The Teacher - Part IV

Salim met the teacher's angry stare with a look of both regret and longing. He began awkwardly, "If you knew why I did it you-"

"Don't bother," the teacher said, interrupting him. "I don't care why you did it. When this elevator opens I am going home and you and going to find a new teacher."

"I don't want a new teacher."

"I don't care what you want." The teacher turned away and sniffed. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" Salim asked in a way he hoped was gentle and inoffensive.

"I'm tired and upset and I'm stuck in an elevator," the teacher said wearily, "Why shouldn't I cry."

Salim drew a breath and held out his hand, as if making an offering, "But you don't have to be upset, and it's not so bad being stuck here. Someone will come and open the doors, until then, please don't cry."

Another tear rolled down the teacher's cheek regardless of Salim's advice. Salim put his hand back in his lap, and after contemplating it for a minute, he shifted on the elevator floor so that he was facing his teacher. "Please, why are you crying? Is it because you are angry with me? Please tell me."

The teacher wiped her tears away with a corner of her scarf and Salim quickly handed her the silk handkerchief he had initially offered her. She took it without looking at him and dried her eyes, and dabbed at her nose with it.

"I am crying," she said slowly, "Because I am mad at myself. I am mad at you, and I am mad at this stupid elevator."

"There is no reason why you should me mad at yourself," Salim said with a touch of admonishment in his voice. "And you shouldn't even be mad at me, I had a good reason for what I did, and I caused you no harm. Now the elevator," Salim said, trying to dispel some of the stress in the air, " Even I am mad at the elevator."

The teacher said nothing. He scooted a little closer to her and said quietly, searching her face, "You know why I did it, don't you?" The teacher flushed and looked away from him.

"You know then." he said, licking his lips anxiously, "Will you still be angry with me?"

"Leave me alone," the teacher said weakly, "Go back to your corner and stay there until the doors open."

A mechanical clicking noise came from somewhere beneath the floor of the elevator.

"No," Salim said, scooting a little closer, his eyes glittering with excitement. "Listen. I know why you are crying. You do not have to be upset. I am not a bad man. I have an excellent career and I-"

"You have nothing I need," the teacher interrupted sternly. "Now go back to your corner."

Salim drew himself up indignantly, "Nothing you need! Do you not need a house? A life? A man who will-"

"Nothing!" she said, raising her voice suddenly. "That is enough Mr. Umari, go back to your corner and stay there!"

"You're not teaching me any more, correct?"

"Correct," the teacher said through clenched teeth, struggling to control her anger.

"So if you are not my teacher then I do not have to obey you." The teacher's eyebrows shot up in surprise and Salim smiled. "You are not the teacher anymore and I am not Mr.Umari. You are Angela and I am Salim."

"I didn't give you permission to use that name," the teacher said, her lips pressing together tightly when she ended her sentence.

"I do not need permission.," Salim said, matching her tone. "There is no student and no teacher, only man and woman. Now Angela, you must tell me. Am I not a suitable man?"

"Fine," the teacher said, turning suddenly to face Salim. "You want to know? I'll tell you." She held up her hand and began counting off her complaints on her fingers. "You're a professional liar, you drink, you smoke, you don't pray, you don't give a damn about your own religion. You're still in the dark ages Mr. Umari, as far as human spirituality goes, you're still a damn cave man. There, I said it, are you happy now?"

Salim blinked and shook his head as if trying to shake off the teacher's outburst. "But, but," he stammered, "Surely you must be joking. You are American, you know what life is about, and I can give you a good one!"

"To hell with your life," she said, and then laughed wryly at the irony, "Yes, to hell with it. I don't know if you even believe in accountability, so I'm not going to make a fool of myself by talking about heaven and hell, but I know what my life's goals are, and none of them involve any of yours, or you, or any men like you. Ok? Is that clear?"

Salim sat dumbly, staring at the floor. The elevator shivered and the lights flickered again. Suddenly, alarmingly, it dropped for a few terrifying moments and then came to a jarring halt. The doors had still not opened. Salim looked up to the ceiling in alarm and swallowed against the lump of nausea in his throat. The teacher had her eyes closed and hands grasping the brass rail above her. Salim opened his mouth and drew a shaky breath. There was a harsh grating noise and the elevator jerked suddenly up and then down again.

"Oh God..." Salim said shakily.

The teacher opened her eyes and took her hands off the brass rail. "Look," she said, her anger replaced with urgency, "Look, I need to apologize for insulting you. Don't hold it against me, please."

Salim had wrapped his arms around his middle and was rocking back and forth with his eyes closed, trembling. His breathing had become irregular.

"Oh no, don't panic!" the teacher said, standing up and taking Salim by the arm. "Stand up," she said, and she made Salim stand and bend over with his head between his knees. "Breathe gently, there. Good."

Salim closed his eyes and forced himself to inhale. The elevator doors hissed and opened half of an inch, and when Salim looked up eagerly, he could see a vertical section of gears and wires lining a wall of cement between floors. He stood up immediately and forced his fingers into the crack, and began pushing against the doors. As he grunted and strained, the teacher sat down again and held her cupped hands out in front of her face, praying.

