Open and Closed

Sensitive topic warning - references to racism.

Professor Evans was the kindest person I ever met. He was always there for me – encouraging me when no one else did. I attended college alone. I know everyone does, but I felt more alone than most because I’d just lost my family. They died in a car crash the week before the semester started. Everything in me wanted to drop out of my course. I didn’t think I could concentrate on it. I was held captive by constant thoughts of disaster and catastrophe. I know there was nothing abnormal about that, but it wouldn’t have helped my grades. I didn’t feel like I was in the place to study English Lit anymore. Any aspirations I’d had, any desire I’d felt to be an English professor myself had died with my family. I could only think in the immediate future. I thought getting into the world of work might be a better bet. Then, I met Professor Evans. He was the head of department, and I could see why. He wasn’t just one of those stuffed shirts that follow all the protocol; he cared about his students’ wellbeing, even before they’d been fully enrolled in his course.

His bookshelves were filled with exactly the kind of literature I love: Poe and Shelley and all the darkest classics. I was trying to be polite and focus on what he was saying, but my eyes wandered to their seductive spines. I would have loved to have been left alone in the place. My love for reading and the reason I’d applied to study English lit was reawakened in that moment. He noticed it right away in me.

“You are in exactly the right place,” he said, “I can see the way you’re looking at my BOOKS.”

I laughed. I hadn’t laughed that week or even cracked a small smile.

“You can take one with you if you like – as long as you bring it back.”

“Honestly, I don’t even know if I’ll be back,” I said.

“Of course you will – I can see literature coursing through your veins. It’s like whenever you meet someone that’s born to perform – you can’t ignore it even if you try.”

I smiled, receptively. He was breaking down whatever brittle defences I had built around myself that week.

I watched him inquisitively. He was obviously a complex person, and it was impossible to assign an age to him. He was like some sort of mythical, ageless creature that breathed literary quotes and shrewd remarks.

“The semester is about to start and you’re here now,” he said, “There’s no backing out now.”

“I just came in to have a chat.”

“I know you’ve had terrible, indescribable circumstances forced upon you this week. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through,” he said, empathetically.

It was weird – I always thought college professors would be emotionally dense – directing all their energy into their studies and in the process, losing out on human relationships and understanding others’ suffering, but he was proving me wrong. His bright green eyes behind his glasses looked at me with the deepest sympathy and I thought for a second he was going to give me a hug, but he wasn’t a creep either. I knew so many stories of professors that had taken advantage of vulnerable students, using their openness as an entry point for their own grotesque needs. That wasn’t him. Professor Evans was pure in that way. He genuinely wanted to be a mentor to his students. If I was going to have to keep going with life and to keep going with studying in the midst of so much grief, I got the sense that this was the place to do it. I’d receive pastoral care here, as well as an impressive education.

I nodded and thanked him. “I do love literature.”

“See… we can’t let that be wasted – your family wouldn’t want that gift of yours to go to waste.”

That was only the first of many conversations I had with Professor Evans, all equally amiable and encouraging. For two years, I saw him on a twice weekly basis – once in a lecture theatre of three hundred students, once one to one for emotional support. He was a man of many talents, all of which I deemed pure.

I got excellent grades on all my work, especially considering the gaping loss I felt during those two years. I wrote prolifically, examining all aspects of classics and bringing my own modern twist to every paper. I came from a mixed background. My mother was Jamaican, and my father was Irish American. Whatever way the genes were dealt out, I ended up looking more Irish than Jamaican. I had tight curls in my hair and my mom’s nose, but my dad gave me everything else of his. I was often mistaken for a first-generation Irish person. It’s weird how the dominant genes don’t always win out when it comes to designing a baby.

“I just noticed in your file that you’re from a mixed background?” he asked me, one day, in passing.

I thought it was strange that he’d never checked before. He was a perceptive man and not much went over his head. I hardly thought it mattered. I knew I had white privilege, but I had black genes too. I felt the oppression of my people in every cell of my being. It wasn’t a part of myself I would ever deny.

“Yes, my mom is Jamaican, my dad is Irish,” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t realise that…” he tailed off.

I had no idea what he was thinking, but that was often the case with Professor Evans – right before he offered something enlightening and astute.

I changed the subject back to my thesis. He was watching my hands flipping through the pages, like he was looking for something else there. Maybe he thought my ideas were bland, for that particular paper, I thought.

He was quiet after that and excused himself, citing a headache as the reason. He said he had to prepare for his lecture too. I left his office, feeling strange but not being able to voice why. I didn’t feel like I wanted to return to his office again that day. It felt like he had become a different person in some quiet, easily deniable way. But I realised I had forgotten to ask him for something I needed in order to complete my paper. He had a reference book for me. He told me he’d set it aside for me in his desk drawer and I’d forgotten to ask for it.

I returned to his office door and gave it a timid knock. There was no answer, so I banged it much harder. Still – nothing. I tried the handle, knowing he’d forgive me if he did happen to be sitting on the other side of the door. He got lost in his work sometimes, but he was never a tough taskmaster, and he was always happy to see me, and any other student that took a loving interest in his subject of choice.

The door was unlocked, but he wasn’t there. I walked tentatively towards his drawer. I planned to borrow the book and leave a note on his desk explaining my intrusion. I opened the first drawer in his cabinet, and I stumbled upon an object I couldn’t come to terms with, even after hours, days and weeks for the knowledge of its existence to sink in. It was a white head covering with a high, pointed tip and two eye holes cut out of it. Surely, I thought, it couldn’t be his. I picked it up and although the feel and look of it disgusted me, I brought it beneath my nostrils, smelling it for confirmation. It smelled just like Professor Evans’ aftershave. I dropped it in horror and slammed the drawer shut. I fled his office, and I couldn’t remember if I closed the door behind me or not. Open or closed, I would never set foot in his office again.