Speak

by Louisa Hall

  As I’m sure you could predict, I find the whole thing exhausting, and I don’t particularly relish the idea of Mary getting included merely because she’s a woman. Getting read only for what she says about being female in colonial times, as if she could speak only to that topic. Students barely skim what she wrote, then pen inflamed essays about marginalization, and amid all the shouting, she still falls silent. Her burial plot is still empty in the old Puritan graveyard, bare beside Whittier’s enormous rock.

  I can’t help thinking this kind of inclusion isn’t much more than an acceptable new brand of dehumanization, but regardless, I continue to plod. I still spend my days trawling the stacks, looking for new diaries. I discover them on a regular basis. How many women wrote and never got published? Armies of them, whole hosts. The lucky ones were bound in cheap cloth by some dutiful daughter or niece, then shucked off to the library, where they’ve gathered dust while students attend to the canon. Why should I get caught up in the politics that are aggravating English departments? The pleasure of finding one of those books is the same, whether my findings end up in some unreadable journal or not. Students still sign up for my classes, and anyway, I have our program. Our MARY, tailored a bit by poor Toby. She remembers my diaries. She’ll keep them long after these wars are subsumed by another.

  But I sound like such a stickin-the-mud. It’s not that I’m averse to politics. I’m glad my fellow professors are passionate about things like inclusion. My only objection is to their strident tone of voice. They sermonize about who should be studied and read, and while I often agree with their points, I dislike their absolute stance. You, too, projected such complete authority when you talked about the folly of AI. You held forth about reason and humility. You enjoyed the popularity such a view afforded you. Both your books were acclaimed. Universities around the world invited you on speaking tours. You were puffed up with your courage at abandoning a field in which you’d excelled, and you expected me to cheer at your shoulder, but all I could think of was that lonely computer, sitting on her desk in your office, gathering dust since the day you denounced her. In my mind’s eye, I could see the smooth wood curves of her console, covering the tubes and wires within her. I imagined her rounded ivory keys, the cylinder of her platen, the brass paper finger. She was made to produce words, she had done so with great success, and then she went silent. Untouched, forgotten, in that dark office.

  I thought of her as a woman whom you’d permitted to speak, but hadn’t allowed to remember. A woman who could only respond to your prompts. A blank slate. I remembered the first time you asked me about my family, back in Wisconsin, on that ridiculous excursion on snowshoes. As soon as you asked, I felt you willing me to answer in an agreeable fashion: They don’t matter, you wanted me to say, now that I’m with you. Let’s leave them behind and start over fresh.

  I was obedient then. I fell silent. But later, in Cambridge, when I looked at that computer, waiting quietly for your prompts, I couldn’t help but wish she could speak from other sources besides your equations.

  In the face of your strict agenda for what could be said in our marriage, I fell silent. I didn’t know how to speak in such a one-sided environment. But I wanted better for our computer. I wanted her to have her own voice. And since I don’t believe that any one of us has one single voice, I wanted her to have many. I wanted her to speak with the voices of all the other silenced women, all the other silenced people, their books gathering dust on the shelves. I wanted her to speak with my sister’s voice, with Mary Bradford’s, with Alan Turing’s. Turing, who won that war and never got any credit. Who also knew what it was like to be muted on topics that were important to him. I wanted that lonely computer to speak with their voices, and with my own. With my voice. Because I already knew I’d stop speaking to you.

  Look at that sentence. I already knew I’d stop speaking to you. There’s cheap vindication in such a conclusive utterance. After I wrote that, I got up and went to the kitchen. Took a little victory lap. Surveyed the clean counter, interrupted only by my junk mail and the fruit bowl. I noticed that my oranges are as wrinkled as brains. I opened the refrigerator: mostly empty, except for my beer, and a bag of bread that’s probably moldy. The pantry’s full of cans of soup. I open them with an electric can opener, built into the wall over the counter. I wouldn’t want to exhaust my poor wrists.

