Ekaterina Sedia - Heart of Iron

Arm in arm now, we found our assigned building; it was newer than most of the university’s buildings, and painted bright blue. A copse of poplars surrounded it, and a long flowerbed orange with the last nasturtiums and edged with white stone ran along the path leading to the front door. There were several young men milling outside, and they gave us a few measured and curious looks. Olga blanched and squeezed my arm tighter, and I found myself leaning closer to her. We walked down the path under the veritable assault of the alternately lewd and disapproving gazes directed at us; it felt like running a gauntlet.

“Is it going to be like this every day?” Olga whispered, and her voice shook as if she were about to burst into tears.

“I hope the novelty will wear off after a while,” I answered. “But where’s that chaperon woman when you need her?”

Olga smiled at that, and we found our assigned auditorium. It was still mostly empty, and the professorial lectern towered at the front. Rows and rows of chairs upholstered in red velvet opened amphitheater-style back from the small stage, like petals of an enormous flower.

“Let’s sit in the back,” Olga said.

“Nonsense,” I replied. “They’ll know we are here anyway, but if we sit in the lecturer’s sight, no one would dare direct disrespect.”

Olga smiled gratefully. “How do you know these things?”

“I don’t,” I answered honestly. “I’m just thinking of what my virgin aunt would say in this situation.”

We rustled our skirts and settled in the first row. Both Olga and I had small notebooks tucked into our muffs — unfortunately, our dresses and cloaks lacked any significant pockets. I considered buying a handbag just to carry pens and notebooks; I hoped we were not expected to transport our textbooks anywhere.

Once we had settled, I watched the door. Several Chinese students filed in, and I recognized Chiang Tse among them. He acknowledged me with a small bow, and I inclined my head. The Chinese students, some of whom were dressed in gray suits while others wore more colorful jackets and long robes, stiff with gold embroidery, and black cloth slippers, settled in a row behind Olga and me. It reassured me — I felt as if I were being shielded from the judging eyes of my male compatriots.

Gradually, the auditorium filled with a shuffling and coughing of young men. Some of them smoked, and strolled through the aisles with a leisurely demeanor that I could easily imagine was a mask concealing cruelty. It was deeply disturbing. Most of these men were not noble, only sons of merchants and engineers. I was their better, and yet defenseless and vulnerable if they decided to vent their unhappiness in my direction.

Three other women soon joined us, and introduced themselves — Larisa, Elena, Dasha — before settling next to us. With the bright jackets of the Chinese students and the girls’ dresses standing in such contrast to the prevalent male brown and gray, I felt a part of a small isle of color, and that day my heart chose its allegiance. I turned and smiled at Chiang Tse over my shoulder, and he smiled back — warmly, as a friend would.

The lecturer — a solid, gray-haired and gray-bearded professor — arrived a few minutes late, and he spent a while longer inspecting the front of the auditorium. “Welcome,” he finally said, “to our new students. This is a class on human biology, and we will start by examining the differences between races and genders. I expect you—” his gaze locked with mine for a moment before drifting to the next female student—“to take notes. If you feel scandalized by the material, you may excuse yourself.” He paused while some tittering laughs flitted about the audience. “I still expect you to know the material.”

After the classes were over, I lingered behind, waiting for the auditorium to empty out. Olga and the rest of the girls went ahead, as they chatted in an overly familiar ritual of getting to know one another.

Chiang Tse too split from his companions, and waited for me in the aisle between the empty seats, his profile dark against the golden brilliance of the autumn outside spilling through the open door and tall arched windows.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said as soon as I was an arm’s length away from him.

He shrugged. “I suppose it could be worse.”

Neither of us acknowledged it explicitly, but I was glad he waited for me — at least I assume it was me for whom he awaited. We walked outside together.

The nasturtiums had grown transparent in the sun, each petal like a tongue of living flame rising from the flowerbeds, and without saying a word both of us stopped to look. It was strange to walk with him like that, without speaking, but moving in unison, in some magically silent accord.

The campus had grown quiet in the few minutes between the end of classes and our delayed exit. Only a few figures moved at a distance, with an occasional staccato of hurried footsteps reverberating on the newly laid blocks of pavement. It was all just as well — without knowing why, I was already feeling our walk, innocent as it was, was somehow illicit.

My feelings were confirmed when we turned around the corner of the lecture hall and came across a group of several young men, their clothes betraying means if not breeding — they all wore long sack jackets with upright collars and wide ascots, and formidably tall hats. The five of them crowded the pavement, and I flustered, stepping right and left, trying to find a way between them. They merely watched, dead-eyed and threatening despite their passive demeanor. Finally, I stepped onto the pavement and cringed as my shoe hit a puddle cunningly hid by a narrow strip of the curb; the water splashed all over the hem of my skirt.

Chiang Tse ignored the snickering of the hoodlums, and joined me in the puddle, without regard for the dirty water seeping into his shoes and trousers. I shook the water out of my skirts and thought woefully that this particular arrangement was likely to become a tangible metaphor for my stay at the university.

Chiang Tse was apparently of the same mind. His fingers touched my elbow gingerly as he said, “I enjoy standing in the puddle with you. It is refreshing, don’t you think?”

And thus my education had begun. I quickly got the impression that even if women students were not admitted solely to prove their inferiority, it was viewed as a desirable outcome.

Professor Ipatiev, the lecturer who had delivered the very first lecture in my student career, proved to be a lasting influence. His class was in turns fascinating and upsetting, and Olga, who had swiftly become my closest friend and something of a confidante, shared my feelings.

“I do not understand,” she complained one September evening, as the two of us sat in the parlor of my apartment, drinking strong sweet tea thoughtfully prepared by Anastasia before she left to visit with Natalia Sergeevna. “Professor Ipatiev seems like a kind man. And yet he looks directly at you and me when he talks about women’s brains being smaller than men’s.”

I sighed and remembered the tittering that ran in waves across the auditorium every time Professor Ipatiev spoke about anatomical differences such as that — about how Africans were incapable of any learning, and the Asians could only memorize but not really comprehend complex concepts; about how women’s minds were subordinate to their wombs, how their brains lacked the requisite number of folds. One could not help but feel somewhat insulted. “I don’t suppose we can argue,” I said. “It is true, I guess.”

Olga sighed. “Do you get a feeling that we were asked to attend the university just so we can fail?”

“That would be cruel, wouldn’t it?” I answered, demurring form the actual question.