Salim groaned through his clenched teeth and pushed the door harder. It came open another two inches, and then the entire elevator shuddered and Salim pulled his fingers out just as it began moving again. The wires showing between the open doors scrolled upwards and out of sight at a progressively faster speed, and Salim was lifted onto his toes by the force of the rapid descent. Faster and faster the elevator fell, and the lights went out. When the elevator struck the ground with a deafening crash and a shattering of glass panels and a crackling of electric wires, Salim lost consciousness.

Salim dreamt he was swimming in a tremendous pleasure garden, and in the immense blue pool, hundreds of other people were laughing and frolicking. Some of them were sitting by the pool and feeding each other fruit. One woman was laughing gently as she leaned onto another man's neck. Salim turned and reached out with his arm, and began swimming. He had taken only a few strokes when he realized that something was wrong, he could not feel his fingers in the cool water.

Salim lifted his arm from the water and stared at it in horror. His right hand was missing, not cut off, but decayed off, rotted off, and greenish-brown veins and arteries dangled lifelessly from the stump of his wrist. Salim turned to the other swimmers for help, and saw that the man swimming next to him was trailing a sightless eye through the water from a gaping socket. A woman floating beside him was missing her jaw, and her teeth and blue tongue hung straight out from the bottom of her face. Everywhere Salim turned, he saw people laughing joyfully and rotting alive. Salim put his remaining hand to his face and found that he had no nose, only a moist, oozing cavity between his eyes where it had once been. He screamed. And screamed, and screamed.

He was still screaming when he awoke on the elevator floor, and he coughed and gagged on his own blood, and then screamed again. Salim rolled over onto his side and was immediately struck with overwhelming pain. In the thin shaft of light that was shining through the crack in the elevator door, Salim watched blood drip onto the floor from the tip of his nose. He held out his hands in front of him and nearly screamed at the sight: his right hand was crushed, the skin and muscle and bone all mangled together in an oozing, shockingly painful mess. Salim shuddered as a wave of pain washed over him again. When the wave subsided, Salim turned over onto his elbows and knees and crawled forward.

He found her, still sitting cross-legged, her scarf still wrapped neatly around her head, though shards of glass and debris were scattered all over it and nestled in the folds that lie over her chest. In his confused state, Salim thought she might be sleeping with her chin resting on her chest. He tried to say her name, but he couldn't hear himself mouth the words. He couldn't reach out and shake her, so he crouched before her, bleeding and shuddering, until the shaft of light in the elevator widened and several silhouettes entered through it.

In the days and nights that followed, Salim was seldom conscious, and his sleep was disturbed with the same frightening dreams of the pleasure garden. Between dreams he had vague ideas of doctors and nurses and needles, and of a relentless cycle of pain, and then numbness, and then pain again, followed by numbness.

Two and a half weeks after the elevator had come crashing down from Salim's private office to the company headquarters on the 31st floor, Salim regained consciousness, and Robert arrived not half an hour later.

He laid his hand uneasily on the rail of Salim's bed. "How do you feel old chap?" Robert asked softly.

"I don't know," Salim said, his throat raw from the tube that had been pulled out only a few minutes ago. "My hand, it hurts..."

Robert averted his eyes and self-consciously pulled his own hand back into his lap. "You haven't got it anymore Salim, they had to take it off..."

Salim raised his arm unsteadily and stared desperately at the bandaged stump. That's right, his hand had hurt so much. He remembered seeing the bloody pulp above his wrist, and then getting onto his elbows and knees and crawling towards...

"My teacher!" Salim croaked, starting from his pillow, his voice grating harshly in his throat as he groaned and tried to lift himself with his remaining hand.

Robert leapt to his feet and pushed the button that called the nurse and tried to subdue Salim at the same time. "Calm down, calm down! You must rest Salim, the doctors say you're barely alive as it is now. Stop thrashing about or you'll undo everything!"

Salim dropped back onto his pillow, exhausted from his brief struggle. "You must..." he said breathlessly, "...you must tell me...please, how is she..."

A nurse came in holding a wrapped syringe and a small glass vial. She opened the syringe and then stabbed its tip through the top of the vial, drawing out its contents.

"You must promise not to get all worked up when I tell you Salim, or I won't tell you at all."

Salim did his best to nod earnestly, though it sent bursts of pain through his skull.

"Alright then," Robert said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He drew a breath and held it for a second. Then he released it, saying, "I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you. She didn't survive."

Robert turned his head and continued talking as he stared into the space above the window. "I can't remember the technical word for it, something about the brain being struck from the impact, the doctors said she never felt a thing. I'm so sorry Salim."

Hot tears welled up in Salim's eyes and escaped, burning paths from the corners of his eyes to the pillow beneath his head. The nurse slipped in next to all the tubes and wires connected to him, and then emptied the injection into the canula of his IV.

Salim's mouth lay opened in abject misery. Tears flowed freely from his blood-shot eyes, even as the sedative spread through his body and his eyelids grew heavier. Robert stayed watching him until the fingers on his remaining hand stopped twitching and his breathing grew less harried. When he thought he was finally asleep, Robert leaned carefully over Salim, and then watched in surprise as a large tear welled up in the corner of his closed eye and ran down his face.

"Poor chap," Robert murmured as he walked out the door, "Crying in his sleep."