the happy place

Professor! Hello.

White winter days, sunshine on newly fallen snow. You have come to the happy place for it is Thursday afternoon. 

Another week, and you are still alive. Your secret you carry everywhere and so into the happy place.

So close to the heart, no one will see.

Not a happy season. Not a happy time. Not in the history of the world and not in the personal lives of many.

You wonder how many are like you. Having come to prefer dark to daylight. Sweet oblivion of sleep to raw wakefulness.

Yet: in the wood-paneled seminar room on the fifth floor of North Hall. At the top of the smooth-worn wooden staircase where a leaded window overlooks a stand of juniper pines. In the wind, pine boughs shiver and flash with melting snow. The happy place.

Here is an atmosphere of optimism light as helium. You laugh often, you and the undergraduates spaced about the polished table. 

Why do you laugh so much?–you have wondered.

Generally it seems: the more serious the subjects, the more likely some sort of laughter.

The more intensity, the more laughter.

The more at stake, the more laughter.

The happy place is the solace. The promise.

Waking in the morning stunned to be still alive. The profound fact of your life now.

Already at the first class meeting in September you'd noticed her. Ana.

Of the twelve students in the fiction writing workshop it is Ana who holds herself apart from the others. From you.

When they laugh, Ana does not laugh–not often.

When they answer questions you put to them, when in their enthusiasm they talk over one another like puppies tumbling together–Ana sits silent. Though Ana may look on with a faint (melancholy) smile.

Or, Ana may turn her gaze toward the wall of windows casting a ghostly reflected light onto her face and seem to be staring into space–oblivious of her surroundings.

Thinking her own thoughts. Private, not yours to know.

You feel an impulse to lean across the table, to touch Ana's wrist. To smile at her, ask–Ana, is something wrong?

But what would you dare ask this girl who holds herself apart from her classmates? Are you troubled? Unhappy? Distracted? Bored?–not possible. One of the others in the seminar might take Ana aside to ask such questions but you, the adult in the room, the Professor, don't have that right, nor would you exercise that right if indeed it were yours. Still less should you touch Ana's wrist.
It is a very thin wrist. The wrist of a child. So easily snapped! The young woman's face is delicately boned, pale, smooth as porcelain, her eyes are beautiful and thick-lashed but somewhat shadowed, evasive.

You have noticed, around Ana's slender neck, a thin gold chain with a small gold cross.

The little cross must be positioned just so, in the hollow at the base of Ana's throat, that is as pronounced and (once you have noticed it) conspicuous as your own. 

(What is it called?–suprasternal notch. A physical feature aligned with thinness, generally conceded to be a genetic inheritance.)

Indeed, Ana is a very diminutive young woman. To the casual eye she would seem more likely fourteen than eighteen and hardly a woman at all.

Ana must weigh less than one hundred pounds. No more than five feet two. You see, without having actually noticed until now, that she wears loose-fitting clothing, a shapeless pullover several sizes too large, and the thought strikes you, unbidden, fleeting, that Ana may be acutely thin. Her diffident manner makes her appear even smaller. As if she might curl up, disappear. Cast no shadow.

How vulnerable Ana appears!–to gaze upon her is to feel that you must protect her.

Yet, you suppose that there are many who would wish to take advantage of her.

When the others speak of “religious belief”–“Superstition”–with the heedlessness of bright adolescents wielding their wits like blades Ana sits very still at her end of the table, eyes downcast. Touching the cross around her neck.

Why doesn't Ana speak, intervene? Defend her beliefs, if indeed she has beliefs?

Yes. This is a superstitious symbol I am wearing. What is it to you?

The discussion has risen out of the week's assignment, a short story by Flannery O'Connor saturated with Christian imagery and the mystery of the Eucharist, and Ana, like the others, has written an analysis of the story.

But Ana remains silent, stiff until at last the discussion veers in another direction. Glancing at you, an expression of–is it reproach? hurt?–for just an instant.

The insomniac night is the antithesis of the happy place.

Unlike the happy place which is specifically set, and unfortunately finite, as an academic class invariably comes to an end, the insomniac night has no natural end.

