Listen!

by Frances Itani

The other two women knew what Roma and Liz were talking about. Jessie and Eve had worried about their deaf parents, too.

  “We became responsible children,” Jessie said. “We had no choice. We had to mature early.”

  Chapter Six

  The Berries

  Jessie worked as a sign language interpreter at a community centre. She looked around the table at Roma, Liz, and Eve. “My mom and dad were born deaf,” she said. “They met at a School for the Deaf in western Canada. Like your mom, they lived in residence. Three years after they finished school, they married and moved east to Ontario.”

  Jessie continued: “We lived near Smiths Falls when I was born. I was the first child. I had three brothers and one sister. None of us was born deaf. Even so, American Sign Language was the language we used. But we grew up with two languages in the house, ASL and spoken English. We children used our voices to speak to one another. To our parents, we signed. Most often, we used both at the same time: speech and sign. Even now, my thoughts are in pictures,” Jessie said. “Everything is visual for me. When I speak, I see words in sign language. That probably happens to many hearing children of deaf parents.

  “My dad had a job working in a hospital laundry. Sometimes, we wondered what our lives would be like if we were rich. We used to say: ‘I wonder how rich people live?’ Wondering how rich people live became a joke in our family.”

  Jessie held up her photo and then passed it around the table. “You’ll see that I am leaning against a truck here,” she said. “What you can’t see clearly is the field of berries behind the truck. Rows and rows of raspberries. My story is about Mrs. Berry. A woman who was very rich.”

  *

  Jessie’s story:

  The truck in the photo belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Berry. They also owned two cars, and a farm outside Smiths Falls. Everyone called them the Berries, even though that wasn’t their real name.

  The Berries raised dogs and horses as well as raspberries. Sometimes I walked past their property and thought, “So that’s how rich people live.” I had never been inside their big house.

  The first paying job I ever had was picking berries. Mr. Berry had gone away on a business trip. Mrs. Berry needed pickers because the berries were ripe. She came to our door one evening and asked if I wanted a job. Raspberry picking would start the next day. She said she paid eight cents for every box picked. She also supplied lunch for the pickers. The job would last about three weeks.

  My parents said it would be all right for me to work. They said it would be good for me to earn some money.

  After Mrs. Berry left, my dad joked with me. He said, “Well, Jessie, maybe you’ll find out how rich people live. Pay attention. Keep your ears open and listen! You can report back to the rest of us.”

  The next morning, a truck arrived to pick me up. The driver worked for the Berry family and helped out with their horses. When I climbed into the back of the truck, I saw two other students. They were friends of mine from high school and had been picked up before me. When we arrived at the berry farm, Mrs. Berry came out to greet us.

  My friends and I were given stacks of empty boxes. The truck driver took us to the field and showed us where to start. We had to fill the boxes with berries and carry them to the end of the row. Full boxes were placed in large wooden flats. The flats were loaded into the back of the truck.

  After five minutes of bending over bushes, I ached everywhere. My fingernails were stained dark purple. I wondered if I could last a full day. The sun became hotter and hotter. At ten o’clock, a maid carried lemonade and glasses out to the field on a tray.

  The cold drink revived us. When we’d had enough, we started picking again. The maid told us that lunch would be served at twelve o’clock.

  I looked up at the sun, hoping for time to pass. I didn’t own a watch. When the sun was directly overhead, the maid came to the field and called us. She said we would be eating in the house.

  In we went, the three of us, who could now be called berry pickers. We had red scratches on our arms and legs, and our knees were dirty. The maid showed us where to wash our hands and pointed out the dining room.

  Mrs. Berry was already seated at one end of a long table. She wore a sundress with narrow straps, gold earrings, and gold bracelets. The bracelets rattled every time she moved her arms.

  I counted five empty chairs at Mrs. Berry’s table. Three on one side, two on the other. The maid told my two friends and me to sit along one side. Six china plates had been set out. One for Mrs. Berry, three for the pickers, and two others. I looked around to see who else would join us for lunch. I thought maybe the truck driver and the maid would sit with us.

  Mrs. Berry suddenly called to her dogs, two large Irish setters. They had been waiting in the doorway, and now they raced in, wagging feathery tails. They leaped up onto the two empty chairs across the table from me. They settled into the seats as if they sat there every day. The maid came in and tied a large cloth napkin around each dog’s neck. The napkins hung like triangles over the dogs’ long throats.

  The maid then carried in a plate of ham sandwiches made from white bread spread with mustard. The crusts had been neatly trimmed off. The sandwiches with mustard were for the humans.

  The dogs stared down at their empty plates. The maid left the room and returned again. This time, she carried a plate of ham sandwiches with no mustard. These were for the dogs. She also served the dogs extra slices of ham.

  I began to wonder if the maid had served enough food. I was sure the dogs would eat our sandwiches after they finished their own. But they behaved well. They gulped their food quickly but neatly. They also watched Mrs. Berry, who talked to them all through the meal. She called the dogs “darlings.” She didn’t have much to say to the rest of us. She didn’t say one word to me. I had been picking her berries all morning, and I was hungry. I had nothing to say to her, either.

