The Deaf House

by Joanne Weber

  I paused at that one. Then I got out the atlas and showed her. Melissa sat tapping her pencil restlessly.

  At lunch time, Gina had a barrage of questions for Catherine, who was eating a savoury soup she’d brought from home. The smell of onion, rosemary, garlic, and basil dominated the air.

  Gina asked: “What’s in your soup?”

  Catherine: “Garlic.”

  Gina: “What’s that?”

  Catherine hunted for a picture in one of our picture dictionaries. By the time she finished explaining “garlic” to Gina, her soup was cold.

  In a meeting afterwards, I proclaimed my delight with Gina’s inquisitiveness. Catherine politely agreed. Sophie said nothing. I insisted: “She wants to learn.”

  Two days later Melissa tapped her pencil with boredom as I laboured to explain the word, “disease.” Later that day, I told my staff: “I have to put Gina on a separate program as Melissa is getting too frustrated.” They nodded their support.

  We tried the Heartland books, because Gina said she loved horses, and even rode one at her uncle’s farm. She clasped her hands in pleasure when I began reading the first novel to her, using ASL. She interrupted: “What’s a bridle?”

  I explained, then pick up the book to resume again.

  She interrupted again: “Reins?” Then: “Saddle?” Then: “Ranch?”

  I was beginning to notice a pattern. We didn’t have conversations. Instead, Gina asked questions all day, every day. All of them in rapid fire succession. The minute I finished explaining one word, she lobbed another question at me. Question, answer, question, answer. I was becoming more and more exhausted. The other students sat quietly, watching me gyrate my arms, labouring intensively to convey meanings of words. I slumped at our meeting table after school.

  I said: “How come she can’t remember anything?”

  Catherine offered: “She’s not very smart.”

  I responded: “We don’t know that yet because of the language delay, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, this incessant need for information and not being able to remember any of it.”

  Sophie had it: “She doesn’t need to. The interpreter does all her remembering.”

  I said: “I don’t think that Gina understands what an interpreter is supposed to do.”

  Catherine: “She doesn’t watch me for very long. She wants to interrupt me with questions every time I’m interpreting in the other classes for her and Melissa.”

  Me: “Well, she doesn’t know how to use an interpreter properly. She needs to understand that the interpreter is for Melissa too. She’ll have to learn to save her questions for later.”

  Sophie, suddenly: “Gina is not at all curious. She just wants attention.”

  We all sat quietly at the table. The heavy curtain that was drawn partway across our window to shut out the afternoon sun, fluttered in the breeze. I placed my hands on the badly scratched table and announced: “It’s about the mom, then. Gina told me that her dad told her that when she was born, the mom went screaming down the hallway out of the hospital.”

  Catherine, indignantly: “Why on earth would anyone tell a deaf child that story?”

  I mused: “By asking people all those questions, Gina is trying to make sure that no one ever leaves her. It’s a way of trapping you into the same space with her.”

  Catherine, with a sigh: “We’re going to hate her in the end.”

  Me, resolutely: “No, we’re not. We’ll do something about this problem. We’ll teach her how to have relationships.”

  Sophie’s eyes remained hooded and cautious.

  And I concluded: “She is so alone. And terrified of being abandoned.”

  The interpreters nodded politely.

  I began going to bed earlier each night in the hope of catching up on my sleep. It was darker and chillier in the evenings anyway. I was waking up at four o’ clock in the morning, among shreds of dreams and waking images, picking at the twisted ropes of sheets and quilts, with Murray’s back beside me, the curtain lifting slightly in the current from the warm air register under the window.

  Too early one morning I couldn’t sleep and thought: Winter is coming soon and I won’t have enough. Then: Enough of what? I tried to remember, without thinking too hard on it. Then it came: There won’t be enough light. Hold on until St. Lucy’s Day, the winter solstice, and then the light will begin to come back.

