by Byron Rempel
On Day One Dotty pulled Otto from the bedroom door, but by Day Two she let him scratch claw and whimper. Anna didn’t react anymore to bargains and prayers. Her ears tingled numb like the arms underneath her head. Red hair in a tangle, unwashed, uninhibited. She spent twenty-six hours without food, then two hours filling herself when her mother went out. All the greats were seduced by art on their beds: Proust, Colette, Joyce. Frida Kahlo, Brian Wilson, Tracey Emin. Protected from ills and drafts, horizontal, rested and safe. Naked before the gods, or robed in the kindest tissues. This is where the world began: conception, dreams, nightmares. All she needed was a few more hours. She would birth something. If it killed her. She would C-section it out. Her mother scratched at the door, a mad doctor. Throaty moans in reply, mixed with the complaints of the dog. No access.
What she couldn’t do, and she only admitted the failure after feverish hours in the first evening, after tossed ideas and contraptions from head to paper to dream, what she couldn’t do was teach classes from bed. The only solution was to be posthumous, postfamous, and incapacitated like Kahlo, but she wasn’t; she wasn’t even a celebrity scholar the world clamoured for dead or alive. Unlike others in her circle. Two days of classes passed, her phone never rang, and she let no one know of her inability to un-embed herself.
Beside the bed, hidden among the Kleenex and spillage of her purse, her phone lay gutted. The battery ripped out, thrown in a corner. In case paramedics broke in and fought to turn it on. In case anyone had open-heart surgery and tried to call. In case Anna needed mouth-to-mouth communication. The laptop too stayed buried in her bag until four-thirty in the morning, when she remembered her mother had no use for a wireless connection. Within minutes she added three life-giving paragraphs to the FalconMoor. A trinity she now believed could forever alter the nun’s world, the Moor’s destiny, could rescue Anna Hill of Coleridge Park. The sentences came to her in a dream, fully punctuated. In the labyrinth of the Nun and Moor’s hearts beat the first blood of romance. Their child. They had no need of phones. Texts. Mere words.
Day Three. A tap dripped in the connected bathroom. The skin around her eyes stained wine barrels, her lenses streaked with Bordeaux. The pillbox still empty. If there were monsters at the door she no longer noticed. Anna lay on her back, unmoving, unmoved. Deep breaths, unbrushed teeth. She was ready to rise, but knew she would have to confront the mirror. Her pulse slow as a guru’s. She could feel it under the pillow. Her body misunderstood hunger and midnight.
Day Four. “Honey?”
Day Five. New voices at the door. New sensations in her body. Sunlight through cracks in the blinds. “Professor Hill? It’s Audrey?”
Anna made a sound. To her it sounded like a self-conscious animal. One with free will, and a good job. The person outside was not fooled.
“We’re concerned. You’re all over Twitter. Speculation is viral.”
Anna cringed at the term. She didn’t consider the effects of a downturn in evaluations. Nor did she recall at that moment the disdain her Teacher’s Assistant had for doors, opened for chivalry, closed for business, separating the environment from its life forms. “I offered,” Audrey said through the door, “to take your classes. But the Dean shut them down. What I do have is a bottle of Gewürztraminer if it doesn’t interfere with medications, meant to be imbibed like Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe all bathed in light and scandal.”
More animal sounds. The bedroom door inched open. Otto scurried through and began to clean around the bed. Audrey bit her lower lip when she saw Anna and the dark room. A cavern smell slid out the door. Audrey tried not to change her expression when Anna breathed on her.
“Did you sleep with him?” Anna said.
“Who?”
“Him.”
“Are you crazy?” She might have phrased the question better. But no, she said. The reality was that Him looked at her funny one day and Audrey ran the other away to her mother’s for Easter too, but earlier than planned, to uncomplicate things, avoid crucifixion, and now that Anna rolled back the stone and Audrey opened the blind and the window full as summer… it was… she would never… Audrey held Anna. Anna blubbered. Otto rolled on a pile of clothes and got trapped in a wool sock.
