smiled. Losing Hannah robbed her of that softness, it was replaced by a hard edge. Every day after school we had kaffee und kuchen at the kitchen table and told her about our day. As we grew older we had other things we wanted to do but she insisted on this one tradition from her homeland, and we couldn’t say no to her.

It's strange, I can close my eyes and visualize our home, but try as I may, the only way I see Hannah is by looking in a mirror where I can see her facade, her smile and her dimple reflected back as me - but hollow, a ghost. Her essence has disappeared from my mind like a flashlight that slowly dims before dying completely, and nothing will ever replace it. The dark red hair, the pale skin, the rakish, defiant attitude is all there, but without any substance. I have become one of those life-size cardboard cutouts, an exact replica, but lifeless.  She was my touchstone. Only I knew the extent of Hannah’s mood swings, her highs and lows. To the rest of the world Hannah was the aggressor, the stable one, and I the introvert - but I knew better. As our high school days were coming to an end, her instability grew. She covered it up well but the prospect of high school ending and    leaving home to go to college was more unsettling to Hannah than to most. We often talked well into the night with the lights out.

“If something happens to me, you need to promise me that you will be all right,” Hannah whispered one night.

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“We are too close, we need to disentangle ourselves.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I remember saying, the hair on the back of my neck rising.

“Probably not, but if something does happen to me, you need to know I will never leave you. Look for signs, little signals that may pop up when you least expect it.”

Boys became a factor in our junior and senior year but they gravitated towards Hannah like a magnet whereas they seemed to tolerate me as Hannah’s appendage. She was constantly arranging double dates but this “two for the price of one” wore rather thin, both for the hapless boy who was to be my partner and for me. I would have far preferred reading a good book than spending endless hours hanging out in the local coffee shop. The truth is I believe I must have been jealous of any boy who seemed to be stealing Hannah away from me but none of it mattered until Stephen came along. I rerun it in my mind endlessly, how it unfolded, how it ended, if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. 

“Heute traf ich den meisten hübscher Junge, ich denke, dass ich ihn heiraten möchte.” (I met the cutest boy today, I think I am going to marry him.”)

“Ach? Was ist sein Name?” (Oh? What is his name?)

“Stephen”

The romance, for lack of a better word, came quickly and then it ended. Hannah was crazy about him. Stephen never tried to understand how important our German heritage was, to the contrary, he insulted Germans every chance he got. He took her to the senior prom but dropped her like a hot potato shortly after and moved on with his life, leaving Hannah devastated. I can never forgive his cruelty, the way he played with her like a rag doll. Following the breakup the juxtaposition of our roles was staggering for both of us. I, who had always been the weaker, was suddenly expected to hold her up, and I was totally unqualified. I never fully understood the depths of her depression until I found her lifeless body in the car in the garage.

Years later I returned to Berlin, I work for a large publishing company, my bilingual ability has served me well as my father promised. Single, I doubt if I could ever give myself to another person as I gave myself to Hannah. The pain is too excruciating. I believe I will continue to feel as if an integral part of me is missing until the day I die. One day I was on a train headed to Hamburg to attend a conference. As was my custom, my thoughts had once again returned to Hannah. I remembered what she told me, that she would never leave me, that I would receive signs, that they would pop up when I least expected them.

“Achten Sie auf Anzeichen, Hannah told me. (Watch for signs.) I studied the list of publishers who would be attending the conference absentmindedly, when I happened to glance out the window at the German countryside. And then I saw Hannah’s sign.  My heart leapt. How like her, a perfect sign from Hannah in full sight for the world to see.

An Angel is Sitting Next to my Bed

It's All Temporary