Chapter 20 #2
His expression relaxed and he shifted his shoulders back, turning to Monica as if nothing had happened.
How could everyone around me be so good at lying except me? Quill, Anthony... now Joseph too?
“There you are. I need to talk to you urgently.” Monica was waiting for him at the side of the path and Anthony went over to her. She nodded at me with a smile. “Davian.”
I nodded back, smiling automatically, which was down to Monica and not my mood, because that was threatening to become a victim of all my inner turmoil.
Tony gave me one last insistent look, then the two of them disappeared, engrossed in another heated conversation.
I lingered on the lawn until the janitor looked at me as if he had planned my murder, causing me to wander back to the sidewalk, lost in thought.
Not only had my mentor, whom I had thought would be transparent with me, cheated on his wife, but he also had another daughter.
Could it be that all these court cases had been custody proceedings? But then why would he lose his license to practice law?
Something didn't make sense. Something I had to talk to him about as soon as the opportunity arose.
Borgov II
Carlos Rafael Rivera
“I'm going to destroy you, Joseph,” Troy gritted out, and I was grateful that the large table in the professor's lounge stood between the two of them.
“Father hasn't made it official yet, but I know when it's working in his head. And oh.” His gaze was like that of a madman who wanted to reduce the world to rubble and ashes. “How it's working in there right now.”
I didn't know what was more unnerving. Troy's empty threats, which turned Joseph's face into a battlefield, or the half-empty whiskey glass in my mentor's hands, which he clutched so tightly that I feared it would shatter at any moment.
“What are you talking about, boy?!” Joseph growled, setting the glass down on the table, not without spilling some of its contents.
I wanted to throw it out the window, wanted to confront him. Before that, I wanted to throw Troy out the same window and hope he landed in a wheelchair so that all his favorite students could draw his ridiculous tally marks on his plaster cast.
“Don't call me...”
Thadd?us cleared his throat audibly. “How about we calm down...”
“You're not going to ruin my hard work just because you think you're entitled to something,” Joseph blurted out, propping his hands on the table.
Everyone ignored Thadd?us, who pressed his lips together more or less indifferently and took a big gulp of his whiskey before turning away and wandering towards the window.
“Your father didn't choose me as his successor for no reason!”
Joseph was furious. This was something that rarely happened, as he was usually the epitome of calm observation.
“A mistake he already regrets!” Troy thundered back.
“A lie!”
“Oh?” Troy laughed sardonically. “Is that so?”
This time I cleared my throat. “He’s just trying to get to you.”
Troy turned to me with a furious look in his eyes.
“You both are resting on your undeserved laurels.” He gestured between us with his left index finger. “But at the end of the month, we'll see who has the last laugh. And don't even think about trying to steal my candidates.” He looked first at Joseph, then at me. “The same goes for you, Rydell.”
I just snorted, inwardly close to despair that I had already been dragged into this war.
Troy stormed out of the professors' lounge.
Joseph also turned around and headed for the wide window, where Thadd?us gave him an assessing sidelong glance before turning to me questioningly, as if we were allies and I would spill the beans for him.
Thadd?us was the least nerve-wracking person here, but he actually kept thinking that I belonged to the conservative faction.
“Did Arnold mention anything?” Joseph asked Thadd?us, who just shrugged.
“Nothing. And I don't think he would leave this faculty to his impulsive son. He made that clear three years ago.”
“Three years ago...”
Joseph sounded annoyed as he shoved both hands into his pants pockets.
“Don’t let him get to you,” I warned my mentor. “Troy is cunning. This behavior is more likely proof that he feels cornered.”
“Your protégé is right.”
I tried to ignore Thadd?us.
This man was just as much of a snake. Arnold's silent spy and informant, who stuck his nose into every private matter.
He was the epitome of a follower, trying to satisfy the hand that fed him as a way to keep order in a rigid system and thereby secure his investments and comfortable life in Maplecrest.
Thadd?us Faber had studied with Joseph at Maplecrest, was two years older than him, and still feared that the war crimes of his frail old father, whom he hid in a wheelchair in his mansion, would be discovered.
Who would have thought that I would one day work among privileged Nazis without losing my mind?
Grand Jury
Atli ?rvarsson
After a much too long and exhausting discussion with Joseph and Thadd?us, which had reminded me of devising a battle plan and which had led Joseph to create a selection model similar to Troy's, I pushed the door to my office shut, feeling drained, and allowed myself to miss the silence of my youth for a moment.
Back then, I had often retreated to my student dorm in D.C. for days on end and written when I should have been studying for medical school, which I had ultimately dropped out of after learning that Lily had been pregnant with Lara.
Looking back, those had been my most peaceful years.
How had I been able to forgive Lily? How had I managed to raise a child? How had I endured all those years without writing?
The truth? Countless times I had cursed Lily, had sat by the fireplace in the evenings, crying because I had felt like I could never be enough for my little girl, and every now and then the now worn-out typewriter had managed to lure me to it.
I wasn't perfect, never had wanted to be. But no matter what people around me praised me for, everything I had ever been had never been satisfying enough for me.
I had learned to function flawlessly. Joseph had taught me that. He had made me understand that our passions and dreams were just distractions in a world that needed clear minds so that nothing fell out of line.
Somehow I had managed to fit into this mold, but I was stuck in it, motionless, while moss gradually grew over my cracked stone structure.
The suit jacket on my desk brought me back to the present with a jolt.
Automatically, I moved around the desk, grabbed it, and stepped up to the large window.
That suit jacket had shaken me awake, forcing me to realize that what had happened on the bridge that night had not just been a fever dream.
I looked down at it with reverent dread pooling in my chest.
Don't do it, Davian. Don't do it.
With all my strength, I resisted the urge to hold the fabric to my nose.
There's no one here. Why shouldn't you do it?
Because it was so damn wrong.
I had probably already fought too many wars, was too weak to fight another one against myself, and so I allowed myself a moment of weakness.
With slight tension, I lifted the fabric to my nose, inhaled the scent of the jacket, but encountered only the scent of laundry detergent.
I bit my lower lip.
Of course it didn't smell of anything meaningful. Quill had probably washed it and waited to give it back to me.
Angry at my disturbing behavior, I threw the suit jacket on the table. Something white fell to the floor.
I paused, staring at the small folded piece of paper.
My heart skipped a beat.
With growing anticipation and a heavy feeling in my chest, I bent down to pick up the note, unfolded it, and held my breath.
The world needs your writing.
Only the words of dead poets seem to resonate in this world.
– Leaking Batteries Diary