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Sign Language
It was like a vacation. Brent
agreed with Mary. He avoided her gaze. Her hazel-green eyes were
penetrating; the sun 
glinted off her
red hair, which cascaded to her shoulders. Are the children all
from wealthy families? She didn't want to talk about the children;
she wanted to know more about him. He was from Cornwall. She
was from Glasglow. Who hired him? How did they know he was out
here? He didn't answer; he talked about the site they were scouting
for the children's trip. Was Rachel coming too? She nodded. He
pointed out the monolith at the foot of the mountain. It's at
least two hundred thousand years old. Mary studied the massive
rock. The dig is not far from here. She nodded and asked how
old the dig site was. Fifty thousand years old. He said the ages
almost in the way of showman announcing a player's winnings:
drawn out and excited—two hundred thousand! Fifty thousand!
Mary asked about artifacts. Lots. Brent promised a surprise for
the kids, a real artifact from the dig. Mary looked surprised
and puzzled. He explained that it would be a catalogued item
and he would have had it signed out as a short-term loan. A treat
for the kids. He wouldn't tell her what it was. He didn't know
yet which one he could bring.
It is near the Italian Alps some forty-eight thousand years before the time of Augustus Caesar. The long-long-ago group of hominids stands in the cool silent shadow of the high rocks. They stand for less time than it takes the golden hawk to fly up the west side of the mountain. They wait with trepidation. The jumble of topmost crags are stark and unforgiving against a sky where faint blue streaks snake above the ridges. The hawk shrieks as it catches the updraft that carries it over the summit. It sends a shiver through the tribe. They crane their thick necks and moan in sympathy and apprehension. They shuffle their dirty and callused feet. They shake their heads and their matted oily hair, itching with ticks. All seventeen of the fierce tribe milling with shaggy heads uplifted, grunting and gesturing, ragged broken fingernails jabbing the air. There are three babies, four children, six adult females and four adult males.
They wait for the morning sun to crest the summit and break the night, break their exile from the good in life, from the warm and the bright. The inchoate feeling in them is that the sunrise is a gift from the mountain to them, the people of the tribe. They are haggard and bereft at winter's end. The sun's light is a benediction of sorts; it is a personal act of the sun. It is an act of contact and approval; the sun touches them. They, in turn, seek its light and heat, its affection. They fear its anger and neglect.
Like sightless amoebas, their life is only seeking and recoiling.
The tribe smells and hears and feels a nature that is bounteous and terrifying, full of dense penetrating manifestations; of spirits and forces and mysteries and pains and pleasures. They are an ancient us. They have no spoken language; no ideas as we know them. They are stuffed and oozing with intuitions and superstitions and prompts. They are smitten and speared by every display of power. They bow to the cruel and capricious faces of nature but to them every act reflects an actor; there is a soul in everything and an intent and an intelligence. They move from water hole to cave to field to mountain side like cowed and dejected animals when hungry or sick; like uncontainable gazelles when healthy and sated.
In greeting the sun, the tribe makes noises. They mimic the animals around them. They mimic the sound of the wind as it rushes up the mountainside. They babble and hiss and caw. Most of all, they gesture.
The sun is a circle shaped by the index finger touching the thumb and the other fingers curling in unison. It is formed with the right hand. The hand moves from the east to the west. A day.
No-Nose holds up his hand shaped like the sun. He faces towards the tribe. They wait for the sun.
The moon is a circle shaped by the index finger touching the thumb and the other fingers curling in unison. It is formed with the left hand. The hand moves from the west to the east. A night.
Every thing evokes a shape and a noise and a motion. There is a representation for each person and thing and their unique story.
At each dusk the tribe begs the disappearing sun to stay. They shudder at the onset of night and the colder closer world it brings and its threats. The night becomes a blinding, a casting into a nether world where the ethereal comes alive. The night becomes a ritual of fear imposed by what surrounds them, the womb of their earthly existence.
It is pulsing vibrant omnivorous world they have. They fill it with their grunts and groans and whines and stances and postures. Grunts and groans and whines that are flavored with every conceivable nuance and pacing and accompanied by gestures and stances and expressions that together are almost symphonic in their complexity and power.
They are ruled by the intimacy of sound: panic-stricken by cracks of lightning and roars of thunder; awed by running water and waterfalls; unsettled by rustling leaves and winds caroming off craters and crannies and hollows and up the mountain; frightened by animals' roars and shrieks and whistles.
The gray wolfs that circle their camps at night seem more advanced than these unwashed shuffling two-legged creatures. Potential is a deceptive thing.
It is more than fifty centuries later. The terrain is similar but the flora & fauna have changed in the last two thousand years under the impact of the humans. There are three adults and seven children at that same place where the long-vanished tribe once stood. One child is blind and deaf; she holds onto Mary's hand. Mary with the copper red hair and the hazel eyes is calm. The other children are deaf. They congregate around Brent and Rachel.
"Aside from the money, why did you accept?" Mary asked demurely when they were standing alone together.
Brent didn't answer. He looked unsure about answering.
"Tell me," she encouraged him. "I'm interested."
"It's not much money," he said.
"So it's not the money."
Brent looked away. "I'm doing a thesis on communication."
Her eyes widened. She whispered, "Oh."
"You were expecting a more altruistic explanation?"
"Yes."
Rachel was a young heavy-set Korean woman. The children found her appearance fascinating. They pointed at her eyes and wanted to touch her high cheekbones.
The six-year-old girl, Harriet, held tightly onto Brent's hand. She knew North American Indian sign language. She preferred it to spelling out each word with her hands. It was much more poetic. Brent knew a British variant that was similar and they found they could communicate with it.
