Portuguese Irregular Verbs

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Do you mean that people accuse you, the prison governor, of being a murderer?’ asked von Igelfeld at last, trying to sound astonished at the suggestion.

  Mr Majipondi laughed. ‘What people say about others is of no consequence,’ he answered. ‘The important thing is how you feel inside.’

  It was the sort of answer which the Holy Man would have given, and it rather took von Igelfeld by surprise. As he pondered its significance, the President exchanged a glance with Mr Majipondi, who suddenly bowed and withdrew from the group. It was now the chance of Mr Verenyai Butterchayra to speak to von Igelfeld, and while this successful cutlery manufacturer engaged the visiting scholar in conversation, von Igelfeld was able from time to time to get a glimpse of Mr Majipondi again, holding forth elsewhere to the evident pleasure of his fellow guests.

  The following day was the first day of the conference. Von Igelfeld listened courteously to every paper, skilfully concealing the intense boredom he felt as speaker after speaker made his trite or eccentric contribution to the debate. One paper stood out as excellent, though, and this, in von Igelfeld’s mind, made the whole thing worthwhile. This was Professor Richimantry Gupta’s report on Urdu subjunctives – a masterpiece which von Igelfeld resolved to attempt to secure for publication in the Zeitschrift – if it had not already been published.

  Then, at four o’clock, the day’s proceedings came to an end. Von Igelfeld slipped out of the hall as quickly as he could, hoping to be able to get some fresh air before the sun went down. He was not quick enough, though, to avoid the attention of the day’s chairman, who seized his elbow and asked him his view of the day’s proceedings.

  Von Igelfeld was tactful. ‘It’s such a pity that Professor J. G. K. L. Singh has been delayed,’ he said. ‘How he would have enjoyed Professor Gupta’s contribution.’

  The chairman nodded his agreement. ‘So sad,’ he said. ‘I do hope that he makes a quick recovery.’

  ‘A recovery?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘I was under the impression that he was merely delayed, not ill.’

  The chairman shook his head. ‘Oh my dear Professor von Igelfeld,’ he said, his voice lowered. ‘I thought that you knew. Professor J. G. K. L. Singh’s train fell off a railway bridge and into a river. Our dear colleague was spared drowning, but was seriously inconvenienced by a crocodile.’

  Von Igelfeld’s dismay greatly impressed the chairman.

  ‘I can see that you were fond of him,’ he said. ‘I am sorry to be the bearer of such ill tidings.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded distractedly. The words of the Holy Man’s prophecy were coming back to him quite clearly. There is one thing which is close and one thing which is far. The close thing is a man who is coming here to meet you, in this place. I see water, and I see water all about the man. He is from the North.

  Could it be that at the very moment that the prophecy was being delivered, the girders of the bridge had given way and the ill-fated train had plunged down into the river? It was very sad for Professor J. G. K. L. Singh, of course, but what about the second part of the prophecy? The first part had been shown to be true, and this meant that somebody, somewhere, was plotting against von Igelfeld. Who could this be, and where? Were the plotters in Germany? If they were, then it would be night-time there and they would be asleep in their shameless beds. But as the day began, then the plotters would presumably resume their nefarious activities. The thought chilled von Igelfeld, and a feeling of foreboding remained with him throughout the rest of the night and was still there in the morning.

  The second day of the conference was worse than the first. Von Igelfeld delivered his own paper, and was immediately thereafter assaulted by a barrage of irrelevant and unhelpful questions. He was in a bad mood at lunch, and spoke to nobody, and in the afternoon his mind was too exercised with the prophecy and its implications to pay any attention to the proceedings. At the end of the afternoon, when the conference came to its end, he avoided the final reception and slipped off to the hotel to pack his bags. Then, settling his account and bidding farewell to the manager of the hotel, he drove out to the airport in an old, cream-coloured taxi and waited for the first available seat on a plane to Europe.

