Singing Hands

by Delia Ray

  Abe got the picture. His eyes darkened and his lower lip drooped. Then he bent over his lap, carefully wrapping his pickled egg and his ham sandwich back in the waxed paper. He shoved the parcel in his duffel bag and quietly turned to look out at a bean field shimmering in the distance.

  "Ignominy." I still remembered the strange word and its definition from the first list Mrs. Fernley had assigned me. "Disgraceful or dishonorable conduct, quality or action." Clearly, dishonorable conduct was the only way to describe what I had just done to Abe. Wasn't my nonstop ignominy lately the reason I was being punished and sent on this trip in the first place? My parents had realized how mean-spirited and full of ignominy I was. Mrs. Fernley and Miss Grace knew it, and now even silly little Abe knew it. Now maybe he would understand that I didn't want to be his friend or his sign-language teacher or anything else. Now maybe he would leave me alone.

  Abe did leave me alone—all during the rest of Daddy's nap and the rest of our drive to Talladega. Even as we rode through the lovely front gates of the Alabama School for the Deaf and past the tall brick buildings with their stately white columns, Abe barely moved. He stared out the window at the towering trees and green stretches of lawn and clusters of signing students, never pointing or kicking the back of Daddy's seat with his feet.... Nothing.

  As my father cruised along the shady avenues of ASD, giving us our first tour of the campus, I could see him watching Abe in his rearview mirror. Daddy finally pulled to a stop in front of one of the grandest buildings. He fished his gold watch out of his pocket and snapped open the lid, then twisted around in his seat. "Right on time," he signed, and leaned over to dangle the watch in front of Abe's face. Abe didn't reach for it. He didn't even crack a smile, just kept blinking up at those massive columns and the formal wrought-iron balcony running the length of the building's second floor.

  After studying him thoughtfully for a minute, Daddy turned to put his watch away and then followed Abe's gaze to the curlicued tops of the columns. He sighed. "I was just as scared when I first saw Manning Hall," he said. His voice was faint and wispy. I hung over the front seat so that I could hear.

  "I still remember my mother walking me through those front doors when we came to enroll," he went on. "They looked so big to me then. We met the principal and my mother made me shake his hand." He let out a chuckle. "We had just gotten a new puppy before I left home. He was furry all over. When I shook that principal's hand and saw how hairy his wrist was, I pointed and said, 'Puppy.'"

  Daddy's shoulders shook as he laughed over the memory. "My mother was so humiliated. She had been working with me on my speaking voice, trying to get me to talk more clearly. 'Puppy' was a word I could always say perfectly."

  Some sort of foolish instinct made me glance back to see if Abe was laughing along with us. But of course he was only gawking in bewilderment.

  "We better get him checked in," Daddy said, adjusting his glasses and reaching for the key in the ignition.

  I touched him on the elbow. "I thought you said new students check in here, at Manning Hall."

  "Not the colored students," he told me. "They have a separate school over on Fort Lashley Avenue."

  Daddy started the car then, and we rode back through the fancy gates, over a set of railroad tracks, and along a country road. It was no surprise to me that the colored school and the white school were separate, but I never imagined that two or three miles of pastureland and pine thickets would divide them. The farther we drove, the guiltier I began to feel about how I had treated Abe. I sneaked another look at him. He was still pressed into the corner, staring out the window in a daze.

  Chapter 20

  There was no gate or sign to mark the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf—just a long, straight gravel driveway leading to a collection of official-looking brick buildings planted oddly among the flat spread of farm fields. While the main campus had been bustling, there wasn't a soul around the colored school. It was so quiet when Daddy turned off the engine, I could hear a flock of blackbirds fussing in a far-off treetop.

  Daddy and I climbed from the car, stretching our cramped muscles. Abe didn't get out behind us. He stayed rooted to his spot in the sweltering back seat until Daddy opened the door and coaxed him out with a beckoning hand.

  "Come," he signed cheerfully. "Come and see!"

  "Where is everybody?" I asked once the three of us were standing on the walkway facing a large center building flanked by two matching smaller ones. Rows of blank windows yawned back at us.

