Miss Powder roamed around the room whenever we were practicing, slapping our hands if they weren’t in exactly the right position and pinching back our shoulders. As soon as we knew the basics, she brought in a stopwatch and bell to time us for two minutes as we typed The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, as fast as we could, as many times as we could.
The bell made everyone nervous except Maureen Blair, a dark Irish beauty who was the best in the class. I was second best and Miss Powder held us up as examples for the others. She always blamed their mistakes on posture, but I thought it probably had more to do with the fact that most of them could barely read.
One evening, Miss Powder showed up with her hair pulled so tight that she looked a little Chinese around the eyes. She was spitting mad. “You will notice an empty chair tonight,” she said. “Miss Blair has informed me that as she is now engaged to be married, so she has no need to continue.
“I trust that none of you are considering doing anything so . . . so . . .” She couldn’t think of a strong enough word. “When I think of the poor girls who were turned away in favor of someone like that.” I don’t think Miss Powder could have been any more outraged if Maureen Blair had murdered her own mother.
After typing class, I ran upstairs to the second floor and Shakespeare. I don’t think I would have picked a whole class on just one writer, but it was my only choice and it turned out to be a good one. Strange, but good.
The teacher was Mr. Boyer, a short, chubby man with bright blue eyes and a thick white moustache. He had a deep voice and talked as if every other word started with a capital letter. “It is my Privilege to introduce you to the Greatest Writer in the History of the English Language,” he said. “Have any of you had the Pleasure of seeing the Great Bard’s Work on the Stage?”
Nobody had.
“A shame,” he said. “In this class, at least, you will hear the Immortal Words of one of his Greatest Works, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.”
And then he opened a book and started reading the play and didn’t stop until the bell rang. He picked up where he left off in the next class and the one after that.
At first, I didn’t understand half of what was going on; there were too many words I’d never heard before and I had trouble with all those names. But it was a little like listening to music—Mr. Boyer read with a lot of feeling—and somehow after a while it started making sense.
By the time he finished the play, there were only ten students left out of the twenty-five who started. A moment after he closed the book, Sally Blaustein wailed, “They both died? After all that?” I felt exactly the same way.
Mr. Boyer’s face lit up. “Our first Question,” he said, and then, without any explanation, he started reading the play all over again. But this time, he stopped after every scene and made us ask questions about what we’d heard.
I learned a lot from those questions—not just about the play but about the other people in the class, too. Iris Olshinsky asked Mr. Boyer for definitions of a lot of words—sometimes the simple ones, and usually more than once. He never got annoyed or impatient with her or with any of us. Actually, he seemed to be delighted when anyone asked anything at all.
Mario Romano didn’t seem to like any of the characters except the Nurse. Sally Blaustein felt sorry for everyone but especially Paris, who also died for love. Ernie Goldman wanted to get the facts right: Who was a Capulet and who was a Montague? Was there really a drug that would make everyone think you were dead when you really weren’t?
I asked about Juliet; in some scenes I thought she was wonderful but in others I thought she was an idiot.
Mr. Boyer timed it so that on the last day of class he read us the last scene, and even though we all knew what was going to happen, there were gasps when Romeo picked up the dagger and tears when Juliet woke up and found out he was dead. When he got to the last word of the play, I felt like a dishrag.
Mr. Boyer motioned to Ernie and handed him a pile of papers and announced, “Mr. Goldman will distribute these for your Final Examination.”
He had never mentioned a final examination before. We must have looked scared to death.
“There is no cause for worry, my friends,” he said. “All I ask is that you pose One Question that has most Intrigued or Confused you about the Play.”
That seemed easy enough and everyone finished up in a few minutes. But when Ernie started to collect the papers Mr. Boyer stopped him and said—actually, he never just “said” anything. If he wasn’t reading the play, he usually pronounced or declared—but this time he lowered his voice like he was telling us a secret.
“One more thing, my friends. Please be so kind as to answer your own question.”
Everyone went right to work, but I froze. “Was Juliet a great heroine or a foolish little girl?” I couldn’t just choose one or the other and I didn’t see how I could say she was both at the same time like I did with Paul Revere.
Other people were turning in their papers and I still hadn’t written a word. I was starting to panic until out of the blue I remembered my father saying that Jews answered questions with more questions. So that’s what I did.
“Was Juliet a better poet than Romeo? If Juliet found out about Rosaline, would she still love Romeo? Should Juliet have given Paris a chance? Why is love so dangerous for Juliet? Why are Juliet’s parents so blind? Was the Nurse Juliet’s friend or enemy? Would Juliet have killed herself if she had been twenty-five years old instead of thirteen?”
We sat and watched Mr. Boyer read our papers. He nodded, he smiled, he shook his head, he frowned, he laughed a little, and he sighed a lot.
When he was finished he said, “Congratulations to you, one and all, on Completing the Course. Each of you will receive the Highest Grade I am permitted to bestow. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I send you on your way. A Sweet Sorrow.”
I waited to be the last one to leave the room to tell him thank you and to ask what he was teaching next term and if I could take it.
“I am flattered,” he said, but he was retiring. I had taken the very last class he would ever teach. “That explains my unorthodox methods,” he said. “I am now Beyond Reproach. But I would like to give you an assignment, if I may.”
I said yes, of course.
He told me to go and see the play “on its feet.” You know, onstage, in person. He said he was sure I would understand Juliet if I saw her walking and breathing and speaking her poetry. “You might even come to love her.”