I really enjoy reading some of my old work. Stories and articles I was loathe to write during Uni are now some of my absolute most cherished pieces. Others, well…they’re good to laugh at. I found this one recently and thought I’d share it. Maybe it will inspire you to carry it on?
My ears rang as the deep voice spoke. The phone trembled in my hand as I struggled to stay standing. I opened my mouth and strained. Foreign sounds crawled up my throat. Tensed and concentrated, I started to arrange them into syllables and words. They jumped out of me one after another, like peas from a split pod. I put the receiver aside, hardly believing it possible. I began to recite words and sentences, snatches of Mitka’s songs. The voice lost in a faraway village church had found me again and was filling the whole room. I spoke loudly and incessantly, first like the peasants and then like the city folk, as fast as I could, enraptured by the sounds that were heavy with meaning. I convinced myself again and again and again that speech was now mine and that it did not intend to escape through the open window, out the balcony, into the sky. The receiver dropped to the floor with a thud.
My fingers sat lightly on my lips, as if I were blind and feeling the words as they flowed out of my mouth. Knees weak, I sat in a chair next to the bed. For an eternity I sat, my eyes wide and my mouth running, pouring forth words and phrases. Ages since I had spoke in my native language, the words I had learned as a child were foreign to my ears. With my other hand, I found myself reverting to my old form of communication. My fingertips tapped out in a Morse-code type pattern the very words I was speaking. I’m sure Dr. Quinto would have been very interested in this.
An idea swirled into my mind. I have to see this, I thought quickly. Still vocalizing with no particular meaning, I charged the bathroom mirror. I watched my lips twist and purse, the intricate yet basic movements I had witnessed on others every day were now dancing on my face too. I would sometimes get caught on a word or phrase that was particularly enjoyable to say, skipping like a scratched vinyl record.
“Ich möchte Kartoffelsalat werfen wollen. Kartoffelsalat, kartoffelsalat, kartoffelsalat. Wohin geht dieser Bus? Nachzeit, nachzeit.”
If another person had stood witness, they would be sure I was crazy or experiencing some type of mental break. It was quite the opposite. I was euphoric. Each word created another flutter in my stomach, a wave of pleasure with each sentence I was able to form. I have no idea how long it took for me to come down off my high and return to my senses. For a moment, a wave of embarrassment and self-consciousness overcame me at the thought of him overhearing such a private moment and looked to the fallen phone. The line was dead. He hadn’t heard.
My embarrassment was replaced almost immediately by a sense of urgency. I was losing time. I sent a note down to the main desk requesting them to find the number that had just called my room. I was still uneasy about my speech and preferred to keep it private until I was sure I could converse fluently and intelligently. I had survived this long communicating in such ways and I was sure that I could last another few days.
I quickly packed my bags with the bare essentials and just one change of clothing. I retrieved the number from the front desk and had them send a cab for me, telling them I would need a ride to the closest airport. Thanking God, not for the first time, that this was a special care facility and not a hospital, leaving me free to come and go. I thought of informing Dr. Quinto about my sudden departure, then reconsidered. For the first time in my life I was finally doing something by myself, for myself, without the aid of anyone.
After a connecting flight from Montreal to New York, I was on my way for the first time to my birth land. I had not laid eyes on my town since I was 7 years old. The long flight provided me plenty of time to fully reflect on the events that had led me to this return voyage. Not one smile formed as I reminisced.
My father was originally from Canada and had procured his fortune through means unknown to me. I remember him as older, already gray at the temples with a quiet demeanour, but he was not the kind, affectionate father most had growing up. He rarely spoke to me and when he did, it was only in his native French. After my mother’s death, of which I remember nothing, he transplanted us an ocean away with a new family. My father had situated us in a small village in the western corner of Saarland, Germany. Though the town was poor, we were fairly wealthy.
My step-mother was born and raised in Germany. She was a strict woman, and expected nothing but adult behaviour from her children. She had two children from a previous marriage, both of whom were much older than I. We were never allowed to play or joke around as the other children did. Rather, we had chores to complete before and after school and were never allowed any friends to visit, not that I had had any friends to begin with.
I have jet black hair and dark brown eyes while the other children resembled the Aryan race Hitler had strived so dearly for. Coupled with my family’s wealth, our anti-social behaviour in the community, and I looking nothing like the others, I was instantly ostracized, an obvious target.
