Gabriel's Inferno

“I said — don’t believe the hype.”

“About what?”

“About Lobby. It’s not that great.”

Christa shot Julia a frosty smile. “As if the doorman would let you in.

Lobby   is an exclusive club.”

She looked Julia up and down as if she were a less-than-prized animal.

As if she were an old, half-blind, forgotten pony at a petting zoo. Julia suddenly felt very self-conscious and ugly. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she fought them back bravely.

Paul noticed exactly what Miss Peterson was doing in measuring Julia and finding her wanting. He felt her shiver in reaction to Christa’s feline claw sharpening. So although it pained him to do so, he released Julia’s shoulders and sat forward on the loveseat, flexing his arms.

Don’t make me stand up, bitch, he thought .

“Why wouldn’t they let Julia in, Christa? They only admit working girls now?”

Christa turned very red. “What would you know about it, Paul? You’re practically a monk! Or perhaps that’s what monks do — they pay for it.” She shot a meaningful glance at Julia’s precious new messenger bag.

“Christa, you’re going to shut your mouth right now, or I’m going to stand up. And then all chivalry goes out the window.” Paul glared at her and silently reminded himself that he could not strike a woman. And that Christa was, in fact, a woman, and not an anorexic sow in heat. Paul would never have compared Christa to a cow, for he thought cows were noble creatures. (Especially Holsteins.)

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” she snapped. “I’m sure there are multiple explanations. Maybe Lobby   wouldn’t let her in because of her iq.

Gabriel says you’re not that bright, Julianne.”

Christa smiled triumphantly as Julia ducked her head, feeling very small indeed. Paul shifted his weight to the soles of his feet. He wasn’t going to hit Christa; he was simply going to shut her up. And maybe drag her to the exit or something. He needn’t have bothered.

“Oh, really? And what else does Gabriel  say?”

The three graduate students turned slowly en masse to look up at the blue-eyed Dante specialist who had sidled up to them silently. None of them were exactly sure how much he’d heard or how long he’d been standing there. But his eyes sparked, and Julia could feel his anger radiating toward Christa. It billowed like a cloud. But thankfully, it did not billow in her direction. This time.

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes, thought Paul.

“Paul.” Gabriel nodded coolly, his eyes flickering to the now noticeable space in between Julianne and his research assistant. The Angelfucker. That’s right — hands off the angel, asshole.

“Miss Mitchell, how nice to see you again.” Gabriel smiled somewhat stiffly. “You’re looking smart, as always.”

Yes, brown-eyed angel, I heard what she said to you. Don’t worry, I’ll fix her.

“Miss Peterson.” Now Gabriel’s voice was cold, and he gestured to her to follow him as if she were a dog. You looked at Julianne as if she were trash.

You won’t be doing that again. I’ll make sure of it.

Julia watched as he refused the coffee Christa bought for him and walked to the counter to order something else. She saw Christa’s shoulders trembling with rage.

Paul turned to Julia and sighed. “Now, where were we?”

She inhaled deeply and took a minute to focus before she did what she knew she needed to do. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.” She looked down at her leather messenger bag, feeling very uncomfortable.

“I’m not sorry. I’m only sorry that you’re sorry.” Paul brought his face close to hers and smiled. “But it’s all right. I’m not upset or anything.”

“I don’t know what happened. I’m not usually like that — to just kiss someone.”

“I’m not just someone, am I?” He looked at her inquisitively. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for the longest time. Ever since that first seminar, I think. But that would have been too soon.”

He tried to persuade her to look at him, but she looked away. She looked toward another table and its two quarreling occupants. She sighed.

“Julia, the kiss doesn’t have to change anything. Think of it as a moment between friends. It doesn’t have to happen again, unless you want it to.” He searched her face, worriedly. “Would that make it better? If we left it like that?”

She nodded and squirmed. “I’m sorry, Paul. You’ve been nothing but nice to me.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I’m not looking for payment, here. I’m nice to you because I want to be. That’s why I bought you the cd. That’s why the poem reminds me of you. You inspire me.” He leaned closer so that he could whisper in her ear, acutely aware of the fact that a pair of angry sapphire eyes was suddenly focused on him. “Please don’t feel obligated to do anything that you don’t want to do. I’ll be your friend no matter what.”

He paused. “It was a friendly little kiss, instead of a hug. But from now on, we can stick to hugs, if you want. And one day, if you want more…”

“I’m not ready,” she breathed, somewhat surprised that she found honest words to say and found them so quickly.

“I know that. That’s why I didn’t kiss you back much, even though I wanted to. But it was very nice. Thank you. I know you’re careful about who you let yourself get close to. I feel honored that you kissed me.”

He patted her hand and smiled at her again. She opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to it.

