Victor shuffled in his desk chair, feeling alone in this room of overly hormonal freshman. He tried to focus on the notes he was transcribing, though it seemed pointless to take any care to the next chapters when he hardly comprehended the material that was now being taken for granted. That was the thing about mathematics, it all built upon each other, and when one stepping stone was fractured the entire building threatened to fall. Right now Victor was collecting dust into a mold, wishing it would hold like his classmate's newly formed blocks of cement. He was going to have to stand on it eventually, eh was going to have to balance...Victor was as hopeless as an architect as he was a mathematician. The notebook he was scribbling in hardly compared to the failed test he kept in his bag, the one he planned on challenging, or at least questioning, the moment the bell rung for their release.
The only reason Victor agreed to attempt a college degree in engineering was because of his love for the things so hardly known they may as well be the best kept secrets of the intellectually superior. Secrets of how things worked, how they moved, how the numbers written in a basic line had the potential to solve the key mysteries of the universe itself. They were secrets and facts that negated how a person lives, how they worked, how the earth moved underneath them...and yet they were facts that were so difficult to dredge, so difficult to process, that they may as well be unknowns for anyone too lazy to study them. Victor didn't care much for mathematics, nor for engineering, nor for any field of science that was beyond his immediate grasp. And yet he yearned to know the impossible, even if that could not be found at the end of his degree. Even if some small detail of life was found in a boring lecture, or a question asked by someone who could see past the process and into the very concept of the mathematical equations being chalked onto the board with a shaking, aging hand. Victor liked the mystery. He liked the game.
But today was not a game, nor would any other day following his most recent failure. He had come to university for the thrill of learning, and he was now dangerously positioned to lose all the rest of the details he had come to love. Being on the brink of academic disgrace meant potentially losing his place as a student entirely. Being kicked from campus, with his initial investment lost, being forced to evacuate the dorm room that had now become a second home, being forced to say goodbye to Reginald Musgrave, the only friend he could ever wish to keep. He couldn't lose now, not to this school, not to this class, not to that scroungy professor who seemed like he had as much trouble with putting on his shoes as Victor did with the majority of his homework questions.
Professor Sherlock Holmes had been many things in his many years, that much was clear from the two sticks he held in his hands. One was a pointer stick, worn on the tip from countless years of tapping on chalkboards and wooden desks alike, the entire thing coated in the same layer of white chalk as now covered his hands, wrists, shirt cuffs, and chin. The other was a walking stick, bronze tipped and ornate, its details having been etched into the palm of his old hand from the many hours of balancing his body weight upon it. He was not just a professor, not just a doctor of mathematics, but also a war hero. Or rather a war veteran. Being injured did not always accompany the marks of heroics, perhaps he had been hurt not by a bullet but by a falling tree, or a railway accident. He was upfront with his injuries, he did not want anyone to question them being his back on the second day of class. Being a professor who taught multiple class years, it was no shock to the old man to hear rumors circulating. Freshman liked to fill in the gaps with their own imaginations, seniors liked to swear to the whole truth if only to confuse those younger than them, and everyone in between had their own theory when faced with the question of poor Professor Holmes's history. Thus, the story was laid out very clearly at the beginning of the course. He was injured in war, in France. That was all they were allowed to know, and all they cared to question. In many people's eyes he was no different from their elderly neighbor who was missing a hand, or their grandfather who's mouth twitched from chemical exposure, or their high school bus driver who winced when a bag of chips was popped in the back seats, ducking as if a bomb had been detonated somewhere in this peaceful time. War veterans were everywhere, and their slight inconsistencies with the rest of the peaceful populations were folded into the fabric of this decade. Soon there would be little left, soon they would become a thing to ogle at, not to understand. But for now Professor Holmes was not alone, and with his trajectory in life it would seem he would not live long enough to be a side show.
