Alpha Females
Granted, I care to conceal the details about myself that make me identifiable. Granted, I’m not using real names (I could see your slight head nod when you first came across the surname “sourcil”because, of course, you didn’t overlook its meaning). Granted, I’m writing at home, in complete isolation, so there are no possible witnesses.
But today the possibility that someone I know might find this blog looks even scarier. As a matter of fact I’m going to write about my co-worker Pauline. To put it mildly, I’m risking my neck.
Now, I’ve known Pauline for many years and she’s a perfect co-worker, serious, hardworking, very dependable. She only has one flaw: she has no flaws. She’s practically perfect, she’s a great scholar and a great mother, she dresses sexily but not aggressively sexily, she is fluent in French, she cooks well and has proved helpful on a variety of occasions.
The thing is I find her intimidating. I’m biologically older, but definitely not wiser than her. I have more titles than her so she’s always very deferent, but I strongly suspect she respects my academic achievements more than she respects me. She has all the qualities that will allow her to have a soaring career, and she’s probably more strong-willed and talented than I ever was. She knows what she wants and she is not easily distracted. She doesn’t like teaching and it shows. She speaks too fast for students to follow her, she asks difficult questions, she just doesn’t care. Natalie, my PhD student, is a born teacher instead. I was with her the morning she delivered her first class ever. I had forgotten she was starting a module and I was just chatting casually with her when I noticed that she was playing with her hair – which she never does. I asked her what was wrong and she told me why she was so nervous. I volunteered to go to the room where she was delivering the class with her just to keep her company. She entered and closed the door behind her. I could hear the students’ voices trail away and then quickly fall silent, as their gaze fixed upon her, a skinny brunette who would sit among them only a few months before. Natalie started talking without the aid of the microphone, her voice steady, tranquilising, clear. It could have been her millionth class. I stood outside the closed door until someone started looking at me suspiciously, then I left with the distinctive feeling she was going to be a great teacher and, maybe, a not-so-great scholar, as rarely do the two things go together.
Needless to say, Pauline doesn’t like Natalie. She thinks Natalie doesn’t dress appropriately for her age and position and doesn’t work as hard as she should. I’m pretty sure Natalie doesn’t like Pauline either, but she never really told me. Once we were all in my office organizing a trip to Los Angeles where we would take part in a conference. Pauline said her husband could come at the airport and drive us home. I asked if Pauline was sure her husband wouldn’t mind and she replied “My husband does what he’s told”. I didn’t dare look Natalie in the eye because I was sure that if I had I could have hardly suppressed a laughter.
Pauline is like that, take her or leave her. She’s the last person in the world I’d tell my story to and I’d never tell her about this blog either. If my eyebrow did turn indigo I’m pretty sure she’d say “how trendy” but she’d probably think “he’s completely lost his mind, I knew it was going to happen, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon”.
She thinks I’m an eccentric (I so wish I was but unfortunately I’m not) and she often feels she has to organize my life. She knows my appointments better than I do. It was no surprise that, when David showed up a few afternoons later my phone call with Linda and asked if we could go out to lunch the following Tuesday, Pauline spoke before I could even open my mouth and said: “He’s got meetings at lunchtime on Tuesday and Wednesday, but you can meet him on Friday.”
I felt like a rockstar who’s completely lost control of his life, and David looked curiously at me. He said Friday was fine and added: “I also came here to tell you that Linda has accepted to let Gwen move to Portland. I’m so relieved!”
Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I knew already because Linda and I had discussed about it the night she had phoned me. And the night after. And the one after that.
Distances
Distance is such a relative concept. Sometimes we feel that the person we are living with is a far-off planet with which no form of communication is possible. Sometimes we have the impression that people who are far away from us couldn’t be closer to our heart.
I’ve spent most of my live studying far-off planets and stars and when I think of them I sometimes forget they are so remote: they seem so familiar, I could list their characteristics just like a priest can recite prayers, with my eyes closed, visualising the uneven crust of an unearthly desert under an alien sky.
With my inner eye I could see Linda as she was talking to me on the phone. She was in a house I had never seen, wearing clothes I had never seen and yet I could picture the scene. In my mind she was wearing no make up but she looked much younger, in spite of the small wrinkles around her eyes. I could see her in a white long-sleeved shirt and large tracksuit pants, managing to hold the phone with her shoulder and pour her nightly milk fix into a glass. The children were about to go to bed, the dog (I imagined an old, growling spaniel) had just laid down at her feet, his gaze following everything she did, mutely asking for attention. I could feel her tension slack when the first, embarrassing minutes of our conversation were over.
