There were two students
in my German literature course,
which was problematic because
I was often sleepy in class,
and prone to inattention.
I had a colicky baby at home,
and was chronically short of sleep.
It was a ten-week course,
and after the second week,
the only other student dropped out.
Ah, fuck.
Three hours every week in the professor’s office.
Not a big enough enrollment for a proper classroom.
Just the professor and I,
no chance for nodding off
or for daydreaming.
I had to focus,
focus,
FOCUS.
The course centred on the German book,
Tristan und Isolde.
My professor thought I was insightful
when I answered his classroom questions.
He didn’t know that I spent as much time
preparing for his class as I did for
all my other classes combined,
reading the book critiques of the academics
in the university library,
translating the German text so that I could
fathom what was really going on in the story.
In my other classes,
I could hide in the auditorium
among a multitude of other students,
obscure.
Those courses didn’t require
much preparation.
I didn’t want to embarrass myself as a lone student.
It was pride, you see.
I passed the course with an A.
I tried to forget about the course afterward
and move onto other things,
but I’m drawn back to the memory of the course frequently.
The episode was so profoundly different
from the rest of my university experience.
Thirty hours of one-on-one engagement
with an academic discussing a single book.
I had never delved so deeply into a story in my entire life.
And haven’t since.
When I think about Tristan and Isolde,
I wonder what it would be like to
accidentally drink a love potion
with the betrothed of another,
especially a superior of rank.
I’d worry about my superior, of course,
a little anyway;
it’s painful for anyone lose a lover,
a fiancé especially.
But I realize I wouldn’t have been able to help myself.
I would love his fiancé for eternity.
And she would love me in return for eternity.
We had consumed a love potion together, for goodness sake.
Our free will in choosing love would be denied us.
It wouldn’t be our fault.
I’m sure my superior would find another.