  I scurried into my classroom at seven thirty each morning, clutching my winter coat, cursing the coldness that settled in my feet, sipped my steaming coffee, sensing something tightening inside me, I was becoming trapped by the darkness in the morning and the evening, and I thought of Gina who was due in an hour, and shuddered at how she brought out the very worst in me.

  An accusing voice interrupted my thoughts again and again: You still don’t get it. I don’t have a voice, Gina doesn’t have a voice. I saw a dark face come before me in the night where I twisted the sheets on my bed, unable to sleep. The voice accused: You don’t spend enough time with me. You slammed the door in my face at Gally. Must I wait another twenty years before you’ll even look at me again? You think you can save the deaf kids in your classroom. You’ll show them the way. Indeed. I couldn’t get this taunting voice out of my head. The voice of the malformed fetus. Hooked up to the hearing aid. As her life support. I thought: She’ll never leave me. Never. And: How can I get away from her? I awakened weeping and Murray took me into his arms. Under the weak light over our bed, I knew I had to tell him something, so I signed:

  “When my mother and father left me in that crib, I had no idea how long they were going to go away. My mother felt terrible afterwards about leaving me in the hospital and she didn’t like the way the nurse handled me, she was too rough, but I thought my parents would never come back. Two weeks was like eternity, especially when I had to endure those rough hands.”

  I relaxed in Murray’s arms, and pondered: Maybe recalling childhood memories is enough. Relive the trauma and let it go. Isn’t that what all therapists say? It’s a calm, reasonable move toward wholeness, the certainty of being healed from the past. We North Americans are very good at poking into our pasts to shape our futures. Maybe it’s all we really need to do.

  I rose from the bed and grabbed my housecoat, tottering on feet that had swelled during the night. A few minutes later, standing in the shower, feeling the hot water pound on my neck, I was not convinced. Now I thought: All the optimism and the technology in the world will never make me into a Hearing person. Nothing will ever take this deafness away from me.

  Later that morning, I drew a picture of an interpreter and a Deaf person on the blackboard. Gina sat at the table, waiting. Other students lifted their heads from their work.

  I began slowly: “The interpreter is not a friend.”

  Gina demanded: “Why not?”

  I signed: “Because that’s not the role of an interpreter.”

  Immediately I saw my mistake but it was too late.

  Gina cut in with: “What’s ‘role’ mean?”

  I signed: “Never mind.” I was shocked at my brusqueness, but I repeated: “It’s not the interpreter’s job to be your friend.”

  Gina demanded, again: “Why not?”

  I signed, again: “They are not supposed to help you.” I explained to myself: Well, yes and no. Trying to find a way to convey this without bringing forth a tidal wave of questions. Then I stopped myself and signed: “Gina, what is a friend?”

  Gina answered: “Someone who helps me.”

  I signed: “Do you help a friend?”

  Gina shook her head: No.

  I stood beside my hastily drawn sketch on the blackboard and tried again, with: “Gina, the purpose of an interpreter is to translate English into sign language.”

  Gina’s face was blank.

  I stumbled on, like this: “You’re supposed to watch the interpreter and then communicate with the Hearing person through your own signing.”

  Gina’s face remained impassi
ve.

  I shouted with my hands, making large signs, and pushing my brows together until they hurt: “The interpreter is not your friend.”

  The other students quickly returned their gaze to the books opened before them.

  Every day, Gina’s need was a giant maw, opening every time I dropped my hands to rest, to think of what to do next, but once I was inside her great need, the most I could do was to feel alongside the walls, looking for ways to escape her. I began with her voice, that high pitched squeal that had my other students clasping their hands to their ears in pain, even if they were wearing hearing aids and cochlear implants. Sophie and Catherine shuddered when they heard it and I tried not to wince when she squealed in front of me, and wondered: Has no one has taught her the importance of decorum or manners? I could hear her squeal in the hallway when she tried to talk to teachers using a combination of her hands and voice. Teachers nodded politely, ignoring the offensive sound, until one day, I came up to her in the hallway, and said: “Stop making that noise, Gina. You’ve got your aids on, you know that Hearing people don’t make those noises.”

