Generally when a person can’t get her message across in the normal way—that is by speaking, by stating her business out loud to the other person, the person from whom she wants something—she begins to gesticulate. She raises her voice. Then she tenses, goes momentarily mute, and then suddenly releases an uncontrollable stream that collects whatever words happen to be there in the way of the stream, in the crevices of her teeth and on her tongue. Those words are hard. It can also happen that the other person, the one from whom something is wanted, can’t answer. That the other person can do nothing but cower, raise his arms to shield his head, and retreat into the corner of the room, then slip out of the door to disappear down a dark alleyway or into another’s arms, from where he may never return again.
Wlibgis has abundant experience with running out of options. But what do you do if your son uses the final resort, his fist, as his first resort? Talking to a fist is inordinately difficult. A fist is deaf, dumb, and blind, but it can find its target easily enough, because it smells fear.
Her son wasn’t the only one. There were many who wanted to prod Wlibgis a bit, although using more delicate methods. Lisbet (“Petrus is a TEETOTALER . . .”), her doctor (“Listen, we’ve reached the end . . .”), her boss at the cleaning company when she used to work (“ . . . you of all people going behind my back . . .”). In the face of these assaults, Wlibgis crumbled time after time, because she didn’t know how to fight even when she really tried.
When Wlibgis lost her ability to speak, she also lost the last of her rights. People talked over her. Sometimes they expected nods or shakes of her head, sometimes not. Sometimes they didn’t even look at her. Sometimes they pretended to look deep into her eyes, but they didn’t want to know anything about how she felt and even less about her thoughts. They just drilled in deep to make sure that if they stared long enough it would come, that nod, that gentle approval, whether they were offering bland porridge or a needle in the arm.
Now Wlibgis attempts to utilize the tool that had been taken from her in the operation. And why not? If Shlomith is alive, even though she is obviously dead, if Nina’s babies have disappeared even though they are obviously in her womb, why can’t she, who lost her power of speech, begin to talk again? Why can’t she use that confident voice she practiced so many times in front of the mirror to say that giving up the wig is enough? That she has already given her all!
Wlibgis lowers her clenched fists and straightens her throat like a rooster preparing to crow. From the bottom muck of her memory she dredges up the English equivalents of her thoughts. What is “clothing”? And what about the word for “wig”? How about fake hair . . . Quickly now, with a finger raised in emphasis, say: My fake hair is there. I give you no more!
And then Wlibgis opens her mouth.
Not even a hiss comes from her mutilated throat. Wlibgis opens her mouth like a fish tossed ashore: nothing, nothing. Putting her hands under the scarf tied around her neck, she feels for the hole and presses it with her first two fingers. Nothing. Not a single scrap of sound!
Can’t Wlibgis imagine the current of air that in normal situations forces through the vocal chords to make them vibrate? She can imagine moving and can travel about in whichever direction she wants, just like everyone else here. But what kind of crazy person thinks about air currents when she talks? No one. Speech seems to come from the other women with ease; they just move their lips and the words are at the ready in their mouths. Sound comes out. The empty space gives the words a metallic tinge, but each voice is still recognizable. Why didn’t speaking work for this one woman?
Shlomith is becoming impatient with Wlibgis’s dithering. Just like on a nudist beach, the rules are the same for everyone here. Either you lose your clothes or you take a hike!
Wlibgis understands. Shlomith’s gaze is compelling. There is no point resisting. Everyone else is already in their underwear, and when she thinks about it for a moment—and Wlibgis does think; for a fleeting moment she thinks so hard her brain hurts: take the injury, fight, or give up?—it is clear that she also has to undress. In her hospital pajamas she would be different. Someone the others wouldn’t be able to stand being with. She would be isolated in the same way a strike agitator is isolated when the plans go awry and a scapegoat becomes necessary. She would become air again. She would cease to exist. Wlibgis humbles herself and begins to take off her clothes.
As it happens, Wlibgis does it with style. Theatrically she takes off her light-green silk scarf, ceremoniously revealing the opening in her throat: Look and be horrified! The other women watch the performance in satisfaction, taking in the totality, but Ulrike stares at the red hole as if hypnotized. The edges of it are ragged. Ulrike looks unblinking into the hole, at the interior of the trachea. Then she moves her gaze back to the ragged red edges, from there to the waxen, wrinkled neck, and finally past the jaw to the thin, almost gray lips, which part and form a word. Did Wlibgis whisper cigarette? Is that the short story of this hole?
Wlibgis has dropped the scarf. She begins undoing the flat buttons of the pajamas from the top and pulls
