Burying Ariel by Gail Bowen

Author:Gail Bowen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2011-07-11T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

8

Fraser Jackson had been a member of our Theatre department for five years. I had never thought of him as an African prince, but I had played with the thought that he might be the doppelgänger of Yaphet Kotto, the actor who portrayed the Black Sicilian Lieutenant Al Giardello on “Homicide: Life on the Streets.” Both men were in their mid-forties, heavy-set and physically powerful, with strong features and smiles that came infrequently but were worth waiting for. Both spoke with the reverence for language that reflected classical training.

The two men were alike in another, more profound, way. Both possessed the intensity of those whose tumultuous inner lives are kept in check only through rigorous self-discipline. More than one woman I knew had been intrigued by the possibility of discovering what lay behind the interior walls Fraser Jackson had erected around his essential self, but Ariel Warren had, seemingly, been drawn to him first for professional reasons.

One windy fall afternoon I’d run into her on the academic green. She was wearing a fluffy red turtleneck and bluejeans, and she’d taken off her sandals so she could walk barefoot through the leaves. Her long blond hair was corn-silk fine, and when she stopped to talk to me the wind lifted it into a nimbus that shimmered in the yellow autumn light.

“Look at this,” she said. In her hand was a small leaf whose centre vein bisected its surface into two distinct planes of colour: scarlet on one side, gold on the other. “Perfect symmetry,” Ariel said softly.

“Miracles all around us,” I said.

“Especially in September,” Ariel agreed. “Joanne, I just spent two hours watching Fraser Jackson with his Advanced Performance class. He’s letting me audit.”

“That’s a fair commitment of time on your part,” I said.

Ariel put her hand up in a halt gesture. “I know, I know. I should be churning out papers and ingratiating myself with my new colleagues, but this feels so right. Fraser is amazing, and so much of what he does is pure instinct. He has this innate sense of what’s going on inside a student, and he’s so gentle with them.”

“Sounds like a great teacher,” I said.

“He’s a pretty decent human being, too.” Ariel twirled the perfect leaf between her fingers. “Today, after everyone wandered off after class, he asked me if I wanted to work on a piece – just for fun. Of course, I pointed out that I was auditing and it wouldn’t be fair for me to add to his workload. He said, ‘Just let me hear your voice. There must be a poem you liked enough to remember.’ ”

“So what did you choose?”

A flush started on Ariel’s neck and spread upward to her face.

“Not something salacious,” I said.

“Worse,” she said. “The Hippocratic oath. Talk about bizarre, but when your mother is a doctor …”

“You don’t have to explain,” I said. “My father was a doctor. I remember looking it up, too.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t memorize it,” Ariel said. “And I’ll bet you never

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