The 2 12 Pillars of Wisdom

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Von Igelfeld put down the instrument and heaved a sigh of relief. It was ridiculous, he thought. He was imagining the whole thing. People used Geiger counters for all sorts of purposes, he thought, such as . . . He stopped. Was there any other reason to have a Geiger counter?

  ‘Moritz-Maria! So here you are!’

  Ophelia, standing above him, bent down and kissed his brow.

  ‘Well,’ said Prinzel, from behind her. ‘What sort of day have you had?’

  Von Igelfeld smiled as his guests sat down – Ophelia opposite him, Prinzel right next to him. And as Prinzel sat down, the Geiger counter beside him emitted a loud clicking sound.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Prinzel. ‘Did you want to say something?’

  Von Igelfeld was too shocked to speak. Mutely, he pointed at the Geiger counter.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Prinzel. ‘Is that some sort of radio?’

  ‘A Geiger counter,’ von Igelfeld stuttered.

  ‘Ah,’ said Prinzel. ‘How useful! Let me test myself!’

  With an awful sense of his own inability to prevent the occurrence of a tragedy, von Igelfeld watched as Prinzel turned the hand piece towards himself and ran it down his body. Once again the instrument clicked, and the needle jerked on the dial.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Prinzel, peering at the dial. ‘A bit of a reaction. Not too bad.’

  Von Igelfeld gasped. ‘You mean . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said Prinzel calmly. ‘I seem to have picked something up. Probably something I ate.’

  Von Igelfeld protested lamely. ‘But that’s awful,’ he said. ‘Radioactivity is terribly dangerous.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Prinzel. ‘I think I had probably better go and seek treatment at home. They’ll give me iodine pills or something.’ He looked across the table at Ophelia, who was smiling benignly. She clearly knew little about radioactivity.

  ‘I shan’t be upset to be going home early,’ she said. ‘Venice is still so hot . . .’

  For von Igelfeld, an early departure could not be early enough. He had found out what was wrong with the city, and he was horrified. It was worse than plague; it was worse than cholera. It was almost too awful to contemplate.

  They finished their drinks quietly, and then processed into the great dining hall. Von Igelfeld took the Geiger counter with him, determined to run it over each course before they ate it, and this he did discreetly, hoping not to attract the attention of the waiters. The paté was quite all right, as was the salad, but the fish sent the needle shooting to the top of the scale, and it was dispatched back to the kitchen, with no explanation.

  Then the band struck up, playing one of those infectiously gay Italian country tunes. Couples began to dance, and Prinzel and Ophelia, with von Igelfeld’s blessing, left the table, and were soon out on the dance floor. Von Igelfeld stayed where he was, and was sitting with the Geiger counter on his lap as the Polish boy, in a fresh white sailor suit, glowing with health, walked slowly past him, and threw him a glance as he did so.

  Von Igelfeld’s puzzled irritation was matched only by his surprise. As the boy walked past, the Geiger counter clicked hysterically and the needle shot up to the very reddest part of the scale. Von Igelfeld’s mouth opened in an astonishment that was quickly followed by dismay. He must have been swimming. That was it! Poor youth!

  He looked about him. The boy had now joined his mother and sisters at their table and their meal was being ordered. Oh what tragedy! thought von Igelfeld. And so young too! It was as if the very floor of the Grand Hótel des Bains was littered with fallen rose petals and abandoned mandolins.

  For a few minutes he wrestled with conflicting emotions. He assumed that there was nothing he could really do at this stage to help the unfortunate youth. It was none of his business, really, or was it? Was he his neighbour’s keeper, even when his neighbour was a rather strange Polish boy who kept looking at him in a disconcerting fashion? Yes, he was, he decided. He must warn the mother – that’s what he must do.

  Von Igelfeld arose from his table, straightened his tie, and walked over to the Polish family’s table. As he approached, the mother raised her eyes, and smiled at him.

