In the grand scheme of things, Gabriel’s failure to mention the fact that he’d stopped going to therapy was unimportant. Or so Julia believed. They argued about it briefly, but both of them were too worried about their troubles with the university to do more than that.
Gabriel received a terse note from Jeremy the following week, indicating that he’d interviewed both Mrs. Jenkins and Paul. Other than that, he and Julia didn’t receive any communication from the university.
David Aras spent his Friday night alone in the office of his house with a bottle of Jameson whiskey. It was not unusual for him to do so. In his position as Dean of Graduate Studies he often brought work home. On this particular evening he found himself mired in a very tricky, very sensitive situation.
Miss Peterson’s harassment complaint had been challenged by the testimony of more than one witness. However, the academic fraud complaint against Miss Mitchell had alerted him to a possible case of fraternization between Julia and Professor Emerson. The problem was that the evidence was contradictory.
According to the information passed on by Professor Martin, Paul Norris had painted a glowing picture of Miss Mitchell and her character. As the whiskey burned his throat, David wondered if all women Mr. Norris came in contact with had mysteriously sprouted wings or if he simply had a weakness for young women from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
(Wherever the hell that was.)
According to Mr. Norris and Mrs. Jenkins, Miss Mitchell was a timid young woman who was disliked by Professor Emerson. Mr.
Sylvain Reynard
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Norris went further to claim that the professor had fought openly with her in his seminar.
Subsequent to the confrontation in class, Emerson had approached Professor Picton to supervise Miss Mitchell’s thesis, citing the fact that she was a friend of his family as the reason why he could no longer continue to supervise her. Here is where David was puzzled.
Professor Emerson hadn’t objected to Miss Mitchell’s admission to the program, knowing that he was the only professor who directed theses on Dante. If there was such an obvious conflict of interest, why hadn’t he objected? Or declared the conflict of interest to Professor Martin at the beginning of the semester?
The files on Professor Emerson and Miss Mitchell did not make sense. And David did not like it when things did not make sense. (For his universe was nothing if not sensical.)
As he pondered the evidence, he inserted a flash drive into his computer. He opened the single folder on the drive and began scanning through the emails that had been culled obligingly from Professor Emerson’s account by someone in the Information Technology office. He adjusted the parameters to include only those messages that had been sent to or received from Miss Mitchell, Miss Peterson, Mr. Norris, and Professor Picton.
In a few minutes, David found something that surprised him. On his screen, were emails that had been sent before the end of October 2009. The first email had been written by Professor Emerson to Miss Mitchell:
Dear Miss Mitchell,
I need to speak to you concerning a matter of some urgency.
Please contact me as soon as possible. You may telephone me at the following number: 416-555-0739 (cell).
Regards,
Prof. Gabriel O. Emerson,
Associate Professor
Department of Italian Studies/
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
The second email was sent by Miss Mitchell to Professor Emerson in response to his message:
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Dr. Emerson,
Stop harassing me.
I don’t want you anymore. I don’t even want to know you. If you don’t leave me alone, I will be forced to file a harassment complaint against you. And if you call my father, I will do just that. Immediately.
If you think I’m going to let an insignificant thing like this drive me from the program, then you are very much mistaken. I need a new thesis director, not a bus ticket home.
Regards,
Miss J. H. Mitchell,
Lowly Graduate Student,
On-Knees-More-Than-The-Average-Whore.
P.S. I will be returning the M. P. Emerson bursary next week. Congratulations, Professor Abelard. No one has ever made me feel as cheap as you did Sunday morning.
The Dean straightened in his chair. He read the two emails once again, examining every word.
Although he had a vague memory of who Peter Abelard was, he indulged his curiosity and Googled him. He clicked on a reputable biography and began reading.
Quod erat demonstrandum, he thought.
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