Renegade

People always like to ask me what was the worst part of living in a dictatorship. After a while, I understood the morbid fascination that particular question entails, they want to hear about death, policeman screaming at your face, violent riots, strident politicians indoctrinating the people on national television. People expect the loud and abrasive nature of it, but they become very appalled when I tell them how quiet it actually was.

Don’t misconstrue my words, there definitely was violence and screams. But in essence, everyone’s life was veiled, my day to day was silent in a way it had never been before. You learn to stand still in a situation like that, to not make too much noise and startle the wrong people. I can barely recall the political landscape that made the dictatorship fall upon us like night, but I will always remember how it felt to be a person in it.

There is this song I particularly like, I heard it for the first time on the day I will tell you about. It has a unique melody, the one you can easily whistle absentmindedly in the shower or while peeling potatoes. I barely recall any of the lyrics, except on the end, where they sing “It’s March’s waters closing the summer, and the promise of life inside your heart”. The song is beautiful, but I heard it for the first time in one of the most lifeless days of my existence. I enjoy it in a bittersweet kind of way, pondering about the irony those lyrics express to me.

I went to a party that day. I was a professor at the school of medicine, and our University was celebrating its tenth anniversary. It was a big event, the biggest one I had ever gone to. We rented out the most luxurious venue on the city, a feat of baroque architecture decorated with stained glasses that gave you the aspect of a cathedral. There were all types of people decking those halls, you could hear glimpses of conversations about emerging schools of philosophy, the most promising up and coming authors, even the latest discoveries in human physiology.

And for all the pleasantries that the event seemed to convey, there was something terrifyingly awful about being at that place. The air in the room felt uncanny, as if you were only dreaming about a wonderful place that was destined to fade away. I knew this before entering those doors, but not going would be an announcement that you had something to be fearful about, or worse, something to hide.

I walked around with a glass filled with bourbon in my hands, we had some time to spare before the dinner and the speeches were about to start. I greeted people I had never even met, and cursed in my head the majority of the ones I did know.

“Can you believe it has already been ten years?” Nathanial’s voice said loudly behind me.

“I knew the University would survive, just glad I’m alive to see it.” I told him raising my glass.

Nathanial was one of the few people I genuinely liked, he was an oncology expert with a talent for making you feel seen. Nathanial had a long beard that covered the entirety of his neck, it made him look like Sigmund Freud in a way, and I was always a little jealous of it. When it was his birthday he always asked for books, especially the ones that talked about philosophy and spirituality. Nathanial was never religious tough, he just thought that the concept of souls was marvelous so he enjoyed reading about it.

“Aren’t we all?” Nathanial said in a laugh. For a brief second, the smile ran away from his face, he hunched over looking at the ground, appearing fragile in a sense. “They said they might come tonight.” He said in a whisper.

The dread of those words filled my insides.

Communication, in times like those, is the art of subtlety. You never scream what you wish, or what you know, rather you hint it. Conversations are in codes, most of the words are cut off and you are left to puzzle them out. As I said previously, those times were very quiet.

For the last few months, as the government started to weight down on us with a fist of lead, it became common for professors to be reported to the authorities. And you didn’t have to scream your opinion, much less participate in riots for that to be the case. You could simply own a book, talk fondly of an author, or even have someone lie about what you like to do. Thru whispers on the street, we heard every professor in our University was being closely watched. People were talking, a target was on everybody’s back. At the end of each day I asked myself, who was it? What were they saying, and how much of it was lies? Had some of us simply annoyed the wrong people? Those questions haunted my mind, I looked around at everyone around me trying to hide my vicious eyes because, for all I knew, anyone could be hiding the truth.

I kept pacing the halls with my head held high, if they were to come the least I could do was keep my dignity.

“If it isn’t my favorite professor.” Michael spoke to me. He had become the dean a few years prior, and he sat on that chair like a king on his throne. Michael joined the University not long after me, but he rarely enjoyed teaching. He always had a tenacious look in him, and he used all his best qualities (and his most vile) to get a tight grip on the University. Now, he pretty much ruled it.

“My dear friend Michael, how are you doing this beautiful evening?” I said showing my teeth.

“Just marvelous. Big day for us, wouldn’t you say?”

“Certainly my friend, certainly.” He tapped on my shoulder as I answered.

If the rumors were true, Michael had something to do with it. It had to have started with him, or so I believed. He had a knack for diminishing me, that was for sure. I just didn’t know if he would go as far as to report me during a dictatorship.

Dinner was about to start.