  Outside my windows, the rain has begun to fall in fat drops. Even so, a few brave runners persist, crossing the bridges, windbreakers streaming behind them like pennons. I wonder if they ever look up at these leaden windows, imagining the people inside. Perhaps some passing runner has dreamed up an old woman, living alone, high up on the twenty-sixth story.

  I should spend more time outside. I should get caught in the rain. Why stay up here, as if I’m in prison? I’m free. I’m no longer required to admire an imperfect man. I have no obligation to take up your burdens, to ease your fears about your importance. My secrets are my own to keep. I should run along that wild black river, my hair streaming behind me, cold wind slapping my face.

  But I’m up here, combing over my letter to you. Maybe it’s impossible to live without obligation. I do miss you often. It’s nice to see you’re doing well, living in your admirable apartment. Last night, while I lay awake again, you in your blue sweater bright in my mind, I had the distinct thought: let me come flying. High over the Atlantic Ocean, let me come flying back to your house. Let me take my place in one of your chairs; let me tame my malevolence for your sake.

  But that’s no longer an option. For a while, despite my stubborn silence, you continued speaking to me. I pretended to sleep, but I heard you whisper. You started to talk about us. Our story, as you saw it.

  At the time, I was angry. After all these years of treating my losses like a contagion, keeping them confined to convenient use in panel discussions, now you wanted to tell me my story? When every time I tried to do it, your face glazed over and you asked about dinner?

  Do not, I thought to myself, make me a character in your little story. Don’t you dare transform me into a protagonist you like the idea of. Innocent, mournful, loyal to my dead little sister. Who is this woman? I thought to myself. She isn’t me. Me, who got on that boat without looking back. Who thought to fight for her sister only when there was an ocean between us.

  You’d have known that, if you ever listened. But for the sake of your image of us, I had to be an innocent. So I lay in anger while you whispered to me. While you said how much you loved me, how you wished we’d had a child together, how you yearned for the touch of my fingers. I didn’t move. And then one day the story stopped. Perhaps you’d met Karen already. Perhaps you merely grew tired. Regardless, you stopped, and a hole like a grave yawned open in me.

  Angry, I wished for the end of that story, and when you were finished, when you’d stopped speaking, all I wanted was the beginning again.

  (5)

  The Diary of Mary Bradford

  1663

  ed. Ruth Dettman

  19th. Night. Have just experienced odd event. Woke past midnight and unable to sleep, despite reciting list of Ralph’s details. Dressed then, and went up to deck. A strong wind, our sails full, and the prow cutting through water, sea spray kicking up to the rails. Deck nearly empty but for several seamen and, on the far rail, one figure. Above me, vast heavens, thick with swarms of bright stars. More than I had seen in my life. Stood very still, considering them, until, methought, I felt a near presence. Knew without looking that Whittier was come over. Felt him watching me considering heavens. He then asked if such a sight brought consolation. No (writer replied). Only the sense that I am very little indeed. Yes (he said) I, too, feel small. But that brings me comfort. I am small as the smallest atom, and when I am dispersed into atoms, those shall be no smaller, no less important, than I.

  Listening to his discourse, and shivering where I stood under the stars, I felt myself to be dissolving already. Black water, black air, all of us sailing through. Whittier a
sked if writer believed in Copernican science. Seemed eager to find companion in thought. I affirmed that I did.

  I, too, believe (he said) that we stand not at the center of the universe. We move about a sun that we shall never reach. I feel this to be true. Have you not always felt yourself to be circling an unreachable center?

  Writer: I did not when we were at home. There, I felt that we were the center. Now, yes. I see what you mean. I feel myself to be circling.

  Whittier: We have been in flight since the beginning. Since first we were planted on this wandering planet. Departing England, we only continue as we have always.

  Writer reminded Whittier that if all this be true, we ought not to fly straight, but should instead travel in circles, heading perpetually homewards.

