MOVING UP—OR IS IT DOWN?

Well, so maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, getting myself elected, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time; I was thinking about how in the world would I be able to get moved out of my office upstairs and into the chair’s space on the main floor over the weekend to be ready to greet the first-day problems that were sure to come up. And only then did it occur to me that I would have to do something about my fall schedule.

I got up to follow the people leaving the meeting, smiling wryly at the ones congratulating me, so they could see that I knew what I was getting into, and when I noticed Lionel coming toward me, I remembered the conversation between the folks from theatre when I was getting my coffee earlier. I hailed him in English, out of politeness to the faculty around us. “Have you heard the Theatre Department may be putting on Tartuffe this year? Maybe you can help them, you know, with how to pronounce the names, maybe some historical background—things like that.” He pursed his full lips and nodded thoughtfully. I didn’t explain how to get to the Theatre department, and he didn’t ask.

On a sudden impulse, I asked him if he would be free to help me start moving my office over the weekend, and he readily agreed, which was a big relief. Then I went back to my office and closed the door and looked for the phone number of the adjunct instructor who came in and taught French for us when we had an extra class.

I picked Lionel up the next morning, Saturday, and we spent the day at it. We packed all the books in my office into twenty or so boxes that maintenance had promised to bring downstairs for me as soon as they could get to it. He and I were able to carry down the most important ones, and I even managed to get a few of them unpacked and arranged, since Elaine had already moved her own things out. Afterwards I took him out for pizza, and we had a chance to get to know each other a little better. He showed me some pictures of his dog, who was staying with his sister while he was off in America.

He asked me, as a favor, to speak English to him, so he could get as much practice as possible during the four months he would be among us. He needed the practice more than I did anyway. I enjoyed talking to him, and I asked myself why it was so much easier than with so many of my male colleagues, who had a tendency to underestimate me on a more or less constant basis, which I found extremely annoying, even though I admit I was always doing my best to avoid sounding like a braggart, and so I guess some people would say that I was inviting it. Lionel, on the other hand, deferred to me in a way I found absolutely irresistible. Of course I assumed it was because he was a foreigner, a newcomer, someone standing outside the door, hoping to make his way in.

For the next few weeks I kind of lost sight of Lionel; there was so much to do, I hardly had time to sleep, certainly not to keep track of someone who after all was an adult, well-educated, well-traveled, and neither ignorant nor stupid. So okay, maybe I should have checked on him more often and listened more closely to his answers, but I actually felt like I was doing a lot for him when I sent him over to Theatre to help them out with all his knowledge of Molière, especially when I found out that he was getting really chummy with Gavin, one of the dance professors. I saw they were hanging out together a lot, and it was a big relief to feel as if I could let go and not have to worry about him any more.

In case you’re wondering what I was doing all day to be so tired every night, let me just give you a few examples.

The phone rings shortly after I arrive in the morning; my admin answers, “One moment please,” pushes a button and says in my direction, “It’s the Dean.”

I say, “I’ll take it,” and pick up my receiver.

“Maryjo, this is Art,” says the Dean. “Are you having a good day?”

I figure this is an ominous beginning. The Dean isn’t calling me to ask about my day. And of course I’m right. After I spout some platitude about my day, he gets to the point. “Some of your faculty have classes in the Business building, and I just got a complaint that one of them used a permanent marker on the erasable whiteboards and ruined them. They’re irate about it and are not only demanding that you pay for it but also threatening to bar any of you from using their classrooms ever again. I won’t be surprised if they end up banning all of you from even entering the building, if they could figure out a way to do it. So look, I’m tapping an emergency fund to pay for the expense of repairing the damage, but you’re going to need to do some fence-mending here.”

I ask him if he has any suggestions, and I add “fences Bus.” to my list of things to do that day. Also “talk to Spanish,” since it was a Spanish professor who committed the offense. Then, just when I’m thinking I have a free minute to correct a few papers, I hear a student telling the admin she really needs to see me. It’s not one of mine—at least I don’t recognize her, but I say, “Okay,” when the urgency of the situation is relayed to me.

The student comes in and sits down without introducing herself. She starts out, “I just had my first French class, and I just thought you should know what’s going on. The teacher was talking about the words for left and right, and she said just like English, the prejudice against left-handed people is built into the language, and she said the Latin word for left is sinister!”

The student looks at me as if she expects me to recoil in horror. I nod and wait for her to reveal why she’s coming to me.

“Well, imagine how the left-handed people felt! I couldn’t believe my ears! She actually said that!”

I’m still not sure what the problem is, but it sounds like a complaint, so I force myself to try to see the student’s point of view. “Did that make you feel uncomfortable?”

“Of course it did! I mean, how can she say that?”

I’m getting more and more confused. “Say what?”

“That thing about Latin. You can’t say stuff like that! Left-handed people have enough to put up with.”

“So, it bothers you that the word for left in Latin is sinister?”

“You mean it is? Well, I mean that and the stuff about prejudice against left-handed people being built into the language. Why not just come right out and say that if you’re left-handed you should drop the course now, because you’ll never get a fair shake; the language itself is against you. In fact that’s what I did; I’m just coming from filing my drop slip, but I wanted to let you know about it. I even thought about initiating a complaint, but I wasn’t sure how that would work since I’m not in the class any more.”

I draw a deep breath. The problem seems to be resolving itself, and the professor certainly wouldn’t thank me if I were to try to persuade the student not to drop after all. Just to be saying something, since the student seems to expect it, I ask, “What’s the professor’s name?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s a French teacher. It starts with B.”

“Baker? Barnes?” I throw in the name of one of the English professors upstairs just to see how she reacts. “Beatty?”

“Yeah, one of those. Look, I don’t have my schedule with me right now, but it’s the one who teaches the nine o’clock class.” She seems to think more is called for, so she adds, “I’m not suggesting she be fired, you understand. I just want to make sure you know what’s going on.”

I decide not to press the issue; it makes absolutely no difference to me which teacher it is, and as soon as the student leaves my office, I’m planning to do my best to forget about her. I pretend to make a note on my notepad. “Okay,” I say. “Is there anything else I can do to help you?” I congratulate myself for suggesting that I have already helped her.

Eventually I get rid of the student, just when I need to get ready to go to class myself. I take a quick look at my email in case there’s anything important, and I notice a message from the campus bookstore, so I open it. “Dr. Frances,” it reads, “the instructor who has taken over your French 101 class was just in here. She doesn’t want to use the textbook you ordered. She told me to send it back and order a different one. I told her that’s not how it works, but she was quite insistent. Do you think you could talk to her? She doesn’t have to like the textbook, but she does have to tell the students to buy it. And the deadline for Fall book orders was weeks ago, we can’t promise to get anything new at this point, as I’m sure you understand. Thanks for your help.” It is signed by the bookstore manager, who I don’t really know in person, but I’ve heard good things about him from people who do.



Believe me, that just makes my day.