The Deaf House

by Joanne Weber

  I remembered: She thought I’d been involved with Deaf Pride, because I was interviewed by the CBC during the Gallaudet protest and that footage appeared on national television stations across Canada.

  I was naïve to think that genuine dialogue could happen between government officials, educators, and the Deaf community, and naïve enough to attempt it during the Task Force for Deaf Education underway in my first year of teaching at the school for the Deaf. Although the interview with the principal took all of five minutes, and essentially was a job offer, it didn’t occur to me that engaging in the meetings, consultations with stakeholder groups, full frontal attacks on the “enemy,” a.k.a. oralists, were forms of professional suicide. The Deaf school was threatened with imminent closure because of its swollen budget and the small ratio of staff to students. But I was resolved to defend the school because of the new language and culture that now fed my bones. It was an ironic homecoming indeed from Gallaudet.

  Patti and I travelled to Regina. I was excused from my teaching duties to attend a meeting with her and Bill Lockert, the school’s principal, and the rest of the newly-struck Task Force Committee on Deaf Education. At the hotel room we shared for the night, Patti threw the draft copy of the Task Force Report onto the bed.

  She said: “The other Hearing members of the Task Force say that if Lorne Hepworth, the Minister of Education, accepts these recommendations, the future of deaf education is very bright. More programs, more services throughout the province and more trained teachers and interpreters.”

  Detecting irony in her hands, in the tightness of her mouth, I said: “But you don’t believe that.”

  Patti’s mouth drew downward. Her lips tightened to show her disgust.

  I asked: “Why not? Think about it: the money from the school for the Deaf, over a million dollars a year, will fund all of that.”

  She said: “I don’t trust their forked tongues. They don’t want sign language, and they are not going to carry out all those recommendations, there’s over seventy of them. They will only implement one: close the school for the Deaf and shove the responsibility onto the school boards. Look, Bill and I wrote a dissenting report. We recommend that the school for the Deaf remain open for the sake of the kids that can’t be oral, with changes, of course. We’ll give the report to them next week.”

  I walked to the window. The afternoon was already wearing away, a grey pallor was falling over the street below the hotel room, and the faces of the people scurrying by were pinched with cold. I turned suddenly and signed: “Gee, I hope they don’t think I’m crazy, wanting to be part of the Deaf community.”

  Patti signed: “You’re Deaf. You’re one of us.”

  I signed: “No, not really. I never grew up in a residential school for the Deaf.”

  She signed: “That doesn’t matter. You’re still one of us.”

  I signed: “Yes, it does matter. I was mainstreamed in a small rural school.”

  She signed: “But it didn’t work for you.”

  I signed: “Not entirely, no. I had to read my way through school and the teachers were no more helpful than mannequins in a store. But there were some good things about it.”

  She asked: “Like what?”

  I answered: “I learned to survive. At least, I learned to read.”

  She signed: “Reading isn’t everything.”

  I answered: “It is to me, and it bothers me that many profoundly deaf students are semi-literate. They can’t read past grade four or five reading levels. There’s something really wrong about that. I don’t understand why.”

  But she signed: “Joanne, your ability to read and write as you do is the result of many years of practice.”

  I answered: “I just happen to have this innate ability to read and write.”

  She signed: “That’s nonsense, Joanne.”

  So I asked: “How else do you account for the median reading level of deaf people being at grade four?”

  She answered: “Practice, damn it, bloody practice. Not everyone has the motivation and work ethic that you have.”

  I signed: “But written English derives from spoken English. It’s hard to learn it any other way.”

  She answered: “There are other ways to educate a Deaf person. There are many Deaf who can’t speak a word yet have doctoral degrees from Hearing universities. Take Dave Mason for instance. He’s a professor at York University in Toronto.”

  The hotel room was pitch-black. I descended quickly to a deep sleep, but woke three hours later. I needed to go the bathroom but I didn’t want to turn on the light to see my way because that would wake up Patti. I tapped along the wall into the dark bathroom, searched with my foot, sliding it over the cold ceramic tile, feeling for the toilet. I felt the air move. I stopped. Then a hand brushed past my wrist. Frantic, I tried to snatch the hand. My only thought was to protect Patti sleeping in the bed, but the bathroom light ambled to a full glare. Patti stood before me, shaking in laughter. Finally, I began to giggle too.

