[ Unusually for him and his overactive sense of scientific curiosity, he hasn't really given that much thought to this beyond the assumption that it's the city's doing in the same way that the aphrodisiacs and the steady stream of new arrivals are. ]
Well, it sounded like English after a moment. Like...news interviews where there's an interpreter dubbed over the person speaking, but you can still hear their voice in the background. I wouldn't have been able to otherwise; I've never been to Switzerland in my life.
( she frowns, slipping out one of her hands and holding it up in case he was going to repeat it because it was an instinctual confusion, adrienne not needing to hear him say it again just needing to try and get her head around it.
that was the harder part, her brain really not certain how to process the fact that somehow they were dubbed and autotranslated? )
Say something. Not in English.
( because from that last curse, sir, she knows you have another language in there )
[ He raises his eyebrows, but something about the command is just...amusing to him, and there's something refreshing besides about being able to experiment and pick apart some aspect of Duplicity's weirdness that isn't actually traumatizing or harmful. It's nice to have a little mystery to investigate again, even if it's a very minor one.
He considers what to say, realizes he's probably overthinking it, and just switches over to speaking Tamil after taking a moment to get into the proper mindset. ]
Before I got here, I hadn't been back home to Chennai in months. Nobody's given me a reason to speak Tamil unless I wanted to stop my flatmate listening in when I was talking to my mum on the phone. Honestly, I've missed it.
( she hears his words, hears that other tongue before somehow understanding them. it feels more in her head the dub than verbally aloud but she knows what he means.
and it makes her sit up, pulling away from him in a way that she really doesn't mean to because she's not pulling away from him she's just surprised and not quite handling it well.
the curse that falls from her lips doesn't translate-- doesn't exactly translate which makes him hear a very literal translation that really loses the meaning of what she means, hand resting in front of her mouth for a minute )
That-- is very weird. That it's in my head and not like... ( she pauses, taking a breath with her eyes closed for a minute before looking back down at him ) Keep going.
( she keeps with the steadier breaths for a minute, trying to focus on the story he's telling her rather than the weirdness happening. but when he speaks again she does settle back down next to him, enjoying those little glimpses of words that she doesn't understand and the ease he has with them, that comfort of speaking his language she knows exists. because she has no one to speak german with anymore )
[ It does startle him for a moment when she sits up, and for a split second he wonders what he's done, but--it makes some sense, consistent as it is with the way he's seen her react at the mention of magic before. And as loath as he usually is to attribute anything to magic when he'd rather explain it with science, all of this weirdness is almost certainly magic.
The literally-translated idiom is fascinating in its implications, if he thinks about those for more than a second. But he isn't thinking of them yet. He props himself up on his elbows and watches her with faint concern, but as she relaxes again, he lies back down to focus on the ceiling. ]
It makes sense, I suppose. We didn't notice it before when we were speaking English with each other, and I'm fairly sure that's what nearly everyone else I've met here defaults to.
But people keep telling me to broaden my horizons and sleep with all the aliens and mythical beings that are apparently hanging out around every corner in this place, and I don't know how we could be expected to understand each other if the city wasn't translating.
I guess I now know how they knew what I'd said to you.
( if their speech was being auto-translated when no technology was on their person to do it then clearly it would be easy for their conversations to be listened to.
her hands slip back under her head and the more that he speaks the more relaxed she feels, barely batting an eye at the translation and looking a lot calmer again )
So much for any kind of privacy... and our only miscommunication is of our own.
( though she means a much broader our than their own. even if they've done that before )
It's been years since I've spoken German or been to Switzerland. I like that I can with you.
( intentionally as well as unintentionally. she could with others in the city also, she could likely speak german permanently with this city weirdness but to her that would feel weird itself. socially, she was used to speaking english to be understood, that habit wouldn't change now )
[ He's always found it easier to be profane in Tamil, more expressive, but that theory is distressing and plausible enough that he'd probably have been just as emphatic in English. He'd already been upset on her behalf that the city would take her private words and publish them mockingly like an ad, and being able to imagine the how of it now doesn't help.
But it's true, still, that there are benefits along with the dystopian drawbacks. He looks over at her, managing a smile again. ]
I hadn't even known you were from Switzerland. Or are you? How long did you live there?
