Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 13

Armchair. The Foreign-Language Teacher

In what language will she tell these stories? Her grandchildren won’t understand Polish, and she won’t ever master Hebrew, so maybe English? After all, she took lessons at the Szwarcwalds’ three times a week for three months from a private tutor hired by Jurek’s mother . . . The man had a brilliant method: at their very first lesson he read Oscar Wilde out loud to his students, in English: High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince . . . the beginning of his favorite story, “The Happy Prince.” He was an elderly bachelor, somewhat shy and very polite. When he sat down to eat he bowed to everyone and said, “Bon appétit,” and after they’d finished he bowed again and said, “Thank you very much.” Mrs. Szwarcwald served him dinner in exchange for the lesson. Izolda learned fast and worked hard (she lined her notebook very neatly, filling the columns with irregular verb forms: to be—was—been; to eat—ate—eaten) and would have certainly mastered English if the teacher hadn’t hanged himself. The paper mentioned a middle-aged man committing suicide, but the notice didn’t give a last name, so she couldn’t be sure it was him. The column “Unhappy Accidents” frequently listed similar incidents, while the “First Aid” column offered medical advice, which in the case of hangings was to administer artificial respiration immediately after cutting the person down. Unfortunately, the brilliant teacher wasn’t cut down in time and artificial respiration was not administered, so Izolda R. will be able to say High above the city, on a tall column . . . but won’t be able to tell the story of her life to her granddaughter sitting at her knees.