At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (3 page)

Von Igelfeld moved to the window and peered out over the Court. A corpulent man with slicked-down dark hair, parted in the middle, was walking slowly along a path.

‘That is Dr Hall?’ he asked.

‘The very same,’ said the Porter. ‘He’s a mathematician, and I believe that he is a very famous one. Cambridge is well-known for its mathematicians. Professor Hawking, for example, who wrote that book, you know the one that everybody says they’ve read but haven’t, he’s a Fellow of that College over there, with the spire. You can just see it. There’s him and there are plenty more like him.’

Von Igelfeld stared out of the window. He knew of
A Brief
History of Time
, although he had certainly not read it. It had brought great fame to its author, there was no doubt about that, but did it really deserve it?
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
was probably of equal importance, but very few people had read it; that is, very few people outside the circles of Romance philology and there were only about . . . He thought for a moment. There were only about two hundred people throughout the world who were interested in Romance philology, and that meant that
Portuguese
Irregular Verbs
was known to no more than that. His reflection went further: one could place all the readers of
Portuguese Irregular
Verbs
in the Court below and still only a small part of it would be occupied. Whereas if one were to try to assemble in one place all the purchasers of Professor Hawking’s book it would be like those great crowds in Mecca or on the banks of the Ganges during a religious festival. This was unquestionably unjust, and merely demonstrated, in his view, that the modern world was seriously lacking in important respects.

‘I’m afraid these rooms lack a bathroom,’ said the Porter, moving away from the window. ‘That’s the problem with these old buildings. They were built in the days before modern plumbing and it has been very difficult, indeed impossible, to make the necessary changes.’

Von Igelfeld was aghast. ‘But if there is no bathroom, where am I to wash in the morning?’

‘Oh, there is a bathroom,’ said the Porter quickly. ‘There’s a shared bathroom on the landing. You share with Professor Waterfield. His rooms are on the other side of the landing from yours. There’s a bathroom in the middle for both of you to use.’

Von Igelfeld frowned. ‘But what if Professor Waterfield is in the bathroom when I need to use it? What then?’

‘Well,’ said the Porter, ‘that can happen. I suppose you’ll have to wait until he’s finished. Then you can use it when he goes out. That’s the way these things are normally done . . . ’ adding, almost under his breath, ‘in this country at least.’

Von Igelfeld pursed his lips. He was not accustomed to discussing such matters with porters. In Germany the whole issue of bathrooms would be handled by somebody with responsibilities for such matters; it would never have been appropriate for a professor, and especially one in a full chair, to have to talk about an issue of this sort. The situation was clearly intolerable, and the only thing to do would be to arrange with this Professor Waterfield, whoever he was, that he should refrain from using the bathroom during those hours that von Igelfeld might need it. He could use it to his heart’s content at other times, but the bathroom would otherwise be exclusively available to von Igelfeld. That, he thought, was the best solution, and he would make the suggestion to this Professor Waterfield when they met.

The Porter in the meantime had extracted a key from his chain and handed this to von Igelfeld. ‘I hope that you have a happy stay,’ he said brightly. ‘We are an unusual College, by and large, and it helps to have visitors.’

Von Igelfeld stared at the Porter. This was a very irregular remark, which would never have been made by a German porter. German porters acted as porters. They opened things and closed them. That was what they did. It seemed that in England things were rather different, and it was not surprising, then, that it was such a confused society. And here he was at the intellectual heart of this strange country, where porters commented on the girth of scholars, where bathrooms were shared by perfect strangers, and where masters of colleges, after making opaque remarks about Freud and Wittgenstein suddenly burst into tears. It would clearly require all one’s wits to deal with such a society, and von Igelfeld was glad that he was a man of the world. It would be hopeless for somebody like Unterholzer, who would frankly lack the subtlety to cope with such circumstances; at least there was that to be thankful for – that it was he, and not Unterholzer, who had come here as Visiting Professor of Romance Philology.

