The 2 12 Pillars of Wisdom

by Alexander McCall Smith

  He adjusted his reading glasses and looked at the title page.

  Further Studies of Canine Pulmonary Efficiency, he read. And then: by Professor Martin Igelfold, University of Münster.

  Von Igelfeld stared at the page for a moment, his heart a cold stone within him. It was immediately clear to him what had happened. They thought that he was Professor Igelfold, Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Münster. Von Igelfeld knew of Igelfold’s existence, as he had seen the remarkably similar name in the newspaper during an anthrax scare. But he had never dreamed that there would be confusion on such a heroic scale! Those foolish, bumbling people at the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst had mixed them up and sent him off to lecture on veterinary medicine in Arkansas! It was a situation of such terrible embarrassment that for a moment he hardly dared contemplate it. And the lecture was about to begin, before all these people – these expectant scientists, veterinarians and dog breeders – and he had proposed to talk about modal verbs in the writings of Fernando Pessoa.

  Almost without thinking, he signed the pamphlet and returned it to the other man.

  ‘We’re so honoured to have you here in Fayetteville,’ said the man. ‘We understand that you are the world authority on the sausage dog. We are looking forward to what you have to say to us tonight. Sausage dogs are quite popular here. German settlers brought them with them in the late eighteen nineties and have bred them ever since.’

  Von Igelfeld stared at him in horror. Sausage dogs! He was expected to talk about sausage dogs, a subject on which he knew absolutely nothing. It was a nightmare; like one of those dreams where you imagine that you are about to take the lead part in a Greek play or where you are sitting down to write an examination in advanced calculus. But he was awake, and it was really happening.

  Leflar was at his side now.

  ‘Almost time,’ he said. ‘Should I ask people to move into the hall?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said von Igelfeld, looking about him desperately. ‘I have so many colleagues yet to meet.’

  He detached himself from Leflar and made his way over to a knot of people standing near the door. This proved to be a group of veterinary surgeons who welcomed him to their circle and refilled his glass from a bottle of wine which one of them was holding.

  It was in this group that one of the guests drew him aside and engaged him in distinctly unsettling conversation.

  ‘I was sorry to read about your death,’ said the guest.

  Von Igelfeld looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘My death?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the guest. ‘There was a small item in the International Veterinary Review this week reporting the very recent death of Professor Igelfold. There was a glowing obituary.’

  Von Igelfeld stared glassily at the man before him, who was surveying him over his drink.

  ‘I did not read it,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Not surprising,’ said the man. ‘One rarely has the pleasure of reading one’s own obituary.’

  Von Igelfeld laughed, mopping his brow with his handkerchief.

  ‘Very amusing,’ he said. ‘And you are so right!’

  ‘So this is a posthumous lecture,’ said the man.

  ‘Well,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘It would appear to be something of that sort.’

  The man looked pensive. ‘I must say that you don’t look at all like your photograph. They published one with the obituary, you know.’

  Von Igelfeld gripped at the stem of his glass. ‘The camera is often deceptive, I find.’

  ‘You were a smaller man in the photograph,’ went on the other. ‘Not nearly so tall.’

  ‘I see,’ said von Igelfeld icily. ‘A smaller photograph, perhaps? Anyway, do you not know that in Germany we sometimes publish obituaries before a person’s demise. It happens quite often. This is because we Germans are so efficient. An early obituary means that there is never a backlog. That, I suspect, is the explanation.’

  There was a silence. Then von Igelfeld spoke again.

  ‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I am feeling rather tired.’

  ‘Quite understandable,’ muttered the man. ‘In the circumstances.’

  But von Igelfeld did not hear him. He had moved away and was looking about him. The simplest solution was to escape, to vanish entirely. If he managed to get out of the hall he could summon a taxi, go back to the Leflar house, creep in through the back and reclaim his belongings. Then he could make his way to the airport and await the first flight out of town, wherever it happened to be going.

