The Purity of Blood: Volume I (4 page)

Although my
mother didn’t want me to leave the house, she insisted I continue my education.
 
The classes I took at the community college
were mostly to keep her off my back.
 
I
didn’t complain.
 
They’d help me fulfill
a great deal of the basic requirement classes I’d have had to have taken anyway
that weren’t related to any major I might choose later on down the line.
 

The job was to
keep my father happy.
 
He’d wanted me to
go away to school, I think sensing a separation from my mother might be a good
thing for both of us.
 
All the same, I
think
e
was also secretly pleased that I didn’t want
to waste his money.
  
He appreciated what
hard work could teach a person about life, and when I came home dog tired from
a long day at work, I think he was proud that I never complained.
 
In his eyes, these were lessons you could
never learn in a classroom.
 

Not that he
wanted me to leave either.
 
It was
strange really.
 
None of my friend’s
parents seemed half as reluctant to send their kids off to school as mine were.
 
Heck, some of my friends were more than
encouraged to go as far away to school as possible.
 
Oddly enough, I didn’t recall my folks being
this way when my brother left for University, but that had been over ten years
ago.
 
I don’t know, maybe it was because
I was their baby girl.

Sadly after
almost a year of my life had passed, I was no closer to knowing what I wanted
to study or do with the rest of my life.
 
I’d filled out college applications wondering, hoping really that I’d be
one of those people that found their way once they were out of the nest.
 
Unlike my friends who all seemed to have some
purpose driving them on, I felt more like a compass that didn’t know
North.
 
Somehow, sitting here in the
lecture hall moments before class was about to begin, I felt perhaps I’d made
the right decision after all.
 
Maybe this
was where I’d find my future.
 
Or it
would find me.

To my left, a
side door at the front of the room swiftly opened and two men walked in.
 
The first was a handsome man in his mid-forties.
 
From the description Darcy and Tabitha had
given the night before, I presumed this was Professor Walker.
 

The Professor
was on the tall side with very fair skin, and soft looking, dark, wavy brown
hair.
 
In my mind his pale skin seemed
somewhat at odds with his athletic build.
 
I would have expected someone in such good physical shape to have more
of a summer tan.
 
As he strode up to the
podium there was a timeless quality about him that at first glance puzzled me.
 
He was every bit as attractive as Darcy had
described, but there was also something about him that I couldn’t quite put my
finger on, something that made him handsome, but I wouldn’t say necessarily
sexy.
 
I wasn’t sure what that difference
was, but I had a feeling I’d be giving it a lot of thought over the remainder
of the semester.
 
At least I was sure I
would every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning while I sat in his class and
took the opportunity to study him in more detail.
    

The other was a
young man in his early twenties.
 
Not
wholly unattractive, he had the pasty look of someone who spent too much time
in the library and not enough talking to girls.
 
Had he been a friend of mine, my first suggestions would have been;
loose the pocket protector and get a decent haircut.
 
Poor guy, he all but had
Nerd
tattooed on his forehead.
 

“
Humm
… No Daniel.
 
That’s odd,” Tabitha commented in a low whisper.
 
Turning her way, I caught a glimpse of a
frown betraying a subtle hint of disappointment on her face.

Notes in hand,
the Professor came to a stop behind the podium, and for the briefest of moments
glanced up at the class.
 
In that quick
appraisal of his students this semester, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by
the way he eyed us.
 
It was beyond
intense.
 
It was the look of a bird of
prey soaring high over a heard of mice, carefully yet quickly searching the
herd for something for dinner.

Settling in for
his lecture, I pulled a bottle of orange juice I’d picked up in the cafeteria
out of my bag.
 
A moment later he cleared
his throat and looked up again quickly scanning the room once more.
 
As I twisted the top on my drink and raised
it to my lips, our eyes met.
 
His brow
furrowed as his gray yes began to bore deep into my head.
 
I wanted to look over at Tabitha for an
explanation, but like a deer in headlights, I was too caught under his spell to
move.
 

Beside me I
could have sworn I heard a whispered “O-oh” coming from Tabitha’s general
direction.

Eyes still
locked on mine to the exclusion of everyone else in the room, he began.

“Welcome to Art
History 101.
 
I’m your professor,
Jonathan Walker.
 
I have very few rules
in my class but I expect them to be strictly adhered to.
 
Attendance is mandatory.
 
You will sign in and out of every lecture
using the sign in sheet located in the back of the hall.
 
The other rule is no food or drink is
permitted in class.”
 
He was still staring
at me.
 
I was too afraid to move a
muscle, lest I attract more attention to myself.
 

“Miss?
 
What is your name?”

I paused, unable
to speak until Tabitha gently elbowed me in the ribs.

“Sara, Sir.
 
Sara Donnelly,” I answered with an amount of
confidence in my voice that I certainly wasn’t feeling.
 
At least I hadn’t stuttered.

“Well, Miss
Donnelly, I’ll ask you to put away your beverage at this time and I hope we
won’t have to have this conversation again.
 
A second offense will see you out of this class.
 
Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well
then.”

His voice was
ice cold, an odd juxtaposition to his warmly handsome features.
 
His wavy, slightly unkempt hair gave him a
boyish look, but his gray eyes betrayed a hint of age that made him hard to
decipher at first glance.
 
Then there was
the way he carried himself.
 
