The woman’s deafness sinks in for me. The silence all around is deafening. For the first time I understand what “the silence is deafening” means. It’s deafening and deadening at the same time.
Helen hadn’t mentioned deafness at the time of our swap. It happened so fast. Maybe she didn’t understand that I would occupy her body, with all its pluses and minuses, its strengths and weaknesses.
The clock next to the coffeemaker in Helen’s kitchen says its 2:30 p.m. I don’t know when her husband will come home. Five? Maybe six?
I see a book near the coffeemaker. Its title is “Lip-reading and American Sign Language.” Helen must know how to lip-read and understand sign. I look at Helen’s hands. They’re a woman’s hands. Her nails have a manicure; they’re polished in a glossy silver.
I walk through the house to her large master bedroom. Its décor is Turkish, Ottoman Empire. A big red Persian rug hangs from one wall, making the room feel sensuous, full of atmosphere. I locate the bathroom and peer into the big bathroom mirror.
I seem around thirty. I’m fairly beautiful. My hair falls onto petit shoulders. I stand around five-foot-six inches. My breasts aren’t huge but they’re well placed. I have long slender arms and a glowing face. My woman’s jeans look to be about a size five. I have a callipygian rear end. Callipygian means Venus-like. Damn.
I turn the faucet on for running water. It’s then that my deafness really hits me. I can’t hear the water running. I see it pour into a marble basin, circling its way to the drain, but I can’t hear the slightest sound it’s making. It’s like watching a TV without any sound. But in real life, it’s nerve-racking. Helen’s husband is coming home. I won’t know how to read his lips.
How am I going to get along here? Why didn’t Hiklovic know?
A light blinks next to the bathroom mirror. Near the blinking, there’s a sign that reads “Phone.” I walk back into the bedroom. There’s a strange machine on the nightstand, where a phone might sit. A light on it blinks madly, too.
I realize it’s a TTY. I look at the words flowing on the LCD strip:
IT’S ME. I’M COMING IN A FEW MINUTES. I’M ON MY WAY!
* * *
Helen
Helen wakes and realizes she can hear. For the first time in her life she can hear. She stares at the ceiling of the big gym. Upon arriving in Mr. Beard’s world yesterday, she could hear right away. But it was such a new experience, she didn’t know she was having it. She thought she’d been lip-reading Saahela’s words, Reynold’s words. . . .
“I can hear! I can HEAR!!”
It’s 8:03 a.m. Thursday morning. She listens to herself breathe. She hears the scroop of the bedsheets as she moves. Every sound is beautiful to her.
She has often wondered what sound “sounds” like. Helen was born deaf. She has never heard anything before. People have tried to explain what hearing is like to her: a sensation in the ears, a comprehension of activity; wave theory; vibrations. Her friend Camille says music is like the soul writing love poems. Helen thinks that is very beautiful, but it didn’t help her to much understand sound.
She now notices how she grasps, too, what each sound is. She understands people’s words: has made the leap from the auditory to comprehension. She thinks there must be an explanation for this. She’s in another body, so maybe, she thinks, there’s something in what this brain does with sounds, such as fitting them into contexts. Maybe she benefits from the sound “files” of Mr. Beard’s head.
Helen isn’t sure and doesn’t really care. For her hearing is a miracle. She can hear! For the first time, she can hear!
An hour later, she opens the gym’s double-doors and sees the most beautiful man she’s ever before seen. He’s African. His skin is darker than anyone’s skin whom she’s seen in person. His face has a serene, strong expression. His kufi cap and white tunic glimmer in the morning sun, making his face seem black indeed. He has the aura of a spiritual man, maybe a priest.
“Good morning!” he says. His accent is vaguely African.
“Good. . . good morning.”
“You are just waking. Do you want me to come back?”
“That’s O.K. Are we meeting now?”
The man smiles.
“I’m sorry, but tell me your name?” says Helen.
The man smiles again. When he sees she isn’t kidding, he offers his right hand.
“I’m Bunito. We’re here to sing. The chorus is here. It’s Thursday morning.”
“Oh!”
The man stands motionless, waiting for her to act.
“Come in!” she says.
He comes into the gym. A beautiful dark-wood djembe hangs by a colorful strap from one of his shoulders. In his hand he carries a large leather bag. It looks heavy.
He walks into the big space. In one corner there are risers and another small piano: an upright. The man seems to know what to do. He puts the drum carefully down and turns on lights from a light switch on the wall. The gym suddenly comes fully into view.
