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The directions I’d been given to the Centre’s offices led me to a blue door, number 74, on a side street just off Tottenham Court Road. I rang the unmarked buzzer.
“Yes?”
“Hi. It’s Anisa Ellahi. I have a three o’clock?”
“Come up, please.”
Inside, I climbed a narrow, carpeted staircase to the first floor, where a slender woman with sleek black hair that curtained down the sides of her face sat behind a circular receptionist desk. Large pink geraniums bloomed in an ivory pot to her right.
“Anisa?” she confirmed and gestured for me to take a seat on one of the two leather armchairs around the coffee table in the corner. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”
I sat down and examined the space around me. It looked pristine, like something between a dentist’s office and a spa. The receptionist had been knitting with bright turquoise wool when I’d walked in, and she put her needles down now to pick up the phone next to her and tell the person on the other end that I’d arrived.
“Won’t be a minute,” she said, hanging up the phone and resuming her knitting.
I looked again at her desk, at the ivory pot beside her that held the geraniums. I realized it was in the shape of a human skull, with the flowers sprouting out of a hole at the top of its cranium. I found it strangely mesmerizing and examined it for several moments before clearing my throat and asking, “Um … is that real?”
The receptionist looked up from her knitting and gazed at the skull as if seeing it for the first time.
“Oh,” she said abstractedly. She lifted her knitting needle and tapped the skull three times, just where its right temple lay, as if checking for authenticity. Tap, tap, tap. Then, she moved the needle upward, stroking a leaf that fanned out from the plant before resting its tip on one of the pink flowers. “Of course they’re real. They’re in season.”
She went back to her knitting, and I wondered for a moment whether she’d deliberately misunderstood my question. As she adjusted the turquoise fabric, I saw that she was making a tiny little sweater.
“That’s lovely,” I said, gesturing toward her handiwork. Her face blossomed into a smile.
“You think so?”
She put the needles down and held the tiny sweater by the shoulders before spreading it across her belly and smoothing it down.
“Oh,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “I like making mini ones to see what they’ll look like before I do full-size.”
I heard the clicks of heels down the hallway, and then a man and woman, both dressed in white doctor’s scrubs, walked in.
“Anisa?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
The woman had curly hair and a bright demeanor, in contrast to the bespectacled, more serious looking man who stood beside her, holding a clipboard.
“Follow us,” he said, and they led me down a small corridor, their polished black shoes sounding in near synchronization on the tiled floors.
“I’m Susan, and this is Tim,” the woman said, turning her head back to smile at me.
“Hi. I’m Anisa,” I replied, then worried that I’d introduced myself already and was smiling too widely. “Your offices are beautiful.”
It was a line I often used at interviews, and I think it worked; the woman thanked me and smiled.
The pair ushered me into a room that looked like a GP’s office. On one side, there was one of those high, collapsible, massage bed type things, and on the other, a large desk with a flat-screen desktop and printer.
“Take a seat,” they instructed, not indicating where. I chose the chair next to the desk.
“Adam has been with us for many years. We’re delighted he recommended you,” Susan said.
“We’d like you to fill this out before we get started,” Tim added, handing me the clipboard. “We believe our lawyers have already talked you through it.”
The NDA was long, with tiny print and lots of jargon. The first point, covering what qualified as “confidential,” said that I had to keep literally everything to do with the Centre a secret. I worried that Tim, who seemed to be scrutinizing me as I read, would be able to discern from my face that I’d already told Naima. I tried to slow my breathing and look casual. By point eight or nine, which mentioned fines of up to one million pounds and even imprisonment, I started to wish I’d been more discreet and resolved not to breathe another word to anybody.
“It sounds like you take this privacy thing pretty seriously, huh?” I said with a laugh that came out like a cough.
“Absolutely,” Susan said. “It’s a finely tuned operation. They have to protect their vision.”
After I signed the NDA, they handed me a second form. The first page requested basic health information—things like underlying illnesses, allergies, mental health conditions, exercise habits, tobacco and alcohol usage, and caffeine intake. The second page felt more like job interview stuff—what I felt were my biggest skills and weaknesses, whether I worked well in a team and was “used to solitude.”
“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.”