[ He's switched back to English, for similar reasons--it's simply what he's used to speaking, especially this past year, and he doesn't have to think about the way idioms will be translated or rely on what the city decides to make of his wording. But he's still happy to hear her speak German, and happier still to know that he can help alleviate her homesickness in a way. ]
( she nearly did at two points in her life: once after her parents died, the second time after becoming pregnant. but changing her life that dramatically on either occasion didn't feel the right choice even having family there )
I'm Swiss through my mom. We'd visit my grandparents twice a year so it was always a home but never home.
( she'd never lived there but there was always a home there for her. she loved the country, loved every time she'd been there and stayed, had made sure her daughter knew it. but it wasn't the same to make her homesick )
That's what I'd thought, I mean, from your accent. But I know how that goes.
[ He rolls onto his side and curls up, easy and relaxed again. It surprises him a little just how comfortable he can feel in her bed, when he lets himself. ]
Is that how you learned the language so well, from your mum?
[ He knows what it's like to be raised bilingual in that way; it's why he's always thought of Tamil as his mother tongue in a more literal sense than metaphorical. ]
( she nods slowly, a slightly cheekier smile on her now )
One parent one language.
( how's the accent now? she'd picked up her mother's sound of sankt gallen in learning german from her, the only accent she'd ever known german in. american sounding otherwise until her language changed )
My mother spoke German with me, my father English, even as a teenager. Though apparently there was a time I refused to speak anything but German.
( she didn't remember it, adrienne young at that point and too much time having passed since )
[ It makes him laugh, though, picturing it and finding the image endearing no matter how old she'd been. There's something very cute about the notion of Adrienne as a small stubborn child. ]
All right. Say I ever got to go to Switzerland someday. What do you recommend for the first-timers? I'm not sold on the idea of skiing, but I'd try anything else.
( she laughs at the comment of her at school and he's certainly not wrong, though she'd known english enough to understand what was happening even if she refused to speak. something that hadn't lasted at least.
there's a thoughtful hum at his question )
I always loved the Christmas markets. The canton my mother was from always seemed to come alive in a very different way.
( she saw them a lot given that christmas was one of the times she often spent in switzerland )
You'll also just have to accept that our chocolate is better. ( she says it with a full seriousness. she is teasing, everyone has their preference, but she's still stating fact ) It's a very serious thing.
I would never impugn the honor of Swiss chocolate. I know better than that.
[ Equally solemn, because chocolate is serious and weighty business and these are, indeed, facts. He might not be a particular fan of cold winter weather, but the idea of sipping the world's best hot chocolate while watching snow fall on a Christmas market in Switzerland is pretty damn enchanting, and he drifts pleasantly for a moment as he pictures it. ]
I always thought it'd be nice to take in a lecture at the University of Geneva. I suppose that's probably not what most people would want to plan a vacation around, but it would be fun.
Well, if they ever let us out of here, and I ever have the kind of job again that lets me take vacations, then Sankt Gallen will be at the top of my list to visit.
[ It would have seemed too forward, too intimate in a way he's afraid of putting out there, to say that he would want her to come with him and show him all of these things about her little slice of home--but it would always have to be a hypothetical anyway, he realizes, because they don't come from the same world.
It should have occurred to him sooner, when she's one of the only people he'd wanted to say goodbye to when they thought they'd be freed, but...well. No sense in dwelling. He does, though, reach gently over to skim a hand down her side, wanting to be touching her again. ]
( she leans into that touch, the softest brush of her lips against his and there's perhaps a slight contrast between how she's touching him and what she says. they're both forms of intimacy but both a little different )
[ He gives a quiet little hum of contentment as she kisses him, glad for both of those kinds of intimacy. ]
God, it's been almost a year since I last saw it. I kept trying to go back, you know, before I wound up here, but something would always happen to keep me in New York for another few months and I'd never get around to it.
I miss the weather. Nice, warm, tropical weather. And the food. At least back in Brooklyn I had a good Indian grocery a few blocks away, so I could cook whatever I wanted when I didn't have to feed a picky white guy and a ten-year-old at the same time, but you try finding decent urad dal in Duplicity.
[ This gets a sympathetic murmur, because he's dealt with Cairo heatwave temperatures as well, and he will not mention that Chennai is generally even hotter and would probably agree with her even less.