“People keep disappearing,” Anna said.
20. Harassment Assessment
Despite his apprehensions about freedom protests and TA responsibilities and declarations of war on men, Dmitri sent the best person he could think of to find Anna.
Audrey discovered her professor locked in at her mother’s house, and freed her, and encouraged therapy. Audrey said Anna should stop worrying if she’d slept with Christophe, and said if Professor Hill had anything to tell her she could. Anything at all.
“But she didn’t want to talk,” Audrey told Dmitri. “She only said there was a difference between passion and Vexatious Behaviour.”
“Just and sufficient cause,” Dmitri said, who unlike many boys and men preferred to keep Audrey at arm’s length. “Form A-09.”
“There are times for forms and legalities, but this is not that. You didn’t smell her bedroom.”
“Questions are raised. Digital questions. Her disappearance, bruises, the Visiting Professor.”
“I know right? And if we let things go on, she’s going to be screwed, not in the good way.” Audrey touched Dmitri’s hand. His phrases shortened when he was nervous. Audrey’s did
the opposite.
“It comes down to freedom, and freedom is loving yourself, which means you respect yourself, and others respect you, and that makes you responsible, and you stop being the victim, and make choices and your life is between your hands. Freedom.” Her fist was in the air.
Dmitri said that liberty was a slippery and squidgy thing, and that his mother country was still trying to grasp it. But his responsibilities lay more in processing complaints, and he hoped Audrey could also encourage Anna to fill out a Form A14 (English) and see a Harassment Assessor. In the meantime, he would have an informal vodka with the Dean. And though Audrey was completely free to do as she pleased in this country, he asked her to please put on hold any public protests or civil disobedience she might have planned, as it could interfere with her academic career.
Nevertheless the rumours multiplied and grew. By the time Dmitri poured the drinks the Dean claimed to know more than he did about the Situation, and said that in her administration there was no way any visiting professor would get a chance to thrust his Grande McGill upon anyone. Before it even had a chance to reach tumescence, la Grande McGill lay flaccid and shrunken on the Dean’s desk. By the end of the afternoon the program was completely cut off.
[
There was one thing missing, Anna decided. Yes, she would make an appointment with a therapist, a wonderful idea. Yes, she had some medication; Dotty, in a desperate bid to be a better mother, slipped her a few Clonazepam. Anna thought she would first go through the pills to see if things looked better that way, and then call the therapist. Audrey had filled her fridge with ready to eat gluten-free vegetarian dishes. Zap still hadn’t come by, so Audrey had also cleaned up Anna’s turret the best she could. So that was all good. And there was less frost on the window, and more streams of water in the streets. That wasn’t it. What was missing, she thought as the first Clonazepam settled into her system and she looked down at her fingers, was that there had been a marriage proposal, but she hadn’t seen a ring.
She breathed deeply, exhaled, and got up from her sofa with a grunt. She went to the turret, unhooked her satchel from the wall, and began at Page One:
He saw me from across the room. His glance told me to stay where I was and not move. I couldn’t anyway. He waved a necklace. I was unable to get out of the bed, and when I tried I limped and fell to the tiles.
“I am the Falconer,” he told me. His horse stayed where it was without a command.
She didn’t recognize her heroine. And th
e Falconer should be holding a ring, not swinging a necklace around. Nothing was in focus. Literally. She felt her own heart, not figuratively. A falcon screamed down on her and she ducked. A muffled medieval peal of bells. She shifted and it grew clear and frantic.
Now would be a good time to call that therapist. Immediately. Anna dialed a number. It rang for a good while until a familiar voice answered and a face came on the small screen.
“Sex,” said Anna. “I don’t understand the language. I know a few words, some handy expressions. Enough to get myself into trouble, as they say. And it sounds like a beautiful language. I like the way sex sounds.”
