“And is that what you were hoping to find here? A teacher like the ones you’re used to?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Then you’re in luck, Julie, because I’m not like them. I’m what is called a maieutic teacher. A maieutic teacher is one who acts as a midwife to his pupils—or, of course, her pupils. Do you know what a midwife is?”
“A midwife is … someone who helps at childbirth. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right. A midwife helps bring into the light an infant that has been growing inside its mother. A maieutic teacher helps bring into the light ideas that have been growing inside his pupils.” The gorilla stared at me intently while I thought about this. At last he went on. “Do you think there are any ideas growing inside of you?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. It was the truth.
“Do you think something is growing inside of you?”
I looked at him as blankly as I could. He was beginning to frighten me.
“Tell me this, Julie. Would you have come here two years ago if you’d seen my advertisement?”
That was easy. I told him no.
“So something has changed,” he went on. “Something inside of you. This is what I want to know about. I must understand what brought you here.”
I stared at him for a while, then I said, “Do you know what I say to myself all the time? I mean all the time—twenty times a day. I say to myself, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ ”
Ishmael frowned, puzzling over this.
“I’ll be taking a shower or washing the dishes or waiting for the bus, and that’s what’ll pop into my head: “I’ve got to get out of here.’ ”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
He grunted. “Of course you know.”
“It means … Run for your life.”
“Is your life in danger?”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From everything. From people walking into school-rooms with machine guns. From people bombing airplanes and hospitals. From people pumping nerve gas into subways. From people dumping poison in the water we drink. From people cutting down the forests. From people destroying the ozone layer. I don’t really know all this stuff, because I don’t want to listen. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I mean, do you think I know what an ozone layer is? I don’t. But they say we’re poking holes in it, and if the holes get big enough, we’re going to start dying like flies. They say the rain forests are like the planet’s lungs, and if we cut them down, we’ll suffocate. Do you think I know if this is right? I don’t. One of my teachers said that as many as two hundred species of plants and animals go extinct every day because of what we’re doing to this planet. I remembered that—I’ve got a good memory for stuff like that—but do you think I know if it’s true? I don’t, but I believe it. This same teacher says we’re adding fifteen million tons of carbon dioxide to the air every day. Do you think I know what this means? I don’t. All I know is that carbon dioxide is a poison. I don’t know where I saw it or heard it, but the suicide rate among teenagers has tripled in the last forty years. Do you think I go looking for this stuff? I don’t. But it jumps out at me anyway. People are eating the world alive.”
Ishmael nodded. “So you’ve got to get out of here.”
“That’s right.”
Ishmael gave me a few seconds to think about that, then he said, “But this doesn’t explain why you’ve come to see me.
My ad doesn’t say anything about getting out of here.”
“Yeah, I know. It sounds like I’m not making any sense.”
Ishmael cocked an eyebrow at me.