[stylist] DBG (chapter 5)

[helene ryles]

Chapter 5
The sad fate of Liza Bronze by Shania Krum (Liza’s deaf Nanny)

It was late when the lights started flickering on and off.    I went
to the door to find Liza Bronze.  She was sitting on my doorstep with
her head in her hands.
I tapped her gently on the shoulder.
"What’s the matter Liza?" I signed.   I wasn't sure she could see me
through her tears so I repeated my request using tactile sign
language.
Liza just shook her head and carried on crying.
Its several years since I last saw Liza Bronze.  The problem is that
people in Nazdonia hate Dragons.  The dragons come here sometimes, and
sit perch on our roofs, watching us closely.   Ever so often a Dragon
will dive down and snatch one of our villagers.   Usually they just
examine us closely before putting us down again, but some dragons have
been known to remove a villager’s legs first.    As if to add insult
to injury, the offending dragon stuffs the villager’s pockets with
Darthrilan currency.  They seemed to think that would make it all
okay.
We tried telling Liza about this, but she won’t believe us.   On her
last visit my son   expressed a desire to join a dragon slaying team.
Liza got up and started swearing at him.  When I told her not to use
such rude signs around the children she turned and left the house.


                      ***  ***   ***

I know a lot about Liza Bronze.  I was her wet nurse.   I can always
remember her dragon Talmon Bronze's first meeting.  I had just put my
own baby to bed and was taking down my laundry, when this dragon
swooped down.  I was so shocked that I dropped my laundry basket.  I
was about to flee for my cottage when the dragon 'spoke' to me.
I suddenly visualized a tiny silver-skinned baby in my mind.  I
visualised money and then a question mark.  Those images clearly
didn't belong to me.  I know, god alone knows how, that the dragon was
communicating with me.  He was offering me both the baby and the
money. Such strangeness made me nervous.  What did the dragon want?
The images came again, more persistently this time.  I visualized
myself nursing this baby.  Then I visualised money again.  Surely the
dragon wasn't offering me a job? Or was he? The notion was just too
far fetched to take in.
The dragon nodded.
I kept visualising the money.  There was a question mark again.  Was
he asking me how much I wanted?
"A bag of gold every night on the full moon will do" I replied
sarcastically.  I wondered why this big scaly brute was toying with me
like this for.   Why didn't he just hurry up and eat me if that's what
he wanted.
I visualised some pure gold nuggets followed by the common nine carrot
gold; Then a query.
"I would prefer to be paid in goln.  That’s the name of our currency
here in Nazdonia.  I'll do it for 500 goln a month, and no it doesn't
really have to be handed in on the full moon.   Any other day will do
just fine"
Next I visualised the dragon swooping down with the baby.     I moved
quickly out of the way.
I looked round from behind a boulder.  The dragon swooped down just as
he told me he would.  He deposited a basket on the ground.  Then he
flew into the air and was gone.  I waited a while after that.  Partly
because my legs were shaking so much, but also in case the Dragon was
hanging about, waiting to pounce on me.
In the end my curiosity overcame my fear.  I darted forward, grabbing
the basket, and fled back to my cottage, my laundry basket forgotten
about.  I suspected that the dragon maybe lurking, somewhere out of
sight.
The grey skinned infant was only a few weeks old.  She was wearing a
pair of Aphakic glasses which were attached to her head with an
elastic cord.  I could feel from her throat that she was screaming her
little lungs out so I unbuttoned my dress and fed her with my own
breast milk.  Fortunately I still had some milk left over from my
first born son who had just been weaned.
 This was my very first meeting with Liza Bronze.

                            ***  ***  ***

So now Liza was back again, in a lot of distress.
"Come inside.  I will make you some tea," I signed.
"She wants me to put Nadia in danger! She wants me to send her to
school, where her mother can come and collect her," Liza signed.
"Who's she?" I asked.  I had some idea who Liza meant, but I just
wanted to be sure.
"Beria.  She's been threatening me with the truancy officer.  She says
that Nadia needed the company of other children.  I gave her a dog.
That should be enough company for her.  Children are cruel you know.
I never benefited from being with other children..."
"That's not true.  You had lots of friends before Beria took you from
us.  Yes, maybe your sight did get in the way sometimes. People needed
to sign close to you, instead of at the usual range.   Why can't Nadia
come here?"
"Everyone is so anti-dragon round here.  Besides which, I don't want
her so far away from me.  I'd worry too much"
"So what do you want then?"
"I want Beria and Madrella to drop dead!"
I sighed.  Liza can be incredibly childish for a fully grown woman.


