The Last Teacher

Icarus 2001-4

"From the pan to the grill”. - Said Battista - Do you already have some nice experiment in mind, for the lab, or do you think you don't have to go too far?"

"Come on, let's see... maybe I'll get something from Cattani if I need it.”

From the large window of the bar on the entrance steps, a small crowd of hardened smokers, who had meanwhile gathered in chatter on the grey landing, announced that boarding school was about to begin.

At the circular letters’ counter next to the switchboard, Sirìaco was leafing through the last papers in the binder with attendance slip number one clutched in the other hand.

A little further on, a few Professors had crowded around the table where the matches were distributed, and stretching out their hands to get theirs, they spread a pleasant mixture of refined fragrances in the air around the front door of the lecture hall.

In the corridor, Miravalli and the headmaster were approaching in conversation.

"Ohé, Siro!" Greeted Battista.

"Hello!" Replied the machine colleague, lifting his gaze, and immediately averted his eyes over his friend's shoulder, who naturally turned in that direction.

The girl turned an imperceptible smirk to herself as she proceeded with proud bearing towards the secretary, followed by many glances equally divided between admiration and disgust.

Tall in her own right, on the heels of her beige suede boots she made a statuesque figure. Her hair was black, long, straight and silky like the feathers of a young raven, slicked back and held at the nape of her neck by a Swarowski glitter butterfly. The perfect face, still vaguely childlike, had velvety skin the colour of amber, a delicately pointed chin, a small, harmonious nose, a slightly convex forehead with thick ebony eyebrows arched high, and large eyes of a dark brown like night, with an oriental slant.

She wore a tight, white tank top with a faint horizontal rainbow, decidedly open and short enough to expose her navel bejewelled by another Swarowski.

Four fingers below the solitaire, the denim miniskirt stretched from just above the pubis to just below, and a slightly narrower belt bore a large heart-shaped buckle, also adorned with glittering glitter, the pointed end of which ended just above it like an obligatory route sign.

Around her, three or four beardless little friends tried to attract her wandering gaze by playing dumb, with the crotch of their trousers at their knees, and their designer knickers five fingers out.

As soon as she had passed them, Battista and Sirìaco looked into each other's eyes in silence, with eloquent expressions of smug perplexity.

"What is that?" He finally resolved to say the former, flaring his nostrils in the trail of perfume.

"Ah, I don't know, me! - Replied the other with a smile; then he added, looking around first - A great hottie for sure, though, perhaps, we shouldn't even realise it."

"That she is a student? But I have never seen her."

"Neither do I... And then she looks even older."

Battista watched in admiration as she stopped to chat with the headmaster.

"If I had to interrogate someone like that, I would have a hard time deciding what to ask her." He said mischievously.

'Even to understand the answers, I think... and she would know it very well, and try to take advantage of it. I had one like that at Belluzzi, a colleague's daughter to boot. She didn't do anything all year, her father never showed up, but when they smelled a rejection, he came and threatened fire and brimstone. He said I was mad at her for her conduct, so that I should be careful what I did, because conduct should not affect profit."

"And how did it end?"

"Ah, it flunked."

"No way!? If even an average of one is no longer enough to fail!"

"Yes, but the arrogance of the two of them was unbearable to everyone, including the headmaster and the better colleagues, and if no one protects you.... Anyway, rest assured: this one is not one of ours, so there is no danger."

"And thank goodness! Because the way the wind is blowing I'd be a bit uncomfortable having a chick like that in class.... Suppose she went crazy, and wanted to take a ride with the old prof?"

"You smoke something secretly, my dear. But if absurdly that were to happen, it would be hard to resist."

"And you want to go to jail instead, Siro."

"No: the hormones are the outlaws, not me!"

Biagetti called them next to him at the back of the room. They reached him and sat down next to him, making the armchairs creak, a gift from a father who had transformed his old cinema into a modern multiplex. Immediately afterwards, Zanetti and Miravalli also entered, the one sitting at the chair table and the other in the front row, near the window.

"There's the new headmaster, do you know him?" Biagetti asked as the person in question introduced himself to the assembly.

Siriaco answered no, and Battista reported Maurer's account.

"Ah, here. But that's nothing! - Biagetti finally exclaimed - You should know what he did to me."

"To you?"

"Of course! We were both at Fioravanti: a nightmare! And to top it all off, in the end he made me lose three years of tenure at this school by cheating."

"A cheat?" Syriaco asked, doubtfully.

"Yes: he moved me to Molinella instead of Buson, so that he blew my transfer here with half the score, and I had to go to the swamp."

"How did he do that? It's not like he can transfer someone as he pleases."

"Of course he can't. In fact it took three months to figure out the catch.

