THE SCENT OF GRASS AND GARDENS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 477, 13 August 1948, Page 7

THE SCENT OF GRASS AND GARDENS

N.Z. Smelis Green to Helen Keller

HE problem is to describe Helen Keller for readers who have neither seen her nor heard her; and to add something for those who have seen some of the many photographs of a welldressed woman of 68 with a smiling, alert, bright-eyed face under a smart hat-the photographs labelled: "This is Helen Keller, who has been blind and deaf since she was 19 months old." It is a hard problem; the only thing I can do is report the Press conference I attended the Saturday afternoon Miss Keller arrived in Wellington with Miss Polly Thompson, who has been her companion and helper for 34 years. How much hesitation was there as she got out of the car, her right hand holding Miss» Thompson’s left hand (to receive the manual spelling), her right arm linked firmly through Miss Thompson’s? Hardly any. No difficulty with the two steps, the space of marble, the thick door mat, going on to it-one step-going off it on to rubber flooring; there she lifted her bent head and smiled over her bouquet. So did she know, I wondered, that the change of floor meant the entrance? It meant, anyway, introductions-the hotel manager, someone else as well, to be greeted, Miss Thompson with the names, Miss Keller saying a deep and_soft "Thank you, thank you." And that was the first time I heard her speak, in her deep, soft, slightly husky voice, with nothing unusual in intonation or any of the vowel or consonant sounds. On then, to the desk, where Miss Thompson signed the hotel register for them both while Miss Keller explored her bouquet. At the top were cyclamen, lower down daphne and violets. I watched her explore her way down from the top to the bottom, pause at the bottom and drink there. Already I was finding the interview, which hadn’t even begun, affecting.

It was nearer two o'clock than one, but Miss Keller would not wait to have any lunch before she met her friends, the Press. "She will be down in four minutes," we were told, "she wants to take off her coat and drifk a glass of milk.’ And in four minutes she was down. She came into the room where we were with her arm linked in Miss Thompson’s as before; but now she moved across the carpet with quick émall running steps, a little like a figure in an Eastern play. Of course! Don’t we all keep our feet close to the ground and take short steps on a dark night? And if our movement should be described as shuffling and hers as light tripping, the reason must be that she has had more practice than we have. Christian Names Are Simpler From now on we were all Christian names: "That will be simpler," said Miss Thompson; "Now, what is your name? Olga? HELEN, THIS IS OLGA," and she spelt into Helen’s hand. "Olga," Helen repeated, shaking hands; "Clivea lovely name, Clive!" and she threw up her hands and smiled with pleasure. How clearly Miss Thompson said each name for her. Was it possible that those bright blue eyes ;could catch a movement of lips: Or that those ears could hear perhaps an echo from dne particular voice? No, I saw in a moment: the clear speech was Miss Thompson’s habit, and what an interesting habit it was! One reason for it now became plain when the two sat close together, Helen on Miss Thompson’s right side, with her left hand on Miss Thompson’s shoulder, her fingers ready to trace lip and jaw movements. Obviously those movements became easier to trace as the speech became more exact and more clearly enunciated. The tracing was a kind of duplication of the finger-tapping of questions, but it was hard to tell from which source Helen made her

sometimes lightning leaps to the end of an unfinished. sentence. A second reason, a more interesting — one, appeared to me _ for Miss Thompson’s clear, expressive, .and_ highly inflected speech. It seemed to be a way to achieve the vividness, the extra energy needed in one who is called upon to be more than herself — to be. Polly Thompson plus a part of Helen Keller. Some of her speaking was pure acting, I feel sure; acting to achieve and main-

tain a buoyancy strong enough to support two brave creatures. It was this that made me say to my neighbour, long before the interview was ended: "There are two wonderful women in this room." The Smell of New Zealand Having read that Helen Keller recognises towns by their characteristic smell, a reporter asked: "Has Miss Keller distinguished a characteristic smell for New Zealand yet?" These were hard words, I thought, expecting Miss Thompson to translate with some simplification such as: "Have you found a New Zealan& smell yet?" But no. The whole question and nothing but the question, with the long words cut into syllables often consisting in the spelling largely of consonants to make a kind of shorthand. Moreover, in this question as in many others, Helen leapt ahead, threw up her hands in triumph and with a beaming face and shining eyes, said fluently, "Yes, the green." Then’ she _ continued, less fluently, her vowels longer than usual, that she had smelt the grass, the gardens, the trees, and the gorse; in Auckland the sweet sea smell, "She’s completely rhythmic," someone murmured. And that is true; all her phrases, all her sentences she speaks in a steady rhythm, pausing for Miss Thompson to repeat for the benefit of those who have been unable to understand. At Saturday’s Press conference everyone understood perfectly, heard perfectly; but that was a small room, with few people. At the Prime Minister’s reception on Monday many in the huge crowd were unable to hear. Green was the colour for New Zealand; and the biggest disappointments in Australia were first that the aborigines had straight hair-she had expected to feel a mat of fuzzy hair with her delighted hands-and second, that she did not get to the Great Barrier Reef. Why had she wanted to go there, someone asked. "The colour!" she exclaimed with most evident pride. She had read about it in raised type; she mentioned the colour in the water and the plants and in the fish, which she pronounced "fush" rhyming with "bush." " F I S H," Miss Thompson spelt into her hand and with her lips, and "fish," Helen repeated with emphasis.

She hoped to hear some Maori music, she said without any stress on the word "hear." And already she has heard some, by feeling the throat of a singer, and by putting her hands on a piano or other musical instrument, feeling the muscle movement and the vibrations. Small Feet That Tap While Miss "Thompson explained some point to a questioner-if any remarks were not for Helen’s fingers Miss Thompson merely turned her lips away out of reach-Helen Keller explored; with her hands she felt all round the chair, top, middle, bottom; followed the piping round each edge and discovered the division between her chair and Miss Thompson’s. .When that was finished she tapped a rhythm with -her small feet in their smart court shoes and silk stockings; her fingers were busy polishing the buttons on her coat.or smoothing the silk of her elegant white blouse. She did not at any moment look lost or bored; and when the cameraman set off his flash bulb she was alight with excitement; "Yes, I feel the warmth on my cheeks," she said. z At the Prime Minister’s reception) on the Monday afternoon there was a huge crowd, with standing room only, and not much of that. "I wonder if she realises there are so many people here," sOmeone near me speculated. "I suppose all she gets is a confused clatter." I watched the ‘speaker’s face; suddenly it changed, "But of course-she can’t hear it!’ | This remark illustrates a common difficulty, the difficulty of absorbing the knowledge that Helen Keller cannot see and cannot hear; the .combined inability is too much, twice too much for ordinary comprehension. A blind man spoke, saying in his. ordinary voice that the blind were grateful for the chance to hear Helen Keller; a deaf man spoke in his high-pitched ynheard tone, saying that the deaf received encouragement from the sight of her triumph over her handicaps. We who were present with two eyes each and two ears each saw these two men with some sort of comprehension and compassion; I doubt if any of us saw Helen Keller with anything but compassion

ana respect.

J.