Helen hears a noise and turns toward the main doors. Someone has scotched them open. Now a troop of people come in, one by one. There is a beautiful Indian woman with a red sindoor on her forehead. She wears a yellow sarong and has a beatific smile on her face. Following her is a large Chinese man. Helen has never seen such a tall Oriental. Then, men and women of all ages and sizes and races flow through the door like an international parade.
Helen looks at Bunito’s shining face. “What’s everybody doing?”
“They’re here to practice. We’re the Peace and Love singers. You let us use the space on Thursdays. You know. You must have been writing all night!”
Helen is relieved to understand why the people are coming in.
A few minutes later, the group is singing. Drummers beat on African drums: Bunito plays his djembe, and a young woman with chestnut-colored skin plays a small, conic ashiko. They sing West African melodies, the most beautiful thing Helen has yet heard. She’s sitting on a small chair off to the side, crying, when they stop.
The woman with the ashiko drum comes over. “You’re dear. You can sing with us, you know!”
Helen shakes her head, thanking her. The woman puts her arm around Helen in a warm gesture of appreciation. She and Mr. Beard are obviously friends, Helen realizes.
The Peace and Love Singers continue to practice. They try a melody that sounds Scandinavian, but Helen can’t make out its words. This is followed by a version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Helen knows the words, for she’s seen them in print.
The gorgeous black man, Bunito, comes over and asks if she wants to sing the next song. “It’s your favorite!” he says.
Helen lopes over to the group, not sure what to do. But she then recognizes the song. It’s “Danny Boy,” set to a lively rhythm.
Helen knows the words. She realizes Mr. Beard is a bass. She starts singing low notes as him. It is very fun. It makes her laugh during the rests. She has a man’s voice and it feels good. She sings with gusto:
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me,
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
By the end of the song, she’s crying. She’s never had a better time. She is singing! Helen can’t believe it. On the same day she has first noticed sound, she is singing!
People start to pack up their things to go. An hour has gone by as if it were a few moments. The woman with the chestnut colored skin comes over to say goodbye.
“I know you’re busy, but please call this week,” she says.
Bunito lingers until everyone has left.
“Is everything alright?” he asks.
Helen nods.
“We’re thankful you let us practice here. It’s a good space for sound.”
Helen smiles.
“You look like you’re not sure what today is.”
“It’s Thursday! Bunito, I need to talk to you. We’re friends, right?”
“Of course. Do you want to talk right now?”
“No, not now. Maybe later today. Do you have time later?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call you. But can I ask you a question now?”
“Please do.”
“Have I been acting strange this last week? Anything of out of the ordinary?”
Bunito looks at her. After a moment, he shakes his head no. “The same guy we love. Maybe a little distracted, but you always get that way when you’re writing. You’re writing something new, yes?”
“Mm-mm,” Helen says. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m writing.”
“I’ve been wanting to give you a suggestion.”
“What?”
“Just keep plowing forward,” he says. “Don’t stop for to look at where you’re at. Don’t think. Just write. That’s where the spirit lies.”
“I needed to hear that. Thank you.”
He smiles. “I’ll be going.”
Helen has the gym to herself for a while. She stretches, and the stretches turn into an hour of calisthenics. She decides she needs to get more used to this new male body. She finds a bathroom. It’s built into one corner of the gym. She takes a long, hot shower. She dresses in a male’s gym clothes she finds neatly folded near the sink. Mr. Beard is about six feet tall.
She thinks it is strange to put on a man’s underwear.
An hour or so later, Reynold comes in from Saahela’s area. He glances around, sees Helen reading.
“I can’t find Saahela,” Reynold says. “I’m walking to Squirrel Hill. Do you want to come?”
“Sure.”
A few minutes later, they’re outside walking. It’s a slushy January morning in Pittsburgh. Helen has put on Mr. Beard’s boots and now walks up Beechwood Boulevard with Reynold, who couldn’t find Saahela, and so wrote a note, then started to plunk on the upright piano before she gestured they should go.
They walk quietly up Beechwood. Helen listens to the cars. Hearing is an astonishing thing. She’s like a child learning a thousand new things every second.
She has no trouble understanding what people are saying.
“The thing is,” Reynold tells her, interrupting her reverie, “. . . we’ve been to the edge of insanity a bazillion times. Everything exists to make us compete. You know? We compete for jobs and for the chance to mate, to have offspring. We compete all week long and then watch football during the weekend because all we really know is competition, and they’re afraid that we’ll forget on Monday to compete if we don’t have weekend reminders.”
Helen doesn’t say anything.
