Native Tongue

by Suzette Haden Elgin, Susan Squier

  Governments, and people in general, were likely to take power and do damn fool things with it, like carrying on nuclear wars and cutting each other up with chain saws and laser scalpels. The linguists had a way to curb some of that, an awesome power for all its limitations, and they would keep it in the Lines where it would never be subject to the follies of bureaucrats or simple ignorance.

  Thomas had a responsibility, and sometimes it was unpleasant. Sometimes, when he listened to the very little boys in the Household complaining that they didn’t understand why they had to do without everything just because stupid people thought linguists made too much money, and how they thought it was sucking up to go on like that . . . sometimes he was tempted.

  He remembered when he’d been a little boy like that himself. It was during one of the times when energy was wasted, inexcusably—a time of government “market adjustment.” There had been a kind of portable force field that whirled around the outside of the body and could be set to keep the temperature within a certain range. It let you do away with winter clothing, and it made it possible to wear ordinary clothing in summer with total comfort. It hadn’t lasted, because even the rich who loved such toys quickly found such squandering of resources intolerable. But while it was available, the children had had a good time. They had discovered that if you got a few of these fields whirling at top heat setting and a few others at maximum cold, you could get a baby tornado going in the middle of the circle of children, and you could watch it suck up leaves and grass, and if you were daring you could stick your finger into its center where everything was totally still.

  Thomas had stood there, six years old and bundled in a plain cloth coat, stamping his feet against the cold and rubbing his frozen fingers together. The other children were in a little park that he had to pass on his way to and from school, and they were blissfully comfortable in that cold in light shorts and shifts—except for the ones who were providing the maximum cold settings, of course. They were cold like Thomas, colder even. But they were having fun. He would never forget how he had watched and longed to play that game, wanted to have a baby tornado to play with, wanted to be part of that circle . . . he’d gotten chilblains, standing there. And no sympathy.

  “You’re a little fool, Thomas,” they’d said to him at home. “Linguists can’t have such stuff, and you know it, and you know why. You’ve been told a thousand times. People hate us, and we do not choose to feed that hate for trivia. People believe that we are greedy, that we are paid millions of credits to do things that anybody could do if we’d only tell them how—we do not choose to feed that perception, either. Now go study your verbs, Thomas, and stop whining.”

  Thomas caught himself sharply—he’d been woolgathering, and the two men were watching him silently.

  “Well?” he said. “You’ve won. Are you satisfied?”

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith wearily, “if there’s nothing else you want to talk about.”

  “You called me here, man, not I you.”

  “As a courtesy.”

  “Ah. Courtesy. I value courtesy.”

  “We didn’t want you to hear about the . . . incident . . . on the news, Mr. Chornyak. And your orders are that no contacts between you and the government are to be held in any other way than this, unless they are the ordinary routine of linguistics. We did as you requested—and that also is courtesy.”

  “I will be sure to inform Mrs. St. Syrus of your courtesy,” said Thomas, bowing.

  “You won’t, either,” blurted Jones. “That’s not what you’ll do, you . . . you filthy Lingoe! You’ll—”

  Smith sighed. That was really a bit much, he thought. He’d been prepared for clumsiness, that’s why they picked Jones; but this was a little more than he thought justified by the role. Now Thomas Chornyak’s face would register faint distaste . . . ME ARISTOCRAT, YOU CAVEMAN . . . there it went. And he wouldn’t say a word. And then he would start entering data in his wrist computer . . . there he went.

  Smith often thought that if he could just spend a few months, round the clock, with some linguists, he could learn to do the things they did. So much of it was so obvious. Except that there must be something else that wasn’t obvious, because when he tried the things he thought he’d picked up in his observations they never did work. Never.

  Dear sweet Jesus, how he hated Lingoes.

  Hurrying down the hall with the two men, Smith disgusted and Jones humiliated, Thomas almost ran into an equally hurried group coming round a corner. Four men in dress uniforms and a woman all in black . . . a lovely woman. In such a place, at such an hour?

  “Funny thing, that,” he noted. “What’s going on?”

  “Her name is Michaela Landry, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith. “She was the mother of the last volunteer baby Interfaced—we told you about that. Her husband died almost immediately after having the baby picked up . . . a freak accident . . . and she’s been brought in to accept the Infant Hero medal in the man’s place. It’s all top secret, sir, of course.”

  “I see. And now she will go back to her parents’ home, I suppose. Poor woman.”

  “No, sir. She’s completely alone, no family of her own at all. But her husband’s brother took her in, and he’s given her permission to work.”

  “What kind of nursing does she do?”

  “She was in the public hospitals before this, sir, but after what’s happened, understandably enough, she doesn’t feel she can face any more of that. She’s looking for a post as a private duty nurse . . . and we’ll see that something just happens to come her way very quickly. Poor thing’s had about enough, without having to sit around alone thinking about it.”

  “It’s a very sad story,” Thomas said, stepping into the private elevator that would take him to the roof, “and a damn shame all around.”

  “Oh, she won’t stay mopey long,” Smith said. “Somebody will marry her within the year . . . she’s a lovely piece.”

