There was an ominous note in place of a grade at the end of my Freud paper:

“Please do come see me to discuss the matter of expository writing.”

The next day, sunk ignominiously low in a canvas chair across from my professor,

I provided an audience for a peculiar little performance of German gesture and

frustration. Professor Nagele has flawless taste in literature (Mann! Handke!

Oodles of Lacan!) but, for good reason, meager faith in the students who take his courses;

rather than indulge their uninformed conjecture about “Barbarism in Der Zauberberg”,

he simply lectures for three hours straight and assigns “little essays” to make sure we’re

still conscious. It was in the geistless execution of one of these that he caught me!

“You jump,” he explained, “from ledge to ledge.” Gathering the plump fingers of

each hand into tight points, he illustrated the problem: one idea here, another idea there,

and der bedürftige Professor struggling to figure out what on Earth is the thesis?

I never know what to do when people catch on to my mental laziness; I always think

of that Simpsons episode where Homer, accused of something or other, stands dumbstruck for

a moment then throws a pile of business cards in his accusers face, and runs away. I guess I

tend to do the conversational equivalent.

“Is it true that you’re studying Japanese?” I asked sweetly.

He relaxed his hands and folded them into one another. Among many endearing

aspects, Professor Nagele’s physical comportment might be the cutest. He is tiny, round,

and very pink. His fingers look like little sausages. Under perfectly cut suits he always wears

white turtlenecks.

He resembled a friendly owl right then. “It is nothing serious, but I study a little of the

alphabet. I am fascinated by the culture.”

I nodded. He continued.

“Japan is the paradigm of a culture. It is the most brutal, and the most refined, held together by one people.”

His hands were back in the air to demonstrate the point.

Unheimlich, unheimisch