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The Professor's Choice
It was dark and the town was quiet as Val walked down the street. He stayed in the center, not fearing any traffic,
his feet oblivious to the alternating puddles and mud, remnants of the recent rain. He turned a corner and halted in surprise.
A light gleamed boldly from a window, the yellow light sprawling across the road and lapping onto the sod wall of the building
facing it. Val went to the door, raised his hand to knock, and then pushed on the door, swinging it open.
A woman, looked up as the door opened. Her face, framed in long, unkempt black hair, was impassive.
"Yes?" she asked. Even the simple one-syllable word projected the woman's mental and physical exhaustion.
Val raised his hand in a gesture of diffidence and apology. "I saw the light. I was surprised . . .. "
"Surprised to find someone alive?" She spit out a dry laugh.
Val estimated the woman to be younger than his own age of thirty-two. How much younger he could not tell.
Stress and exhaustion can add years to one's appearance. He wondered how old he looked. "Yes. It is unusual."
She shrugged. "I suppose it is. They took away the family today in the cart. All dead. Everyone."
"And why did you stay?"
"Where is there to go?" She stood up for the first time.
"Most have fled to the country."
"So why are you here? Why are you not in the country?"
"They carried me off in the cart. But I recovered."
"A few do, they say."
"And once you recover, you are free of the plague."
"Yes. They say that as well."
"Some never get it at all. Such as you, I presume."
"It is possible." The corners of her mouth twitched slightly in what could have been an incipient smile. "I've certainly had every opportunity."
"I'm sure."
She frowned. "You are not of the town. At least I don't recognize you."
"No. No. I'm not from here. I was traveling through and stopped at the inn the night the plague broke out."
"Are you hungry?"
The question startled Val. "Well, yes. Yes, I am."
"Sit down. I will fix you something to eat."
He felt a wave of exhaustion as he slumped into a chair. It was the first rest he had had in hours and
the recent illness and lack of food had left him weak. He watched her as she lit a fire in the hearth
and swung a pot over the flames. Neither spoke as the water boiled. He stared at the steam rising
from the pot. It was, he realized, something he had never expected to see again. When the food
had cooked to her satisfaction, she ladled out two bowl of the thick gruel and set them on the
table. Val ate hungrily and she sparingly.
"How many did you lose?" Val asked when he had finished eating.
"How many?"
"Yes, of your family."
"They were not my family. This is not my home."
Val frowned in confusion. "I'm sorry. I assumed it was your home since you cooked."
"There is no one left to use the food. Why shouldn't we eat it?"
"Yes. Yes. I suppose you're right. But why are you here, if this is not your home?"
"I was caring for them."
"They were relatives then?"
"Your brush with death has left you inquisitive."
Val blushed. "I'm sorry. It is none of my business."
She smiled faintly, the first expression that had crossed her face since he had arrived. "It doesn't matter.
I have no family. I cared for those who were ill. They were so many. And none to help."
"You are a saint," Val said.
"No," the woman replied. "I am a prostitute."
Val looked up in surprise. "A prostitute? Then why are you . . . I mean . . .."
The woman shrugged. "Why not? I have no family to care for. I'm like a priest or a monk."
Val smiled at the comparison. "And where are the priests and monks?"
"Fled or dead."
Val grunted. "What's your name?"
"Mary. And yours?"
"Val."
What do you do?"
"I'm at professor of philosophy and religion at the university in the city."
She nodded without expression.
"Have you been to the city?"
"No. I've never left the town."
"Let us go to the country. There is no reason to stay here. We and the gravediggers are probably the only people left alive.
Once the plague has died down, I'll take you to the city."
She laughed. "That would look good, wouldn't it? A professor returns with a prostitute.
I doubt that I would fit in your circle. I cannot read and write. Your learned colleagues would not approve."
"Probably most of them are dead or gone. Who knows if there will even be a university. Perhaps I will be a grocer
or maybe I won't return to the city at all. There are many farms without tenants. We could work a farm."
"What do you know of farming or being a grocer?"
"About as much as I know about anything else."
"The world has been turned upside down. Everything seems possible and impossible at the same time.
A professor takes a prostitute and becomes a grocer." She laughed again. "It is hard to know what is real."
He stared at her for several moments before speaking. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
"How long have you been a prostitute?"
"About six months. I began when my father died. There was just mother and I. She was too ill to work. We had to eat."
There was no shame in her voice or face.
"And your mother?"
'She died shortly after my father. And you? Have you no family?"
"Dead."
She nodded her head slowly.
He stood up. "These are desperate times. No one would ask questions. It is enough that one is alive.
The fact that we are the only two in the town left alive is an omen in itself. Come with me."
"What do you want with me? A woman to bed and nothing more?"
"No. I would marry you."
She did not stir and her gaze drifted past him, unfocused. "This is not the only family that I cared for.
There have been many. The only thanks I got were harsh words and spiteful looks. They took food from my hand only because they had no alternative.
I cleaned their vomit-stained clothes and soled linen. I sang to them. I put damp cloths on their foreheads to ease
the fever. But never a word of thanks did I hear."
They were silent for a full minute.
"And now you, whom I have done nothing for, want to take me away from this. Why?" A hard look came into her eyes.
"It is not true that you have given me nothing. You fed me even though I did not ask for food."
A faint smile crossed her lips. "You would take a prostitute for a wife because of a bowl of gruel?"
"Stand, please."
She rose slowly.
"Look at me."
Although her dark-brown eyes drooped with exhaustion, there was a softness to them. He wondered how she had maintained
any semblance of humanity through her harsh life and the horrors of the plague.
He held out his arms. "Take my hands."
She did, grasping them lightly. "They were chaffed from the hours of washing and cleaning.
"I would marry you because of who you are, not what you are. It is in times like these that one can see what a person really is.
Only the best can give when there is no hope. Only the best can care when all are beyond caring. Never could a man find a better woman.
Come, Mary. Let us go."
He moved toward the door, holding her right hand in his left. She walked beside him, her head held high, and her eyes shining.
Don Stockard's background includes growing up on a homestead and working as a commercial clam digger, a miner and a geophysicist.
He spent ten years in school studying math and science at Carnegie Tech, Dartmouth and Caltech. He has also spent quite a
bit of time bike touring in Europe, mountain climbing and sailing. Over the last four years he has accumulated over one
hundred eighty credits, a hundred forty of which are short stories. Some recent publications are: Raskolnikovâ's Cellar
"Dark Horse" Fall, 2001 Once Upon a World "Karmic Trap" Fall 2001 Armchair Aesthete "Frozen Monk" inter/Spring, 2001.
In addition Softspin Press published a collection of his short stories in 1994.
Email: Don Stockard
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