Summary
"What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence" opens with a mysterious fifty-seven-year-old narrator divulging that he has a friend whose son languishes in an Arizona penitentiary. This friend makes an annual pilgrimage to visit his incarcerated son. He confides to the narrator that the most heart-wrenching moment of each visit is the farewell, knowing he leaves his son behind, ensnared in confinement.
A letter arrives for the narrator from a lawyer, bearing the somber news of this friend's passing—his acquaintance, Donald Williams. Enclosed within the lawyer's communiqué lies a sealed missive from Williams addressed to the narrator. It astonishes the narrator to think that Williams considered him significant enough to be informed of his demise. Although they shared mere acquaintanceship rather than genuine friendship, the narrator feels little emotional upheaval at Williams's passing, accepting it as an inevitable part of life. Yet, his heart aches for the son, whom he learns had no other visitors. In a reflective moment, the narrator speculates whether his sorrow is rooted in his own metaphorical imprisonment, as he withdraws further from human connection.
Driven by a newfound purpose, he pens a request to the lawyer, seeking the son's mailing address. The lawyer's response is curt; they executed Williams's will but possess no knowledge of a son. Undeterred, the narrator embarks on an investigation of Arizona's penal institutions, hoping to uncover the son's whereabouts. He is struck by the multitude of prisons and retirement villages that dot the state, musing whether the art of managing the elderly might share skills with handling inmates. He imagines a legion of computer specialists tirelessly sorting human "traffic," their days consumed with data entry and retrieval.
Curiosity about the son fuels the narrator's quest, coupled with frustration at the system's refusal to relinquish the information he seeks. He notes that should one ever breach the wall of automated responses to reach a human voice, it often greets them with hostility, insinuating the caller's culpability.
At last, the narrator locates the son and extends his condolences on the father's demise. The son's reply is terse, revealing he knew nothing of his father until receiving the narrator's note. This revelation leaves the narrator pondering whether it is a case of mistaken identity or if deceit, or perhaps delusion, clouds the truth.
Seeking clarity, he visits the lawyer's office and engages with Suh Jung, a young paralegal of Asian descent with a strikingly blunt haircut. Her decision to shear her long locks followed her authoritarian father's suicide—an act of defiance against his edict forbidding her to cut her hair. Suh Jung corroborates the absence of any records of the son in her office but offers her aid in the narrator's pursuit. The narrator, intrigued, flirts with Suh Jung and secures her phone number. Despite now possessing the information necessary to visit the son, he postpones the encounter, entangled in a burgeoning romance with Suh Jung. This new connection emboldens him to shed his customary reticence, indulging in intimate moments like bathing her and sharing marijuana. He fantasizes about a scenario where Suh Jung might be more suitably paired with the son, closer in age to her.
One day, as he travels by bus, the narrator recoils from a seat stained with fresh blood. His thoughts drift to an exhibition of works by Swiss creator Alberto Giacometti, who believed art "always failed" by "lying," much like human perception. The notion that no one glimpses the world as it truly is resonates deeply. Unable to recall his deceased friend's face, he attempts to reconstruct it, gazing at his reflection in...
(This entire section contains 1006 words.)
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a mirror. Research crosses his mind, claiming most people misperceive their surroundings. Gazing into the glass, he is startled by his own battered visage and concludes he prefers oblivion to such disquieting truths.
To navigate the labyrinthine prison bureaucracy, the son suggests the narrator claim parental ties on the visitation form. As he awaits the green light from the prison authorities, anxiety gnaws at him, fearing exposure of his fib. Comfort arrives with the realization that believing oneself a father, true or not, bears no criminal weight. With Suh Jung's assistance, he delves deeper into the son's history, uncovering that the son committed "the worst kinds of things," crimes so grave that the state, unable to execute him, will ensure his perpetual captivity. Suh Jung advises caution about the visit, yet the narrator muses that all harbor sins, and sometimes innocence or guilt matters little in determining who lives behind bars.
The Prison Visit
The narrator reaches the prison, two days tardy, and endures a wait as the authorities verify his credentials. He overhears guards chuckling over the casual shooting of a coyote that dared to scavenge near the prison's fence. Imagining the guard's frustration vented upon the unsuspecting creature, the narrator contemplates the harsh realities of life within and without the prison's confines.
Through the Gauntlet of Security
The narrator embarks on a journey through a labyrinth of security, passing under the vigilant gaze of a metal detector before navigating a sequence of locked portals. Each movement scrutinized by unblinking, mechanical sentinels, he proceeds with an awareness of his every action being recorded.
Under a Relentless Sun
Confined in an open-air cage woven with wire, he endures the searing heat of the sun. With rising ire simmering beneath the surface, he stands ensnared, while the prison staff methodically shuffle papers and tap away at a computer console, seemingly indifferent to his plight.
A Futile Endeavor
Anxiety gnaws at his thoughts, the fear of eternal captivity looming large, coercing him into confessing imagined transgressions. Just as despair begins to take root, a member of the staff approaches, announcing with a detached efficiency that his visit is annulled. The cold logic of the computer states firmly that the inmate he seeks is not housed within these walls.
The tale concludes with the narrator, instructed to return on an unspecified future day, stepping aside as the next hopeful visitor takes his place in the relentless queue.
