Shared Voices
by Zary Fekete
“Profits are up!” Mr. Levai said. He surveyed the sales floor staff with a smile. “Good work. There’s more to do, of course, but I am very pleased with this quarter.”
I glanced along the row of desks where my colleagues sat. Everybody had the bored attentive expression of office workers. Since I started working at Voice Capture last year, the profits for the company had grown every month. I remembered Mr. Levai’s words when he hired me last year, Language will always command a good price. He was right.
“Now is the time to concentrate your efforts.” Mr. Levai glanced at the sales projections on the screen behind him. “As you can see there is still a huge demand for the smaller languages.” He ticked through several additional slides in his presentation, and soon we were staring at the final slide which showed which languages would bring in the highest profit. Among them were the usual suspects: Bulgarian, Albanian, and the prize of the bunch, Hungarian.
“Before you return to work I’d like you all to watch this video which our advertisers put together. It will give you a sense of how to calibrate your sales strategy.” Mr. Levai moved to the side and the video began. I had seen most of the images already. The sales videos didn’t change much. The images were sometimes swapped out for fresher ones, but the gist of it was always the same.
The video showed people from different countries. Some were aid workers helping after a hurricane. Some were traders meeting on the floor of a stock exchange. Many were doctors and nurses in hospital rooms. The routine was always the same. The people in the video would start talking to each other, then give embarrassed smiles of understanding, and then flick through their memory banks until they found the chosen language. And then they were talking.
The video concluded with some of the phrases Voice Capture was most known for. “Software cannot translate the human spirit. Real connections require real voices.”
After the video ended Mr. Levai stood before us again with another winning smile. “There you have it,” he said. “I’m expecting big things! Great things from this division.” He left the sales floor and we all went back to our computers.
My father crept into the kitchen while I was putting the milk away. He moved so slowly I didn’t hear him. I turned and quickly moved to his side.
“Stop doing that!” I said. I took his arm and slowly helped him turn back around. We headed back to the living room window where his chair was.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing to it.”
“Not true, and you know that. What did Dr. Greiner say?”
My father waved his hand at me and looked out the window. “What does she know?” he said. “Isn’t she Austrian?”
I chuckled. “What does that have to do with anything?” I said.
“Their physique is different over there. Who knows whether she’s telling me things that don’t apply to me. Besides,” he said. “I don’t like jobs being taken by foreigners.”
Usually I let his words drift past me, but this time I was angered. “Stop it,” I said. “Do you know how many Hungarian workers from the company were just transferred to the England branch?” I gestured out the window. “It’s normal now. People live and work wherever they want. Why do you think so many people want to buy voices?”
“Why do you still work there?” My father’s voice settled into his familiar pattern of ridicule which usually happened when I brought up my job. “That’s not how it should be. Didn’t used to be like that. People buying and selling their heritage.”
“Stop it,” I said. “That job is paying for your care, remember.”
He grumbled and lapsed into silence.
Mr. Levai clapped his hands. This was odd, I thought. Twice in two days. I looked up from my screen and settled in for another round of self-promotion.
But this was different.
He turned to the screen behind him and I saw several new line items. My attention perked up. When the company introduced new pricing structures, it often presented a chance for advancement or at least for bonuses.
“This is the latest from New York,” Mr. Levai said. “They’re calling it ‘Dialect choice’.”
“What is it?” someone asked.
Mr. Levai gestured to the screen and a new promotional video started to play. The narrator’s voice was personable and soothing.
The latest twist in Voice Capture, authentic dialect reproduction.
The screen showed an image of the earth revolving in space. The narrator continued.
With more than 6500 languages, the opportunity for growth is already sky-high, but our latest technology has provided an unexpected sales breakthrough.
The camera zoomed in on the rotating globe and centered in on the coast of Greece. Soon images of refugee camps filled the screen. People arrived in droves and were met by United Nations helpers. There were rows and rows of desks with doctors and nurses running this way and that. The refugee families were helped from one location to another. The narrator’s voice gave way to a cacophony of different voices and languages, all being spoken at once.
The narrator continued, Psychiatrists and human rights experts confirm that when someone hears words spoken in their heart language they respond from the heart. This is compounded when the voice is pitched to reflected their specific dialect or accent. It is one thing to hear Mandarin. It is quite different to hear the Fujian dialect.
The screen now showed an orphanage in China. A care-worker spoke to the baby in her arms and the tiny face broke into a shining smile.
Voice Capture is rolling out a new, premiere package, priced to reflect the market standard for luxury items. We believe we can expect governments worldwide to seek out our services for a number of different career needs. Diplomats, aid workers, refugee care, and so on.
The camera zoomed out and showed the revolving earth again with the Voice Capture logo.
Real connections…real voices.
When came home I heard my father in his bedroom. After putting away a few groceries I wandered in and found him surrounded by letters and photo albums.
“What’s all this?” I said.
“It’s Mrs. Bocskai from next door.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the front door. “Her daughter needed something for a high-school presentation. Photographs and newspaper clippings.” He twisted his mouth into a cynical smile. “Something old she said. They are covering the twentieth century.”
I sat down next him on his bed and picked up a few of the faded photographs. I smiled in spite of myself.
“Who’s this?” I said, holding one up.
He peered at it through his bifocals. “That is me and your mother. Before you were born.”
I looked at the couple in the photo. They looked impossibly young. The smile on my father’s face was unlike anything I saw in him recently.
I held it before him and pointed at his younger visage. “What happened to him?” I said. “What happened to this eager young man?”
He waved me away. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He dropped the photograph and continued rummaging in the box. Finally, he piled the photos back into an uneasy stack. “Give this to Mrs. Bocskai, will you?” he said. “I’m going to turn in early.”
