The following day they began in earnest, albeit not without some awkward moments, to fill Abelard’s brain with all the needed bits and pieces his medieval memories might be missing if he was to become an active and civil member of modern society. Language training was the first priority. ”I am Oliver,” exaggerating the articulation, pointing to himself and then to Abelard, all the while tilting his head to one side. He had had several dogs and believed that gesture to be their universal expression for perplexity.
“Oliver, I’ve always had some misgivings about your early education,” Felicity interjected, without giving Abelard the time to respond. “He is not a dog,” she went on. “We humans, it may be of interest to you, also depend on body language to communicate and use another gesture to indicate a question. Here, let me show you. “I am Felicity,” she said, also pointing to herself, with emphasis on her name, at the same time turning both her palms face up. She looked at Abelard and waited.
But Abelard had quite easily understood Oliver’s canine allusion and preferring not to propagate any unnecessary ambiguity as to his mental acumen responded to Oliver, “I am Abelard,” he said, pointing to himself and looking directly at Oliver, with a slight tilt to his head. This set Oliver off. He began to laugh, quite loudly, eliciting an angry reaction from Felicity.
“You’re training him to behave like a dog. Stop it.”
Abelard had by now fixed Oliver with a malevolent glare. It’s not that he minded being laughed at, but Oliver was the enemy and his amusement could only be contemptuous. In an instant all that remained of the audible whoop was a frozen, toothy grin. Oliver quickly understood what had occurred and moved to defuse the situation. He strode over to the bed and gently took Abelard’s hand in his, giving it a slight squeeze and, at the same time he gave him a thumbs up sign – figuring if the Romans used it, he would know about it, since they predated where he had chosen to place himself in history – along with a broad smile. This was sufficient. After a moment, Abelard responded with his own warm regard.
“Ok, language is your responsibility. I’ll tend to matters of health. And I will be sensitive to his feelings. But this little episode was not a complete loss. His brain, happily, does seem to be receiving and processing signals in what looks to be a pretty normal way. It doesn’t mean that he isn’t suffering from some murderous personality disorder, only that he can learn.”
There was also the matter of his body, which very visibly needed major restoration work, although bringing Abelard up to full strength did somewhat worry Oliver, in view of his evident proclivity violence. After one week, with the help of small weights and exercises designed to work on the very largest muscle groups - abdominals, quadriceps, pectorals, traps - and the two of them as supports, Abelard was able to get to the window more or less under his own power. For the most part there was not much to see that would surprise him. The house was surrounded by tall oaks and to the horizon there were only rolling hills with building outlines sparsely dotting the distant escarpment. The two nearby paved roads both ran through shallow ravines and their traffic would have been invisible to Abelard, although he did inquire about the occasional roar from invisible, straining vehicles. “Construction activity,” was all he got in response. Felicity’s mystic blue German vehicle was explained away as a carriage, which Abelard pointed out could not, with such small wheels, be very useful.
The castle tower, its crenellated top just peeking over the horizon, was another matter. It had an odd feature about it that caught and held Abelard’s eye. There was a small bell tower which had been built over the top of the battlements. With dozens of castles lining the Dordogne, Oliver and Felicity had never taken any special notice of this one. But Abelard obviously had some familiarity with the distant stone building.
“I, Abelard, go there,” he said, with an excitement that belied his normal matter-of-fact attitude, pointing a long bony finger, trembling ever so slightly, at the castle battlements. The momentary silence and his two erstwhile captors’ complete immobility convinced Abelard that he had not been understood. He excitedly began to speak in Occitan to Felicity, his hands more lively than usual, trying to draw a picture in the still air, all the while turning his gaze from Felicity, to the window view and back.
“He claims to be familiar with that castle,” Felicity said to Oliver. “An important ally of his father’s presumably lives there. They are quite tight and he is pretty sure that this baron would advance to us the ransom needed to buy his freedom. Would we be so kind as to convey him to the castle?” Felicity rolled her eyes at Oliver, suppressed her grin from taking on noticeable proportions and suggested, “Why don’t we say yes? Of course, in your opinion, only when he is ready to travel. Might be just the thing to revive his memory.”
“He should be OK by the end of next week. Tell him and see what he says.”
The disappointment was writ large, but he just nodded and turned back to the window, releasing an audible sigh. But he was very resilient and his frustration quickly evaporated. He was now pulling at the night shirt which had been his single and only garment since he awoke. He shuffled over to Oliver and repeated the pulling gesture on his clothes, pointing all the while to himself.
“Clothes,” Felicity articulated, slowly, deliberately at once pulling at her own shirt.
“Clothes,” Abelard mimicked with almost perfect diction.
“I need clothes,” Felicity went on, again using her hands to convey the meaning she wanted him to retain. And so would Felicity seize any opportunity to teach Abelard English. She was quite looking forward to the outing; the closed quarters in the room had become oppressive. They had not yet brought him downstairs, worrying that his legs might give. They also in this way avoided his inevitable questions about the appliances and other paraphernalia of a modern house, even the quite moldy and very outdated one which they rented from the evil twins. He had been very impressed with running water and flushing toilets, but of such conveniences he had already heard rumors and knew that they had been in use by the Romans, but never expected to actually see them. She and Oliver had also rehearsed their act for the moment when Abelard would experience his very first automobile trip since waking up. But, all her optimism and exuberance and all her rehearsals could not prepare her for events at the castle.
The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book Page 23