  India, with all its colours, confusions and heartbreak, slipped below him in a smudge of brown. Von Igelfeld sat at his window seat and looked out over the silver wing of steel. It had been a mistake to visit Goa, he concluded. It might be that some achieved spiritual solace in India, but this had been denied him. His one encounter with a Holy Man – perhaps the only such encounter he would be vouchsafed in his life – had turned into a nightmare. There was no peace in that – only horrible, gnawing doubt. And at the back of his mind, too, was the image of Professor J. G .K. L. Singh in the muddy waters of the river and of the great jaws of the crocodile poised to close upon the helpless philologist. It was an awful, haunting image, and it brought home to von Igelfeld his great lack of charity in relation to Professor J. G. K. L. Singh. He would make up for it, he determined. He would send a letter to Chandighar with an invitation to the Institute in Regensburg, which could be taken up once Professor J. G. K. L. Singh got better. He would make it clear, though, that the invitation was only for one week; that was very important.

  Dear, friendly, safe, comfortable Germany! Von Igelfeld could have kissed the ground on his arrival, but wasted no time in rushing home. His house was in order, and Frau Gunter, who housekept for him, assured him that nothing untoward had happened. For a moment von Igelfeld wondered whether she was a plotter, but he rapidly dismissed the unworthy thought from his mind.

  He took a bath, dressed in an appropriate suit, and made his way hurriedly to the Institute. There he attended to his mail, none of which was in the slightest bit threatening, and then sat at his desk and looked out of the window. Perhaps there was nothing in it after all. Certainly the clear, rational light of Germany made it all seem less likely: a Holy Man made no sense here.

  Von Igelfeld decided to visit the Institute library to glance at the latest journals. He put away his letters, picked up his briefcase, and sauntered down the corridor to the library.

  ‘Professor Dr von Igelfeld!’ said the Librarian in hushed tones. ‘We thought you would be away for another three days.’

  ‘I have come back early,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘The conference was not very successful.’

  He looked about him. Something was happening in the library. Two of the junior librarians were taking books out of the shelves in the entrance hall and placing them on a trolley.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ asked von Igelfeld. Librarians were always busy rearranging and recataloguing; von Igelfeld thought that it was all that stood between them and complete boredom.

  The Librarian looked at his assistants.

  ‘Oh, a little reorganisation. A few books in here are being taken into the back room.’

  Von Igelfeld said nothing for a moment. His eye had fallen on the trolley and on one book in particular placed there and destined for the obscurity of the back room. Portuguese Irregular Verbs!

  Slowly he recovered his speech. ‘Who suggested this reorganisation?’ he asked, his voice steady in spite of the turbulent emotions within him.

  The Librarian smiled. ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he said brightly. ‘Professor Dr Unterholzer and one of our visiting professors suggested it. I was happy to comply.’

  Von Igelfeld’s breathing was regular, but deep. It was all clear now, oh so clear!

  ‘And who was this visiting professor?’ he asked icily.

  ‘Professor Dr Dr Prinzel,’ answered the Librarian. He looked curiously at von Igelfeld. ‘If you disapprove, of course . . . ’

  Von Igelfeld stepped forward and retrieved the copy of Portuguese Irregular Verbs from the trolley. The Librarian gasped.

  ‘Of course . . . ’ he stuttered. ‘I had no idea that that work was involved.’ He snatched the tome from von Igelfeld and replaced it on the shelf. ‘It will, of course, remain exactly where it was. I should never ha
ve agreed to its being put in the back room, had I known.’

  Von Igelfeld walked home. He was tired now, as the journey had begun to catch up on him. But he knew that he would be able to sleep well, now that he had identified the terrible plot which had been made against him. He would take no action against Prinzel and Unterholzer, who would just see that Portuguese Irregular Verbs remained in its accustomed place of prominence. He would not even say anything to them about it – he would rise quite above the whole matter.

  It was a course of action of which the Holy Man would undoubtedly have approved.

  DENTAL PAIN

  PROFESSOR DR MORITZ-MARIA VON IGELFELD had excellent teeth. As a boy, he had been taken to the dentist every year, but treatment had rarely been necessary and the dentist had dismissed him.

  ‘Only come if you have toothache,’ he said to von Igelfeld. ‘These teeth of yours will last you your life.’

