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The person sitting in my client’s chair was without a doubt the most beautiful woman ever to occupy that seat. She was fairly short with a beautiful face and a trim, shapely and, we private detectives being very observant, I noticed that, not surprisingly, she was wearing a wedding ring. Lucky man, I thought, contrasting her to my ex-wife.
“How may I help you, Mrs.? Ms.?” I asked, trying not to stumble over the words.
“It’s Mrs. Reed, Karen Reed. I teach German at Minnehaha University in Longfellow.”
I knew the School in a nearby town. Some of my students went there. I hoped Mrs. Reed never had any of them in her classes.
As a high school and university student, I had taken French and learned that I have no linguistic ability. My German vocabulary consists of: “Bitte, Danke schon, Guten Morgen, Auf Weidersehen, Ja Wohl.” I didn’t think that “Mein Fuhrer” and “Sieg Heil” counted. Not enough to order a meal or rent a room, but most people think that everyone speaks some English … or should.
“I was supposed to teach a course in speaking German at night school and I ordered two dozen textbooks and paid for them, but they never arrived, although the publisher swears he sent them, so now the students have no textbooks and I’m out $240.00.”
“This course was to be given at Blandsville High School?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll check on it.”
Mentally I had already waived my fee. Mrs. Reed could use the money for more useful if unnecessary thing like make-up or fashionable clothes.
That afternoon I visited Blandsville High School, but I had problems: I had not got Board permission to be in the school and no one in the office knew me, so I pretended to be seeking information about my son Mergatroyd and while someone looked for his non-existent files, I visually searched, but saw nothing.
Who steals a box of German textbooks? And why?
The next day I went to Minnehaha U. Again I discovered nothing about the missing books (or my non-existent son). I was at an impasse.
Then I had a bit of luck. Hank said: “I visited my successor as head caretaker at B.H.S. The school has a new course in introductory German, a night-school course taught by Frau Braun.”
Interesting, I thought, and I registered for the course. On the first night, I met Frau Braun, a middle-aged, slightly over-weight blonde, and received my free textbook. All introductory language books have similar titles, but this one sounded very much like the missing Reed book.
After an hour of trying to pronounce the letters of the alphabet of what Mark Twain called “the awful German language,” the verbal ordeal ended and I approached Frau Braun and asked about the free textbooks.
“That was my deal with the Board,” she said. “The students receive free books and I receive minimum salary.”
“You must really want to teach German,” I said.
“I do,” she admitted.
The next morning I took my book to Frau Reed. “That’s it,” she said and from my description, she recognized Frau Braun as the outstanding student in two of her recent classes. “She must be teaching what she learned from me.”
She accompanied me to Frau Braun’s next class and there was an embarrassed confrontation between the two Teutonic teachers, but I was surprised that Frau Reed was not angry; instead, she was happy that someone else wanted more people to learn German. I’ll never understand women, especially beautiful ones.
But I searched in vain for an appropriate German quotation for the situation.