The turning point in my life came when I was a mere 5 years old. I was walking home from school, daydreaming and drifting behind my brother and sister, when a couple of kids from a neighbouring house grabbed me from behind and pushed me to the ground. After pummelling me with fists and rocks, they left as quickly as they had come. This was the beginning of the torment that would last for years, every day on the way home from school these children would arrive to beat me. Their laughing and giggling still rings in my ears.
The beatings increased in severity, though not always physically. They began to taunt me, to call me names, to drag me into a barn close to the road and threaten me with farm tools. Sometimes there were three or four, but usually there were only two, all boys and all much bigger than I. I was often asked later on in my life why I never told anyone of this abuse and I have never found an answer that satisfies anyone. I simply didn’t think my parents would care and I was fearful I would be punished for my complaining. After all, both my brother and sister had turned their backs on me, why WOULDN’T my parents?
It was on the way home from school, the beginning of a long holiday, when the boys took their abuse to the next level. I had succumbed to their capture, allowing them to drag me to the barn since I was usually hit less if I cooperated. Something was different this time, I could sense a thick tension in their voices the moment they shut the doors to the barn. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a small sheep tied to a stall to my left. The boys weren’t giggling. Their eyes were wide and expectant.
One approached me, waving a long, thin knife in front of his face. The other grabbed my arms and held them behind my back while pulling my hair, exposing my neck. The knife was held to my throat and I was told that it was either my throat or the sheep’s. I was forced to drain the blood of the sheep, to listen to its gurgling pleas as I killed it, but this was the last I remember. Different types of therapy have recovered many of the memories I had blocked, but they are far from pleasant, nor necessary to recount.
Apparently hours had passed when my family finally came searching for me. They found me trembling in the woods, leaning up against a tree beside the road, covered in blood. From that point I had ceased speaking completely. I don’t remember why I stopped to begin with, though the various therapists I have seen have many theories. I do remember that I eventually found the silence comforting.
It was at only one point where I found my voice again. One Sunday in church while my family and the rest of the congregation was singing, I began humming quietly. The humming grew to a light singing, and soon I was singing as loudly as the adults. As the hymn ended, I realized my family and most of the congregation was staring at me. That was the very last time I ever spoke, up until the phone call in the hotel room.
My parents were mystified at my condition. I don’t know if they ever discovered why I was found covered in blood, nor do I know if they ever cared. At that moment I became more than an outcast. I became a burden. After a year of such silence, my step-mother became convinced I was going to infect the rest of the family with my “Geisteskrankheit,” or insanity. I remember that word well. It was repeated often. Rather than argue, my father kept the peace and sent his last blood relative thousands of miles away, back to his home in Canada.
There I stayed with a distant relative and began my therapy sessions with Dr. Quinto. After a decade and barely a word from my family back in Germany, I realized I had been completely abandoned. Dr. Quinto became the only true friend I had ever had.
He pioneered several different techniques with me in order to help others treat traumatized children. Quickly realizing that it was the act of speaking that bothered me, not the actual communication, he began asking me to write in journals. We developed a form of tapping which would function as quick “speaking.” Not quite Morse-code, but similar.
As I felt the plane begin to descend, making its final approach my mind snapped back to the phone call I had received many hours ago. My father’s voice. He still assumed I didn’t speak because he did all the talking. My hand felt for the piece of paper in my pocket containing his phone number.
“Ihre Mutter ist tot. Kommen Sie nach Hause.”
I had always heard that for bi- or multi-lingual people, times of extreme pleasure or anxiety cause them to revert back to their first language. This was such a case. I had learned French, English, and some German but never felt the need to speak. It took my father’s voice, and the knowledge that he had tracked me down and wanted to see me, for my tongue to finally be set free.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him. I wasn’t sure where even to find him, having not been in the country since I was young. I didn’t even know if I wanted to see the man or what good it would do me.
As the plane landed, I clutched at a black and white marbled notebook. This journal was one of the most important steps in my therapy, according to Dr. Quinto. I knew every word inside because they were my words. It was my life. Now perhaps, I could write its ending. It began; I lived in Marta’s house, expecting my parents to come for me any day, any hour. Crying did not help, and Marta paid no attention to my sniveling.
Categories: Writing
Tags: creative writing, exercise, university
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