  A few minutes later, I curled myself around a pillow. The afterimage of Patti’s face wreathed in laughter reminded me of a cool, refreshing rain, in which the patter of our hands beckoned me into a forest whose thick leafed boughs shielded me from an applauding crowd. The noise of their hands melted into sleep. Then I jerked suddenly awake, my throat constricted, my chest tight. I realized: I have no choice but to stand with Patti if I want to be Deaf. I know that my reputation as a Deaf professional will be forever marred in this province, but I’ve found the other half of my being in my Deaf body. If this costs me a living in Saskatchewan, so be it. And a voice urges me: Get out of the province. Find a job in a Deaf school in another province. Just be Hearing or be Deaf. It’s impossible to be both.

  Murray and I talked over coffee in preparation for a meeting with Department of Education officials, to work out a strategy to prevent the Government of Saskatchewan from making poorly informed decisions about the future of Deaf education. We had formed a coalition on Deaf education: me, Patti, and Peter Sicoli, another Deaf teacher, a parent, and Murray as the SGEU Shop Steward. I was impressed by Murray’s union savvy, how he had been able to advocate on the behalf of workers in workplaces for years. He won every grievance; the staff had dubbed him “Defender of the Universe.” He had no difficulty discerning the purpose of the Task Force — to close the school, under the guise of consulting with stakeholders.

  JW: “What if the government gets really ticked off with you? Are you worried about losing your job? You were suspended for three days last week.”

  DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE (Chuckles): “Well, I am still here.”

  I sipped my coffee again, not sure what to make of his sacrifice for us Deaf, then said: “What really bothers me about the Task Force is that no one really knows what really works for all deaf children. There are all these recommendations without any real research.”

  Murray nodded thoughtfully, and said: “And the Task Force is hiring a research company to hold meetings with people.”

  “But that’s all opinion, not facts. Just a bunch of meetings with stakeholder groups who all have vested interests. We need unbiased information, something we can draw upon when making recommendations.”

  Murray suddenly grinned, leaning back in his chair until his feet touched mine.

  “Did I ever tell you about Stephen Quigley?”

  “The language development guru?”

  “Yeah, we got him up here from the States for a conference. Anyway, he asked us an interesting question. He wanted to know if we thought that deaf people could read up to Grade Four. Of course, all of us put up our hands. Then he asked, ‘Grade Five?’ Some hands went down. ‘Grade Six?’ More hands went down. By the time he asked, ‘Grade Twelve?’ I was the only one whose hand was still up.”

  His thick index finger was the size of a cigar and the hairs on top of his hand bristled in the weak sunlight from the window. The hand looked large enough to cradle a newborn infant, cup an entire breast, and spa
n the space across my belly. My face grew warm. Yet his hands would never sign well. He wasn’t able to cross his thick fingers, or manipulate them easily into a complex handshape. His brilliant ideas on Deaf education would show up in a book written by someone else, who’d beat him to the punch. Soon he’d tire of Deaf issues.

  I told myself: He’s only another disinterested amateur researcher, a book away from the truth about deafness, American Sign Language and the value of Deaf Culture. As an educator, he’ll go on to something else at the end of the day, because he’ll never achieve fluency in sign. I reminded myself sternly: He’s just another book, his body flattened on a page.

  Murray had already drained his coffee cup, and was searching his pockets for change. He had such a keen, intelligent face. Two households, both alike in dignity. The introduction to Romeo and Juliet came into my mind unbidden. But the lovers were star-crossed. I thought: I wish he were Deaf.

  Murray’s warm smile disarmed me, and a bar of music, notes on a piano, began to play in my head. The tinnitus. I had never heard the music before. The music was slow, soft — a fugue. I tried to hear Murray over the notes in my head. I was thankful for his signing. I realized: He wants me. I cast my eyes away from him, although I knew it’s rude to break eye contact in Deaf culture.

