1.
The touch for /Donkey/ is infuriatingly close to the touch for /Mother/ in fingerspeak.
For /Donkey/, the forefinger and thumb squeeze the middle band, and then the little finger taps the lower band twice, whereas /Mother/ uses the middle finger.
This is just a small example of why whoever came up with this bastard language should be thrown from Traitors’ Rock into the Southern Sea.
Unlike the handful of other known languages, fingerspeak also has no permanence. You can repeat a foreign word in your head, and then mull it over until you can winkle out its meaning, but you can’t repeat someone’s touch to yourself, or replicate a sensation. If you had to dream up the most inconvenient language for us to learn, you would be hard pressed to improve on fingerspeak.
Which is bugger all use complaining about in my current position. I say ‘current’ as though it’s a choice, like I’m weighing up a range of exciting career opportunities. The truth is that the elders will never let me leave; there’s too few of us who can interpret fingerspeak. That fact used to make me think I was a cut above the other kids from the quarter – you could see their limited lives mapped out for them in the wrinkles of their fathers’ leathery skin – but who turned out to be the fool in the end?
I stand in the High Chamber and wait my turn, watching the councillors in conversation. They all wear hooded cowls and their crimson robes denote the highest rank of the Keda. They are in pairs, each with their right hand on the other’s bare left arm, fingers dancing between the three silver bands worn there.
There is one advantage of fingerspeak: it’s virtually impossible for anyone to eavesdrop on your conversation. Even now, ten paces away – I’m not stupid or vulgar enough to stare at the Keda – I can see Double’s fingers moving, but I don’t have a clue what xe might be saying.
For over a century the Keda have ruled Val Kedić, and yet there’s still so much we don’t know about them. The language barrier keeps us apart, with us translating to maintain a purely functional relationship. The majority of Keda, in their blue robes, have next to no contact with citizens; it’s only the councillors and Justices who matter. And the less we know of them, the greater power they have over us. Gender, for example, is a closed book. Someone introduced the pronoun “xe” to describe them a century ago, and there’s been no advance ever since. Their mouths are another example: hidden by their cowls, but thanks to servants’ gossip, we know they do have them – twisted and grotesque, but mouths for eating, all the same. Just not speaking.
There’s only a handful of the Council I know by name – Double, because xe’s the main contact for my quarter. Xe is the one who summons me to pass on instructions and information. Xer name is, by its nature, untranslatable to our tongue – being a mixture of taps and squeezes and no spoken words – but I know xer as Double because it’s a repeated sequence of taps.
Then there’s Giant, who I’ve never fingerspoken with, but xe is unusually tall for the Keda. Xe is the same height as me so xe always stands out.
The most senior member of the Council, though – they have no leader, but it is clear that xe is the top dog among them – is known to us as Eleven, because of the complicated series of eleven taps that make up xer name. At a rough guess, it means something like “xe-who-lives-by-the-eastern-something-something-tranquil-grove”. But who knows. The taps all blur into one.
Then there’s Chicken. Now xe, I can’t stand. I mean, obviously, I hate all the Keda – they stole my son, they squeeze us dry, they’ve sucked the life out of our city. They are our captors. But Chicken? Xe is a real pain in the arse.
It pleases us to call xer Chicken because xer given name is not far away from the touch for /Chicken/. It also reduces xer somehow, takes away some of xer power over us. But no
matter what we call xer, I can’t forget the way xe looks at me.
You don’t see much of a Keda beyond the bare left arm – their cowls cover most of their heads, so you can only see their flat noses and threatening eyes in the gloom of the hood. But I’ll never forget that one time when we were fingerspeaking, I had to ask xer about the quotas due from our quarter. I essayed a phrase, something like:
(Question) / Number / Barrel /.
It was a simple squeeze and trill of the fingers. But the look of disgust xe gave at my clumsy accent took my breath away. The contempt blazing from xer flared nostrils and eyes felt like hard chips of marble cutting my skin. I wanted to scream at xer, “Don’t blame me for not being touch-perfect in your stupid language!”
Needless to say, I sucked it up, received xer answer, and bowed before withdrawing.