If you cannot sleep in the night, the night will simply continue into the next, sun-blinding day.

You have thought Is she a refugee for her spoken English is hesitant, imperfect. You have not wanted to think Is she a victim. Has she been hurt. What is the sorrow in her face. Why is she so unlike the others.

Ana's face, that seems wise beyond her years. (You are certain you are not misinterpreting.) 

Oh, why does Ana not smile? Why is it Ana who alone resists the happy place?

In twenty-seven years of teaching you have encountered a number of Anas–surely.

Yet, you don't recall. Not one. And why should you, students are impermanent in the lives of teachers. There is nothing profound in this situation. Ana has done adequate work for the course, she has never failed to hand in her work on time. You have no reason to ask her to come and speak with you, no reason at all.

Ana's reluctance (refusal?) to smile on cue, as others so easily smile–this is a small mystery.

Is it your pride that is hurt? But how little pride means to you, frankly.

You are conscious of the (unwitting) tyranny of the group. Of any group no matter how congenial, well-intentioned.

That all in the group laugh, smile, agree with the others, or “disagree” politely, or flirtatiously. The (unwitting) tyranny of the class- room that even the most liberal-minded instructor cannot fail to exert. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to the forward-motion of the class. No silences! No inward-turning–this is not a Zen meditation. A small class is a sort of skiff, we are all paddling. We are all responsible for paddling. We are aiming for the same destination. We are aware (some of us keenly) of those who are not paddling. Those who have set their paddles aside.

Perhaps Ana has not clearly understood that enrollment in a small seminar brings with it a degree of responsibility for participation. Answering questions, asking questions. “Discussing.” The workshop is not a lecture course: students are not expected to take notes. Perhaps it was an error in judgment for Ana to enroll in a course in which (it seems apparent) she has so little interest as, you are thinking, it was an error in judgment for you to accept her application, out of seventy applications for a workshop of twelve.

Why had you chosen Ana Fallas? A first-year student, with no background in creative writing? Something in the writing sample Ana had provided must have appealed to you, a glimpse of Hispanic domestic life perhaps, that set it aside from others that were merely good, conventional.

Though now, as it has turned out, Ana's work has seemed less exceptional. Careful, circumspect. Nothing grammatically wrong but–nothing to call attention to itself.

As if Ana is trying to make herself into one of them–the Caucasian majority.

It is likely that Ana is intimidated by the university–its size, its reputation. By the other students in the writing class. She is but one of only two first-year students, and the other is Shan from Beijing, a dazzling prodigy intending to major in neuroscience.

The others are older than Ana, more experienced. Three are seniors, immersed in original research–senior theses. Most of them are Americans and those who are not, like Shan, and Ansar (Pakistan), and Colin (U.K.), have studied in the United States previously and seem to have traveled widely. Ana is the only Hispanic student in the class and (you are guessing) she might be the first in her family to have enrolled in college.

Is Ana aware of you, your concern for her? Sometimes you think yes. More often you think no. Not at all.

I CAN'T.

Or, I don't think that I can...

At the age of twenty-two you were terrified at the prospect of teaching your first class.

English composition. A large urban university. An evening class.

More than a quarter-century ago and yet–vivid in memory!

You had never taught before. You had a master's degree in English but had never been (like most of your graduate student friends, and your husband) a teaching assistant. Amazing to you now, that the chairman of an English Department in a quite reputable private university had hired you to teach though you'd had no experience teaching at all–had not once stood in front of a classroom. (He'd said afterward that he had been impressed by the written work of yours he'd seen, in national publications. He'd said that, in his experience, teaching was best picked up on the fly, like learning to ride a bicycle, or like sex.)

It had been thrilling to you, to be so selected over numerous others with experience, older than you. But it had not been so thrilling to contemplate the actual teaching. At twenty-two you would not be much older, in fact you would be younger, than many of your students enrolled in the university's night school division.

English composition! The most commonly taught of university courses, along with remedial English and math.

Your husband, young himself at the time, just thirty, had tried to dispel your terror. He'd tried to encourage you, tease you. Saying–Don't be afraid, I can walk you into the classroom on my shoes.