  By the end of that first day of berry picking, I was exhausted. At three o’clock in the afternoon, my friends and I stopped work. The truck driver drove us home, and he picked us up again the next morning. The second day, my friends and I wore jeans to protect our legs from scratches.

  The job lasted three weeks. Every day, I ate lunch with the dogs in the large dining room. I liked the dogs more than I liked Mrs. Berry.

  I worked hard and earned enough money to buy clothes for school. I never wanted to see another raspberry.

  But I was able to report to my family. I finally knew how rich people lived.

  My deaf parents listened with great interest. We all laughed and laughed. I told them about the dogs sitting on chairs and eating off china plates.

  My mom loved hearing about napkins being tied around the dogs’ necks. “Imagine,” she said. “Just imagine how rich people live.”

  “Maybe that’s how hearing people live,” said my dad.

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  *

  At the end of her story, Jessie looked around Liz’s table. “I knew that my family was different,” she said. “We were different because both my parents were deaf. Somehow, having an inside look at a rich woman’s life made me feel better. I was learning that everyone’s life was different in some way.”

  Chapter Seven

  Feet

  Eve earned her living as an actor with a Montreal theatre company. Every summer, she worked with deaf children in theatre classes.

  Eve passed her photo around. “You can see two girls standing by a riverbank,” she said. “I am the girl on the left, and I was thirteen years old at the time. I look pretty unhappy here. After you hear my story, I think you’ll understand why.

  “The girl on the right is my sister, and she was eleven. We grew up just outside Belleville, close to the Moira River.” She looked around the table. “Were we all poor when we were children?” she asked the others.

  Liz nodded. “Poor in some ways, maybe. Rich in others.”

  “Well,” said Eve, “my story is about feet. Charity
and feet. I was in grade seven and I was very sensitive. Both of my parents were deaf, but they were divorced. My sister and I lived with our mother. We didn’t see much of our father because he had moved away. After the divorce, my mother went to work at a canning factory. She worked really hard to support us.”

  Eve took a deep breath, as if she had a theatre part to act. “Look at the photo and see what I’m wearing on my feet,” she said.

  *

  Eve’s story:

  During the last week of August, someone left a cardboard box on our doorstep in the night. Our mother found the box before she left for work in the morning. There was no label on the box, and we never found out who had left it.

  “I hope people don’t think we need charity,” Mother said.

  No one had ever left a box on our step before. Mother dragged it into the kitchen and opened the top. The three of us could see clothes inside.

  “I have to leave or I’ll be late for work,” Mother told us. “You girls look through the box. There might be some good school clothes in there.”

  My sister and I did not own many store-bought clothes. Mostly, we wore clothes our mother sewed for us on her Singer sewing machine. She bought material and made dresses, slacks, skirts, and even coats. These were beautiful, but my sister and I badly wanted store-bought clothes.

  After our mother left for work, my sister and I lifted the clothing out of the box. We pulled out sweaters, blouses, a winter coat, and four skirts. The clothes had hardly been worn. At the bottom of the box, we found a pair of boots and one pair of shoes. The boots had fur trim around the top and fit my sister perfectly. She couldn’t wait to wear them.

  We tried on skirts and sweaters to see what would fit. We liked everything but the shoes. These looked like old-lady shoes. We knew our mother would never wear them to work at the canning factory. Our mother was not an old lady.

  I held the shoes in the air, and my sister and I both laughed. “These are such a joke,” I said. The shoes were brown and heavy, with dark brown laces, and holes punched into the sides. They had thick, clunky heels, not like today’s heels. They were shoes a ninety-year-old woman would wear.

  When Mother came home from work that evening, she looked at every item.

  “Try on the shoes,” she said.

  “Not me,” said my sister.

  “I don’t mean you,” said Mother. “I mean Eve.”

  “Not me,” I told my mother. “I’ll never put those ugly things on my feet.”

  “They’re not so bad,” said Mother. “You’re the one who needs new shoes for school. I’m only asking you to try them on.”

  To my horror, the shoes fit.

  “I’ll never wear them,” I said. “These are old-lady shoes. I am thirteen years old. No one in my class owns shoes like these.”

  “Your others have worn out,” Mother said. “These are made of leather. Look at them. They’ll be good school shoes.”

  School was to start the following week.

  I looked to my sister for support, but she looked away.

  “The shoes don’t fit,” I told my mother. “They hurt my feet.”

  “Stand up straight,” my mother said. She pushed on the leather toe with her thumb. “You have extra room at the toe. A perfect fit.”

  “You’ll never make me wear them,” I said. But I said this to my mother’s back.

  My mother turned around and looked at my face. “Don’t talk behind my back, Eve. You’ll have to wear the shoes. I don’t have extra money to buy new ones.” I was so angry, I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I turned on my radio and set the volume as high as it would go. Mother couldn’t hear, but the loud noise made me feel better.

  The next day, after Mother left for work, my sister and I walked beside the river.

  “I should have thrown the shoes into the river,” I said. “Mother didn’t know we’d find shoes in the box. Not until she came home from work yesterday.”

