Dead Languages
by Lisa M. Bennett
Monmouth College

Winning story in the 1997 ACM Nick Adams Short Story Contest


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The package arrives COD on a Wednesday, stamped "Fragile, Handle With Care." Before I have time to pull out my wallet, Franny is panting behind me.
"My birthday present from Mommy! Can I open it?"
"When is your birthday?" I ask, as the UPS man turns to leave.
"June third." She says, eyes never leaving the box.
"And what day is today?"
"June first." She is frowning. She knows what's coming.
"Well, here's an idea. How's about we open the birthday gifts on your birthday."
"But--"
"Your mom left strict instructions with me not to let you open this package until you were officially eight years old," I say. Tina hasn't. But she will. This is how she and I exist for one another these last few months. Tina is in Italy now, studying European dictators, beginning Italian, and drawing the human form. Before she left, she was interested in architecture. She has never taken an art class in her life. She thought now should be the time.
"Mommy doesn't have to know," Franny says almost coyly. She grabs my leg and clings, and I think I may detect a slight batting of an eyelash.
"Please?"
"Franny, do you know what would happen if I let you open this now?"
"I'd be really happy and you'd be my bestest friend ever?" I look at my daughter, this curly-headed coquette, and I am reminded infinitely of Tina. I imagine her at twelve, coercing the ice cream vendor into a second drumstick; I watch her flirt with a gas station attendant at seventeen for free menthols. Her eyes are large, much too large for her face and now they are grey. Before the package arrived, they were green. When she wears the turquoise dress Tina sent her for her birthday party, they will appear to be a peculiar shade of blue.
"As tempting as it might be, I'm going to have to decline that honor," I say, hoisting the package onto a Franny-proof shelf.
"Huh?"
"No birthday present, sweetie. Not today."
"You're mean," she decides rather placidly, and I am thankful she in not set on hurricane mode.
She turns the television on with her big toe. Franny is always doing various things with her toes--from picking up marbles to playing "Black, White, Black" on our old upright. Sometimes this irritates me. I told my wife this once after I saw her spooning Fruit Loops into her mouth with both palms placed firmly behind her head. She had laughed and said that I was just jealous because Franny has more agility in her left pinky toe than I have in my entire right hand. She was right, of course, and I suspect that she is still right. But I'll never tell her that.
"When's lunch?" She asks. I busy myself with the peanut butter monstrosity she had demanded that I created when the phone rings. Her voice comes across loud at first, but it steadily begins to fade.
"Nick. How are you?"
"Just great. How are classes?" I cradle the receiver between my chin and shoulder so I can get leverage for the application of the grape jelly. The peanut butter goes on one half of one slice of bread, the Smucker's transplant is successful on the corresponding side and slice. Franny watches the operation intently, her mouth slightly parted and prepared to object. But even she cannot argue with my artistry.
"Oh, they're the same. Italian is still a foreign language and Machavelli is a pain in my ass."
"Yeah, I know. He's just so damn bossy," I say, and she laughs. "Still having problems with Italian I, huh?"
"Problems is not exactly the way I'd describe it. Yesterday, I told a waiter that I had crabs rather than saying that's what I wanted for the main course."
"They call it crabs over there?"
"How should I know?" She is mildly annoyed. "He did look at me funny."
"The question is, did he serve your appetizer with rubber gloves on?" I say, and I engage in the delicate removal of crusts.
"Funny, Nick. I'm glad my personal misfortune amuses you. I really am."
"I would hardly call that a personal misfortune. All things considered, you're in Florence. Did you not expect that you'd have to learn Italian?"
She has been in Europe for four months, three of which she's spent complaining about inconsistencies and grammatical structure of a language not similar enough to English to suit her tastes. I often wonder if she thought Italian would change for her. Then I think that with a toss of her hair and a pouting of her lips, it might.
"I didn't call to talk about my classes, Nick. Did the present come yet?" I lose parts of her voice; the ends of words are missing across the connection. I imagine them drowning somewhere in the Atlantic.
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes...why?"
"I can barely hear you," I say, louder into the phone. Though I don't know why.
"Well, I'm not going to be on long. The package...it should be there by now."
"It came a few minutes ago."
"Good, don't let her open it until Saturday."
"Don't worry. I won't." Franny curls her toes around the remote, and I try to be disgusted.
"In fact, don't even let her see it. That way, she won't bug you about it."
"It's a bit late for that, I'm afraid."
There is a short pause. I realize she is probably lighting a cigarette, though she quit four months before she left for Europe. I listen closely to check for any signs of exhaling, but the connection won't allow it. I am slightly pleased that it doesn't. I would like to think that she'd hide it from me, that she'd exercise enough restraint to deceive me. This would give me something to discover, to be angry at, and perhaps I could even yell at her. But then I see her flipping her hair to one side and proclaiming, "you might as well pick your cancer" as she takes another Camel out of the hard pack, and the desire fades.
