Love in Yale(Saket) “Mr. Smith” The loud voice reverberated across the hall.

“Yessir” A feeble voice spoke from the back of the hall. A mild man with sharp features and impoverished, unkempt look stood up. He was a young man in his twenties, in Khaki jackets which seemed to overwhelm his meager presence. His eyes were large with brightness in them which was almost incongruous to the rest of his being. He was standing in his place, with a shifty posture. One could easily make out that he would rather not be there at the moment.

“I understand, you are pursuing this course on government scholarship?”

“That’s right, Sir.”

“Doesn’t it hurt you to think that governmental benevolence is getting wasted on you? That maybe, some better candidate could have benefitted instead had you decided not to pursue this course in creative arts, in which evidently you have no interest?” The man from the podium spoke.

Professor O`Really was angry today. He was usually angry. He was a good artist and here he was training sculpturing artistes. For him art meant something surreal, a lofty dream not to be dirtied with the minds which are too poor to be largely concerned with money. That he himself had subjugated his own pursuance of art to pedagogy in return of a definitive remuneration annoyed him even further. He hated most of the world with equal vigor. He hated men like Edward Smith even more because he could not understand them. He did not like men he could not understand. There was no neatness of character in men like Mr. Smith. How on earth could they imagine they can become an artist? And then his eyes - those eyes did not seem to belong to that body of his. His body was so mild and dull and those eyes, they would always shine in that unshaven face of his. They looked like two small volcanos in the middle of gray, sunk in cheeks, separated by a sharp nose. He had a small mouth, which rarely smiled.

“Look at this.” He put up the clay artwork for the class to see.” What is this that you have made, Mr. Smith? Can you help people of modest intellect like us understand what is the meaning of this thing that you have made out of clay?” He swung the sword of sarcasm hard and waited for his victim to break and shatter.

“Sir, it is a maze of emotions from which love is erupting.”

Prof. Schully shook his head in dismissal and thought to himself, 'This man must be mad. He held so much promise when he entered the second year. He is finished now.'

Smith looked around to the sea of faces which sat around him, searching for one pair of eyes which could tell him they understood him. He was in a strange state of mind. He knew that his humiliation was complete. He did not mind it much. All that he wanted was for the episode to be over soon. He had a feeling that he was somewhere on the edge of an abyss. He knew another step into inevitable ruin sat in front of him. It did not matter to him.

He saw Denise sitting looking at him from four rows in the front with a look of incredulity. Her kind eyes looked at him from behind the spectacles. He held to her glance with a plea of request. He searched through her face to look at a thin shade of understanding. His face looked like an amalgamation of emotions, with sympathy, sadness and anger vying for the space. It amused him. He wanted to get out of the class. The bell rang marking the end of the period and a load lifted off the entire class.

“Mr. Smith, if you continue to ignore the assignments being given to you, I am afraid, it is very highly unlikely that you should be able to complete the course. I hope, you do understand how untenable your position here is becoming. Hope you realize what a prestige it is to be at 36 Edgewood. It is not an effort of one time. You have to continue working to continue deserving to be one among the ten select students here," Professor Scully concluded.

He picked up his folder and walked out of the class. Smith also walked out of his class. He walked with hurried steps. Denise rushed after him.

“Edward, Eddie, wait a minute.” She ran towards Edward.

Denise struggled against the slight wind which half-heartedly opposed her rush.
Edward turned back under the tree and stood undecided. He seemed to have shrunk.

'He was always on the lighter side, today he looked thinner than usual' thought Denise as she struggled with her breathing.
She smiled. Edward Smith also smiled uneasily. He suddenly felt ashamed of his project, his being there. He looked at Denise again and offered a weak smile as an answer to the question which was yet to be asked. Denise folded her arms around her shoulders and rubbed some warmth on to her body. Weather was a little cold. She evaluated for a while in her mind if she ought to step in. They both waited.

“Eddie, what was that back there? What rubbish did you place there as your seminal work? Who are you trying to fool?”

“What? This is what I had made, Denise. I am sorry. I am a man of mediocre talent.” His eyes begged to Denise, pleading her to accept what they both knew was a lie.

“You are lying, Eddie. You are lying to me.” She stressed on the gravity of his crime, with the victim of the crime pronounced with heavy underlines further aggravating the crime.

