This is the ninth story in this summer’s online Flash Fiction series. You can read the entire series here, as well as our Flash novels from past years.
Out of necessity, I accepted a position as a substitute Latin teacher at the National School of Buenos Aires, an elite preparatory school. I never thought I’d be teaching high school Latin, even though I’m capable of doing so. As for the replacement: they didn’t explain whether the teacher I was replacing got sick, died, or was fired; his absence sounded more like a timeout. Not only does time seem to be frozen, but so does time. Schools do the same. Something sucked the air from the place: students were breathless during school events, a huge portrait of a famous headmaster hung in the teachers’ lounge, and a huge portrait of a major naval battle. The teachers’ common room and courtyard were dark, and in those places I would feel disapproving glances in my direction.
There must be a modern way of teaching Latin, but that place prevented me from making any plans. When I walk at least two blocks, I get scared before I feel calm again. I felt like everything I was doing was wrong; my fear was an animal fear and I was relieved they didn’t hit me or lock me in.
The school has always been a den of fledgling leaders, dissidents and success stories, but, at thirteen and fourteen, the kids are punished for any little thing; They are allowed to go to the bathroom during school hours, without exception. That’s the condition I had to work in, and teach Latin. The sentence my students translated was this:
How far is “parasang”? Who can I ask?
What could “cinnabar” be? The students were trying to joke with me by asking this question, but neither they nor I wanted to know. After the embarrassment, I left school without knowing these things, and if, as I expected, I was punished in some way, at least I would know why. Such restrictive and brutal language is used in these texts; it is always an order, a demand, an altar to a goddess. But the passage I hate the most is that of the housewife, Aria, who tells her sick husband in one room with conviction that their son, who died in the other, is getting better and has had a meal Hearty meals.
Since I started teaching Latin at 11 o’clock yes to 1 afternoonI’ll lighten the mood by teaching about Roman culture and describing what the Romans ate for the second hour.
One of the things I’ve always found weird about Roman cuisine is that one organism is cooked inside another. For example, you might find a goose inside a pig and a chick inside a goose, all coated in honey, the glue that holds them together.
I would say to my students, “What fun!”
They would reply, “Disgusting! Why are you telling us this – and at noon!”
I also told them that in ancient Rome people would throw everything in the street – pee and stuff. The class caused an uproar that I couldn’t control. I was rescued by the ringing of the bell, but the security guard who was with the police still came in and stared at me. I escaped to a coffee shop about five blocks away that wasn’t on my regular route. I was wandering around like a lost puppy. When I sat down, the café seemed extraordinary to me, the street like a sanctuary and the waiter like a prince. ❖
(Translated from Spanish by Anna Vilner.)
This is taken from A Matter of Attribution: A Chronicle.
