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irwinwe

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I got home earlier than I had expected, and Rachel was still up.  Seeing my tear-streaked face, she ran to me in worry.  But when I refused to speak on the topic, and instead moodily grabbed a bag of popcorn and Gladiator, she understood, and followed me to the kitchen.  In the midst of the popcorn preparation, I told her I would be right back.  What I really sought to do, however, was see if she had removed that banana peel from my trash can.  If she hadn't, I was going to make my former threat reality, and place it on her pillow.  

I peered into my trash can.  There it was.  I smiled for the first time since I'd been home.  It was flatmate payback time.  

***

I spent the rest of my weekend running out my frustration profusely, stuffing my face with dark chocolate and coffee, and then reading my textbooks until I feel asleep.  It wasn't until Sunday night that I realized this little act of mine was all very immature and ridiculous.  Why was I inciting this masochism?  Because I made a small bit of a scene that probably wasn't much of a scene at all at a bar with my professor?  I cringed again at the thought.  Yes, that was exactly why.  I didn't know how I was going to handle it the next day.  Then I opportunely heard my old pastor's voice steady in my mind, God never gives you something that you cannot handle.  I raised my eyebrows.  Well, if that was true, then I supposed I would be just fine.  However, I had often wondered about God's so-called plan for my life.  If he was the author of my lifebook, the composer of my lifesong, as I often liked to analogize, then he was certainly writing a very interesting story, and a very interesting song, for me.  At times I felt like my life was out of control, like I was floating amidst clouds in search of invisible purpose, and even though that feeling was bound to be normal, something that everyone experienced at some point in their trivial lives, I panicked when I experienced it, and backed away from it into darkened storm clouds.  Opening ones arms to that floating feeling is what it must feel like to trust in something.  Maybe that was why I rarely gave my full heart away.  Maybe that was why I remained so aloof all the time.  Though I repeatedly sought a changeable life, one of liberation and never of monotony, I also repeatedly refused to fully embrace it, to fully open my wings to the opportunities, and yes, dangers, that it offered.  I looked to the ceiling in skepticism.  Perhaps God was on to something, I mused.  Perhaps he meant to put me in these continuous soul-exposing situations, just so I would finally, somehow, learn how to let go.  

***

"Ellen, we all know that the Massacre at Glencoe, though it has gone down in history as a terrible action that stirred Jacobite retort, resulted in little more than 40 of the approximate number of 500 MacDonald men being murdered.  What could have prevented a greater success, do ye think, in regards to the outcome of this massacre?"

My response to his question was instant and spoken in monotony, and I kept my eyes carefully averted.  "Many of the Campbell men involved in the attack were neighbors to the MacDonalds.  From what we know about Campbells and MacDonalds, and the verity that they had numerous clan squirmishes throughout history, the fact that a Campbell led the massacre was no surprise.  However though the Campbells and MacDonalds were political enemies", I paused slightly after I said this word, eyes darting to Kane's gaze for a moment before I continued, "...there were many who held strong friendships with each other as well.  Not all were willing to kill these people they were so close to.  So in the sitll of the night, when Glenlyon, the leader of the massacre, was sleeping, many of them crept into the houses of their impending victims and clandestinely warned them of the imminent danger, telling them to make their beds the heather that night.  Those that listened were able to escape into the hills.  Also, the cavalry sent to close off the pathways into the mountains, the route of escape, did not arrive in timely fashion.  Therefore, many more MacDonalds were able to flee than the enemies planned."

Kane was quiet after I finished.  So quiet that I was forced to look at him.  

"So they were professed enemies, but really not enemies at all?" he asked.  He interrogated quietly, and while looking directly at me, which to me, ever since our eye-battle-to-end-all-eye-battles at the pub, was an unnerving action.  But when I sat there for a moment looking into them, I suddenly realized what he was trying to do.  Enemies, but not really enemies at all.  He was apologizing, or rather, leveling.  I looked away, not knowing what to say in return.  Then I was angry.  Though it had probably been a negligible situation to the onlooker, he had publicly humiliated me in the pub, and I was going to forgive him after that subtle apology with the drop of a hat?  No.  I hardened my jaw.  My mother would have said I was being unreasonable and stubborn.  My father would have smiled and shaken his head.  I let my father's imagined reaction be the impetus for my delivery.  

