"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

brawny fag - who was doing the director under the desk during coffee breaks - to
take my designs and bring me my cheques. But even with that, it wasn't enough
and I was forced out. I threw some stuff in a bag and took the first flight out
to Paris. I stayed two weeks while the office went batshit looking for me.' She
turned her head half away from him, sipping at her Manhattan. 'However, when I
got back, the only thing that had really changed was mat the fag was gone.'
The sun was coming down, the sea devouring its crimson bulk; colour lay
shimmering on the water. Then, quite abruptly, it was dark: not even the little
lights bobbing far out to sea.
It was like that with her, he reflected. Brilliant colour, stories on the
surface, but what lay beneath, in the night?
'You're not going back to Columbia,' she said, 'in the fall.'
'No, I'm not.'
She said nothing, sat back on the Haitian cotton couch, her slender arms spread
wide along the back; they went out of the pools of lamplight, seemed dark wings,
hovering. Then she cocked her head to one side and it seemed to him as if the
icefloe had cracked, coming apart.
'I fell in love with the campus,' he said, deciding to answer her by starting at
the beginning. 'Of course, it was the be-ginning of February, but I could
imagine the red brick walkways lined with flowering magnolia and dogwood, quince
in among the ancient oaks.
"The course itself - Sources of Oriental Thought - wasn't really too bad at all.
The students at least were inquisitive and, when awake, fairly bright - some of
them startlingly so. They seemed surprised that I was interested in them.
'I was curious about this, at first, but as the semester wore on, I came to
understand what it was all about. The other professors giving the course had
appallingly little time to devote to the students; they were extremely busy
researching their latest books. And when they were actually teaching, they
treated their students with contempt.
'I remember sitting in on a class just after mid-term. Drs Eng and Royston, who
taught the meat of the course, announced at the beginning of the session that
the mid-term papers had been graded and were ready to be returned. Royston then
proceeded to give his lecture. When the bell rang, Eng asked the students to
remain seated and, with perfect precision, laid out four piles of papers on the
floor at the front of the hall. "Those students with last names beginning with
letters A through F will find their papers here," he said, pointing to the pile
on his right. And so on. Then they had both turned away and left the hall before
the first students even had time to kneel, scrabbling through the piles.
'It was degrading,' Nicholas said. 'That kind of lack of respect for another
human being is something I just cannot tolerate.'
'So you liked teaching.'
He thought that a curious thing to say. 'I didn't mind it.' He made himself
another gin and tonic, squeezed a section of lemon before dropping it into the
ice-filled glass. 'In the end it was the other professors who made the semester
seem long to me. I don't imagine they thought too much of me. After all, the
halls of academe are rather closed. Everyone there is bound by the stringency of
the situation. "Publish or perish" has become a clichщ, I suppose. But for them
it's a reality which they must face every day." He shrugged. 'I imagine they
resented my status. I had all the best parts of their life without any of the
responsibilities.'