All professors of medicine were to be seated at the same table, so I forcefully placed a smile on my face and greeted my colleagues. If only there was more wine and bread on the table, I could say we were on our own reimagining of the Last Supper. Nathaniel was on my right, and next to him was Catherine, a short woman with dense black hair that constantly had a faint scent of formalin. She always had perfect posture, even in her mid-forties she sat and stood straighter than a ruler.

“Enjoying yourself tonight?” I asked Catherine.

“As much as possible. I have surgery early in the morning, so best not to extend this much more.”

“Another ankle repair?”

“Osteotomy.” She answered no longer looking at me. I never talked with Catherine about anything other than medicine, she seemed like the type of doctor who lives for their work and will die still performing surgery. Other than that, I could never truly read her, it was impossible for me to tell if she was one of the people talking with the authorities.

To my left, there was Carlos, Ivan and Diego. Carlos was a cardiologist, he had recently gotten a divorce, and he liked to invite me to smell ether by his poolside. I never accepted thought. Ivan was an interesting man, he recently immigrated from Ukraine, and I could always tell he was embarrassed to speak too much because of his accent. However, he was the best anesthesiologist I had ever encountered, and doing surgery with him was always effortless. Lastly, there was Diego, a man who held on to the few strands of hair still attached to his head. He smoke too many cigars and gathered enough complaints from his ex-patients to make a memoir. Nevertheless, he was one of the few infectology experts on our city, so replacing him wasn’t easy. Also, he was Michael’s brother in law.

We were served our meals, and I washed down every single bite with a sip of bourbon as my throat was dry. Nathanial said that was the best stake he had ever had, and Diego told him it didn’t compare to the one he had in Marseilles the summer prior. Catherine kept quiet, except when dessert came and she told the waiter to compliment the chef on the tiramisu.

When everyone fished their meals, Michael stood up in front of us to read his speech. He did not start talking right away, for a moment he simply looked at every person in the room, almost as if his stare could cut down something or someone. We were so quiet you could hear a needle drop on the floor.

“Good evening.” He said finally. “It is simply a pleasure to have all of you here today, celebrating the first decade of our University.” Something about the way in which he uttered the word our felt odd. “As you all know, we have been working hard to make sure we provide the highest level of education for our future medical professionals, one of the most noble efforts in all of humanity. Now, as the years go by, that task becomes increasingly harder, and in doing so, we have come to some difficult decisions.”

I felt the time freeze. The pause Michael took between the sentences that would forever maim me took an eternity. And I thought, with all my wit and all my ingenuity, that Michael would be the one to break me on that never ending March evening. But before he continued, the voice of a renegade whispered to me:

“When he is done, leave thru the back door. They are outside.”

If my soul were made of glass I swear, to all the Gods that deserted this vicious world, that that was the exact moment it shattered. For those words, the ones who confessed to me the malicious plan that would forsake my life, were voiced by Nathanial.

“So, let us talk about the future.” Michael continued. “I am here to announce that a few of our professors will leave our institution, effective immediately.”

Like a snake spitting poison, he opened his mouth to utter Catherine’s name, then Ivan’s, Carlos’, and finally mine. Michael did not say a single word about Nathanial, and as I slowly turned my neck to stare at the man who once held my first born child, the friend I consoled when he felt hopeless, the coward who sat on my table and drank my wine, I saw a face I did not recognize. Nathanial looked at me as if he was terminally ill, and in a whimper said:

“I am sorry.”

When Catherine, Carlos and Ivan left the venue they were greeted by the authorities telling them they were needed for an interrogation. They would never be seen again. I excused myself to go to the bathroom after Michael finished his speech, and thru a tiny window in one of the stalls I crawled my way out. I ran to my house, and when arriving to my wife and my 3-year-old daughter I screamed we had five minutes to gather only the necessary and get in the car. I drove for quite a while after that.

My wife likes to use the word betrayal when we talk about it, and I understand why. I was there since the beginning, the University was built with my blood staining it. I made it what it was, with all the corpses I dissected, all the souls I instructed with what comes between life and death. And they went and took it all away from me, as if I were nothing. They didn’t want me away from the institution I made, they wanted me to disappear for good. For Crist’s sake, they had the authorities waiting for us, waiting for me.

It is easy to deduce why Michael did it, he hated me, everyone was a threat to him. He wanted people he could control. But then, there was Nathanial. I knew him, and he knew me. And you know what the funny thing about betrayal is? It is rarely about what they did to you, but the fact you will die wondering why they did.