She had called me for advice; David had told her I had agreed on tutoring Gwen and she wanted to know why I had changed my mind. Did I think Gwen should quit school, too? She confessed my decision had really surprised her: she had always taken for granted that obliging Gwen to attend school was the best decision but now she was not so sure any longer. Why did I think Gwen should not be educated at school? She was full of doubts. Maybe she had taken the wrong decision, maybe Gwen really had a hard time at school.
I told her I thought she was a great mother and all she had been trying to do was simply protect her daughter. She felt that the difficult relationship between David and her had certainly influenced her: unfortunately the two were not able to put their grudge aside and, maybe unconsciously, she had wanted to punish David and had ended up punishing Gwen instead. I told her I knew exactly what she was talking about, since I had separated from my wife after months, if not years, of subtle hostilities. She sighed and I thought she must have been very beautiful in that moment. A beautiful and sad forty-year-old girl realising she had to let go of her child much before she had expected because she had an extraordinary kid and she needed to be an extraordinarily brave mother.
Linda was speaking her heart and I tried to win my natural shyness and do the same. And, in spite of her being so far away and her two-storey house being a little distant star in the black Saskatchewan countryside, I could feel that special warmth only proximity can produce.
The Smell Of Books
Nothing compares to the pleasure of buying a new book. I love wandering among the shelves and dimmed lights of a bookstore. Entering this kind of places is one of my favourite ways of relaxing. I pick a book up, open it at a random page and start reading. If I like what I read I buy the book. Back covers are not very helpful, I don’t even bother reading them.
Most people like the sensation touching the pages and the cover of a book gives you. I’m no exception; I like turning old yellowish pages, hearing the creaking sound they make, passing my finger over the back of a volume after it has been read over and over. But what I like best about books is their smell. Paper can absorb the typical smell of a place, and it can tell a double story: the one which is printed inside the book and the story of the many hands that have held it, the sunny places where it has lied watching the dust dance suspended in air and the conversations that have taken place near it. By smelling a book we can guess many things about its previous life.
A free copy of The Charismatic Rebel: The Figure of Lucifer in Milton by David Sourcil was in my briefcase as I left David’s office. We had agreed he would phone me as soon as possible to tell me if Linda had changed her mind. He had given me all his contact details and, since he had noticed that the cover of his new book had caught my eye, he had insisted I should take one. He thought I might be interested in reading about John Milton and I was. But, to be honest, I was definitely more interested in the painting displayed on the cover. It represented an angel with a devilish gaze. His similarity with Gwen’s favourite subject was more than striking and I found myself overwhelmed with curiosity once again. Father and daughter obsessed by the same figure. What did that mean?
Once at home, that night, I sat on the sofa and opened David’s book at a random page. I had just started reading the sentence Lucifer is the angel who rebels to God and, ultimately, to his destiny….when the phone rang.
- Could I speak to Mr. Indigo Eyebrow please?
My heart skipped a beat. It was Linda.
Family Matters
David Sourcil came back to our table bringing two mugs of black coffee. I was aware I desperately needed caffeine and sugar. The man sitting in front of me was staring at his mug. Suddenly he said:
-This is so embarrassing. I’m really sorry. You’re such a kind person and you barely know me and my family and here I am, asking you a big favour…
I had been misinterpreting his behaviour. What I had taken for superiority wasn’t that at all. It was terrible embarrassment. David bent his head to the side and smiled at me briefly. He looked very young now. Thirty-two, thirty-three, but he must have been older. He had a fifteen-year-old son.
-Yours is an extra-ordinary family and I’m sincerely glad to have met you all. And I guess I could find some time to teach Gwen maths and science, since I’m more and more interested in indigo children. But I can’t deny you really took me off guard. Besides I’m very curious to know why you are in favour of your daughter’s moving to Portland whereas your ex wife isn’t.
-We were never married but that’s not the point. See, Linda and I split mainly because of the way we want to raise our children. She thinks out kids should try and mingle among other children, and she wants them to spend as much time as possible with their peers. I guess Jett is an adorable kid, he gets on with everybody, he’s kind, he’s got a lot of friends. He likes going to school, so I’m totally ok with him being surrounded by “normal” kids if that’s what he wants. But Gwen, well, Gwen is a completely different person. She hates school, she hates most of her teachers and schoolmates. She needs to be constantly challenged and she isn’t. Therefore I’ve always been in favour of her quitting school. She has to study with someone who can stimulate her to do her best. And of course I want her to have friends, but obliging her to go to school doesn’t work. She’s extra-ordinary, she’s unique. She will always be different, isolated. It pains me but that’s exactly what is going to happen and Linda doesn’t want to come to terms with it. I know she’s her mother, and I understand her need to protect her, but Gwen’s unhappy now and we gotta do something about it.