  The front door was impossible. Everybody would see him leaving and somebody was bound to come after him to enquire where he was going. But there was another door at the side of the room, a door out of which it looked much easier to sneak. He moved over towards it, smiling at people as he walked past, nodding his head in acknowledgement of their greetings. Then, having reached the door, he discreetly turned the handle and pushed against it.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ said Leflar. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I am very well,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I was just trying . . .’ His voice faded away.

  Leflar glanced anxiously at his watch . . .

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘The hall has to be used for another purpose in twenty-five minutes.’

  ‘Please don’t hurry,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘The real point of these meetings is that there should be personal contact and I am making sure that this happens by talking to all these excellent people.’

  A few minutes later, von Igelfeld looked out over the faces of his audience. They had enjoyed the reception, and the supply of wine had been liberal. He, too, had taken several glasses and had recovered after the shock of discovering that he was dead. Now it now seemed to him that to talk for – what time remained? – ten minutes at the most about sausage dogs would not be an impossible task. And by now he had remembered that Zimmermann himself had been in such a situation some years before, when he had been mistaken for another Zimmermann and had been obliged to deliver a lecture on developments in exhaust systems, a subject of which he was completely ignorant. And yet had he not done so, and with distinction? With such distinction, indeed, that the resulting paper had been published in the Karlsruher Forum für Moderne Auspuffkonstruktion? If Zimmermann could do it, then surely he could do so too.

  ‘The sausage dog,’ he began, ‘is a remarkable dog. It differs from other dogs in respect of its shape, which is similar to that of a sausage. It belongs to that genus of dogs marked out by their proximity to the ground. In most cases this is because of the shortness of the legs. If a dog has short legs, we have found that the body is almost invariably close to the ground. Yet this does not prevent the sausage dog from making its way about its business with considerable despatch.’

  He glanced at his watch. One minute had passed, leaving nine minutes to go. There would be one minute, or perhaps two, for thanks at the end, which meant that he now had to speak for no more than seven minutes. But what more was there to say about sausage dogs? Were they good hunting dogs? He believed they were. Perhaps he could say something about the role of the sausage dog in the rural economy, how they had their place and how unwise it was to introduce new, untested breeds.

  This went down well with the audience, and there were murmurs of agreement from corners of the room. Emboldened, von Igelfeld moved on to the topic of whether there should be restrictions on the free movement of sausage dogs. Should sausage dog breeders not be allowed to export animals with as few restrictions as possible? Again the audience agreed with von Igelfeld when he said that this was a good idea.

  There were several other points before it was time to stop. After thanking Leflar and the University of Arkansas, von Igelfeld sat down, to thunderous applause.

  Leflar leaned over to von Igelfeld as the sound of clapping filled the room.

  ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘That went down very well. Guest speakers are sometimes far too technical for an open lecture like this. You hit j
ust the right note.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded gravely.

  ‘I hope I lived up to expectations,’ he said modestly.

  ‘Oh you did,’ said Leflar. ‘It was a resounding success. Even if you were somewhat brief.’

  From his seat on the aeroplane, von Igelfeld looked down at the Ozarks as they became smaller and smaller beneath him. It was a good place, America, and Arkansas was a good state. He had been invited to return, but how could he, particularly when the news of Professor Igelfold’s death became widespread? Besides, he reflected, he had nothing further to say about sausage dogs; indeed he had already said more than enough.

  zwei

  A Leg to Stand On

  Arkansas had been a welcome diversion for von Igelfeld. He had felt quite exhausted before embarking on the trip but had returned entirely refreshed, ready to face the pressing burdens of daily life at the Institute for Romance Philology in Regensburg.

  The reason for von Igelfeld’s fatigue before his departure was the effort that he had been obliged to expend – at very short notice – on the writing of a radio talk on Portuguese orthography. He had taken great care with this talk, and the programme had eventually been broadcast by German State Radio at five o’clock on a particularly wet Thursday evening.