Anyway. What I’m trying to say is, there are Keda and there are Keda. Most are anonymous; you see their robes, their piggy little eyes, you hear the occasional snuffly exhalations they make to express shock, pleasure or humour. While they’re all scum, the ones I can’t stand are those like Chicken, who treat us with open contempt.
I catch Ira’s eye. She’s standing by a column twenty paces away, waiting, as I am, for the Keda to summon her services. I raise my eyebrows a fraction, trying to convey “how boring
is this?” But she studiously ignores me.
I used to do that with Borzu all the time, trying to read each other’s minds and having a whole conversation with eyebrow twitches, side-eyes and grimaces. Afterwards, we’d compare notes, see how much of each other’s part of the conversation we had understood. Very little, was the usual answer. But Borzu… well, it doesn’t do to dwell too much on what happened to him. He is a salutary lesson as to why the best thing to do is keep your head down among the Keda and be as dull and obedient as possible, as Ira has clearly set out to be.
Astonishingly, some people act like it’s a cushy number being an interpreter for the Keda. Some resent the occasional perks given to us: our interpreter’s residence, and the fact that we skipped our seven-year service in Riona. It was only so that we could learn fingerspeak. But people ignore those years of study and the fact we’re now on the front line, dealing with the Keda and their banal whims every day. Trained monkeys that appear at the snap of a finger. Our lives are not our own, not in the way most citizens can say, and I sometimes wonder why anyone would choose this path on purpose.
As if on cue, Double inclines xer head towards me and beckons with xer forefinger. Xe stands a foot shorter than me, but xe stands imperiously as if towering above me. I approach, bow, and xe places xer long, cadaverous fingers on my left arm. Like all the Keda, xer right-
hand nails curve round like vicious scimitars, the better for fingerspeaking. Although I’ve been doing this a while, I can’t help but swallow a grimace when I feel the nails’ prickly caress on my skin.
In preparation, the rest of my body zones out and my whole attention focuses on the three bands that enclose my arm. Murky bronze, of course, unlike the delicately engraved silver ones that the Keda earn the right to wear on their thirteenth birthdays. It pays to keep ours unpolished – these small status signifiers mean a lot to the Keda, especially anything to do with fingerspeak.
I close my eyes and shut out the distant whisper of the sea, and the buzz of Val Kedić outside. I switch off everything that I don’t need right now, and I feel.
Visitor / (Future) / Day /, Double says without preamble, From / (Unclear) /.
It’s some distant land; I don’t know the touch and don’t need to know.
Pulse / Fish / Vegetable / Nut / Date / – xe breaks off to make a gesture with xer left hand, like “etcetera, you get the idea”.
(Positive) /, I say. Prepare / Many / Good / Food / Council /.
Double does not react. There is no word for “thankyou” in their language. Or perhaps there is, and we’ve just never heard it. Then xe frowns, and grasps my upper band: (Past) /
Fish / Small / (Disgust) / Many / Bone / (Question) / Reason /.
I ache to make a sarcastic retort, to say, “A million apologies, Excellency, our lazy fishermen must have guzzled all the plump mackerel themselves, I’ll have them whipped.” But I stifle my irritation and take xer bare arm to respond. It tenses, like it always does.
(Regret) / Councillor /, I say, (Negative) / Many / Fish / Now / (Question) / More / Vegetable /.
Double listens to me, then replies with a curt series of touches.
More / Fish /. Then, as an afterthought, xe spreads xer fingers and taps, Girl / Send / Many / Girl /.
It was my old teacher I have to blame. Myriam, I think her name was. I adored her, and her classroom. It was down by the beach, next to the wharf where most of us lived, where our fathers fished. The rest of Val Kedić called our quarter The Stain – a fetid blot that festered outside the city walls – but we didn’t care. The shacks sprouted from each other like a fungal growth, staggering off in all directions, creating twisted alleys, and eaves that jabbed into other buildings. A reek of fish clung to the walls and our clothes. It was a dirty slum, but it was our dirty slum, and most of us stayed happy there, insulated from the rest of the world.
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