“Why did the Dean say that they were going to protect me from you?”
“We need to go. Now.” John tried to separate the couple as a noise inside the meeting room alerted them to the fact that the hearing officers were about to recess.
“Did they fire you?” Julia asked tremulously.
Gabriel gave her a pained look, then shook his head.
“Well done, John. I’m sure you’re proud of yourself,” Soraya hissed. “Did you have to sell your soul to David? Or maybe your body?”
“Blow me, Soraya,” said John.
“So you kept your job, but you can’t talk to me? What about last night, Gabriel?” Julia reached out a trembling finger toward his hand.
He pulled out of her reach and glanced sideways at John and Soraya, shaking his head.
“You promised you’d never fuck me. But what about last night? No words, no I love you, not even a note or a text this morning. Is that all it was to you? A good-bye fuck?” Julia’s whisper caught on an involuntary sob, and she raised her voice. “Who’s the Angelfucker now?”
Gabriel flinched.
It was more than a flinch; actually, it was more like a reel backward from a punch. He closed his eyes and groaned softly, shifting his weight to his heels as his fists clenched at his sides.
Everyone watched as his skin took on a ghostlike pallor.
“You wound me, Julianne,” he whispered.
“You keep your job, but you won’t talk to me? How could you do this?” she cried.
His eyes flew open, and they were a brilliant, livid sapphire.
“You think that I’d just show up, fuck you, and that would be how I would say good-bye?”
Julia watched his fists shake as he fought to maintain control.
“That was good-bye?” Her voice caught on the last word.
Gabriel’s eyes lasered into hers as if he were trying to communicate something wordlessly. He leaned forward so his nose was only inches from hers and dropped his voice so it was almost inaudible. “I did not fuck you. I’ve never fucked you.”
He pulled back slightly so there was some distance between them. He drew a long, unhurried breath. “You were throwing your life away for nothing—all those years of hard work, everything you dreamed of and ever wanted was going to be taken from you and you would never be able to get it back.
“There was no way I could watch you commit academic suicide. I told you that I would go to Hell to rescue you and that’s just what I did.” He lifted his chin. “And I’d do it again.”
Julia leapt forward, jabbing a finger into Gabriel’s chest.
“You don’t get to make decisions for me! This is my life and my dreams. If I want to give them up, who the hell are you to take that decision away from me?
“You’re supposed to love me, Gabriel. You’re supposed to support me when I decide to stand up for myself. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? And instead, you cut a deal with them and dump me?”
“Would you two shut the hell up?” Soraya hissed. “The Dean will be walking through the door any minute. Come on, Julia. Right now.”
She tugged on her client’s elbow while John tried to step in between the two quarreling lovers.
“So that’s it? They say it’s over and it’s over? When have you ever followed the rules, Gabriel? Now you decide to follow them?” Julia asked, still furious.
Gabriel’s expression changed immediately. “I had no choice, Héloise,” he whispered. “Circumstances were beyond—”
“I thought my name was Beatrice. Of course, Abelard abandoned Héloise to keep his job. So I guess the name is more than apt,” she spat, stepping away from him.
At that moment, Professor Martin entered the hallway. He scowled and began walking toward them.
Gabriel turned away from Jeremy, lowering his voice further. “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph four.”
Julia shook her head.
“I’m not your student, Professor. I won’t be doing any reading assignments.”
Soraya pulled Julia away, and the two women hurried down the stairs just as the hearing officers came through the door.
Chapter 27
Gabriel ducked into the men’s room as soon as Julia left. He couldn’t risk calling her, since Jeremy might enter at any moment, but he was far from satisfied that she understood what was happening. Turning on a faucet in order to make noise, he quickly tapped out a short but explanatory email on his iPhone.
Having sent it, he turned off the faucet and exited, tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. He tried very hard to look grim and defeated.
As he walked over to the two men, Jeremy’s cell phone chirped.
* * *
When Julia awoke the next morning the numbness had worn off. Sleep would have been a welcome respite from reality, except for the nightmares. She’d been haunted by various dreams, all involving the morning she woke up alone in the orchard. She was frightened and lost and Gabriel was nowhere to be found.
It was almost noon when she crawled out of bed to check her messages. She’d expected at least a text or a one line email, offering some kind of explanation. But there was nothing.
He’d acted so strangely the day before. On the one hand he’d told her he hadn’t fucked her; on the other, he’d called her Héloise. She didn’t want to believe that he was so cruel as to flaunt the fact that he was ending things with a play on words, but he’d used the word good-bye.
Her feelings of betrayal ran deep, for Gabriel had promised that he would never leave her. He was far too eager to go back on his promise, she thought, despite the fact that the university had no jurisdiction over his personal life, so long as she was no longer his student.
A dark thought occurred to her. Perhaps Gabriel had tired of her and decided to put an end to their union. The university had simply handed him an opportunity to do so.
If her falling out with Gabriel had occurred a few months earlier, she would have stayed in bed for three days. As it was, she dialed his cell phone with the intention of demanding an explanation. He didn’t answer. She left a terse and impatient voice mail, asking him to call her.
