But it stings, just a little, that I can’t talk to you. That you can’t talk to me. That I can feel so much without ever letting you know.
I do have some memory of sounds, but they are brief, more like snippets than actual notes. I think I remember my mother’s voice (my birth mother, not Mama) and I’m fairly certain I remember the buzz of a hospital monitor.
I was two when I lost my hearing. I had bacterial meningitis, and according to my hospital notes, I was lucky to make it through without losing a limb, or my life.
But I lost my hearing, and then my parents.
They couldn’t handle a deaf child, they told the social workers. They didn’t want a damaged baby. It was better for me, they decided, if they left me at the hospital, if they didn’t take me home. They gave me away, like soiled goods returned to a shop.
They put me into care. When I recovered, I was put into the foster system, where eventually I made my way to Mama and Papa. Mama said she took one look at me, a quiet little ball of butterscotch, and decided then and there that she was keeping me forever. She’s so proud of that story. Of how, when the social worker suggested that they should find me a more appropriate ‘forever family’ because of my deafness, she put her to rights, and told her that there was no family more appropriate for me than hers.
She was right too, you know. Mama is a Chinese woman who learned English for opportunities and Italian for love. BSL was never going to be a problem. I might have given her sleepless nights, but my language never has.
Mama has pushed me to be more than my deafness. Embrace it, she told me. Embrace it, and take it with you, wherever you go. It’s Mama who taught me to sign, who came with me to deaf school, who sat with me in English class. It’s Mama who made sure I went to university, trudging with me every day on the tube to Kensington, sitting in the gardens until my lectures were finished and my hearing assistant went home, before trudging back with me. It’s Mama who taught me to make ice cream, who taught me about the right mix of saltiness and sweetness on the tongue. I love my Mama more than anything. And I owe her everything that I am.
But Mama worries, Cohen. And she’s right to worry, because there have been ... issues in the past.
And it’s only right that you know about them.
When I was seventeen a man befriended me online, in a forum for people with hearing impairments or difficulties. He called himself ‘Jake’ and told me he was an American deaf person and that he knew ASL. We chatted. I thought we connected.
After a few weeks, we shared photos. Then, after another few weeks, he told me he was in London and that he could meet me for a night.
I was seventeen. I was lonely. I thought he was my friend. I hoped he might be more.
So, I met with him. We couldn’t talk, because ASL and BSL are different, but he took me to the movies. Bought me popcorn. I should’ve known then that something was amiss. Because who takes a deaf person to the movies?
I slept with him that night. It wasn’t ... pleasant. He wasn’t kind. And when it was done, he got up, laughed, picked up his phone. He called someone. He started chatting.
He wasn’t deaf, Cohen. He was hearing, and he’d abused the forum as a place to meet impressionable, vulnerable young girls like me.
I told Mama about it, and that conversation is one I never want to have again.
Have you ever seen the moment your mother’s heart broke, Cohen? Because I have, twice. Once when Papa died, and I watched her cry into the batch of Jaded Green Tea she was stirring, and then again, when she found out what happened to me that night.
She blamed herself, you see. Thought it was her fault. Imagined that somehow, somewhere, she’d taken her eye off the ball and let harm come to me. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that it was mine, but she wouldn’t change her mind.
So now she watches me. And she’s watched me watch you and is rightly suspicious.
I’ve been walking on air since I met you, Cohen, and Mama knows something is up. She’s been talking more and more about giving up her work at the Hanyu Institute, about helping out in the ice creamery on a Tuesday again.
She’s been telling me stories about you, too. I think she’s trying to put me off, because they’re all stories about a quiet boy, a spiteful teen, and then a cruel man. I try not to pay attention, because she doesn’t know you, not really. She only knows your mother, and I know these are her stories, not yours, and that they are all from her perspective. And if anyone knows how a mother can sometimes lose perspective of their child, it’s me.
Because my mama is so frightened of something bad happening to me that she’s stopped letting me live. She’s so afraid of someone taking advantage of me again that she doesn’t let anyone get close enough to even try.