David’s eyes shone as he was talking of his daughter. He seemed to have a deeper understanding of her and her desires. Jett was thin and tall and sociable just like Linda, and Gwen was probably very similar to her father, so terribly shy that she risked appearing aggressive and rude. We were on our way back to the departments.
-Linda hasn’t changed her mind yet, David went on, but if I tell her that you’re available she will have to accept Gwen’s moving here and quitting school. The thing is last week end I went back to Saskatchewan to see my kids and Linda and I had another terrible fight. When I moved to Portland, one and a half year ago, we decided Linda should look for a job in Portland and would move here with the kids. But I guess she has never really looked for a job, otherwise she would have found one by now. She’s a school teacher, not an astronaut! She wants me to be as far away from the kids as possible as not to interfere with their upbringing and education. Gwen must have heard our conversation and now she’s threatening Linda she will go on a hunger strike if she can’t come and live with me.
-Oh my…
-Yes, it’s terrible. And Gwen is just as stubborn as her mother, so I have no doubt about the fact that she will do it if we don’t stop her before.
-I’m really sorry to hear this. Of course I will help you. Tell Linda I can teach Gwen and let’s hope she will let her come to Portland.
-Thanks. This is my office, would you like to come in?
I hadn’t realised we had entered the English department. As soon as David opened the door I spotted a huge, wonderful painting representing an old Indian woman whose resemblance with Devi was incredible.
- Was that painted by Gwen? It does look like her style.
-That was actually painted by her father, he said. He did it when he was eight.
I should have guessed it from the start. David Sourcil had been an indigo child, too; why did I always realise things when it was too late?
Alpha Males
Alpha males are the leaders of animal communities. Nature chooses some of her sons and makes them inclined to command. The rest of the males defer to the alpha and the female members of the community fight over him.
David Sourcil was an alpha male: men can always recognize natural leaders when they see them. The fact that I hated him from day one actually says more about me than about him, I guess. I’ve always thought of myself as a gregarious animal, but things are probably different. I think I would naturally be an alpha male myself, but I’m too politically correct to fully acknowledge it. I’ve always rejected leadership, but I must admit I’ve always been able to influence others, to appear reasonable and persuasive, to make people do what I wanted. This sharply contrasts with my shyness, but opposites seem to co-exist in me.
I was formulating these thoughts somewhere deep in my mind as I invited David Sourcil to have a seat in my office. Natalie left the room quietly, but not without casting a last admired glance at the young man sitting in front of me. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed. I’m afraid university professors, alpha males or otherwise, tend to be very jealous of their territory. We are supposed to be cleverer than people with worse education, but we are just as hopeless.
-I need to talk to you about something, Mr. Eyebrow, David said. Then, in order to break the ice, he added:
-Have you had lunch yet?
-It’s 3 pm! I replied. – Of course I have.
- Well, I have been very busy with correcting papers and I still need to go to lunch. Would you mind talking in the cafeteria?
- Of course not.
-Thanks a lot.
The guy seemed kind and friendly, which made me hate him even more. On our way to the cafeteria I caught a lot of female glances directed at him, but he made no sign of noticing it. Maybe he was just used to it, I couldn’t tell. He had bright eyes which contrasted with his dark, heavy eyebrows. His hair was of a slightly brighter shade. Gwen had identical eyes but much fairer hair. And now that I came to think of it, I had never been able to see her eyebrows.
David was slowly chewing his sandwich and showed no hurry. On the other hand, I was very impatient to know what he wanted to talk to me about, so I asked him. He put his sandwich down, drank some water, and said:
- I know you’ve told my daughter Gwen that you don’t want to tutor her. I’m here to ask you to reconsider.
He looked me in the eye defiantly and said no more. He simply picked his sandwich up and finished it.
Of course I could have said no, especially as I didn’t like the man who was talking to me, but, deep inside, I knew it was not what I wanted. Somehow, my trip to Saskatchewan had produced an irreversible change in me. I didn’t know what it was yet, but I felt it had to do with Gwen and her family. After years spent confuting theories I felt the indigo children I had met were a new, unexplored universe of possibilities.
Besides, I had often had the impression that an external force, call it fate, destiny or whatever, was pushing me towards a greater involvement with the Sourcils.
And I was curious to see where this would take me.