  “So she is,” Thomas agreed.

  And he went home to wait for the contact from St. Syrus Household, which should come early tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

  Chapter Six

  The curious 20th century aberration in cultural science that led briefly to such bizarre phenomena as women practicing medicine, sitting as judges—even as a Supreme Court Justice, incomprehensible as that seems to us today—and filling male roles throughout society, can be rather easily explained. Men are by nature kind and considerate, and a charming woman’s eagerness to play at being a physician or a Congressman or a scientist can be both amusing and endearing; we can understand, looking back upon the period, how it must have seemed to 20th century men that there could be no harm in humoring the ladies. We know from the historical records, in particular the memoirs of great men of the time, how often the women’s antics provided them with occasions for laughter—very welcome in the otherwise serious business of their days. (There was, for example, the famous Equal Rights Amendment hoax so cleverly set up and maintained for so many years by members of Congress . . . we’ve all laughed heartily over that one, I’m sure.)

  It may seem radical—I know I will be hearing from some of my more conservative colleagues—but I am inclined to feel that I might welcome a little of that same comic relief today. Life is such a grim business; a laugh now and then, especially if the source is a female sufficiently beautiful and shapely, would be almost worth the trouble of having her blundering about in Congress!

  But unfortunately we cannot allow ourselves that sort of luxury. Our forefathers did not know—despite the clear statements of Darwin, Ellis, Feldeer, and many others on the subject—they did not have scientific proof of the inherent mental inferiority of women. Only with the publication of the superb research of Nobelists Edmund O. Haskyl and Jan Bryant-Netherland of M.I.T. in 1987 did we finally obtain the proof. And it is to our credit that we then moved so swiftly to set right the wrongs that we had, in our lamentable ignorance, inflicted. We saw then that the co
ncept of female “equality” was not simply a kind of romantic notion—like the “Nobel Savage” fad of an earlier era—rather, it was a cruel and dangerous burden upon the females of our species, a burden under which they labored all innocent and unawares . . . the victims, it can only be said, of male ignorance.

  There are some who criticize, saying that it should not have taken us four long years to provide our females with the Constitutional protection they so richly deserved and so desperately needed. But I feel that those who criticize are excessive in their judgments. It takes time to right wrongs—it always takes time. The more widespread the problem, the more time required to solve it. I think that a span of four years was a remarkable speedy resolution, and a matter for considerable pride—let us, gentlemen, lay those criticisms to rest for once and for all.

  (Senator Ludis R. G. Andolet of New Hampshire,

  speaking at the Annual Christmas Banquet

  of the New York Men’s Club,

  December 23rd, 2024)

  SUMMER 2181. . . .

  Michaela was more than satisfied with the post she’d found. Verdi Household was surrounded by old oaks and evergreens, tucked into the arm of a bend in the Mississippi just outside Hannibal, Missouri. It was nothing at all like Washington D.C., although she’d been warned to expect that its summer heat would make Washington’s seem almost pleasant in retrospect. The house would have been called a mansion if it had held an ordinary American family; for the throng of linguists it was adequate, but no more than that, and could not have been considered luxurious. As for the grounds, Michaela suspected that they might have been criticized if the public had known much about them, because the Verdis had a fondness for gardens and didn’t appear to have spared much expense in those behind the house. But out in the country like this, with a stretch of woods between them and the highway, no one was likely to know. Linguists didn’t have visitors because they didn’t have time; and they adamantly refused to allow members of the press on their grounds.

  In spite of the crowding in the house, the Verdis had found a room with its own bath for Michaela, and a window overlooking the river. She was in the corner of the house on an upper floor, and to get down to the common rooms she had to go all the way around an outside corridor and across a walkway that went over the roof of the Interface. When she’d first arrived, that had worried her, and she’d gone immediately to the senior woman of the Household to express her concern.

  “I’m concerned about my room, Mrs. Verdi,” she had said.

  “But it’s such a nice room!”

  “Oh, yes,” she said hastily, “the room itself is beautiful, and I am most grateful for it. But I can’t get to my patient in less than four minutes, Mrs. Verdi, and that’s alarming. I’ve clocked it by three different routes, and four minutes is absolutely the best I can do—it’s that bridge over the Interface that slows me down.”

  “Oh, I see!” Sharon Verdi had said, the relief on her face telling Michaela a good deal about the shifting and crowding they must have done to give her the room she had. “Oh, that’s all right . . . really.”

  “But four minutes! A great deal can happen in four minutes.”

  For example, you can die in four minutes,” thought Michaela. It had not taken Ned Landry four minutes.

  “My dear child,” the woman began, and Michaela guarded her face against any betrayal of how she despised the idea of being a linguist’s dear child, “I assure you it’s no problem. Great-grandfather Verdi has nothing serious wrong with him, you know; he’s just very old and weak. Until the last few months we’ve always been able to assign one of the girls to sit with him, taking turns . . . he just wants company.”

  “But now you think he needs a nurse?”

