The Fountain of Youth

Chapter 7

Feeling dreadful after a sleepless night of sobbing about her fate, Nina tried no less than four cups of black coffee before leaving for her ten o’clock lecture. The dark circles under her eyes deceived her faux cheer, but thankfully the morning promised that the day would be a very cold one. It meant that she could wear her thick-knitted beanie without having to explain anything. Feeling miserable both mentally and physically, she dragged her diminishing body over the lawn that led into the botanical beauty of the small courtyard garden where an old, lonely cement fountain stood abandoned.

At night Nina could not help but be freaked out by the stone ornament that resembled a human shape when the light fell just right against it. The curtains on her window facing the garden were always drawn for this very reason. But during the day it was clearly a shapely, hand-sculpted fount. Corrosion and age had chipped away at it, but the trough at its bottom was still leak-free and watertight.

The frigid air was biting at Nina’s frail cheeks, coloring her nose with a deep pinkish hue. It ravaged her ears and neck, forcing her to push up her already plump scarf to shield her skin from the cold, since her hair was not providing cover anymore. Hastily she rushed into the lobby and headed straight for the kitchen to get a hot cup of coffee into her body. Oddly, nobody was in yet from the faculty, and neither was the Dean. His office was shut tight, unlike all of the other mornings when the door had been left wide open for the inviting morning light to push through the open curtains and into the hallway.

“Weird,” Nina whispered before continuing on to the kitchen, which she found locked. Deeply disappointed, she swung around hoping to find someone with a key or perhaps someone from the cleaning staff who might direct her to another kitchen somewhere in the substantial labyrinth of corridors, if such a thing existed. “Anyone here?” she cried, sniffling from the effects of the cold weather she’d just braved. “Gertrud! Are you in yet?”

Nina’s small frame crept along the walls as she peeked into every office and storeroom on the floor, finding all of them vacant or locked. She checked her watch. It was ten minutes to class. Fearing that she’d be late, she left for the lecture hall. Fortunately for Nina, her students, all of seven present, were as indolent as she was and respectfully indifferent to discussing the new material.

“You look pooped, Dr. Gould. If you don’t mind me saying,” one of her female students remarked. “I know how you feel. Must be the weather, or the hostel cooking.”

Some of the group chuckled at the assumption, but others just sank into their desks and stared blankly at her. One of the more outspoken lads in the class said, “Why don’t we just download a movie based on the modern history of biological weapons and spare the lovely Dr. Gould from having to waste her breath trying to keep us interested?”

“Hey!” Nina scowled, pointing at the young man. “Are you insinuating that my classes are boring? Because if you are, I will have no qualms about re-evaluating your recent submission.” Her left eyebrow lifted inquisitively while she waited for some wise retort, but the loud student seemed too weary and he just smiled.

Nina took a good look at her tiny class and noticed that each of them looked a bit like she felt. Of the five males and two females, three appeared immensely sluggish. Her illness afforded her the excuse of fatigue — and even the cold weather could bear some blame for the sloth of the students — but she could not fathom the profuse lack of energy between the whole bunch of them.

“Listen, guys, off the record,” she said sincerely, “are you just lazy from the low temps and baby-making weather? Or do you feel unusually tired? Aside from possible late night excursions and such, I mean.”

“I did play GTA until 3 a.m.,” one replied, “but it’s not like I got up at the crack of dawn.”

Another student, one of the three that were noticeably weak, shifted in her chair. “You know, I’m not one to goof off for no good reason, but I almost didn’t come into class this morning, Dr. Gould. I mean, you know I love history studies, but if it weren’t for the nightmares last night and this morning that chased me outdoors, I’d still be sleeping, I’m sure.”

“Nightmares?” the other female student asked her friend. “Me too, chick. Me too. And you wake up more tired.”

“Wait a minute,” Nina interrupted, folding her arms and tapping her pen, “are both of you staying at the hostel or are you townies?”

“Hostel, but separate rooms,” one girl affirmed. The exhausted looking young man in the second row lifted his hand. “Me too. Hostel. All three of us.”

“So you all get the same food served every night, right?” Nina pried.

“Same as you, ma’am,” the first girl answered. “Although, respectfully, it doesn’t look like you like the food here very much.”

“Rachel!” her friend reprimanded softly, gasping at her audacity.

“Oh, that’s alright,” Nina smiled. “Truth is, I’ve been stressed lately, so the appetite, you know…” she clicked her fingers and blew into the air, “…vanished.”

The students murmured in agreement and sympathy. Nina shrugged. “It’s just weird that you bunch of maniacs are so sluggish this morning.”

“Old age,” Dr. Christa Smith teased from the doorway, where she’d been eavesdropping. “They’re just not teenage material anymore.” She smiled, waiting for their obligatory protest. She did not have to wait long. A resounding rebuke of her assessment followed by some snickering filled the classroom.

