Damien Galeone

“Ahoj,” the boy who leans into the room seems pleasant enough but is wearing a smile which reads: I need something from you. “Can he come in?” the boy asks.

I look around and see no other person. I guess that the boy is an assistant to one of the many special-needs students at the university, who is probably in the hallway. I say, “Of course, he is more than welcome.” I sit down.

The boy walks in the room and takes out his index. “He needs you to sign this,” the boy smiles, “if you have time.”

“I have time.” I am now searching the room for another sign of life. Nobody. Nothing.

The boy holds out his index, which is a booklet every student must get signed by every teacher they have had in any given semester, thus proving a satisfactory mark in that class. Sometimes a student brings a friend’s index; I figure this must be the case.

“Oh, OK, let me have his index.” I almost wink, take it and flip to the picture on the inside cover. It’s our boy, whose name is Honza, smiling the very same “I need something from you” smile. “Who was your teacher?” I ask.

“His teacher was Mrs…” Honza trails off as if he wants me to finish his thought. “He can’t remember her name.” Honza frowns, “Is that a problem for him?”

“OK, Honza, I have to ask you a question, alright?”

“Sure,” Honza smiles at me.

“Who is ‘he’?”

“He who?”

I foresee the Abbott and Costello skit from hell and decide to take a different approach. “What is your name?”

“Honza,” he says this as if speaking to a child who can’t remember the word for Squirrel.

“Say that in a full sentence,” I command. A thin dew of sweat makes its appearance on my forehead.

He taps his forefinger against his chest and gives me a condescending smile. “His name is Honza.”

“Well if he speaks to me like that again, he is going to get an index shoved into his ass. Does he understand?”

Honza pulls his hands in the air and apologizes with body language. “He understands.”

I press my fingers into my temples. “Holy shit, Honza, he is driving me out of my mind.”

“He apologizes.”

“Fuck.”

Czech verbs are conjugated to denote the actor of the verb. So, Mluvit is the infinitive meaning to speak. Mluvim means I speak, mluviš means you speak, and mluvi means he/she speaks. In my first three minutes with Honza, I think this is a linguistic problem. But other than this abnormality in his speaking, Honza’s English is very good. And he speaks about other people using the appropriate pronouns. Furthermore, the grammar surrounding his pronoun is flawless: He understands, not He understand.

For these reasons, I believe that Honza has been sent to me for a reason. But, why?

I search for a theory; each one more disturbing in its level of paranoia. Is this a practical joke? Has Honza been sent here by the former KGB to drive me insane? Is Honza referring to God? Does Honza think he’s God? Is Honza God?

I find the teacher’s name and search through her files and tests and find Honza’s name on a class list. It’s there just like any other; nothing unusual about it all. I find his test and scan it for a pathological overuse of the words he, him and his, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. I look at Honza, who is staring into his phone and attacking an itch on his ankle with the toe of his shoe.

He puts it away and looks at me. “How did he do?” he asks.

I sign my name twice and fill out the index. “He did fine.” I show him the test mark and hand him back his index. “Now, he must get the hell away from me before he gets thrown out of a window.”

“He will. He will. Have a nice day.” And just like that, Honza’s out of my life.

I sit at my desk and decide that I need to talk to his teacher. She is a part-time teacher, only at the university once a month. It’s the beginning of the semester and I haven’t seen her yet. I saunter over to my boss’s office and knock on the door. She tells me to come in.

“How are you,” I begin. For some reason I feel as though I am a sixteen year old about to buy condoms or ask a girl to the big dance. I finally ask her about the teacher.

“Well, she’s not coming back,” my boss says. “She decided to retire.” She looks over her shoulders conspiratorially, “I think she was having some personal problems. Know what I mean?”

“Holy crap, yes,” I say as I leave the room. “He surely does.”