But I’m more than my deafness, Cohen. And I’m not fragile. I won’t break if you touch me.
And I want you to touch me. Very much.
So, will you meet me tonight, at 8 p.m.?
Trafalgar Square, under Nelson’s Column.
Do you know who Nelson was? Do they teach our history in your schools, or only your own? I have so many questions for you. I’m going to start writing them down so that one day, when we can finally converse, I can ask them.
Because somehow, we’ll work this out between us, won’t we? We’ll find some way to understand one another? Or are these feelings all my own?
I’m looking forward to tonight, Cohen. You can’t know how much.
With fondest – though silent – regards,
River. xx
P.S. Oh, and this is something you should know. My favourite ice-cream flavour is Melon. Melon gelato, like they serve in Venice.
You might laugh at this, but I’ve never even tried it. Lucy and Billy went to Venice for their honeymoon, and Lucy told me all about it. She said that Italian melon gelato was like a little spoon of heaven. She said that it was sour and sweet and fruity and floral all at once. She said it was like kissing summer.
Mama doesn’t like me to travel, but one day I’m going to go to Venice and eat nothing but melon gelato.
I’m going to sit by the canal and visit the Bridge of Sighs. I’m going to watch the sun sink behind St. Mark’s.
I’m going to kiss summer.
I hope you’ll join me. xx
For a time, Cohen could hardly breathe.
Evening was rising, and the cold breeze was turning into one with real bite.
He pulled his coat closer around him and realised his knuckles were stark white against the cream colour of the paper River’s letter was written on.
His first impulse was to learn who this ‘Jake’ was, find him, torture him and then kill him, preferably slowly.
He’d then find River’s birth parents – the ones who dumped her when she lost her hearing – and make them suffer too.
But he took a deep breath, trying to let his earlier calm wash over him. He couldn’t change the past. Not his own and certainly not River’s. He had to let this go. Had to move forwards.
And so, he stood, binning his coffee cup and taking in one last look at the city skyline. He headed back down the hill towards the station, checking the time – the true time, the time by which the world was set – and calculated how long it would take him to get to Trafalgar Square.
An hour. An hour to go seven miles.
Not for the first time, Cohen bemoaned the British transport system.
But he had time. For River, he had all the time in the world.
He made his way from Greenwich to Bank, before walking to Monument station and jumping onto the tube. He remembered those early days in London; the confusion he felt while staring at a map of coloured lines, with stations prettily named things like Angel, Pudding Mill Lane, Swiss Cottage, or, his absolute favourite, Elephant and Castle (no freaking elephants or castles in sight though, and so one, that was a waste of a trip and two, what the heck, London?)
He remembered calling Fowler desperately one evening, completely lost, some
what drunk, hoping his colleague’s knowledge of London would somehow help him out.
Fowler, with his usual snide tone, got to the point.
‘For God’s sake, Ford. Just take a black cab and expense it.’
But for Cohen, there was a measure of pride in using public transport, just like the Londoners did.
‘No,’ he argued. ‘I want to do this myself.’
‘Fine,’ Fowler drawled, his tone bored. ‘Take the Piccadilly line at Green Park to Piccadilly, change onto the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross, and then take the Northern line south to Embankment. It’s easy.’
Fowler, though, was a sneaky bastard. Cohen quickly learned that no one changed trains at Green Park, that Piccadilly was always packed, and that Charing Cross was next door to Embankment so there was no reason to change trains between them at all. More than that, a kindly station assistant later told Cohen that had he walked, the whole trip would have taken him fifteen minutes. By tube, it cost him an hour.
God damn, Fowler.
Now Cohen knew better. He knew to jump off the train at Embankment and make the ten-minute walk up to Trafalgar Square. There was no point in trying to get to Charing Cross or Covent Garden or anywhere vaguely near the Square, it would only add time to his trip.