  Von Igelfeld had been pleased with his talk, which he felt had achieved the requisite delicate balance between the rival theories on the issue. Some weeks later he had telephoned the producer to establish whether there had been any reaction to what he had said.

  The producer had sounded evasive.

  ‘It’s rather difficult to gauge reaction,’ he had said. ‘That’s a tricky slot on Thursday evening. Many people are still on their way home from work.’

  ‘I know that,’ snapped von Igelfeld. ‘But there are still plenty of people at home. They could have listened.’

  ‘Well . . .’ said the producer. ‘It’s a difficult time. And the audience research reports . . .’

  ‘Is that some sort of survey?’ interrupted von Igelfeld. ‘Does it show how many people listened?’

  ‘Well,’ said the producer, hesitantly. ‘I’m afraid it was not all that encouraging. In fact, we had a negative result. Apparently nobody tuned in at all. Nobody heard you.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Nobody?’

  ‘Of course, these things are often unreliable.’

  ‘I should think they are,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I, for one, listened. And then there’s my colleague, Professor Dr Unterholzer. He listened, I can assure you.’

  ‘There you are,’ said the producer. ‘That’s something.’

  In fact, unbeknown to von Igelfeld, Unterholzer had not listened. He had fully intended to do so, having been reminded by von Igelfeld on four separate occasions of the time of the broadcast, but had become so absorbed in a musical concert that he had forgotten to switch stations. So, as far as anybody knew, von Igelfeld was the only person in Germany to hear his own talk.

  But the radio broadcast seemed distant now, and other challenges were on the horizon. There was the Berlin meeting on Celtic philology – always a major date in von Igelfeld’s calendar – and there was a lecture to prepare for Salzburg. And then there was, of course, the work which had to be done on The Portuguese Pluperfect, the book on which von Igelfeld had been working for the last few years and which, in the opinion of all those who had glimpsed the manuscript, was sure to become a worthy successor to Portuguese Irregular Verbs itself.

  When the letter arrived from Professor R. B. Leflar, von Igelfeld opened it almost absentmindedly. He was aware of the fact that it bore an American stamp; American stamps, he had observed, always showed people doing things, whereas German stamps were designed not to excite people too much and were somehow more appropriate. He was reflecting on this when he noticed the fateful postmark: Fayetteville, Arkansas. Had he seen that, he would have known at once the authorship of the letter.

  ‘Dear Professor von Igelfeld,’ the letter began. ‘I would never have imagined, when we said farewell to one another in Arkansas barely nine months ago, that I should be seeing you so soon. But I now find myself having to come to Germany and I should therefore like to take you up on your kind invitation to visit Regensburg . . .’

  Von Igelfeld smiled as he read the letter. He had enjoyed Professor Leflar’s company and the thought of showing him around Regensburg was an attractive one. He would take him down to the river and, if the weather was fine, perhaps they could . . . He stopped. The awful thought had occurred that as far as Leflar was concerned, von Igelfeld was still a professor of veterinary medicine and the world’s leading authority on the sausage dog. He had not disabused him of this misconception, although he should perhaps have done this right at the outset. But once he had allowed matters to persist and had delivered the lecture on sausage dogs, then it had been too late. Now it was impossible to confess that he had enjoyed the hospitality of his hosts in Fayetteville under entirely false pretences.

  That would not have been too troubling had it not been for the fact of Leflar’s impending arrival. It would be impossible to maintain the pretence of being a professor of veterinary medicine right here in Regensburg, where everybody knew that he was a Romance philologist. But did he have any alternative? It would be simply too embarrassing to tell the truth now, to confess to an utter ignorance of sausage dogs; he would simply have to brazen it out and pretend for the two days of Leflar’s visit that he was, indeed, what he so patently was not. It was not an appealing prospect.

  ‘I shall not be coming into the Institute next week,’ he said to Unterholzer. ‘I shall be . . .’

  Unterholzer looked at him expectantly.

  ‘In Berlin?’ he asked, a note of jealousy creeping into his voice. ‘Has somebody asked you to go to Berlin?’

