Professor Ranji returned to class with a limp not worthy of his yellow jogging attire. His face had a chalky complexion and underneath his eyes, were night blue semicircles. His eyes were covered with that glossy film that is often the result of medication or fever. As he spoke, he never allowed his eyes to focus quite on me, concentrating to look just inches in front of my forehead. I crossed my legs. Black stockings do not go nicely with red pumps, I thought to myself, pulling out the wrinkles around my ankles.
Professor Ranji’s hands trembled as he walked up and down the rows, holding up a wide-mouthed jar for us all to see. It contained a translucent, offensive smelling liquid and one hemisphere of the human brain, separated from its partner like a grapefruit slice.
When Professor Ranji pointed to the area of motor cortex which commanded the muscles of the lips, tongue and jaw, his eyes at last met mine; not to greet them, but to burn them with his hatred. I must say that if I understood correctly, we do not really taste with our tongues. Our tongues are but civil servants who carry taste up a well-defined path, to the viscous ruler above, the brain, which determines its pleasure or disdain.
It was a curious moment in my life. I felt as though something was shifting inside me, a tide reversing prematurely. I do believe, though it may sound queer at first, that it was responsibility shifting from the low rank organs of execution to my brain. Yes, how curious, the area I’d considered the most moral of myself all those years, in all its scruples and accusations, was the very source of pleasure all the while, a masochistic mass battling against itself.
I couldn’t wait for class to finish, and bobbed my knee up and down. As soon as Professor Ranji gave us leave, I rushed out of the Scott’s Science building; my heels sank into the grass, stabbing the earth again and again. If I ran fast enough, I could catch Dr. Timberland as he arrived on campus, brief-case swinging high, jacket flapping in the air.
“Hey! I want a word with you!” Professor Ranji was unable to run properly; one leg almost ran, and the other one trailed behind, looking stiff in his jogging pants, as if it had been taken off and put back on the wrong way. I recognized his Hindu cologne that had once enthralled me before he limped up to me, too close for my taste.
“I’m in a hurry. I have Honors Calculus in ten minutes.”
“You did it on purpose, didn’t you? The whole thing was premeditated, wasn’t it?! You don’t have to admit it to any goddamned juvenile court, but you’re going to have to admit it to me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shook me by my dress; synthetic hairs floated away, lightly, carelessly.
“What are you, some sort of witch? A Medusa?!” Veins rose out of his moist forehead. He had a plaster on the vein one draws bloods from, surrounded by the usual spectrum of a healing bruise.
“Without oxygen, your blood is blue,” I commented and began to walk.
“What the hell did you do with it?!” Panting obstinately, he struggled to keep up with me; every few feet, he scratched the same impolite part of himself. I noticed that the puma on his sweatshirt had a loose, hanging gold bead eye.
“I beg your pardon? With what?”
“The piece I’m missing! You know damn well!”
My hand covered my mouth instinctively, as though I were protecting myself from repossession of what was duly mine.
“You ate it? I can’t believe it! You ate it? I knew it. You ate it??” Professor Ranji squatted against a banyan tree and buried his face in his palms.
“Does she know?”
“Who?”
“You know damn well who! Was she behind the curtain, whispering stage directions to you?”
“By she, I assume you mean your wife, rather than your mother or daughter?”
“Tell me it was an accident, your elbow accidentally hit the knob, you didn’t know what you were doing, you’re very sorry, it was an accident, something, but don’t stand there looking at me like I’m the freak!”
I didn’t know if it would be suitable to weep like the heroine in a three-decker novel or to run.
“If you wish to alleviate your guilt for having merged your flesh with flesh other than your wife, confession is on Sunday,” I reminded him.
The face Professor Ranji made was so sincerely void of understanding, I conceived my mistake.
“Will, how you feeling?”
I was startled to discover Dr. Timberland standing behind me. My body tingled all over. I now knew it was just my brain having fun, tossing electricity here and there like grains to hungry chickens.
“Hello Stan,” murmured Professor Ranji.
Dr. Timberland gave his glasses a few puffs and wiped them on his jacket.
“You all right? I heard you were ill?”
“I’m fine, just fine, much better, this is nothing …” Professor Ranji confessed acidly. He started to peel the plaster off his arm, but halfway through changed his mind, and patted it back down uneasily.
“I see Miss Lester is one of your prize students, too?” Professor Ranji looked me up and down, then back to Dr. Timberland with eyes full of warning.
Dr. Timberland was disconcerted. He glanced at me from the corners of his eyes, and thought I didn’t see him press his thin lips together to suppress a laugh. I lifted the silver chain out from between my breasts and nibbled on the tiny Christ.
“Why don’t you both come for breakfast? Tomorrow is Saturday, there are no classes. Oh, do come??”
“No, but thank you anyway,” refused Professor Ranji politely, “I shall have breakfast with my wife and children. How ’bout stopping over, Stan?”
“Is your wife’s cooking so great?” I challenged.
Professor Ranji excused himself, lowered his head and dragged his heels to his dusty jeep. When he stepped inside, he did so slowly, straining his face. Before he drove past us, he gave Dr. Timberland another warning stare and uttered, “Bon appétit.”
“What was that supposed to mean?” Dr. Timberland asked me irritably, fanning the dust that had risen to his face.