Lottë and the German Student
"Ich fing an. I began.
Ich habe angefangen. I have begun.
Ich hatte angefangen. I had begun."
I keep my eyes on the music. This is the fifth time I've started the damn excercise, and if I don't finish it, I'll finish him.
"It's not so much verb conjugation as it is foreshadowing, isn't it?" He says.
I give a non-comittal rising "Hmm?"
Right hand 3241.
Left hand 43....
Left hand...
My arm becomes heavy, my wrist stiff and perfunctory. The note sours in my mouth. I swing the harp forward to the floor. In order to stretch, I cross my arms in the dip of the neck, and lean into the instrument.
Scheisse!
"What?" I say.
He smiles, "I began, I have begun, I had begun. Had. Done. Done with."
"Well isn't that all verb conjugation is?" I say, "Foreshadowing."
"Ashes to ashes, present to past tense." He says.
In play, I slap his shoulder, "Spreken ze Deutsch!" My calloused fingertip follows the line, "Wir fangen an.Wir fingen an.Wir haben angefangen."
We.
In a few short days, the semester will begin, and I will never see him again, but there is no point talking like it. A few furtive messages on the message bank of a disposed disposable mobile, maybe he will try and find my friends. "Lottë?" They'll say, bewildered. I have ways of making it a clean break, at least clean for me.
Right hand 3241
Left hand 4312
Da Capo al fine; con fuoco, now.
He was a diversion, not a distraction.
