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Kim RobertsSIAMESE TWINSChang and Eng shared a liver. For eight years, they toured America and England performing acrobatics (although denied entry to France: officials feared their malady would spread to pregnant women). In America, they always appeared with the image of an eagle and the motto, Union and Liberty, one and inseparable, now and forever. Like two states in a united nation. Like their home state, North Carolina, where they retired at 28, became farmers, married sisters, and between them sired 21 children. Emerson once wrote that life cannot be divided or doubled. Any invasion of its unity would be chaos. The soul is not twin-born, but the only begotten... I wonder how they taught themselves that delicate dance: when to fuse, when to be separate, how to make their own privacy. The newspapers wrote that Eng died of fright, waking next to his dead brother in the dark. But really Chang died from a cerebral clot, and when blood pooled in his body, Eng bled to death. The body is a mysterious housing: it brings us pleasure, fails us daily, encloses a fragile sense of self. It is where we live. And when we die, our other half goes too. |