S. Gazan - The Dinosaur Feather

“Stop it, Lily,” she snapped. “I have to go now. Granny will pick you up today. You’re sleeping at Granny’s tonight. Now let go of me!” She had to tear herself loose.

“You go,” the nursery teacher said, “I’ll deal with her.”

When Anna had finished locking up her bicycle, she caught sight of Professor Moritzen in her office on the ground floor. Anna tried to catch her eye, but the professor was hunched over her desk and didn’t look up.

Hanne Moritzen was a parasitologist in her late forties, and four years earlier she had taught Anna in a summer course at the university’s field center in Brorfelde. One night, when neither had been able to sleep, they had run into each other in the large institutional kitchen that belonged to the Earth Sciences department. Hanne had made chamomile tea, and they started talking. At first the topic was biology, but Anna soon realized that Hanne, in contrast to other professors she had met, wasn’t particularly interested in talking shop. Instead they discussed favorite books and films, and Anna found herself genuinely warming to Hanne. When dawn broke, they agreed it was pointless to go back to bed, and when the bleary-eyed kitchen staff arrived, they had just started a game of cards.

Later they had bumped into each other in the faculty lounge, said hello, exchanged pleasantries, and then had lunch together several times. Anna admired Professor Moritzen’s serenity and sense of purpose. It was now a long time since their last lunch. Once she had defended her dissertation, she would make it up to all the people she had neglected: her daughter, Hanne Moritzen, herself.

Finally, Hanne looked up from behind the window, smiled, and waved to Anna. Anna waved back and walked through the revolving doors to Building 12.

The department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology consisted of offices and laboratories arranged on either side of a long, windowless corridor. The first office belonged to Professor Lars Helland, Anna’s internal supervisor. He was a tall thin man without a single wrinkle. This was remarkable. Biologists, as a rule, made a point of never protecting their skin when doing fieldwork. The only clues that revealed he was in his late fifties were white flecks in his soft beard, a slowly spreading bald patch, and a photograph on his desk of a smiling woman and a teenage girl with braces on her teeth.

Anna was convinced that Professor Helland loathed her; she certainly loathed him. During the nine months he had been supervising her dissertation, he had barely taken the time to offer her any guidance. He was permanently crotchety and uninterested, and when she asked a specific question, he would go off on an irrelevant tangent and couldn’t be stopped. It had angered Anna from the start and she had seriously considered making a formal complaint. Now she had resigned herself to the situation, and she tried, as much as possible, to avoid him. She had even left her dissertation in his cubbyhole last Friday, rather than hand it to him in person. When she checked the cubby for the fourth time, her dissertation was gone.

The door to Professor Helland’s office was ajar. Anna tiptoed past it. Through the gap she could see part of Helland’s recliner, the last centimeters of two gray trouser legs, feet in socks and one shoe lying carelessly discarded with the sole facing up. Typical. When Helland was in his office, he spent most of his time lying in his recliner, reading, surrounded by a Coliseum-like structure of books and journals piled up in disarray around him. Even on the very rare occasions they had met, Helland had been reclining as if he were a nobleman receiving an audience.

Helland wasn’t alone. Anna could hear an agitated voice and she instinctively slowed down. Could it be Johannes? She tried to make out what they were talking about, but failed. She would have to find out later, she thought, and accelerated down the corridor.

Anna and Johannes shared a study. Johannes had finished his graduate degree, but he had been allowed to stay on because he was cowriting a paper with Professor Helland, who had been his supervisor as well. Anna could vividly recall her first day in the department last January when Helland had shown her into the study where Johannes was already working. Anna recognized him instantly from her undergraduate days and had spontaneously thought “Oh, shit.” Later she wondered at her reaction because, until then, they had never actually spoken.

Johannes looked weird, and he was weird. He had red hair and looked at her as though he were leering at her with droopy eyes behind his round, unfashionable glasses. For the first three weeks, she deeply resented having to share and office with him. His desk looked like a battlefield, there were half-empty mugs of tea everywhere, he never aired the room, never tidied up, every day he forgot to switch his cell phone to silent and though he apologized, it was still infuriating. However, he seemed delighted to have acquired someone to share the tiny study with and talked nonstop about himself, his research, and global politics.

During those first few weeks Anna deliberately kept him at a distance. She went to the cafeteria on her own, even though it would have been normal to ask if he wanted to join her, she gave curt replies to his questions to discourage him from striking up a conversation, and she declined his friendly suggestion that they take turns to bring cakes. Yet Johannes persisted. It was as if he simply failed to register her aloofness. He chatted and told stories, he laughed out loud at his own jokes, he brought in interesting articles she might want to read, he always made tea for both of them and added milk and honey to her cup, just the way she liked it. And, at some point, Anna started to thaw. Johannes was warm and funny, and he made her laugh like she hadn’t laughed in… well, years. Johannes was extraordinarily gifted, and she had allowed herself to be put off by his peculiar appearance. Nor were his eyes droopy, as she had first thought, they were open and attentive, as though he were making an effort, as though what she said really mattered.

“You’re wearing makeup!” she exclaimed one spring morning, not long after they had become friends.

Johannes was already behind his desk when Anna arrived. He was wearing leather trousers and a Hawaiian shirt, his hair was smoothed back with wax and his long white fingers were splayed across the keyboard. His glasses magnified his brown eyes by 50 percent, so when he looked at her, there was no way she could miss it.

“I’m a goth,” he said with a mysterious smile.

“You’re a what?” Anna dumped her bag on her chair and gave him a baffled look.

“And things got a bit wild last Friday. I was in drag,” he continued, surprisingly. “I thought I had got all that stuff off.” He waved her closer. “Come on over, I’ve got something for you to look at.”

He showed her some pictures on the web while he talked. The club he had been to was called the Red Mask and events were held the first Friday of every month. The club’s name was inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Masque Mask of the Red Death , and it was a meeting place for goths from all over Scandinavia. Goths were a subculture, Johannes explained when he saw the blank expression on Anna’s face and pointed to a photograph. Anna failed to recognize the slightly androgynous-looking woman with red hair, black lipstick, and dramatic eyes, wearing a tight black corset, a string vest, leather trousers, and studs. The caption below the photo read Orlando . Anna frowned.

“It’s me,” he said, impatiently.

“You’re kidding!” Anna exclaimed, thinking she really was an idiot. It was obvious: Johannes was gay!

“What does ‘Orlando’ mean?” she asked.