Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy

by Sylvain Reynard

  “Thank you for making me breakfast this morning. Um…[very long pause] seeing the tray you prepared really did something to me. I can’t put it into words. Julia, no one has ever done anything like that for me before. No one. Not Grace, not a friend, not a lover, no one. I…you’ve been nothing but good and kind and giving. And I’ve been nothing but selfish and cruel. [Clears throat…]

  [Voice is husky now.] “Please, Julia, we need to talk about your note. I am holding your note in the palm of my hand, and I’m not going to let it go. But there are some things I need to explain to you, serious things, and I’m not comfortable doing that over the phone. I’m sorry for what happened this morning. It’s all my fault, and I want to fix it. Please tell me how to fix this, and I’ll fix it. Call me.”

  Once again, Julia deleted his message, and once again, she made no attempt to save his number. She turned her phone off, placed it with her laptop on her card table, and went back to bed, trying to put Gabriel’s sad and tortured voice out of her mind.

  The next day and the day after that, Julia didn’t leave her apartment. In fact, she spent all her time in various flannel pajama sets, trying to distract herself with loud music and a series of well-worn paperbacks by Alexander McCall Smith. His Edinburgh stories were her favorite because they were cheerful, slightly mysterious, and smart. She found his writing comforting and more than soothing to her soul. The stories tended to make her hungry for Scottish things like porridge and Walker’s shortbread and Isle of Mull cheddar (not necessarily in that order).

  Although she had had a truly scarring experience with Gabriel, hard on the heels of spending the night in his arms, she was more determined than ever that she would not let him break her. She’d been broken before; he had broken her. And she’d sworn in her heart that she would never allow her spirit to be broken again. By anyone.

  So she made the following three decisions:

  First, she was not going to drop Emerson’s class, because she needed a Dante seminar to demonstrate her competency.

  Second, she was not going to quit school and return to Selinsgrove a coward.

  Third, she was going to find herself another thesis director and file the paperwork behind Emerson’s back, as soon as possible.

  Near midnight Tuesday, she finally turned her cell phone on to check her messages. Once again, her inbox was full. She rolled her eyes when she discovered, not surprisingly, that the first message was from Gabriel. It had arrived Monday morning.

  “Julianne…I left something for you last night on your front porch. Did you see it? Did you read the card? Please read it.

  “By the way, I had to call Paul Norris in order to get your cell phone number. I made up some excuse about needing to speak with you about your thesis, in case he asks you about it.

  “Did you know that you forgot your iPod? I’ve been listening to it. I was surprised to find that you are a fan of Arcade Fire. I’ve been listening to Intervention, although I’m more than surprised that someone as well-adjusted and happy as you would listen to such a tragic song. I’d like to be able to return your iPod in person.

  “I’d like you to talk to me. Scream at me. Curse me. Throw things in my face. Anything but silence, Julianne. Please. [Large sigh…] Just a few moments of your time, that’s all I ask. Call me.”

  Julia deleted his message and promptly walked herself and her Scottish tartan flannel pajamas out to the front porch. She picked up the card that was attached to the bouquet, ripped it into a hundred pieces, and threw the pieces over the railing and into the grass. She picked up the now withered purple hyacinths and threw them over the railing too. Then she inhaled the cold night air deeply and ran back inside, slamming the front door behind her.

  Once she’d calmed down, she listened to the next message, which was also from Gabriel. He’d called her that afternoon,

  “Julianne, did you know that Rachel is on some Godforsaken Canadian island? With no access to either a cell phone or her e-mail? I had to call Richard, for God’s sake, when she wouldn’t answer her phone. I was trying to track her down so she can track you down since you are refusing to respond to my messages.

  “I’m worried about you. I checked around and no one, not even Paul, has seen you for days. I’m going to send you an e-mail, but it’s going to be formal because the university has access to my e-mail account. I’m hoping you get this message before you read it, otherwise you’ll think I’m being an ass again. But I’m not. I just have to sound like one in an official e-mail. If you reply to me, keep in mind anyone from the administration can read those e-mails. So be careful what you say.

