Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,6

not know. I thought at first that she was in her twenties. I was thirty-nine at the time. But I came to find out that she was even younger than I’d figured. Nineteen at the time of our meeting. Twenty the last time I saw her.

Eventually she suggested, again by letter, that we meet outside of school. It was February. She hadn’t been my student for two months. Still, it was especially brave of her & I could sense the bravery in her penmanship, darker than usual, more deliberate & neat. I chose the place in my reply. It was a café near Gramercy Park. Far enough from the university, I thought, so that I didn’t worry about being seen by a colleague; near enough so I could get there quickly after class.

•

I have to admit that it was an exploitative choice: it was a perfect little shop. Dimly glowing inside, little flowers on the tables, white lights where the wall met the ceiling. The reassuring smell of a fireplace. I arrived before she did & sat with a book that I looked at but did not read. The door, hung with bells, made a noise as it opened and there she was, Charlene Turner, wearing a purple down coat that came to her ankles. It was very cold outside.

Although in her letter she had used my first name, now she reverted to Professor Opp, and I made a lousy senseless joke. “Dr,” I said, & she got very embarrassed and said, “Doctor, Doctor.”

“I’m joking,” I said, but it was too late, & even after I implored her to call me by my first name, she mainly avoided addressing me directly.

At first we had not much to say to one another. She looked around the shop jerkily, her head as quick as a sparrow’s, her eyes moving in circles. But later she seemed calm enough to look around her at least a little bit, & I saw it having its effect on her: the charming cosmopolitan place, three Frenchwomen in a corner, two Russians at the bar.

She told me about her childhood, about her hopes for the future.

She told me several things about herself that I have never forgotten.

She wanted it all. The shop & the city & the Russians. She wanted no longer to be lonely.

In the end it was this feeling that drew us toward each other & that kept us there. I sensed her loneliness the moment she walked into my classroom, & I thought it likely that she could sense mine, although I tried to shield her from it. Neither of us had much in the way of family. She confessed to me that her parents didn’t even know she had taken a class in the city; they would have thought it was a waste of money. She confessed to me that she was unable to continue her education at the university, for the time being, because she could no longer afford it. & again I had an urge, as I always do with people I like or love, to take care of her: to—simply—give her what she needed. Anything her heart desired. But I would have felt foolish & presumptuous offering her anything, so I didn’t, & I have spent many years wondering if perhaps I should have.

We spent hours together talking. I took her to see things I believed she would find interesting: plays & concerts & cultural events of the sort that New York City is famous for. I took her to several of my favorite restaurants. One evening, toward the end of spring, we ventured over to the pier at Christopher Street & threw pieces of a soft pretzel to some ducks that had congregated nearby, & she bent forward toward the water, one hand on her knee, the other held out eagerly toward the birds. This image of Charlene Turner has become fixed in my mind forever: it is how I think of her even now, her hair pulled back, wearing a drab brown coat that was very unlike the bright clothes beneath it. When the birds swam toward her and accepted her gift, she raised a hand as if in victory, & turned to me smiling. I watched her. She was dear to me.

Nevertheless, that spring I felt slightly unnatural: this was not any Arthur Opp I knew, taking someone out on dates, planning & executing gallant little excursions here & there. Always I was waiting for the bottom to