Harriet made Brent look at her as she made the gesture for friend: right hand raised at the elbow, hand above the shoulder, first two fingers raised, other fingers tucked into the palm.
He smiled. He pointed to her: "you" - and made the sign for "good": arm across the stomach, bent at the elbow, horizontal to the ground, and then the motion of the arm outwards, moving away from the stomach and coming parallel to the foot, hand flat, fingers together.
Harriet blushed and giggled her atonal laugh.
Mary had been watching and later she came up beside Brent when he was some distance away from Harriet. "Be careful about her," she said.
"Harriet?"
"Yes."
He gave Mary a puzzled look.
"She may be a little girl but she has a very forceful personality."
He gazed at Harriet. She seemed to stand apart from the others. Harriet watched Mary and Brent. Her dark eyes narrowed as she studied Mary.
The tribe is nervous. The second oldest female pats her young dog. The dog licks her hand. It is the only dog in the tribe. The other was killed in a fight with a bear.
The sunrise crawls its way up the eastern slopes of the mountain as they wait on the western side. Their human shapes hunch and huddle. The one with the scarred half-arm is moaning in pain. He is fifteen years old. The still raw wound from yesterday's fall from the tall ash tree continues oozing pus through the cracks in caked marsh mud that the tribal woman had slavered on. The three babies bawl; the females rock them on their hips. Scarred-Half-Arm climbed the tree for the honey in the hive tucked among the upper branches.
The leader is twenty-three summers old and is missing half of his nose. His nose has been nipped at the end by a bear's claw. His front teeth are chipped. A dog tooth is missing, knocked out in a raid against another tribe. Two women were brought into the tribe in that moonlit raid more than two winters ago. No-Nose circles the milling circle of sixteen filthy hominids. He punches Scarred-Half-Arm in the back. One of the females shrieks. No-Nose hits her into silence. The dog beside the mid-sized female growls. No-Nose turns away.
As the sun's rays crest the summit, No-Nose stiffens his arm and points to the rising sun. He hoots a chant of ooo-aaa ooo-aaa as he stabs the air in the direction of the glowing orb. As the warming rays strike their faces, the tribe groans in pleasure. The younger ones lift their arms in the same way as the elder. Their higher pitch voices imitate his ooo-aaa.
Over the years it will evolve into a dance and a string of chants and animal calls. A pounding drum is added later. A host of gestures and sounds will be strung together into a pageant of the people. It is an impulse that the tribe cannot ignore or resist. They don't want to - it is leading them to a magical fresh world.
Harriet wants Brent to walk with her. Only with her.
Brent asks Mary. She says: "Stay in sight."
Brent and Harriet walk towards an unusual rock formation. A fifty foot high granite monolith has had a circular hole eroded near its top. It looks like the eye of a giant stone needle. Harriet is pulling him towards it. Something about it excites her. Her small teeth are bared in a smile. Her thin upper lip drawn tight. She is strong for a child.
No-Nose points to the sky again and makes the shape of a bird with his hands and emits its cry. It is a beautiful and authentic rendition. He cups his right hand to show his capturing and carrying of its spirit or its message and brings it to his heart. He inhales deeply and motions his hands out away from his eyes and mouth: its essence now guides him, its wisdom now inhabits him.
Harriet stops suddenly and sits on a big flat outcrop. It's a wonderful vantage point and Brent sits beside her on the rock. Harriet turns her face up to the sun and closing her eyes, basks in the sunlight.
Mary strolls over with deaf sightless Polly holding her hand.
Harriet can see Mary but doesn't look her way or acknowledge her presence. Mary smiles and asks, okay? Brent nods.
When Mary leaves, Harriet tugs on his sleeve. She points to the needle in the monolith. The light is at an angle where it is bursting through the hole. He smiles at it and then at her. Her face with her little blue eyes and delicate silky blond hair registers delight. They are two waifs adrift on a stream of time. That was the feeling.
No-Nose jumps up and down. He's animated. He pats his leather pouch where he has put the magical items of his life. The tribe hops around and jabbers in sympathy.
No-Nose jabs his hand towards the sun. Its light approaches the needle of the monolith. He runs around the edge of the group. He motions to the ground and then to the sky. He jumps up, reaching for the sun's light. He makes them all stand. He makes them jump. He's herded them into a special spot. He draws a circle in the earth around them. They wait there for the sun, jumping and hopping and searching the sky. The sunlight bursts through the needle of the rock and hits them full in the face. They stand silent, blinded and stunned, and then all together they face the sun—no sound comes from them, the same content expression inhabits each of their faces; they seem to be in communion.
Harriet tugs at his sleeve again. Brent looks at her. She searches his face. He sees a plea in her eyes. He wants to speak but doesn't. He pushes a message up from his stomach to his mouth and out to her: almost involuntarily, the feeling was like a force he always had but had never used.
He hears a reply in his mind. He hears her reply. He jumps up and runs around looking for the source of the voice.
Harriet watches him.
Finally he stops; worn and anxious, he stands in front of her.
She continues to sit calmly. She makes the gesture for courage, a fist over the heart.
He finds himself looking back at the light flowing through the hole in the rock. He doesn't understand the reply he has heard. He doesn't understand hearing a reply in that way. He motions to her—you?
She motions—us.
He exhales deeply.
Tears have filled her eyes.
Wordlessly, he reaches out for her hand. He motions with his other hand—before? He drops her hand.
She nods and then with both her hands and arms, pausing between each sign, she "says":—before (she points to her mouth), before (she points to her whole self), before (she points all around her).
They hold hands again and walk back slowly.
