The Patron Saint of First-Years

First Place, Winner: Friends of the Library 50th Anniversary Short Story Contest
by Isobel Dalzell

The young man frowned. Leaning forward on his elbow, he tapped his pencil against the newspaper in front of him.

Eleven letters. Eleven letters, none filled in yet, clue: town in Quebec. Would anyone know the answer to this? Did everyone else have a mental list of towns in Quebec? Was he the only one who didn’t?

He sighed, and at the sound the student sitting across from him looked up from his work, his concentration momentarily broken. He was older. Maybe in his third year. Not his first anyway. What did it matter? The younger man felt suddenly ashamed. He could feel his face growing redder. Or perhaps that was just the room which was oppressively hot. Far too hot for early September. Was this late summer or early fall? It didn’t matter much. It was unseasonably hot and all one could do was sit still since every movement was a sticky reminder of the heat.

How long had the young man been sitting here? He didn’t know. It was too hot to wear a watch. What did the clock in Strachan Hall say? “Slow comes the hour. Its passing speed how great.” Had any time passed at all since he had left his bed this morning? Any time at all since he had choked down a dense and dry pancake — beneath the very clock that he now thought of as taunting him, with its claim that time passes quickly?

How much time had passed since he had left Strachan, had sat down at this table in the Junior Common Room, and had begun to work on this ridiculous crossword?

“What’s the clue?”

He looked up. It was the older student. “Pardon?”

“What’s the clue?”

“Town in Quebec. Eleven Letters.”

“Témiscouata.”

So people like this did exist, with their mental lists of towns in Quebec.

He wrote it in.

“It’s an awful clue, isn’t it? It’s so vague. You’re in first year, right?” The older student didn’t wait for an answer. “If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time with any crosswords in The Varsity. I go straight to the basement of Graham Library and do the New York Times one, in pen.” The older student laughed. “That was a joke. Don’t do that. I don’t. Well, not after the last time.”

The older student looked at his watch. He had kept his on in spite of the heat. “Twelve. Time for lunch.”

And he walked out of the room.

Or he would have, but he stopped and turned around as he reached the doorway. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“David.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you, David.” And then he was gone.

*

David was not a naturally confident person. That was why he knew no one in his classes, why he ate his meals alone, and why his roommate didn’t even know his name. And that, in turn, was probably why no one had used David’s name in over a week.

No one except this one student.

And that was probably why David was now following him into Strachan. And before he quite knew that he was doing it, he arrived at the student’s table.

The student looked up. Perhaps he had sensed that someone was in front of him, perhaps he just found the lunch on the plate before him uninspiring. But he looked up, and he saw David.

David felt his face growing red, perhaps from the heat, perhaps from embarrassment. In any case, he extended his hand and said, “I forgot to ask for your name.”

This felt awkward because it was awkward, but the student either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“My name is Jason,” he said, and he leaned forward across the table to shake David’s hand.

That was the first meeting.

*

They met again a few days later. In David’s hallway. Jason helped him with his key.

“A lot of the locks here are finicky. You have to pull the door towards yourself, then turn the key.”

“Do you live on this floor?” David asked by way of making small talk.

“No.” Then thinking that that sounded a bit odd, Jason added, “My friend does. Here, the door’s open now.”

“Thanks.”

That was the second meeting.

*

And so it went on. They met. They parted. Again and again. David made some friends. It was September, and then it was October.

*

They were in the JCR. A few weeks had passed since their first meeting, and now, just as then, they were alone. If the JCR was stifling this time, it was because the heat was on, and the windows were closed. It was dark outside already, even though it was not so very late, but you could still see the trees moving in the wind, and if you got up, walked over to the window and looked down, you could see dry leaves swirling in the breeze on the walkways.

David was sitting at the table, working on an application. Jason was sitting on a couch, doing his readings. They hadn’t intended to meet. They never did; it just happened that way.

“This is awful,” David said.

Jason turned to look at him. He had sunk low in his seat so that his head had been just barely visible above the back of the leather couch, and he had to lift himself up from this lazy position to see David properly.

“What’s awful?” he asked.

“This application.”

“What’s it for?”

“A scholarship.”

“Is the application awful or is what you’re writing awful?”

“Both.”

The two were silent for a moment and then David continued: “When I write about myself, I make myself sound insufferable.”

“Everyone does,” said Jason, and he rose slowly from the couch and walked over to the table.

And he helped him. As he always did.

*

It was Thanksgiving. And it rained. For the people who hadn’t gone home some decent spread had been organized, and students poured out of their residence houses and into Strachan Hall guided more by the light from the stained-glass windows than anything else. The food was dry, and everyone was wet, but everyone felt a bit festive too, so no one mentioned it.

After dinner David and his friends continued the celebration. One of them had bought a bottle of champagne, which was really just sparkling wine, but everyone was in too good a humour to contradict him, and so their humour was even more improved by the drinking of it. Everyone felt warm and everyone was happy.

“How’s your key these days David?”

“It’s fine; as long as I use all my strength to pull the door towards me before turning it.”

“And how’d you figure that out?”

“Some third year showed me. Have you met Jason?”

“I have.”

David hadn’t expected to hear that. “When did you meet him?”

“He showed me where to find my mailbox.”

“You know,” someone else began, “he helped me carry some things up to my room once.”

“What does he study?” another person asked.

“I don’t know,” said David.

“Philosophy, I think,” someone said.

“No,” someone else now, “Isn’t he a Div. student?”

“He can’t be; he’s doing his undergrad.”

Someone suggested Political Science, another Pre-Med.

No one seemed to know.

“He’s on your floor though, isn’t he, David?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“He’s not,” another person said. “He’s in Angel’s Roost, or Sub-Heaven. Something like that. He told me once that from his room he can hear the organ in the chapel.”

Then the person who had brought the wine and who had drunk more of it than anyone else, lifted his glass, “A toast! To St. Jason! The Patron Saint of First-Years! Who always comes down from Heaven when one of us needs a hand!” And everyone laughed.

The laughter died down, and in the silence everyone grew a touch sombre.

“You know,” someone said, “He really is rather nice.”

*

David wandered into the quad. All that was left of the rain was a slight humidity, which made the night seem close and strangely warm. It reminded him of the first time he had met Jason, when the air of JCR had had a sticky kind of heat to it.

The effect of food and drink was wearing off, and he no longer felt happy, only lethargic and vaguely ashamed. The conversation about Jason had shocked him slightly. He knew so little about him, and apparently no one else knew anything either. And they had made such a joke out of what he had done for them.

David looked around the dark and empty quad. He was leaning in a distracted way against a damp tree. There were still lights on in some of the rooms. A couple in the direction of Sub-Heaven. Maybe one was Jason’s, and if he could push himself off the tree and stand on his own, then maybe he’d pay him a visit.

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