"They were professed enemies, Dr. MacAllister, and some were traitorous beasts that couldn't make up their minds."

Kane smiled genuinely, and then his smile became a laugh.  He got up and went to the board, intending to proceed with his lecture.  "Historians with a subjective opinion, class, are dangerous.  The can change history if they so choose."

He was right.  A historian was supposed to approach history neutrally, not letting their emotions sway the stories.  I had chosen to reconcile my own emotions rather than his ostensibly neutral, and apologetic, response to my historical evaluation.  He had trapped me into accepting his apology or answering emotionally.  Did the man miss anything?  Would he ever fail to call me out on something?  I was internally exasperated, but as much as I hated to admit it, I felt as if he was too brilliant for me not to acclaim.  

Class ended, and I gathered my belongings along with the rest of the doctoral candidates.  I saw him pull out some of the papers I had written in my masters program from his briefcase.  They were the ones that I had asked him to evaluate.  I delayed my packing as I watched him approach my desk, papers in hand.  He set them before me, his long fingers lingering on the desk until I looked up at him.  There was something about him that commanded in unspoken tones, by body language or by eye contact.  Perhaps, though, it only worked on me.  

"This was some of the best work I've seen" he said.  "You are a talented writer, Ellen.  You could be better though.  I could..." He paused and then continued, "I could help you, if ye let me.  If ye 'ave any questions then doona hesitate to ask."  Then he nodded curtly, and left me.  

I left the classroom in a quandary over his odd and moody behavior.  At the club he'd been darkly scornful; today he'd been animatedly humble.  What mysterious mood would come next?  It was surely to be a gamble.  

I read through the papers he had returned, taking note of his red pen marks, written in small, almost indecipherable scribbles, where he had made intuitive suggestions for the betterment of my writing.  He had really gone all-out on this evaluation, it appeared.  However, what really caught me by surprise was not the intuitive suggestions he'd made, but the small note I saw at the bottom of the very last page of the last paper in the stack.  

I am sorry.  What I said to you last Friday night was hardly called-for or hardly appropriate for a man of my age and position.  If your feelings may have been hurt by it, then you need not waste the time by worrying a moment longer, for I fear I have never had a way with pretentious urbanity, something that I doubt shall ever change.

I sat down on the bench that conveniently appeared at my side in the midst of my walk, and re-read his note twice.  My initial reaction was to smile, to let my giddy, intrinsically romantic side fly like a "twitterpated" dove.  I felt as if i wre in the midst of an old-fashioned romance, like pride and prejudice, where men and women communicated by sophisticated letters.  Then my mind caught up with my sensitive soul and punished it.  Yes, he had apologized, but that did not mean all previous actions would be disregarded.  He couldn't just expect a few ink words on a piece of paper to make up for all his previous offenses.  I was not a member of clergy and I would not accept indulgences.  However, I could cut him some slack, for he did very subtly apologize in class as well.  Mayhap he considered that a public apology in return for a public humiliation.  

I read the note again.  Pretentious urbanity.  I knew what it meant, but not exactly.  He had meant something deeper than merely those two words.  He was saying something about himself, explaining why he was the way he was, but he hadn't given me enough information to make any conclusions.  As for literal interpretation, he was an accurate diagnostician, for he certainly had no urbanity whatsoever.  Gentleman he was not, I concluded, remembering the scathing look he had given me at the bar, right before he embarrassed me publicly.  Why on earth was he so inaccessible and harsh anyway?  Surely, if I had seen glimpses of the man acting out of sincerity, I knew he wasn't completely heartless.  What was he hiding?  Then I laughed at myself altogether.  I was his student.  He was my professor.  A relationship with him, I thought, should be at any point little past frienship.  Shaking my head, I got up from the bench and went home, altogether delightfully dissatisfied. 

***