Let me first say that this post was written some weeks ago, and much has changed since then. The girl, Valeria, is no longer my student. She no longer has a boyfriend. And our relationship is no longer strictly professional. We have spent a lot of time together and we have shared some magical moments, to be sure. Things which I merely wished for while I was teaching her, have now come true. The English language doesn't lend itself to conveying the beauty of the past 3 weeks.
But now, she's scared. Truth be told, so am I. We met on Friday and she told me, after speaking to a friend, that she thought we didn't have a future. I'm from North Carolina, after all. A long way from Rome. And that she needed a few days to think. We then proceeded to have one fantastic afternoon merely sitting in her car, talking. I know not what happens next. I don't know if this is my place in the story.
I was sitting in front of her. One eye maintaining the "teacher" role that I was supposed to be playing - the other slipping into just "Jonathan".
Maybe it was me. Maybe her. Unsure of how the conversation veered from the educational into the personal, the reality was that it had, and I found myself in the middle of something that I never would have expected.
"I...I don't, umm, understand all the English words" she said, in this very urgent but somehow controlled way of speaking. I was aware that something important was happening, and that she wanted so badly to use words which she didn't yet know - words which would convey the depth of her message.
"But...I understand this."
She looked at me briefly and pointed at her eyes.
"And I understand...how I feel."
At that moment, the obvious language barrier that exists between us became irrelevant. I knew and she knew. And that was all that mattered.
That was Tuesday. In Thursday's class I tried to stay on point, referencing the book more than I usually do in any class. But she wouldn't follow my lead. She kept joking about ex-girlfriends that I had mentioned previously. Or a girl that I told her I'd gone to a party with over the weekend, Nicoletta.
Maybe 30 minutes into the lesson, a brief hush came over us from somewhere. She broke the silence.
"I have a question."
Okay. Maybe she wants to know the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses. That I can answer.
But that wasn't the question. The question she asked, I couldn't answer.
"After the...after I...finish this...course. What happens?"
It would have been infinitely easier had she been talking about her study of the English language. She wasn't.
"I don't know." And I didn't. I don't know what to say to that because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being a jerk and of being unsatisfied and of hurting the girl. I'm afraid and I've been afraid for a long, long time. But at some point, I'm going to have to step up. So I asked her a question.
"What do you want to happen?"
"I...have a boyfriend. And, I...am scared that you go back to North Carolina. You tell me in first class that you go home in September...October. But, I want to know you."
A few lessons ago, I had offered to continue teaching her on the side after she finished her lessons at the school. I reiterated that offer to her.
"I...I don't want you to teach me. I want to know you...if you want."
"I do. I do want."
