The Centre(27)

“Just blow it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like this,” she said and breathed in deeply, breathing out with a sigh.

She moved her hands slowly up and down in time with her breath and gestured for me to breathe along with her. So I did. I breathed in and then out with a sigh. She encouraged me to loosen my body, to shake my arms and shoulders to physically let go of this Storyteller’s baggage. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t actually understand anything Peter said and that the issue was probably homesickness, isolation, and impatience, but our communication was limited, and the breathing exercises were making me feel better.

“Do you know Peter?” I asked again.

“Don’t worry, dear.” She placed her hand on my cheek again. “It’s okay. You’re a big girl now.”

“Okay.” I laughed.

I wiped away my tears and sat up. She put her arms around me, and I leaned into her. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d received an embrace like that, cocooned in another person without feeling the need to make the gesture reciprocal. Then, she waited until I slowly got up and washed my face, and we walked together to the Process Centre, where I returned to my booth.

By the next morning, the old lady had returned to her ritual of not making eye contact, but nonetheless, we would both smile warmly at the floor when she came in.

The infusion of love she had given me that night made the rest of my stay more bearable. Every time I got bored or fed up, I would sit for a few moments and take deep breaths. I would say to myself, “You’re a big girl now,” and I would feel better.

·

On day seven, my period started. I approached Shiba.

“Hallo.”

“Hi, Anisa.”

“I started my period, and I don’t have any supplies.”

“Hmm. Ask me in German.”

“I still can’t speak it. You know that.”

“Just … make it up.”

“Okay. Uh, ich habe meine tage, hast du eine binde für mich?”

“Yup, we do. I’ll get you a pack now. You need to be in your booth in five minutes by the way.”

“Was that right?”

She responded with her characteristic glint and walked off. I returned to my booth and put the headphones on. As Peter’s words streamed into my ears, I realized I could understand everything he said. He was talking, basically, about himself, going over every day of his life in minute detail. Every day that he remembered, that is. He had reached his thirties by the time I understood that I was understanding.

“So where was I?” Peter said. “Oh yes, springtime. March. I was still working in the architecture firm then. Nothing significant happened that month, not that I can remember. Oh, on the sixteenth, it was my brother Leon’s birthday. If I was thirty, he must have just turned … let’s see … twenty-eight. Leon always wanted to be an engineer. When we were children, we constructed buildings from toy blocks. I was more interested in the design side and he …”

He continued in this way, and by the end of his story I knew all about his brother Leon. Then, nearly an hour later, he tried to recover the thread of his narrative, “Oh, where was I? Yes, March, oh, Easter of course. That Easter, we probably celebrated with my aunt …”

In the break, I rushed to find Shiba. It was pouring outside so we spoke in my room. A relentless rain slapped against the sides of the building as I told her what had happened.

“I can understand!”

“I know. Congratulations.”

“Like, literally every word.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“How?”

Shiba’s eyes shone. “Almost like osmosis. Almost like a miracle. It just … works.”

“My god. This is just unbelievable. Shiba, you should be shouting about this from the rooftops.”

“One day, we will,” Shiba said. “But right now, it doesn’t feel like the world is ready. But seriously, Anisa. What we’re doing here, it’s revolutionary.”

“It’s truly unbelievable.”

She beamed at me, glad, I think, that I’d seen and valued her work.

“Tell me more,” I said. “How does it work?”

“Oh, we find it’s best that the Learners not concern themselves with the specifics of the procedure. But it feels good, doesn’t it?”

“It’s like a flip switching, like a little Google Translate in my head. I mean, I don’t even think I need to continue. I feel completely fluent already.”

“You do need to finish so that the change is fully integrated. Otherwise, the language could seep out again.”

And so I went back to the language booth and continued listening to Peter’s monologue. To be honest, it wasn’t that much less boring now than before I could understand. Peter went on and on about the banal details of his life, and once I got over the initial excitement, I mostly absorbed his words in a semi-daydream, usually only half listening to him while planning what I would do with my newfound skill.

Then, I heard something that jolted me back to his story. He was recounting a visit from his father sometime in April.

“While we were drinking coffee, I realized Papa’s eyes were watery, and he was not speaking much. I remembered then that it was Mama’s death anniversary. As he sipped from his cup, I realized it was part of a set he had bought her from Amsterdam, with tiny windmills painted on it. It must have reminded him of her. I could see that he missed her, and I wished that she were there to see how much he had loved her. They hadn’t always had the best relationship. He had been unfaithful to her when I was little. I don’t remember much about this time except that they fought a lot. And Mama would throw things. Plates and saucers and perfume bottles. I remember once, while they were arguing, a teacup from that same set fell to the ground and broke. Mama picked up a piece of that cup and dug it into her skin—so hard that she drew blood. It was a very scary moment for me.”