  She answered: “I thought I was supposed to use my voice. Hearing people want that.”

  I signed: “It makes you look dumb, Gina. Don’t use your voice in this school. Use an interpreter.”

  I walked away. I knew that my savage signs would hurt her, but I thought: It seems there is no other way to tame a beast.

  From that day in my classroom, when I heard the squeal again, I waved at Gina, and signed “voice shut off.”

  Sophie and Catherine began to remind her too, and we now had some quiet in class.

  Catherine ventured one day: “A Hearing teacher would never say that sort of thing to Gina. They’d want her to use her voice. Thank God you can say that to her. You know, Deaf to Deaf.” There was relief in her face.

  I said: “Anyone should be able to tell her that she squeals like a stuck pig. Otherwise it’s just plain patronizing.”

  I tried in vain to feel more compassion for Gina. Instead, I woke up in the mornings even more angry. Determined, I walked into the classroom, feeling Gina’s eyes on me while I removed my jacket and opened my briefcase.

  Gina said, immediately: “JW, I want to know . . . ” She ran up to me and grabbed a book off my desk.

  I signed: “Don’t you ever touch anything on my desk.” My signs were angry, hard, and my wrists were fiery with pain. I signed: “You don’t need to know anything about what I have on my desk. It’s personal.”

  She recoiled. Shock registered on her face. She brought her hand to her face, as if I’d slapped her. Then she sat on a chair by the table and began to cry.

  I rushed over to her, placed my hand on her shoulder. I thought: How could I be so heartless, cruel, and angry toward her? Her questions are the desperate replacement for undivided attention from the mother she’s never had.

  I told my staff later that day: “She needs therapy. Years of it.”

  Catherine asked: “Yes, but who is going to do it? With her language delay? Who has the training? The sign language skills?”

  We all looked at each other helplessly. There was no mental health professional with an in-depth knowledge of deafness and sign language in this province.

  Sophie said: “They’re just going to medicate her.”

  In desperation, I began photocopying workbooks, something I once vowed never to use in my teaching. Anything, just anything to keep her away from me.

  I explained: “Here, Gina, fill in the blanks here.”

  She demanded: “What does this mean?”

  I explained: “Here’s the first example, now fill in the rest.”

  She demanded: “Is this going to help me get my Grade 12?”

  I sat down in the chair opposite her. I asked: “Why do you want your Grade 12?”

  She said: “So I can be like you. Have a good job, make good friends.”

  I said: “You can have a good job right now, without your Grade 12. I know of a place where you can work.”

  She signed: “But I want to be educated. I want to be like you.”

  I tried to draw her out with: “Gina, why is it so important to be like me?”

  She said: “You can speak. You can talk. I want that.” Gina mouthed her words as she signed.

  My shoulders sagged with sadness and I felt my eyes soften. I said: “Gina, you’re okay the way you are.”

  She signed: “No, I’m not.”

  I sighed again. I thought: In two minutes, I’ll be shouting at her with my hands, but I said, calmly: “Maybe you need to think about how you feel about your deafness.”

  Gina signed, quickly: “I can’t accept it.” Gina was so ready with her hands, bringing them close to her chest, accept. There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation.

  We went through the rest of the day quietly. Gina asked her incessant questions, and I tried to oblige, because I didn’t know what else to do.

  Catherine suggested: “Make her do some work on the computer. Find a math manipulative website that she can do for a half hour every day.”

  I found a website. I directed Gina to do some simple addition and subtraction, using her mouse to drag brightly coloured shapes back and forth over the screen. I was elated at her apparent attention to the screen and walked over to my other students who are waiting for me.

  Within five minutes, Gina twisted around in her chair to sign: “JW, what does this mean?”

  She had clicked on a link which has opened a fractions page. Suddenly she turned away. She had seen the anger in my face.

  Sophie walked over. She asked: “Joanne, are you all right? Your face is so red.”