He sat at the foot of a lion under the column with fifteen minutes left to kill before River arrived. A tour guide nearby, her voice both clipped and bored, directed her group of embarrassingly attired tourists to the column.
‘You’ll see that Nelson leans upon his sword with his left hand, while his right is held close to his chest. Actually, from up close you can see that Nelson’s right hand is missing, his jacket sleeve empty. This is because Nelson actually lost his right hand, and part of the arm, in battle in 1806.’
Cohen started to pay more attention. Something about this was speaking to him. His grandfather lost his right hand in World War Two, while his Uncle Israel lost his in Korea. There seemed to be a grotesque family tradition in losing that limb, so much so that whenever Israel saw Cohen, he would take his right hand, stroke it gently and look into Cohen’s eyes while murmuring ‘It’s only a matter of time’.
It creeped Cohen out to no end.
But right here, sitting under Nelson’s Column, Cohen felt an element of serendipity about River’s choice of meeting place.
And that surprised him, because Cohen had never been one for signs or superstitions. He didn’t close books he found lying open, never knocked on wood for luck, and as a child, had always knocked Esther’s hands away when she tried to pull on his ears after he sneezed. Once, when his mother visited him after Christine left, she found him kneading rye dough and with a sigh, left him to it. When he found her later, she was inspecting the corners of his apartment.
‘Mishegas!’ she’d chided. ‘Not a drop of salt in any of them.’
He’d stared at her. ‘For the intelligent head of a multi-national corporation, you do spout a crazy amount of superstitious nonsense, you know that, right? And yet you call me the meshugener.’
But Esther shook her head. ‘Maybe it’s nonsense. But so far as I can see, your wife left you and now you’re arm deep in rye dough and misery. If that isn’t the work of demons, I don’t know what is.’
No, Cohen had never been one for signs or superstitions. He’d always believed life was a series of chance and coincidences, some happy, though most – in his experience, at least – were not.
But Nelson felt like a sign, and Cohen sprang to his feet, excited. Quickly, he brought out his phone and made a quick Google search. When River arrived, he wanted to be ready.
And then, there she was. Walking towards him, a shy smile on her face, wrapped in a woollen coat and leather boots. Half of her hair was pulled away from her face, but the other half hung free, and God, she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
He brought his hands to her cheeks, while she brought hers up to the stray strands of his hair, the ones that fluttered in the icy December wind.
For a moment they looked at each other. Trafalgar Square was thronged with people, musicians played in the distance, while living statues loitered in the background, but it was all just a landscape in which Cohen and River saw only each other. In that second, under Nelson’s Column, they were entirely alone.
After brushing a thumb along her bottom lip, the lip he was so desperate to kiss again, Cohen stepped back.
River, he signed, spelling out her name, his large hands both slow and stiff. We’re going to make this work.
He stumbled over the words, even though the signs were still fresh in his memory. The YouTube tutorials he’d watched had been clear and concise. But even though his hands were awkward and his movements clunky, River nodded as he signed, her eyes shining brightly in the evening light.
Cohen, she signed back. Thank you, Cohen.
But he wasn’t finished. He moved his hands again, the movements clear in the strength of his conviction.
I’m never going to hurt you, River, he signed.
She smiled, reaching up to cup his cheeks and pulling his head down, so that his brow rested against her own. For a time they stood like this, almost lost to the world around them, yet finding peace and comfort in their moment of self-imposed seclusion.
When they parted, she handed him a folded note of paper.
Cohen, it said. Open the next envelope and come see my London with me.
And so he did, pulling the envelope from his bag, one hand linking with hers so that they could slide her letter out together.
Cohen squeezed her hand as he stopped to take it all in. The feel of her hand in his, warm and tender, the smell of roasting chestnuts in the air, the promise of colder nights but warm embraces.
And he knew that he would always remember this year.
That he would always remember this month. This day. This moment, right down to the last second.
This perfect, perfect Tuesday.
