Among the Strawberries
singing with silence
The sun is white-hot today in the clearest of blue skies. It is not normal for spring here, normally so cool and lightly breezy. It blazes through my thin dress as I run for shelter in the garden, thinking hard to prevent thinking. My bare feet feel the soft grass, the rounded pebbles, the heat of the square paving stones. I dance to reach the shadows of the narrow leafy, woodsy trail and the long walk under the trees to our special walled garden.
“Go for a walk, Genevieve, in your garden,” my mother had said, asking for quiet, which is the way she has us live, every moment so still in our home that each small sound has an echo that rings through me, like a shiver. It’s so unlike the garden, where sound flies over the vine-covered stone walls into the trees and sky, without returning. Of course she knows I can’t answer, for the gift of speech is not mine. My sister Gabriella is the same as me, and she asks me sometimes if mother took our voices as babies like she did all the family dogs. I tell her, of course, it couldn’t be true.
Not speaking has its advantages, for it is much easier to lie, I know. My clever fingers can never betray me with a sudden tremulous syllable, under threat of suppressed tears. I have many many secrets, I do. Nobody believes I could have them or have anything in my head at all, because I’m quiet as a ghost. I don’t exist. I rub the white scar on my throat, soft now, smooth, barely to be seen, a little better than my sister’s scar.
I find solace and refuge in the garden, sitting on the cool grass in the shade, where I eat the plump, red strawberries that tempt so deliciously from the leaves. The little birds watch, and sing brightly, and hop, merrily, among the branches. “If only he could be here,” my fingers speak, aloud only in the sound of skin-on-skin, as fingers slide, hands combine, move apart. The words they speak in the air, though, need eyes to see, a mind to interpret.
The birds watch me, but don’t understand.
I wish I could sing too, a lovely soprano, rich and throaty, with a subtle vibrato. I dream, I dream, that I sing sometimes, that I have mastered wonderfully the coordination of breath and mouth, of throat and tongue, lips and teeth. It is marvelous to see such a thing, that incredible symphony of activity, the soundful beautiful susurrus, and I must spy on the neighbor to watch everything of her mouth.
He sings well too, my dearest love, and at times he sang softly into me, lips lightly, barely, touching mine. It was here, right here, in my garden. I could feel his lips closing and opening and his strong and nimble tongue touch delicately his shining teeth. I felt like I was singing an opera then.
“Will I see Elio again?” I ask the birds, my delicate hands and fingers flying. Silent is the only way I can cry, quiet rivulets down my face, the taste of salt passing my lips. I turn for some silly reason so the birds do not see me weep.
My sister comes, and we laugh quiet with our mouths, loud with fingers. She comes to escape the tomb, the obsessive quiet of Mother.
“You know you’ll have to marry him,” she tells me. “The one Mother picked.”
I nod, slow fingers saying, “I know.” Edward’s a good man, I think, and I will live in a house with life and sound.
“I’ll come to visit,” she says, “a lot.”
“No,” I say, “you’ll live with us forever.”
She smiles and hugs me, restrained at first, until I squeeze her tight and her tears come.
As we’re leaving, my sister sees the paper lying on the ground among the strawberries.
“Shall I pick this up?” She asks me, and I answer, “Let it be. It belongs here.”
I can forget him, I know. It’s not too hard. It’s the note he left for me in my lovely garden. I didn’t read it… only held it in my arms, leaving it stained with tears and strawberries.
Originally published at https://vocal.media.
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