More thunder unsettles Less from his thoughts. But it isn’t thunder; it is applause, and the young writer is pulling at Less’s coat sleeve. For Arthur Less has won.
Less German
A phone call, translated from German into English:
“Good afternoon, Pegasus Publications. This is Petra.”
“Good morning. Here is Mr. Arthur Less. There is a fence in my book.”
“Mr. Less?”
“There is a fence in my book. You are to correct, please.”
“Mr. Arthur Less, our writer? The author of Kalipso? It is wonderful to speak with you at last. Now, how can I help you?”
(Sound of keys on a keyboard) “Yes, hello. It is nice to speak. I call over a fence. Not fence.” (More keyboard sounds) “An error.”
“An error in the book?”
“Yes! I call over an error in my book.”
“I apologize. What is the nature of this error?”
“My birth year is written one nine sex four.”
“Again?”
“My birth year is sex five.”
“Do you mean you were born in 1965?”
“Exactly. The journalists write that I have fifty years. But I have forty-nine years!”
“Oh! We wrote your birth year wrong on the flap copy, and so journalists have been reporting that you’re fifty. When you’re only forty-nine. I’m so sorry. That must be so frustrating!”
(Long pause) “Exactly exactly exactly.” (Laughter) “I am not an old man!”
“Of course not. I’ll make a note for the next printing. And may I say in your photograph you look under forty? All the girls in the office are in love with you.”
(Long pause) “I do not understand.”
“I said all the girls in the office are in love with you.”
(Laughter) “Thank you, thank you, that is very very nice.” (Another pause) “I like love.”
“Yes, well, call me if you have any other concerns.”
“Thank you and good-bye!”
“Have a good day, Mr. Less.”
What a delight, for Arthur Less, to be in a country where he at last speaks the language! After the miraculous reversal of his Italian fortunes, in which he stood up in a daze and accepted a heavy golden statuette (which would now have to be figured into his luggage weight allowance)—the journalists shrieking as in an operatic finale—he is to arrive in Germany on the winds of success. Added to this: his fluency in German, and his esteemed position of professor, and how forgotten are the cares of Gestern! Chatting with the stewards, babbling freely with passport control, it seems almost possible he has forgotten that Freddy’s wedding is a matter of mere weeks away. How heartening it is to watch him speak; how disconcerting, however, to listen.
Less has studied German since he was a boy. His first teacher, when he was nine, was Frau Fernhoff, a retired piano instructor, who had them all (him, sharp-witted Georgia beanpole Anne Garret, and odd-smelling but sweet Giancarlo Taylor) stand up and shout, “Guten Morgen, Frau Fernhoff!” at the beginning of each afternoon lesson. They learned the names of fruits and vegetables (the beautiful Birne and Kirsche, the faux-ami Ananas, the more-resonant-than-“onion” Zwiebel), and described their own prepubescent bodies, from their Augenbrauen to their großer Zehen. High school led to more sophisticated conversation (“Mein Auto wurde gestohlen!”) and was led by buxom Fräulein Church, an enthusiastic teacher in wrap dresses and scarves who had grown up in a German district of New York City and who often spoke of her dream of following the Von Trapp trail in Austria. “The key to speaking a new language,” she told them, “is to be bold instead of perfect.” What Less did not know was that the charming Fräulein had never been to Germany, nor spoken German with Germans outside of Yorkville. She was ostensibly German speaking, just as seventeen-year-old Less was ostensibly gay. Both had the fantasy; neither had carried it out.
Bold instead of perfect, Less’s tongue is bruised with errors. Male friends tend to switch to girls in the Lessian plural, becoming Freundin instead of Freund; and, by using auf den Strich instead of unterm Strich, he can lead intrigued listeners to believe he is going into prostitution. But, even at four and nine, Less has yet to be disabused of his skills. Perhaps the fault lies with Ludwig, the folk-singing German exchange student who lived with his family, took Less’s ostensibility away, and never corrected his German—for who corrects what is spoken in bed? Perhaps it was the grateful, dankbaren East Berliners whom Less met on a trip with Robert—escaped poets living in Paris—astonished to hear their mother tongue working in the mouth of this slim young American. Perhaps it was too much Hogan’s Heroes. But Less arrives in Berlin, taxiing to his temporary apartment in Wilmersdorf, swearing he will not speak a word of English while he is here. Of course, the real challenge is to speak a word of German.
Again, a translation:
“Six greetings, class. I am Arthur Less.”
This is the class he will be teaching at the Liberated University. In addition, he is expected to give a reading in five weeks, open to the public. Delighted he was fluent in German, the department offered Less the chance to teach a course of his choosing. “With a visiting professor,” wrote the kind Dr. Balk, “we can often have as few as three students, which is a nice intimate room.” Less dusted off a writing course he had given at a Jesuit college in California, put the entire syllabus through a computer translation, and considered himself prepared. He called the course Read Like a Vampire, Write Like Frankenstein, based on his own notion that writers read other works in order to take their best parts. This was, especially translated into German, an unusual title. When his teaching assistant, Hans, brings him to the classroom this first morning, he is astounded to find not three, not fifteen, but a hundred and thirty students waiting to take his extraordinary course.
“I am your Mr. Professor.”
He is not. Unaware of the enormous difference between the German Professor and Dozent, the former being a rank achieved only through decades of internment in the academic prison, the latter a mere parolee, Less has given himself a promotion.
“And now, I am sorry, I must kill most of you.”
With this startling announcement, he proceeds to weed out any students who are not registered in the Global Linguistics and Literature Department. To his relief, this removes all but thirty. And so he begins the class.
“We start at a sentence in Proust: For a long time, I used to go to bed early.”
But Arthur Less has not gone to bed early; in fact, it is a miracle he has even made it to the classroom. The problem: a surprise invitation, a struggle with German technology, and, of course, Freddy Pelu.