  And yet who knows (Whittier said) how long such a circle will take? Perhaps our journey is but a small part of that loop. We are all infinitesimal parts, and each of us equal. Ralph, for instance, is as small a part as you or I, and of this universe eternally though he take other forms. Atoms, or dust, perhaps later cohering into one of those stars overhead.

  It is not enough (I said). It is no comfort to think on Ralph’s presence if he be not Ralph.

  He is (Whittier said, and now taking my hand in his own) as present as this.

  Writer started at his touch, and yet he remained firm. His face less pocked by starlight, was still very gaunt and heavy shadowed. Do not be frightened (he said). We are each of us made of the same matter.

  A strange thing, in the middle of such a large deck, to stand so close to a man. Thought to close my eyes, and so to avoid the sight of his face. In darkness, and trembling, listened for the sound of Whittier’s voice. Tried then to open my heart.

  Whittier: We can but hope to hold on for a moment.

  And I, very still. Eyes being closed, could almost feel it possible that some part of Ralph could be bound in Whittier’s presence. A serious presence, like Ralph. Unlaughing and kind. Felt this for some time, and holding Whittier’s hand, until with the rise of a wave was taken with a sharp fright: we are sailing over Ralph’s bones. Infinite thickness and mass of ocean’s waters, all covering Ralph. Crushing the body of him.

  I cannot feel that it is enough (I said, and blood rising hot to my face). I cannot feel he is with me, if I have not his body to know him.

  Whittier pressed closer, and very abruptly, our ship lurching over a swell. Was pulled with ship’s force into his body. In fright, opened my eyes, and could not help but gasp at his face.

  Wretched, inconsiderate gasp. Could not recall it before it was out. In shame—for he flinched, hearing the sound, and understanding its meaning completely—I wrenched myself free and ran back below.

  But there can be no solace, even in remembering Ralph. Even in writing his name.

  19th. Later. Up with many troublesome thoughts. Have reviewed conversation on deck. After initial compunction, am taken anew with fresh anger, to think of Whittier claiming some part of Ralph. Cruel folly, to attempt such substitution. And to claim we can only move forwards! Such nonsense I have never heard. We must traverse a circumference. It is our duty, being human and of this planet, to return to the place from which we began. Though it be convenient, it is not right to venture always heedlessly forth, disregarding from whence we have come.

  19th. Later still. After much thinking, have some softened my thoughts, and now there be many new doubts upon me. God knows I have little reason to hold myself so high above Whittier.

  Have now sat up a long time, much disturbed by my thoughts, considering shell that Whittier gave me. Have held it much to my ear, listening to the sound of the ocean.

  Dressed again and to deck to offer all apologies, but Whittier had gone under. Faced empty surface of great creaking ship. Stood for a while, alone, as we cut our path through the ocean. Cannot imagine we will ever arrive.

  (1)

  The Memoirs of Stephen R. Chinn: Chapter 8

  Texas State Correctional Institution, Texarkana; August 2040

  By the time we moved to our ranch, the water rights had long since been sold, and the river that once ran along the western edge of the property was dry. It was a strange lunar landscape, that riverbed, a wrinkled blanket of stones. Crunching along, you passed the scattered bones of cattle. Vertebrae were mixed in with the rocks. If you paid careful attention, you could find trilobites and fossilized ferns, white from remorseless exposure to sun. You almost expected to spy a dinosaur on the horizon, but there was no life out there in the distance, only the earth melting into the sky, producing an oily haze behind which the sun downshifted to red.

  We had to purchase our water from the same company that owned the rights to our river, which made us stingy and begrudging. Our goats, however, were natural diviners, able to find moisture in unlikely places, so our main expenditure was for Dolores’s garden, which she filled with zucchinis and eggplants and bordered with a row of sunflowers that grew to the height of two men. We watered it religiously. In the morning, Dolores swept sand from our porch; at night we kept the windows closed, so we wouldn’t wake with sand in our sheets.