  “I’ll see you at my seminar tomorrow. If you aren’t there, I’m going to call your father and ask him to find you. For all I know, you’re already on a bus on your way back to Selinsgrove. Call me, please. I’ve had to restrain myself from coming over every day since Sunday.

  [Long pause…] “I just want to know that you’re all right. Two words, Julia. Just text me two words—tell me you’re okay. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Julia quickly turned on her computer and checked her university e-mail account. There, sitting in her inbox like a dirty bomb, was the following message from Professor Gabriel O. Emerson:

  Dear Miss Mitchell,

  I need to speak to you concerning a matter of some urgency.

  Please contact me as soon as possible. You may telephone me at the following number: 416-555-0739 (cell).

  Regards,

  Prof. Gabriel O. Emerson,

  Associate Professor

  Department of Italian Studies/

  Centre for Medieval Studies

  University of Toronto

  Julia deleted the e-mail and the voice mail without a second thought, and she typed a quick e-mail to Paul, explaining that she was too sick to attend Professor Emerson’s seminar the following afternoon and asking Paul to pass that information to The Professor. She thanked Paul for his several e-mails, apologized for not answering sooner, and asked if he’d like to accompany her to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Florentine art exhibit when she had recovered her health.

  The following day, she spent the better part of the afternoon composing an exploratory e-mail to Professor Jennifer Leaming of the Department of Philosophy. Professor Leaming was an Aquinas specialist who also had an interest in Dante. Although Julia didn’t know her personally, Paul had taken a class with her and liked her a great deal. She was young, funny, and very popular with her students—the complete opposite of Professor Emerson. Julia was hoping Professor Leaming would consider directing her master’s thesis, and she stated this hope as a mere possibility in her e-mail.

  Julia wanted to consult Paul about the switch and take his advice, but she couldn’t. She knew he would assume that Emerson dropped her and would likely confront him about it. So she sent the e-mail to Professor Leaming and hoped that she would receive it graciously and respond quickly.

  Later that evening, Julia checked her voice mail and once again, there was a message waiting from Gabriel.

  “Julianne, it’s Wednesday evening. I missed you in my seminar. You brighten a room, you know, just by being in it. I’m sorry I never said that to you before.

  “Paul said you’ve been sick. Can I bring you some chicken soup? Ice cream? Orange juice? I could have those items delivered. You wouldn’t have to see me. Please let me help you. I feel terrible knowing that you’re in your apartment, alone and sick, and there’s nothing I can do.

  “At least I know that you’re safe and not on a Greyhound bus somewhere. [Pauses—clears throat.]

  “I remember kissing you. You kissed me back. You kissed me back, Julia, I know you did. Didn’t you feel it? There is something between us. Or at least, there was.

  “Please, we need to talk. You can’t expect me to uncover your true identity and not have the chance to talk to you about it. I need to explain a few things. More than a few things, all right? Just call me back. All I’m asking for is one conversation. I think you
owe me that.”

  The tone of Gabriel’s voice in his messages had grown increasingly desperate. Julia turned off her phone, deliberately suppressing her own innate empathy. She knew the university had access to Gabriel’s e-mail, but she didn’t care. His messages needed to stop; she would never be able to move on if he kept bothering her. And he didn’t appear to be giving up any time soon.

  So Julia typed an e-mail and sent it to his university address, pouring all of her hurt and anger into every single word:

  Dr. Emerson,

  Stop harassing me.

  I don’t want you anymore. I don’t even want to know you. If you don’t leave me alone, I will be forced to file a harassment complaint against you. And if you call my father, I will do just that. Immediately.

  If you think I’m going to let an insignificant thing like this drive me from the program, then you are very much mistaken. I need a new thesis director, not a bus ticket home.

  Regards,

  Miss Julia. H. Mitchell,

  Lowly Graduate Student,

  On-Knees-More-Than-The-Average-Whore.