Such a silly notion, you'd laughed. Tears of apprehension in your eyes and yet you'd laughed, your husband had that power, to calm you.

Between your young husband and you, in those years. Much laughter.

You think you will live forever. Always it will be like this. You don't think–well, you don't think.

Your husband had a Ph.D. in English. He was an assistant professor at another, nearby university, he'd been a very successful teacher for several years. Gently he reasoned with you: What could possibly go wrong, once you'd prepared for the first class?

What could go wrong? Everything!

They won't pay attention to me. They will see that I am too young–inexperienced. They will laugh in derision. Some of them will walk out...

Your husband convinced you that such fears were groundless. Ridiculous. University students would not walk out of a class. Especially older students would not walk out of a class for which they'd paid tuition–it was a serious business to them, not a lark.

In this class, so long ago, were thirty students. Thirty! Over-large for a composition class.

To you, thirty strangers. You broke into actual sweat, contemplating them. The prospect of entering the classroom was dazzling. A nightmare.

For days beforehand you rehearsed your first words–Hello! This is English one-oh-one and my name is–which you hoped would not be stammered, and would be audible. For days you pondered–what should you wear?

On that crucial evening your husband drove you to the university. Your husband did not walk you into the room on his shoes but he did accompany you to the assigned classroom in the ground floor of an old redbrick building. (Did your husband kiss you, for good luck? A brush of his lips on your cheek?) How breathless you were by this time, seeing your prospective students pass you oblivious of you.

Wish me luck.

I love you!

And so it happened when you stepped into the classroom, and took your place behind a podium in front of a blackboard, and introduced yourself to rows of strangers gazing at you with the most rapt interest you'd ever drawn from any strangers in your life–an unexpected and astonishing conviction flooded over you of happiness.

Knowing you were in the right place, at just the right time.

YOU FEEL HER absence keenly.

This day, a particularly wet, cold day Ana is absent from the workshop.

Reluctant to begin class you wait for several minutes. (For other students are arriving late.) Then, when it is evident that Ana will not be coming, you begin.

You have noticed that Ana sits in the same place at the table each week. She will arrive early, to assure this. Such (rigid?) behavior is the sign of a shy person; a person who has had enough upset in her life, and now wants a predictable routine; a person who chooses to rein in her emotions; a person who knows that, like internal hemorrhaging, emotions are not infinite, and can be fatal.

Tacitly the others have conceded Ana's place at the (farther) end of the table. No one would take Ana's chair, just as no one would take the Professor's usual seat.

Yet, no one mentions Ana's absence. So little impression has she made on the class, no one thinks to wonder aloud–Hey, where is Ana? 

You ask for a volunteer, to provide Ana with the assignment for the following week. At first no one responds. Then a young woman raises her hand–Sure! She's in my residence hall, I think.

You might email or text Ana yourself. But you are thinking you would like someone from the workshop to volunteer, to forge a connection with Ana however slight. 

That evening Ana sends you an email, apologizing for her absence. Flu, infirmary sorry to miss class. Will make up missing work.

Ridiculous, you are so relieved.

Smiling, your heart suffused with–what? Hope like a helium-filled balloon.

When Ana returns to the workshop you tell her–We missed you, Ana.

True, to a degree. You missed her.

Naturally Ana has completed the assignment: the reading in the anthology, and the weekly prose piece. Though Ana is not one of the more imaginative writers Ana is the most diligent of students.

Hers has been good work, acceptable work so far this semester. It is careful work, precisely written English, surprisingly free of errors for one whose speech is uncertain. Is this the utterance of clenched jaws?–you wonder. Maybe Ana would like to scream.

You will encourage her to write more freely. From the heart.

You will tell her–in fact, you will tell the class–Write what feels like life to you. It need not be “true”–your writing will make it “true.”

Ana frowns distractedly, staring down at the table. She knows that you are (obliquely) criticizing her work, which the others have discussed politely, without much to say about it. For all her pose of indifference Ana is highly sensitive.

