Maps of Hell

Eighteen

When the siblings were brought to the U.S., their father said they should never forget where they came from-but also that they should never mention it. After a year of lessons at home from tutors, they were allowed to attend school. Not the local institution of learning, but a private school in up-state New York, where there were many twins. It was clear from the start that they were both exceptionally able.

In a reversal of the usual way, it was the girl who proved to be better at the sciences, while the boy excelled at the arts and, later, at business studies. By the time they left school-both in the top percentile of their year-they had decided what they wanted to do. Their father supported them in every possible way, taking them on trips to the universities they were considering, and even managing a week’s holiday that summer. The three of them spent it in Washington, D.C., visiting their adopted nation’s monuments and museums. Both twins were so enthused by the city that they vowed to set up home there someday.

In the meantime, they had their studies to pursue. The boy passed at the top of his classes in both literature and business, while his sister was declared to be one of the most promising neuroscientists to appear in years. Within a decade, the boy had established the company that was now one of the biggest media corporations in America, while the girl was a full professor at an Ivy League university.

And then the tragedy happened. They were driving home for Christmas after a weekend in the Catskills, the boy at the wheel of an Italian sports car, when he lost control on an icy mountain road. The vehicle broke through a barrier and fell over two hundred feet, before bursting into flames.

Their father took the news of the accident very badly. He buried his offspring in a cemetery in Washington, D.C., remembering how much they had loved the city. He also wanted to commemorate their lives in the capital of the nation he knew they would have brought great honor to. It was said that the twins’ badly burned bodies were found hand in hand, the bones fused by the intense heat.

The old man, already suffering from prostate cancer, passed away three months after his children. He was buried in the same plot. The gravestones did not bear the names that any of them had borne in the land of their birth.