The Seducer: A Gone From Daylight Inspired Story - 1. William Harker's Journal: Entry 1

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Monday, August 28, 1989

5:30 AM, it is pretty early to be up, but I’d been nervous overnight. I’d never been away from home living on my own before and today is the first day of classes for me at Stanford. I hadn’t slept much either because my roomie, Mike, tends to snore a little. I’m an only child so sharing a room with someone else is kind of weird for me.

I met him Saturday as I was getting settled into my dorm. My mom had driven me down here all the way from Newport, Oregon to help me move in. She even took a whole day off work to do it! She knew it would be hard for me doing it by myself since, except for some camping trips and sleep-overs, I’d never been away from home all on my own before. It’s an exciting prospect, but kind of scary too! When she pulled away I felt so lonely, but Mike has helped with that a lot.

Mike’s been cool. He’s a Sophomore so he knows the lay of the land better than I do. He showed me where the dining area is where I can get food and stuff. He also showed me where to sign up for things and check on my classes. He’s been a real pal and I think he was put with me on purpose because he knew what to do.

Weird, but when he looked over my classes, after I got my assignments, he was surprised that I had one night class. He said usually most Freshmen get day classes to ease into the transition of student life on Campus. Night classes were mostly reserved for upper-classmen and especially Grad students.

I selected that class and time because I’d already gotten my General Education History credits out of the way with the Advanced Placement History units I’d earned when I graduated High School. I’ve always liked history and so I took both American and World History AP courses when in High School. My writing abilities were a key to my getting a scholarship to Stanford in the first place. In both AP tests I placed highest in my graduating class and so Stanford selected me as a candidate and even directed me to a scholarship fund especially designed for History students should I be selected which, of course, I was! The fund has a weird name, though: The Draco Fund for Historical Study and International Policy Development. I was so excited when I actually won this particular scholarship because it was considered one of the most prestigious and generous scholarships Stanford could connect with me!

My mom was skeptical of my taking on History as a course of study, particularly because the scholarship stipulated that I had to commit to a full path of study right up to a Masters Degree. She was afraid I’d get stuck in a major that had no ‘future’ other than teaching. She preferred I try out for Pre-Law so that I could get into Stanford Law. But, when the Draco Fund called the house and conferred with us directly, they promised that this major could open the possibility for further funding for a PhD if I so chose to pursue one! They also cited sources that, with the combination of a second degree in International Policy Analysis and Development, that I would be better primed to fill much needed vacancies in the UN, State Department, Intelligence, or at any number of policy think tanks including the Draco Institute who underwrites the scholarship. ‘The Draco Institute is an organization interested in the governmental, social, and economic reform of Europe’s most fertile prospect for future economic expansion, Eastern Europe,’ she told us.

With that, my mom accepted the idea with open arms! She was actually excited for me that I had attracted the attention of such an ‘eminent organization.’ Apparently, she’d done some research on the Draco Institute and found that it was, indeed, legit and that they’d done some amazing things in the background in fostering better economic and political relations between West Germany and the Warsaw Pact nations! Their work has made Yugoslavia one of the most open of the Communist countries to Western investment, for instance. Way cool stuff if you know anything about how this Cold War is going and how weird things have gotten since Chernobyl, Glasnost, and Perestroika happened in the USSR!

So, in any case, we accepted their offer and off I went!

It’s interesting that it would be the Draco Institute that would show any interest in me. I’m, sort of, obsessed with all things Eastern European and Soviet related. Maybe it’s the mystique of such a forbidden part of the world where people live so much differently than we do and, in many ways, much worse than we do here in the U.S. Ever since I was pretty young I’d grown up with a background fear of Nuclear War. It’s something few of us talk about even when it's on the news and when they make movies about it. It’s like something we all know can happen, but rather not think about. We make fantasy movies like Terminator about it, I think, in a way to make it not seem like such a real possibility. I mean, really now! How can something like a Macintosh computer hook into a bunch of other computers and talk to one another to the point where they can think for themselves, nuke the world, and make killer robots to finish off the rest of us? A world wide network just isn’t possible. A modem here and there I can see, but a whole world wide interconnected network of computers? Why would such a thing even be useful except to computer nerds and academics?

But, I guess, that background fear of nuclear armageddon made me curious about our ‘enemies’ on the other side of the Iron Curtain. So, I found myself reading all kinds of National Geographics, Newsweeks, US News and Report articles, and books about the rise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to learn more about them. While most kids were reading comics, I was reading these things. No wonder the other kids thought I was such a nerd!

It was with the encouragement of one of the Draco Institute’s academic councilors that I chose a rather advanced History class for my freshman year. An upper-division introductory class that was about Eastern European History! The councilor assured me that the dean of the History department approved of this since he would be the one teaching the course himself!

That section was only available in a 9 PM slot, so, I had to go with it. It will be interesting. I’ve never had a night class before. My first session for this class is tonight actually! I’m quite looking forward to it which is something I can’t say for my other classes today. They are General Education for an English 100 class I have to do and then an analytical math class. I’m not looking forward to the math class, but at least I’ll have the class tonight to look forward to.

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11:00 PM, Wow! This makes for a long day!