  "The students and teachers here won't arrive for another few days, after Miss Benton's retirement celebration is over."

  I lifted my hand to ask what Abe was supposed to do until then, but Daddy was already leading us over to admire the sturdy construction of the boys' dormitory. He pointed out the fine brickwork and stone trim, then knocked his fist against the closest brick and made a show of flexing his biceps. "Strong," he signed to Abe. "Like you."

  Daddy turned to me. "He's lucky," he told me. "This is all brand-new, finished about a year ago. Fireproofed and steam heated. Until now, all the Negroes—both blind and deaf—used to be crowded together in the old institution over on MacFarland, sometimes two or three to a bunk."

  I pressed my face against a windowpane in the dormitory door, trying to peer past the dim foyer and imagine Abe spending the next ten years of his life there. But all I could see was a mop propped in an old scrub bucket and a forgotten pair of galoshes. "It's locked," I told Daddy.

  He nodded. "Let's go see if we can find the principal." Abe clung to my father's side as we made our way back to the main building and through the front door. The school office was empty, but I could hear the sound of hammering echoing through the halls.

  "Someone's here," I signed to Daddy, and touched my ear. "I can hear them. Follow me."

  I scurried ahead along the shadowy corridor, glad to be in the lead for a change. I peeked into one empty classroom after another, hunting for the source of the banging. It wasn't until I stuck my head into the last room on the right that I spotted a man in work clothes crouching over an upturned desk.

  "Excuse me," I called from the doorway. When the man didn't lift his head, I realized he was probably deaf, so I took a few steps closer and stomped on the hardwood floor, hoping not to startle him. That very second, he sprang upright, the hammer raised like a weapon in his hand.

  We both gasped at the same time.

  "Mr. Vincent!" I cried, feeling myself touch the letter V to my shoulder.

  "Sorry," he said out loud, and set the hammer down on a nearby desk. He blew out a heavy whoosh of air. "You scared me."

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  I hadn't meant to be so blunt, but Mr. Vincent was kind enough to overlook any rudeness as he read my lips. "Well," he said, chuckling and glancing down at his rolled-up shirtsleeves and worn trousers. "You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm the principal here. I never thought my old carpentry days would come in so handy." He glanced around the room at the rows of old desks. "Every single one of these needs fixing."

  "You're the principal here?" I repeated lamely. My hodgepodge of knowledge about Mr. Vincent Lindermeyer came tumbling back. I remembered Miss Grace telling me, as we ate tamales in the park, that he had taught carpentry, that all his students loved him. I blushed, suddenly recalling the stolen note. "Our letters are the last tie binding us together," it had said ... and there was no doubt I had seen that coffee cup tremble in his hand right after Miss Grace appeared unexpectedly in our parlor.

  Stop it! I told myself. Your days of poking into other people's business are over. Integrity. Remember?

  With clumsy fingers, I began to sign. "I knew you were an assistant principal at ASD, I just didn't know you worked at the—"

  "At the Negro school?" Mr. Vincent offered.

  I nodded.

  "It just happened last month. The old principal left, and the superintendent gave me the job."

  I was grateful to se
e Daddy and Abe appear in the doorway. Mr. Vincent hurried forward to greet them, happily flinging out their name signs. "Reverend Davis! And my good friend Abraham!"

  For the first time in two hours a hint of a smile slipped across Abe's face. Over his head, my father and Mr. Vincent exchanged a whirlwind of signs. I managed to decipher most of them.

  "Thank you for bringing him," Mr. Vincent said.

  "He doesn't know," Daddy told him, "that he's here to stay."

  Mr. Vincent tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I'll take my time telling him. One of our cooks is coming back early to help keep an eye on him over the next few days. He'll spend the nights with him in the dormitory. Until the others come."

  "Fine," Daddy signed. "Good."

  We wandered back toward the front entrance, stopping for Mr. Vincent to show off a few sights along the way—the barely used set of encyclopedias someone had donated to the tiny library, the home economics room with its electric stove and gleaming pair of sewing machines waiting to be fired into action. Daddy and Mr. Vincent spoke so casually that I knew poor Abe had no idea of what was about to occur. It wasn't until we were outside again, standing on the front walkway, when Mr. Vincent wrapped his arm protectively around the boy's shoulder, that Abe realized for certain something was wrong. Daddy gently asked me to fetch Abe's things from the car, and when I came back holding the duffel bag, I saw Abe's narrow shoulders stiffen. He looked up at my father, frantically searching his face for clues.