  Piano notes slowed to a few dying bass notes in my head as I stood up, preparing to leave. Behind Murray’s head, I saw the new rain skitter down the panes of the window. A weak yellow light had begun in the sky, lighting the tips of the curls atop his head. I must go now before this evolved into something we’ll both regret. He’s married. Has two sons. Although he’d assured me that his marriage was finished, and that it was only the matter of paperwork, I dared not entertain any ideas of meeting with him in the future. Even if it was over the Task Force.

  He called: “Wait, Joanne.”

  In the split second before he spoke again, I told myself: This is futile. Not only is he married but he is Hearing.

  He asked: “What’s wrong, Joanne?”

  I said: “This is not right. We must not meet like this again. We’ll only work on Deaf education issues with the others.”

  Murray inspected his butter knife closely. The knife was a heavy dull pewter. He placed the knife on the table, lengthwise between us. He asked: “Why don’t you reach beyond the knife and see what happens?”

  I asked: “Is this a game?”

  He said: “Maybe.”

  The knife lay on the tablecloth: a sword between us. My head began to spin. Rochester did this to Jane, when he wanted to flush out her real feelings about him, dressing up as a gypsy, pretended to tell her fortune, probing, prying, trapping Jane into admitting her love for him.

  I pulled back, startled by my new and immediate greed for knowledge beyond books, beyond the warnings from my parents, and beyond the teachings of the Church. I told myself: I’ve been ripened for this moment. Words rattled in my head, searching for the trapdoor of my mouth where I might innocently agree to do whatever Murray wanted of me.

  On impulse, I put my hand over the knife and Murray immediately encased my hand in his. These words rammed themselves against the door of my mouth: This is wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Murray pulled my hand and said: “Why don’t you come with me?” He held my hands. I’d become mute.

  I rose from the table, my hand in his. I became sure that there was another language I’d never heard, seen or felt. Language was a function of the brain. Its complexity separated humans from most animals. It came from agreed upon sets of rules: grammar, syntax, semantics, units of sound called phonemes, and signs. The language I now glimpsed was a language of the body: the house of bones, sinews, and blood.

  Greedy for more knowledge, I went toward it, thinking it a new country.

  Last night, I’d come to the bed as if I’d been Murray’s lover for years. I thought: He’ll never know that I was a virgin until our long and languorous night. Now guilt and doubt assailed me: This is wrong. He hasn’t finished his business with his wife. Why should I believe him?

  I rose from the bed, disgusted with myself. I thought: I know better than to do something like this. After all, there was no language or country, only the sweat of our bodies. This is where my greed had led me. My curiosity sated, I became my own Inquisitor: Did I come to his bed because he can squeeze out handshapes in the half light of the lamp over the bed?

  I watched the early light steal through the slats of the hotel room’s closed blinds and rest upon my discarded jeans draped over the worn easy chair and my socks on the floor. A frenzy began in me, stirring like sludge at the bottom of a muddy slough. Finally, furious with myself, I pulled my clothes on. I snapped the waistband of my jeans in self-loathing. I told myself: I’ve forsaken the Deaf who welcome me with jokes, hugs, and a whirlwind social life for a Hearing man. Worse yet, I’ve compromised my own values and religious beliefs. I thought: I know better than to get involved with a married man. Why am I not satisfied with my new life in the Deaf community? The school might be about to close, but there is still a history, drama, poetry, art, dance, and a solid intellectual tradition associated with sign language and a life I could never hope to have with the Hearing. I told myself: We’ll fight to keep it alive. I don’t need to run into the arms of a Hearing man, especially now.

  Between meetings, where Murray and I continued to work on lobbying strategies, I kept badgering myself: Why have I put myself in such a dangerous position? How can I be so stupid? How could I sleep with Murray? He’s already married! His wife is devastated and rightly so. How could I be so selfish? What propelled me toward such madness?