She was sure Julia would have answers, and cost less than a therapist. Also, they could talk about structural problems and forced sex in romance novels instead of some stranger asking her what brings you here.
“Too many dialects,” Julia said. “Once upon a time, the hero raped the heroine. Aggression wasn’t seen as a hate crime. He desired her, in the worst way.” She was in her London office. “Passion though—savage, hungry, hell-bent—it’s still legal in all states.”
“Can I ask you something? As a romance editor?”
She crouched on the floor, spoke to the screen filled with Julia’s bobbing head.
“All levels of sensuality are considered. And yes, there’s heaps of sexy heroes in the halls of our office.”
“I imagine.”
“Imagine is what we do best.”
“So no. What if a character says love isn’t about the other person. Love is about yourself.”
The connection crackled. Julia’s face froze into pixels and melted again.
“Hello?”
“Intercontinental connections. Untrustworthy.”
“Huh.”
“Heart in mouth. Your characters love what they fear.”
Julia disintegrated. Then Julia’s voice said if Anna didn’t e-mail her those love-simple characters tomorrow, she’d bill her for the time of this call and the rest of the time spent waiting for them.
[
Christophe strode down the slippery sidewalk, searched his pockets for his favourite antacid tablets. The bloom was definitely off the rose for these Canadian winters, as if a rose could even consider surviving here. Spring had arrived in name only and a suit jacket was no protection against the polar vortex. He rubbed his hands together, no gloves either, not even his preferred leather driving gloves. He walked with his head down, hoping a student would be stupid enough not to move out of the way for him, and he would at least be given the pleasure of upending someone’s ass on the ice. Where were those tablets? He could feel the acid destroying the lining of his stomach.
He stopped at a streetlight, finally lifted his head. A student nearby recognized him and thought of approaching him, but then reconsidered when he saw the professor’s scowl. Who were these people, out for blood. The Chair, the Dean—he thought he’d handily brought them to his side. Now they flung out innuendo and suggestion like so much confetti. Harassment! He’d told them what he thought of their Harassment Assessors, and their university, and their winters. He could probably sue them out of existence, if he had the first idea how that worked in this country. They assured him in their polite Canadian nothingness, that nothing was public, nothing was official, they just wanted to give him a chance to modify his behaviour. They assured him while they surrounded him with torches and pitchforks. Well he would modify. If they wanted a monster, he would give them a monster. He started with a low growl, which moved people on the sidewalk away from him. He lifted his face to the frigid sky and roared at the colonials.
But everybody in their northern politeness had left him alone.
He hadn’t eaten today. Had rushed out to be on time to serve this twisted institution. Then forgot throughout the day, so absorbed was he in helping the students. He went into the nearest café. More students. He grunted in response to their greetings, asked for double of everything, including pastries. Sat in a corner to put it all away, tried to find warmth, cursed the Canadian ineptitude with boulangeries, the milky dependence of their lattes. As he glanced over his shoulders crumbs littered his jacket.
Each student that came in was a potential rat. A falsifying rat. He’d never abused anyone in his life. Women loved him. He worshipped them. Told the Dean as much, when she first started hinting at the rumours. The Dean with her small hands, her tiny mouth. Such dirty accusations out of those pouting lips. She had the body of a teen, undeveloped breasts and no hips. No wonder the children loved her, she was one of them, promoted to adult heights. Those heights that were his to scale and occupy. He couldn’t believe they’d made her Dean of the Arts. Next they’d hire a woman as chancellor. Probably a former student. One of the students that had come to him with her problems, and when he was open and vulnerable, had seduced him. Like that TA. She appreciated his playful nature.
“Anything else, professor?”
He jerked his head up like a fish on a line.