In June, at Fioravanti we were eight teachers with seven Professorships, so I was losing my place, as I was the youngest. But it wouldn't have been a problem if Zanetti had pointed it out straight away, because I would have been in time to ask for a transfer, and I would have been tenured here ever since.

Instead, he reported a job loser only in the de facto workforce, and since transfers are closed in September, I had to resign myself to going back and forth all year in the sea valleys.

"I didn't understand anything. ' Battista said.

"Nobody understood it! - Replicated Biagetti - At the first trade union I went to, they advised me on an inadmissible appeal procedure, so I lost a lot of time. At the second one, Filiberto discovered the cheat by going through the printouts line by line, but in the meantime the deadlines had slipped, so even the appeal under the regulations was useless."

"But if there was already Buson in Molinella!?"

"That's where the fun is! They even phoned Buson from the superintendency to warn him... he confessed to me himself. They called him at home, told him that his chair was no longer there, so he had to hurry up and ask for a transfer if he wanted a welcome seat."

"What a mess... But sorry you know, how did they give you that chair if it was no longer there?"

"That's power, my dear. Zanetti had made it disappear.... WITH FIFTEEN HOURS! In those days they could get away with just ten, whenever they wanted... And RAPETTI'S THAT WAS ALSO LIBERATED, a whole one, who had also come here... But Broglio said he didn't know anything about it, and since two Professorships had appeared in Molinella for the one Buson had lost, at the September assignments he assigned one to me. So I appealed to the superintendent.”

"Who did not even receive you." Supposed Battista.

'Yes, he did. But since he didn't understand it himself, he got really pissed off at Broglio, who was in charge of transfers, and then phoned Zanetti to ask him for an explanation... But he ended up shouting him an imbecile and other even more picturesque insults into the receiver. So it is clear that his justifications were not at all convincing."

The listeners were puzzled.

"Then why didn't the superintendent put things right?"

"Oh, Giovanni... you still marvel at bureaucracy, you? My fatal mistake was that I had appealed to him, instead of to the ministry through him. At that point I might have tried again, but by then it was too late, because the deadline is five days from the communication of the supernumerary - think you - and the wrong attempt had not suspended it.

In fact, I appealed to the superior council of public education, but they didn't give a fig about the headmaster's imbroglio of confusing the unions and the superintendent, and since my appeal was late, they declared it inadmissible... as if to say they left me in the lurch without explaining why.

After a much-needed orientation pause, Sirìaco tried to play it down: "Well, come on, it means you commuted like a kid for a year," he said, "then you moved here too... what's that all about?"

But Biagetti had a poisoned tooth.

"No way! In the meantime, I had to buy a Panda just to go to Molinella, otherwise I would have had to sleep there for every class meeting, with the fog and public transport, and then I only got the transfer here after four years. The next three, I was able to come on provisional assignment, but with tenure at Castiglion dei Pepoli, and the risk every time of having to go back among the eels or the wolves."

In fact, I appealed to the superior council of public education, but they didn't give a fig about the headmaster's imbroglio of confusing the unions and the superintendent, and since my appeal was late, they declared it inadmissible... as if to say they left me in the lurch without explaining why.

After a much-needed orientation pause, Sirìaco tried to play it down: "Well, come on, it means you commuted like a kid for a year," he said, "then you moved here too... what's that all about?"

But Biagetti had a poisoned tooth.

"No way! In the meantime, I had to buy a Panda just to go to Molinella, otherwise I would have had to sleep there for every class meeting, with the fog and public transport, and then I only got the transfer here after four years. The next three, I was able to come on provisional assignment, but with tenure at Castiglion dei Pepoli, and the risk every time of having to go back among the eels or the wolves."

""OK," said Battista, "but there must have been a reason for him to be so mad at you, right? Or is he a raving lunatic, this one?"

"Yes, some resentment from before was there. - Admitted Biagetti - I had reported him for misconduct ever since he arrived at Fioravanti."

The other two laughed.

"O Biagio! I well meant..." Attacked one.

"What did he do that time?" Completed the other.

"To me? To half the school, you mean! But since most of us are afraid to react, I was the only one to do so."

The listeners did not hide their scepticism. They could hardly believe that the guy in front of them was some kind of poisonous scorpion.

"But it is. And if you want I'll go on."

"Go, go! " The story was too interesting to prefer the outings.

It had happened that, during an occupation, one day Zanetti had had the class registers removed from the teachers' room without telling anyone, replacing them for the attendance signatures with a flying piece of paper. Someone had carried it around who knows where, so that of the teachers on duty that morning, almost no one had signed it: "... and we all got a confidential letter with a peremptory invitation to 'justify absence'. Panic broke out, as just then there was talk of making salary increases dependent on merit.

