Zachary
Theodora and I have been building a long line of teetering dominoes. Dominoes of silent tension made out of every moment when our paths crossed, but we said nothing.
Mr Kiehn changing the seating plan is the tiny puff of air that tips the first domino.
After that, they all topple.
speaks to me is when she drops a highlighter on the floor in English class. We both look down: it lies in the narrow space between our two chairs. Theodora looks up. Our gazes meet.
Mascara darkens her eyelashes, a rose tint lends her cheeks a slight artificial blush, and her lips have a fine layer of raspberry-pink lip gloss. She’s found ways of disguising her icy pallor, but I know it’s still there. The cold inside her is as palpable as ever, it exudes from her like the wreaths of vapour that swirl from frozen things.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Could I just—?”
She looks pointedly at the highlighter on the floor.
“Of course,” I say, moving my chair away to widen the space between us. “Please, let me.”
Before she can say anything, I swoop down and grab the highlighter. I hand it to her; she takes it with a dignified gesture. She clears her throat in a tiny noise.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
You’re welcome, and you’ll always be, I want to say. I’ll pick up every highlighter and pen you drop. I’ll hold every door open and carry all your books. Just ask me, Theodora, and I’ll do it.
Mr Ambrose asked me to look after you—let me.
Of course, I say none of those things. We don’t speak for the rest of the lesson. When the bell rings and Mr Kiehn dismisses us, she packs her things as she always does, with quick, clinical precision. She stands, hesitates, gives me a nod and leaves.
“Bye, Theodora,” I answer.
in Year 9, everything ramps up. Once we’ve all decided on our GCSE options and we all know the grades we need to make it into our desired subjects, everyone feels the pressure coming down. Our teachers, intent on giving us a “taste” of what GCSEs will be like, suddenly crank up the difficulty in every subject.
Thanks to all the hard work I’ve been putting in since Year 8, I’m as prepared as I could wish to be. Both Theodora and I seem to be keeping afloat, but the teachers just take that as a personal challenge.
In English, Mr Kiehn decides to end the year strong with a unit on the study of the Modern Prometheus. I go into the topic feeling confident since I have good knowledge of Greek mythology.
Except Mr Kiehn isn’t concerned with mythology. He’s concerned with the Prometheus myth and what he calls “the Prometheus character”. He wants us to question why the Prometheus myth resonates so much with mankind, specifically focusing on the Romantics. He pulls out Shelley’s and Byron’s poems and tells us our investigation of the topic will culminate in the reading and study of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The escalation feels drastic, but at my side, Theodora is calm in her glass coffin. She’s like a statue of ice when she sits, her back straight, reading Byron’s “Prometheus”. I steal sidelong glances at her. Prometheus’s stolen fire could not have melted the ice Theodora is made of.
I tear my attention away from her and read through the poem, making notes on words I’m going to have to look up. I reach the final line of the poem and frown.
“And making Death a Victory.”
I stare at the line, then whisper it to myself. The words “Death” and “Victory” both make sense—separately. My eyes climb back up the lines like a ladder, trying to find the beginning of the sentence.
“To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself—and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter’d recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.”
I raise my hand, and Mr Kiehn smiles at me, eyebrows raised. “You’re done reading it, Zachary?”
“I’ve just finished, sir. But I don’t understand the ending. How can death be a victory?”
Mr Kiehn gives a sphinx smile. “That’s what we’ll be seeking to find out.”
He gives us instructions to have another read of the poem and start our annotations while he writes some questions on the whiteboard. When he’s facing away from the classroom, Theodora speaks without looking up from her poem.
“If you understood the Prometheus myth, you’d understand why death is a victory.”
Her voice is quiet, barely above a murmur. I turn my head, taken by surprise.
“I do understand the Prometheus myth. I’m just not sure Byron understood it.”
“You think you have a better understanding of the Prometheus myth than one of the most influential poets of the Romantic movement?”
“Just because someone is influential doesn’t mean they were necessarily more perceptive or intelligent than everybody else. Look at our society right now. How many influencers do we have? Would you trust their opinions on the Prometheus myth?”
She looks up, finally meeting my gaze. Her eyes are cold, and there’s a slight frown on her face, perceptible because of two tiny furrows between her eyebrows.
“You’re really comparing Byron to an influencer?” she asks.
“That’s essentially what he was. We only remember him the way we do because he was the equivalent of a rock star in his day and age. Just because everybody wanted to sleep with him doesn’t make him a savant.”
“What makes you one, then?” Theodora says. “Since you know the Prometheus myth so well?”
“I never said I knew it well. I just don’t necessarily agree with the interpretation that to Prometheus, death would have been a victory.”
“That’s because you’re a fourteen-year-old boy. The idea of infinity doesn’t register in your mind, let alone the idea of an infinity spent being tortured.”
