Chapter 21
Quill
A Friend
Playing Mr. Ganz
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Professor Thadd?us Faber was the epitome of a sleeping pill.
While his students either slept, read books, talked, and occasionally laughed when the forgetful professor misplaced something, this man, who seemed to enjoy wearing colorful satin neckerchiefs under his luxury suits, gave a ninety-minute lecture on tax law.
There was truly nothing more boring in this world than having to listen to this old professor, who seemed to be my father's age. Not even math class in school, where I occasionally got Ds and later only Fs, had been so tedious.
A yawn, which someone always continued, seemed to have taken hold in this small lecture hall.
Every now and then, two groups of men laughed, and whenever the prof turned to the blackboard, they sent one of their first-semester errand boys to steal documents from his desk or sneak another licorice candy – of which this man hoarded a whole tin – into his coffee.
For the first time, I felt something like pity for Zach. The man who tripped over the laces that tied his shoes together for the second time and simply dismissed it with an exhausted sigh was his dad.
It was obvious that Zach was trying to avoid Lucas's glances and stupid comments, but the blush on his boyish face spoke volumes.
Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of sitting near him and Lucas, so all the unpleasant remarks Lucas made to tease Zach reached my ears.
“I often wonder where his intelligence comes from,” Lucas laughed quietly to another older student, tapping Zach’s brown suit jacket on the shoulder with his pen.
I tried to ignore him, but decided that in the future I would also bring books with me or simply write here during the lecture.
For the rest of the first lecture with this professor, I lost myself in writing a much too long poem, just as I had done in math class back then when I had wanted to write down my frustration somehow and at the same time escape the hopeless situations.
After catching a student misplacing his binder, Professor Faber gave a lecture on the manners of young men in today's society before handing out calculation exercises on tax progression and a multiple-choice test on the facts he had presented.
The entire lecture hall groaned when he announced that he would now be doing these quizzes after every lecture to ensure our attention and that all the points from each quiz would be added up into one grade.
Unfortunately for him, the classical music that could be heard loudly through his headphones seemed to cause him to relax a little too much in his chair and nod off, which immediately prompted the students to steal the answer sheet and pass it around.
“Oh, Zach,” Lucas laughed and patted his friend on the shoulder. “Your old man fell asleep again. Could it be that you'll soon have to start looking for a retirement home?”
The guys around them laughed, and this time they didn't hold back.
Zach seemed to be losing his patience, because he got up and didn't even look at Lucas, who raised both arms, as he left the lecture hall.
“Come on, man. “
Lucas' laughter pissed me off. He was an asshole, and why Zach hadn't ended their friendship yet was a mystery to me.
I had just finished copying the answers, so I got up too and put my paper where Zach – who, it should be noted, was the only one who had worked without the answer sheet – had just put his.
With one last reproachful glance, I faced Lucas, who looked at me with raised eyebrows while the corners of his mouth slid back into place, then I grabbed my bag and hurriedly left the lecture hall under countless stares.
The Green Pills
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Zach hadn't gotten far, rushing down the hallway, his fists clenched.
“Zach.” He ignored me, but that certainly wasn't going to stop me. “Zach, your friend is an asshole, and you shouldn't take it personally...”
“Zachary.”
He stopped, spun around to face me, his hands still ready to fight.
I paused four feet in front of him.
“What?”
His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening.
“I’m Zachary to you,” he hissed. “And I’m definitely not going to waste a minute on someone like you.”
Realization kicked in.
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No.” Anger resonated in his voice.
“But if you want to know the reason...” He snorted. “You're an academic bad influence. You haven't been able to answer a single question from the professors so far.”
Biting my tongue wasn't enough to suppress the feeling of being useless and unable to change anything about it.
“People talk negatively about you, which doesn’t make you a good alliance either.”
His gaze wandered down my navy blue knit sweater. “On top of that, you dress like someone who doesn’t care much about style, unlike other women in our milieu.”
Oh, so that’s the kind of guy Zach was?
“You’re different.” He lowered his voice, but I could still feel his anger. “And I can't shake the feeling that something's not right about you.”