"Just write him the justification, and that was it." Syriac remarked.

"With a normal person yes, but self-certifications are not enough for him, so he rejected it for me. Then I got angry: I found a dozen signatures among others in my condition and presented it to him again. But 'this time with an addition that he didn't like.

The gazes of the other two were mute: "And that is?"

"That is, that the mistake had been to replace the registers with that note without warning. That we ignored it, therefore, was not our fault, but his.

In response, this cheeky fellow refused to register the letter, not giving a damn about my protests. In the end I was forced to report the abuse to the superintendent, and the war began like that."

Siriaco was interjected: "You're quite a brawler yourself, though!" He said.

"Are you kidding? - Protested Biagetti - He had put the protocol to his confidential written blame, and without a reply, only those would remain in our files."

"Of course! - Battista agreed - He went looking for it with the lantern, that fool, and you did well to make him respect you. It's disrespect, the mother of all troubles these days."

When Donvito had gone to protest that three-day trips were only allowed from third grade upwards, so that his son's second P could not join the fifth A's trip to Amsterdam, Baldoni had been very impressed by his shouting and punching-at-the-table arguments, so that shortly afterwards, the teaching board had readily acknowledged that this limit was the useless legacy of a backward past that did not favour inclusion and the responsible growth of children, and had therefore abolished it.

But everything changes, and more than ever where there are young people, with the commitment they put into sipping a happy hour instead of their grandparents' glass of wine and their fathers' aperitif, always rediscovering the world afresh as if it had never existed before them. And since the pillars of pedagogy are also round today and square tomorrow, in the school the regulation of tardiness, absences and trips is the subject of fierce debate at every start of the year.

To the newcomers, therefore, it seemed strange that the outings that day had not yet inspired the usual innovative thrust, and that they were even about to confirm the previous year's discipline without discussing it. But the news that would awaken the assembly from drowsy assent was the kind reserved for privacy, so only those involved knew, at first, that Donvito had finished serving his forced domicile, and had returned to his village with his entire family.

However, such a secret cannot be hold for long, when the keepers sit for hours in an assembly of one hundred and fifty colleagues, without much else to discuss with their friends in the armchairs around them than holidays and timetables. In fact, eventually the news deflagrated like a bomb with a slow-burning fuse, and before the vote on the agenda about school trips, virtually everyone knew about it by now.

Then, as if regenerated by new blood, the idea that a sense of responsibility causes severe allergic reactions in teenagers not yet immunised by patient education flourished again. It soon prevailed over the Donvito doctrine, and the restoration of the old rule was voted in. Again, long trips were only allowed from the third grade upwards.

"What did I tell you, did you see?" Said Sirìaco to Biagetti.

"It was not difficult:" he observed, "common sense came back, but for it to last it would also take some honesty, as well as respect."

"Exactly… - Battista joined in - starting with ourselves, then!"

"Sure! - But you try counting how many of us there are to call a spade a spade: four cats."

"Singing in the choir is more reassuring."

At the end, as the bulk of the crowd slowly flowed toward the exit amidst small swirls of less hurried Professors who entertained themselves in a circle, three boys shaved almost clean entered the glass door counter-currently in the manner of migrating salmon, after which they quickly climbed the staircase leading to the upper floor to the indifference of all but Battista and Siriaco, who followed the strange incursion in amazement.

As soon as he got to the top, the largest and most athletic one, pivoting on his right leg, with a lightning-fast sprint rotated the rest of his body until his head was almost touching the floor, while with the other leg he launched a powerful kick in the face of an invisible enemy to his left who, if his foot had not stopped plastically a few millimetres earlier, could have been imagined hidden in the reinforced concrete of the pillar supporting the ramp.

Recovering from his astonishment, Siriaco shouted: "Hey you! Where are you going?"

But he got no answer. Then Battista moved towards the ladder pointing his finger at them with his arm outstretched like Simona Ventura, and in turn shouted: 'Oh, Bruce Lee! Let's tell you, eh? Where are you going?"

"Are you talking to me, prof?" The one replied with a surprised look.

"Yes: just you and partners. Where are you going?"

"In the drawing room to greet last year's teacher." Said the boy in the middle, signalling the karateka to be quiet.

"And you go there kicking like donkeys? - Battista retorted - Anyway, there's no one there now, come on down."

They obeyed, and as they descended the stairs,Siriaco, accompanying himself with an eloquent gesture of pity from his head, said in a low voice: "Of course, if these are the high-schoolers, I prefer ours."

"Me too... - Battista re plied - Good thing we don't have them."

As he said this, the three were now outside, and just outside, a power

ful "kikkirikìì!!!" resounded mockingly throughout the school.