  P.S. I will be returning the M. P. Emerson bursary next week. Congratulations, Professor Abelard. No one has ever made me feel as cheap as you did Sunday morning.

  Julia pressed send without proofreading her message, and in a fit of rebellion, she took two shots of tequila and began to play the song All the Pretty Faces by The Killers. At a high volume. On repeat.

  It was a Bridget Jones moment if there ever was one.

  Julia grabbed a hairbrush from the bathroom and began singing into it as if it were a microphone and dancing about the room in her now penguin-decorated flannel pajamas, looking more than slightly ridiculous. And feeling strangely…dangerous, daring, and defiant.

  In the days after Julia sent her angry e-mail, all contact from Professor Emerson ceased. Every day she somehow expected to hear from him, but every day there was nothing. Until the following Tuesday, when she received another voice mail.

  “Julianne, you’re angry and hurt—I understand that. But don’t let your anger prevent you from keeping something you earned by being the top master’s student in this year’s admissions pool.

  “Please don’t deprive yourself of money you could use to go home and visit your father just because I was an ass.

  “I’m sorry I made you feel cheap. I’m sure when you called me Abelard you didn’t mean it as a compliment. But Abelard truly cared for Héloïse, and I care for you. So in that sense, there is a similarity. He also hurt her, as I have hurt you. But he was deeply sorry for having injured her. Have you read his letters to her? Read the sixth letter and see if it alters your perception of him…and me.

  “The bursary was never awarded before because I never found someone who was special enough to receive it, until I found you. If you give it back, the money will just sit in the Foundation’s bank account benefiting no one. I’m not going to allow anyone else to have that money because it’s yours.

  “I was trying to bring goodness out of evil. But I failed in doing that just like I’ve failed in everything else. Everything I touch becomes contaminated or destroyed…[Long pause…]

  “There is one thing I can do for you and that’s find you another thesis advisor. Professor Katherine Picton is a friend of mine, and although she’s retired, she has agreed to meet with you to discuss the possibility of directing your project. This will be a tremendous opportunity, in more ways than one. She asked me to have you contact her directly via e-mail, as soon as possible, at K Picton at U Toronto dot C A.

  “I know it’s officially too late for you to drop my seminar, but I’m sure that’s what you want. I will approach one of my colleagues and see if she will supervise a reading course with you, which will enable you to have enough credits to graduate, even if you drop my class. I’ll sign the drop form and work it out for you with the School of Graduate Studies. Just tell Paul what you want to do and ask him to pass on the message. I know you don’t want to talk to me.

  [Clears throat.] “Paul is a good man.

  [Muttering…] “Audentes fortuna iuvat.

  [Pause—voice drops to almost a whisper.] “I’m sorry you don’t want to know me anymore. I will spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that I wasted my second chance to know you. And I will always be conscious of your absence.

  “But I won’t bother you again. [Clears throat twice.]

  “Good-bye, Julianne.” [Long, long pause before Gabriel finally hangs up.]

  Julia was stunned. She sat, open mouthed, with her phone in her hand, trying to wrap her mind around his message. She listened to it again and again, puzzling out the words, but the only part she readily believed was the quote from Virgil, Fortune favors the brave.

  Only The Professor could use an apologetic voice mail as an occasion to re-assert his academic prowess and give Julia an impromptu lecture on Peter Abelard. Julia moved past her annoyance, deciding not to follow his suggestion and read Abelard’s letters. Instead, she turned her attention to the more interesting part of his message, his mention of Katherine Picton.

  Professor Picton was a seventy-year-old, Oxford-educated Dante specialist who had taught at Cambridge and Yale before she was lured to the University of Toronto by an endowed chair in Italian Studies. She was known to be severe, demanding, and brilliant, and her erudition rivaled that of Mark Musa. Julia’s career would be greatly advanced if she were to write a successful thesis under Professor Picton’s supervision, and she knew it. Professor Picton could send Julia anywhere for her doctorate, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard…

  Gabriel was single-handedly giving Julia the biggest career opportunity of her life, gift-wrapped with a bright, shiny bow—an opportunity worth far more than a messenger bag or the M. P. Emerson bursary. But what were the strings attached to this gift?

