The man who interviews me in Starnberg, Stan, is one of the smilingest men I’ve ever met. We get along right away. But it’s the same thing: he doesn’t think he can hire someone without experience. The fact I speak such good German impresses him. I’m impressed too because he, an American, can speak incredibly good German himself. It turns out his first wife, who has died, was German.
He asks me to wait a few minutes in the office and he’ll be right back. I think maybe he’s going to the bathroom. I’ve already given up. After around twenty rejections, one loses confidence. I’m hoping to catch a train down to Seeshaupt before dark.
He comes back smiling. But then he’s always smiling. He rubs his hands together.
‘You’re lucky, Kate. I talked the director into it. I exaggerated your nursery-school experience a bit, even more than you did, so don’t make a liar of me. But you’re the kind of teacher I’m always looking for, optimistic, smiling, full of enthusiasm and energy. Maybe after you’ve had two years’ experience, you won’t be that way, but you’re hired to teach first grade. You’ll get the same salary as the other first-grade teacher I hired last year. I’m sure you’ll love her.’
I could have fallen over right there in his office; I have a hard time to keep from crying. It’s all been so difficult the last few years and now it looks so beautiful. I know I must have thanked him but I don’t remember. He comes around his desk.
‘Come on, Kate, let me show you the school. We’re really proud of it. The German government built this place for us and about half our students are German. Their parents don’t like the strict, old-fashioned ways of German schools. We have the best mix of Germans, Americans, and all other nationalities, but we teach an American curriculum. It’s an exciting place.’
We walk over to the campus, which is in the country, with modern buildings and old cow-barns and a small castle. My room is bright and neither too big nor too small. Stan says they try to keep the classes to under twenty students. God, it’s like a dream. I can’t believe it. I’m still a little teary.
‘Do you have a place to stay, Kate?’
‘I have friends near here, in Seeshaupt. I think I can stay there. Then I’ll start hunting for a place in Starnberg and be ready to teach in September. Is there any chance I can come out during the summer to get my classroom ready?’
‘Anything you want. Boy, this is great for me. Usually I need to hunt up a place for new teachers because they don’t speak German. But you’re all set. Are you sure you don’t want anything?’
I find I’m smiling, and then I laugh.
‘How about a contract? I’d actually like to sign a contract so I know this is all true. I can’t wait to tell my parents. My little boy, Wills, is just going to love it here. Do faculty children get to go to this school free?’
‘Absolutely, completely free to faculty kids. Who do you think I am, Scrooge?’
‘More like Santa Claus, Stan.’
The temptation to put my arms around him and give him a big kiss is enormous, but I resist. I don’t want to do anything to screw up this chance.
I phone Dad and Mom. They’re as excited as I am. I find a little furnished apartment near the lake, and work like crazy getting it into shape. I make curtains, wax all the furniture. It’s a little nest on the second floor with a beautiful view of the lake. I have a large room with a corner kitchen and a curved nook eating area. Almost everything’s made of wood. I’ve decided to keep everything simple. I buy two dishes, two cups, two spoons, two knives and two forks. It’ll be just Wills and me, no social life, at least for a while. I can’t wait till Wills comes.
In the evenings I study my books from Arizona State and plan lessons. I want everything to be just right when I start. I’m very nervous.
I have a little stove but no refrigerator. I’ll buy some kind of used refrigerator as soon as I get my first check; for now, I’m almost flat broke. I have enough to pay Wills’s air fare and we can get by on food till my first check, but that’s it.
Wills arrives at the airport in Munich the same day school lets out at MIS. MIS stands for Munich International School, my school. We both cry, hugging each other outside customs.
We take the S-Bahn home and Wills loves everything – the lake, the town, our apartment. But he falls asleep on the floor in about ten minutes. I carry him to his bed and undress him. I imagine he hasn’t slept much the night before with all the excitement. I’d had a hard time getting to sleep myself. I whisper in his ear that I need to go to school for a while but I’ll be back when he wakes up.
I’m supposed to go to an end-of-the-school-year party. Stan asked me to come, even though it’s the day Wills arrives.
There are six new teachers for the next semester. Stan introduces me and I stand up. People clap. I meet most of the other teachers. One is a huge, bearded guy who doesn’t have much hair. I can’t get over how much he looks like Dad and my brother Matt. He’s flirting with the new librarian. When introduced, he says he comes from Oregon, although he’s just been teaching in Southeast Asia. I don’t see a wife around. The married teachers seem to have their spouses with them.
I work like mad getting my classroom in order. Wills comes with me every day and plays: on the soccer field, kicking a ball, or at the gym, trying to shoot baskets. They have a great playground here, too. Sometimes he’ll come in and give me a hand, pushing desks around.
A couple times the big, bearded guy from Oregon comes in. He’s going to be teaching computing and is getting his room fixed up, too. He speaks very slowly, but the more we talk, the more I like him. He doesn’t waste time with anything that isn’t worth talking about. Chatter is about ninety percent of all conversations anyway, but when he says something it’s usually interesting. He can’t believe I can really speak German and I’m not German. I try explaining, but I’m not sure I come across.
I find a refrigerator being sold by an elderly German couple, at a price I can pay. They’re willing to hold on to it till I get my check, but I need to find someone to move it.
The next time Bert, that’s the name of the bearded Oregonian, stops in my classroom, I ask if he could help me move a refrigerator. I promise him a home-cooked meal, American-style, in return. He stares at me a minute, then lifts an eyebrow and says, ‘Spare-ribs?’
I have no idea where I can find spare-ribs in Germany, although I do know how to cook them. That’s one advantage of those years cooking at home instead of washing dishes. So we make the deal. He wrestles that machine out of the cellar of these old people, across town, and up my stairs, single-handedly, as if it were a portable radio or something. He’s bushed when he’s finished and flops down on my couch.
‘You don’t perhaps have some of this great German beer around, do you, Kate?’
By luck, I have one bottle. I don’t drink beer myself. It isn’t cold because we haven’t plugged in the refrigerator yet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He has a bottle-opener on the knife with his keys, and drinks it out of the bottle before I can find a glass. Just then, Wills comes running in. Bert lolls back and smiles.
‘Hi there, buster, what’s your name?’
Wills, his mouth open, is taking in this hunk of a man. Bert has to be six-three and 200 pounds.
‘Wills, sir.’
‘Well, Wilzer, I’ve seen you shooting baskets down there in the gym. You like basketball?
‘Yeah, but I can’t get the ball up high enough to go through the basket. It’s too high.’
‘Sure you can. Next