it”, ordered Joan firmly, emphasizing “have’.
“But still – I won’t trade with Miss Elizabeth. Good day.” Blear got up, looking down on all their faces at once. Some were angry, others surprised. Beth’s dark eyes were sad.
The Professor went to his office, thinking that no-one had ever seen him so resolute. Inside him, everything simmered like a boiling vat of tar on a fortress wall. If anyone had approached him now, whether Joan or even the university’s rector himself, he would have shouted his anger in their face. The vacation he bore like an aging mother with her last-chance baby, which he lusted for since April – the vacation through which he’ll escape this Friday – they wanted to take his vacation away from him! Seventeen days of freedom, which he hadn’t seen since the 4th of July, exchanged against Beth’s flatteries with those males?! Forget it! Do they know what vacation time means to him?!
Joan entered their office in silence. She sat down behind the desk across the room. Blear felt the well-lit office suddenly become sombre, like before rain falls.
They left for their respective courses in silence. But during the entire course, her silence caused his chest to tremble violently, as if inhabited by the Echo nymph.
At their office door, his heart began to pound furiously. Peter felt like a warrior ready to throw himself into hand-to-hand combat. After pausing for a second, he opened the door. Joan was waiting for him at the desk. She greeted him. She got up, her enormous body undulating. She approached his desk and began speaking in a manipulative tone – telling him how nice a girl Beth is – how tired she is from the year’s work, the first year, the most difficult one in a new place – how much she needs to rest in friendly company. Peter let her finish and looked at her face. Crushed by her power, his gaze fell to her black shoes. Without looking up, he answered that he won’t be able to help Beth with her vacation.
Later, Peter likened everything that happened following these words to the indignation of a mistress towards her rebellious slave. This recollection palpitated within him accompanied by fear, like that of a fish at the bottom of a boat.
For the remaining time Joan’s entire group, except Beth, tried to convince him one after another. Finally, the almighty dean of the history faculty himself suggested that he capitulate to Joan. The dean! Zeus, master of lightning, had appeared to the lowliest of the helots. To timorous Peter, any uttering from the dean was a decree. But the vacation was a necessity. “I can’t”, whispered Blear.
During the final days, everyone who knew about “Professor Blear’s rude behavior”, “who doesn’t have a family or obligations like everyone else, but who doesn’t want to help sweet Beth”, “who slights the opinion of the collective” and “who can no longer count on the previously benevolent attitude”, looked at him with astonishment, as if they wanted to say “Wow! Weakly Blear, we didn’t think you had the guts to stand up to Joan and her assistants”.
Friday evening, Peter gathered a bag containing his things and left the empty office. In a brand-new Ford, crossing the empty intersections of the town, he made his way home.
The Professor lived in a two-story house on a quiet little street, near a plane tree covered road.
Chapter II
He left his car in the garage and entered the house. He turned on the microwave oven in the kitchen. He retrieved an opened wine bottle from the refrigerator, poured himself half a glass and filled the rest with tap water. He put the bottle back in the refrigerator and let the wine warm up.
He went up to the bedroom and took all his clothes off. In the bathroom, he turned the water on and sealed the pink bathtub with a black plug. From downstairs, the microwave oven chirped three times. Blear put the steak on a plate with a heap of fries, picked up the glass and went upstairs to the bathroom. He removed his fogged-up glasses and slipped into the bathtub. He ate his supper lying in the tub. Then he washed, wiped himself with a towel and headed for the bedroom still undressed. He pulled open a drawer in the dresser below the TV set, taking from it a key and a small box.
Grabbing the bed from the middle, he trotted backwards. The bed squeaked and rolled towards him. Peter squirmed near the wall between the windows. He put the key into a slot, turned it and opened a small door. From the safe, he recovered a Beretta automatic pistol, two magazines, a silencer, a handgun holster with shoulder straps, a small leather pouch and a key. Groaning, he pushed the bed back where it belongs and returned to the bathroom. Opening the small box, he took some contact lenses from their solution and put them on. He blinked in front of the mirror, wiping away the tears. He put the shoulder straps on and placed the pistol in its holster. He held the small leather pouch and two magazines in his hands, putting the key between his teeth. He walked around the house, turning all the lights off. He took the concrete stairs down to the basement. In the basement were shelves covered with jars and books, along with two wooden cupboards with doors. Peter, with his left hand, opened one of the cupboards’ doors. Bending down below the shelves covered with videotapes, he kneeled on the floor between some old sneakers and pushed aside a panel in the back with his hand. He found the keyhole with the key, opened and pushed the hidden door. He crawled back into the room, turned off the lights and felt his way back to the cupboard. Blear put himself in the cupboard. He closed the doors behind him and crept through the hidden door’s slot. He pinched the sliding door between his fingers and closed it behind him.
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