“I could break Christa’s neck for what she said to you. I won’t bother talking to her next time.” His eyes darted to The Professor’s table where he noticed with some relief that the angry sapphire eyes were now fixated on Christa, who was bowing her head and close to tears.

Julia shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“I care. I saw how she was looking at you. And I felt your reaction: you cringed. You fucking cringed, Julia. Why didn’t you tell her to go to hell?”

“I don’t do things like that if I can help it. I try not to lower myself to her level. Sometimes, I just feel so…so surprised that someone is being nasty to me, I can’t think. I’m speechless.”

“People are…nasty to you?” Paul began to get angry.

“Sometimes.”

“Emerson?” he whispered.

“He’s coming around. You saw him just then — he was nice.”

Paul nodded reluctantly. Professor Dick-erson.

Julia fidgeted with her hands. “I don’t mean to be all…St. Francis of Assisi or something, but anyone can shout obscenities. Why should I become like her? Why not think that sometimes — just sometimes — you can overcome evil with silence? And let people hear their hatefulness in their own ears, without distraction. Maybe goodness is enough to expose evil for what it really is, sometimes. Rather than trying to stop evil with more evil. Not that I’m good. I don’t think that I’m good.” She paused and looked over at Paul. “I’m not making any sense.”

He simply smiled. “Of course you’re making sense. We talked about this in my Aquinas seminar — evil is its own punishment. Look at Christa.

Do you think she’s happy? How could she be, behaving like that? Some people are so self-absorbed and deluded that all the shouting in the world wouldn’t be enough to convince them of their own shortcomings.”

“Or jog their memory,” Julia mumbled, gazing over at the other table and shaking her head.

The next day, she found herself in the Department of Italian Studies checking her mailbox before the Dante seminar. She was listening to the cd that Paul had given to her, which she’d finally agreed to accept and upload to her iPod. He was right; she’d fallen in love with the album immediately.

And she found that she could write her thesis proposal while listening to his music much better than while listening to Mozart. Lacrimosa  was far too depressing.

After days of finding nothing in her pigeonhole, she finally received some mail. Three pieces of mail, actually.

The first was an announcement of the rescheduling of Professor Emerson’s lecture, Lust in Dante’s  Inferno : The Deadly Sin against the Self. Julia made note of the new date and planned on asking Paul if he would accompany her to the lecture.

The second piece of mail was a small cream-colored envelope. Julia opened it and was surprised to find that it contained a Starbucks gift card.

It had been personalized, she saw, and the image on the card was a large light bulb. The text emblazoned across it read: You are very bright, Julianne.

Julia looked at the back of the card and saw that the value was one hundred dollars. Holy shit, she thought. That’s a lot of coffee.  It was obvious who had sent it to her and why. Nevertheless, she was very, very surprised.

Until she withdrew the third piece of mail.

The third piece was a long, sleek envelope, which she quickly opened.

It was from the chair of the Department of Italian Studies congratulating her on winning a bursary. She read no further than the amount, which was five thousand dollars per semester, payable on top of her regular graduate student stipend.

O gods of all really poor graduate students with very small hobbit-hole-not-fit-for-a-dog apartments, thank you, thank you, thank you!

“Julianne, are you all right?” The voice of Mrs. Jenkins, comforting and gentle, wafted over her shocked body.

She stumbled uncertainly to Mrs. Jenkins’ desk and wordlessly handed her the award letter.

“Oh yes, I heard about this.” She grinned amiably. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?

These bursaries are few and far between, and suddenly on Monday morning we received a call saying that some foundation had donated thousands of dollars for this award.”

Julia nodded, still in shock.

Mrs. Jenkins glanced down at the letter. “I wonder who he is.”

“Who he is?”

“The person the bursary is named after.”

“I didn’t read that far.”

Mrs. Jenkins held the letter up and pointed to a block of bold print.

“It says that you are the recipient of the M. P. Emerson Bursary. I was just wondering who M. P. Emerson is. I wonder if he’s a relative of Professor Emerson. Although Emerson  is a common enough name. It’s probably just a coincidence.”

Chapter 12

Professor Emerson saw light spilling from underneath the door of his library carrel, but since Paul had pasted brown craft paper over the narrow window in the door, Gabriel couldn’t peer inside. He was surprised to find Paul working so late on a Thursday night. It was ten-thirty in the evening, and the library would be closing in thirty minutes.

Gabriel fished around in his pocket for his keys and opened the door without knocking. What he saw inside completely floored him. Curled up in a chair was Miss Mitchell, her head resting on folded arms that were poised elegantly on the desktop. Her eyes were closed, her mouth partially open but not quite smiling. Her cheeks were flushed with sleep, her chest rising and falling slowly, soothingly, like the waves of the ocean against a quiet beach. He stood in the doorway entranced, thinking that the simple sound of her breathing would make an excellent relaxation cd. One he could imagine falling asleep to again and again.