I HAD never been to a radio station before, and I was shocked that it looked so ordinary. Even the offices adjacent to the disc jockeys' booths resembled those government agencies where you got your license or paid your taxes: a row of desks, clicking typewriters, worn-out, obsolete computers in a dirty beige color, a bunch of hardened secretaries, and a gaggle of people shuffling around and waiting in vague lines.
Off to one side, facing a corridor filled with people, were big square glass windows. Those were the disc jockey's booths. From small speakers perched above the windows came the sound of a woman's voice. Presumably that was what was on air at the time. Sure enough, in a corner of one of the windows was a little sign that said "On The Air"--just as I had expected it to be. The woman was weeping while speaking, and from where I stood, in the main office area, I thought I could see the figure of the woman in one of the booths, through the glare of reflections on the window.
The woman was calling for her missing mother. She was 68 years old, about five feet tall, with graying hair, and had worn a dress with blue flowers on the day she disappeared. They had gone to the zoo a week before. They had gone there because it was a Sunday and animals fascinated her. After separating ways with her daughter for a half an hour, the old woman failed to show up at a small rest area, which was their prescribed meeting place. A three-hour wait ended in a search involving a gaggle of security guards. When closing time came--
The woman's voice was interrupted by the deep, booming voice of the announcer. His tone was kind and concerned. I was surprised that it didn't sound tired, or hurried, or irritated, as I would most likely have been. It sounded just like that--exactly like that radio announcer we imagine in our head, a dislocated voice overriding everything, but a kind voice. With enough character so you could talk back to it, regard it, but with a kind of indifference that comes from authority. It sounded as if it came from another world.
The woman then resumed, explaining that her mother had Alzheimer's disease. It was strange hearing the word Alzheimer's within the tones and textures of that voice, because I could tell the woman wasn't used to saying that word, and it sat in the middle of her sentences, perfectly enunciated, like a newly built landmark that divided the past and the present. The term had been taught to her by doctors, experts, but it had surely never arisen between mother and daughter.
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