Jasmine

by Winston Aarons

  Sor had no intention of telling Solomon about his personal life. And Solomon probably didn’t want to hear particulars. Most likely, he just wanted to alert Sor about what was happening, warn him that he should be straightening out whatever it was that was interfering with his work.

  “Everything’s fine at home,” Sor said, lying. “I’m just having an off semester. I’ll be back on track after the summer.”

  Sor wanted the meeting to end. He did not feel like responding to any of the complaints against him, not even the students’ silly complaint about the desk. Didn’t they get what he was trying to achieve with his little demonstration? The Formica strip was unglued and falling off anyway. He suspected that Solomon found the whole incident quite trite, and a little humorous, and didn’t expect Sor to defend his actions.

  “Believe me, Sor, I understand what your intentions were regarding the desk,” Solomon said, as if reading his mind. “When I questioned the students who complained, they seemed to recognize what you were trying to do and, I think, felt bad for what they had done. Regardless, please know that I want you in the department. But you have to be careful; students can be sensitive. Especially freshmen. Many of them are just getting out from under their parents’ supervision. Upper classmen would have appreciated what you did with the desk. I wish I were there. I had a professor at Harvard like you. I loved him. It made my education exciting and interesting.”

  After a moment of silence, Solomon got up and walked over to his bookcase. He looked at his ailing African violets. Sor got up too, figuring their meeting was over.

  “Less water, eh, Sor? That’s what you recommend?” Solomon said, gently touching the leaves on one of the plants. “You might have something there. I have been watering them daily, maybe too much. Yes, I’ll most definitely requisition a lamp.” He turned away from the plants and faced Sor. “By the way, Sor, I reiterate, do not be concerned about our meeting. I’m sure you’ll be functioning like your old self next semester. You and your wife, though, should go somewhere. Leave the country. Go to Italy, Florence. Go to Rome. Visit the Sistine Chapel. Be awed by Michelangelo’s God reaching out to Adam, their fingers almost touching. But a near touch is not a touch, eh Sor? And Adam, Sor—when you see the painting, you will understand—seems almost uninterested. Sure, he’s just being introduced to life, the tricky and difficult task of living in the world with others. He is not fully awake. Regardless, it’s God who shows emotion and seems excited as he thrusts out his finger to give Adam life. What I got from it is that man was never interested in becoming perfect. He prefers to live with his hardships, mistakes and setbacks. To be human is to be imperfect. It’s our imperfection that gives life its energy. It’s no wonder we ate the fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden and got kicked out of that perfect world. We didn’t want to be there. We had to break free. We prefer living our sordid, unpredictable lives, however painful it may be sometimes.”

  “My own sentiments, Dean Solomon,” Sor said. “Perfection would be the death of us. When a thing is made perfect it is complete, finished. You need not do anything more with it.”

  “Exactly, Sor,” Solomon said, smiling.

  Solomon shook Sor’s hand and walked him to the door. “Please go abroad, see Rome, see the Sistine Chapel, Sor.”

  Though Solomon had been kind to him—and Sor thought he was sincere—and Sor’s job seemed safe, he still felt that he could not remain at the university. He thought he should look for a position somewhere else. He’d have the summer to do that. It all depended on Marguerite.

  He missed her. He missed talking to her, seeing her, he longed to smell her perfume, hold her. He missed smelling her on his person, her scent lingering in his car. Her absence was like a wound that would not heal. It was perturbing, though, that he did not miss or think of Jasmine. That he had no desire to beg her to reconsider and reconcile their differences. Beg her to forgive him and take him back. For some reason this bothered him.

  Later that day, Sor went to his apartment to pick up some of his clothes. Jasmine was not there. He left his keys to the apartment under the Welcome mat that had been soiled with use over the years. They had planned to replace it but never got around to buying a new one.

  After he had packed what he would need he set off for the YMCA. On his way he stopped at Essentials, where he bought the Jasmine perfume for Marguerite, and purchased a bottle for himself. He opened the bottle as soon as he got to his car, bringing it to his nostrils and greedily inhaling its powerful scent. He removed his tie, unbuttoned his shirt collar, and touched his chest with his jasmine-scented finger. She was in the car with him.

  TWENTY-SIX

  A week went by and Sor did not write to Marguerite. He did everything he could to prevent himself from thinking about her. He poured himself into his work. Luckily it was the end of the semester, so he was very busy. He had to grade research papers and final exams. He stayed long hours in his office. He kept himself so busy he hardly noticed the small cramped quarters he occupied at the Y. It didn’t matter that he just had a bed and a small table for his laptop computer and printer. It was a place to sleep and to mark papers.

  He ate most of his meals at the college. Once in a while he would stop at Fresh Market to pick up some prepared items for dinner. He was always hoping he’d run into Marguerite. As soon as he got out of his car, he’d look around the parking lot for her blue Volvo station wagon. Inside the store, he would systematically walk down each aisle looking for her.