In the Dean’s office he’d thought he smelled alcohol. Not a reassuring trait. Should probably be pointed out to the Chancellor. That’s why her accusations were so flimsy and vague. He walked over to her desk and sniffed. Looked for dirty glasses. She hadn’t been able to name who he supposedly vexed. Was it students, he asked and sat down on the soft chair. He looked up at her, his big brown eyes. Because students drive what I do. We’re not sure, said the Dean, if you have a solid understanding of McGill’s mission. There’s been some lapses in judgement. We hope you’ll finish your contract, but if there’s need for dismissal you have a concurrent right to due process.
“I’ve a concurrent right to kick your ass,” he muttered. Who was she to screw with his career, the reputation he’d built up over the decades?
“Also, with reference to your career, it seems you never were actually hired to serve on the President’s Advisory Board for le Grand Paris.”
“My name was on top of the list.”
“Apparently it was removed at some point. After similar lapses.”
“This is not my fault. You must stick to the facts. As an academician, you know invention and imagination have no place in a university. Without facts you are nothing.”
She had none, of course.
He was in possession of reality. In the café, he ordered one more latte and banana bread. He cursed the habit of overloading everything with cinnamon, as though it were the only spice in existence, as if these were the spice islands and… Anna. Anna and her imaginary worlds. He brought out his phone from his purse.
The usual onslaught of messages from her. Pages of rants, pleads, supplications. She wouldn’t bring these false charges against him. They had an understanding. They were adults, in the privacy of…where ever. The next time she texted or called he’d answer, if he wasn’t busy. A day had gone by without word from her. He looked for her on-line, and found no new postings. Just a charming photo from years ago, half the frame taken up by her hair. When the café door opened cold air blew in, followed by the smell of her hair. He closed his eyes. Her body, her lips. He could possess that reality too. He opened his eyes again, but it was just another student.
But that other lover, back in Paris. He thought he had control of her too, but she went her own way. He would not be careless again. Anna would stay by him, she would need him. If she stuck to her quaint hobbies, her inventions and imaginations. Talked to herself. Wrote a rosewater romance. Sure of nothing but him. Not even sure of her place in a university.
The hidden things. She hadn’t told anyone about her romance novel. If that leaked out. From an anonymous student who couldn’t wait for evaluations at the end of the course. Christophe looked around the café. Picked a student, and became her. Scribbled the note. On paper, and hoped it wouldn’t be too obvious that no millennial student would write on something as passé as paper, slipped it in the Dean’s mailbox. The note said: We revere
Professor Anna Hill for her dedication to the students and this class, but with the time she puts into concocting and selling her romance novel outside of the university we fear she confuses her serious work with little nothings.
Without facts you were nothing.
21. Appropriate Risks
Anna Hill, at her door on the landing, breathing heavy. The letter still in her hand. Who still sent paper letters?
We regret to inform you.
The sun warmed the air today, but Anna shivered. She couldn’t move.
“A downward trajectory.”
The letter was impossible.
“Questionable significance.”
They didn’t understand.
“May lead to a new and potentially even more rewarding vocation.”
Anna put her hand on the doorknob, not as cold as usual. But she couldn’t close it, or open it further. Her palm was damp and slipped on the metal. When she tried to take her breath deep from the chakra, she found none. As if in opening the door she’d stepped into the void of space. Ripped the envelope open, ripped the fabric of the galaxy. Her galaxy, anyway. The end was here, under the feeble sun of spring.
I am a professor. I am nothing but a professor. I profess to be an expert in my field.
On the street people went on with their lives. Students laughed and made wet snowballs. People stuffed their hats and gloves into pockets. They still believed in possibility. But since Anna read the letter, all her possibilities ran from her.
The day had begun with hope and blue sky. A full night’s sleep, or at least six hours, thanks to the pills. She smiled on waking. That had been awhile. She’d found a therapist, would call her today. Remembered Julia’s gentle encouragement. Audrey’s support. People who cared. And she did have a marriage proposal. Of a sort. Her future might not be all wine and romance, but it was headed in the right direction now.
And then she looked down the stairs and saw the envelope lying on top of flyers by the door. And in a short page, everything she worked for all her life was refused. That was how you were denied tenure.