                   ***  ***  ****


 I can still remember the day that Beria and her bunch of female thugs
blasted our door down and dragged Liza from our care.  She was only
eight at the time.  I'd been teaching her how to read and write and
she was ever such a bright little girl.   She got on really well with
my sons too.  She should have stayed with us.  After all she really
needs to be in the company of other Deaf humans.  Not some oversexed
dragon and a bunch of audist busy bodies.  Between that lot Liza got
really screwed up.
Beria's one of those Audist types that look down on our language and
all deaf that use it.  I could sense that from the beginning.  She
really didn't approve of the Dragon's choice of Nannies.
It makes me wonder who's running whom.
Liza’s aunt’s Arielle and Beria came regularly at one stage.   We
didn’t mind Arielle’s visits since she can sign and she often
commented on how well Liza was doing.  Beria’s visits were another
matter altogether.   She just came to ensure that Liza  Bronze used
her hearing aids.  She also insisted that Liza get to meet her
parents.
I hated Liza's father even before I knew about the way he had sold his
child to the dragons.  What kind of parent does a thing like that?
He's even more of an Audist then Beria.   He has this poor deafblind
wife whom he forces to lip-read by a method known as Tadoma.  I could
tell she found communication a major struggle.  She was the saddest
creature I ever met.
I didn’t pity her because of her deafblindness.  We have blind and
deafblind people here at Nassoli too.    They are sad at first, but
they get used to it eventually.  I'm sure Liza's mother Mona would
have adapted too but her husband wouldn't let her.  He resisted any
attempts to send anyone round to teach her any blind skills, even when
his own family tried to help.
 Arielle and I decided the kindest thing anyone could do with Mona was
to rescue her.  We didn't expect to keep her with us indefinitely, but
she needed to learn how to adapt to her deafblindness.  It was
especially important for Mona to learn how to communicate in sign
language since Mona had another deafblind daughter called Monika.
Snyder runs a business selling enchanted prosthetic legs. So we sent
an amputee round to ask about the sale of prosthetic legs.  Of course
he wasn't really interested.  Snyder's legs are well above his price
range.  While he was busy talking to him, I slipped in with a fader
that Liza’s aunt Arielle had hired for me.  They are useful little
folks when you want to become invisible, even though a lot of them end
up going mad.  After experiencing invisibility it's understandable.
We kept Mona, Monika and Liza together for just over a week.  We were
teaching them tactile sign language first.  That had to be a priority
since Monika was severely delayed.  She was eleven years old without
any language skills at all.   We were hoping to move on to braille and
mobility skills after that.
Snyder called the police on us.  Not only did they take Mona and
Monika from us but they took Liza as well.

               ***  ***  ***

Five years later Arielle brought Liza back to us.
We were overjoyed to see her again and Liza seemed really happy to be
with us too.   I could tell she appreciated being signed to, instead
of being spoken to and expected to lip read all the time.
Unfortunately she had already fallen behind.  Her signed vocabulary
was that of younger child since she had nobody to practice NSL with,
except her aunt Arielle, who stopped seeing Liza regularly, after her
eldest son Pyre was born.
Liza had a social awkwardness about her, of a child that is used to
being on their own for most of the time.   I would have made
allowances, but you know what teenagers are like.  Her old friends had
grown apart and they didn’t have much patience with her.  Hearing aids
were still very bulky things in those days and the other children made
fun of Liza for wearing them. (We don't bother with hearing aids round
these parts.  Everyone here can sign, so we don't need them.)
One girl tried to show her more tolerance, but she freaked out when
Liza started talking about how much she loved her dragon, and what
they did together.  Liza told the girl that she never bothered wearing
any clothes when she and Talmon were alone together.  She liked it
when Talmon licked her clean, especially when she was having a period.
 (I think it was that kind of talk that persuaded Arielle to bring
Liza back to us in the first place).
After the girl expressed her disgust, Liza reacted by thumped her and
storming off into the desert. We had to send a search party out after
her to no avail.  Years later we were told that Beria had found her
and taken her back to Talmon Bronze.  We would have appreciated it if
someone had told us that Liza was okay, as we were all beside
ourselves with concern.

Since then we’ve only seen Liza a few times for very brief visits.
She grows stranger by the day. Saying anything in the least bit
negative about Talmon often resulted in Liza storming off in a Tizzy.
 I can't stop the villagers from speaking their minds on this matter.
Liza doesn't like this so she rarely ever comes.
  I worry a lot about Liza, being in a foreign country with all those
dragons.  She seems to have been shut out on the other side of the
fence with nothing to replace us with, except some large scaly beast.