“My parents were deaf.”
This was not much of a conversation, I thought, to be having in these romantic circumstances.
Leaden-footed, I droned on: “Is it the same in America and Germany?”
“No, actually it isn’t.”
I plodded on. “When you were signing on the stage with Charles, did you know whether anyone in the audience would understand you?”
“No. And if you’re planning to ask why I bothered, the answer is that it’s something I was doing for myself. It’s a different language.”
“I know that, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“When you’re signing, you have to think very differently. Very, very differently.” We walked in silence for a bit. “It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know the language,” she added finally. “Translating into sign isn’t like translating into another spoken language. You have to rethink it very fundamentally.”
“Charles could sign?”
“He could understand a lot, but he couldn’t sign a lot.” From a corner of my eye, I saw a small smile edge onto her lips. “But when he did sign, he had a wonderful style, all his own.”
My stomach sank under a tarry load of jealousy. I knew I was in big trouble here.
Borders
Shirin’s “small park” seemed pretty big to me, in the gathering darkness. I don’t know whether it was a park that had gone to seed or had been designed that way, as a miniature wilderness with sketchy paths, no lights, and an occasional bench. I’m not an expert on parks or on wildernesses. We trekked on for ten minutes or so, then settled on a bench. With the trees blocking out what little light was left in the sky, it might as well have been midnight.
“Borders are always tricky, intriguing things,” B said at last. “Feral children fascinate because they stand at the border of the animal world. Gorillas and dolphins fascinate because they stand at the border of the human world. Even though they’re only arbitrary consequences of the fact that we use a decimal numeration system, the borders between centuries and millennia fascinate. Shakespeare’s fools fascinate because they live at the border between sanity and madness. The heroes of tragedy fascinate because they walk the border between triumph and defeat. The borders between prehuman and human, between childhood and adulthood, between generations, between nations and peoples, between social and political paradigms—all of these are intensely fascinating.
“The border that Charles and I have been trying to focus your attention on is the border that was crossed when one group of people living in the Fertile Crescent ten thousand years ago became us. You know that crossing this border brought us to a very special sort of agriculture that produces enormous food surpluses. You know that crossing this border brought us to the most laborious lifestyle ever practiced on this planet. But these are superficial perceptions. Charles wanted you to see that this border represents a profoundly important spiritual and mental crossing. Charles tried to lead you to an appreciation of this crossing by leading you back to it from this side, from the present moment, but I’m going to take the opposite tack. I’ll try to lead you to an appreciation of this crossing by leading you forward to it from the other side, from our origins in the community of life.”
I felt rather than saw her shiver. I think she must have felt my question in turn, for she said, “I’m not cold, I’m terrified.”
“Why?”
“Charles could have done this—would have done this next. But he hoped he wouldn’t have to. This is so much more … difficult.”
The words I’m sorry were halfway out of my mouth, but I managed to hold them back.
B stared into space for a few minutes, then said, “The fundamental Taker delusion is that humanity itself was designed—and therefore destined—to become us. This is a twin of the idea that the entire universe was created in order to produce this planet. We would smile patronizingly if the Gebusi boasted that humanity was divinely destined to become Gebusi, but we’re perfectly satisfied that humanity was divinely destined to become us.”
“I think I’m beginning to see that, though I certainly didn’t see it the first time Charles said We are not humanity.”
B nodded distantly, as if holding on to a tenuous thought. “Because we imagine that we are what humanity was divinely destined to become, we assume that our prehistoric ancestors were trying to be us but just lacked the tools and techniques to succeed. We invest our ancestors with our own predelictions in what seem to us primitive and unevolved forms. As an example of all this, we take it for granted that our religions represent humanity’s ultimate and highest spiritual development and expect to find among our ancestors only crude, fumbling harbingers of these religions. We certainly don’t expect to find robust, fully developed religions whose expressions are entirely different from ours.”
“Very true,” I said.
“To what development do we trace the beginnings of human religious thought?”
“I’d say we trace the beginnings of human religious thought to the practice of burying the dead, which began thirty or forty thousand years ago.”
B nodded. “This is just like tracing the beginning of human language to the practice of writing, which began about five thousand years ago.”
“I see what you mean—I think.”
“It would never occur to a linguist to search for the origins of human language in the clay tablets of Mesopotamia, would it?”
“Certainly not,” I said.
“Where would a linguist search for the origins of human language?”