Hear the Wind Sing

7

When I was little, I was a terribly quiet child. My parents were worried, so they took me to the house of a psychiatrist they knew.

The psychiatrist’s house was on a plateau overlooking the sea, and while I sat on the waiting room sofa, a well-built middle-aged woman brought me orange juice and two donuts. I ate half a donut, carefully, as if trying not to spill sugar on my knees, and I drank the entire glass of orange juice.

“Do you want some more to drink?” the psychiatrist asked me, and I shook my head. We sat facing each other, just the two of us.

From the wall in front of me, a portrait of Mozart glared at me reproachfully, like a timid cat.

“Once upon a time, there was a kind-hearted goat.”

It was a spectacular way to start a story. I closed my eyes and imagined a kind-hearted goat.

“This goat always had a heavy gold watch hanging around his neck, and he always walked around panting heavily. What’s more, this watch was not only heavy, but it was also broken. One time, his friend the rabbit comes along and says, ‘Hey goat, why are you always lugging around that broken watch? It looks so heavy, don’t you think it’s useless?’

‘It really is heavy,’ said the goat. ‘But, you know, I’ve gotten used to it. Even though it’s heavy, even though it’s broken.’

The psychiatrist paused and took a sip of his own orange juice, then looked at me, grinning. I said nothing, waiting for him to continue his story.

“So one day, it’s the goat’s birthday, and the rabbit brings a small box with a pretty ribbon as a present. It was a shiny, glittering, very light, and yet stillworking new watch. The goat was incredibly happy and hung it around his neck, then went around showing it to everyone.”

The story suddenly ended there.

“You’re the sheep, I’m the rabbit, and the watch is your soul.”

Feeling tricked, all I could do was nod. Once a week, on Sunday afternoon, I rode a train and then a bus to the psychiatrist’s house, eating coffee rolls and apple pies and pancakes and croissants topped with honey while receiving my treatment. It took an entire year, but thanks to all those sweets, I got stuck going to the dentist. With civilization comes communication, he said. Whatever can’t be expressed might as well not exist. Nil, nothing. Suppose you’re hungry. You say, ‘I’m hungry,’ and even that short phrase will suffice. I’ll give you a cookie. You can eat it. (I was now holding a cookie.) If you say nothing, there’s no cookie. (The psychiatrist then hid the plate of cookies under the table with a sadistic look on his face.) Nothing. You get it? You don’t want to talk. But you’re hungry. Without making words, you can’t express your hunger. Here’s a gesture game. Come watch this. I grabbed my stomach like it was hurting. The psychiatrist laughed. I had indigestion.

Indigestion…

After that, the next thing we did was ‘free talking’.

“Tell me about cats. Say whatever pops into your head.”

I pretended to think about it, then shook my head back and forth.

“Anything you can think of.”

“They’re animals with four legs.”

“So are elephants.”

“Cats are much smaller.”

“What else?”

“They live in the house, and they can kill mice if they want.”

“What do they eat?”

“Fish.”

“How about sausage?”

“Sausage, too.”

That’s how it went.

What the psychiatrist said was true. With civilization comes communication. Expression and communication are essential; without these, civilization ends. *Click*…OFF.

The spring when I turned 14, an unbelievable thing happened: as if a dam had burst, I suddenly began talking. I don’t really remember what I talked about, but it was like I was making up for lost time, talking non-stop for three months, and when I stopped talking in the middle of July, I came down with a 105

degree fever and missed school for three days. After the fever, I wasn’t completely silent, nor was I a chatterbox; I became a normal teenager.