  ‘Excusez-moi, Madame,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘permettezmoi de vous dire que votre fils, votre très agréable Tadseuz, est devenu un peu radio-actif.’

  The mother listened, and inclined her head gravely at the information.

  ‘Merci, monsieur,’ she said after a short pause. ‘Vous êtes très gentil de me donner ces informations. Je vous remercie bien. J’ai des convictions bien intensives au sujet de la radio-activité parmi les enfants.’

  Von Igelfeld waited for something further to be said, but it was not, and so he bowed, and returned to his table, where the Prinzels were now waiting. They passed the Geiger counter over their coffee, to negative results, and enjoyed the rest of the evening as one might enjoy an evening which was to be one’s last in Venice, ever.

  It might have been a melancholy departure the next day, but as they made their farewells to the manager, who expressed great regret on their premature departure, a telegram arrived addressed to von Igelfeld. He opened it with all the sense of foreboding with which one opens telegrams when away from home, but his face lit up as he read the message.

  MEDAL AWARDED BY PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT,

  the telegram ran.

  QUITE DELIGHTED. BEST WISHES, UNTERHOLZER.

  Von Igelfeld thrust the telegram into Ophelia’s hands and turned to Prinzel.

  ‘Prinzel,’ he said, the dignity in his voice overlaying the emotion. ‘I have been honoured by the Portuguese Government – at last!’

  They left in the hotel’s motor launch, riding over the lagoon to the fatal, exquisite, doomed city, and then on to the mainland. Thereafter they made their way slowly through the mountains and into Austria. Throughout the journey von Igelfeld was in a state of complete euphoria. What would his medal look like? By whom would it be awarded, and what would be said at the ceremony? There were so many questions to be answered.

  Then, as they passed through a tiny village, with a minute, whitewashed church, Prinzel suddenly turned round and made an observation.

  ‘That telegram,’ he said. ‘It’s just occurred to me that Unterholzer didn’t say they’d awarded the medal to you. The wording suggests that it was really to him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said von Igelfeld angrily. ‘He said quite clearly: Medal awarded by Portuguese Government. Quite delighted . . .’ He broke off, becoming silent; could it be . . . ?

  They had passed out of the village now, and there was a long, steep mountain pass ahead. Von Igelfeld sat in silence, unable to speak. Oh! he thought. And then, Oh! again. Why have I had such bad luck in this life? Why? All I want is love, and a tiny bit of recognition from the Portuguese, and I get neither. And soon it will be too late; nobody will read my book any more, and there will be nobody to remember me.

  He brought himself to order. There was no point in self-pity, which was something he invariably disliked in others. No; he would not allow himself to be discouraged. He had much to be proud of in this life; much for which he should be grateful. He was, after all, Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. That, on its own, would have been quite enough; but there was more: he was the author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs, and that was something that would forever be associated with his name, just as when people thought of Thomas Mann they thought of . . .

  Von Igelfeld stopped. And then he laughed, which made Prinzel swerve the car slightly before he righted it and they continued their journey back to Germany, where they belonged.

  THE FINER POINTS

  OF SAUSAGE DOGS

  This is for

  MATTHEW GUREWITSCH

  Contents

  EINS The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

  ZWEI A Leg to Stand on

  DREI On the Couch

  VIER The Bones of Father Christmas

  FUNF The Perfect Imperfect

  eins

  The F
iner Points of Sausage Dogs

  Professor Dr Moritz-Maria Von Igelfeld, author of that great triumph of Germanic scholarship, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, had never set foot on American shores. It is true that he had corresponded from time to time with a number of noted American philologists – Professor Giles Reid of Cornell, for example, and Professor Paul Lafouche III of Tulane – and it is also true that they had often pressed him to attend the annual meeting of the American Modern Languages Association, but he had never been in a position to accept. Or so von Igelfeld said: the reality was he had never wanted to go and had inevitably come up with some excuse to turn down the invitations.

