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Alek asked the woman standing beside his bed, “Why can't he hear me?”
“He can hear you, but you’re speaking Bulgarian. I’m Dr. Modorovic, your neurosurgeon.”
Now that she said they were speaking Bulgarian, it was all he could hear. He hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in more than ten years. He didn’t even like to think in Bulgarian.
The doctor, whose name he’d immediately forgotten, looked to be in her late fifties. She was petite, tan with age spots under her eyes, and had long, black hair, peppered judiciously with strands of silver.
“You don’t sound Bulgarian,” Alek said.
“I’m not. I’m from Croatia, but have family in Macedonia.”
That made sense. Most of the Balkan countries shared each other's languages as much as their borders and Macedonian and Bulgarian were nearly interchangeable.
“You fell from the window on the third story of your house and hit your head when you landed. I performed surgery to evacuate the blood in your brain.”
“How did you reach?” Alek asked.
“I cut through your skull, but don’t worry, I’ve put it back together again.”
“No. Is there a step stool you use? I can’t imagine it’s easy for you to see.” He’d be shocked if she was taller than five feet.
Her laugh was loud and unselfconscious.
Alek wasn’t making a joke. He was genuinely curious.
The doctor asked, “Can you try to say something in English?”
“Is this English?”
“No.”
He focused intently, trying to visualize the English words in his mind, but it was like they were obscured behind a haze of fog. “What about this?”
“Afraid not.”
“Fuck.”
“With time, it may come back.” She paused, then asked, “Can you close your eyes?”
He closed them.
“That was English,” she said.
He opened his eyes. “No shit.”
She flashed a penlight into his eyes. “You’re going to be fun to look after. Most of my patients are intimidated by the idea of speaking to a brain surgeon.” The doctor turned to Ian, and in English, said, “Sorry about that. It’s hard for me to switch between languages when interpreting. It appears that Mr. Katin can understand English, but cannot speak it.”
Why wouldn’t Ian look at him? Maybe he was only there out of obligation because Alek had listed him as his emergency contact.
“Do you mind if I sit?” The doctor dragged another chair over before either of them answered. “I’ve been on my feet for,” she checked her watch, “seven hours now.” She plunked down into the chair and slumped forward with appallingly poor posture for a medical professional.
“I don’t understand,” Ian said. “He can’t speak English?”
“No, or at least, not right now, anyway. Without going too far into neurophysiology, most of our skills—speech, language, walking, and so on—arise from different areas in the brain. It’s very common for someone with a brain injury to lose one ability while the others remain intact. Your partner’s hematoma was near the communication center of the brain and it seems he’s lost the ability to speak English while retaining the ability to understand it. I’m assuming you learned Bulgarian first?”
“Yes,” Alek answered quickly, his mind very much distracted by her choice of words.Your partner?
“Then Bulgarian is likely more cemented in your brain, so not as easily lost.”