  He began inquiring about positions with other universities. He had resolved that if Marguerite decided to remain with her family, he would find a job in another state, even though he loved the Florida weather. He did not think he could be comfortable being close to her without seeing her. But then, he did not believe he could be comfortable with himself, knowing she was somewhere in the world and not with him. He had responded to job openings at three universities: Boston University, the University of Vermont, and New Mexico State University.

  By the last week of the semester Sor could not bear it any longer. He had to speak to her. He had to write to her. He had to do something. He had thought she would have called after a few days, that her request for space was premature, and that she would have gotten in touch with him. He still believed their love was too large for them to ignore, that they could not walk away from it that easily, that it would pull them back together.

  In his room one night at the Y, after he had smelled the jasmine perfume he bought—he had put some of it on his chest and neck—he felt her presence in the room. He wrote to her.

  Dear Marguerite,

  Forgive me for writing to you. I can’t help it. If I don’t speak to you, or see you, or write to you, I’ll break, I’ll explode. Rather than diminishing my love for you, your absence from my life has produced the opposite effect. My love has grown. It piles up around me like a mountain. I’m clogged with memories of you. Not hearing from you, seeing you, speaking to you has been hell. I see you everywhere. I look for your car in parking lots, on highways. I see you in the bodies of other women. It’s as if you’re attached to my pupils. You go everywhere I go. I try to keep you out of my mind by immersing myself in my work, but you remain close to me.

  I know what we have is good. I feel we should not walk away from each other so lightly, as if there were never anything between us. I don’t want to put pressure on you. It’s just that I’m quite desolate without your love. I know I should let you go. But can a man walk away from his genes? Can I walk away from my flesh? Can I leave my thoughts behind, hide them in a cave, on a train, leave them at a bus stop, leave them at someone’s door in the suburbs for a nice family to take care of them? Can I butcher my thoughts in their sleep?

  Maybe I’m naïve to have hope. Maybe I’m naïve to believe that what we have is so big, powerful and good, we cannot walk away from it. Maybe I’m naïve, maybe I am blind, deaf, dumb, and do not
understand that what I feel you may not be feeling. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s what’s holding me to our love. I should know better. I should be more understanding. But can a man be understanding when he is as immersed in love as I am? Does one not become irrational, unrealistic, when one is in love?

  Ah, Marguerite, reason is out the door, and I’m a madman howling his love from a window in the middle of the night.

  For God’s sake, Marguerite, write to me. I can’t go on without your love.

  Sor

  The next morning, Sor rose early, made some instant coffee, and ate the unbuttered roll he had bought at the supermarket the night before. He then turned on his computer. Marguerite’s letter was there.

  Dear Sor,

  I’m glad you wrote. I told you not to, but it was with great difficulty. And it hasn’t been easy, though you may think so, for me to stay away from you. You’re a powerful man, Sor. You don’t know how much you’ve climbed into my life in the short time I’ve known you. Don’t think it’s been easy for me to be away from you, not to be able to touch you, feel you in my body, and hear you voice. I miss your robust love.

  I haven’t painted since I stopped seeing you. I want to give myself back to my family. My two boys need me. They didn’t say it, but I know they thought I had wandered off somewhere. Edgar said I was in the house but I wasn’t in the house. I don’t think he suspects I’ve been seeing someone else. He thought I was in another phase where my painting had absorbed me, and I was again contemplating giving up teaching and throwing my life into my art. Edgar has seen me in such moods before, though never like this.

  Maybe I’m stifling my feelings, preventing myself from realizing true happiness, but at the moment, however much I love you, and I do, I can’t be with you. It pains me. You don’t know how it pains me to tell you so. I know, too, how much it will pain you. But I can’t leave my boys. They need me. I think I have always told you that.

  And I don’t think I want to be tied down again. If one day I should leave my family, and sometimes the urge is strong, when my art pulls me, I don’t think it would be for a man. It would have to be for my art. On the other hand, maybe one day you’ll hear from me, maybe I’ll wake up, maybe I’ll want your strong love again, your passion and intensity and kindness.

  But in the meantime, I can’t promise you anything. I have to stay where I am. I’m not brave enough to leave what I have to be with you. I don’t want to cause others that much pain.

  I would love to see you, but I’m afraid it would stir up my feelings for you. I don’t trust myself with you. If I look into your eyes again or hear your voice, I don’t know what might happen. It’s best we don’t see each other.

  Let’s leave things the way they are. Life has a way of working itself out. I wish you all the best in your life. You are a fine man.

  Marguerite

  “Christ, Marguerite,” Sor said to himself when he finished reading Marguerite’s letter, “what do you want me to do with my love? What do you want me to do with my life?”