  ‘I have absolutely no interest in the New World,’ von Igelfeld said dismissively to Professor Dr Dr Florianus Prinzel. ‘Is there anything there that we can’t find in Germany? Anything at all? Can you name one thing?’

  Prinzel thought for a moment. Cowboys? He was a secret admirer of cowboy films but he could never mention this to von Igelfeld, who, as far as he knew, had never watched a film in his life, let alone one featuring cowboys. Prinzel rather liked the idea of America, and would have been delighted to be invited there, preferably to somewhere in the West.

  Then, one morning, Prinzel’s invitation arrived – and from no less an institution than the ideally situated University of San Antonio. This was a city redolent of cowboys and the Mexican border, and Prinzel immediately telephoned von Igelfeld to tell him the good news.

  Von Igelfeld congratulated him warmly, but when he replaced the receiver his expression had hardened. It was quite unacceptable that Prinzel should go to America before he did. After all, the Americans might think that Prinzel, rather than he, von Igelfeld, represented German philology, and this, frankly, would never do. Quite apart from that, if Prinzel went first, they would never hear the end of it.

  ‘I have no alternative but to go there,’ he said to himself. ‘And I shall have to make sure that I go before Prinzel. It’s simply a matter of duty.’

  Von Igelfeld found himself in a difficult position. He could hardly approach any of his American friends and solicit an invitation, particularly after he had so consistently turned them down in the past. And yet the chance that an invitation would arrive of its own accord was extremely slender.

  Over coffee at the Institute the next day, he directed a casual question at Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer.

  ‘Tell me, Herr Unterholzer,’ he said. ‘If you were to want to go to America to give a lecture, how would you . . . well, how would you get yourself invited, so to speak?’ Quickly adding: ‘Not that I would ever be in such a position myself, but you yourself could be, could you not?’

  Unterholzer had an immediate answer.

  ‘I should contact the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch-dienst,’ he said. ‘I should tell them who I was and I should ask them to arrange a lecture somewhere in America. That is what they are paid to do.’

  ‘I see,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘That would no doubt save embarrassment.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Unterholzer. ‘They are experts in finding places for German academics to go and lecture to other people, whether or not they want to hear them. They are very persuasive people. That is how I went to Buenos Aires and gave my lecture there. It really works.’

  And indeed it did. The local director of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst was delighted to hear from von Igelfeld the following day and assured him that a scholar of his eminence would be snapped up should he deign to leave Germany. It was only a question of finding the right institution and making the detailed arrangements.

  ‘Rest assured that you will be invited within days,’ von Igelfeld was assured. ‘Just leave it all in our capable hands.’

  Thus von Igelfeld found himself arriving in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a charming college town nestling in the Ozark Mountains, seat of the University of Arkansas, or at least of that part not located in the minor campus at Little Rock. When the whole idea was conceived, he had not envisaged going to Arkansas. He had imagined that his destination might be California, or New York, perhaps, but one American state was very much the same as another – at least in von Igelfeld’s view, and it really made no difference. The important thing was that he was going to America, and a good two weeks ahead of Prinzel.

  Von Igelfeld’s host greeted him warmly. They had insisted that he stay with them, rather than in a hotel, and so von Igelfeld found himself installed in the sleeping porch of a traditional Ozark farmhouse on the edge of the town, the home of Professor R. B. Leflar. After he had unpacked, he and von Igelfeld sat down on the swingseat on the front verandah and discussed his programme. There would be visits to the surrounding area the next day, promised Professor Leflar, and the day after that a set-piece lecture had been planned before an open audience.

  That night, after dinner, von Igelfeld retired to his bed and looked out through the gauze-covered porch windows. The house was surrounded by mixed forest, oak trees and sycamores, and their shapes, dark silhouettes, swayed in the breeze. And there, he thought, there’s the moon, rising slowly over the trees like a giant lantern. What were they planning for him tomorrow? Would they show him their libraries? Were there manuscripts? What about Leflar’s maternal grandfather, the adventurer, Charles Finger? He had been in South America and may have come across some Portuguese manuscripts of note, which could well be in the attic above his very head. Arkansas, it seemed, was rich in possibilities for the philologist.

