The Language She Lost

As a child, Cecilia had made herself a rule. At school she spoke only the language of her classmates, and at home she answered her parents in the same one, whatever they said. Her mother and father spoke their own language in the kitchen, softly, as if it were a secret they were embarrassed to keep. Cecilia, who was nine, had decided she wanted no part of it.

Sewaktu kecil, Cecilia membuat sebuah aturan untuk dirinya sendiri. Di sekolah ia hanya berbicara dalam bahasa teman-teman sekelasnya, dan di rumah ia menjawab orang tuanya dengan bahasa yang sama, apa pun yang mereka katakan. Ayah dan ibunya berbicara dalam bahasa mereka sendiri di dapur, dengan suara pelan, seakan itu rahasia yang mereka malu untuk simpan. Cecilia, yang waktu itu sembilan tahun, memutuskan bahwa ia tidak mau ikut campur.

Twenty years later, she could still understand most of it. That had been her private compromise: she listened, but she never replied. The words had settled in her like furniture in a dark room, and she moved around them without touching anything.

Dua puluh tahun kemudian, ia masih bisa memahami sebagian besarnya. Itulah kompromi pribadinya: ia mendengarkan, tetapi tak pernah membalas. Kata-kata itu mengendap dalam dirinya seperti perabotan di ruangan gelap, dan ia bergerak di sekelilingnya tanpa menyentuh apa pun.

Then her grandmother came to stay for the summer. The old woman knew only a handful of words of the local language. Nobody had arranged for an interpreter, because everyone had assumed that Cecilia would manage.

Lalu neneknya datang menginap selama musim panas. Perempuan tua itu hanya tahu segelintir kata bahasa setempat. Tak seorang pun menyiapkan penerjemah, karena semua orang mengira Cecilia akan mampu mengatasinya.

On the second evening, Cecilia tried to ask her grandmother how the journey had been. The sentence collapsed after three words. She knew how to say "eat", "come here" and "put your shoes on". That was the vocabulary of being a child, and she had almost nothing for being a grown woman.

Pada malam kedua, Cecilia mencoba bertanya kepada neneknya bagaimana perjalanannya. Kalimat itu runtuh setelah tiga kata. Ia hanya tahu cara mengucapkan "makan", "ke sini", dan "pakai sepatumu". Itulah kosakata masa kanak-kanak, dan ia nyaris tak punya apa-apa untuk menjadi perempuan dewasa.

Her grandmother waited, hands folded in her lap, and then said something slow and simple. Cecilia caught every word: Say it like a little girl, then. I don't mind.

Neneknya menunggu dengan tangan terlipat di pangkuan, lalu mengatakan sesuatu yang lambat dan sederhana. Cecilia menangkap setiap katanya: Katakan saja seperti anak perempuan kecil, kalau begitu. Nenek tidak keberatan.

So they began. Cecilia wrote the words she wanted on sticky notes and pressed them to the doorframe, the kettle and the bathroom mirror. Her grandmother crossed out the wrong ones with a pencil and wrote the right ones beneath, in handwriting that leaned to the right. By the end of June, the kitchen looked as if it had been wallpapered with yellow squares.

Maka mereka pun mulai. Cecilia menulis kata-kata yang ia inginkan pada kertas tempel dan menempelkannya di kusen pintu, di teko, dan di cermin kamar mandi. Neneknya mencoret yang salah dengan pensil dan menulis yang benar di bawahnya, dengan tulisan tangan yang miring ke kanan. Pada akhir Juni, dapur itu tampak seperti dilapisi wallpaper kotak-kotak kuning.

It was humbling. If she could go back to that nine-year-old, she thought, she would not argue with her. She would only ask her to wait. Her grandmother corrected her mistakes only when they changed the meaning. Otherwise she let the sentence stand, lopsided but alive.

Rasanya merendahkan hati. Kalau bisa kembali kepada anak sembilan tahun itu, pikirnya, ia tidak akan berdebat dengannya. Ia hanya akan memintanya menunggu. Neneknya hanya membetulkan kesalahan jika kesalahan itu mengubah makna. Selebihnya ia membiarkan kalimatnya berdiri, miring tetapi hidup.

In July, Cecilia asked the question she had been carrying for years. Why had her parents never forced her? Her grandmother answered slowly that they had pushed for a year. Then they had stopped, because they were tired and afraid of losing her entirely. "Better a silent daughter than a daughter who is gone," she said.

Pada bulan Juli, Cecilia mengajukan pertanyaan yang sudah bertahun-tahun ia simpan. Mengapa orang tuanya tidak pernah memaksanya? Neneknya menjawab pelan bahwa mereka sempat memaksa selama setahun. Lalu mereka berhenti, karena lelah dan takut kehilangan Cecilia sepenuhnya. "Lebih baik putri yang diam daripada putri yang hilang," katanya.

Cecilia hadn't known that. She should have asked years earlier, although until this summer she would not have had the words to do it.

Cecilia tidak pernah tahu itu. Seharusnya ia bertanya bertahun-tahun lebih awal, meskipun sampai musim panas ini ia tidak akan punya kata-kata untuk melakukannya.

At the end of August, they stood together at the airport. Her grandmother said goodbye in the old language, in a long speech with a gap in the middle for Cecilia to fill. Cecilia filled it. The grammar was crooked and the pronunciation was worse, but the sentence reached its end.

Pada akhir Agustus, mereka berdiri bersama di bandara. Neneknya berpamitan dalam bahasa lama, dalam ucapan panjang dengan jeda di tengahnya agar Cecilia mengisinya. Cecilia mengisinya. Tata bahasanya miring dan pelafalannya lebih buruk lagi, tetapi kalimat itu sampai ke ujungnya.

Her grandmother touched the side of her face. She did not correct a single word.

Neneknya menyentuh sisi wajahnya. Ia tidak membetulkan satu kata pun.

On the first Sunday of September, Cecilia sat in the kitchen beneath the last of the yellow notes and dialed the long number. When her grandmother answered, she said hello in her parents' language. Then she kept talking.

Pada hari Minggu pertama bulan September, Cecilia duduk di dapur di bawah sisa kertas tempel kuning yang terakhir dan menekan nomor telepon yang panjang. Ketika neneknya menjawab, ia menyapa dalam bahasa orang tuanya. Lalu ia terus berbicara.