Gabriel's Inferno

She blushed at his remark and smiled.

“We’ll have two weeks to enjoy Florence. Or we can travel to Venice and Rome, if you wish. We could rent a villa in Umbria. I know of a place near Todi that’s very beautiful. I’d like to show it to you.”

“As long as I’m with you, my love, I don’t care where we are.”

His lips tightened momentarily. “Bless you for that,” he murmured.

“Rachel is scheduling the wedding for late August, provided the venue they want is available. I wonder why she wants to wait so long.” Julia was fishing to see if Gabriel had any information.

He shrugged. “Knowing Rachel, she’ll need months to make sure the proper people are notified and the wedding is featured on cnn.”

They both chuckled.

“I think Rachel wants to start a family soon,” said Julia. “I wonder what Aaron thinks of that.”

“He loves her. He wants to marry her. He’s probably excited at the thought of the love of his life carrying his child.”

He paused for a moment, turning to face her. “Julianne, does it trouble you that I can’t…?”

“Not really, at least not right now. I want to finish my master’s, then work on my doctorate. I’d like to teach.” She shrugged. “Perhaps this is the benefit of dating a younger woman.”

Gabriel snorted. “You make me sound antique. You realize that when you’re thirty you will probably change your mind, if not sooner. And when that happens…”

She frowned and shook her head. “What do you expect me to say — that I don’t want you? I’m not going to say that. I love you, Gabriel, all of you. Please don’t push me away when we’ve finally gotten close.” She closed her eyes. “It hurts.”

“Forgive me,” he whispered, kissing the back of her hand.

She accepted his apology and tried to relax, weary from the day’s emotions.

Gabriel rubbed at his eyes so that he could think. But he soon realized that he needed space and time away from her in order to do that.

I won’t need to push you away when I tell you about Paulina…

The first week of December was the last week of classes. It was a quiet week, for the most part. Gabriel and Julia dutifully kept their distance from one another. Every evening he prepared his lecture for the Uffizi Gallery in his spacious condominium while she worked tirelessly on her essays and her thesis in her tiny hobbit hole.

They texted one another mercilessly:

Darling, I miss you. Come over? Love, G

Julia smiled at the screen of her iPhone in such a way that even the iPhone blushed. Then she typed her reply:

G, I miss you too. I’m finishing an essay for this crazy Dante seminar I’m taking. I’ll probably be up all night.

The professor is hot but demanding. I love you, Julia She turned her attention back to her laptop as she continued editing her essay for Katherine. Within a few minutes, her iPhone was chirping again: Darling, You’re in luck — I am a Dante specialist.

Why don’t you bring your essay over here

and I will help you with it…all night…Love, G

P.S. How hot?

Julia giggled at his message and hit reply: Dearest Dante Specialist, My professor is hot like fire, scotch bonnet peppers, and chicken vindaloo.

I know what your all-nighter would include —

and it wouldn’t be finishing my essay.

Rain check for Friday? Love, Your Julia. XO

Julia stared at her iPhone waiting for another text message. But it didn’t come until she was in the bathroom:

Darling Julia, That’s pretty hot. Your rejection of my invitation has reduced me to a sea of loneliness, which I will now chase away with a shot of Scotch and two chapters of Graham Greene.

Your X and O almost make up for it. I Love You, G.

P.S. You are hot like the sun but far more lovely.

Julia smiled to herself and sent back a brief message, telling him how much she loved him. Then she spent the rest of her evening working.

They finally met in person at his last seminar on Wednesday, which was made all the more interesting by Christa Peterson’s conspicuous behavior.

She was quiet. She was still dressed fashionably, in an aubergine-colored cashmere sweater-dress that clung tantalizingly to her chest and derrière.

Her makeup was flawless, her hair long and impeccably groomed. But her expression was sour, and she didn’t take notes. Her arms remained crossed defensively across her ample breasts.

When Professor Emerson asked a question that she knew, she refused to raise her hand. When he looked over the rims of his glasses to see if he could coax her into participating, she scowled and looked away. Were it not for the fact that his mind was on Dante’s Paradiso, he might have grown uneasy. But he didn’t.

Christa was conspicuous not only in her silence but in her blatant hostility toward Julia, for whom she reserved the vilest of glares.

“What crawled up her butt?” Julia whispered to Paul as soon as the class was over.

He snickered. “Maybe she finally realized Emerson will never pass her dissertation proposal so she’s contemplating a career change. There’s a strip club on Yonge Street that’s looking to hire. She might have what it takes to work there. Or not.”

Now it was Julia’s turn to snicker.

“By the way, I like your scarf. Very French.” Paul grinned at her good-naturedly. “A gift from the boyfriend?”

“No. My best friend back home.”

“Well, it looks nice on you.”

Julia smiled at him, and they both packed up their books and walked home through the delicately cascading snow, telling (slightly edited) stories about their separate Thanksgivings.

Chapter 31

By Friday, Professor Emerson was in a foul mood. He’d spent almost an entire week without Julianne, and he’d had to watch her walk away with Paul after his seminar, without so much as a glance in his direction.

He had to keep his distance when all he wanted to do was touch her and tell everyone she was his. Sleeping naked in the darkness, the demons had come and nightmares had taunted and oppressed him — nightmares normally held at bay by her very presence, a luminescence unequalled by the brightest star. A star he would soon have to live without.

He knew that he had to tell his secrets before they boarded the plane.

Thus, he rued the fact that his (possibly) last week with Julianne had been spent alone. He’d changed his ticket and made all of the reservations for Julianne to accompany him to Florence, but he did so half-heartedly and not without investing in travel cancellation insurance, for he truly believed that she would leave him. He dreaded the moment when her wide, innocent eyes would darken and she would reject him as unworthy. But he would not allow her to gift her innocence to such a demon unknowingly. He would not play Cupid to her Psyche.

For that would be demonic.

Consequently, it was with undisguised coolness that he greeted her Friday evening when she arrived in time for dinner. He kissed her forehead fraternally and stepped aside, indicating that she should enter.

Abandon hope, he thought to himself.

Julia knew that something was wrong, and it wasn’t solely because she could hear the strains of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly  wafting from the living room. Usually Gabriel greeted her with a hug and a few passionate kisses before removing her coat. Instead he stood there, not even making eye contact, waiting for her to speak.

“Gabriel?” She reached up to touch his face. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he lied, turning his face away. “Can I get you a drink?”

Julia resisted the urge to nag him for information and instead requested a glass of wine. She hoped he would be more forthcoming over dinner.

He wasn’t. He served their dinner in silence, and when Julia tried to make polite small talk over the roast beef, he responded monosyllabically.

She told him she’d completed all of her schoolwork for the semester and that Katherine Picton had agreed to turn her grades in before December eighth, but Gabriel only nodded in response, glaring into his soon to be empty wine glass.

Julia had never seen him drink so heavily. He was already drunk the night she rescued him at Lobby. But this night was different. He wasn’t flirtatious and happy, he was tormented. With each glass, she grew more and more worried, but every time she opened her mouth to say something, she would catch a glimpse of fleeting sadness on his face, which made her refrain. He grew progressively cooler and more detached with each drink, so much so that by the time he served one of his housekeeper’s homemade apple pies for dessert, Julia waved it aside and demanded that he silence Maria Callas so that they could talk.

That drew his attention, since the pie (and the Butterfly)  was the culmination of his supper. His Last Supper.

“Nothing is wrong,” he huffed, as he strode over to the stereo to stop the operatic performance.

“Gabriel, don’t lie to me. It’s obvious you’re upset. Just tell me. Please.”

The sight of Julianne, innocent Julianne, with her big brown eyes and her now furrowed brow almost undid him.

Did she have to be so sweet? So giving? Did she have to be compassionate?

With a beautiful soul?

His guilt compounded. Perhaps it was a mercy that he hadn’t seduced her. Her heart would mend more readily now, since they had not known each other sexually. They’d only been together for a few weeks. She would dry her tears quickly and maybe find a quiet, peaceful affection with someone good and constant, like Paul.

The thought made him violently ill.

Without a word, he walked over to the sideboard and grabbed one of the decanters and a crystal glass. He returned to his seat and poured two fingers’ worth of Scotch. He drank half of it in one swallow and thumped his glass down roughly. He waited for the burning sensation in his throat to abate. He waited for the liquid courage to adhere to his insides, fortifying him. But it would take much more Scotch to dull the ache in his heart.

He took a deep breath. “I have some — unpleasant things to tell you.

And I know that when I’m finished, I’ll lose you.”

“Gabriel, please. I — ”

“Please, just let me say it.” He tugged at his hair wildly. “Before I lose my courage.”

He closed his eyes and inhaled once again. And when he opened them, he peered over at her like a wounded dragon. “You are looking at a murderer.”

Sounds hit her ears but didn’t sink into her consciousness. She thought she’d heard wrong.

“Not only am I a murderer, I took innocent life.

“If you can stand to remain in the same room with me for a few minutes, I’ll explain how this came to be.” He waited for her to react, but she sat quietly, so he continued. “I went to Magdalen College, Oxford, for my master’s degree. You know this already. What you don’t know is that while I was there I met an American girl called Paulina.”

Julia inhaled sharply, and Gabriel paused. Every time she’d asked him about Paulina he’d always put her off. He’d tried to make her think that she was not a threat, but Julia hadn’t believed him. Of course Paulina was a threat to their creeping closeness. Paulina had pulled him away in the middle of dinner back in October. And before he’d run away Gabriel had stood, haggard, quoting Lady Macbeth. Julia trembled slightly in anticipation.