  The next morning he ate a hearty breakfast with Professor and Mrs Leflar before they set off.

  ‘We’re heading north,’ said his host. ‘We’ll show you a typical hog operation.’

  ‘Most intriguing,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am always interested in . . .’ He paused. What was he interested in? Philology? Portuguese verbs? ‘I am always interested in everything.’

  They drove out of town, following a road that wound up into the hills. It was a gentle landscape – limestone hills which had been softened by the action of the rain; meandering valleys dotted with farmhouses under shady oak trees. Von Igelfeld had not thought of America as being at all like this; there were no dry plains, no glittering Dallas in the distance, no leafy suburbia with neat white houses. This could have been Bavaria, or even Austria.

  Suddenly Leflar turned off the road and followed a dusty track leading towards a large, unpainted barn.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘They’re expecting us.’

  The farmer came out and shook von Igelfeld’s hand. Von Igelfeld sniffed the air; it was distinctly malodorous.

  ‘This way,’ said the farmer. ‘The hogs are in here.’

  The farmer opened a door in the side of the barn and ushered von Igelfeld inside. For the next half hour, they wandered between rows of large sties, each surmounted by a large sun lamp and each filled with a squealing mass of pigs. The farmer demonstrated the automatic feeding system and showed von Igelfeld the blood-sampling equipment.

  ‘We’re mighty careful about viruses here,’ he said. ‘You’d know all about that.’

  Von Igelfeld looked at the farmer. Did pigs get colds, he wondered?

  ‘You have to be careful about viruses,’ he agreed. ‘I myself always use vitamin C during the winter . . .’

  He did not finish. ‘You’re right,’ said the farmer. ‘Each pig gets sixty IU vitamin C every morning with its food. And then we give them a shot of B group when they’re seven weeks old. Some people are trying a short course of potassium a week before market. What do you think?’

  Von Igelfeld shook his head. ‘You have to be careful,’ he said. ‘I would never use potassium myself.’

  The farmer listened intently. ‘You hear that, Professor Leflar? No potassium. I’m inclined to agree with our visitor. You tell those folks down in Little Rock, no potassium – the Germans recommend against it.’

  Leflar nodded. ‘Could be,’ he said.

  An hour later they set off again. After a brief lunch, they made their way to a chicken farm, wher
e von Igelfeld was shown the latest methods of production by a farmer who spoke in such a way that he could understand not one word. Then there was a call at some sort of animal laboratory, which interested von Igelfeld very little. Then home to dinner.

  That night, in the silence of his sleeping porch, von Igelfeld reflected on his day. It had been interesting, in its way, but he wondered why they had chosen to show him all those farms and animals. Animals were all very well; indeed he had once written a small paper on the nature of collective nouns used for groups of animals, but that was about as far as his interest went. Still, this was America, and he assumed that this was what they laid on for all their visitors.

  The lecture was to be at six thirty, following a short reception. When von Igelfeld arrived with Leflar the audience was largely assembled, milling about the ante-room of the lecture theatre. Glasses of wine had been provided, and plates of snacks were being circulated by waitresses dressed in black and white.

  Everybody seemed keen to talk to von Igelfeld.

  ‘We’ve all heard about your work,’ said one man in a light-weight blue suit. ‘In fact, I’ve got an off-print here which I thought you might care to sign.’

  ‘I’d be happy to do so,’ said von Igelfeld. And what about Portuguese Irregular Verbs? he reflected. Were there copies even here in Fayetteville, amongst these charming hills?

  The man in the blue suit produced a pamphlet from his pocket.

  ‘I was sent this by a colleague in Germany,’ he said. ‘He thought that I might find it useful. And I sure did.’

  Von Igelfeld took the pamphlet. The cover was unfamiliar; all his off-prints from the Zeitschrift were bound in a plain white cover. This one was blue.