But he appreciates heat, in both weather and food, and is eager to explain, holding back a smile at her pronunciation. ]
It's a kind of lentil. You can use it for all sorts of things, but if you really want to get South Indian cooking right, you grind it up with rice and ferment it to make batter. And then you can use the batter for idli, these soft fluffy cakes that soak up sauce really well, or dosas, which are a bit like crepes, or paniyaram, which are...dumplings, I guess.
It's sort of my ongoing project here, finding things I can substitute to get as close as I can. I think it's going pretty well, actually.
If you ever want a-- ( she pauses, the word she wants on the tip of her tongue but she can't think of it ) taster I would love to see what you can make.
( she doesn't offer the same in return though that's only because adrienne hasn't been cooking for herself here, typically didn't in new york. she can cook, her mother made certain of that but she didn't enjoy it. with the exception of other people's reactions )
You cooked a lot at home? You mentioned other people.
( a child. she's more gently asking, a little more hesitantly because it can be a more difficult topic to talk about especially if you miss someone )
Oh, I'm cooking you dinner sometime. You can't escape it.
[ He wants to say "you're not getting away without breakfast," but even if they were in his apartment and not hers (and her mysterious dominant's), he'd worry it would be too presumptuous. But dinner, he can promise.
Her instincts are good here, better than his own, because he does deflate just a little at the thought of Matt and Molly--but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk about it. ]
And things have changed a bit back home since I was cooking for three, but yes. My little girl, Molly...she always liked my dosas and peanut chutney.
[ He smiles fondly, thinking of her. He's never sure what to call her when he talks about her, really, but he can never bring himself to say anything quite so impersonal as "my ward." ]
Of course, now that she lives with my mother, she gets the original recipe, so she probably won't even want mine anymore once I see her again.
( she's smiling more at this even if her face is pressed a little more into her pillow. she hadn't thought about this side of him, hadn't considered whether he was a parent but hearing that warmth and love from him--
it's making her very carefully consider her response, a pause from her before she does speak )
I would never have told my grandmother this but there were some things of my mother's that I preferred even if the recipe was... imperfect.
( the ingredients not always quite correct or the recipe a little off compared to her grandmother's original one. but it was her taste of home )
[ He doesn't want to think of time passing back home while they're stuck in this godforsaken city, but even if that's not the case, she'll be celebrating her birthday without him or Matt around. At least he knows his mother can be counted on to remember it and stuff her full of kulfi and gulab jamun. ]
But you know, you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way. And I would Americanize it for her a little, tone down the spice and all...not that I really needed to.
[ His smile is proud now, thinking back on how she'd always handled the heat in his cooking with aplomb and sassed Matt about it besides. ]
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[ Unusually for him and his overactive sense of scientific curiosity, he hasn't really given that much thought to this beyond the assumption that it's the city's doing in the same way that the aphrodisiacs and the steady stream of new arrivals are. ]
Well, it sounded like English after a moment. Like...news interviews where there's an interpreter dubbed over the person speaking, but you can still hear their voice in the background. I wouldn't have been able to otherwise; I've never been to Switzerland in my life.
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( she frowns, slipping out one of her hands and holding it up in case he was going to repeat it because it was an instinctual confusion, adrienne not needing to hear him say it again just needing to try and get her head around it.
that was the harder part, her brain really not certain how to process the fact that somehow they were dubbed and autotranslated? )
Say something. Not in English.
( because from that last curse, sir, she knows you have another language in there )
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[ He raises his eyebrows, but something about the command is just...amusing to him, and there's something refreshing besides about being able to experiment and pick apart some aspect of Duplicity's weirdness that isn't actually traumatizing or harmful. It's nice to have a little mystery to investigate again, even if it's a very minor one.
He considers what to say, realizes he's probably overthinking it, and just switches over to speaking Tamil after taking a moment to get into the proper mindset. ]
Before I got here, I hadn't been back home to Chennai in months. Nobody's given me a reason to speak Tamil unless I wanted to stop my flatmate listening in when I was talking to my mum on the phone. Honestly, I've missed it.
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and it makes her sit up, pulling away from him in a way that she really doesn't mean to because she's not pulling away from him she's just surprised and not quite handling it well.
the curse that falls from her lips doesn't translate-- doesn't exactly translate which makes him hear a very literal translation that really loses the meaning of what she means, hand resting in front of her mouth for a minute )
That-- is very weird. That it's in my head and not like... ( she pauses, taking a breath with her eyes closed for a minute before looking back down at him ) Keep going.