He was about sixty, if Victor had to guess. He moved like he had lived more decades than the building which now hosted him, though he hair still had an intense darkness to it, with hardly more than a few strands of grey to betray him. His skin was milky pale, the complexion of a man who could not move enough to enjoy the sunshine, though he dressed in black as if forever in mourning, the tones of his clothes oftentimes drawing all remaining color from his skin in direct, perhaps intentional contrast. He would have been near to six feet if he stood properly, though his cane was at a height where he had to hunch, his back constantly bent and his neck straining to keep his eyes level with where the students sat in their desks, trying to make eye contact where it would have been easier to just stare miserably towards the floor. He carried a sort of confidence that was only properly understood when considering the amount of pity he garnered throughout his life. Undoubtedly he had used the decades since the war to work on the defenses of his psyche, having found some part of himself to be proud of, some part that was not reflected in his mangled body. He had his wits, he had his humor, he had his work. The man made something out of that, something that an onlooker could not appreciate to the same extent, and he had made that his armor. Something about that was beautiful, inspiring even, though a greater extent of it was wholly frightening. Victor did not know how to approach a man who had lived such a life as Professor Holmes, though it would appear by the time on the clock that he would have to figure out soon. Nearly three minutes remained to the class period, and at the end of it he would have to face his fears.
"I see a lot of blank stares," Professor Holmes announced once his lecture finally ended, the chalk having steadied in his hand where the pointer stick had been momentarily replaced. His voice was deep and raspy, as if he had spent the majority of his youth yelling. "Hopefully you can replace the emptiness in your eyes with words from the textbook. This is chapter five, and everything I just discussed can be found in greater clarity within the assigned reading material."
Victor grumbled, looking down towards his book where it sat unused in his bag, its spine hardly cracked for anything but penning his name into the front cover for historical clarification.
"The homework is the odd questions in the back of the book, Chapter five, odds 1-25. If you have any questions please see me at office hours," Professor Holmes insisted. "Office hours, for those of you who don't check the syllabus, begin for me in just...two minutes." He checked the clock for clarification, though finally set down his chalk. He seemed satisfied for the day, and when standing before the equations he had written so impermanently he looked as near to proud as a man could be. A man as near to his purpose as there ever was.
"Well then, if there are no further questions, class dismissed," the man decided, waving his free hand to beckon the students from their chairs. It was all some of the class needed to jump excitedly from their chairs, escaping his lecture as one might escape prison, their notes jumbled into their arms and their backpacks swinging open and freely from a single shoulder. Others left more slowly, folding their notebooks shut and tucking their pens neatly into their bags, ruffling their hair, getting their coats, stretching their aching joints out from the permanent sitting position. Victor did neither. Victor sat and stared at his paper, terrified at the numbers he hardly understood, wishing they could all jump together into some pattern that made sense in these miserable thirty seconds of freedom left to him. Professor Holmes was still hobbling towards the podium, slow to gather his belongings with the single hand available to him. It gave Victor time, but he hardly wanted time any longer. Soon he would be the last student remaining, soon his lingering would be made obvious by the man who's hand had marked his test a failure...soon his wishing for help would not just be noticed, it would be understood.
His stomach twisted miserably, his feet feeling numb with the effort of staying still. He felt as if he too was in the war, as if he was hidden in some bunker, some grove of trees, he felt as if Professor Holmes was the enemy, the one which was silently stalking through the area, still unnoticing but destined to at any moment...with tragic consequences.
"Mr. Trevor, do you have a question?" Damn. Quicker than he thought! Victor looked up, his face paling to see Professor Holmes's eyes now looking definitively into his own. The man did not seem as hostile as Victor had expected, though still the boy hesitated to feel relief. He still had to suffer the embarrassment of his question, of his request.
