Duma Key

How to Draw a Picture (II)

Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. Of course the devil’s there, too — everyone says so — but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. It could be, you know.

Imagine that baby girl again, the one who fell from the carriage. She struck the right side of her head, but it was the left side of her brain that suffered the worst insult — contracoup, remember? The left side is where Broca’s area is — not that anyone knew that in the 1920s. Broca’s area processes language. Smack it hard enough and you lose your language, sometimes for a little while, sometimes forever. But — although they are closely related — saying is not seeing.

The little girl still sees.

She sees her five sisters. Their dresses. How their hair is crazy-combed by the wind when they come in from outside. She sees her father’s mustache, now threaded with gray. She sees Nan Melda — not just the housekeeper but the closest thing to a mother this little girl knows. She sees the scarf Nanny wraps around her head when she cleans; she sees the knot in the front, at the very top of Nan Melda’s high brown forehead; she sees Nan Melda’s silver bracelets, and how they flash starpoints in the sunshine that falls through the windows.

Details, details, the truth is in the details.

And does seeing cry out to saying, even in a damaged mind? A wounded brain? Oh, it must, it must.

She thinks My head hurts.

She thinks Something bad happened, and I don’t know who I am. Or where I am. Or what all these bright surrounding images are.

She thinks Libbit? Is my name Libbit? I used to know. I could talk in the used-to-know, but now my words are like fish in the water. I want the man with the hair on his lip.

She thinks That’s my Daddy, but when I try to say his name I call “Ird! Ird!” instead, because one flies past my window. I see every feather. I see its eye like glass. I see its leg, how it bends like broke, and that word is crookit. My head hurts.

Girls come in. Maria and Hannah come in. She doesn’t like them the way she likes the twins. The twins are little, like her.

She thinks I called Maria and Hannah the Big Meanies in the used-to-know and realizes she knows again. It’s another thing that’s come back. The name for another detail. She will forget again, but the next time she remembers, she will remember longer. She’s almost sure of it.

She thinks When I try to say Hannah I say “Ird! Ird!” When I try to say Maria I say “Wee! Wee!” And they laugh, those meanies. I cry. I want my Daddy and can’t remember how to say him; that word is gone again. Words like birds, they fly and fly and fly away. My sisters talk. Talk, talk, talk. My throat is dry. I try to say thirsty. I say “First! First!” But they only laugh, those meanies. I’m under the bandage, smelling the iodine, smelly the sweaty, listening to them laugh. I scream at them, scream loud, and they run away. Nan Melda comes, her head all red because her hair is wrapped in the snarf. Her roundies flash flash flash in the sun and you call those roundies bracelets. I say “First, first!” and Nan Melda doesn’t know. So then I say “Ass! Ass!” and Nan makes me go potty even though I don’t need to go potty. I’m on the potty and see and point. “Ass! Ass!” Daddy comes in. “What’s this shouting about?” with all white bubbles on his face except for one smoothie. That’s where he slid the thing that makes the hair go away. He sees how I point. He understands. “Why she is thirsty.” Fills up the glass. The room is full of sunny. Dust floats in the sunny and his hand goes through the sunny with the glass and you call that pretty. I drink every drink. I cry more afterwards, but from better. He kiss me kiss me kiss me, hug me hug me hug me, and I try to say him — “Daddy!” — and still can’t. Then I think around sideways to his name, and John is there, so I think that in my mind and while I think John I “Daddy!” out my mouth and he hug me hug me some more.

She thinks Daddy is my first word on this side of the bad thing.

The truth is in the details.