3 Vocal tract

I am staying with Aunt Jane on Uncle Arthur's farm, because my father has to go to the office every day. Mama was found to be suffering from a thrombosis and has been pronounced temporarily unable to care for me, for which verdict I assume she is truly thankful. She is grateful to be rid of me, if only for these first few weeks. I find myself trying to forgive her and not really being able to.

At Aunt Jane’s, I am welcomed with open arms as the daughter they might have had. How my twin sister would have enjoyed the spirit of this house. I will her to tune into my thoughts, but there is no answer and I am afraid that she is being punished with indefinite limbo for not facing her earth-birth.

When my father has finished his day at the office, he comes to see us, and holds serious, mind-building conversations with me, and the sound of his voice soothes and comforts me, while I store up his wisdom for future time. He calls himself ‘Dada’, and talks about ‘Mama’ in hospital, but I can’t remember her face or her voice. He is a little sad when he talks about Mama. He has had visions of a cosy little family in their bungalow, and now he is having to commute between Mama in her nursing home and me on the farm. It must be very difficult for him.

My voice is getting stronger and louder every day. Everyone seems able to interpret my cries and shouts exactly the way they are meant. So I am a well-fed, comfortable, and contented baby, and I stop grieving for what could not be.

Today I am trying out a new sound made with my lips held tightly together, when I realise that all is quiet around me.

"Why, she’s humming!" Dada cries. "Do it again, sweetheart."

I repeat the sound over and over again. I am not sure why it fascinates everyone, but I have the feeling that I am getting at least some of the vibrations from my twin sister. Perhaps she is using my voice muscles to communicate with me from somewhere. So she is not lost forever, and I am overjoyed.

Aunt Jane and Uncle Arthur, Jack, and Dada are all bending over my cradle, peering in at me as I hum.

"This is quite remarkable," Aunt Jane is saying. "I’ve experienced many babies in my time at the baby clinic, but none of them has ever made that noise."

"You don’t suppose she has indigestion, do you?" Dada asks anxiously.

"Of course not," Aunt Jane reassures him. "She’s the healthiest baby I’ve ever seen."

Bouncing with baby vitality and spurned on by the obvious success of my ‘performance’, I keep up the humming until bed-time.

At night I lie in my cot-prison watching the shadows of its bars on the moon-lit wall and listening. The cows moo in the shed, dogs howl intermittently and an owl poised in a nearby tree wails in sympathy. There is snow in the air and the smell of pre-Christmas baking wafts up from the kitchen.

The wind picks up speed and howls through the tall trees. Soon, the first winter sleet starts to batter against the window panes. The naked branches of the trees outside my window cast bizarre, swaying shadows in the ghostly pallid moonlight.

But there is no mistaking the voice within me. I know now that it is my sister communicating in the language of the soul. Her music is my music. When I listen for it, it will be there, a never-ending melody that the others will not hear, unless I make it audible to them. That will be our secret. Hers and mine.

She seems to be comforting me for the pain ahead. I am to be brave and look after myself. She will not forget me. I know that now. I will never forget her and maybe, one day, we shall meet again.

The tempest within me lulls, though the tempest beyond the stone walls of the old farmhouse rages as the wind tosses the clouds about and whistles through the open spaces.

But if pain is ahead of me, am I then to be punished for spoiling Mama’s life, taking away her freedom? After all, she accused us of that as two babies began the journey into this world as kindred spirits, and was still reproached me when I was left alone in the pre-world, and now I am hardly born and she is far away from me and cannot hear my crying or humming. Does she even want to? Will she reject me finally, or take on the burden? Does she know that I am here for Dada’s sake, and that she is being selfish and thoughtless and heartless when she wishes I were not here?

No, she does not know. How can she, so full of bitterness and pain is she herself? How can I compensate for what I have taken away? How perfect will I have to be? How obedient, and dutiful, and meek?

In the depths of infant despondency, I all but forget the music until a new melody bursts into my consciousness and heals the wounds, taking my spirit into the light. And I fall into the comforted, untroubled sleep of the innocent.