Frustrated, she took a shower, hoping that the time to herself would afford her the opportunity to see her situation with clarity. Unfortunately, all she could think about was the evening in Italy when Gabriel showered her and washed her hair.
After she dressed, she decided to search for Gabriel’s sixth letter, so she could read paragraph four. He’d given her a clue, she thought, as to what was really happening. All she needed to do was find his words.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by letter. Did he mean emails or texts? Or both? If Gabriel was counting the emails, cards, and notes that he’d written to her from the very beginning of their relationship, then by her calculation the sixth letter was a note he’d left her the morning after their horrendous fight in the Dante seminar. Luckily, she kept it.
She pulled out the paper and read it eagerly.
Julianne,
I hope you’ll find everything you need here.
If not, Rachel stocked the vanity in the guest washroom with a number of different items. Please help yourself.
My clothes are at your disposal.
Please choose a sweater as the weather has turned cold today.
Yours,
Gabriel.
Julia wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to embark on a detective mission or to engage in any elaborate decoding of messages. Nevertheless, she turned her attention to the fourth paragraph and tried to figure out what Gabriel had been trying to communicate to her.
He’d lent her the British-racing-green sweater, but she’d returned it. Was he trying to tell her to look at one of the clothing items he’d bought her? Julia pulled out everything he’d ever bought her or that she’d borrowed and placed them all on her bed. She forced herself to take her time examining each item. But there didn’t appear to be anything unusual about any of them.
Was he trying to tell her to wea
ther the storm? Or was he simply saying that his affection for her had turned cold and this was good-bye?
Her anger burned blue. She stomped to the bathroom to wash her hands, catching sight of her image in the mirror. The wide-eyed nervous girl who had started at the University of Toronto in September was gone. Instead, Julia saw a pale and upset young woman, with pinched lips and flashing eyes. She was no longer the timid Rabbit or the seventeen-year-old Beatrice. She was Julianne Mitchell, almost-MA, and she would be damned if she’d spend the rest of her life simply taking the scraps that others deigned to throw at her.
If he has a message for me, he can damn well say it in person, she thought. I’m not going on a scavenger hunt just so he can assuage his conscience.
Yes, she loved him. Looking at the photograph album he made for her birthday, she knew that she would love him forever. But love was not an excuse for cruelty. She was not a plaything, an Héloise, to be dropped like a pair of dirty socks. If he was breaking things off with her, she’d make him say so to her face. She was simply going to give him until after dinner to do so.
In early evening, she walked to the Manulife Building, the key to Gabriel’s apartment in her pocket. With every step she imagined what she would say. She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. She would be strong. And she would demand answers.
As she turned the corner and approached the front door, she saw a tall, impeccably dressed blonde exit the building. The woman looked at her watch and tapped her foot impatiently as the doorman waved over a waiting taxi.
Julia hid behind a tree. She peeked around the trunk in order to take another look.
At first glance, she’d thought the woman in question was Paulina; upon inspection she realized her mistake. Julia breathed a sigh of relief as she approached the building. Seeing Paulina with Gabriel on this day of all days would have been devastating. Surely, he wouldn’t do that to her. Gabriel was supposed to be her Dante. He was supposed to love her enough to travel through Hell to protect her, not take Paulina back the moment their relationship was threatened.
With some trepidation, Julia entered the lobby and waved to the security guard, who recognized her. She decided against announcing her presence to Gabriel and took the elevator to his floor. She shivered as she contemplated what she might find in his apartment.
She didn’t bother to knock but simply let herself in, fearing that she’d find Gabriel compromised. But something strange caught her attention as soon as she’d closed the door. All the lights in the apartment were off and the hall closet was open and half-empty, hangers and shoes haphazardly thrown on the floor. It was very unlike Gabriel to leave things in such a mess.
She switched on several lights and placed her key on the table where he always kept his keys. His keys were not to be found.
“Gabriel? Hello?”
She ventured into the kitchen and was shocked by what she found. An empty bottle of Scotch lay on the counter, next to a broken glass. Dirty plates and cutlery were dumped in the sink.
Steeling herself for what she might find, she walked to the fireplace, only to discover a mark on the wall and scattered glass shards on the floor. She could see Gabriel flinging his Scotch in anger, but she had a hard time imagining him leaving broken pieces for someone to step on.
Desperately worried, she crept down the darkened hall and into the master bedroom. Clothes were strewn across the bed, the drawers to Gabriel’s dresser half-opened. His closet was similarly disarrayed, and Julia noticed that many of his clothes were gone as was his large suitcase.
But what caused her to inhale sharply were the walls. All the framed photographs of her, and of Gabriel and her together, had been removed and piled face down on the bed, leaving the walls bare except for the hooks on which the photographs had been hung.
Julia gasped in horror as she saw that the reproduction of Holiday’s painting of Dante and Beatrice had been taken down and was now leaning against the credenza, its back on display.
Shocked, she sank down on a chair. He’s gone, she thought.