I’m glad I have most of the afternoon and evening before my last class to get my reading and assignments done for my first two classes of the day. This is because this last History class is going to be quite a challenge!

It is a lot different than the kind of classes I had in High School and, so far from my brief and recent experience with my other two classes so far, it is different from GenEd too!

First off, no books? I’ve never heard of a History class without a text book! Instead, our Professor handed out bound printouts he made especially for us with our names and everything! I was wondering why I wasn’t assigned any books to get at the book store for his class! My English one has five books to use just for the first three weeks of the class! My math has one textbook with incredibly hard math problems, but I was expecting that.

So, first of all, our Professor of Eastern European History: he’s a very interesting character. He’s definitely weird though! I’ve never had a teacher or instructor quite like this before! He really makes you realize you’re at a university now and not High School.

Physical description: he’s quite tall. I should think he’s 6’3” and that’s, probably, without the fashionable dress boots he wears! He, pretty much, towers over everyone in the class especially when we take our deskless seats and couches! That’s right! The classroom is more like a living room or a lounge than a class room!

So, back to the Professor. Today, he wore a full suit that’s a brownish color with a blood red tie and black dress shirt. When I first saw his face I was a little worried. He seemed to keep a rather mean expression most the time. Mike calls it a ‘resting bitch face’ which I find funny as well as appropriate. I’d like to tell you what color his eyes were, but they were a little hard to see behind the reddish tinted sunglasses he wore all throughout the class. His hair was jet black with an expensive haircut that must be gelled within an inch of its life. It had a lustrous sheen that made me jealous for my own shaggy mop of dark blonde hair that I never seem to be able to do anything with.

Another interesting detail about him was the fact that he seemed extraordinarily pale like he hadn’t seen the sun in a while. His paleness was only slightly strange to me because it was largely covered with a well trimmed short black mustache and beard that covered a lot of his face and hid his lips that seemed to have a rather cruel twist in them. I think that is the thing about why he seemed so intimidating at first. The biggest part of his ‘resting bitch face’ seemed to come from the cruel frown on his thin lips. Something inside me felt bad for him. It was the kind of look I’d see on a person’s face when they are in pain. I wondered if he might have something wrong with him that kept him having that look. If it was something wrong then it wasn’t anything physical that I could determine. He walked with perfect poise and posture like, maybe, what you’d see when watching Prince Charles or Lady Di walking around. He seemed to have a kind of . . . nobility, I guess is a fancy word I can use to describe it. So, perhaps, the pain is psychological in some way? I swear sometimes I can drive even myself crazy with how into other people’s feelings I can get! I just don’t like to see people hurting, I guess.

His expression changed, however, after he put down all the printouts he’d made for us and turned to address the class. He forced a practiced smile, clapped his hands, and in a deep pleasant voice said, “Good Evening, Class!” What was funny about the way he said it was that it was obvious he had an accent. It wasn’t terribly thick, but I found it cool. I couldn’t quite place what kind of accent it was, but it did sound, appropriately Eastern European! I thought to myself that this professor should then know what he is talking about if that is where he actually comes from! The ‘good evening’ came out more like a soft and deep: “Guud Eevennigk, Clahss.” I found I’d probably enjoy this class just to hear the Professor talk!

It didn’t sound Russian and it didn’t sound like Bela Lugosi either. It was just a very soft twist that I found, I guess, charming. I can use that to describe it, I suppose. It sounds better than just ‘cool.’

“My name is Dr. Vlad Valahi, but you may call me Dr. ‘V’ if you prefer.” I loved how ‘Dr. V’ said ‘Fwee’ instead of ‘Vee.’ I also loved that he smiled a bit when he said it which put my mind at ease that he wasn’t going to be a humorless asshole. I think he was amused by the reactions he was getting from the class. Interestingly, though I couldn’t tell for sure from behind his sunglasses, I felt like he kept looking over at me a lot and it was after that when he smiled. Perhaps I amuse him somehow?

“In my class I will insist that you refrain from reading any materials other than the ones that I provide, at least here in the beginning. You will find that the histories of Eastern Europe and of the Balkan countries, in particular, to be fairly complex as compared to those of Western Europe. I have taken great pains to distill the timelines so that things can be made more comprehensible.” He warned. In light of that I’m transcribing this word for word because I recorded his lecture on a 90 minute tape. I figured that with a class as complicated as this would be that I’d want to do that so I could go back over things he’d say in lecture.

He started the class, basically, by starting to tell a story like a storyteller might. He sat in a wing chair opposite us, lit a pipe that had sweet smelling smoke, and began with, almost, a ‘Once Upon A Time’ sort of beginning. I was so mesmerized by his voice and the tale that I forgot to take notes, another reason I’ll be recording his lectures. He tells the history like someone who might have seen some of it first hand! Never have I had a history teacher like this one!

I have a lot of reading to do and he did assign us a paper, already, that is due by the next class regarding what we already knew about the history of Rome. He told us that would be very important in discussing Romania in particular. He wanted us to do this from memory which will be kind of hard, but I think I can put together a sort of timeline of events since I remember quite a bit of Roman history from the World History class I had in High School.

I’m excited! I can’t wait for the next class! Dr. ‘Fwee’ is so cool! I hope I have a chance to talk to him alone sometime! He must be fascinating to talk to one on one!