I went over to open the door. In leapt that big yellow puppy. He made a wild dash around the room and then happily bounced over to William, paws up on the counter where William sat, to give him an enthusiastic greeting. Giggling, William jumped down and hugged the pup around his neck.
Now recovered from their shock at this unwelcome and boisterous guest, Miss Gordon and Robert sprang into action and started shouting to get the dog back outside.
“Wait!” I yelled, holding one hand in the air. They stopped in their tracks, startled by the authoritative tone in my voice. I went over to William, and, once again, placed one of his hands on the puppy, his other hand on my throat. With great exaggeration, almost as an actress, I said the word “dog.” With my left hand, I pointed to the puppy.
And just then a miracle occurred.
In William’s eyes, I could see the connection. He tilted his head to one side, looked at the puppy, and uttered a sound. A sound! He pointed to the puppy as if to say: Is that what you meant?
I nodded. I said “dog” again, and he said it back to me. It wasn’t an intelligible sound, almost a grunt, but to me, all of the music on this earth fell short of that one little attempt at a word.
I looked up at Robert. I’ll never forget the unmistakable joy on his face. Even Miss Gordon understood this was a pivotal moment. She started dabbing her eyes with her dishtowel and then went outside to collect laundry, she said, even though none was hanging.
Robert crouched down next to William and practiced right along with him. The three of us, including the puppy, delighted to be the center of attention, sat on the kitchen floor practicing how to say the word “dog.”
Too soon, Miss Gordon came back inside and scolded us for neglecting the clock. We had to hurry to get to church, but it seemed the time was ripe to teach William to communicate. Robert locked the puppy in the backyard with water and William’s leftover bowl of soggy Cheerioats.
Church seemed especially worship-filled for us that morning. Robert happened to be preaching on the miracles of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew. ‘Ask and it will be given unto you, assured Jesus. For everyone who asks, receives.’ Once or twice, I caught Robert gazing at William with quiet amazement.
Just as you promised, Lord Jesus, I asked for your help, and you answered my prayers to help William.
We hurried home after church and spent the afternoon at the kitchen table, pouring over the correspondence course. I explained to Robert and Miss Gordon what I had been studying the last few nights in my room.
The John Tracy Clinic was based on the concept of oral communication. Mrs. Tracy believed deaf children could be taught to communicate with the hearing and speaking world. She had patiently taught her own son to lip read, beginning at the age of three. She felt parents were the key to help a child discover that sounds exists even if he couldn’t hear them.
“But what about sign language?” interrupted Robert, looking skeptical. “I assumed that would be the best option. The only option.”
“From what I’ve read, he will always be able to learn sign language. But as far as learning to speak, there is only a window of opportunity while he is still so young. Think of it as learning a language. It’s so much easier if you’re young.”
The puppy interrupted us, dashing around the kitchen table before slurping up water from a bowl near the door. Miss Gordon curled her lips with disgust.
I ignored her and carried on. “And the reason Mrs. Tracy wanted her own son to use oral communication was because she didn’t want him excluded from the world. Even though sign language is an official language, it would still mean that William could only communicate with people who knew the language.”
I paused as William climbed up on my lap. “And one other thing about sign language…it is supposed to be very difficult to learn it from a book. You have to be immersed in it. I don’t think we could teach him without being fluent in it ourselves. He would probably have to be at a special school.”
And that meant boarding school.
We read through the correspondence courses that included games and activities, until Miss Gordon announced that her brain hurt, and she went up to bed for an afternoon nap.
“Don’t be disappointed, Louisa,” Robert said, noticing the look on my face as I watched her go up the stairs. “She’s interested. It’s just a lot of new information to take in.”
“I thought I might ask her if she would be the one to write the letters to Mrs. Spencer Tracy.”
Robert burst out laughing. “Yes, that would definitely keep her interested.”
There was one more piece of information I needed to present to Robert. “William should be seen by a specialist. He’s really never been thoroughly tested, and he is going to need to have some kind of amplification box. I found the name of a doctor in Phoenix who works with deaf children.”
Robert looked doubtful. “I don’t know what could be amplified when a child is profoundly deaf.”
“Couldn’t you at least find out? It seems to be an important part of understanding sound.”
Robert looked over in the parlor at William. William was doing somersaults on the parlor rug around an enraptured puppy, repeating the same sound he had made this morning in the kitchen. Finally, Robert turned back to me. “Okay, Louisa. Before we go any further with trying oral communication, I’ll take William for testing and hear what this doctor recommends. You picked this doctor, so whatever he suggests is what we’ll do. Fair enough?”
I smiled. “Fair enough.”
And despite Miss Gordon’s loud objections, with a rare overruling by Robert, a yellow-haired, brown-eyed puppy became the newest member of the Gordon family. Robert even insisted the puppy be allowed to sleep in William’s room. We decided to name the puppy “Dog.”
To my surprise, Robert made the call to the doctor in Phoenix without any reminding on my part and set up an appointment for the following week. He and William made the two-day trip, staying overnight with a relative.