You have encouraged your students to write, not memoir, but memoir-like fiction. You do not (truly!) want these young people to open their veins and pour out their life's blood for the diversion of others but neither do you want them to attempt arch, artificial fiction derivative of work by the most-read fiction writers of the era–for that they cannot do, and certainly they cannot do well.

Others in the class take up the challenge, excited. Write what feels like life to you.

Ana takes back her prose piece from you. Ana's eyes slide away from yours and will not engage.

You had written–Promising! But something that anyone might have written. What does “Ana” have to say?

Away from the seminar room which is the happy place you ponder your obsession with this student. For the first time acknowledging the word–obsession.

Telling yourself that now you've made the acknowledgment, the obsession will begin to fade.

And then, in the seventh week of the semester, long past the time when you'd have thought that any undergraduate could surprise you, Ana hands in something very different from the cautious prose she has been writing.

The assignment is a dramatic monologue. Just a page or two. In the “memoirist” mode.

Here is urgent, intense work by Ana. Not cautious at all–a bold plunge into stream-of-consciousness speech uttered (seemingly) by an adolescent daughter of (Guatemalan?) (illegal?) immigrants stranded in a nightmare detention center at the Texas border in Laredo.

The other young writers take notice. It is requested that Ana read the monologue aloud.

Oh, I–I can't....

Stammering no, blushing fiercely but the others insist.

From a prose poem of Ana's:

I thought the eucalyptus had burst into flame, I'd seen it
and ran away screaming. And then–years later they laugh
at me and told me no, that had not happened to me but to
my little sister.

And when I remember my brother beaten by our father with
his fists they tell me no, not just my brother but me, as well.

But they are not laughing.

In the foster home there are three girls named Mya.

Those acts perpetrated upon one of the Myas are perpetrated
upon the others.

We do not know your name but your face will always be
known to us.

Astonishing and wonderful–Ana is writing with such passion now.

Less guardedly, and less circumspectly. Wonderful too, how others in the seminar take up her work with excitement and admiration.

This is not conventional “fiction”–there are few “characters”– minimal “description”–“Settings.” All is dreamlike, rapid-fire.

In fragments it is revealed that a girl named “Mya” has lived in one or more foster homes in the Southwest. Albuquerque, Tucson. In the home are (illegal?) Central American immigrants. There are bribes to be paid. There are hopes for visas, green cards. There are knives, guns. Brutal beatings when debts are not repaid. Shootings, woundings, blood-soaked mattresses. A ghastly scene in an emergency room where an eighteen-year-old Guatemalan hemorrhages to death, and a laconic scene in a morgue in which a drug-addled woman attempts to identify an estranged and badly mutilated husband. Hiding from law enforcement officers, rummaging Dumpsters for food. Shoplifting. Unexpected cruelty in the foster home, and unexpected kindness.

Homeless children, adolescents. A girl seeking out a younger sister who has been sent to live in a foster home.

There was no choice. My mother believed our father would
kill her if she did not leave.

... first there were three Myas in the foster home. Then
there were two Myas. Then there was one Mya.

Then, none.

You are filled with dread, you have gone too far. Your shy, unassertive student has begun writing what feels like life–she has thrown off restraint.

It is true, you have triumphed–as a writing instructor. But this is a precarious triumph–(maybe). As if you have prized open a shell, the pulsing life of the defenseless mollusk within is exposed.

One of the most imaginative writers in the class, whose name is Philip, whose major is astrophysics and whose favored writers are Borges, Calvino, Cortázar, declares that Ana's prose poetry is beautiful and terrible as a Möbius strip.

Ana is deeply moved to hear these words. You have seen how Philip has been casting sidelong glances at Ana, over the weeks; now Ana lifts her eyes to his face.

Much attention is paid in the workshop to Ana's prose. Her sentences, paragraphs–headlong plunges of language. There is praise for Ana's spare, elliptical dialogue which is buried in the text as if it might be interior and not uttered aloud at all.

No one cares to address Ana's powerful subject matter. Desperate persons, domestic violence, a hint of sexual assault. Three girls named Mya in the foster home.

