A Greater Music by Deborah; Suah; Smith Bae Page B

that hides his face. He never used to dress so strangely when I knew him, but the mysterious logic of dreams means I instantly recognize him as Erich. He catches sightof me while reading the paper, then gets up and comes straight over to the table where I’m sitting. We’re in some downtown café, packed with the weekend crowd, or else, perhaps, the smoking room in the national library.
    â€œLong time no see. How’ve you been?” Always this same beginning. “I’m planning a birthday party next week; you’ll come, won’t you? You came last time, with M.” He gets a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and writes the address on the memo pad the café provides for each table. And holds it out to me. Of course, this being a dream, I’m sitting there paralyzed, unable even to look away.
    â€œHow is M, anyway? I haven’t seen her in ages. Are you two still together? Or don’t you see her any more?”
    And then, without even waiting for my answer, he whips around and disappears. And while all this is going on I just sit there staring at him, silent, transfixed. As if I’m chained to the seat. What agony it is. His pale, almost blond hair; his plain, conservative earring; his small, gray, inexpressive eyes; the lines around his serious-looking mouth; the skin of his face and neck, covered, if you look closely, with dense, fine, almost transparent hairs; even those guttural “r”s; in my dreams, I would encounter all these things quite distinctly. The dreams always unfolded in practically the same way. His clothing might be a little different, maybe instead of a hat he would be wearing big socks, or he might not use exactly the same words, but for the most part there would be no difference. He comes across me by chance, asks after M, disappears.
    Erich was a great teacher. He was strict, always a positive quality for a teacher, but witty with it, and since he had experience with all kinds of students it never took him long to figure out how he should tailor his approach to each individual. He was also the only teacher whose first question was about what I actuallywanted to get out of the lessons. When I told him I was hoping to be able to read, and eventually write, in German, he said “That might be impossible. But I guess we can try.” This seemed neither unkind nor insulting, and in fact I considered it an uncommonly frank and intelligent response. Each week I would have one private lesson and one with two other students, both Chinese. I enjoyed these lessons, despite Erich’s strictness, and even though there was a lot of homework it never felt like too much to cope with. Not getting on with your fellow students can be even worse than having an unsympathetic teacher, but the two Chinese students were even more of a pleasure to be around than Erich was. That was a happy time for me, which I suppose made me more inclined to be tolerant of others. I paid up-front for three months of lessons, and when we came to the third and final month Erich said “So, you told me you wanted to write in German; what shall we start with?”
    I hesitated, suddenly aware that I would have to hand in anything I wrote to Erich. The mere prospect of another person reading through my error-strewn German was terrifying. But some things just need to be done, whether we like it or not.
    â€œWell,” I said, “I guess I just have to start writing. Simple as that. Right?”
    So that’s what I did, writing and submitting one German composition per week. Erich had the Chinese students translate Joyce’s The Dubliners from English into German, one chunk at a time—their English was good, but they weren’t interested in writing their own German compositions. Every time they made a fuss about it being too hard Erich reminded them that in Germany, this level of English text was used for high-school students. I chose to write about the zoo for my first