The Visiting Professor

by Robert Littell

  Oy. Ta’amu ure’u.

  If only he could.

  And then she is snipping away at the hair jutting from his nostrils and loosening the sheet and brushing talc on the back of his neck and pulling the sheet free. Lemuel climbs stiffly to his feet, fixes his glasses over his eyes and studies himself in the mirror.

  “So?”

  “I feel … couth.”

  “Couth is the opposite of uncouth, right? So it must be a goddamn compliment.”

  Lemuel threads his fingers through his hair. “I suppose I will not be mistaken for a student.” He produces a small zippered purse, counts out five one-dollar bills and hands them to her. “I have read how you are expected to offer gratuities in America, but I am not knowing how much.”

  “The haircut’s four-fifty. Most people give me five and tell me to keep the goddamn change.”

  “If you please,” he says with a faint smile, “keep the goddamn change.”

  Rain bats her eyelashes. “Not many dudes say please when they tell me to keep the goddamn change.” As Lemuel starts to climb into his overcoat, she edges closer. “Here’s the deal: I’ve never met a live Russian before. And I was invited to this frat bash tonight. I’m not thrilled at the idea of staying home, also I’m not thrilled at the idea of turning up alone and getting pawed, right? All those goddamn jocks casually running their hands over my back and shoulders to see if I’m wearing a bra.” She takes a deep breath. “Like I won’t beat around the bush—”

  “You are the second person I have met in America who dislikes beating around the bush.”

  “Who’s the other?”

  “He is a rabbi.”

  “Asher Nachman, the swinging rebbe?” Rain pulls a face. “It’s me who supplies him with dope. I once asked him if there was oral sex in the Old Testament. You know what he told me? He told me what I called the Old Testament and he called something else, I forget exactly what, had a goddamn oral tradition. He also told me that this dude Onan, you know who I mean, right? the one whose name is the sophisticated word for jerking off, this dude Onan was only practicing coitus interruptus, which according to the Rebbe is what people did for birth control B.C., which means before condoms. Hey, where is it written a clean young rabbi can’t be a dirty old man? On the other hand a rabbi who smokes dope can’t be all bad. Especially one with sideburns teased into springs. I know girls who’d kill for sideburns like that. I offered him haircuts on the house if he’d give me the secret, but he said no deal. Anyhow, to get back to the bush I’m not beating around: Would you be interested in being my date?”

  Lemuel does not trust his ears. “You are asking me to escort you to this fraternity party?”

  “So I wouldn’t mind if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Lemuel considers the invitation, then nods carefully. Rain, unsmiling, holds out her hand. Lemuel, unsmiling, takes it. They shake. “Right,” she says as if they have negotiated a contract.

  Like I’ll try and play it back like I remember it.

  I must have heard someone coming up the stairs because I remember turning my head and seeing the curtain billow towards me as if it could feel a warm body approaching. And then this suit who almost ran me over in the E-Z Mart pushed through the curtain into the shop. Talk about needing a haircut, he had this tangle of steel wool that comes, take it from someone who knows, from years of having your hair cut by amateurs using dull sheep shears. Your average Neanderthal man probably looked civilized compared.

  Apart from the hair, there was something, like, foreign about him. I’m not talking cheap after-shave, I’m talking the way he wore his clothes, I’m talking the clothes themselves. They were so nondescript I’m not sure I could describe them if my life depended on it. If I concentrate, I can just about remember a faded brown overcoat skimming the tops of his shoes. I can remember a scarf, khaki, wound twice around a thickish neck. He obviously had on trousers, but I don’t remember the color or whether he hung right or left, which is the kind of detail I usually notice. He had on a shirt buttoned up to the top button. I don’t think he wore a tie. No, I’m positive he wasn’t wearing a tie. A tie, which is the exception as opposed to the rule in Backwater, I would have remembered. He wore a sleeveless sweater under his jacket, I don’t remember the color of either of these items except the sleeveless sweater could have been used to shine shoes, it was that ratty. Under one arm he carried a shapeless imitation-leather satchel. The reason I assumed it was imitation as opposed to the genuine article was somebody dressed like that had to be into imitation.

  So now I’ll do his face. He had a funny as in bizarre glint in his eyes which I couldn’t place until I happened to look in the mirror when I was sweeping up after him and recognized the same thing in my eyes. I read somewhere, it probably comes from a National Geographic I browsed in my gynecologist’s waiting room, how every face is a map of a country we vaguely remember visiting. Anyhow, I’m here to tell you it’s so. My Neanderthal, I’m talking haircut, right? not intelligence, my Neanderthal had been startled at some point in time of his life and the traces of fear, of alarm, of surprise, of agony even, were printed on his face, in his eyes. Which were bloodshot. Which meant he drank too much or didn’t get enough shut-eye or all of the above.