( she keeps with the steadier breaths for a minute, trying to focus on the story he's telling her rather than the weirdness happening. but when he speaks again she does settle back down next to him, enjoying those little glimpses of words that she doesn't understand and the ease he has with them, that comfort of speaking his language she knows exists. because she has no one to speak german with anymore )
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The literally-translated idiom is fascinating in its implications, if he thinks about those for more than a second. But he isn't thinking of them yet. He props himself up on his elbows and watches her with faint concern, but as she relaxes again, he lies back down to focus on the ceiling. ]
It makes sense, I suppose. We didn't notice it before when we were speaking English with each other, and I'm fairly sure that's what nearly everyone else I've met here defaults to.
But people keep telling me to broaden my horizons and sleep with all the aliens and mythical beings that are apparently hanging out around every corner in this place, and I don't know how we could be expected to understand each other if the city wasn't translating.
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( if their speech was being auto-translated when no technology was on their person to do it then clearly it would be easy for their conversations to be listened to.
her hands slip back under her head and the more that he speaks the more relaxed she feels, barely batting an eye at the translation and looking a lot calmer again )
So much for any kind of privacy... and our only miscommunication is of our own.
( though she means a much broader our than their own. even if they've done that before )
It's been years since I've spoken German or been to Switzerland. I like that I can with you.
( intentionally as well as unintentionally. she could with others in the city also, she could likely speak german permanently with this city weirdness but to her that would feel weird itself. socially, she was used to speaking english to be understood, that habit wouldn't change now )
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[ He's always found it easier to be profane in Tamil, more expressive, but that theory is distressing and plausible enough that he'd probably have been just as emphatic in English. He'd already been upset on her behalf that the city would take her private words and publish them mockingly like an ad, and being able to imagine the how of it now doesn't help.
But it's true, still, that there are benefits along with the dystopian drawbacks. He looks over at her, managing a smile again. ]
I hadn't even known you were from Switzerland. Or are you? How long did you live there?
[ He's switched back to English, for similar reasons--it's simply what he's used to speaking, especially this past year, and he doesn't have to think about the way idioms will be translated or rely on what the city decides to make of his wording. But he's still happy to hear her speak German, and happier still to know that he can help alleviate her homesickness in a way. ]
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( she nearly did at two points in her life: once after her parents died, the second time after becoming pregnant. but changing her life that dramatically on either occasion didn't feel the right choice even having family there )
I'm Swiss through my mom. We'd visit my grandparents twice a year so it was always a home but never home.
( she'd never lived there but there was always a home there for her. she loved the country, loved every time she'd been there and stayed, had made sure her daughter knew it. but it wasn't the same to make her homesick )
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[ He rolls onto his side and curls up, easy and relaxed again. It surprises him a little just how comfortable he can feel in her bed, when he lets himself. ]
Is that how you learned the language so well, from your mum?
[ He knows what it's like to be raised bilingual in that way; it's why he's always thought of Tamil as his mother tongue in a more literal sense than metaphorical. ]
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One parent one language.
( how's the accent now? she'd picked up her mother's sound of sankt gallen in learning german from her, the only accent she'd ever known german in. american sounding otherwise until her language changed )
My mother spoke German with me, my father English, even as a teenager. Though apparently there was a time I refused to speak anything but German.
( she didn't remember it, adrienne young at that point and too much time having passed since )
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[ It makes him laugh, though, picturing it and finding the image endearing no matter how old she'd been. There's something very cute about the notion of Adrienne as a small stubborn child. ]
All right. Say I ever got to go to Switzerland someday. What do you recommend for the first-timers? I'm not sold on the idea of skiing, but I'd try anything else.
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there's a thoughtful hum at his question )
I always loved the Christmas markets. The canton my mother was from always seemed to come alive in a very different way.
( she saw them a lot given that christmas was one of the times she often spent in switzerland )
You'll also just have to accept that our chocolate is better. ( she says it with a full seriousness. she is teasing, everyone has their preference, but she's still stating fact ) It's a very serious thing.