  Von Igelfeld followed this questionable advice, and never thought thereafter of consulting a dentist. Then, shortly after his return from the French Philological Forum in Lyons, he felt a sudden, gnawing pain at the back of his lower jaw. He looked at his mouth in a mirror, but saw nothing other than a gleaming row of apparently healthy teeth. There were no mouth ulcers and there was no swelling, but the pain made him feel as if a long, heated needle was being driven into his bone.

  He put up with it for a full morning, and then, after lunch, when it seemed as if his mouth would explode in searing agony, he walked to a dental studio which he had noticed round the corner from the Institute. A receptionist met him and took his history with compassion.

  ‘You’re obviously in great pain,’ she said. ‘Dr von Brautheim will take you next. She will finish with her patient in a few minutes.’

  Von Igelfeld sat down in the reception room and picked up the first magazine he saw on the table before him. He paged through it, noticing the pictures of food and clothes. How strange, he thought – what sort of Zeitschrift is this? Do people really read about these matters? He turned a page and began to read something called the Timely Help column. Readers wrote in and asked advice over their problems. Von Igelfeld’s eyes opened wide. Did people discuss such things in open print? How could anybody talk about things like that? He read a letter from a woman in Hamburg which quite took his breath away. Why did she marry him in the first place, if she knew that was what he was like? Such men should be in prison, thought von Igelfeld, although that was not what the readers’ adviser suggested. She said that the woman should try to talk to her husband and persuade him to change his ways. Well! thought von Igelfeld. If I wrote that column I would give very different advice. In fact, I should pass such letters over to the police without delay.

  The door of the surgery opened and a miserable-looking man walked out. He put on his coat, massaged his jaw, and nodded to the receptionist. Then von Igelfeld was invited in, and found himself sitting in the dental chair of Dr Lisbetta von Brautheim. It was a new experience for him; the only dentist he had ever consulted had been a man. But there was nothing wrong with a woman dentist, he thought; in fact, she was likely to be much more sympathetic and gentle than a man.

  Dr von Brautheim was a petite woman in her mid-thirties. She had a gentle, attractive face, and von Igelfeld found it very easy to look at her as she peered into his mouth. Her hands were careful as she prodded about in the angry area of his mouth, and even when her pick touched the very source of the pain, von Igelfeld found that he could bear the agony.

  ‘An impacted supernumerary,’ said Dr von Brautheim. ‘I’m afraid the only thing I can do is remove it. That should give you the relief you need.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded his agreement. He was utterly won over by Dr von Brautheim and would have consented to any suggestion she made. He opened his mouth again, felt the prick of the anaesthetic needle, and then a marvellous feeling of relief flooded over him. Dr von Brautheim worked quickly and efficiently, and within minutes the offending tooth was laid on a tray and the gap had been plugged with dressing.

  ‘That is all, Professor Dr von Igelfeld,’ she said quietly, as her instruments were whisked away into the steriliser. ‘You should come back and see me the day after tomorrow and we shall see how things have settled down.’

  Von Igelfeld arose from the couch and smiled at his saviour.

  ‘The pain has gone,’ he said. ‘I thought it would kill me, but now it has gone.’

  ‘Those teeth can be quite nasty when they impact,’ said Dr von Brautheim. ‘But otherwise your mouth looks very healthy.’

  Von Igelfeld beamed with pleasure. To receive such a compliment from the attractive Dr von Brautheim gave him a considerable thrill, and as he walked down the stairs he reflected on his good fortune in being able to see her again so soon. He would bring her a present to thank her for her help – a bunch of flowers perhaps. Was she married, he wondered? What a marvellous wife she would make for somebody.

  There was no more pain that night, nor the next morning. Von Igelfeld dutifully swallowed the pills which Dr von Brautheim had given him and at the Institute that day he regaled everybody with the story of the remarkable cure which had been effected. The others then told their own dental stories: the Librarian related how his elderly aunt had lost several teeth some years before but was now, happily, fully recovered; the Deputy Librarian had an entire row of fillings, following upon a childhood indulged with sweets; and the Administrative Director revealed that he had in fact no teeth at all but found his false teeth very comfortable indeed.