"I...well I don't have a specific question," Victor admitted, getting up clumsily from his desk and whisking the test from underneath his notebook. It was a horrible thing to present, and even more embarrassing to realize the test score was known to the man without Victor's having to surface it from his files. Professor Holmes had given him that grade consciously, though bringing it up in conversation felt quite akin to introducing a girlfriend to his parents. It had to be done, and it was already quite understood, though it was the very act of bringing it to the light which scared him the most. It was the admittance of knowledge, of shared knowledge, on the topic of one's passions or in this case of one's inadequacies. He was presenting his fate to the very man who had assigned it, the man who had done so in the privacy of his own home and then presented it as a mystery, as something that was not to be shared. Victor took this test, which had been handed to him face down, and dared show the score to the light.
"I was wondering if you might help me find out what I did wrong. Or rather...you might help me correct it," Victor admitted at last, swallowing his fear and feeling the collar of his turtleneck brushing up against his chin like a rough pavement. He was sweating, trembling, but he held his ground.
"If I remember correctly you did pretty much everything wrong," Professor Holmes muttered, rearranging his grip on his walking stick but staying still, merely shuffling his weight in another angle so as to ease the pressure on his injured leg.
"Which doesn't bode well for the rest of the course, Professor," Victor reminded him.
"I cannot award back any points which were not earned initially," the man warned.
"But you can help me understand why I didn't earn them. I look at this test, Professor, and I see red lines. But I see no meaning to those lines, nor do I know why they're there."
"You don't know what you don't know," Professor Holmes deciphered.
"And I should expect you'd help me solve at least one half of that mystery. After that...after that perhaps the textbook will be more helpful."
"You're retaking this course, if I'm not mistaken?" Professor Holmes wondered.
"The course, yes. But under a different professor."
"What was your trajectory the first time around, Mr. Trevor?" Professor Holmes wondered, his eyes squinting to hide the surprising brightness that still remained. His eyes were the only things that truly betrayed his youth, or rather that broke the illusion of his truly advanced years. They sparkled as if they had never once wavered, as if they had never once known pain. Colors vibrant with intelligence and clarity, the eyes one might expect to see in a painting, one which was coated in eternal resin, one which was expected to shine.
"Not quite so damning as this, Professor," Victor admitted shamefully. How embarrassing it was to do worse on a course he had already taken before. Had he really lost all promise in his mind, all brilliance he claimed to possess when he was in grade school?
"Yes well...baptism by fire as they sometimes say." The old professor sighed, though he lifted one of his hands to beckon Victor closer, to summon the test he now clutched in sweaty hands. Victor obeyed, stepping forward and offering the test willingly.
"Do you mind if I assign you more homework for the week?" Professor Holmes wondered, paging through the test with some difficulty as he held himself upright with an elbow pressed firmly into the podium at his side.
"I suppose I can handle it," Victor decided in some hesitation, knowing he would have to sacrifice his much needed sleep to accommodate the extra load. The professor chuckled, not having to be told the specifics of Victor's timely sacrifice. He knew how students worked; he knew how they made their time.
"Before Friday, write down all that you understand of your mistakes. Question by question, try to decipher. There are things to be found in our mistakes, sometimes things more valuable than the correct answer at the end of it all."
"Right," Victor agreed, pursing his lips without much confidence in even such a small task. He wasn't asking to find the right answer; he was tasked with tracing the incorrect steps of the wrong one. He was asked to understand his own methods, however vastly flawed. Could that be so hard?
"My office hours Friday are from 2-4. Come in with your questions, and by then perhaps you'll have figured out what you don't know." Professor Holmes handed the test back to Victor with a pensive look, one which dared Victor to challenge what the man was really thinking at all. The cane wobbled with the pressure of holding his body weight, and as Victor felt his fingers clamp back around his test he wondered just how deep he was going to have to dive to understand not just this class, but the man who was leading it. Even at the beginning of the semester he could see that the two were not mutually exclusive, and dedicating time to one was akin to studying the other. Perhaps he didn't have to know calculus as well as he needed to, so long as he knew Professor Holmes well enough.