It hurt Smith. He eyes strayed around. He looked towards Chapel Street and then towards the glass pane of Yale Center for British Art. The glorious, grand symmetry stood in front of his eyes. He loved the certitude which the structure always presented. The bold confident lines almost rose like a definite argument of a strong mind. It was like an argument which was so confident of its trueness that it did not need any beauty to justify it. He was suddenly more aware of his own doubt ridden existence, where his living another day was a matter of an internal debate to him. He felt so inadequate. He wanted to go, hide, and disappear. Denise could see that. She felt sorry for her friend. She knew the brilliant mind which worked behind that weak stutter. She felt sorry about cornering him like that. But she knew what Eddie put there in the class wasn’t what he was working on. She also understood his need to move from that place, his need to run.

“How about Atticus?” She asked.

The question floated in the air, seeking someone to hold it. Eventually, it withered and fell down on the street between them like a dry, discarded autumn leaf. Denise reached out and picked it up.

“Come, Eddie, let’s go to Atticus.” This was not a question anymore. Denise knew Eddie loved that place with brightness, books and coffee. She also knew that he was of meagre means. He was there on a scholarship. He was always so guilt-ridden even to feed himself. It was as if he did not want to live. She sometime was surprised as to what possibly could be keeping this man alive, who almost considered something as basic as food and sleep as moral excess. She knew he would not be having money. She offered an answer.

“My treat, Eddie. Let’s go to Atticus.” She eliminated all the possibilities of negation. She knew Eddie loved it there in Atticus. “You look famished. You can have black bean soup, while I have coffee. And I will pay.”

They walked towards the Atticus. The day was settling down to the rest and streets were filled with leaves of Elm Trees, silently whispering to those who would care to listen.

They reached Atticus and sat down near the window. Edward sipped on his Soup with a very visible urgency. Denise looked at him. He was her closest friend in the campus. He was never open and intimate but his innocence more than made up for it. She could see he was hungry. He never had much money. She knew his mother was somewhere in Texas, teaching primary students in some school, and he had no father. He never spoke of his family, his home back there, but whenever he did, it was with deep affection. Denise kept looking at him. There is something truly saddening in watching a starving man eat. What makes it truly excruciating is the inherent dignity of the man which doesn’t allow him to admit to his inability to feed himself. Denise felt a lump rising to her throat.

“When was the last that you ate, Eddie?” She cleared her throat and asked.
Edward suddenly paused and looked up with a feeling of immense pain floating in her eyes. He looked away with uncertain eyes. He did not know where to look. He looked back at her. He considered the question and also considered if he needed to answer. He also tried to remember when the last that he ate was. He couldn’t remember well.

“It…it must’ve been a couple of days.” He replied with a nervous smile.

“Why, Eddie? What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?”

“I…” He paused thinking for an acceptable explanation "…I forgot.”

“You have been working on something. Why did you not bring it to the class today? Instead of your real work, you bring in a sloppy pretense of the work today to the class? Why, Eddie, what was it that you are working on? What are you saving it for?”

He looked at her face. There are some faces which hold such sincere trust in you that they bring out the inherent honesty of any true heart. Denise had such a face. Short hairs, lovely oval face and bright blue eyes, almost like a child who is yet to see any ugliness in this world - Denise waited for him to answer. He looked out and looked at the bluish darkness of the sky through which a single piece of orange spread like a dagger that ran into the heart of the night.

He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. Then he began speaking in mild whisper. The air of the night hung around them in conspiratorial anticipation.

“Denise, can you come with me to the studio? I have been working on something the last few days. I want you to see that. I have made Helen.”

“Helen?”

“Yup.” His head moved up and down in the affirmative as he smiled at the look of incredulity as he whispered in deeper tones,” She is the Helen of Troy.”

“Helen of Troy?”

“Yes, Denise. She is so beautiful and kind and majestic. She brings the only hope for humanity today. You look at the world around. We stumble from one day to another, like a drunk does. We laugh at the drunkard lying in the gutter that we find after a night of celebration. And look at the kind of gutter we are in and we do not even have happy memories of last night’s festivity to console us. Helen is the spirit of hope. She will make us believe in what we can become. She will make us do things for the love of doing them, not to the larger designs to which our each act falls prey to. Ah...our ever-scheming mind, which explains everything and understands nothing. We paint because it is the project; we sculpt and want to know how much it will fetch. It is sad, Denise. We, the artists, should be the harbinger of hope for people who aren’t, for some cruel reason of nature, bestowed with creative spirits, and look at what we have become. We are the biggest soul sellers. The world looks at us for hope and we let that privilege fritter away. Helen will inspire us to rise, to paint a greater picture, to sing, to create. She will give a reason to life and meaning to death.”

Denise looked at him in silence. She was spooked by the sudden rhetoric. She tried to hold back to her balance.

“Sure, she will, Eddie. You finish the statue that you are making and then present it as your project.”
Eddie looked up with eyes full of sorrow and betrayal.