  Frenzied, tense, his heart racing, Sor dressed and drove his car toward the beach road. He did not know how he got there. But when he parked the car he found himself staring at the same sea grape trees behind the Embassy Suites hotel where he had parked and waited for Marguerite. There was silence. The ocean was still, quiet, unruffled. It was early morning and there was no one on the beach. Even the seagulls had not yet flown in from wherever they spent their nights. There was no one by the pool. His thoughts raced about in his head like a madman’s. The only thing that sprang up clearly among his thoughts was what she said at the end of her letter. Let’s leave things the way they are. Life has a way of working itself out. I wish you the best in life. You are a fine man. She was saying goodbye. She was telling him there was no hope of them being together. Life has a way of working itself out. Pure abstraction. It meant nothing. It’s not as if she were suggesting that they take things slowly, that they wait and see what happened. What she meant was that it was done, over. That was it. But how could that be? His feelings for her could not be so one-sided. She must have felt something too. How could she just toss his love away like that? How could he continue living with the burden of her love, still fresh, still vibrantly alive in him?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  There was no warning. No foreshadowing as in literature, no subtle hints that might have prepared him for it. It took Sor completely by surprise. He was busily marking the final exams for one of his classes when it happened, when he heard the two firm and decisive knocks on his door. He had rolled up the Venetian blind as soon as he entered his office that morning, and when he raised his head from the student’s paper he was grading to see who it was, the man standing outside wasn’t anyone he knew. At first Sor thought it was someone from Maintenance who came to evaluate the condition of his office and determine what repairs or painting they would have to do over the summer holidays. But the man was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and an expensive-looking tie, the kind of tie he’d seen at Saks and Neiman’s. Maybe he was some newly hired administrative person from the Registrar’s office, come over to introduce himself. They did that sometimes, though rarely would they be wearing suits.

  “Come in,” Sor said, “the door’s open.”

  The man was tall and distinguished looking. He had a prominent, expansive forehead (probably due to his thinning hair). Sor could tell he was someone who was secure and comfortable in his skin. Everything about him seemed measured and precise. He exuded confidence.

  “Are you Professor Avraham?” the man demanded more than asked, looking directly at Sor. “I hope I have the right office. It does say Sor Avraham on the door.”

  “I’m Sor Avraham,” Sor said, and added jokingly, “at least I was the last time I saw my reflection in the mirror. And who are you? I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “I’m Edgar Spares,” the man said, “Marguerite Spares’s husband. I think you know her.”

  Sor froze in his chair. The first thing that ran through his mind were the various incidents over the years that he read about in the papers and seen on television—jealous husbands killing their wives, themselves, their wives’ lovers. If Spares meant to do him harm, there was no place to run, no door behind him, no window. Spares was a big man. Sor would have to pass him to get to the front door. What if Spares had proof Sor had slept with his wife? What if he asked him if he had? What would he say? It would be the same kind of situation he had found himself in when Jasmine had asked him about his relationship with Marguerite, holding up his undershirt reeking with Marguerite’s perfume and her e-mail letter to him, indisputable proofs of his guilt. But what evidence did Spares have that could suggest Sor had had an affair with his wife? He told himself Spares’s visit might have nothing to do with the affair and that he was rushing to conclusions.

  “Marguerite Spares… your wife,” Sor said, guardedly. “Yes, I know her. I’ve met her. She’s a member of the faculty here.” Sor had forgot to ask Spares to sit down. “Oh, please sit down, Mr. Spares.”

  After he sat down, Spares examined the room, the empty walls, Sor’s desk with its piles of students’ papers, and studied Sor’s face, as if trying to figure out what kind of man he was. Spares’s direct and undisguised scrutiny made Sor even more uncomfortable.

  “I know you must be wondering why I’m here,” Spares said, “so I’ll get directly to the point. I believe you’re having an affair with my wife.” He said it dryly, without any show of emotion, as if he were questioning a defendant in a courtroom.

  Sor shifted uncomfortably in his chair, moved his head awkwardly from side to side, and stared blankly at the ceiling. He wished he were somewhere else. He wished Spares wasn’t in his office. He wished there were a trap door under his desk and chair, and a lever he could pull that would trigger it to take him downward out of sight so he wouldn’t have to answer his qu
estion.

  Spares was watching Sor closely. “Please, Professor Avraham… Sor—you won’t mind if I call you Sor? I know my presence here must make you very uncomfortable. So please do not say anything. Let me finish what I came here to say. I am going to assume you know my wife much more intimately than you’d like me to believe, and that you have seen a lot of her over the past several weeks. In that case she might have told you I’m a lawyer. I’m often in the courtroom defending my firm’s clients. But before that I used to be a divorce lawyer. I know a little about the machinations of love affairs and cheating wives and husbands. Even so, I’m very trusting. Most husbands and wives are. I’m no different. I, however, married an artist whose temperament is quite different from mine. I’m a pragmatist. I look at the facts and make conclusions. My wife depends on inspiration, and muses to produce her paintings. There are periods when her art takes her away from me and our two boys. When she’s in one of those phases she’s with us, but not with us. I think you know what I mean. It has happened on several occasions since we have been married. When it happened this time—it began several weeks ago—I attributed it to her art. I thought she was going through another one of her phases. But she seemed more distraught than usual. I sensed something else. I thought maybe it was some problem at the university. Our two boys sensed it also. As for me…”

  Spares stopped talking to remove his jacket. He hung it neatly behind him on the chair. Sor noted that there was nothing heavy in his jacket pockets, no bulges that would suggest a gun, or a knife. Thank God, he thought. Maybe he’ll just pummel me to death with his huge fists, he thought. I fucked his wife. Why shouldn’t he be physical with me?