  But I knew our mother really couldn’t afford new shoes. I knew I’d have to wear the ugly shoes on the first day of school. And every day after that.

  I hated getting on and off the school bus because I didn’t want anyone looking at my feet. When I walked in the terrible shoes, I could hear the noise of thick heels. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I felt as if I had flashing lights on my feet.

  I knew the other girls at school talked about my shoes. No one said anything directly to me. I was already different because my parents were divorced. I was different because my parents were deaf. I wanted to fit in, and I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.

  After a few weeks, the heel on one of my shoes began to loosen. It wobbled on the nails that held it. I was glad the heel had started to come off. If I could make it break, I’d get new shoes after all.

  I scraped the wobbly heel against rocks. I scraped it against the floor. Everywhere I went, I tried to make the heel snap off the shoe.

  At school, when the weather was good, students had to line up outside. Girls in one long line, boys in another. When the bell rang, we marched inside and went to our classrooms. Our teachers followed us into the school.

  In early October, rain had fallen for days, making the ground wet and muddy. Students could not line up outside the school until the rain stopped.

  When the sun shone again, I took my place in line and waited for the bell to ring. I scraped my shoe along the muddy ground. I was still trying to break the heel.

  To my surprise, the wobbly heel suddenly fell off. At the same moment, the school bell rang, and students ahead of me began to move. I had to start walking, so I left my heel behind, in the mud.

  Now, instead of a heel, three nails stuck out of the bottom of my shoe. I had no heel, but I had nails to walk on. Every time I took a step, the nails rang out against the floor. My broken shoe made more noise than it had before the heel fell off. I tried to walk on tiptoes down the long hall. When I reached my classroom, I quickly sat at my desk.

  My teacher, Mr. Peters, came up beside me and placed the heel on my desk.

  “Is this yours, Eve?” he asked. “I found it in the mud outside.”

  I nodded, my face red with shame. Everyone stared at the big clunky heel on my desk.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to press the heel back onto the nails.

  When I got home from school, Mother was still at the canning factory.

  I took off both shoes and ran toward the river. My sister ran along beside me.

  “What are you going to do?” she said. She could see the shoes in my hand.

  “I’m going to throw them in the river,” I told her.

  “You’d better not, Eve,” she said. “Mother will be upset.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. And I really didn’t care.

  When we reached the shore, I threw the shoes as hard as I could. I watched them bob up and down in the water before they sailed away.

  The next morning, I told Mother I couldn’t find my shoes. I told her I couldn’t go to school.

  Mother made me look in every room of the house. She made my sister look, too. We searched until the school bus arrived. Mother had to leave for work and I still had no shoes to wear.

  My sister was loyal. She did not tell on me.

  I stayed home from school that day, and my sister rode the school bus without me. When Mother returned home from work, we searched for the shoes again.

  Mother was not happy with me, but she finally took me to the shoe store. She had to buy me a new pair of shoes.

  I never told my mother about throwing the shoes into the river.

  I was not proud that I did not tell the truth. But I got to own a pair of normal-looking shoes. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me or laughing because we were poor.

  *

  Because Eve knew how to perform, she made the others at the table laugh. Roma and Liz and Jessie understood Eve’s story very well.

  Chapter Eight

  Piano

  Roma’s sister Liz worke
d as a musician and music teacher. She held up a black and white photo that Roma had seen before.

  “I was sixteen in this photo,” said Liz, as she passed it around the table. “Roma was eighteen and had already left home. She won a scholarship and lived in residence at university. After Roma left, I lived alone with Mam. I still had two more years of high school.”

  Liz continued. “The photo shows the living room of the house where Roma and I grew up. I am sitting on a piano bench, facing a piano. My hands stretch over the keyboard, and a music book is propped in front of me. But I am not looking at the notes on the page. As you can see, I’m staring down at the keys. I have a serious look on my face.”

  *

  Liz’s story:

  You won’t be surprised when I tell you that Mam always wished for a piano. Many of Mam’s deaf friends owned pianos. Why did deaf people want pianos?

  Anyway, Mam could not afford a piano. So one of our grandmothers decided to search for one. She found and bought a second-hand piano, which she gave to Mam for her fiftieth birthday.

  A big moving truck arrived at our house to deliver the piano. The following week, my grandmother paid to have the piano tuned.

  Mam loved that piano. Right away, she wanted me to learn to play. I banged at the keys, but Mam didn’t want that. She wanted me to learn properly. Roma had left home, so I was the one who had to learn. That’s what Mam thought.

  I had no interest in learning piano. I wanted to listen to the radio. At my high school, I had learned the words to popular songs. I began to go to school dances with my friends. I wanted to know all the songs we danced to.

  My teachers knew I could sing, and I often sang in school concerts. When I performed in a concert, Mam sat in the audience. She couldn’t hear a single note. Mam also came to watch my school plays. She took her seat but did not hear a single word. She came because that’s what other mothers did.

  At home, Mam used hands and voice to talk to Roma and me. At our school, Mam never spoke. She did not like to speak in front of strangers. She knew her voice was different.