The Different Girl

time to tell, though now the others could tell it, too, and so they helped. Robbert had questions, just like Irene, but his questions were different, like between a sandwich with mustard and without, or a wet stone and a dry one, or the sounds of night compared to day. Partly this was because Irene had seen all the girl’s things for herself, out in the grass. But even so, Robbert’s questions weren’t about his own thinking—though we could all see that he was thinking—but about the words we used to describe each object, and most especially the pictures.
    When he finished his soup he set the bowl down with enough of a noise that Caroline, who was comparing the boxes in the picture of the dock to the boxes from our supply boat, stopped talking. Robbert wiped his lips on the back of one hand and took off his glasses. He blew on them, held them to the light, and frowned. Whenever he did this, we stared at his face, as if his eyes were naked. I had never seen Robbert naked, or Irene, but I knew what we looked like without our smocks, and whenever I saw Robbert’s unprotected eyes it felt like I was looking at the same uncovering—but even more so, like a crab flipped on its back, showing the seams in the shell where the birds stick their beaks in.
    He put his glasses back and coughed. “The first picture.” He picked it up, so we all faced him in order to see. “Describe it in one word. No repeats. Start with Isobel.”
    The first picture showed the two men on the dock piled with boxes.
    “Dock,” said Isobel.
    “Supplies,” said Caroline.
    “Friends,” said Eleanor.
    I was last, thinking of what hadn’t been said. “Girl.”
    Robbert sniffed high up in his nose and coughed again. “Good. Each of you chose a word for just part of the picture, one that hadn’t been named. Except for Veronika, who described the picture being taken.”
    “Is that allowed to be part of the picture?” asked Eleanor.
    “What do you think?”
    Unlike Irene, Robbert’s questions almost always had a wrong answer. Instead of saying anything, we had learned to wait a moment and then nod.
    “All right,” said Robbert. “Let’s try again, with the next picture. . . .”
    The second photograph showed the line of green across the water, taken from a moving boat.
    “Island,” said Isobel.
    “Ocean,” said Caroline.
    “Wind,” said Eleanor.
    “Boat,” I said.
    “Good,” said Robbert. “Eleanor, why wind?”
    “Because of the moving boat,” said Eleanor. “Because of how cold it looks and since you said only one word.”
    Robbert nodded. He picked up the hard plastic square with the dead screen. He turned it over and, then with both hands, snapped open the back of the square. He blew on the thin piece that had come free and tipped the rest of the square, smiling at the little stream of water that dribbled into his bowl. He set both pieces down.
    “We’ll let it dry. All right. Next picture.” This was the big parrot in a cage.
    “Parrot,” said Isobel.
    “Cage,” said Caroline.
    “Feathers,” said Eleanor.
    “Prison,” I said.
    “Good. Better. Veronika, if you’d been first, would you have said parrot?”
    I nodded.
    “Is that the best word? Is it better than ‘prison’?”
    “It’s more of the picture.”
    “That’s not what I asked. Is it better ? Which would you say first—not then, but now , now that you know both of them?”
    “I would still say ‘cage,’” said Caroline.
    “Good. Why?”
    “Because there’s a cage.”
    “No. That’s wrong.”
    “But there is a cage,” protested Caroline.
    “And that’s the wrong reason. Eleanor. Why would cage be right?”
    “Because the cage is between the camera and the parrot—you see it first.”
    “Wrong.”
    “But you do.”
    “And that isn’t the right reason, either. Isobel?”
    “I think cage is wrong because I already said the best word which is parrot.”
    Robbert smiled. “Almost. Almost, but just exactly wrong. Veronika. If you were alone and had to say one word and the word you said was cage—why would that be right?”
    He looked at me through his glasses, impatient for the answer but also impatient at being with us at all, to be spending time asking questions whose answers he already knew when there was so much other work, so many answers he didn’t know waiting in his building. This was why, while Robbert was never as nice and we much preferred Irene’s company, we always tried harder to please him.
    “Because