I keep trying to pass the books back, but she's already seen them. The girls to both sides of me also shake their heads silently when I hold out each novel in a pleading hand, their eyes disapproving of my disruption of their concentration on their doodles. Somehow I end up as the last person to see the books. Somehow. The mechanics must be funny, since I sit in the middle row in the middle seat. I doubt, but I can only hope, for a fold in the time-space continuum.
No words. Only the eyes, the hands. All the words have gone to the professor, like a verbal vacuum. And she uses them. She only grants a few to those who raise their hands more boldly, rebelliously defying the possibility of humiliation. But if they begin to use more of their quota than they are allotted from what she has collected from us, they are cut off.
I would rather not face the cut-off.
When I do lift my hand, I startle the girl to my right. She pulls her hair behind her ear, rending the thick curtain that has divided us for the last four weeks. I glimpse a single, wary eye turned sideways and her pen stops moving, the perfection of her signature disrupted.
The world of this room freezes, though one couldn't have anticipated it getting any more still.
I wonder what my voice sounds like to these others who have seen my face for so long without knowing its tune. Did my wide blue eyes make them imagine a flute, a high-pitched whistling of feminine shyness? Or perhaps my strong build, my practical, straight brown hair go along with a dull, though clearly understandable monotone? Or even my silence itself. Perhaps they decided I am one who only speaks when I have something intelligent, deep, something subtle and even sultry to say. Am I a mystery at all?
In the cliche moment of truth, every head turns to see that silent girl has raised her hand. I hear in the silence the personal bets being waged. Long or short. Right or wrong. High or dull. Mysterious, or just expected.
Silent girl speaks.
"Would you repeat that last point you just made? Something about the theme of family...I think I missed a theme in there somewhere because you said there were five and I only have four."
A blink. The processing.
Some heads nod. They consider me as one of their own and thank me for the representation of their brotherhood. I am the speaker for those who can't write fast enough and even if we did we wouldn't be able to read our own handwriting.
Some sigh and look down. Those who hoped for drama, who wanted me to fail. No going over quota, no squeaky voice with an embarrassing clearing of the throat, no completely off-topic point, no ums and stutters and no cut-off by the professor. No opinions, no arguments. The mystery turns uninteresting, and suddenly the outlined notes hold more adventure and novelty.
Those who were hoping for intellectual depth simply stare and blink a few more times, as if waiting for the flood to come after the dam has broken in front of a dry lake bed.
What none of them know is that I'm watching too. I see the nods, the sighs, the stares. I know their hopes and desires within the space of a second. The one thing I never will know, the one thing I most want to know, the one thing the eyes, the hands, the silence can't tell me: how my voice sounds in their ears and if, despite what I say, I meet the expectations of the silence.
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