A Tale of an Unexpected Twin by Les Schofield

When We Were Twins
By Danuta Hinc
Plamen Press
232 pages

Good novelists write stories for readers to be heartily entertained. Exceptional novelists write stories for readers to become deeply thoughtful witnesses.

Danuta Hinc is an exceptional storyteller as proven by her relentless quest for witnesses in When We Were Twins. That she is good at storytelling is on display in the opening chapter where the subject and setting of her novel — the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City – tempts American readers to quickly set it down, but she skillfully keeps us reading. Hinc crosses the line from good to exceptional in the same scene by twining the terror and tenderness unexpectedly born in one of the boxcutter-wielders on the doomed flight. It’s a daring scene. She bravely calls us to witness the terrorist’s emotions that both repel and attract us at the same time. Much to our surprise, we step to her side and take a look.

On its surface, When We Were Twins is a straightforward tale of an unexpected twin, Taher, born amid wounded soldiers in an Egyptian hospital during the Yom Kippur War, his time as an aid worker during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and his transformation into a terrorist during the war between the Taliban and the U. S. backed Northern Alliance. From the onset of weaving the tapestry of this harrowing tale, Hinc interlaces Taher’s relationship with his twin sister, Aisha, as it moves from closeness to a fateful breach. Mere readers will key on this theme as the source of Hinc’s title, but the witnesses won’t be fooled by this red herring. While pointing toward Aisha, they know Taher’s real twin is hiding in plain sight.

There is a moment in the middle of this novel where Hinc holds hands with her witnesses as Taher talks with his one-time battle companion, Marek. They are in New York where Marek lives contentedly with his wife and children. Taher is visiting from Germany, restless to return to Afghanistan. In a chapter that many theologians could read to their great benefit, these friends have been arguing over Marek’s insistence of war’s futility and Taher’s commitment to jihad. They lapse into a long silence listening to children read poetry and watching a boat glide over a nearby lake. Taher is gentled by the moment and speaks: “Don’t you feel life is going in circles? … Sometimes I feel that we all really live the same lives, like we are the same, kind of twins.”

As the expression goes, Taher is so close but so far. We as witnesses stand with Hinc, consumed by the anguish we cannot change the historical fact of a boxcutter held to the flight attendant’s soft throat. But we are suddenly aware there is hope for future stories to end differently if we choose to embrace everyone in the world as our unexpected twins. Hinc subtly and tirelessly states this truth in every chapter of her powerful narrative which is neither an appeal for understanding the 9/11 terrorists nor an attempt to create sympathy for them. When We Were Twins is not a magnifying glass, but a mirror.

This is a book well worth reading. It is not easy nor pleasant, but it clearly points to the tragic metaphor underlying her work. There were two towers that day. When one fell, the other followed. The savagery of the attack was mirrored in the ferocity of the response. As the dust has settled, we’ve become painfully aware that something died in us all since that day.

Les Schofield is writer and artist living in North Carolina. For the past several years, he has taught theater arts, traditional woodcraft, and set design. He has studied art, philosophy, classical languages and holds an MFA in Creative writing. He was raised in the southwest and southern California before moving to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina where he married his wife, Kathy who is a professional folk artist. He is a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society and the North Carolina Writer’s Network. His current work in progress is entitled “Hominy Creek” which is an historical novel of the American Revolution as it played out in the Carolinas. He was recently interviewed in Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Newsletter, Issue 10, Spring 2023.