  That afternoon, von Igelfeld sat in his room, the proofs of the next issue of the Zeitschrift on his desk before him. He was wrestling with a particularly difficult paper, and was finding it almost impossible to edit in the way which he felt it needed to be edited. ‘Spanish loan words,’ wrote the author, ‘appear to be profuse in Brazilian dialects, particularly those used by river-men. But are they really loan words, or are they Brazilian misunderstandings of Portuguese originals . . . ’

  Von Igelfeld looked up from the paper and stared out of his window. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate, his mind was distracted. What were these river-men like? He tried to picture them: tough-looking men, no doubt, with slouch hats; characters from a Conrad story, perhaps. But the image faded and his thoughts returned to the memory of his trip to the dental studio and of the sweet face of Dr von Brautheim above him. What did she think of her patients, and of their suffering? He imagined her as a ministering angel, gently bringing relief to those in pain. Von Igelfeld recalled the touch of her hands and the delicious smell of the soap, a reassuring, almost-nursery smell. To be looked after by such a being must be paradise indeed. Just imagine it!

  He got up from his desk and walked about his room. Why was it that he kept thinking of her, when he should have been thinking of the Zeitschrift? This had only happened to him once or twice before, and he distrusted the feeling. It had happened once when he was nineteen, and he had met, for a mere afternoon, the daughter of his Uncle Ludwig’s neighbour. She had been at the conservatory in Berlin and had played her viola for him. He had seen her once or twice after that and then she had gone to America and never come back. He imagined a crude fate for her in the United States – living in a characterless apartment block with urban ugliness all about and a husband who growled and talked through his nose.

  Von Igelfeld left his room and walked down the corridor to Unterholzer’s small study. Unterholzer was in, leafing through his share of the Zeitschrift proofs, shaking his head disapprovingly.

  ‘These printers,’ he said to von Igelfeld. ‘They must be illiterate. Here’s a page with the diacritical marks all in the wrong place. They’ll have to reset the whole thing.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded absent-mindedly.

  ‘I went to the dentist yesterday,’ he announced. ‘I was in great pain.’

  Unterholzer looked up, concerned.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Did he fix everything up?’

  ‘She,’ said von Igel
feld, smiling. ‘It was a lady dentist. And she made everything much better.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Unterholzer, his eyes returning to the proofs. ‘I’m happy to hear that you’re no longer in pain.’

  Von Igelfeld crossed Unterholzer’s room and looked disapprovingly out of the window: in contrast to the view from his own room, Unterholzer had a very unedifying view of the Institute car park. Perhaps it was good enough for him; poor Unterholzer.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was a very charming dentist indeed. Very charming. In fact, I certainly would not mind pursuing her acquaintance.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Unterholzer, still looking at the proofs. ‘Perhaps I should go and have my teeth checked. Where is her studio?’

  ‘Just round the corner,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘And it’s a good idea to go to the dentist regularly, you know. When did you last go?’

  ‘About a year or two ago,’ said Unterholzer vaguely.

  Von Igelfeld tut-tutted. ‘That’s not frequently enough,’ he said. ‘Dr von Brautheim recommends a visit once every six months.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Unterholzer. ‘I’ll make an appointment soon.’

  Von Igelfeld gave up. He had hoped to be able to tell Unterholzer a little bit more about Dr von Brautheim, but he was clearly not going to be at all receptive. That was the trouble with Unterholzer, he thought – he was too literal. He had very little imagination.

  On the appointed day, von Igelfeld dressed with care for his visit to the dental studio. He put on the bright red tie he had bought in Rome, and he took especial care in choosing his shirt. Then, with at least half an hour in hand, he made his way to the dental studio, carrying with him the present he had decided to give Dr von Brautheim. It was not a present which he usually gave to people, as it was not at all inexpensive. But Dr von Brautheim was different, and he had carefully wrapped it in soft purple paper he had acquired from a gift shop near his house.