Amid their admiration the others are uneasy. It is considered bad manners–the violation of an implicit taboo–to ask if anyone's work is based upon her experiences, at least when the work is so extreme. And you have taken care to instruct the students, memoirist writing is not memoir. Even memoir is not “autobiography” but understood to be more poetic and impressionistic, less literal and complete.

At the end of the discussion Ana is flushed with pleasure. Unless it's an excited sort of dread. Never have you seen Ana so intense, so involved in the workshop.

You would not dare reach out to touch her wrist now, her burning-hot skin would scald your fingers.

The following Thursday Ana is not in the seminar room when you arrive.

Everyone waits for Ana's arrival. The chair in which she usually sits is left unoccupied. But she does not appear.

Your heart is seized with dismay. You are sure it's as you'd feared–Ana regrets what she revealed to the class, she regrets being led to such openness.

Having written what she has written, that cannot now be retracted.

I am so sorry, Ana. Forgive me.

You don't write such an email. Never!

From your husband you learned never to impose your emotions upon students. Never to assume to know what they are thinking and feeling, that is (but) what you imagine they are thinking and feeling, unless they tell you; and it would be rare indeed for them to tell you.

You are the adult. You are the professional. You must prevail.

And then: by chance you encounter Ana in a store near the university.

Indeed it is but by chance. Indeed you have not been following Ana. 

Seeing too, another time–how alone Ana appears. How small, vulnerable.

Inside an oversized winter coat falling nearly to her ankles, that looks like a hand-me-down.

Her face is flushed from the cold, her eyes startled and damp. Faint shadows like bruises in her perfect skin, beneath her eyes.

Though you can see that Ana would (probably) prefer not to say hello it is not possible for you to avoid each other. You greet Ana with a friendly smile as you would any student, ignoring her nervousness; she stammers Hello Professor....

Ana is embarrassed, awkward. Still, Ana manages to smile at
her professor.

Telling you apologetically that she'd meant to write to you, to explain why she'd had to miss another class: there'd been a family emergency, she'd had to spend time on the phone with several relatives. Ana speaks so rapidly, in faltering English, you halfway wonder if she is telling the truth. Yet in her face an expression of such genuine dismay you are sure that she must be telling some part of the truth.

You are thinking If this were a story... You would invite Ana to have coffee with you, perhaps you would walk together in the lightly falling snow, and talk. Ana would confide in you at last, directly; as, it has seemed to you, she is confiding in you indirectly, in her writing. Ana would reveal herself the survivor of abuse, a broken and devastated household. A traumatized child in need of advice, protection... 

But that does not happen. Will not happen. For this is not a story, and not a fiction. This is actual life, that does not bend easily to your fantasies.

The moment passes. You move on. You do not glance after Ana, as, you are sure, Ana does not glance after you.

It is true, you are desperately lonely. But you understand that yours is an adult loneliness that no adolescent stranger can assuage.

RECALLING YOUR SHOCK, and subsequently melancholy, when the first class of your teaching career came to an end. 

How you'd actually wept...I will never have such wonderful students again.

For they had come to seem like family to you. Even those at the margins, not so fully engaged as others, the distracted ones, the annoying ones, the ones with quirky mannerisms, yet you'd come to love them all–their final smiles, their handshakes at the end of the final class, devastating to you, such loss.

Your husband had not laughed at you, not exactly. But assuring you, Yes. You will.

Twenty-seven years ago.

As abruptly as it began, the semester has ended.

The final workshop in the wood-paneled seminar room at the top of the smooth-worn staircase in North Hall.

And then, “reading week”–between the end of classes and the start of exams. Through this week you will see students in your
office, individually.

Following these conferences, which are sometimes intense, it is not likely that you will see most of the students again.

After such intimacy, abrupt detachment. The way of teaching– semester following semester.

Professor! Hello...

There is Ana, in the doorway of your office. Accompanied by two tensely smiling adults–parents?

You don't expect this. You are totally surprised. You'd thought–what had you thought?

A lost girl, an abused girl. An orphan.

