Helen Keller Really Lived: A Novel

"'Pay attention to body language although if you do not ... '"

Helen Keller Really Lived 283 “Pay attention to body language although if you do not know what a gesture means it might as well be written in Cyrillic .” Selinka, this is too much: you won’t admit that you’ve been reading my messages, even as you flaunt your intimacy with their content. What is the preceding sentence if not an allusion to my Siberia bound mama and her contraband lingerie ?: “I recognized the configuration of the letters before I comprehended them: Maidenform.” An allusion that affects a neat reversal as the unintelligible language of the body (Fritzi ’s “maidenform”?) is figured in my cultural script instead of yours. Do you think I can’t read what you’re up to? Or 284 Elisabeth Sheffield do you know only too well, you cardiothoracically deficient bitch, that I can? You know that I know what you are up to, yet with all your calculating insight you couldn’t see through Fritzi Akdikmen. Once again, I would’ve warned you if I could’ve, or maybe to reciprocate for the above, to return your cryptic communications in kind, told you an old time American head-scratcher that Irwin once told me. Riddle: A big Indian and a small Indian were paddling a canoe on a lake. Pausing between strokes, the big one said, “Child, you are my son but I am not your father.” Then who was the big Indian? Answer: The little one’s mother. ...