Julia burst into tears, wondering how he could have so easily broken his promises. She searched the apartment in vain for a note or some indication of where he’d gone. When she came across the telephone she contemplated calling Rachel. But the thought of having to explain that she and Gabriel were over was too much to bear.
With one last look she turned out all the lights and was about to walk through the door when she stopped. Something niggled at the back of her mind. Closing the door, she returned to Gabriel’s bedroom. Searching with her fingers, she fumbled about, looking for something. When she didn’t find it, she turned on the light.
The photograph that Rachel had taken at Lobby several months earlier was missing. Gabriel always kept it on top of his dresser. In the picture, he and Julia were dancing, and he was looking at her with no little heat.
Julia stood for a moment, looking at the empty space. It was possible, she thought, that he’d destroyed the picture. But a quick inspection of the wastepaper baskets in the bedroom and bathroom suggested he hadn’t thrown it away.
She didn’t understand why he’d left or why he’d left without offering her an explanation, but she began to suspect that all was not as it seemed.
As she took one last look at the empty hangers in the closet, she contemplated taking her clothes with her but only for an instant. Strangely enough, they no longer felt as if they were hers.
A few minutes later, she was waiting for the elevator, feeling battered and bruised. Her nose began to run as she wiped away a few tears. A hasty search of her pockets yielded no Kleenex, only lint. This made her tears fall faster.
“Here,” a voice at her elbow said, holding out a man’s handkerchief.
Julia took it gratefully, noticing the embroidered initials S.I.R. on it. She wiped her eyes and attempted to return it, but a pair of hands made a motion of refusal.
“My mother is always giving me handkerchiefs. I have dozens.”
She looked up into kind brown eyes that were partially hidden behind a pair of rimless spectacles and recognized one of Gabriel’s neighbors. He was wearing a heavy wool coat and a navy beret.
(Which, because of his age and heterosexuality could only be explained by the fact that he was French Canadian.)
When the elevator arrived, he politely held the door open for her before following her inside.
“Is something wrong? Can I help?” His lightly accented voice cut through her haze.
“Gabriel is gone.”
“Yes, I ran into him while he was on his way out.” The neighbor frowned at the tears that were still welling up in Julia’s eyes. “Didn’t he tell you? I thought you were his —” He looked at her expectantly.
Julia shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
They were both silent as the elevator continued its descent to the ground floor. Once again, when the door opened, he held it for her.
She turned to him. “Do you know where he went?”
The neighbor accompanied her to the lobby. “No. I’m afraid I didn’t ask. He was in quite a state, you see.” The neighbor leaned closer and dropped his voice. “He reeked of Scotch and was extremely cross. Not in the mood to chat.”
Julia smiled a watery smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“It isn’t a bother. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you he was leaving.”
“No.” She wiped her face with his handkerchief once again.
The neighbor began muttering something about Gabriel in French. Something that sounded a good deal like cochon.
“I could deliver a message for you, when he returns,” the neighbor offered. “He tends to drop by my apartment when he runs out of milk.”
Julia was quiet for a moment, then she swallowed hard. “Just tell him that he broke my heart.”
The neighbor gave her a reluctant, pained nod before taking his leave of her.
Julia walked outside into the
bracing wind and began her long walk home, alone.
Chapter 28
Several hours after the hearing, Gabriel sat in his apartment shrouded in darkness. The only light visible came from the blue and orange flames that flickered in his fireplace. He was surrounded by her. Completely surrounded by her memory and her ghost.
Closing his eyes, he swore he could smell her scent or hear her laughter echoing down the hall. His bedroom had become like a shrine, which was why he was sitting in front of the fire.
He couldn’t bear to look at the large black and white photographs of the two of them. Especially the one that hung over his bed—Julianne in all of her magnificence, lying on her stomach with her naked back exposed, partially wrapped in a sheet, gazing up at him in adoration with sex-mussed hair and a sweet, sated smile…
In every room he had a memory of her—some of them joyous and others bittersweet, like dark, dark chocolate. He stalked to the dining room and poured himself two fingers’ worth of his very best Scotch and downed it quickly, relishing the burning sensation as it stung his throat. He tried desperately not to think about Julia standing in front of him, jabbing an angry finger into his chest.
“You’re supposed to love me, Gabriel. You’re supposed to support me when I decide to stand up for myself. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? And instead, you cut a deal with them and dump me?”
At the memory of the look of betrayal in her eyes, Gabriel threw his empty glass at the wall, watching it shatter and fall to the floor. Shards of crystal like jagged icicles scattered over the hardwood, glimmering in the firelight.
He knew what he had to do; he simply needed the courage in order to do it. Grabbing the bottle, he walked reluctantly to the bedroom. Two more swallows and he was able to throw his suitcase on the bed. He didn’t bother to fold his clothes. He barely cared about taking the essentials.
He thought about what it was like to be banished. About Odysseus’s tears at being so far away from home, from his wife, from his people. Now Gabriel understood exile.
When he was finished, he placed the framed photograph from atop his dresser in his briefcase. Stroking a tender finger over the face of his beloved, he downed more Scotch before staggering to the study.
Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy Page 85