  When I see clients carrying bags, imitation or not, I keep an eye peeled to make sure they don’t swipe my goddamn Playboys, which is not the same thing, excuse me if I anticipate what’s going through your head, as scoring sardines from the supermarket because I don’t pad my prices to cover lost Playboys. So he’d know I had an eye peeled, I hit him with my usual line. “With you in a min,” I said. I watched him jam the scarf into the armpit of his overcoat, which happens to be a gesture I can relate to—it reminds me of my ex-husband, who I divorced after two months of marital grief because he arranged for his relatives to throw rice instead of birdseed at my wedding. Uncooked rice, in case nobody’s given you the word, swells in the bird’s stomach, right? which brings on acute indigestion and, if the bird has eaten enough rice, which they tend to do at weddings, an excruciating death.

  Where was I?

  I saw him fingering the Playboy, I saw him look up with his eyes as opposed to his head to see if yours truly was watching, but I averted my eyes—lah-di-dah, I get off on words like averted, they make you sound so … educated—I averted the aforementioned eyes and he casually flipped through the pages to the centerfold. Which brings me to the first thing about him I liked.

  For me he was an open book, most men are, and what I read was he didn’t have any religious or otherwise scruples against nudity, what sane person does? but he didn’t find the Julies sexy. I was intrigued, I admit it. I mean, in my experience women fuck dudes they basically like who happen to come equipped with a cock; men on the other hand fuck cunts which may or may not be attached to someone they even know, forget like. But my Neanderthal seemed somehow different. He was twice my age, which is twenty-three, if he was a day and I could hear the goddamn brothers at Delta Delta Phi needling me about robbing the grave as opposed to the cradle, but since when do I care what people think, assuming you put Delta Delta Phi brothers in the category of people who think.

  Like there were other reasons in the back of my brain for asking L. Falk, which turned out to be his handle, to escort me to the bash. They say everything over thirty is downhill, but I’m beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t be better off with a main squeeze headed downhill. I’ve had it up to here with the uphill jocks who think they’re doing you a favor when they fuck you, who actually say thanks when it’s over, as if you’re the goddamn Tender To who has serviced their goddamn yacht, right? who roll out of bed and dry their dicks on your goddamn towels and mumble “So I’ll call you, huh?” on their way out, when you both know they don’t have your phone number.

  I’m tired of one-night stands that end up with me waiting for the goddamn phone to ring.

  So what else about L. Falk intrigued me? He didn’t smoke, for starters. I could tell from his breath, which I
got a whiff of when I leaned over to pull off the toilet paper sticking to the shaving cut. I never smoked neither until I found out that some goddamn admiral or general of surgery was shooting off his mouth about how the dudes who smoked were killing the dudes who didn’t. Like they’re getting ready to dump their goddamn radioactive atomic garbage on Backwater’s doorstep and the state commission has the goddamn nerve to say this is not hazardous for your health, right? but it’s my goddamn cigarette that’s killing off the human race! You have to know I started in smoking as a sort of one-woman protest. I hated the smell of tobacco on my breath so much I gave up after a few days, but not before I sent this admiral or general of surgery a handwritten blast about the goddamn radioactive atomic garbage dump and the killers who feed uncooked rice to birds at weddings.

  So he never answered me. So what?

  Where was I?

  I was explaining what was going on in that brain of mine when I asked L. Falk to, uh, escort me to the bash. Like it’s true what they say about safe sex being the same as no sex, right? I mean, thank God for the Hitachi Magic Wand. The last time I got laid was seven, count them, seven goddamn weeks ago when I broke a cardinal New Year’s resolution and smoked my own dope instead of selling it and wound up in the sack with this Polish-origin nose tackle on Backwater’s football team. The dialogue went from baaaaad to woooorse. “So get the condom,” I told him when the kettle started boiling. I remember all motion suddenly stopped. “What condom?” the nose tackle asked in panic. I didn’t beat around the bush. “Hey, I hardly know you, Zbig,” I told him. “I can’t even pronounce your last name. You don’t expect me to fuck you without a goddamn condom.” He was pathetic. “I don’t use needles,” is what he said. “I don’t fuck boys,” is what he said.

  I don’t fuck boys! What a chuckle, right? when you need to educate an adult nose tackle as to the facts of life. So I rolled off him and read him the goddamn riot act. “The last girl you screwed could have fucked boys that fucked boys. Come on, Zbig, you have got to have a condom stashed away for a rainy day.”

  My goddamn luck, he didn’t. “The least you could do is blow me,” he said, as if safe sex was oral sex. Like I don’t usually say no to dudes when they ask politely. I mean, where’s the advantage to being a consenting adult if you don’t consent? And what’s a blow job between friends anyhow? What I don’t like, what I can’t deal with, is when they push your goddamn head down south and then start moaning before you get there to show how much the mere idea of getting sucked is turning them on.

  You have to know I get off on turning dudes on. My ex-husband, the bird-killer, once informed me I was a fellatrice. I tried looking it up in the library’s Random House dictionary, but it wasn’t there. I’m talking about the word, not the dictionary. But you’d need to be birdbrained not to figure out what fellatrice means, and I had to agree. With my ex. About me being a fellatrice. I love what in polite circles is called oral sex. I enjoy giving head. I don’t understand why more women don’t do it more often. Like what could be more natural than feeling a cock grow hard in your mouth? I mean, talk about being influential! Talk about being in control of the situation!

