gunch

I dread Gunch coming into the teacher's room nowadays. How can that be? He is my closest ally at school, a deep and funny man - charming and kind. He enjoys teaching me and he does it very well. He always remembers to ask where I am going on the weekends, brings me pictures and books about the place I am heading for and the following Monday he asks sincerely about my adventures. He is my teacher and he is my friend.

But ever since the night he told me that his health is not good I have started to notice how sickly he seems. I keep thinking back to the Gunch before he told me he wasnt well. Did he have the same black bubbling cough? Was his suit always so tatty looking? It has always been chalky and wrinkly, since I met him in the heat of summer, but did it hang so limply then? When I met him he was an eccentric and natty man, now he looks dirty and unkempt. Has he always mumbled to himself quite so much? I dont remember. I simultaneously attend to his every splutter and berate myself for doing so, invading his privacy by eavesdropping on his body.
It doesnt help that, because of the school renovations we go down and then up four flights of stairs every time need to get to class. When Gunch and I make the walk together we stop on the landings between every floor to look at the trees and the beautiful mountain. He needs those few minutes between floors and the least I can do is play into the distraction of the view. It also doesnt help that at the end of every class Gunch goes to the field next to the school and has a smoke. He smokes the strongest cigarettes available.

The students think Gunch is funny. Sometimes they laugh with him but sometimes they are laughing at him too: swooning once he turns his back to show their friends that yes, they can smell the sharp sourness of cigarettes on his suit. Laughing when he writes something incorrectly on the board. I can see them do this. They make no effort to hide it from me. It is heartbreaking. I want to shake them and try to explain to them - Dont you see! This silly old man is the most important teacher you will ever have.

I might be exaggerating Gunch's condition because I have become so acutely aware of it. I try to act as if the wracking cough and dripping nose do not bother me when he sits with me for our lessons but I know that there must be micro-expressions of disgust that flash across my face. If he sees them they must be so hurtful I hate myself for having them. I hate that I can't genuinely ignore his current condition.

It might just be a winter cold (I did ask and he said he often gets chesty in winter). Every day I silently appraise him - is he looking better than yesterday? Sounding better than yesterday? It is this new layer of our interaction, my constant and uncontrollable appraisal that makes me dread our time together. Gunch's frailty is making me see him differently and judge myself for seeing him differently. I hate it. I wish things could go back to the way they were when I never suspected he was sick. Then, Gunch was a constant whereas now I have confront the fact that I might not have him forever. It is a horrible thing to face.