On Monday and Tuesday, we hear nothing more from Mr. Crenshaw or the company. Maybe the people who would do the treatment are not ready to try it on humans. Maybe Mr. Crenshaw has to argue them into it. I wish we knew more. I feel the way I felt standing in the ring before that first match. Not-knowing definitely seems faster than knowing.
I look again at the abstract of the journal article on-line, but I still do not understand most of the words. Even when I look them up, I still do not understand what the treatment actually does and how it does it. I am not supposed to understand it. It is not my field.
But it is my brain and my life. I want to understand it. When I first began to fence, I did not understand that, either. I did not know why I had to hold the foil a certain way or why my feet had to be pointed out from each other at an angle. I did not know any of the terms or any of the moves. I did not expect to be good at fencing; I thought my autism would get in the way, and at first it did. Now I have been in a tournament with normal people. I didn’t win, but I did better than other first-timers.
Maybe I can learn more about the brain than I know now. I do not know if there will be time, but I can try.
On Wednesday, I take the costume clothes back to Tom and Lucia’s. They are dry now and do not smell so bad, but I can still smell the sourness of my sweat. Lucia takes the clothes, and I go through the house to the equipment room. Tom is already in the backyard; I pick up my equipment and go out. It is chilly but still, no breeze. He is stretching, and I start stretching, too. I was stiff on Sunday and Monday, but now I am not stiff and only one bruise is still sore.
Marjory comes out into the yard.
“I was telling Marjory how well you did at the tournament,” Lucia says, from behind her. Marjory is grinning at me.
“I didn’t win,” I say. “I made mistakes.”
“You won two matches,” Lucia says, “and the novice medal. You didn’t make that many mistakes.”
I do not know how many mistakes “that many” would be. If she means “too many,” why does she say “that many”?
Here, in this backyard, I’m remembering Don and how angry he was at what Tom said about him rather than the light feeling I had when I won those two matches. Will he come tonight? Will he be angry with me? I think I should mention him, and then I think I shouldn’t.
“Simon was impressed,” Tom says. He is sitting up now, rubbing his blade with sandpaper to smooth out the nicks. I feel my blade and do not find any new nicks. “The referee, I mean; we’ve known each other for years. He really liked the way you handled yourself when that fellow didn’t call hits.”
“You said that was what to do,” I say.
“Yeah, well, not everybody follows my advice,” Tom says. “Tell me now — several days later — was it more fun or more bother?”
I had not thought of the tournament as fun, but I had not thought of it as bother, either.
“Or something else entirely?” Marjory says.
“Something else entirely,” I say. “I did not think it was bother; you told me what to do to prepare, Tom, and I did that. I did not think of it as fun, but a test, a challenge.”
“Did you enjoy it at all?” Tom asked.
“Yes. Parts of it very much.” I do not know how to describe the mixture of feelings. “I enjoy doing new things sometimes,” I say.
Someone is opening the gate. Don. I feel a sudden tension in the yard.
“Hi,” he says. His voice is tight.
I smile at him, but he does not smile back.
“Hi, Don,” Tom says.
Lucia says nothing. Marjory nods to him.
“I’ll just get my stuff,” he says, and goes into the house.
Lucia looks at Tom; he shrugs. Marjory comes up to me.
“Want a bout?” she asks. “I can’t stay late tonight. Work.”
“Sure,” I say. I feel light again.
Now that I have fenced in the tournament, I feel very relaxed fencing here. I do not think about Don; I think only about Marjory’s blade. Again I have the feeling that touching her blade is almost like touching her — that I can feel, through the steel, her every movement, even her mood. I want this to last; I slow a little, prolonging the contact, not making touches I could make so that we can keep this going. It is a very different feeling from the tournament, but light is the only word I can think of to describe it.
Finally she backs up; she is breathing hard. “That was fun, Lou, but you’ve worn me out. I’ll have to take a breather.”
“Thank you,” I say.
We sit down side by side, both breathing hard. I time my breaths to hers. It feels good to do that.
Suddenly Don comes out of the equipment room, carrying his blades in one hand, his mask in the other. He glares at me and walks around the corner of the house, stiff-legged. Tom follows him out and shrugs, spreading his hands.
“I tried to talk him out of it,” he says to Lucia. “He still thinks I insulted him on purpose at the tournament. And he only placed twentieth, behind Lou. Right now it’s all my fault, and he’s going to study with Gunther.”
“That won’t last long,” Lucia says. She stretches out her legs. “He won’t put up with the discipline.”
“It is because of me?” I ask.
“It is because the world does not arrange itself to suit him,” Tom says. “I give him a couple of weeks before he’s back, pretending nothing has happened.”
“And you’ll let him back?” Lucia says with an edge to her voice.
Tom shrugs again. “If he behaves, sure. People do grow, Lucia.”
“Crookedly, some of them,” she says.
Then Max and Susan and Cindy and the others arrive in a bunch and they all speak to me. I did not see them at the tournament, but they all saw me. I feel embarrassed that I didn’t notice, but Max explains.
“We were trying to stay out of your way, so you could concentrate. You only want one or two people talking to you at a time like that,” he says. That would make sense if other people also had trouble concentrating. I did not know they thought that way; I thought they wanted lots of people around all the time.
Maybe if the things I was told about myself were not all correct, the things I was told about normal people were also not all correct.
I fence with Max and then Cindy and sit down next to Marjory until she says she has to go. I carry her bag out to her car for her. I would like to spend more time with her, but I am not sure how to do it. If I met someone like Marjory — someone I liked — at a tournament, and she did not know I was autistic, would it be easier to ask that person out to dinner? What would that person say? What would Marjory say if I asked her? I stand beside the car after she gets in and wish I had already said the words and was waiting for her answer. Emmy’s angry voice rings in my head. I do not believe she is right; I do not believe that Marjory sees me only as my diagnosis, as a possible research subject. But I do not not believe it enough to ask her out to dinner. I open my mouth and no words come out: silence is there before sound, faster than I can form the thought.
Marjory is looking at me; I am suddenly cold and stiff with shyness. “Good night,” I say.
“Good-bye,” she says. “See you next week.” She turns on the engine; I back away.
When I get back to the yard, I sit beside Lucia. “If a person asks a person to dinner,” I say, “then if the person who is asked does not want to go, is there any way to tell before the person who is asking asks?”