That evening the Master invited von Igelfeld to join him and several of the Fellows for a glass of sherry before dinner. The invitation had come in a note pushed under von Igelfeld’s door and was waiting for him on his return from a brief visit to the College Library. He had not spent much time in the Library, but he was able to establish even on the basis of the hour or so that he was there that there was an extensive collection of early Renaissance Spanish and Portuguese manuscripts in something called the Hughes-Davitt Bequest, and that these, as far as he could ascertain, had hardly been catalogued, let alone subjected to full scholarly analysis. The discovery had excited him, and already he was imagining the paper which would appear in the
Zeitschrift
:
Lusocripta Nova
:
an Untapped Collection of
Renaissance Manuscripts in the Hughes-Davitt Bequest at Cambridge.
Readers would wonder – and well they might – why it had taken a German visiting scholar to discover what had been sitting under the noses of Cambridge philologists for so long, but that was an issue which von Igelfeld would tactfully refrain from discussing. People were used to the Germans discovering all sorts of things; most of Mycenaean civilisation had been unearthed by Schliemann and other German scholars in the nineteenth century, and the only reason why the British discovered the Minoans was because they more or less tripped up and fell into a hole, which happened to be filled with elaborate grave goods. There was not much credit in that, at least in von Igelfeld’s view. The same could be said of Egyptology, although in that case one had to admit that there had been a minor British contribution, bumbling and amateurish though it was. Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld’s view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than long dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never have happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly have sent their assistants in first, and it would have been they, not the professors themselves, who would have fallen victim. But it was no use thinking about English amateurism here in Cambridge, the very seat of the problem. If he did that, then everything would seem unsatisfactory, and that would be a profitless way of spending the next four months. So von Igelfeld decided to make no conscious comparisons with Germany, knowing what the inevitable conclusions would be.

He made his way to the Senior Common Room in good time, but when he arrived it seemed that everybody was already there, huddled around the Master, who was making a point with an animated gesture of his right hand.

‘Ah, Professor von Igelfeld!’ he said, detaching himself from his colleagues and striding across the room to meet his guest. ‘So punctual! Pünktlich even. You’ll find that we’re a bit lax here. We allow ten minutes or so, sometimes fifteen.’

Von Igelfeld flushed. It was obvious that he had committed a solecism by arriving at the appointed time, but then, if they wanted him to arrive at six fifteen, why did they not ask him to do so?

‘But I see that everybody else is here,’ he said defensively, looking towards the group of Fellows. ‘They must have arrived before six.’

The Master smiled. ‘True, true,’ he said. ‘But of course most of them have little better to do. Anyway, please come and meet them. They are all so pleased that you took up the Visiting Professorship. The atmosphere is quite, how shall I put it?
electric
with anticipation.’

The Master took hold of von Igelfeld’s elbow and steered him deftly across the room. There then followed introductions. Dr Marcus Poynton, Pure Mathematics; Dr Margaret Hodges, French Literature; Professor Hector MacQueen, Legal History (and history of cricket too); Mr Max Wilkinson, Applied Mathematics; and Dr C. A. D. Wood, Theoretical Physics.

‘These are just a few of the Fellowship,’ said the Master. ‘You’ll meet others over dinner. I thought I should invite a cross-section, so to speak.’

Von Igelfeld shook hands solemnly, and bowed slightly as each introduction was made. The Fellows smiled, and seemed welcoming, and while the Master went off to fetch a glass of sherry, von Igelfeld fell into easy conversation with the woman who had been introduced to him as Dr C. A. D. Wood.

‘So you are a physicist,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘You are always up to something, you physicists. Looking for something or other. But once you find it, you just go off looking for something more microscopic. Your world is always getting smaller, is it not?’

She laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it. In my case, I’m looking for Higgs’s boson, a very elusive little particle that Professor Higgs says exists but which nobody has actually seen yet.’

‘And will you find it?’

‘If the mathematics are correct, it should be there,’ she said.

‘But can you not tell whether the mathematics are correct?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘Can they not be checked for errors?’

Dr C. A. D. Wood took a sip of her sherry. ‘It is not always that simple. There are disagreements in mathematics. There is not always one self-evident truth. Even here, in this College, there are mathematicians who . . . who . . . ’ She paused. The Master had now returned with a glass of sherry for von Igelfeld.