“Denise, She is not a statue. She is hope. I have made her and…” He groped for the words like a blind man for something to hold on to and continued, ”I love her, Denise.”

His words rose high towards the moon as Denise watched his face helplessly. He continued speaking in whispers.

“I can bring her to life, Denise. I, and only I stand between her and life.“
“What do you mean?” Denise reached out and held his arm on the table.
“You know, I finished it the day before. I worked in clay the whole day and night before that. I could not eat, could not sleep. The exquisite mouth, that majestic yet kind face, which makes you want to kneel down and surrender everything you have, your pride, your vanity - everything but your ego.”

“Why not ego?”

“She is Helen of Troy, she wants a man with spine. She is the fierce and feisty spirit of humanity. You remember, she has that face which once launched a thousand ships. She is the warrior princess, for men who do not yield, do not surrender.”

“It is already finished? The statue, that is.”

“Yes, come with me to the studio. I will show you.”

He held Denise by the arm and they rushed back to the school, to the studio. He switched on the light and removed the cover from the statue at the corner. Denise held her breathing back in awe as if merely her act of breathing might break the spell. The full height statue stood in its completeness in a corner. She kept on looking at it mesmerized. Such finesse, those eyes which almost seemed to look at her, those lips, so beautiful that they may not deem it worthy to speak to any lesser mortal, if they could speak. Denise looked at Edward who stood in a corner. She looked at his eyes and saw an infinite pain floating in them. Denise tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, ”This is magnificent, Eddie. You have made a great beauty. What saddens you?”

“I..love her, Denise.”

A plea of helplessness rose out of those words with an infinite pain as he continued to speak as if in dream.

“She is all that I have today, she is what I have been preparing for all my life. We do so many things to preserve our lives. But Denise, once we are gone, the world forgets us in such a hurry. We are not even a blemish, a speck of dust on the larger portrait of endless dimension. It is almost as if we never were there. It is only in love, we transcend our physical being. We aren’t mere bodies. We are the thoughts and ideas that we represent. Our life is nothing but a search of an idea which we could attach our meaning of life to. That idea is what we get to be remembered by. Even remembrance is a moot point. That idea lives on, after us, through those we love. Helen is that love, that idea for me.”

He stepped closer to Denise. The night had darkened outside.

“Denise, I can bring her to life. I went to sleep in the studio day before yesterday. I saw a dream. I can breathe my life into her.“

Denise looked at Edward in silence. She could not bring herself to believe in what she was hearing, in this age and time, from a Yale student, one in the class of select eleven. She blamed it on his hunger and the sleep deprivation he had subjected himself to. She was worried for him.

“Eddie, you go to your place and sleep. We will speak tomorrow. I will see you tomorrow in school.”

“I cannot go anywhere, Denise. I will stay here. Tonight is the night when I can breathe her to life with a kiss. You go ahead. I might not be able to see you again tomorrow. I am so much in love, I hope someone will love you so someday.“

He held her with the embrace of a dying man. She kissed him on the forehead.

'Some nights are very heavy on the human soul. Once we live through them we can look back at them and laugh at our silliness. Edward should be well tomorrow, after what I can only call a spell of creative insanity which in his physical infirmity he is considering as love,' she walked out of the studio thinking.

She came out of the School building and walked on Chapel Street under the moon before hailing a cab. She felt some music played through the moonlight which spread itself on the grand and huge buildings in all its beauty.

She woke up to a glorious sunny day. The Sun had a rare splendor today as Denise got dressed and stepped out of the Cab in front of the School. There was a crowd at the gate. Her heart beat hard as she ran towards the building. She saw a stretcher coming out of the building and she could notice a faint body lying on it. She rushed to the front of the crowd and could see the unshaven face in a familiar grimace, dead in a smile of deep satisfaction. Tears welled in her eyes as she could barely hold herself on her two feet. She stepped backwards and turned with a lump in her throat making her breathing difficult. She looked towards Chapel street and saw a tall, beautiful girl walking towards a bus which stood there. The girl suddenly paused and looked back at her. She was a girl of beautiful face, with almost-Greek features, a majestic neck. Denise could remember she had seen that girl before. She felt weak in her knees and collapsed on the ground in the middle of rustling leaves fallen from the Elm trees.

“It was love” She spoke to the whispering winds which hustled through the tree-leaves, floating on the ground. She sat there in a silent remorse and soaked in the suddenly discovered possibility of love which she never could believe in - never, until this day. The day danced to the solemn beat of love as shadows of the trees grew longer over the magnificent buildings and a poignant music of two lovers played in the silence of the winds.

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