The Centre(18)

“Used to solitude?” I asked.

“Well, it’ll be ten days of, essentially, just you and the language,” Tim responded.

“And you’ll have only one person, your supervisor, with whom you can communicate while there,” Susan added. “We need to make sure that’s something you can handle.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. I’m an introvert by nature.”

“Introverts tend to rely on various supplemental aids to provide distraction. The internet is a significant one. Do you have a meditation practice?” Tim asked.

“Umm … I guess so. Here and there. I use the Headspace app sometimes. Do you know that one?”

“I am familiar, yes,” he said, scribbling something into his notepad.

I thought to myself that I should’ve said vipassana, the more heavy-duty meditation thing that Naima talked about.

“Here you go,” I said, handing him back the form.

“We see you have applied to learn German,” Susan said.

“That’s right.”

“A fine choice. Now, as part of the screening, we will conduct a brief medical checkup. Does that sound all right?”

“Yes, they told me on the phone. I’m surprised, though, that you need one.”

“It is routine.”

“Yes, it’s just, I’m trying to understand … a medical checkup for a language course?”

“This is far more than a language course,” Tim explained. “It is a holistic experience. What you get out of it is fluency in the language of your choice. What you put into it, however, is quite different.”

“What do I put into it?”

“Simply, presence. But we need to make sure you are fit and healthy, resilient enough to undergo the rigors of the process.”

“Rigors?”

“It is an intense absorption,” he said.

“Which requires … physical endurance?”

“Not physical endurance, exactly, but good health. Ten days of isolation from the outside world while deeply immersed in an unfamiliar tongue. That is a considerable venture.”

Conscious that this conversation could well be part of the interview, I said, “I’m fully prepared for all of that. I’m confident it won’t be a problem.”

“Good. And you’re happy to proceed with the medical tests?”

“Of course.”

They then checked my blood pressure and pulse and asked me to spit into a small vial so they could test for allergies. I tried to draw them into conversation while we performed these tests.

“So, have you been to the Centre yourselves?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Susan said. “We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t. We found it very interesting.”

“From a scientific perspective,” Tim added.

“How does it work exactly?” I asked.

“It’s very complex. We’re still trying to understand it ourselves,” Susan said. “We’re going to write a paper about it one day.”

“Sue,” Tim warned.

“What? I said one day.”

Tim sighed and went back to examining the screen. Susan rolled her eyes, and we exchanged smiles.

“Management isn’t interested, you see, in anyone analyzing their process yet,” she explained. “But I think things are changing. A new woman’s been running the place, she’s been there three or four years now. I think she’ll let people in more.”

Tim, still looking at the screen, shook his head. It felt like this was a conversation they’d had before.

“Did you two go there together?” I asked.

“No, separately. We hadn’t met then. But the woman who runs the place, she learned that we were both doctors, took a liking to us, and offered us this job.”

“Extraordinary woman,” Tim said.

“It’s true,” Susan echoed. She walked over to Tim and placed her palm on his lower back, looking over his shoulder as he checked the notes that the printer was spitting out.

“Are you two … together?”

“We are, in fact,” she confirmed and showed me the golden band on her finger. “The wedding’s in three months.”

“Congratulations.”

“I suppose it helped, didn’t it, that we’d both had … that experience? Sharing something like that can be bonding. You’ll see. It’s quite profound.”

“I’m excited to experience it,” I said.

“At first, it can seem … different. And the body doesn’t always react well to difference, but eventually—”

“Did you write down the temperature variance?” Tim interrupted.

“I did, yes,” Susan confirmed, straightening herself back into a professional stance.

Tim uploaded my spit sample into some kind of device, and a stream of data appeared on the monitor.

“Does everything look okay?” I asked.

“Looks good,” he answered.

“So, you know when they say fluency in ten days?” I asked. “Is it like, fluent, fluent? Like, will I be able to read, I dunno, Freud and things?”

Tim turned from the screen toward me.

“By the end of your ten days,” he said, “you will be reading Freud and Hegel, Nietzsche and Marx, in the original with no problem. How much you absorb of these texts is, of course, a matter of intellect, but we generally find significant improvement in that department as well.”