‘This is our own sherry, Professor von Igelfeld,’ he said, handing him the glass. ‘The Senior Tutor goes out to Jerez every couple of years and replenishes our stocks. He has a very fine palate.’ He turned to Dr C. A. D. Wood. ‘You have become acquainted with our guest, I see, Wood. You will see what I mean when I say that he is a very fine choice for the Visiting Professorship. Very fine.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Dr C. A. D. Wood.

‘You were saying something about disagreements amongst mathematicians,’ said von Igelfeld pleasantly. ‘Please explain.’

At this remark, the Master turned sharply to Dr C. A. D. Wood and glared at her. ‘I cannot imagine that Professor von Igelfeld is interested in such matters,’ he hissed at her. ‘For heaven’s sake! He only arrived today, poor man!’

‘I am most interested,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘You see, there are disagreements amongst philologists. Different views are taken. It seems that this is the case in all disciplines, even something as hard and fast as mathematics.’

‘Hard and fast!’ burst out Dr C. A. D. Wood. ‘My dear Professor von Igelfeld, if you believe that matters are hard and fast in the world of mathematics, then you are sorely deluded.’

‘I think Byzantine politics were harder and faster than mathematics,’ sighed the Master. ‘Or so it seems to me.’

‘You know very little about it, Maestro,’ said Dr C. A. D. Wood to the Master. ‘You stick to whatever it is you do, old bean. Moral philosophy?’

Von Igelfeld felt uncomfortable. What had started as an innocent conversation – small talk really – had suddenly become charged with passion. It was difficult to make out what was going on – that problem with English obscurity again – and it was not clear to him why Dr C. A. D. Wood had addressed the Master as old bean. No doubt he would find out more about that, when Dr C. A. D. Wood had the opportunity to talk to him in private. In the meantime, he would have to concentrate on talking to the Master, who appeared to be becoming increasingly distressed. Dr C. A. D. Wood, he noticed, had drifted off to talk to Mr Wilkinson, who was looking steadfastly at his shoes while she addressed him.

‘I am very comfortable in my rooms,’ he said to the Master. ‘I am very happy with that view of the Court. I shall be able to observe the comings and goings in the College, just by sitting at my window.’

‘Oh,’ said the Master. ‘You will see everything then. The whole thing laid bare. Anaesthetised like a patient on the table, as Eliot so pithily said of the morning, or was it the evening, fussy pedant that he was. How awful. How frankly awful.’

‘But why should it be awful?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘What is awful about the life of the College?’

He realised immediately that he should not have asked the question, as the Master had seized his sleeve and was muttering, almost into his ear. ‘They’re the end, the utter end. All of them, or virtually all of them. That Dr C. A. D. Wood, for example, don’t trust her for a moment. That’s my only warning to you. Just don’t trust her. And be very careful when they try to involve you in their scheming. Just be very careful.’

‘I cannot imagine why they should wish to involve me in their scheming,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am merely a visitor.’

The Master gave a short chuckle. ‘Visitors have a vote in this College,’ he said. ‘It’s been in the statutes since 1465. Visiting Professors have a vote in the College Council. They’ll want you to vote with them in whatever it is they’re planning. And they’re always planning something.’

‘Who are
they
?’ asked von Igelfeld. Was it the same
they
whom the Master had accused of persecuting him? Or was there more than one group of
theys
?

‘You’ll find out,’ said the Master. ‘Just you wait.’

Von Igelfeld looked into his sherry glass. There were those who said that the world of German academia was one of constant bickering. This, of course, was plainly not true, but if they could get a glimpse, just a glimpse, of Cambridge they would have something to talk about. And this was even before anybody had sat down for dinner. What would it be like once dinner was served or, and this was an even more alarming thing, over Stilton and coffee afterwards? And all the time he would have to be careful to navigate his way through these shoals of allusion and concealed meaning. Of course he would be able to do it – there could be no doubt about that – but it was not exactly what he had been looking forward to after a long and trying day. Oh to be back in Germany, with Prinzel and Frau Prinzel, sitting in their back garden drinking coffee and talking about the safe and utterly predictable affairs of the Institute. What a comfortable existence that had been, and to think that it would be four months, a full four months, before he could return to Regensburg and the proper, German way of doing things.