  A fresh flood of guilt washed over me. If it could have made Abe feel any better, I would have rummaged down in the duffel bag for the greasy waxed-paper package, pulled out the pickled egg, and taken a giant bite.

  "Delicious," I would have declared, patting my stomach and smiling to make him understand ... anything to prove how sorry I was. But all I managed to do was press the worn bag into Abe's hands and hurry back to the car. I couldn't look at his small confused face anymore, crumpling as Daddy told him goodbye.

  Chapter 21

  All around me deaf kids were clapping. A few of the boys even waved their white handkerchiefs as my father strode to the center of the stage to welcome the students of ASD back from their summer vacation.

  I folded my arms across my chest and slouched in my seat among all the intermediate-department girls in the fifth row of the auditorium. Daddy had been so busy since our arrival, I had barely laid eyes on him after he dropped me off at the girls' dormitory the night before. Who could blame me for being put out? My father had left me stranded like a castaway on Deaf Island.

  I glared and chewed my fingernails, watching halfheartedly as he signed his thanks to everyone for returning early to celebrate the stupendous accomplishments of the great Miss Emmeline Benton. Hmmph, another person I hadn't seen a trace of since I arrived at ASD.

  "You may find this difficult to believe," Daddy signed, "but Miss Benton was here when I was a student at ASD. She was a teacher then, and I will never forget her firm but loving ways. I cannot imagine devoting our minds and hearts to a finer task than honoring this woman, who has dedicated her life to helping others."

  Next, Daddy led the audience in a prayer asking God to watch over the hundreds of students Miss Benton had taught over so many years. But just as he signed "Amen" and seemed ready to turn the stage over to the superintendent of the school, a commotion broke out in the back of the assembly hall. When I turned around, I saw one of the older boys leap up with a folded piece of paper in his hand. His grinning friends pushed him out to the aisle, and he trotted down to the foot of the stage and handed the note up to my father.

  Before Daddy even finished reading it, the superintendent had rushed over to investigate. As they both scanned the note, I could see Daddy working to hold back a playful smile. The superintendent, on the other hand, didn't seem quite so amused. Like most of the teachers and dormitory monitors at ASD, he was hearing. But I could see how much he respected Daddy by the way he consulted with him up on the stage. He turned and spoke carefully so it would be easier for my father to read his lips. And when the boys in the back started waving their handkerchiefs again, the superintendent scowled out at them until Daddy patted his arm and reassured him with a few soothing words. With that, the man finally gave a resigned nod and went to stand behind the curtain at the edge of the stage.

  I found myself leaning forward along with everyone else as my father lifted his hands for an announcement. "I have had a request from the young men of the advanced department," Daddy signed grandly. "With kind permission from your superintendent, I am happy to begin where we left off during my last visit and present another installment of Mr. Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

  "What?" I whispered to myself, but the audience had already burst into another round of hanky waving and loud applause. A few kids hooted and stomped with enthusiasm. Obviously, Daddy's dramatic performances had become a tradition at the school. Within seconds, someone had darkened the hall and trained a single spotlight on Daddy until he seemed to glow at the center of the stage.

  I could hardly believe that was my father up there. I had heard people compliment the way he borrowed interesting stories from books or his own life to work into his sermons, but this was something else. With graceful and swooping signs he began to tell the tale of a poor hunchback named Quasimodo, who was a bell ringer in the most famous cathedral in Paris. "He was deaf, like all of us," Daddy signed. "So deaf that he couldn't hear the thundering chime of his own cathedral bells,"

  One minute Daddy was Quasimodo, limping back and forth with his deformed shoulder, regaling us with his lovesick descriptions of a beautiful gypsy dancer named Esmeralda. The next minute, he turned into an evil archdeacon, sentencing Esmeralda to hang for a crime she didn't commit.