  “No,” Sharon Verdi laughed, “he still just needs company. But he has taken it into his head that he wants the same person all the time, you see, and there’s nobody we can spare on that basis. And so we need you, my dear—but you won’t have crises to deal with. Nothing that requires you to get to his room in ten seconds flat, or anything like that. One of these nights he will go to his just reward peacefully, in his sleep; he’s sound as a racehorse. And until then, I’m afraid that your major problem is not going to be rushing to emergencies, it’s going to be boredom. That man can barely sit up without a strong arm to help him, but there is nothing wrong with his voice, and he can talk any one of us into a coma. You’ll earn your salary, I promise—and want a raise.”

  “Ah,” said Michaela. “I understand. Thank you, Mrs. Verdi.”

  “You’re quite welcome . . . and don’t worry. Nothing he needs won’t wait five minutes, or fifteen for that matter. And if he ever should have a touch of something or other that makes you feel you really need to be closer, there’s a very comfortable couch in his room where we could put you up for a night or two.”

  Michaela had nodded, satisfied. True, she would be taking the old man out of this world a bit more quickly than the Verdis anticipated; but while she was serving as his nurse, he would have the best care she could provide him, and no corners cut. She was an excellent nurse; she had no intention of lowering her standards. And she was awfully glad to be able to stay in the spacious corner room, where she could lean out like Rapunzel and watch the river.

  Stephan Rue Verdi, 103 and not more than 99 pounds dripping wet, lived up to his billing. He was as formidable a talker as she’d ever encountered. But she didn’t find him all that boring. When his great-granddaughter judged the old man’s narrative skill, she didn’t have Michaela’s experience with Ned to use as a standard.

  “When I was a child,” old Stephan would begin, and she’d murmur at him to let him know she was listening (but that wasn’t enough, she had to sit down right beside him where he could look at her without effort), “when I was a child, things were different. I can tell you, things were very different! I don’t say they were better, mind—when you start saying they were you’re doddering—but they were surely different.”

  “When I was a child, we didn’t have to live the life these children live, poor little things. Up every morning before it’s even light yet, out in the orchards and the vegetable gardens working like poor dirt farmers by five-thirty most of the year . . . and a choice . . . ha! some choice! . . . between running around the blasted roads and doing calisthenics for hours, or chopping wood, come the time of year there’s nothing left to do in the way of agriculture. And then the poor little mites get to listen to the family bulletin while they eat their breakfast . . . when I was a child, we linguists lived in proper houses like anybody else, and we had our own family tables. None of these great roomfuls of people like eating in a cafeteria and everybody all jumbled in together like hogs at a trough . . .”

  “The family bulletin, Mr. Verdi,” Michaela prompted him. He tended to lose track.

  “Oh, the bulletin, now that’s very very important, the bulletin! That’s a list the kidlings have to face every morning while they try to eat, with everything on it they have to do that day and everything they didn’t do or didn’t do right the day before. . . . Poor little mites,” he said again.

  “Hmmm,” said Michaela. He would settle for “hmmmm” most of the time, since he preferred to do all the talking himself.

  “Oh, yes! ‘Paul Edward, you’re to be at St. Louis Memorial at nine sharp, they’re operating on the High Muckymuck of Patoot and he won’t let them touch him unless there’s an interpreter right there to pass along his complaints.’ ‘Maryanna Elizabeth, you’re expected at the Federal Court house from nine to eleven, and then you’re wanted clear across town at the Circuit Court—don’t take time for lunch, you’ll be late.’ ‘Donald Jonathan, you have three days scheduled in the Chicago Trade Complex; take your pocket computer, they’ll expect you to convert currencies for the Pateets!”

  “My word,” Michaela said. “How do these children ever get to all those places?”

  “Oh, we’re very efficient. Family flyer, great big thing, revs up outside at 8:05 on
the button—the five minutes to let the poor little things go to the bathroom, don’t you know—and runs them into St. Louis to the State Department of Analysis & Translation, where they’ve got a whole army of chauffeurs and pilots and whatalls waiting, pacing up and down for fear they’ll be late. They deliver everybody where they’re going all day long and then bring ’em back again to SDAT at night, and we do it in reverse.”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “And then, supposing a tyke’s not scheduled for the Patoots or the Pateets, well, he’s got to go to school for two hours . . . flyer puts him down on the slidewalks in Hannibal, you see, or they run him there in the van. School . . . phooey. I say the kids that get out of it ’cause they’re scheduled in solid, and then just make it up with the mass-ed computers, they’re the lucky ones. Would you want to spend two blessed hours five days a week with a bunch of other bored-sick kids, saying the Pledge Allegiance and singing the Missouri State Song and the Hannibal Civic Anthem and listening to them read you the King James—not that I’ve got anything against the King James, but the kids can read, you know, in a couple dozen languages! They sure don’t need somebody to read to ’em. . . . And celebrating damnfool so-called holidays like Space Colony Day and Reagan’s Birthday? ’Course, they do Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and such, too, all that stuff . . . but would you want to do that? All that truck, I mean? Phooey . . . I can remember when we still had classes at school!”