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[ Equally solemn, because chocolate is serious and weighty business and these are, indeed, facts. He might not be a particular fan of cold winter weather, but the idea of sipping the world's best hot chocolate while watching snow fall on a Christmas market in Switzerland is pretty damn enchanting, and he drifts pleasantly for a moment as he pictures it. ]
I always thought it'd be nice to take in a lecture at the University of Geneva. I suppose that's probably not what most people would want to plan a vacation around, but it would be fun.
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( she smiles before continuing, letting herself dip back into her memory )
That is my little slice of home.
( she doesn't say it but if she could she'd make that trip with him )
You absolutely should take the lecture there.
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[ It would have seemed too forward, too intimate in a way he's afraid of putting out there, to say that he would want her to come with him and show him all of these things about her little slice of home--but it would always have to be a hypothetical anyway, he realizes, because they don't come from the same world.
It should have occurred to him sooner, when she's one of the only people he'd wanted to say goodbye to when they thought they'd be freed, but...well. No sense in dwelling. He does, though, reach gently over to skim a hand down her side, wanting to be touching her again. ]
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Tell me about home. Yours.
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God, it's been almost a year since I last saw it. I kept trying to go back, you know, before I wound up here, but something would always happen to keep me in New York for another few months and I'd never get around to it.
I miss the weather. Nice, warm, tropical weather. And the food. At least back in Brooklyn I had a good Indian grocery a few blocks away, so I could cook whatever I wanted when I didn't have to feed a picky white guy and a ten-year-old at the same time, but you try finding decent urad dal in Duplicity.
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The weather was the part of Cairo that didn't agree with me.
( summers in new york were sometimes unbearable for her nevermind the overwhelming heat of egypt )
So I don't think I'd like tropical. ( she pauses a moment, thinking of what the language hadn't translated ) What's urad dal?
( she said it horribly )
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But he appreciates heat, in both weather and food, and is eager to explain, holding back a smile at her pronunciation. ]
It's a kind of lentil. You can use it for all sorts of things, but if you really want to get South Indian cooking right, you grind it up with rice and ferment it to make batter. And then you can use the batter for idli, these soft fluffy cakes that soak up sauce really well, or dosas, which are a bit like crepes, or paniyaram, which are...dumplings, I guess.
It's sort of my ongoing project here, finding things I can substitute to get as close as I can. I think it's going pretty well, actually.
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( she doesn't offer the same in return though that's only because adrienne hasn't been cooking for herself here, typically didn't in new york. she can cook, her mother made certain of that but she didn't enjoy it. with the exception of other people's reactions )
You cooked a lot at home? You mentioned other people.
( a child. she's more gently asking, a little more hesitantly because it can be a more difficult topic to talk about especially if you miss someone )
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[ He wants to say "you're not getting away without breakfast," but even if they were in his apartment and not hers (and her mysterious dominant's), he'd worry it would be too presumptuous. But dinner, he can promise.
Her instincts are good here, better than his own, because he does deflate just a little at the thought of Matt and Molly--but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk about it. ]
And things have changed a bit back home since I was cooking for three, but yes. My little girl, Molly...she always liked my dosas and peanut chutney.
[ He smiles fondly, thinking of her. He's never sure what to call her when he talks about her, really, but he can never bring himself to say anything quite so impersonal as "my ward." ]
Of course, now that she lives with my mother, she gets the original recipe, so she probably won't even want mine anymore once I see her again.
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it's making her very carefully consider her response, a pause from her before she does speak )
I would never have told my grandmother this but there were some things of my mother's that I preferred even if the recipe was... imperfect.
( the ingredients not always quite correct or the recipe a little off compared to her grandmother's original one. but it was her taste of home )
She'll still want your cooking. How old is she?
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[ He doesn't want to think of time passing back home while they're stuck in this godforsaken city, but even if that's not the case, she'll be celebrating her birthday without him or Matt around. At least he knows his mother can be counted on to remember it and stuff her full of kulfi and gulab jamun. ]
But you know, you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way. And I would Americanize it for her a little, tone down the spice and all...not that I really needed to.
[ His smile is proud now, thinking back on how she'd always handled the heat in his cooking with aplomb and sassed Matt about it besides. ]
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Will you Americanise it for me?
( her smile's a little more bashful when she looks at him )
Spice is... not my favourite. I want to enjoy your food though.
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I will. It'll be American as apple pie. I'll keep the chilies to the minimum I can get away with, I promise.
[ There will still be chilies, though. But she has his solemn word that he'll do his best. ]
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