I picked up the box and closed his bedroom door. A moment later and I could hear his record player click on, and the familiar sounds of Transylvanian gypsy music drifted through the thin wall. He was very proud of his record collection and wouldn’t hear of it when I told him all of those songs could be accessed easily now online.
I carried the box across the hall and knocked on our neighbor’s door. A moment later and Mrs. Bocskai opened it with a smile.
“Well, that is quite a haul,” she said, looking at the overflowing photo box. “My daughter will be overjoyed. She’s preparing a presentation on the twentieth century for class and needed visual aids.”
“I hope it’s helpful,” I said.
Mrs. Bocskai’s face grew solemn. “There’s not much time left, is there?”
I shook my head.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Do you have gypsy music? He is very nostalgic.”
Mrs. Bocskai had a dreamy look on her face. “Oh, I can imagine what the music from there must have been like long ago. What was their dialect like? Don’t you know about these things with your work?”
“Completely unique,” I said. “Very few people speak it anymore.”
I went back to the apartment. I could hear the needle from the record player scratching at the end of the groove. Quietly I went into my father’s bedroom and put away the record. I stood at the foot of his bed and watched him for a moment. He was very thin. His breath raised and lowered his bony chest under the blanket.
After a long moment I left his room and shut the door.
I sat at my desk for a moment and then wearily punched in the first number from one of my old sheets. The phone rang on the other end for a few moments and then a middle-aged woman’s voice answered.
“Yes?”
I cleared my throat for the standard call. “Hello, ma’am! I’m calling you from Voice Capture. I understand you contacted us last year with an interest in selling a…” I paused while I searched my notes. “…a lower Szeged dialect? From southern Hungary. Is that right, ma’am?”
I could hear her exasperation on the other end of the line. “How many times do I need to tell you people?” she said. “No! We’re not interested.”
“But, ma’am,” I said, losing hope. “What if I told you we had a change in price structure. That particular accent is going for the highest price yet.”
There was a pause on the other end. “How much?” she said.
I checked my screen. “Six million euro,” I said. “And that’s with a guarantee of installation and life-long maintenance of our company’s vocal stereo box in the donor’s throat.”
Another pause. “Is the process reversible?” she asked.
I paused, hoping for a breakthrough but knowing this would be the lynchpin. “No,” I said. “The donor will permanently lose their native voice, but that is precisely why our company has done the kind of breakthrough work on the voice boxes in the past year. We want our customers to feel happy with their sale and content with their continued ability to communicate verbally.”
“No, thank you,” she said. “And please don’t call again.” There was a click and the line went dead.
I made it through a few dozen more attempts before quitting time. Nobody was selling. It made sense to me. Very few people wanted to donate their voice, even for a high price. The very fact that our branch of Voice Capture was so successful was due our location in Budapest.
It was mostly because of Hungarian. Hungarian was one of the harder languages to learn. We were given current learning estimates at the start of every month. Some languages had become easier to learn as the world became more connected; languages like English and Mandarin. But some were still difficult and Hungarian just about topped the list. The only languages which routinely beat Hungarian in difficulty level were Basque and Diné (Navajo), but those were not usually needed for international work. Hungarian was still highly in demand.
Before I turned off my computer I pulled up the company spreadsheet again. I glanced through the sales numbers for the day. A few people had made real numbers, but mostly it was a slow start.
I punched a couple of numbers and my stats appeared on my screen. I scrolled down the bottom and saw my sales figure. I blinked. That couldn’t be right. I refreshed the program, but the number on the last line didn’t change. It indicated a sale from today for…ten million euro.
I frowned. It must be a mix-up. I clicked through to the point-of-sale. My jaw dropped. No. No.
I grabbed my cell phone and punched the number. It rang several times with no answer. Of course, there was no answer. There was no voice to speak. I cancelled the call to my father and ran home.
Dr. Greiner smiled at me with a look of sympathy. “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “He was a lovely man.”
I looked at her. “No, he wasn’t,” I said. “You can be honest. I’m sure you took plenty of grief from him.”
She chuckled. “It’s true, perhaps,” she said. “He didn’t like that I am from Austria.”
“He didn’t like anybody,” I said.
“He liked you,” she said. “Every checkup I had with him he went on and on about how his son was working for an international company. Making real money.”
I looked down at my lap. “He never said those things to me.”
“That reminds me,” she said. “I understand you’ve been promoted. Something about best sales of the year? Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And, of course, that is thanks to…” I didn’t finish the sentence.
She nodded. “It was certainly a magnificent gift from a father to a son,” she said. “And that was just before he died, right?”
“The same day,” I said. “I arrived home and found him on his bed.” I looked up at the ceiling. “I wish I could have said goodbye.”
The plane was pulling back from the terminal.
He reread the email:
No need to thank me, Mr. Dobos. I understand it is not protocol for Voice Capture to reach out to recent customers. In your case, however, I believe I understand why you requested this voice recording. I can sincerely you tell you it was a pleasure to make it. Enjoy it.
I leaned back in the chair and reflected on how quickly everything had happened during the past week. Mr. Levai’s words were still echoing in my head from the phone call in the terminal. I’m expecting great things from you, Gyula. This conference we’re sending you to in New York will prepare you for upper level management. You’ll return a new man. Congratulations.
I pulled out my phone again and scrolled to the voice recordings. I selected the one from the top of the list. It pulled up the donor’s profile.
Nicholas Adams, UN relief worker. Location: Transylvania. Aiding the war relief efforts for displaced Roma citizens.
I clicked the play button. I leaned back and listened to Nicholas Adams’ new voice. But the voice I heard was the familiar gravely voice of my father, saying in my ears for the first time, “Gyula, I am very proud of you.”
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Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete
