Lest They Be Forgotten

The Librarian and the Professor

(What happens when the outsider and the insider fall in love? How does culture intersect, bi-sect and dissect the relationship? This story was selected for the Winners Circle of the Canadian Authors Association - Toronto Branch and was published in Existere magazine in 2004)

The Librarian and the Professor

He looked aristocratic, from a different part of the world, foreign and mysterious, yet sad and detached. He glanced at her during those odd moments when she passed the research section, where he was found surrounded by books, notepaper and a few curious students. She did not mind his furtive glances, in fact she was flattered. Who else gave her a second look in those days? Aristocratic, that’s how she remembered him when he first knocked at her office door five years ago, following the advertisement she had pinned on the notice board at the library. He had been about Jack’s age too.

“It’s an annex on the lakefront, just behind the master cottage my late husband and I built. The rent is seven hundred and fifty a month over the summer.”

“Just what I need,” he said. “Three months to write my book. The one I’ve wanted to write all these years.” He had an Indian accent; yet anOxfordeducation had dulled its edges and made it easier on the ear.

She would visit the cottage on weekends and see him next door. He drove a minivan, which carried all his worldly possessions – a PC, several books, some cutlery and crockery, a large musical instrument he said was a kind of a sitar, and a small bag of clothes. In fact he did not care much for his appearance, spending that long summer in flowing white or off-white shirts and jeans, his thick, greying hair getting longer and finally ending up in a little pony tail. Yet his carriage and confidence prevented him from looking like a bum. His presence around the property started to grow on her rather quickly.

On sultry afternoons, when she sat on the dock by the boat reading, he would emerge shortly aftertwo o’clockin running shoes and jogging shorts and take off alongLakeshore Drive, returning about an hour later, lathered in perspiration. Then he would head down to the water by the dock and do deep-breathing exercises for another fifteen minutes. In the evening, sad sitar music wafted over to the master cottage where she would be rustling a solitary meal, too tired to go into the town, or not wanting to hear any more sympathetic sighs such as, “and Jack was so young…fifty-two…such a pity.” Often, while tending the roses that were going wild, now that Jack wasn’t around to help, she would see her tenant through the open window, working at his PC; he would get up and pace, and then return to the machine, sometimes staring off into space for long intervals.

One day she received a mild shock. Returning to the cottage with groceries, she stopped off at the annex with the newspaper she had offered to get him, as he had been pre-occupied with his PC all morning. She tapped on the door but got no answer. Peeping in with a loud, “hello,” she stiffened. He was standing on his head, propped up against the far wall. He was naked from the waist up (or was it down?). His shorts had bunched up around the crotch, outlining the shape of a large penis and big testicles bursting to be free – ground zero of her stunned and startled gaze. The clock ticked as her face reddened to blushing-bride crimson. A speedboat roared by before they came out of their respective freeze-frames. He quickly uncoiled from the wall and straightened up with an apologetic look, reaching out for the familiar white shirt to cover himself. “Sorry. Yoga. It helps uncover the creative blocks.” 

***

She wondered whether she was prying too much and tried to stay away. After all, he was a tenant, and tenants were owed their privacy. But her life was a wasteland. Jack had passed away only the year before from a cancer no one could associate with such a healthy man. Three months and he was gone. What a waste and a shock. Now here she was, a widow, not quite fifty, the opportunity to have children sacrificed to the exigencies of twin careers – he in public service, she in the library sciences. Her friends had advised her to try the dating scene again and a couple of months ago she had placed a tentative foot forward. But three disastrous dates with jaded men intent only on sex – and devious sex at that – had put her off. Her job as head of the university library inTorontohad sustained her during the grieving. The cottage provided refuge on weekends, but it also brought back memories of the happy times she and Jack had spent together. Therefore, she had been hoping to alter the cottage scenery somewhat, perhaps take in a tenant now and again. That’s when Professor Ram Lal, newly arrived contract faculty member and professor of Afro-Asian philosophy, decided to approach her in response to her advertisement.