I sit back in my chair, narrowing my eyes at her. Part of me is amused by her austerity. Part of me is annoyed that she’s reduced the complexity of my existence and personhood to merely being a “fourteen-year-old boy”.
“The idea of eternity doesn’t register in my mind because of my young age and lack of experience—how does it register in yours, then?” I smile at her and tilt my eyes. “What kind of creature are you, Theodora, that you look my age but have lived so much longer than I have?”
She stiffens in her chair, but her voice is carefully measured when she speaks.
“That’s not what I’m saying. And the brain’s ability to understand certain concepts doesn’t necessarily have to do with age—that was just a simplification. What I was trying to say is that I think there is a stage of consciousness where one can conceive why death might be a victory and a stage of consciousness where one is not yet ready to see death as anything but punishment or tragedy.”
“Ah—so what you are saying is that you are more evolved than I am, and, therefore, able to understand this poem in a way I cannot?” I let out a low laugh.
Theodora’s face is set like stone, hard and unamused. The furrows between her eyebrows multiply as her frown deepens.
“Why are you laughing? I wasn’t trying to say something funny—and you certainly didn’t.”
“No, no, you’re right. I didn’t say anything funny—and neither did you. What I find funny is how it only took you a couple of years spent in Spearcrest to become a snob.”
“A snob?” Her voice goes high with surprise. “I’m not a snob at all. How am I a snob?”
“Well, for one, you’ve gone from advocating for the merits of children’s books to passing judgement on my lack of perception and maturity due to the fact I’m nothing more than an insignificant fourteen-year-old.”
“I never said you were insignificant,” she says. Her tone is almost as stiff as her posture is. Her hand curls around her pen, knuckles white.
“You’re correct about that—I’m not.” I smile at her because I mean that sincerely. I’m not insignificant—I have never been nor will ever be. Especially not to her.
Theodora can pretend I am the shadows she treads on the ground, or she can pretend I’m the wall she passes by without seeing, but she cannot pretend I’m insignificant.
She glares at me as if I’ve just doused her with cold water. “All this just to get me to say something nice about you?”
“If that’s you being nice, Theodora, I’d hate for you to insult me.”
We stare at one another. Her eyes drop to the easy smile on my mouth. She’s unsettled and annoyed, and I’m not, and that counts for something.
Especially since she just accused me of being intellectually incapable of comprehending the poem we’re studying.
“If it only took me a couple of years to become a snob, then how long is it going to take you to learn how to have an intellectual debate without resorting to petty arguments?”
“I wasn’t being petty, although I would like to point out you made the choice to begin our intellectual argument—as you call it—by asserting that I’m too young and immature to comprehend the concepts explored in the poem.”
Her lips move, the lip gloss on them catching the light like the glimmering surface of a river, forming a tiny pout.
Then, as suddenly as an unexpected ray of sunshine falling through stormy rain clouds, her face smoothes itself out. The furrows between her eyebrows vanish—gone is the frown, the tiny pout. Like erasing the scribbles on a page, her face becomes a blank mask with an insincere pencil smile forming on her lips.
“I apologise,” she says finally, “if I offended you.”
“You didn’t offend me,” I reply with an affable smile. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
She watches me for a moment. Her face is still unreadable, but I can almost see her thoughts like swirling mist glimpsed beyond the glass windows of her gaze.
“I would never try to offend you, Zachary. Unlike you, I don’t take casual conversations so personally.”
Do I take things personally? Perhaps I do. I still remember the sting of her comment that Animal Farm was a short book that day we first met. And her supposition that I’m too young to understand Byron’s “Prometheus” did sting—still does.
I’m mature and honest enough to acknowledge that, though. Whereas Theodora would never willingly admit she said those things intending to be offensive. That might make her appear as if she’s more human than she wishes to appear.
Because Theodora Dorokhova doesn’t wish to appear human. She wishes to appear like a being made of steel and marble and glass, smooth and polished and unstirred. There’s a reason for that—a reason I can’t yet understand. Nobody builds a wall unless they’ve got something to protect. Nobody wears armour unless they fear pain.
The mystery of Theodora is like a book—like a philosophical text in an ancient and cryptic language. I can look at the pages but I can’t understand what they say.
I’m in Year 9, though. I’m young, and as she so hurtfully stated, I’m not yet clever and perceptive enough to understand certain things.
The book of Theodora sits in the middle of my heart. It’s not going anywhere, and I’m very patient. I’m going to learn its language, and I’m going to decipher its code. I’m going to read every page until I know the text better than I know myself, until every word of it is inscribed on every part of me.
No matter how long it takes. No matter the obstacles Theodora sets in my way.
And I have a feeling she’ll set many.