He had
excellent posture which made him seem even taller than he probably was.
 
His entire demeanor was beyond authoritative,
it was commanding really.
 
Almost
reluctantly, he pulled his stare away from me then continued.
 
He hadn’t smiled yet and I found myself
wondering what he’d look like if he offered me a friendly smile.

“I hope you’ve
all taken the opportunity to skim through the pages of your text book to see
the material we’ll be covering this semester.
 
For those of you who haven’t, you’re already behind and odds are you
won’t be passing this course.
 
So let’s
get started.
 
Rodney, lights please.”

Rodney, the
Professor’s pocket protector wearing sidekick, flipped a switch dimming the
lights and activating the projector.
 
A
painting of a beautiful woman with cascading red hair appeared on the screen
above our heads.
 
She was dressed in a
flowing champagne colored gown and stood among the lush greens of a woodland
landscape.

“What is
art?
 
Few questions spark such heated
debate yet provide so few satisfactory answers. – Imagination.
 
To imagine means simply to make an image – a
picture in our minds.”

Another slide
appeared, a painting of a tall sailboat with billowing white sails on the
horizon of a blue green sea.

By the
expression on his face combined with the tone of his voice, it was obvious how
passionate he was about his subject.

“Imagination is
key in allowing us to conceive possibilities, to picture possible futures, to
wonder about possible pasts and to dream of different tomorrows.”

The slide
changed again to a blur of shades of reds and whites making up a more modern
painting.

“But what is the
meaning of art?
 
What is it trying to
tell us?
 
Artists often provide no clear
explanation, since their work is the statement itself.
 
If they could say it in words, they would
have been writers instead.
 
Thus art,
like the written word, requires that we learn the language of the artist.
 
In this case a visual language.
 
We need to examine each work through the eyes
of the artist in an attempt to understand how he or she viewed the world they
lived in and their place in it.
 
Perhaps
through their artwork, we can catch a glimpse into their dreams, and hope to
understand the meaning of the images they captured on canvas.
  

“Well, enough of
the esoteric,” the Professor said, turning back to his notes on the
podium.
 
“We begin this survey with a
look at the Stone Age.”

The slide
changed once again to a photo of a rudimentary human figure carved from stone.

I sat through
the beginning of the lecture a little too stunned to take it all in.
 
But slowly I watched as the Professor’s
demeanor began to change from the icy tones he used with me to something else
entirely.
 
As the lecture wore on, his
eyes would light up as he talked about different things.
 
His voice was soft now with an undercurrent
of boyish enthusiasm that easily held your attention. I remember registering
for this course out of simple curiosity, but now I was glad I had.
 
I had a feeling I was really going to enjoy
watching and listening to him during his lectures.
 
Somehow, he pulled you in with his words and
kept your attention tightly wrapped.
 
It
was unexpected to say the least and I couldn’t explain why, but some part of me
was drawn to him in a way I’d never experienced before.
 
Not just as a teacher, but as a person.

Sitting there I
felt caught in his spell somehow.
 
It
wasn’t only the words he spoke but the way in which he spoke them.
 
That and his faint accent.
 
Hard as I tried I couldn’t pin down what it
was.
 
It didn’t sound foreign but I
couldn’t possibly imagine what part of the U.S. it could be from.

Before I
realized it, the lights came up and class was ending.
 
The Professor quickly headed out the side
door, but not before stealing a glance over his shoulder at me.
 
The icy stare had returned to examine me once
again.
 
And then he was gone.

“It’s all my
fault,” Tabitha lamented as we gathered up our books.
 
“I should have warned you, but I totally
forgot.”

“What are you
talking about?”

“Every semester,
the Professor picks one student from each of his classes and relentlessly calls
on them the whole semester.
 
He usually
singles them out for doing something like you did with your drink.
 
But once he latches on to them … I hate to
say this, but you’re either going to get an A or flunk horribly.
 
I’m so sorry, Sara.
 
He did it to this poor guy in my History
class last year, and he ended up dropping out a few weeks into the
semester.
 
The next day the Professor
just picked some other girl and called on her until the end of term.”

“I don’t
understand,” I replied, shocked at her story.
 
“How can such a wonderful teacher be such a jerk at the same time?”
 

Shaking her
head, she looked at me with eyes filled with pity.

Together we filed up the stairs and out of the lecture hall
in silence.
 
As we walked out I could
feel the eyes of several of my fellow students on my back.
 
I was a marked woman now.

My mornings torment was the main
topic of conversation over our table in the dining hall that evening.
 
I didn’t have much to say on the
subject.
 
It was Tabitha’s guilt that did
most of the talking.
 

Although I’d
managed pretty well in all my other classes today, I found myself unable to
wrap my mind around the events of the morning.
 
I knew I could be a little paranoid from time to time, but there was just
something in the way the Professor had stared at me as he’d walked out the door
that made me uneasy even now.
 

It wasn’t that I
was afraid of his calling on me.
 
I mean
I was dreading that, but it was his eyes.
 
They were almost emotionless if such a thing were even possible.
 
I had thought it a cold stare, but that
imbued too much emotion into his expression.
 
It was the look of a scientist right before he cuts into the subject of
his research, somewhat cold and dispassionate yet utterly curious.
 
I mean, how often does someone look at you
with no emotion in their eyes?
 
Some
people love to hate, and some people hate to love, but everybody feels
something, don’t they?