  But there were too many places for us to be alone. My apartment, his apartment, hotel rooms, classrooms, cars, the winding paths along the riverbanks, meeting rooms. I began to feel displaced. Soon I became literally homeless. I carried a backpack of clothes, since I never knew where I’d stay for the night. I left my backpack stuffed with my clothes, toothpaste, deaf education briefs, the dissenting report by Patti Trofimenkoff and Bill Lockert, and the newly released Task Force report, propped in corners of rooms like an uncertain and weary traveller.

  I couldn’t concentrate on the interpreter’s signing. It was not his fault. I just didn’t trust this speech I was listening to. A decision had been made today by Hearing people for me and for all the Deaf in this province of Saskatchewan, embedded in the language of government that rolled off the interpreter’s hands, a meaningless repetition of signs, while the interpreter was trying to find the nugget of meaning. The political agenda, I thought, never spoken so how can it be interpreted into another language?

  Irritation bubbled up in my throat as I shifted wearily in my chair, until the interpreter relayed a succinct message: “ . . . the Minister of Education, Lorne Hepworth, has accepted the Task Force on Deaf Education report and intends to implement the recommendations this coming spring.”

  I slid my hands under my thighs, and sat up to concentrate. The other Deaf Community members were sitting still, hands folded in their laps.

  Paulette signed furiously beside me: “What of the dissenting report?” The interpreter’s voice shot over the table like a wayward hockey puck for Merv Houghton, the chairman of the Task Force.

  “Many of the recommendations from the dissenting report have been incorporated. We assure you that we seriously considered Mr. Lockert’s and Ms. Trofimenkoff’s desire to maintain the school for the Deaf albeit on a smaller or changed scale, but —”

  Paulette asked: “The school for the Deaf will not close then?”

  “The Minister intends to implement all recommendations we’ve made. Closure of the school for the Deaf is only one of the recommendations we’ve made.”

  Paulette asked again: “What about the students who are presently enrolled in the school for the Deaf?”

  “They will be given the option of returning to the schools in their home community or attending the Alberta School for the Deaf in Edmonton at taxpayer cost.”

  Pa
ulette asked, her face white: “And what will happen to this school?”

  “The building will be given to the University of Saskatchewan. They’ll likely use it for ESL programs for foreign students. Of course, we’re reserving two rooms for the Deaf community. We’ll call it the R.J.D. Williams Deaf Cultural Centre.”

  Paulette protested: “But the school is where we learn our language. How are the Deaf children going to learn their language during the day? We can’t wait until evenings and weekends in the Cultural Centre to learn language. It isn’t an option for them. They need the language to learn in school.”

  JOHANNA

  We Deaf are still plagued by low expectations. I think. I scratch my head, my scalp is so irritated from fatigue, the report writing, the long hours in the night thinking about why my students are not achieving, why they are growing into stunted human beings. They do not identify with the Deaf community despite my encouragement. They cannot sustain long and meaningful conversations with most persons in the Hearing world. They remind me of the twisted trees northwest of Hafford, Saskatchewan, whose trunks twist and turn in weird configurations. People say the trees twist because of some paranormal reality; others say the malformed trunks and branches are a result of genetic mutation. My students have become warped as Myklebust suggests in his research. No wonder the Deaf academic community detests his conclusions. Participating in the life of a large and vibrant Deaf community would allow them to develop in similar ways to Hearing. How do I straighten them, when they are marooned between two worlds, when the Hearing are doggedly cheering them on with undulating praise and the Deaf community in Regina is dying?

  Then it comes. My mother and her brutal corrections: “Don’t read those Harlequin romances, you can read better stuff than that.” Or: “You’ve done a snow job on her, you need to be more responsible.” Or: “You must learn the difference between lay and lie.” Or even as an elderly woman, poised with paper and pencil, making her diacritical markings: “Say this word properly.” Each correction has jolted me out of my isolation, my inability to see what other people see in me, and the tendency to live inside my head. And to this day, I know that every one of those corrections were done out of love. And I’ve done it even with my own students, and it does work in very limited and small dosages. There is recognition in their faces when I do it. I shouldn’t glance at the shocked looks on the interpreters’ faces when I do it. And: my mother’s way echoes (although for different reasons) the Deaf Way. Blunt signs. No beating around the bush. Just the facts, ma’am. Point out the obvious.