The Spoken Word
I cannot help but laugh to myself sometimes, imagining Trix’s or Charlie’s reactions if I ever tried to explain that, to my ears, all mortal languages sound much the same.
One year, five years, ten – no matter how much time I spent among mortals, speaking aloud was a thrilling transgression. Across the border, communicating with words is the equivalent of coughing in another person’s face: it is not the done thing in polite society.
So there I would be, having a mundane exchange with a ballet coach, a customs official, or a dancer from another company, when Trix would blink at me and say, ‘You speak Japanese/Portuguese/Hungarian?’ And only then would I realise what I had done.
‘Yes,’ I would reply, my pulse fluttering as I waited for her mouth to close and the astonishment in her eyes to fade into bemused acceptance.
Then I would sigh with relief, while also seeing Glen’s calm, sharp gestures in my mind’s eye.
One day she may ask a question you cannot answer, and then what?
But I was never a fan of “then”. It was my nature to prefer “now”.