Lexicon

Examiner, Volume 144, Edition 12

    . . . the electrode was applied to the brain of a French-Chinese bilingual and the patient asked to count to twenty. He began in French, but when the electrode was applied to his left inferior frontal gyrus, he involuntarily changed to Chinese. When the stimulation was removed, he reverted to French.
    In another case in Dorset last year, a bilingual who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident was left unable to speak English, although she remained fluent in Dutch.
    The results provide further evidence that languages develop in discrete parts of the brain, explaining why bilingual speakers tend not to mix up words from different languages.
    “If your brain is a computer, then bilingual speakers dual-boot,” said Dr. Simone Oakes, of Oxford University’s School of Medicine, referring to a machine with two operating systems installed. “They have multiple modes of operation, but only one can be active at a time.”
    Further research is expected to probe the effects of specific languages on the brain, such as the puzzle of why particular attitudes and beliefs appear more commonly in speakers of one language than another, regardless of cultural factors.

[TWO]
    She caught the train to Blacktown and wandered the streets until she found the Army Disposals store she’d read about the previous day. It was big, almost a warehouse, its aisles packed with quasi- and wannabe-military gear, camo netting hung across the ceiling. She squeezed between bikers and bushies and young men with large, clearly defined chips on large, clearly defined shoulders, occasionally picking up a bottle or knife or pack that seemed interesting. In aisle three, a bearded man in jeans and a light T-shirt approached her and offered assistance.
    “Yes,” Emily said. “I’m looking for a camouflage tarpaulin that can be made into a tent.”
    “Desert or bush?”
    “Desert,” she said, pleased to have skipped the
oh-ho-and-what-do-you-need-that-for
s.
    “We have tarps and we have camo netting. You can throw one over the other.”
    “I want a single product, if there is one.”
    “You’ll be carrying it?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”
    “Then may I recommend a space bag?”
    “What’s that?”
    “A lightweight sleeping bag, foil interior, waterproof canvas exterior. Little mesh part on the face you can open for ventilation without letting in the bugs. Folds up to nothing. Very new. Hard to acquire, as they’re still in service.”
    “How hard?”
    “Two thousand dollars.”
    She nodded. That she could do. “It’s camouflage?”
    “It’s not. But I tell you what, if that’s what you desire, I will sew some camo onto it.”
    “Yes!” she said. “That would be terrific.”
    He led her to a counter and processed her deposit. “Call you in two days. Anything else I can help you with?” He saw her hesitation. “If you’re planning to spend any time in the desert, I hope you have a water system.”
    “Water isn’t a problem. But I have a concern about snakes.”
    “Rightly so.”
    “What can I do to keep them away?”
    “The general idea is to keep away from them.”
    “I have good boots. But . . .” She gestured. “Is there some kind of electronic device that scares them? Like the ones that keep insects out of your house?” The man had begun to look amused, so she guessed no. “Anything?”
    He scratched his beard. “You can watch where you put your feet.”
    “Hmm,” she said.
    “And take a stick,” he said.
    • • •
    So she was not thrilled with the snake situation, but otherwise things were coming together. The space bag was the final piece in the puzzle; with that, she could begin testing. Which was tempting to skip, but she had uncovered some alarming numbers about sweat-related water loss in the desert, and this wasn’t something she wanted to confirm forty miles from the nearest living human being. Nearest
benign
human being, that was, since she was working under the assumption that Broken Hill was surrounded by proles, men and women who worked in bakeries or gas stations or drove trucks or simply stood at key intersections and would, upon seeing her, become very focused and intent and proceed directly to a phone.
    Hence the need for a desert crossing. A few months before, when she’d been coming for Harry, she’d done it on a dirt bike. In retrospect, it seemed wildly risky. But she’d been impatient. She had hurried for him. And it had ended