  Then one day, Gina didn’t show up for school. We found out from her father that she had run away. He reassured us: “Wait until she comes back. She has done this before. Every so often, she wants to get away from my protection, you see, she resents it, that I have to tell her what to do all the time. But she has no sense about anything. She’s like a wild animal.”

  Three weeks later, she returned, nervously swallowing as she walked up to my desk. She looked different somehow, her hair had been streaked, and she was wearing jeans and a navy sweater, an improvement over sweat pants and bunny festooned sweatshirts. She said: “JW, I know I’ve missed a lot of school. Please may I come back?”

  I answered: “Of course.” I looked closely at her face. She looked rounder, fuller. I asked: “How have you been?”

  She said: “I’m living with my boyfriend now. He took me to his doctor and he gave me these pills. I’m on anti . . . something.” She tried to spell it but gave up. “The pills make me calm.”

  A much more subdued Gina refrained from asking questions, but watched me incessantly from the corner of her eye. If I walked over to an interpreter’s desk, she would find a pretext to use the pencil sharpener fastened on a nearby wall. If I sat with another student, she walked by, pretending to look for papers and books.

  Catherine finally went over to her and scolded her: “Focus, Gina. Focus on your work.”

  At our meeting after school, Catherine announced in a loud, emphatic voice: “I’ve never seen anyone like this in the thirty years I have worked with deaf kids.”

  I watched Catherine steadily, observed the bird-like tilt of her head, her greying hair, her hands roped with veins. I thought: She looks fatigued.

  I replied at last: “If you think there’s no help for her, what would you recommend?”

  She said: “Work. She needs to go to work, to earn a living. That way, she can grow up. She’ll never get over the mom thing, she’ll always be on meds, but at least she can earn a living and support herself. That will give her some pride.”

  Sophie nodded.

  I rose from the table, snapping my daybook shut. I said: “I’ve been thinking the same thing but I didn’t want to come to this. All right, then. I’ll release her from the program. There is nothing I can do for her.”

  Sophie warned: “She’ll be very upset.
She doesn’t want to work, because she thinks she is going to finish her Grade 12.”

  I said: “There is nothing I can do for her. The intervention that she needs is too little, too late.”

  As I snapped off the reading lamp before going to bed, I reminded myself grimly: I should be able to sleep now.

  Instead I tossed and turned with guilt, as though I’d given into the darkness all around me. I reminded myself that St. Lucy’s Day was coming soon, but the darkness grew, then I heard Sister Sarah say to me as she gave me a leafy philodendron: Joanne, you need to learn to care for living things, to have something depend on you for its sustenance, even if it is wild, even if it has neither language nor words to share with you, and how, after a few months of religiously watering it, I became so busy with my six university classes, my part-time jobs, and correcting papers for a professor, that the philodendron withered on my night table.

  I woke at four o’clock, pulling the quilt over my shoulders, wondering: How am I going to tell Gina that I cannot care for her and that she must go away from me?

  Gina wept when I told her that she must leave the program after Christmas. She wailed: “But JW, there is no one to communicate all day with. Who will I talk to?”

  I said: “You can go to the Deaf community in the evening. Take ASL classes so that you can sign better. Go play darts on Wednesday nights with the Deaf. During the day, you can work at the grocery store.”

  She said: “I want to get my grade twelve. Why can’t I get my grade twelve?”

  I said: “I don’t think this is the right place for you.”

  She asked: “Why? JW, why? This is the only place I can go to learn.”

  I explained, quickly: “Because you are not ready to learn. You are too hurt inside.”

  I rose and left her weeping in the wake of my fierce, abrupt, and clipped signs. I felt sick. Thoughts flooded my body: Who am I to deny her an education, an opportunity for her to learn? How could I refuse her opportunity to sign with me and my staff after being stuck with one interpreter all those years? How can I be sure when she hasn’t had adequate language development for most of her life except from an uneducated and untrained interpreter? When she has had only one person to interact with up until now. Everything seems too late, too final.