Chapter Seven
Sunflower Seed
When he was fourteen, or maybe fifteen, Cohen’s mother took a four-month secondment to Guatemala. Cohen remembered sitting in the airport lounge, drinking orange soda, while his mother and Uncle Israel drank tea. A few cookies sat on the Formica table before them, untouched and forlorn. Occasionally Esther would nudge them towards Cohen, but he simply crossed his arms, obstinately refusing to allow Esther to sweeten their parting.
His father had already left him. Now his mother was going too. Cohen’s anger was palpable; the sullen rage of a young man, but also the sad resentment of a scared boy.
‘You should eat something. There are children around the world who would kill for those cookies. Starving children, Cohen,’ his mother chided him sharply.
‘Fine. Why don’t you take them to Guatemala with you then?’ Cohen replied, utterly scathing. ‘Go on. Do it. Save the children of the world, one dry and tasteless baked good at a time.’
Esther pressed her lips together, and Cohen knew he had stung her. But she didn’t say another word, refusing to rise to his bait, and Cohen felt, in the piercing agony of her stare, every ounce of her hurt. Chastised, he started to reach out to her, because somewhere deep inside him still resided the small boy desperate to please his mother, a child simply desperate for her love. But the growing man within him growled, stamping the child down. She brought this on herself, the man told the boy. She’s leaving us.
Cohen’s hand dropped as he withdrew further into himself, and Esther gave a sad nod before turning to her brother, exhaling loudly.
‘I’m sorry about this again,’ she said with a sigh. ‘You know how I hate to inconvenience you.’
But Israel only shrugged. ‘Esther, he’s my nephew. It’s not a problem.’
‘It is a problem. Jim should’ve ...’
‘Jim let you down, and not for the first time,’ Israel said in a matter-of-fact voice that infuriated Cohen. ‘Jim’s just being Jim. Let it go.’
But Esther’s grip on her tea tightened, so
much so that the cup bent under her fingers, her nails digging crescent marks into the polystyrene.
‘He promised me,’ she hissed. ‘He promised he would be here for Cohen.’
Israel put down his own drink so he could lay a hand against his sister’s. ‘You knew what he was when you married him. You knew marriage and fatherhood would never change him.’
‘I never expected him to change. But I did think he might grow up, one day. I had to,’ Esther said bitterly. ‘You grew up, Israel. All our friends did. But Jim ... well, he never stopped being a child. A spoilt, selfish child. Couldn’t give up his youth, not for me, not for himself.’ She paused, her eyes dark. ‘Not even for his own son.’
‘What about Stella?’ Israel’s voice was quiet, his hand against Esther’s steady. ‘Did he grow up for her? Are they still ...?’
Cohen didn’t move. He pretended not to pay attention, keeping his eyes on the table. But his heart picked up tempo within his chest, his curiosity piqued. He’d never dared to ask his mother about Stella, about the woman who waltzed into Jim’s life one winter’s morning, before they danced away together the next spring.
‘I don’t know,’ Esther replied. ‘I don’t ask.’
‘You should divorce him.’
‘And give him half of everything? Oy gevalt! I’d rather cut my own nose off with a rusty knife. Besides, with his lifestyle, he can’t live forever ...’
Cohen sat quietly sipping his soda, while Esther made her way through a five-minute verbal bashing of his father. When she finally quietened, her malevolence spewed, her hurt temporarily appeased, there was an awkward silence. Israel was looking down, a frown on his face, while Esther sat stiffly, her hands clenched, her breathing tight.
Cohen couldn’t bear to see her like this. Couldn’t bear to see his mother, who he loved as much as he resented, hurting so terribly.
So, he reached out and ate one of the damn cookies, forcing himself to chew and swallow every dry, tasteless morsel. Esther’s face instantly brightened, and Cohen earned himself a fond smile from her. Even Israel, his cantankerous uncle extraordinaire, reached over to ruffle his hair, his prosthetic hand running cool and unmoving over his scalp.
Hanukkah at the Great Greenwich Ice Creamery: A heart-warming Christmas romance full of surprises Page 8