  Atonement, Julia thought. He’s trying to make up for every wrong he has ever done me.

  Gabriel was asking Katherine Picton to do him a favor, for Julia. Emeritus professors rarely, if ever, directed doctoral dissertations, let alone masters’ theses. This was a tremendous favor that would have required Gabriel to call in all of his markers with Katherine.

  All for me.

  After she contemplated this new information from all angles, Julia pushed everything aside to focus on the single question that filled her heart with shameful dread.

  Gabriel is telling me good-bye?

  She listened to the message three more times, and with more than a little self-criticism, she cried herself to sleep. For despite all her defiance, there was a flame in her that recognized its twin in Gabriel. And that flame could not be extinguished, unless Julia was willing to extinguish a part of herself.

  Early the next morning, she called Paul under the pretence of making plans to meet him before Emerson’s seminar. She hoped that he would tell her that Emerson had gotten sick or mysteriously left for England or taken ill with swine flu and cancelled his seminar for the rest of the semester. Sadly, he had done none of those things.

  Julia decided that she would continue attending the Dante seminar, just in case Gabriel had trouble finding her a reading course as a substitute. Indeed, if Professor Picton became her thesis advisor, Julia was confident she could tolerate being in Emerson’s seminar for the five remaining weeks of the semester. So that afternoon, she wandered into the office of the department in order to check her mailbox before she was supposed to meet Paul.

  She was somewhat intrigued to find a large, padded envelope in her pigeonhole. Removing it, she noticed that there wasn’t a name on it. It was not addressed to her, nor was there a return address or any marking of any kind on the envelope.

  She slid her finger through the adhesive, opening it quickly. What she saw inside shocked her. Nestled inside the padded manila envelope, like the feathers of a raven, was a black lace bra. Her black lace bra. Her black lace bra that she’d left, unfortunately, on top of Gabriel’s dryer.

  That bastard.

  J
ulia was so angry her body began to shake. How dare he return it to her mailbox? Anyone, anyone, could have been standing next to her when she opened it. Is he trying to humiliate me? Or does he think this is funny? (Julia didn’t notice that her iPod was also enclosed.)

  “Hey, gorgeous.”

  She jumped about a foot off the floor and shrieked.

  “Whoa, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She looked up into Paul’s kind, dark eyes and saw him staring down at her with a puzzled expression.

  “You’re jumpy today. What’s that?” He pointed to her envelope, hands still raised.

  “Junk mail.” She stuffed the envelope into her new L. L. Bean knapsack and forced a smile. “Ready for Emerson’s seminar? I think it’s going to be a good one.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s in a foul mood again. I need to warn you not to mess with him today—he’s been out of sorts for two weeks.” Paul’s face took on a very serious expression. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened the last time he was like this.”

  Julia tossed her hair and grinned. Actually, I think that you need to tell Emerson not to mess with me. I’ve got a lot of rage, a black bra, and I’m wearing a thong. He’s the one in trouble, not me.

  “I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I was really worried about you.” Paul reached out to take her hand in his, spreading wide her palm and placing something cold in it. He closed her fingers in on themselves and squeezed gently. Julia withdrew her hand and uncurled her fingers. Resting on her palm was a beautiful silver key ring, with a striped P that swung like a pendulum from the ring itself.

  “Now, please don’t say you won’t accept it. I know you don’t have a nice key ring, and I wanted you to know I was thinking about you while I was gone. So please don’t give it back.”

  Julia’s cheeks ripened into a rosy pink. “I’m not going to give it back,” she said. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who flings kindness back in someone’s face. I know what that feels like.” She looked around quickly, making sure that they were alone. “Thank you, Paul. I missed you too.”