Though Ana appears to be virtually quivering with nerves, or with excitement, she has brought her parents to meet you–Elena and Carlos Fallas. Ana's pride in the situation, her thrilled face, shining eyes, the way she clasps her parents' hands in hers, urging them to enter your office–it is very touching, you are moved nearly to tears.

Ana's parents are so young. Especially the mother who is Ana's height, small-boned, with beautiful dark eyes. Haltingly the parents speak to you in heavily accented English. They are visiting from San Diego, they say. They have heard much about you.

Through a roaring in your ears you hear Ana speaking of her favorite class, her writing class, how you helped her to write as if your life depended upon it.

How you'd told her–It need not be true, your writing will make it true.

Ana is breathless, daring. What an achievement it has been for your shyest student to have brought her parents to meet you! How long has Ana been practicing these words, this encounter...

The scene seems impossible to you. Unreal. How had you so misread Ana Fallas? Her seeming lack of interest in the seminar, and in you... Her sorrowful expression, her isolation...

Had you misinterpreted, and Ana is not telling the fullest truth now? But rather, performing for her parents? And for you?

The melancholy was not feigned, you are sure. The sorrow in her eyes. Yet–here is a very different Ana, laughing as she discreetly corrects her parents' English, vivacious and sparkling, happy.

Ana has plaited her hair into a sleekly black braid. She has painted her fingernails coral. She is wearing, not baggy clothes, but attractive bright-colored clothing that is a perfect size for her small body. The little gold cross glitters around her neck. Ana is very pretty, and she is adored by her parents. She is not an abused child, she is certainly not an orphan.

Astonishingly, you hear–My favorite professor.

You are determined not to betray this astonishment. You are determined to speak despite the roaring in your ears. Assuring Ana's eager parents that Ana has been an excellent student. A very promising writer. Like few young writers, Ana can learn from criticism–constructive criticism. Ana's imagination is fertile, seemingly boundless. You are giddy as a drunkard. Words tumble from your mouth, you are shameless. You will say anything to please these people, you want only to make them happy, to make them less ill-at-ease in your professorial presence.

You will not confess–I have been so mistaken about your daughter. I am ashamed...

She is not the person I had imagined. You are not the people. Forgive me!

Ana's parents have brought you a beautifully wrapped little gift. Your heart sinks, you hope it isn't expensive. (That size? Could be a small clock. A watch.) You have not the heart to decline their generosity but it is considered a breach of academic ethics, at least at this university, to accept gifts from the parents of students, even small gifts.

The card from Ana you will accept, with thanks. The gift you will pass to the departmental secretary.

Ana's parents are less nervous now. They tell you how proud they are of their daughter, the first in the family to attend a four-year college. How grateful for the scholarship that brought her here–though it is so far from home. How honored to meet you.

When they leave you stand in the doorway of your office staring after them, still disbelieving, dazed. So mistaken. How possible...

The little gift you leave on your desk for the time being. The card from Ana you open: Thank you, Professor, for giving me the key to my life.

And then, returning home later that evening.

A mild shock–the door is unlocked.

Turn the knob, and the door opens. Not for the first time since your husband has died. It is a careless habit, away for hours and the house unlocked and darkened.

You have become careless with your life. Indifferent.

Entering an empty house from which all meaning has fled.

Once, this was a happy place. That seems like a bad joke now.

Each room in this house is a kind of exile. You avoid most of the rooms, you keep in motion. Difficult to find a place to sit, a place where you are comfortable sitting. Almost at once you feel restless, anxious. Your fingers clutch at the hollow in your throat, you have difficulty breathing.

He has been gone how many months. Still you cannot–quite–acknowledge the word dead.

Once, you'd known precisely how many weeks, days. Down to the hour.

But the house is still as deserted. This place from which happiness has drained like water seeping into earth.

You have tried to explain to your husband, as you try to explain to him so many things, for he is patient, unjudging–how you were mistaken about Ana, for so long. The stubbornness in your misperception, the hurt. You have tried, and failed, to explain to him why Ana has meant so much to you. And why it has all ended, as it has ended.

It is frightening to you, in this empty and darkened house–What else has eluded you, that is staring you in the face? About what else have you been mistaken?