Understood Not A Word

Understood Not A Word1

I rapped sharply on the wooden door, telegram clutched firmly in my hand, sticky as all young children’s are. Mr. Manson, the print read in slightly blurred letters. The grasshoppers in the overgrown weeds of the lawn buzzed lazily, and the warm sun beat down, heating the pavers of the walk.

The door opened surprisingly quickly, as if the person behind had been waiting just for me. All I caught of his appearance was the flash of curly snow-white hair and the twinkle of light from round spectacles, and a hand not looking like an old man’s at all, reaching and grabbing the telegram-paper quickly from me. With a muffled, “Thank you”, the door shut again, and I was left standing in the exactly same place, as if the whole thing hadn’t even happened yet. Blinking, I looked down at my hand that had held the telegram moments before to find it empty.

My hand reached out and found the doorbell again. The quick opening of the wooden door didn’t surprise me this time.

“Excuse me, sir.” I said politely, like I had to all of the other addressees I delivered to, “A reply was charged and paid for.” A magnified eye surveyed me, then flicked down to the slightly sticky telegram-paper he held in his hand.

“Now,” he said in the same muffled voice, “Why on earth would some one pay for my reply, when they have no idea what nonsense I might send?”

“I don’t know sir, but you could ask them in your response.” At this, he gave a small muff of laughter, and opened the door further. The drapes were pulled on both sets of windows, and dustcovers were over the small end tables on either side of the door, I saw. Old newspapers littered the ground near the entryway, unopened and covered in a fine layer of dust.

“You’d better come in, then.” I wiped my sweaty hands on the uniform khakis I was wearing and stepped over the threshold, avoiding the old copies of “The Times”. Without the door as a barrier, he seemed more dreamlike than before, melting into the shadows in faded waistcoat buttoned all the way up and matching slacks. He walked odd, stranger that anyone I’d seen. He seemed not to move his upper body at all, no swinging of his arms or moving of his torso, but his legs fluidly propelled him through another door. I hesitantly followed him through a darkened dayroom whose furniture was covered in sheets to a lighter, but still dim, study.

The room was small in dimensions, but bookshelves and drafting tables like the ones I had seen architects use covered the walls, both containing many books and instruments. Handwritten papers were heaped in piles, and  particular sphere stood on an end-table near the door. Mr. Manson burrowed through stacks of paper, trying to locate, I suspected, a pen of some sort.

“You don’t need a pen, Mr. Manson.” I said. “I’ll remember anything you tell me.”

He stopped shuffling through papers in his strange manner, and studied me again with his magnified eyes. “Can you?” Mr. Manson picked a sheaf of papers from the lot with a deliberate movement, eyes still riveted to me. I felt my foot twitch. “Tell me,” he ordered,
“do you understand what you read, or do you just memorize it?” I began to answer, but he thrust the sheaf of papers to me. “Read them.” He ordered.

I went over them once, twice, thrice. The sentences were easy to memorize, short and concise, to the point. Mechanically, I repeated every word on the papers that he had given me, staring at a fixed point in the heavens, words ringing in my ears.

“Remarkable,” he said, taking the papers from me. “Tell me, what did that mean?”

I licked my lips. “Telegram deliverers aren’t paid to know what messages mean.” He frowned at that, in great disappointment it seemed to me, but an instant later it was gone.

“You just read my theory. You just said, explaining step-by-step, how you determined the Earth, thought by many to be flat, is in fact round. You just revolutionized science. And understood not a word.” He laid emphasis on the last sentence, and I inwardly cringed.

“Us common folk don’t care about the Earth, except our place on it.” I defended myself.

“Is that so?” He turned back to his desk and started shuffling and stacking. “There is quite a knowledge, a sense of dignity of things that are recorded in simple speech. To own a book of such words, there is great comfort in opening it at a random page and reading the lines, impartial in every matter it touches upon. Don’t you think so?”

He talked in a muffled manner again, mumbling his words to the air in front of him, and I had to strain to hear him. “Yes.” I said cautiously. Mr. Manson turned and walked over to me in his funny way, then handed back the opened telegram-paper to me.

“I have no reply.”

He walked away, arms straight at his sides, deeper into his gloomy house.


His reply was long, and I had to dictate it twice to the typists. They didn’t complain, he had provided an extra two pence each for their hard work. One of them remarked on my excellent memory- the material I memorized must have been a whole sheaf of paper! 2