“And the facial recognition? How did it—”
“Oh, admin takes care of that.” She waved the question away. “I imagine they set it up using your photograph.”
Maybe I felt a vague chill then, but I doubt it. Practically all of my devices used the face ID thing anyway. And so, mostly, I was just impressed by the efficiency. I followed Shiba into the dining area I’d seen earlier through the window. The room was spacious, housing five circular tables, four chairs around each one. We sat down at one that had tea and samosas laid out.
“Here, put this on,” she said, handing me a wristband.
It was navy blue and had the name PETER inscribed on it. I noticed that Shiba, too, was wearing a wristband, plain green, alongside a slim golden bracelet.
“Peter is your Storyteller. You’ll be spending most of your days upstairs in your language booth, listening to a tape that he’s prerecorded for you.”
“And what’s a language booth again?”
“It’s basically a cubicle. I’ll show you after. You’ll sit there, put on some headphones, and listen to Peter speaking for several hours a day, in German. Easy.”
“How will I understand what he’s saying?”
“No need to think about it too much,” she said, pouring my tea. “If you follow the protocol, the German will seep in. Just trust.”
She gave me a meaningful smile, the kind more suggestive of long-forged intimacy than brand-new acquaintanceship.
“Here, try these,” she said, gesturing toward the plate.
I picked up a samosa and took a bite. It was to die for. Crispy and warm, with succulent qeema and just the right amount of matar and aloo. Perfection.
“Oh my god,” I said, and Shiba smiled.
“I’ll pass your compliments on to the chef.”
“So, you’re saying I just sit there and listen to this Peter guy? No translation exercises or lessons or anything?”
“That’s right.”
“And … I do this every day?”
“All day every day. We have an hour of meditation in the morning, another after lunch, and a final one in the evening, to ensure that the psyche has time to digest. And you’ll get short breaks during the day, of course, for your own leisure and mealtimes. But other than that, you’ll be in your booth upstairs.”
“And the Learners are in their booths now?”
“Not anymore. Did you hear that gong a few minutes back? That was the signal for their next break.” She pointed to the glass panel behind me, and through it I could see people making their way toward the wing facing us.
“That’s the Learners’ area,” she said. “I’ll show you after. Let’s go upstairs for now.”
We climbed a concrete spiral staircase that led to a wide hallway lined with a series of identical doors.
“We host twenty Learners at a time here,” Shiba said.
“And each Learner has a supervisor?”
“We’re a small team. Just ten people. So, each supervisor—there are four of us—oversees five Learners.”
“I see.”
We walked further down the hallway before she stopped. “This language booth, number seven, is yours.”
She opened the door to a small windowless room that consisted of an ergonomic office chair and a desk that held a large pair of wireless headphones. I was to spend several hours a day in that room. At least, I reasoned, the chair looked comfortable, and the room was warm.
“Here,” she said and handed me the headphones. I took a seat and put them on. I heard a click, and then a voice: a man, speaking in German.
“Is the sound clear? And the volume okay?”
I lifted the headphones off my ears. The sound clicked to a stop as soon as I made the motion.
“I think so?” I replied. “I don’t know what he’s saying.”
“No.” She laughed. “That’s why you’re here. Come, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
We went downstairs and walked back through the courtyard to the Learners’ area. A Learner was leaving the building just as we were entering. She was very tall and wore her hair in a tidy bun. Even though she was dressed simply, in jeans and a white collared shirt, each garment was so finely tailored and immaculately constructed that she looked as if she were attending a conference at the UN. I raised my hand to gesture hello, but Shiba stopped me abruptly.
“Remember,” she whispered in my ear. “No contact.”
The woman passed us by without a glance. We walked through the blue wooden door, and Shiba led me to my room.
“What would you say your average … clientele is like?” I asked, pulling at the sleeves of my sweater self-consciously. “Like, what do they do?”
“Mostly, elite diplomats. Foreign service, things like that. You also get industrialists, oligarchs, all kinds. Royalty, sometimes. Also, academics, linguists, even actors. Adam’s a bit of an anomaly, but that happens, too, from time to time, people being recommended by mentors or employers.”
My suitcase was already in my room when we walked in. It was a comfortable, if unassuming, space, outfitted with a double bed, some simple furniture, a full-length mirror, and a window overlooking the surrounding fields. The ensuite bathroom, however, was next level. I’d spend a scrumptious twenty minutes every day beneath its rainfall shower and never tired of the large porcelain sink into which water streamed in absolute silence from a sleek rectangular outlet or the commodious toilet with its silent flush that felt, somehow, like a hug.
When we returned outside, some of the Learners, now on break, were strolling around the courtyard. I considered them more closely. A bald man with a silver beard and a black coat was walking briskly while apparently deep in thought, and a woman with her hair tied in a ponytail and clad in Lululemon gear was doing stretches in the middle of the garden. Another man in a tweed jacket was sitting on a bench and gazing placidly at the roses. There were also a couple of staff members cutting across the courtyard. Like Shiba, they had on green wristbands and white sneakers. One carried a basket of toiletries into the Learners’ area, another rolled a large trolley into the Process Centre. The staff members had serious expressions on their faces as they went briskly about their tasks, darting glances from time to time at the Learners as if to make sure everything was in order.
“So what’s the purpose of the wristbands again?” I asked once we were properly sheltered under the weeping willow again.
“They’re used for identification purposes—everything is individually tailored here, you see. So blue,” she explained, placing a delicate finger on my wristband, “means German.”
She pointed through the hedges at the man in tweed, whose red wristband poked out from his sleeve, “French,” and then at the orange band around the slim wrist of the stretching woman, “Japanese.”
I gestured toward the heavy-looking gray door I’d noticed earlier.
“And what’s over there?”
“Staff quarters. Off limits, of course.”
“Is that where the real magic happens?”
“It’s where we sleep, if that counts,” she said. “And the kitchens are in there, the laundry rooms. Your possessions that were taken at reception too.”