Read Online The Professor by Charlotte Stein - Free Book Online Page B

into the main living-room space. And even after we have, everything seems very closed in and near suffocating.
    Quite possibly because of the seething heaps of books spreading outwards from every orifice the house has, or the furniture that barely belongs in such a narrow place, or the fact that he is so enormous he would make anything look small. But more probably because of the silence that then stretches between us. He just stands there looking at me, as though he expects me to speak first. He wants me to somehow address all of this, even though I already have. I told him why I read his work. It was obvious what made me go out into the rain. There is no mystery on my end and a great sprawling world of it on his. At the very least I expect him to say what made him bring me here, yet he seems either unwilling or unable.
    Both of which make me wonder if it was anything innocent at all.
    Right now, with him staring at me like that, it almost looks like the dark and secret other option. The one I won’t think about, or entertain, or imagine as true unless he specifically says in the most explicit terms possible. I need graphic language and diagrams; a map to the middle of his desire. Without it I can only stand there and stare back, in the most stifling silence of my short life. After a while I start to flounder in it.
    When he finally speaks it feels like being saved from drowning.
    ‘I expect you would like me to explain.’
    ‘Where did you want to start?’
    ‘With the words I wrote, of course.’
    ‘Not the fact that you brought me here.’
    ‘You think that is in need of explanation?’
    All it takes is an eyebrow lift for me to see what I should have done before:
    He didn’t realise what it meant to do this.
    He even backs it up with the most reasonable words.
    ‘I can assure my motives were beyond reproach. You saw the roads – I could barely see my way. It seemed prudent to stop and take shelter before I ran us off the road or worse.’
    Yet somehow they don’t quite seem reasonable at all.
    ‘And that’s all there was to it, then.’
    ‘I struggle to understand how you could ever think otherwise.’
    ‘There are a lot of reasons why I might think otherwise.’
    ‘Name them, then. Say them aloud and let me dispel your concerns.’
    ‘I said reasons, not concerns. But I can see why you would use that word.’
    ‘And what would that reason be, exactly?’
    ‘Because you often turn something innocuous into something wicked.’
    ‘Oh? You know my mind so distinctly, do you?’
    ‘Of course I do. You are me ten years from now.’
    I don’t think he means to pause then. I can see his next words on the tip of his tongue and in his eyes, oh, those eyes. How could I ever have thought they were a featureless lake? They are the opposite. You can read almost every thought he has on the glossy surface of his gaze, from the shock when I say what I just did, to the softening light in them after he accepts it.
    Almost like it pains him, I think.
    Though he tries to cover it over.
    ‘I scarcely know what to say to something so absurd. You will never be me.’
    ‘Because I’m common as muck and simple as anything?’
    ‘No, because you have twice the talent I ever had.’
    Those eyes flash even brighter now, even fiercer.
    He even takes a step towards me, and when he does I have to fight not to step back.
    I have to fight to answer him with just as much conviction.
    ‘I don’t know. That writing seemed beautiful to me.’
    ‘The only reason it seemed beautiful was because you believed it was about you.’
    ‘So you want to claim it wasn’t. That is how you are going to play this.’
    ‘There is no playing of anything. The whole thing is simply a coincidence – I knew another Esther once, and took to calling her Hetty. That’s really all there is to it.’
    ‘I see. Well, that does clear a few things up.’
    ‘I was hoping it would.’
    ‘I mean, obviously I feel foolish now.’
    ‘No, no, you