Gestures

by Bernice C. Roldan

"Let's Talk Deaf Way" by Rommel Agravante

       

       Someone knocked on the door this morning, and I opened it, still brushing my teeth, automatic as a robot. I forgot to look through the peephole to see who it was. That’s what I do when there are too many kids singing several off-key lines caroling two weeks before Christmas and banging on the door as though my house were burning. Or when people on my doorstep badger me into buying the most amazingly useless household contraptions, or wave IDs and certificates probably crafted along Recto, asking for money. I’m not proud of it, but sometimes I plunge the room in darkness and wait by the door for the insistent knocking to stop, a fugitive in my own apartment.

So today, a gray Tuesday, I was rendered mute with my mouth full of minty foam. A long-haired girl stood there. Big-bone, generic black house, faded slim-fit jeans, open-toed sandals, the heels of her shoes an inch high. She could have been my little sister. I watched her hands began tracing the air, her face coming alive, no longer that of a stranger’s. She was speaking in gestures. A deaf-mute.

She tried handling me what seemed to be a white envelope. Empty, I suspected. I stepped back, still brushing my teeth, the slightest whine escaping my lips. She caught me. Forgetting to look through the peephole, I couldn’t act like nobody was home to give money.

It didn’t look like she was going away. She raised her eyebrows and nodded, waving the envelope at me. A sound issue from her throat. Almost as if to say, you know this is good for you. She seemed taller, almost imperious. As though she were my mother bidding me to come closer because my hair was askew and my shirt wasn’t properly tucked.

So I took her envelope and shut the door. Beneath the dining light’s glare I saw that I wasn’t an envelope but a letter. I scanned it, my gaze carelessly wheeling down the page and catching words: handog, deaf-mute foundation. Grumbling around my toothbrush, I went to my bedroom to fetch a crumpled ten-peso bill.

She was still waiting when I opened the door again. Looking away, her mind someplace else, I stood there for a moment, waving the letter and my worn bill, feeling silly. I didn’t tap her on the shoulder. I was still a stranger. I wondered what she was thinking.

That was when I saw a slight cloak of raindrops on her shoulders, giving the slightest shimmer to her black blouse when she moved. I realized she didn’t even have an umbrella. She turned seeing me at last. Mutely, I handed her the money, almost ashed for not giving more.

Now that I think about it, she could have been a fake. Maybe she can talk and hear as well as I can. But it doesn’t matter. Because at that moment before I shut my door, I realized we were the same. We said goodbye in her language of gesture. With her open palms, she touched her chest, as though her fingers wished to find something within her heart to share with me. I forgot that my toothbrush was dangling from my mouth as my smile mirrored hers. From her heart, she offered something airy and unseen in her hands and I fumble to do the same.

 

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