Fury by Koren Zailckas Page A

reading that pegs me far better than the English “angry.” The word comes from Ifaluk—the language of an atoll by the same name located all the way in Micronesia. I spot it in the writings of Catherine Lutz, an anthropologist who lived for a year on the island of only 430 inhabitants. The word is song .
    Fitting, maybe, because a musician first stirred the feeling in me. Ironic, perhaps, because—even as my ability to pay attention to books is slowly beginning to return to me—music still grates against some vulnerable, pathetic, pink part of my soul. Every note feels like a provocation. Every song, be it a ballad or banger, feels like a backhanded slap. I’d once heard Tom Wolfe say that music is the only art form that cuts straight to our central nervous systems, without our brain’s input. It’s possible that music stirs up feelings my brain would rather explain away. Maybe that’s why I’ve begun to shy away from records and avoid the radio, moving around in a dense aura of silence.
    In Ifaluk song means the kind of “righteous indignation” or “justifiable anger” caused by a breach of social rules. The island’s inhabitants don’t just approve of the emotion on a moral level, they also see it as a social duty: a person is doing a disservice to both the offender and her community if she sits by and tacitly does nothing while someone behaves like an antisocial brute.
    Linguists say song is less aggressive than anger and less likely to spur an offensive attack. A person who feels song might gently mock or reprimand her transgressor, but she also withdraws, refuses to eat, and mopes around like a graying ape. According to Anna Wierzbicka, the violence caused by song is “directed toward oneself rather than toward the guilty person.”
    Even though a person in song turns her fury inward, she still intends it to have an outward effect. The goal is to clue the offending person in to his no-no and prompt him to see its consequences. Very often, people in song go as far as attempting suicide to prove their point. For that reason, the normal Ifaluk reaction to song is metagu —or remorse mingled with concern about the self-harm the angry ninny might do.
    At my parents’ house, my behavior has song written all over it. It’s real and spreading through me like a slow rot. Forget about time “healing all wounds”; each new day only finds me gaunter, redder in the eyes, and far more likely to drool in public.
    But, beneath my gloom, I quietly believe my struggle is noble. I have a childlike (and certainly childish) belief that it can somehow influence the Lark, even if he isn’t there to witness it. I’m not proud to admit this, but at my most despairing moments I envision my love groveling for forgiveness like a thief at a cross. When I refuse a meal, it’s with a flash of loathing. When I light a cigarette, it’s with a hot twitch of malice. Whenever I take a stab at conversation, I often realize I am speaking to and for the Lark’s benefit, almost as though he is standing on the sidelines listening and, I hope, assuming the blame.

    I’m not the only one in my family with a distinct talent for song .
    My father, at least when it comes to his frustrations with me, also relies on shows of dejection. That’s not to say that my old man doesn’t get angry with me, only that he thinks I’m too fragile to cope with what he’s convinced is his torrential temper.
    I know when I’ve pissed the man off. Those are the instances when he seems to wrestle the cork from a wine bottle early. I might hear him vent his frustrations with me in whispered shouts at my mother. He collapses in front of his bedroom’s TV, swaddled in a mien of wounded sensitivity. How boyish he always seems to me then. He’ll lie with his head cradled in the crook of his elbow. His hair is gently cowlicked. The violet reflection