Page 63 - WTP VOl. XII #1

tions about their lives, listened to their stories. You sensed that above all else he cared for the humanity of others, as he joked or considered or suggested, as he philosophized and offered moments of wisdom. He was deeply and earnestly Catholic. It wasn’t unusual to hear him swear about the Vatican, about “all the poor people” who could be housed in that “fucking exalted space.” I never saw him judge another human being by their economic station or their status. It didn’t matter to Andre what station of life others occupied—a person’s character was what he cared about.
“D
winter after-
Mid-winter was gray outside the classroom windows: snow came occasionally from clouds that stretched over the college. In our workshops we read our prose haltingly, nervously at first, then with growing confidence as you realized the profes- sor had a true interest in what you were doing. We were required to write at least five pages per week; class met twice weekly and we read on a revolving basis, in time slots we had signed up for. Most of
us closed our eyes as we listened to the stories of our peers, following the lead of our teacher. Then usually we would talk about the stories passion- ately, the room becoming embroiled in debate. “Isn’t this great?” Andre said, happily, during one such melee. “We’re all having a fight about a bunch of characters who don’t even exist.”
~
There was a painting near the door of Seminar D that our new professor referred to often. The artist had created a bridge over water, a small house, a heavy blue sky and sun, wildflowers in the foreground. “Take one element of the painting out,” Andre told us, in one of our first classes, “or make that aspect smaller or larger, and the whole composition falls apart. In fiction it is the same, everything based on balance, proportion.” We were talking this day about a young woman’s story and Andre asked her now for the manuscript. She handed it to him and he undid her paper clip, and took the manuscript apart, page by page, laying it in a chronological line on the long front table, facing toward the class.
“You can learn a lot from looking at a story visually,” he told us, “and thinking about how much atten- tion you’re giving to each section of the narrative.” He went through the scenes, describing what was happening in each, his blue-jeaned, bearded form moving against the blackboard. His index finger pointed through the pages. “The trouble you’re having here is that the climax of your story, which
uring these first
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noons in 1982 we read our stories aloud in Seminar D, and
this new teacher of mine listened, sitting at the center of the front table, his head tilted back, his hands hanging by his sides, his eyes closed.“
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