Being an English teacher and developing a sort of intimacy with the students means that I am sometimes privy to more information than I want or expect from them. The lesson on job satisfaction can cause an outpouring of frustration and resentment. The “Nearest and Dearest” lesson from the Cambridge Proficiency in English textbook prompted my 15-year old student to comment that she didn’t think she’d ever had a real friend. Conversation classes on gender roles encourage men to express their opinion that they wouldn’t like to have a female boss because women are bitches. And so forth.
A harmless query about pet ownership led somebody else to confess that well, she had had a cat once but since she has a penchant for closing all the open doors in the house before she goes to sleep, the cat ended up spending the night in the drier and suffocating.
But my favourite story so far concerns the crazy husband of the woman who killed the cat. I did nothing to invite this confidence and was actually even trying to persuade her to do some work, which wasn;t all that easy on a Friday night with the crazy husband and the 2 children hanging around. The children were saying “Fish!” and “Hello-how-are-you!” over and over again in English and the husband was lurking peaceably in the background, looking much more normal than he apparently is.
When hubby left to drive Grandma home, D. commented that her oldest daughter is similar to her husband, who tends to ‘worry about the future.’ I expected to be regaled with some banal list of concerns about pensions and poverty stricken retirement, but it turns out he has more serious things on his mind.
First of all, he is convinced that the Russians are coming. Also the Germans. And to complete the trifecta, he’s certain that the Wisła is going to bust its banks, sooner or later, and drown the city. The family are looking for a new house, since their flat is too small, and apparently there is only a tiny area where he is willing to live, in what (according to him) will be the ghetto that the Germans will build for the Poles. He wants to live there because he thinks everything will function like clockwork and they will be spared the Slavic anarchy that the Russians will impose. I almost wet my pants laughing but when I sobered up, had to confess that I’m happy I don’t have to live with him.