Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [13]
“That wasn’t too bad,” I said as soon as I was an arm’s length away from him.
He shrugged. “I suppose it could be worse.”
Neither of us acknowledged it explicitly, but I was glad he waited for me—at least I assume it was me for whom he awaited. We walked outside together.
The nasturtiums had grown transparent in the sun, each petal like a tongue of living flame rising from the flowerbeds, and without saying a word both of us stopped to look. It was strange to walk with him like that, without speaking, but moving in unison, in some magically silent accord.
The campus had grown quiet in the few minutes between the end of classes and our delayed exit. Only a few figures moved at a distance, with an occasional staccato of hurried footsteps reverberating on the newly laid blocks of pavement. It was all just as well—without knowing why, I was already feeling our walk, innocent as it was, was somehow illicit.
My feelings were confirmed when we turned around the corner of the lecture hall and came across a group of several young men, their clothes betraying means if not breeding—they all wore long sack jackets with upright collars and wide ascots, and formidably tall hats. The five of them crowded the pavement, and I flustered, stepping right and left, trying to find a way between them. They merely watched, dead-eyed and threatening despite their passive demeanor. Finally, I stepped onto the pavement and cringed as my shoe hit a puddle cunningly hid by a narrow strip of the curb; the water splashed all over the hem of my skirt.
Chiang Tse ignored the snickering of the hoodlums, and joined me in the puddle, without regard for the dirty water seeping into his shoes and trousers. I shook the water out of my skirts and thought woefully that this particular arrangement was likely to become a tangible metaphor for my stay at the university.
Chiang Tse was apparently of the same mind. His fingers touched my elbow gingerly as he said, “I enjoy standing in the puddle with you. It is refreshing, don’t you think?”
Chapter 3
And thus my education had begun. I quickly got the impression that even if women students were not admitted solely to prove their inferiority, it was viewed as a desirable outcome.
Professor Ipatiev, the lecturer who had delivered the very first lecture in my student career, proved to be a lasting influence. His class was in turns fascinating and upsetting, and Olga, who had swiftly become my closest friend and something of a confidante, shared my feelings.
“I do not understand,” she complained one September evening, as the two of us sat in the parlor of my apartment, drinking strong sweet tea thoughtfully prepared by Anastasia before she left to visit with Natalia Sergeevna. “Professor Ipatiev seems like a kind man. And yet he looks directly at you and me when he talks about women’s brains being smaller than men’s.”
I sighed and remembered the tittering that ran in waves across the auditorium every time Professor Ipatiev spoke about anatomical differences such as that—about how Africans were incapable of any learning, and the Asians could only memorize but not really comprehend complex concepts; about how women’s minds were subordinate to their wombs, how their brains lacked the requisite number of folds. One could not help but feel somewhat insulted. “I don’t suppose we can argue,” I said. “It is true, I guess.”
Olga sighed. “Do you get a feeling that we were asked to attend the university just so we can fail?”
“That would be cruel, wouldn’t it?” I answered, demurring form the actual question.
Olga was not so easily thwarted. “Cruelty is not exactly uncommon, you know.”
“So Anastasia tells me.”
Anastasia chose to return at that time, and, eager for a distraction, I made her repeat the gossip she brought home from the market that morning.
Anastasia settled by the table, her elbows on its polished surface and her fists holding up her freckled and ruddy countenance. She enjoyed being a center of attention, and she started