I couldn’t sit still while they were away, having no idea what the doctor would recommend. Miss Gordon complained I was “fidgeting worse than a dog with fleas.” She was right, but I was more than a little concerned that he would be just like the ancient doctor in Copper Springs who recommended that Robert wait until William was older, then send him off to boarding school.
The more I read about Mrs. Spencer Tracy, the more I realized how forward thinking she was. Even though I only knew of her by reputation and through her correspondence, I had confidence in her. Perhaps it was because she was a mother. Perhaps it was because we shared the same name. Louise Tracy.
Robert and William returned back late the next night—so late I didn’t even hear them come in. When I woke in the morning, I heard Robert’s voice in the kitchen, talking to his aunt. I unscrewed the radiator cap and listened carefully.
“So he gave us this…” With a thud, I heard Robert place an object on the table. “The doctor said everything she had told me, about a short time of opportunity to try spoken language and lip reading. I don’t know how she knows so much.”
With a satisfied smile, I realized I was the ‘she’ to whom he was referring.
“And the doctor said I was an enlightened father.”
“Well, you’re a Gordon, of course. It’s always been said the Gordons are enlightened,” proudly affirmed Miss Gordon.
What?! I nearly said aloud but clapped my mouth shut with my hand. The Gordons? Enlightened? I shook my head in disbelief. Who would have possibly ever said that? I finished dressing and hurried downstairs, hoping to be included in the conversation while Robert was in a mood to talk.
He smiled broadly as he saw me walk into the kitchen. “Louisa! I’ve been waiting for you. Guess what? William is not profoundly deaf! He has a moderate hearing problem but not profound. He’s been able to hear some things all along. Low sounds, the doctor said. And he gave him this.” He pointed to the kitchen table. There lay a hearing aid.
“So
it was worth the trip?” I asked, making a valiant effort not to look self-righteous.
He laughed. “Yes. And you have my blessing to carry on.” And then, just like that, he left to go to his office, happily whistling, as Miss Gordon went upstairs to check on William.
I sat down at the kitchen table, flummoxed. His blessing? Did he just give me his blessing to carry on? With his son? How could I expect William to develop language when his own father hardly communicated?! A small fire of anger started smoldering within me. I marched over to Robert’s office and burst in without knocking, startling him. He was seated at his desk, already engrossed in preparing Sunday’s sermon.
“Robert? This is not my project. Helping William to learn to communicate is a project for the entire household! This is an enormous undertaking. I can’t do this alone!”
Wide-eyed, Robert said nothing and stared at me.
I looked at him in utter disgust and marched out again, closing the door with a decided bang.
William hadn’t woken yet, so I took the hearing aid and the instruction manual up to my room. Not long afterwards, I heard a timid knock at my door. “Who is it?” I snapped, knowing full well who was there.
Robert walked in, a little awkwardly, and sat down on my desk chair. “You’re right,” he said sheepishly, chin to chest.
I raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything.
“It’s just that…from what I learned from the doctor…and from the materials you have…it is going to be an enormous, time consuming work, and someone will have to make this a full-time job.” He cast a guilty glance at me. “I just assumed that…since you started the whole thing…you would be the one to take the bulk of responsibility for it.”
He raked a hand nervously through his hair. “In fact, as I was driving back from Phoenix, I realized it might be best if you didn’t have a job outside of the home. What I mean to say is…if you could consider this to be your job, almost like a tutor or governess. I would pay you, of course.” Cautiously, he glanced up at me. Then he hastened to add, “And I will be involved, I promise. I can’t speak for Aunt Martha, but I will support this.”
“And help? You’ll learn to help teach him?” I asked, eyeing him with suspicion.
“Yes. Of course.”
I hesitated, just to make him squirm a little. Then I smiled. “I accept the job offer. But I won’t accept payment. Consider it a barter agreement. In exchange for room and board.”
He held out his hand to shake mine. As I took his hand, I said, “So help me understand how this hearing aid works.”
He came over to the bed and picked it up. “It’s a Zenith Radionic A2A. First vacuum tube hearing aid. Just came out last year and they’re already working on a new model.”
I took it from him to look it over.
“From what I understand,” continued Robert, intrigued by its mechanical features, “this hearing aid uses a microphone to turn incoming sound waves into an electric current so they can be amplified. Then a speaker transforms the electric current into sound in the ear canal. Voilà! Sound! It won’t be the same as you and I hear, but it will give William some awareness of sound.”
I watched him as he explained the process. It struck me that he looked a little different after returning from Phoenix. For the first time, I thought he looked like a young man.
“Robert?” I asked, suddenly feeling more than a little overwhelmed. “Do you really think we can do this?”
He sat back down on the chair. “Louisa, the doctor told me something that clinched it for me. He said, ‘Language is language is language. You have to get language into these kids.’ So, yes, I think we can do this. The doctor said we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” He looked at me with great confidence. “He also said to expect miracles.”
Robert, William, and I worked diligently to finish correspondence lesson #1 and started on lesson #2 as we waited for lesson #3 to arrive. The John Tracy Clinic planned for families to have something to work on at all times, so there was a continual overlap of correspondence courses.
