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Tales from the Other Side of Language 23 Toddlers giggle and shriek as they move gray and brown sand with yellow shovels into red and blue buckets. They lean against the little concrete wall or climb up it, thinking carefully about where to put each hand, boost a knee up to hands and then to stand on top. Scampering across the walk, they throw themselves, laughing, into a mother’s lap. I long for the sweetness of the babies and mothers in my research nursery. A light breeze ruffles my hair. It was combed over my half-shaved head and now my naked scalp opens to the air. I laugh, as it feels good in the breeze, but I push the hair around again to cover it so the long arc of raw incision doesn’t shock. It’s good here in this little grove, and I’m happy watching the toddlers. Out of the hospital, life feels precious in its exquisite details. My stamina fades and we start back. I feel the hot pressure of the sun, and my body crumples onto nearby steps. I rest a moment, thinking to get up, but the expansiveness I felt in the playground is gone. “Let’s get a taxi!” my friend says. It feels like a silly thing to do for three blocks, but when it arrives, my grateful body crawls into its sanctuary. In the middle of the night I wake with terrible cramps in my legs. I need to go to the bathroom, but my legs won’t move me out of bed. I call out to my daughter, asleep in her room on the other side of the kitchen. I try to shout again and again. Part of the surgery was close to my voice box, and it is bruised. My shout is a pathetic whisper. She will never hear this. I am getting desperate for the bathroom. The telephone on the floor is a solution. I dial the phone in her room and get a sleepy voice. “I’m sor…ry to wak…e you li...ke this,” I say, “I can’t… ge…t …out … of …bed.” She mumbles with an irritated edge. She is not awake. “I NE…ED …TO G…O ….TO TH…E… BA….THRO…OM… AND I…. CA..N’T GE…T UP!” “Oh!” she says. “OK.”
24 Ruth Codier Resch Without Utterance: I am afraid she may go back to sleep, but a moment later I hear her shuffling feet, and she appears in the doorway. Her face grimaces with the sudden light in my room. Sheepish this time, I say, “I cann…’t... get... up. I have… to go… real bad.” She is gentle as she helps me up. I have slept naked for the hot night and try to pull the sheet modestly around me. In hopping to the bathroom, it falls away. She holds her arms around me, lifting me strongly. I am sobbing as I sink onto the toilet. “There, there,” she says softly, “it’s OK now.” I feel like a naked baby and a demented old lady. She massages my legs and gets us glasses of iced tea. There is no going back to sleep, so she stretches out on my bed and rests her back against the wall. She tells me how things have been for her in the last months at school since I got sick and what she was thinking about her courses next fall and her current boyfriend. I am mostly listening; my helplessness has made us open to one another. It is good to hear her talk about her life. In the sweetness of this intimacy, it doesn’t matter that I speak sparely. The night is long. No pressure.
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Page 24 and 25: PART ONE: THE PRECIPITOUS ABYSS
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house as sentient. Tales from the O
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is now. Tales from the Other Side o
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lives around him in deep and import
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“Without Utterance is a testimoni
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