His eyes pierced me, searching for the truth.
“You don't belong here, Quillon Veritas.”
Caught off guard and thrown off balance, I stared at the young man who was the complete opposite of me.
An intelligent puzzle piece that fit perfectly into the puzzle of this society.
He didn't care how his friends treated him.
He played along, obviously using relationships of convenience to work his way up in areas where his intelligence alone was not enough.
I didn't even have the necessary intelligence, would remain at the bottom of this society forever. A doormat. Nothing more.
“But maybe my father is right and women just don't belong in intellectual circles.”
He left me standing in the hallway, completely devastated.
I let a lot slide. But if he wanted to drag half the global population through the mud, he had just said those words to the wrong woman.
Borgov II
Carlos Rafael Rivera
I would hate Tuesdays with a passion, because not only did Professor Faber's sobering lectures or the practice sessions with Fitzek Junior and his two master's student tutors – who literally feared this man and resembled slaves rather than tutors – take place on these days, no...
The last Tuesday lecture was held by my father.
Thomas and Lara had advised me against attending. And although my stomach was literally in knots, I couldn't ignore the rebellious tingling in my fingers.
I wanted to see how the composed Professor Richter, the iron-fisted yet popular professor of civil procedure, known for his serious and thoughtful manner, would start to catch fire in my presence.
He couldn't drag me out or yell at me in front of my fellow students.
Here, he was the prisoner.
Quite amusing that he didn't seem to have expected me here, because when I deliberately entered the lecture hall late, he faltered. So did my knees. But somehow I managed to hold his gaze, even though the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Here, he wasn't wearing one of the same tailored three-piece suits he used to wear when he had come home from work to see me and Mama.
And even though his face was only partially filled with resentment and hatred, all I could do at that moment was feel like the fragile little girl from his visits back then.
The entire hall had now turned to face me, as if they still hadn't gotten used to my presence.
They were probably wondering how the ink-stained girl with the smudged hands hadn't left voluntarily yet, given all the sexist comments and hostile glances that were being thrown at her feet.
They probably smelled the disapproval of the old professors, licking their fingers in anticipation of me becoming the living proof that women had no place here.
It tore me apart inside that I was feeding this fire with gasoline. But every woman was better off without this poisoned place.
My father seemed to realize that neither he nor I could attract attention if he wanted to maintain his pretty facade, because he forced himself to look around the audience and continue with his introductory lecture.
Somehow I managed to sit down in one of the back rows without taking my eyes off him.
It was as if I had to keep an eye on him, just as I had always had to do back then. No one could predict what this man would do next.
Which made it all the more amusing that, while eavesdropping in the library, I had learned that he was known as the serious and calm professor whose seminars were difficult to pass.
He was selective, I knew that.
I had already expected that he would only pick the best of the best, just like his mentor, the old Fitzek. That he would see seventy percent of those present as defective material. But I couldn't imagine him doing so quietly and discreetly.
The first twenty minutes of this lecture already put me into a stupid state of shock, in which I – unable to take notes because everything in me resisted ever seeing this man as someone I could learn anything from – watched the stranger pace back and forth, his voice calm and focused, his subtle humor drawing laughter from the students as he gave his lecture.
My father... was gone. This man standing there... I didn't know him.
Only when he gave the students an assignment did he make the mistake of reaching for a pen with his trembling hand.
His hand froze. He looked up, directly at me, and goosebumps attacked me far too quickly.
I knew. And that made me a potential threat.
His gaze, a sharpened warning. A pointy arrow that he loaded into his crossbow. He wouldn't shoot. Not here.
I quickly looked down, suddenly feeling way too weak for this war.
I tried to focus on the task, but I only managed to get him out of my head when I lost myself back in the poem, which had only gotten longer over the course of the day.
It became more chaotic, the lines illegible.
My fingers trembled, yet my ideas flowed, fueled by my fear of the man from whom I had inherited fifty percent of my DNA.
I would not become an alcoholic.
Not unpredictable.
Not punitive.
Not loud.
Not razor-sharp.
Not destructive.
Not...