Third Hotel, The by Berg Laura van den

Author:Berg, Laura van den [Berg, Laura van den]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Novel, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780374714970
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2018-08-07T07:00:00+00:00

At the university, Clare found the woman from the flyer in a windowless classroom, standing at a chalkboard and scratching out a formula. From behind she recognized the tweed skirtsuit, the snug bun. The professor wore stockings, despite the heat, and black pumps. When Clare greeted her in Spanish, she dropped the chalk and whipped around, her palms a ghoulish white. She dusted her hands on her skirt, making a little cloud, and said, in English, I haven’t had a student attend this seminar in months. How on earth did you find me?

Clare attempted to explain the flyer. The woman announced herself as Professor Berezniak. She stepped through the cloud of dust, straightened her glasses, and ordered Clare to never speak her terrible Spanish in front of her again; anything less than perfection with respect to the Spanish language was an affront to her ear.

Clare looked at the tornado of equations on the blackboard; she didn’t see how they could make sense to anyone. She asked the professor why she kept holding the seminar if nobody ever comes, and the professor replied that the seminar was a kind of community service, and so while everyone thought she was serving the interests of the community, she was in fact serving the interests of herself.

Former students have found my teaching methods strange and, in some instances, psychologically disturbing, said the professor. Or so I’ve been told.

I’m already strange, Clare thought, and for all she knew psychologically disturbed too. She had the distinct feeling that Professor Berezniak wished she would conclude this seminar held no interest for her after all and vanish from the afternoon.

Finally the professor sighed and said, Shall we go to my office?

Clare followed her down the hallway to a door so narrow it had to have once belonged to a broom closet. The office was barely large enough for a little round table and two maroon butterfly chairs; it was lit by a lamp with a stained-glass shade. Every inch of wall had been converted into built-in bookshelves. A vintage cuckoo clock announced itself: a miniature door opened, a yellow bird with a red beak pecked the air.

Professor Berezniak said the government had instructed the university to limit air-conditioning use to one hour a day, even in the summer, perhaps in the hope that the heat would root out disloyal academics and sweat them to death.

People tell me I shouldn’t talk like this, she continued. But the time has come, I say. The time has come.

Professor Berezniak removed her suit jacket and then her blouse. She did this with great deliberateness, one pearl button at a time, and when she was finished she draped the jacket and blouse over the back of her chair. Underneath she was wearing a white bra with heavy cups and straps. She sat down, flesh crinkling under her rib cage.

I abhor wrinkles, Professor Berezniak said.

Clare sat across from the professor, the library coiling around them.

Well, then? Her tone made it clear that Clare was expected to supply the curriculum.

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