“Most men don’t escape the vice-grip. If they do, other men, as well as most every other woman, stops taking them seriously.”
They walk further up the hill.
“What about making our lives worthwhile?” asks Helen. “With all that competing, do men ever get the chance to figure out what‘s worth it all?”
Reynold shoots a sideways look at Helen. “You asked that like you aren’t a man!”
Helen’s smile leads her to take in the houses on both sides of the street. They have large front yards. They were once the homes of Pittsburgh upper class. Most are a hundred years old or older and are filled with history. Stonework and landscaping are beautiful. A thin layer of snow covers the lawns and the sidewalks, and the morning air is about thirty degrees. She hears another sound: it’s the noise of tires slushing along the street. It’s a unique sound. She has never imagined a sound could be so beautiful as this swishing.
“Reynold,” she says, “if you think everything is about competition, how does one explain when two people bump into each other and fall in love? I mean, if neither have anything to show for themselves? No one’s saying I’m what Darwin hoped for here. Here for you, Jane baby.”
Reynold laughs. His face displays kindness and warmth. He looks to be about thirty. He had told her he was born in South Africa but was raised north of Pittsburgh. A slight African accent comes into his words at times, a mixture of a German and English accent. It’s pleasant to her ears, but of course everything is.
“What’s the difference?” asks Reynold. “I mean, competition is in it all. Most women look for a man who can guard the cave and bring home an extra meat slab. Past that, our genes probably don’t give a damn what we do. Maybe ‘love’ is just a leftover after survival.”
Security was something Helen had looked for in a husband, true. She can’t deny it. Her husband had impressed her with his ambition and his focus. Something about that side of him had thrilled her, made her want him. Yet it also removed him from her and made him feel far away too. And as she got older, she found his working so much less and less attractive.
The sun comes out more. It’s beautiful over the large old trees. They turn onto Forbes Avenue and head into Squirrel Hill. College students carry their laptops in big knapsacks. The dogs respectfully stay on their leashes. Helen looks across the street and sees Saahela. She is kissing another man.
“Saahela?” Reynold yells. When she doesn’t hear him, he says it louder.
Saahela looks over and sees him and Helen. The man whom she’s kissing looks too.
“Reynold,” says Helen. “Let’s go to Squirrel Hill. I want to see it.”
“That’s my girlfriend!”
“I know. But she’s obviously busy.”
“Saahela!” shouts Reynold. “What’s going on here!”
Reynold walks to her and the other man. Helen follows.
The other man is tall. He wears a Steelers beanie. He’s muscular. He looks like he’s been in a few bar fights, not a guy with whom anybody would want to mess.
Saahela says: “Reynold, this is Larry. Larry, Reynold.”
“I thought you were my girlfriend?”
“Hey man,” the guy in the Steelers cap says. “Let’s not have that.”
“I’m sorry, Reynold—”
Reynold gets close to the man. “What the hell do you think—”
The man hits Reynold hard across the face. Reynold stumbles back, starting to fall.
“Larry!” says Saahela.
“Reynold!” Helen says.
Reynold falls to the ground, blacking out.
“You didn’t have to do that,” says Saahela. But she does not reach down to check on Reynold.
The three of them stare at each other.
“I could call the police,” Helen says, bending down to check on Reynold.
“Hey, man, you shouldn’t do that,” says Larry. “I’m sorry. I thought he was going to hit me. I didn‘t mean to hurt him.”
As Helen touches Reynold’s forehead, he starts to regain awareness.
“What happened?” he asks weakly.
She looks down at him. Then she looks at Larry. Then she looks back at Reynold.
“Reynold,” says Saahela, “I don’t want to see you anymore. It’s over. Understand?”
“Saahela!”
“I didn’t mean it to be like this. I’m sorry.”
Saahela takes Larry’s arm and starts to walk.
“I’m sorry,” Saahela says to Helen. “I didn’t mean anything to be like this.”
Saahela and her new man walk down the street toward the park.
Reynold looks up at Helen. “I didn’t see that coming,” he says.
Helen gives him a sympathetic look.
“I mean her breaking up with me. I didn’t mean the punch.”
At that moment, Helen remembers that she has a secret connection in Seattle, an old male friend, someone she loved in college and then didn’t see for almost twenty years. He had come back into her life a month or so ago. His name is Doug.
They hadn’t started any kind of affair. But they had talked about her marriage.
She was supposed to see Doug Wednesday, the day of the swap.
She wonders how that meeting went; how Mr. Beard handled Doug. She offers her hand to Reynold.
He gets up and they walk on.
( Part V to follow. . . )
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