  I peered through the darkness in amazement at the rows of deaf children seated around me. For the first time since I had come to ASD, the whole restless crowd of them was perfectly still—hands at rest, all eyes riveted to the hunched figure on the stage who had just rescued Esmeralda from the brink of death and carried her back to the bell tower to hide from the guards.

  Soon even I was lost in the story ... until my trance was broken by the sound of someone sniffling beside me. It was Belinda Bates, a girl with bright, carrot-colored hair tied into braids. The night before, she had shyly approached me in the dormitory bathroom and spelled out her name and where she was from. Pickens, Alabama. Now I watched Belinda bite her lip and heave a shuddering sigh as Daddy finally revealed the hunchback's tragic fate—to die of heartbreak, his love for the beautiful gypsy dancer never returned.

  When he was finished, my father bowed low and smiled out at the sea of clapping hands. Slowly I raised my own hands to join in the applause. Despite being frustrated with Daddy, I couldn't help being proud, too. The girls in my row, even some high-school-aged ones across the aisle, had nudged their friends and turned to stare. Word had spread. "That's the Reverend's daughter," I saw one of them say with a quick flash of hands.

  After a speech from the superintendent, signed by a deaf teacher, everyone was dismissed for the evening. As we all filed toward the exit, I craned my neck, trying to catch sight of Daddy. I was itching to search him out and ask if we could have breakfast together in the dining hall the next morning, so I wouldn't have to spend another mealtime surrounded by dozens of deaf girls too bashful to include me in their conversations.

  But before I could slip away, Miss Hinkle, one of the dormitory supervisors, spotted me. Miss Hinkle was a brisk, no-nonsense sort of woman who had assigned me a bed on the second floor of Graves Hall and issued me a set of sheets with a blanket and a pillow. This morning she had woken the girls in her section—unfortunately, including me—at six a.m. by rudely flashing the overhead lights on and off. And all that day, she never seemed to be without her clipboard, scribbling notes as she stalked, sharp-eyed, between the beds and along the echoing hallways of ASD. Tonight she had the same clipboard tucked firmly under her arm.

  "There you are, Miss Da
vis," she said, pushing her way in beside me as we crowded up the aisle.

  "You can call me Gussie," I told her.

  She barked out a dry little laugh. "I would never dream of addressing the daughter of Reverend Davis by her first name. As you must have noticed earlier tonight, your father's a very important person around here. His performances are quite the favorite among the students.... I thought I'd never get them calmed down after his rendition of 'Casey at the Bat' last year."

  I stayed quiet, perplexed by the strange tone in her voice, and she went on crisply. "Besides, you've been so kind to accompany your father and help our intermediate girls get ready for the Jubilee on Saturday. It's only fitting that we should call you Miss Davis—just as if you were a teacher here."

  "All right," I said, feeling silly. I was barely a year older than the group of girls I was supposed to be supervising. "I'm afraid I wasn't much help during the first rehearsal this morning," I added sheepishly.

  "Well, they always have a hard time following directions after being away for the summer. With any luck, they'll be ready for instruction tomorrow."

  I tried not to cringe. I didn't like the icy way she kept referring to the girls as "they." Plus, that morning's practice had been a disaster from the moment Miss Hinkle announced that the students under her charge would be performing a Maypole dance for the Jubilee.

  "A Maypole dance in August?" I had blurted out in front of all the girls.

  That was when Miss Hinkle had explained to me, rather impatiently, that the dance would be in recognition of the fine May Day pageants Miss Benton had organized so devotedly each of her thirty-five springs at ASD.

  "Oh," I had replied.

  But I could see the girls' faces turning bleak, their shoulders drooping, as Miss Hinkle marched all thirteen of us out to the wide front lawn, where the Maypole stood ready.

  "See?" Miss Hinkle had noted proudly, snipping the twine binding the ribbons against the pole. "I've chosen the school colors." As we all watched the red and gold streamers drift upward in the breeze, a girl next to me had let out a tiny moan. It didn't take long to understand why: dancing around a Maypole is a lot trickier than it looks. And to make matters worse, Miss Hinkle didn't know a lick of sign language.