  Von Igelfeld shook his head. It was typical of Unterholzer to be immoderately inquisitive. How von Igelfeld spent his time had nothing to do with him and there was no call for him to reveal such vulgar curiosity.

  Unterholzer persisted. ‘Munich?’ he pressed. ‘Wiesbaden?’

  Von Igelfeld felt the irritation well up within him. ‘I shall be right here in Regensburg,’ he snapped. ‘I shall just not be coming into the Institute. That is all.’

  Unterholzer was silent. He knew that von Igelfeld was concealing something, but short of following him about, which he clearly could not do, there was little chance of his discovering what it was. For von Igelfeld’s part, he realised that silence might have been more advisable: if he had simply said nothing, then Unterholzer may never even have noticed his absence. As it was, he would have to make sure that their paths did not cross during Leflar’s visit. Unterholzer was noted for his insecurity. He would surely interpret the presence of a mysterious stranger in von Igelfeld’s company as some sort of threat to himself and could be counted on to try to find out his identity.

  The essential difficulty was that life was unfair, and Unterholzer was one of those who was destined to play second fiddle, or worse. He had the worst office in the Institute; his book was all but ignored by everybody in the field; and he rarely received invitations to lecture anywhere of the remotest interest. His Buenos Aires invitation had come merely because they could get nobody else to attend the conference, although von Igelfeld had generously refrained from telling him that. He had hinted it, though, but Unterholzer, with typical lack of insight, had failed to read his meaning. Poor Unterholzer! reflected von Igelfeld. What it must be to be such a failure and to have so little . . .

  Von Igelfeld’s reveries came to an abrupt end. To have so little in this life and yet to have received – oh, the sheer injustice of it – a medal from the Portuguese Government! A medal which must have been intended for himself, von Igelfeld, not for the hopelessly obscure Unterholzer. All he had ever done for the Lusophile world had been to pen a badly received volume on the Portuguese imperfect subjunctive. This was a book which was barely fit to rest on the same shelf as P
ortuguese Irregular Verbs, and yet some misguided official in Lisbon has recommended the award of a medal! It was quite clear to von Igelfeld that the medals of this world were pinned on quite the wrong chests, just as were the metaphorical barriers inevitably placed in quite the wrong place.

  Leflar arrived on a Tuesday. It was a wonderful spring day and the air was sharp and invigorating.

  ‘A peach of a day!’ the American visitor remarked as von Igelfeld met him at the railway station. ‘The sort of day that in Arkansas makes us go hippety-hop!’

  ‘Hippety-hop?’ said von Igelfeld, slightly taken aback. ‘Oh yes. We Germans like to go hippety-hop too on days like this.’

  They travelled by taxi to the Hotel Angst, where von Igelfeld had booked Leflar in for the two nights of his stay.

  ‘I am sure that you’ll be very comfortable here,’ he explained. ‘The Institute always uses this hotel for its visitors. We put Professor Hutmann here last time. He is an old friend of mine from student days in Heidelberg.’

  Leflar looked surprised. ‘Heidelberg? I didn’t realise they taught veterinary medicine at Heidelberg.’

  Von Igelfeld froze. Leflar had scarcely arrived and he had already made a bad mistake.

  ‘Heidelberg?’ he said quickly. ‘Who said anything about Heidelberg?’

  ‘You did,’ said Leflar. ‘You referred to being a student at Heidelberg. You said you studied at Heidelberg.’

  ‘I did not,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘You must have misheard me. I said that Professor Hutmann was an old friend, in Heidelberg, from student days. That is, we were friends, in student days, but now he is in Heidelberg.’

  ‘So,’ he went on quickly. ‘I shall leave you here for a while, but I shall be back soon to take you out to lunch. In the afternoon, I can show you round the town.’

  They bade farewell and von Igelfeld made his way home, deep in thought. If matters were difficult at this stage, then how much more complicated they would become when it came to taking Leflar to the Veterinary Institute tomorrow, as he had requested.