Sara had begun to grasp the situation. The girl allowed Sara to hold her chin. Sara moved her other hand beside the girl’s right ear. She snapped her fingers three times; the girl did not react. She swapped hands to test the other ear. Nothing. Looking into the girl’s eyes, Sara then pointed to her own ear and slowly shook her head, meaning no. The girl nodded.
“That’s because she’s deaf.”
Then a surprising thing happened. The girl reached for Sara’s hand. With her index finger, she began to draw a series of lines in Sara’s upturned palm. Not lines, Sara realized. Letters. P. I. M.
“Pim,” Sara said. She glanced at Sister Peg, then looked back at the girl. “Pim—is that your name?”
She nodded. Sara took the girl’s palm. SARA, she wrote, and pointed at herself. “Sara.” She looked up. “Sister, can you get me something to write with?”
Sister Peg departed the room, returning moments later with one of the handheld chalkboards the children used for their lessons.
WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS? Sara wrote.
Pim took the board. She erased Sara’s words with her palm, then gripped the chalk awkwardly in her fist.
—DED
—WHEN?
—MOM THEN DAD LONG TIM
—WHO HURT YOU?
—MAN
—WHAT MAN?
—DONT KNW GOT AWAY
The next question pained her, but it had to be asked.
—DID HE HURT YOU ANYWHERE ELSE?
The girl hesitated, then nodded. Sara’s heart sank.
—WHERE?
Pim took the board.
—GIRLPLACE
Without taking her eyes off the girl, Sara said, “Sister, can you give us a minute?”
When Sister Peg was gone, Sara wrote, MORE THAN ONCE?
The girl nodded.
—NEED TO LOOK. WILL BE CAREFUL.
Pim’s whole body clenched. She shook her head vigorously back and forth.
—PLEASE, wrote Sara. HAVE TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE OK.
Pim took the chalkboard and quickly scribbled, MY FALT PROMISST NOT TO TELL
—NO. NOT YOUR FAULT.
—PIM BAD
Sara didn’t know if she wanted to cry or be sick. She’d seen some things in her life—terrible things—and not just at the Homeland. You couldn’t walk the hospital halls without encountering the worst of human nature. A woman with a broken wrist and an excuse about falling down a flight of stairs, reciting how it had happened while her husband looked on, coaching her with his eyes. An old man with advanced malnutrition dumped at the door by relatives. One of Dunk’s whores, her body ravaged with disease and misuse, clutching a fistful of Austins to rid herself of the baby she was carrying so she could get back on the stool. You hardened your heart because there was no other way to get through the day, but the children were the worst. The children you couldn’t look away from. In Pim’s case, it wasn’t hard to reconstruct the story. Her parents dead, somebody had offered to take the girl in, a family member or neighbor, everyone thinking how kind and generous that person was, to assume responsibility for this poor orphan who couldn’t hear or talk, and after that nobody had bothered to check.
“No, honey, no.” Sara took Pim’s hands and looked into her eyes. There was a soul in there, tiny, terrified, discarded by the world. There wasn’t anybody more alone on the face of the earth, and Sara understood what was being asked of her, just for being human.
Not even Hollis knew the story. It wasn’t that Sara was afraid to tell him; she knew the kind of man he was. But silence was a decision she’d made long ago. At the Homeland, it was said, everybody had taken their turn, and Sara’s had come in due course. She had endured it as best she knew how, and when it was over, she imagined a box, made of steel with a strong lock. Then she took the memory and put it in the box.
She took the board and wrote:
—SOMEBODY HURT ME THERE ONCE TOO.
The girl studied the board with the same guarded expression. Perhaps ten seconds passed. She took up the chalk again.
—SECRET?
—YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON I EVER TOLD.
The girl’s face was changing. Something was letting go.
Sara wrote: WE ARE THE SAME. SARA IS GOOD. PIM IS GOOD. NOT OUR FAULT.
A film of tears appeared in the surface of the girl’s eyes. A single drop edged over the barrier and spilled down her cheek, cutting a river in the dirt. Her lips were closed; the muscles of her neck and jaw grew taut, then began to quiver. A strange new sound entered the room. It was a kind of growl, like an animal’s. It felt like something fighting to get out.
And then it did. The girl opened her mouth and released a howl that seemed to shatter the very idea of human language, distilling it to a single sustained vowel of pain. Sara wrapped her in a tight embrace. Pim was wailing, shaking, fighting to break free, but Sara wouldn’t let her. “It’s all right,” she said. “I won’t let you go, I won’t let you go.” And she held her that way until the girl was quiet again, and for a long time after.