  I guess what I’m saying is that sucking and fucking are goddamn amazing activities. I gave my first blow job when I was thirteen and a half, and to show you how jaded I am I still remember who and where—it was a pimply basketball player I had a crush on, his name was Bobby Moran, he happened to be my first cousin but that’s another story, the dirty deed took place in the stage squad’s projection booth at the back of the junior high auditorium. That was ten years ago, holy Jesus! when I think how time zips by, and you have to know I’ve given my share of blow jobs in the intervening years, but I have definitely not become blasé. For me sucking and fucking never lost their mystery—that totally awesome mix of giving pleasure, right? and taking pleasure from giving pleasure.

  Which is why we spend our lives spreading our legs and opening our mouths to the single most original thing men have going for them, which is a goddamn erection.

  Go figure.

  Which brings me back to L. Falk and the fraternity bash. I don’t automatically assume we’re gonna wind up in the sack, him being twice my age and not knowing a G-spot from a hole in the wall. But you have to deal with the possibility that sex will be the ultimate outcome of any date—why else go to frat parties, right? I mean, why do all these dudes spend all that goddamn energy trying to convince you they’re nonviolent? I’ll tell you why—to get you to collaborate in what is basically a very violent act is why. So if they’re convincing enough, I collaborate. Or at least I used to until the goddamn Black Plague struck. Which is where L. Falk comes into the picture. I’d be lying if I didn’t say straight out I considered the possibility, I’m still considering it now, that he might be the answer to my prayers.

  As usual in cases like this there are pluses and minuses. On the minus side you have got to deal with the fact he’s definitely toast, burned out, washed up, over the goddamn hill. Christ, he’s pushing forty from the wrong side. He’s about as far as you can get from my image of the great lover. On the plus side is the fact he wouldn’t need to be a great lover, I tend to be good enough for two. Also, he is definitely nonviolent, which makes it easier for a girl to collaborate. Even him not being able to put his finger on the G-spot can be interpreted as a plus—exploring uncharted waters can be fun for the navigator as well as the helmsman, right? By far the most important plus in his quiver is that L. Falk comes from Russia, where (I am a Backwater Sentinel subscriber, which is how come I am familiar with this particular item of information) along with practically no meat and practically no bread, there is also practically no AIDS.

  Hey, safe sex might not be great sex, but at least it would be sex, right?

  My last but not least for being interested in him is the business of the serial murders, which seem random to me even if they don’t seem random to the Homo chaoticus, the professor of chaos, L. Falk. Look at it from my point of view: If the murders weren’t random, if someone was killing blonds who stuttered, say, or left-handed lesbians, or sexy women barbers who deal Thai truffles on the side, at least I’d know where I stood. I’d know whether or not I was a potential victim, right? What I’m saying is, because the crimes are random, I could become an actual victim without even knowing I was a potential victim. Random murders are the worst kind—you can’t be sure you’re not next.

  Not knowing I’m not next, I’m not thrilled about living alone. Which is why I decided to go to the Delta Delta Phi bash tonight. Which is why I don’t mind if someone who isn’t familiar with the G-spot escorts me. To the bash. And back home afterwards.

  Right?

  Right.

  Munching olives, sipping martinis, talking shop or stock market or weather, the fifteen permanent scholars, along with the dozen visiting professors and the handful of fellows at the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies circle the parenthesis-shaped tables in the faculty dining room looking for their names on hand-lettered tags. As they settle into their seats, co-ed waitresses wearing spotless white aprons begin filling the wineglasses from decanters. The Director, J. Alfred Goodacre, grips Lemuel’s elbow and steers him to the head of the parenthesis.

  “Bravo for the haircut,” he whispers. “She’s quite a number, our lady barber.”

  Lemuel is confused. “In what respect can a lady barber be compared to a number?” he asks, but the Director, shaking hands with a visiting professor from Germany, doesn’t catch the question.

  Down the table, Matilda Birtwhistle is deep in conversation with her neighbor, Charlie Atwater. “They didn’t use to decant the wine at faculty luncheons,” she remarks.

  “They decant it,” Atwater, nursing his fourth martini, replies, “so we won’t dishcover what sheep wine they’re serving us.” He sniffs the wine in his glass and screws up his face in disgust.

  Matilda Birtwhistle laughs. “Oh, Charlie, come off it.”

  “Yo
u think I’m making this up?” Atwater takes a sip of the wine, rolls it around in his mouth as if he is gargling, then swallows. His eyes bulge. “Oh my God! It’s nouveau vinaigre!”

  Holding a wineglass by its stem, Rebbe Nachman, sitting across the parenthesis from Matilda Birtwhistle, carefully swirls the liquid around in the glass, then watches as it seeps back down the sides. “You maybe want an independent opinion,” he calls across the table, “it was mis en bouteille, as we say in Yiddish, in the basement of the E-Z Mart on Main Street, after which it did not travel well.” Flashing a lopsided grin, he calls “Bolshoi le’hayyim!” and treats himself to a healthy swig.