Intuitively, William sensed the need to learn to listen, which was the foundation to oral communication. He was never without the hearing aid hanging around his little neck. Soon, we didn’t even notice it; it became as much a part of him as the cowlick on his forehead. His ability to concentrate and his determination to learn kept me scrambling to keep up with him. His sounds were unintelligible, but they were the beginning of language.
It was thrilling! And exhausting.
I worked to bring sounds to his attention all day long. We repeated exercises hundreds of times. Hundreds of repetitions! I fell asleep each night completely worn out but woke up refreshed, reinvigorated by William’s enthusiasm.
One day, I tried to engage Miss Gordon in the process. We played a game where I knocked on the door and she would answer it. She tried it once or twice, but she had to exaggerate her behavior to help William understand the relationship between sound and response and said she felt ridiculous.
So we tried it the other way, where she knocked on the door, and I opened it. But again, she said she felt foolish, knocking on her own front door. Then she stopped trying. I knew her well enough by now to know not to push her. Martha Gordon was not a woman to be pushed.
“This is no way to live!” she grumbled one day.
I had made up little sheets and taped them on the furniture, the bathroom mirror, and the doors, to remind all of us to acknowledge the sound an object made. “It’s just for a little while, while we’re trying to teach William. Soon, it will be automatic.”
She did not look happy, but she didn’t take the signs down either. And when she didn’t know I was watching her, I saw her staring at the reminder note on the coffee pot, stuck there to have William smell the coffee and notice the percolating sound it made as it brewed.
Chapter Five
As I climbed out of bed one morning, I found Robert’s sermon on the floor next to the door. He had slid it under the door, with a note that said, “Please review and add suggestions.” I climbed back into bed with a red pen and read through the sermon. I read it again and again and then I began to scribble my thoughts.
“You’ve bloodied it with your red ink!” Robert said, laughing, when I placed it on his desk in his office later that afternoon, not at all offended. We discussed my suggestions and even argued, amicably, over a few comments I had made.
“Prayers don’t just stop at the ceiling. They are being heard, Robert. God is ready to work in our lives, if we only ask for his help. It’s a two-way relationship. An on-going conversation. Don’t you believe that?”
“I believe God cares about us, and prayer is a tool to help us cope with our circumstances.”
“It seems as if you miss the benefits of prayer with that logic. Prayer can change our circumstances on earth, as much as it can change us. Nothing is too important or too insignificant to leave in God’s hands. Look at how Jesus prayed. He prayed about every detail of his life—which disciples to pick, or to multiply fish and bread for the crowd, or even to find a coin in a fish to pay his taxes. No concern seemed too small for Jesus to take to prayer. And he prayed straight from his heart, with confidence that God heard Him.”
Robert shook his head in disbelief. “How did a Jewish girl end up knowing so much about Jesus?”
“My mother. She read the New Testament to me as a child; I couldn’t help but be fascinated by Jesus. Jesus is fascinating. The more you know about Him, the more there is to know. In a way, I’m very lucky to be half-Jewish. I feel a special tie to Christ.”
Robert looked directly at me. “I can see how you and Dietrich would have enjoyed each other. God was very real to him. Very close to him.”
“And you, Robert? Do you not feel God is near?”
Robert sat upright like a rock. The curtain drew closed. I had pushed him a little too far, once again.
* * *
It became a pleasant routine for Robert, William,
and I to go out for a drive or take a long walk on Sunday afternoons. Miss Gordon preferred to have a Sunday nap in a quiet house. When the weather accommodated, we went to a reservoir where William liked to hunt for Apache arrowheads. Today, we sat on the grass, watching William toss a ball for Dog to chase.
“You’re quiet today. Anything on your mind?” Robert asked me.
I pulled a letter I had received in the mail yesterday from Dietrich’s twin sister, Sabine. Besides Dietrich, she was the only one who knew where I was living. I read the letter out loud, translating it for Robert, describing Dietrich’s arrest. His face was stoic as he listened, watching me with worried eyes. “If Dietrich was arrested in April, and there are still no charges, what could that mean, Louisa?”
“I can only guess, but I think it means they don’t have any evidence to convict him. Just suspicion. But they could hold him for quite a while. They’re probably collecting evidence. I think it’s good he is still in Berlin, not moved to a prison or relocation camp, but knowing the Nazis, they’ll hold him as long as they’d like.” I continued translating the letter to him.
He looked up at me when I finished. “Louisa, that is unbelievable.”
Sabine described news of a protest in Berlin. On February 27, 1943, the Gestapo made a “Final Roundup” of Berlin Jews. Hitler wanted to make Berlin free of Jews. Most of the Jews were deported to Auschwitz, a concentration camp, but 2,000 Jewish men had non-Jewish wives.
Those Jews were taken to the Headquarters of the Jewish Community on a street called Rosenstrasse. They, too, were to be deported to Auschwitz, but their wives came down to Rosenstrasse and made a public protest. “Give us back our husbands!” they called, for over a week. 6,000 women cried out on these men’s behalf. They wouldn’t go home. In an unheard of response, Hitler finally buckled in and released those Jewish husbands.
Copper Star Page 7
