The Cerebral Catalyst

When I went to bed Sunday night, everything was wunderbar. But when I awoke Monday morning, it seemed as if something had come undone. It began when the girl at the coffee shop greeted me with a sleepy Guten Morgen. I was a little taken aback; German is a tongue not often heard in north Texas. And, I confess, the year I spent as a B-student of introductory German had left me, years later, with little more knowledge of the German language than the average American absorbs from pop culture. But I decided to play along, indulging what I assumed to be a harmless eccentricity or a student’s exuberance or maybe even a playful dare from a co-worker. I responded in kind, with a smile that said I wasn’t some stuffy old curmudgeon, despite the gray pushing north from my sideburns to infiltrate my temples. When she told me the price in German, I thought she was taking it a little too far, but assuming the price to be the same as every other day, I paid it without asking her to repeat herself.

“Danke schön,” she said with a grin, handing over my change.

“Danke,” I replied, dropping the coins into the jar and slipping the bills into my wallet.

“Bitte. Schönen Tag noch.”

“You, too.”

When I began my 9:00 lecture on the knick-knack in Hellenistic society, I became uncomfortably aware that the students were staring at me with bewildered expressions, and not just the usual bewildered expressions I have grown to expect. Soon they started exchanging odd looks with one another and shifting restlessly in their seats, muttering under their breath in strange guttural tones. The longer I talked, the louder the collective whisper grew. It became unnerving, and, without being aware of a conscious intention to do so, I heard myself saying, “Achtung!” loudly, in a forceful, authoritative tone. The class fell silent. They froze and stared right at me. I froze, too, and stared right back. Everyone waited for something to happen. I didn’t know what to do. “Class dismissed,” I said finally and when they didn’t seem to understand, I added, somewhat curtly, “Auf Wiedersehen,” and they instantly began putting their pens and notebooks into their backpacks and filing into the aisles and out of the lecture hall.

I hurried to my office, eyeing my shoes, weakly exchanging Guten Morgens with the Antiquities chair and a pair of graduate students in the hallway. I closed the door and sat at my desk. It seemed very warm in my office and as I was slipping out of my jacket, my computer said something I couldn’t quite understand. But even with the heavy accent, I recognized the feminine voice as the very same that informs me whenever new email has arrived. I immediately opened my email program, having been conditioned to obey the gentle but firm voice, unquestioningly. Now, I couldn’t interpret most of the subject lines, my German being deficient as it was. So I couldn’t discriminate the various forms of spam. But it was plain to see that every message had a German title. I deleted them all, unopened.

“Wollen Sie wirklich alle Nachrichten in Ihrem inbox löschen?”

I clicked Ja, and they vanished. I had to get out, had to move, suddenly grew desperate to feel open space around me. I slipped back into my jacket, as I hurried down the hall. I took the stairs all the way from the fourth floor, fearful of being cornered in the elevator by some talkative colleague. Faculty members, I have noticed, are inclined to disregard elevator protocol, presumably on the pretext that the students are not really there, that they only manifest the outward appearance of existence — the undergrads, at least. Arriving at ground level, I went outside and started briskly across campus. I needed to wander unnoticed. I headed over the bridge to the west campus, dominated by the Fine Arts, Music, Architecture, and Theater Arts buildings. Nobody would know me there. I could safely meander among conversational German without being invited to participate or expected to reply. Walking had always been therapeutic for me, as if it somehow allowed me to move away from my troubles; circle around them, detached; view them from all angles, in both retreat and approach, in the full panoramic view of a broader context; to stalk them and to return to engage them on my own terms, in my own time. I drifted through courtyards and into this building and that, up and down corridors, letting indecipherable lectures trickle over me from open doorways, as I passed. I began to grow calmer, step by step. After a while, my mind seemed to clear and at last I had an idea, an epiphany, in fact. I knew just what to do.

I crossed back over the bridge and went straight to the Linguistics building. I wandered around until I located the German Department, tucked in a corner on the second floor. At the end of the hallway was a door, with a placard bearing the word “Lehrstuhlinhaber.” I knocked.

“Willkommen,” a man called from inside the office.

I opened the door. I stood there for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say or how to begin.

“Kann ich dir helfen?” the young professor asked, courteously, from behind his desk, one hand holding his place in a book. After a moment, he raised his eyebrows. “Ja?”

“Entschuldigen Sie,” I said, after a few more awkward seconds had straggled by. “I’m afraid my English is not very good.” His eyebrows climbed a little higher. “Do you mind if we speak German?”

He smiled and his eyebrows descended to their normal station. He withdrew his hand, allowing the book to close of its own accord. “Of course not. There’s nothing I love more,” he said, with only the slightest trace of an accent. He stood and introduced himself, offering his hand. I shook it and introduced myself, told him I was on the Antiquities faculty.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Please, have a seat.” We sat, and he continued, “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m looking for an English tutor. Maybe you can make a recommendation? Perhaps one of your students could use some extra cash?”

“Sure, sure, I can probably put you in touch with someone.” He looked at me for a moment, tilting his head to one side. “So, you have recently arrived from Germany?”

I almost said, no, I wasn’t German, and that I had never, in fact, even been outside the United States. But I realized this would lead to a lot of confusion and questions I would have trouble answering. So I lied. “Yes, yes, I moved here from Berlin, just before the semester.”

“I thought so. One can always recognize a native speaker. Anyway, allow me to welcome you. I hope you’re finding your new home is to your liking.”

We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes and then he offered me a pen and a card and asked me to write down my contact information, so he could pass it along to one of his students.

“I have a favor to ask of you, in return, if I may.”

“Of course, please.”

“Well, opportunities for German conversation with a native speaker are quite limited in these parts. Perhaps I could impose upon you to join me for lunch and casual conversation, now and again? Maybe a couple of times a month? If it isn’t too much trouble, that is.”

I told him it was no imposition at all. “It would be my pleasure, in fact.” I thought about complimenting his German at this point, but was afraid it would seem a bit trite. He was, after all, a Ph.D in German. He knew his German was good, without my saying so. I decided against it. There would be ample opportunity to work in a compliment more casually, over lunch some time, if and when it seemed appropriate.

I gave him the card with my information, stood, and we shook hands again. He lingered in the doorway, beaming, as I started down the hall.

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

“Think nothing of it. It’s nice to have met you.”

“Likewise.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“Auf Wiedersehen.”

“Goodbye,” he replied and gently closed the door.

Making my way downstairs, I felt much better. It would come back to me quickly; I was sure of it. I would be bi-lingual again in no time. Ja, keine angst, I told myself, it would all come back to me in no time at all.

______________________________________
Don Hucks lives in Arlington, Texas. His fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Baker's Dozen Review, Brink, Clockwise Cat, The Pedestal, and 971 Menu.

posted 02.25.08.

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