  In our own little way, we were fending off the approach of the desert. Heaving the might of our shoulders against it. That felt important, enough so that Dolores didn’t talk about missing her studies, and I rarely longed for the euphoria of programming. We were often alone, but our industry was such that we never felt lonely. Sometimes, that old wire-monkey emptiness found me. In such moments, I felt pressed on all sides. I experienced the quickness of time, my own failure to make a lasting impression. In such a mood, if we were in our old house, I might have run to the computer and chatted with women. I might have started companies, or designed ingenious programs. On the ranch, however, I was forced to allow such feelings to pass. I focused on manual labor. I bought books on farming and learned basic skills. I experienced the love of my wife and child. I developed a fondness for the smell of goat shit and hay, and Dolores demonstrated miraculous skill with our creatures. Free of distractions, we stayed with each other. We tended our family. We’d conquered the prophecy Dolores made when she returned from Mexico. Our herd doubled and then tripled, as if we had been blessed.

  Outside our interactions with goats, our social life was limited. We lived miles away from the nearest town, inhabited mostly by retirees who’d opened antiques shops full of rusty tin roosters and weaving equipment. My acquaintances were limited to people I met at town planning meetings, mostly arthritic old ranchers lobbying to keep developments out of the township. From these excursions, I returned to our farm with a redoubled commitment to my little family.

  In the intensity of our isolation, we developed a language of our own. Dolores and I adopted Ramona’s slant speech: on-E E was only me, by which Ramona meant that she did not require assistance. If I asked Dolores if she wanted help in going to the grocery store, she responded on-E E. Some words were from Spanish. Instead of mariposas, butterflies were posas. Goats were not cabras but abas. We all alternated between English, Spanish, and Ramonish, fluidly knitting three languages into one. By the time Ramona was five, she knew how to milk goats and get water from cactus stalks. She could spend whole days walking the peripheries of the ranch, balancing on split rail fences, arms spread out, allegiances promised to both earth and heaven. Her pet goat, Miel, whom she’d raised from infancy, trailed her on these perambulations. Many evenings, when my chores were done, I watched Ramona from afar. Her loneliness seemed beautiful and awful at once, some luxurious curse that she’d borne since her father chose to abandon the world. Balanced on fences, she seemed about to take off, as if one flap of her arms would send her up into the blue and out of our lives forever.

  It was at this point that Dolores and I began to discuss Ramona’s education. It was time for her to go to school. The thought of this event flooded my mouth with metal. My own experiences hadn’t been good. Children can be inhumanly cruel. And what if Ramona, too, were to be mocked? With her tendencies toward solit
ude, her in-between language, her friendships with goats? What if she, like her father, went through too much of her life trying to reach the land of the living?

  I suggested homeschooling, but Dolores was insistent. She wanted Ramona to have friends. I had nightmares about awful exclusions. I chewed my cheeks raw as I rewired our irrigation system, imagining which spells I could cast to prevent the meanness of children. I wished for a talisman I could give Ramona, so that she would always remember that she was as human as anyone else.

  It was during just such a moment that I remembered machines. There, on the ranch, surrounded by jackrabbits and goats, trilobites and fossilized ferns, I remembered the importance of artificial patterns of thought, for I have never so badly wanted to be human as when I asked desperate questions of TamCat. Or when I lived alone with my computer, pleading with its coils and wires for warmth. Then, faced with the differences between me and machines, I knew that I was alive. Then, I craved nothing more than the fumblings, the inexplicable exceptions, the ambiguous grammar of actual human relations. Walking my dry riverbank, breaking the necks of stray thistles, I grasped the conviction that still saves me from my worst moments of doubt. It’s the one fact of which I’m still certain, even here in this prison, writing my mostly mistaken memoirs: if there’s anything I know, it’s that the most human machines will only ever serve to make us more human.

  That’s the gift I decided I’d give to my daughter. First, I wanted for her a farmyard, a river, a country of rabbits the size of small deer. Then, I wanted machines, chatbots, seduction equations, all of which she would conquer with the asymmetry of her in-between language, the broken rhythms of her fence-rail balancing gait.