still col ege-aged, Elvis won me with “Heartbreak Hotel. ”
Even now I can’t hear it without the winds from the Aegean
blowing right by me. But when it comes to conveying ideas
without words, jazz triumphs. A U. S. writer without jazz and
blues in her veins must have ice water instead.
The Pedophilic
Teacher
I was lucky enough to have three brilliant teachers in junior
high and high school. The first, in junior high, was Mr. Smith,
who was a political conservative at a time when the word was
not in common usage and not many people, including me,
knew what it meant. He taught English, especially how to
parse and diagram sentences, over and over, so that the structure of the language became embedded in one’s brain and was like gravity - no personal concern yet omnipresent. You could
run your fingers through English the way God could run his
fingers through your hair. He was the Czerny of grammar.
The second was Mr. Belfield, who taught honors American
history. I had him for two years, the eleventh and twelfth
grades. Very lit le at Bennington later was as interesting or as
demanding. He had unspeakably high standards, as befitted
someone who had wanted to be secretary of state. It was wonderful not to be condescended to; not to be simply passing time; not to waste the hours waiting for some minor diversion to make one alert; to have one’s own intellect stretched
until it was about ready to break. He too was a political
conservative and seemed to live a solitary, affectionless life.
But then, I wouldn’t know, would I? And that is exactly right.
There is no reason for any student to know. The line separating student and teacher needs to be drawn, and it’s up to the teacher to do it. The combination of Mr. Belfield’s own
intel ectual rigor and his substantive demands were a total
blessing: he taught me how to write a book. I worked hard in
his class, and I cannot think of any other teacher who was so
authentic and commit ed, whose pedagogy was disinterested
in the best sense, not a toying with the minds of students nor
fucking with their aspirations for bet er or worse: he wanted
heroic work - he demanded it. You might say that he was the
Wagner of American history without the loathsome anti-
Semitism and misshapen ego. Other people accused him of
ar ogance, but I thought he was humble - he was modest to
use his gifts to teach us. Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Belfield
ever al owed the deep sleep of mediocrity; neither wanted
narcoleptic students; you couldn’t play either of them for favors,
and they didn’t play you.
The third great teacher was dif erent in substance and in
kind. He liked little girls, especially little Jewish girls. I don’t
mean five-year-olds, although maybe he liked them too. But
