Educated

Dr. Kerry appeared and announced that we’d been invited to take a tour of
the chapel. We would even be allowed on the roof. There was a general
scramble as we returned our trays and followed Dr. Kerry from the hall. I
stayed near the back of the group as we made our way across the courtyard.
When I stepped inside the chapel, my breath caught in my chest. The room
—if such a space can be called a room—was voluminous, as if it could hold
the whole of the ocean. We were led through a small wooden door, then up a
narrow spiraling staircase whose stone steps seemed numberless. Finally the
staircase opened onto the roof, which was heavily slanted, an inverted V
enclosed by stone parapets. The wind was gusting, rolling clouds across the
sky; the view was spectacular, the city miniaturized, utterly dwarfed by the
chapel. I forgot myself and climbed the slope, then walked along the ridge,
letting the wind take me as I stared out at the expanse of crooked streets and
stone courtyards.
“You’re not afraid of falling,” a voice said. I turned. It was Dr. Kerry. He
had followed me, but he seemed unsteady on his feet, nearly pitching with
every rush of wind.
“We can go down,” I said. I ran down the ridge to the flat walkway near
the buttress. Again Dr. Kerry followed but his steps were strange. Rather than
walk facing forward, he rotated his body and moved sideways, like a crab.
The wind continued its attack. I offered him an arm for the last few steps, so
unsteady did he seem, and he took it.
“I meant it as an observation,” he said when we’d made it down. “Here
you stand, upright, hands in your pockets.” He gestured toward the other
students. “See how they hunch? How they cling to the wall?” He was right. A
few were venturing onto the ridge but they did so cautiously, taking the same
ungainly side steps Dr. Kerry had, tipping and swaying in the wind; everyone
else was holding tightly to the stone parapet, knees bent, backs arched, as if
unsure whether to walk or crawl.
I raised my hand and gripped the wall.
“You don’t need to do that,” he said. “It’s not a criticism.”
He paused, as if unsure he should say more. “Everyone has undergone a
change,” he said. “The other students were relaxed until we came to this
height. Now they are uncomfortable, on edge. You seem to have made the
opposite journey. This is the first time I’ve seen you at home in yourself. It’s
in the way you move: it’s as if you’ve been on this roof all your life.”