“Good morning, Dr. Smith,” Nina greeted amicably. “Welcome to the mid-morning sloth’s meeting.”

Christa laughed and entered the lecture hall, carrying a collection of papers under her arm. “Don’t fret, Dr. Gould, they just need a jump start. How about giving them a surprise oral exam for grading that counts for the semester?”

Nina thought the suggestion was a bit harsh for an understandably slow start to the week, but Christa looked absolutely serious.

“H-how do you mean?” Nina asked. “I’ve prepared a tutorial and some assignments, but nothing close to a gradable test that could serve as term papers.”

“Of course I’m aware of that, Dr. Gould,” Christa replied snidely. “But fear not. I have something quite adequate for the subject and the time frame of your lecture for today. These are exams from a few generations ago that we found in the archives, and what better way to study history than to take exams prepared and used in actual recent history?”

Nina’s class stared at her in astonishment, but she needed no prompting to assert her position. “Dr. Smith, could we have a word, please? In private?”

“Whatever for?” Christa asked with a smirk painted on her cemented mask. “As far as I recall, I’m the head of the history division here at St. Vincent’s, and if I deem these tests viable to enhance the education of our students, then any visiting lecturer must yield to the decision. I’m sure you understand completely, right Dr. Gould?”

Nina’s eyes shot daggers at the intruding, self-proclaimed savant of the institution, but she had no choice. Her contract was month-to-month and she had to complete her curriculum before attaining credit for her involvement, which she needed to strengthen her credibility for other ventures. She gave her students a sympathetic glance, but had to concede. “I’m sure your exams will be a walk in the park for the talent of their capacity,” Nina said, challenging the department head while enforcing her faith in her students. “In fact,” she said as she took the papers from Christa and handed them out, “I trust that they will obliterate anything you throw at them.”

“There is only one way to find out,” Christa grinned derisively at the desperate attempt for the guest fellow to heave her students from their doubts. “But your faith in your students is valiant in any respect.”

Nina checked the clock. It was 10:30am, but her superior had sat down at Nina’s desk to preside over her class. She gave Nina an empathetic look and whispered, “Why don’t you get some food in, Dr. Gould? God knows you look like you could use it.”

With a reluctant look at her class, all drudging through the questions on the examination sheets, Nina took her case and her coat and walked out without a word. Well, the words came after she’d left the chamber and entered the hallway — two words. Choice ones at that.

When Nina came outside to the undercover cafeteria-come-gathering spot for the limited student body, she chose the first bench nearest to the doors and sat down. Furiously, she mumbled while she rummaged through her bag for a cigarette. Then it occurred to her that she’d chucked them out after the sour revelation she’d suffered with her hair.

“Jesus Christ! It seems I’m not allowed any breaks anymore, am I?” she seethed, slamming her bag on the table in the quiet recreation area. “I may as well shave my bloody head and buy a chest of Dominican cigars and be done with it all.”

“You are in luck, my dear.”

Nina jumped at the sudden voice, but found the harmless smile of Mrs. Patterson beaming down on her. The old lady held out a pack of Marlboros and offered the blue Bic lighter with her other hand. “Personally I despise smoking, because of, you know, the premature aging, but I can’t stand seeing such a lovely child so unhappy.” She chuckled as Nina slipped one of the fags between her thin fingers and leaned forward for a light.

After pulling a deep one, Nina’s eyes rolled back in her head and her face fell into a picture of peace. She exhaled. “You know, Mrs. Patterson, had you not been so pretty I might just have confused you with Satan.”

The elderly woman laughed out loud with Nina and shook her head, “Said every man I have ever been with!”

They shared a good laughing spell once more as Nina rushed the nicotine into her system as quickly as possible to calm her down from the killing rage she felt for Christa Smith. It was evident to Nina that Mrs. Patterson had some hidden agenda behind her support of Nina’s deadly habits, but she knew that the old lady would not feel comfortable disclosing it until she thought the historian would need to know.

Still, it was in Nina’s nature to be straightforward. She hated playing mind games or taking roundabout trips to the truth. Even knowing how the Dean’s mother had left her in concerning circumstances sheltered in words of subliminal warning, she still wished she could just ask what was going on. Propriety stopped her from doing so — for now.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Patterson?” Clara Rutherford exclaimed in awe. She’d just seen the two women sitting outside and came rushing toward Nina. She stopped in her tracks just before reaching the historian, realizing that she could not very well slap the cigarette from her mouth, not without suffering a beating of some measure.

“Um, Dr. Gould, are you sure you should be smoking like that? You know it’s very bad for you,” she said hastily and tried to look friendly.

“You look like you’re about to get caught out for doing something illegal, Clara. Relax,” the Dean’s mother advised sarcastically.

Nina knew that she was in the middle of some kind of power struggle, but she held her tongue to see what was going on between the two of them.