I let it fade. There was a time when I would have found this cavalier attitude endearing, when I would have found a wife in Italy to be hopelessly romantic. But over the ten years of our marriage, I have convinced myself that a wife in Iowa laboring over a first novel is quaint, that a wife working on an anthropology major in Mexico is exotic. Italy is an irritation.
"How are the party plans going? Everything ready?"
"As ready as anything can be when eleven little girls and a great amount of sugar are involved."
"Did you pick up the cake?"
"I'll do that tomorrow."
"Double-dutch chocolate?"
"With chocolate fudge icing. I'm going to have to buy insurance for this slumber party, with all the dental problems it's going to cause." I wait for a laugh, but she is probably too busy inhaling.
"Tina, did you start smoking again?"
"Huh? Listen, I have to go. This is costing a fortune."
"Oh, okay," I say, wondering.
"Nick?"
"Yes?"
"When she does open the present, don't let her play with it at the party. I don't want all those little hands on it. It's breakable."
"What is it, anyway?"
"A porcelain doll. I bought it in a dollmaker's shop down the street from the university. There's only one like it. Very expensive. Make sure she takes care of it, okay? I gotta go."
"No problem," and then a bit louder, "hey...I love you."
"Oh, I know she will. It's beautiful." Her voice is so faint. "I'll call Saturday. Bye, Nick."
I hear her hang up as my daughter looks at me expectantly.
"Is my sandwich ready yet?" I remember to replace the receiver in its cradle.
I hand the plate to her; she bites into the bread harshly, for emphasis.
"Can I open my present now?
*****
The doll looks exactly like Franny. I watch her pet the dark ringlets that surround its face, secretly knowing that it looks like her. It is beautiful, and like my wife, Franny is not vain. She would not say aloud that the doll's face is her own. It is wearing a blue dress, and its eyes behave accordingly. I marvel at Tina for finding it.
"Okay, let's practice." I put my hand to the side of my face and speak into it.
"Happy Birthday, Franny! Did you like the gift that Mommy sent you?"
"You're Mommy, right?" Franny asks, a puzzled look crossing her features. This is not going well at all.
"Yes, sweetie. I'm Mommy. Now, you say--"
"Oh, I just love it Mommy."
"And?"
"And...and Daddy didn't let me open it one minute before my birthday. Not even one second before!" Franny is so pleased with her performance that she claps her hands. I groan and think about the long-distance lecture I'll receive while talking to Tina.
"Daddy...will Mommy be away on my next birthday?" She is half-way tucked in, but I stop before I get to the comforter and sit by her on the bed.
"Now, why are you worrying about that?"
"I don't know. I miss her all the time. And it's my birthday."
"I know you do. But, she'll be home way before your ninth birthday. I promise."
"What is she doing over there, anyway?" She asks me this a lot lately, and always at night. She is less satisfied with the answers each time I tell them.
"Mommy's learning a new language. And when she gets back, she'll teach it to you."
"I don't want to know another language." She folds her arms in front of her chest. I already know two."
"Oh? And what might those be?"
"English and pig Latin," she says, matter-of-factly.
I stifle a laugh. "Anny-fray, atin-lay is-ay ot-nay a eal-ray anguage-lay."
"What?" She shoves a pillow at me. "Oh, you're mean!"
I smile and remember when and why she taught it to her. It was two years ago--she was a Classics major then and I was busy grading my senior theses. Franny was not getting her allotted 27 hours a day of undivided attention, and this distressed her. After asking me why the sky was blue, the grass green, and why I had all those stupid dumb papers to grade anyway, she jumped on Tina's lap. Tina was translating The Aeneid and chain-smoking. She was good at both. She'd read the Latin aloud and write it in English. This perplexed our daughter, and she demanded that Tina teach her, too. Hence, Franny spoke nothing but pig Latin for two solid weeks. Her teachers began to complain; we thought it was funny.
I never told her this, but that year she conjugated verbs while she slept. She'd whisper the Latin first and then the English a bit louder, almost as though she were learning it in reverse order. It awoke me every time. Oculor...to kiss. Oscularis...I kiss. Oscularatur...you kiss. Oscularamur...he/she kisses. I didn't mind, though, and I didn't tell her because I knew she would deny it. And then it would have stopped. I didn't know why, but I didn't want it to stop. I wonder if now she whispers conjugations in Italian? But Italian is difficult for her where Latin and ancient Greek were unnervingly easy. A perverse part of me wants to ask her why her brain picks up dead languages better than functional ones.
Franny yawns, and begins to cover her doll beneath her sheets. "I'm tired," she moans softly.
She grabs my hand as I pull the comforter over her. I feel her pulse through her tiny fingertips. I clasp my own hand around them. The blood runs faster in her body than in mine, but I can feel it slowing. I tighten my grip; she does not look at me. We stay like this for minutes, not moving.
*****

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