The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The lectures were due to take place at ten o’clock in the morning, while the ship was still five hours out of Oporto. There was an announcement on the ship’s public-address system as von Igelfeld made his way to the room in which his lecture was to be given. Chairs had been placed in rows, and at the head of the room there was a table with a jug of water and a lectern.

  Von Igelfeld walked up to the table and placed his notes on the lectern. Before him, dotted about the room, was his audience of seven passengers. He glanced at his watch. It was five minutes after the advertised time. He was to be introduced by one of the purser’s staff, who now glanced at him sympathetically.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry about the turn-out,’ whispered the officer. ‘Perhaps people are doing something else.’

  ‘Perhaps they are,’ said von Igelfeld coldly. ‘Perhaps my lecture was not sufficiently well-advertised.’

  ‘But it was!’ protested the officer. ‘There were posters all over the place. And there was a big notice in the ship’s newspaper.’

  Von Igelfeld ignored this. ‘Let us begin, anyway,’ he said. ‘There are at least some intellectually curious passengers on this ship.’

  The lecture began. After fifteen minutes, two of the passengers seated near the back slipped out. Three of the others, all elderly ladies, now nodded off, while the remaining two, sitting together at the front, took copious notes. After an hour, von Igelfeld stopped, and thanked his audience for their attention. The two passengers at the front laid down their notebooks and applauded enthusiastically. The three who had been sleeping awoke with a start and joined in the applause. Von Igelfeld nodded in the direction of the two in the front and walked out of the room.

  On his way back to his cabin, he found the corridors blocked by passengers streaming out of one of the other rooms. Like most of the passengers on the ship, they were almost all middle-aged women, and they all seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood. Pressed against the wall to allow them to pass, von Igelfeld heard snippets of conversation.

  ‘So amusing . . . I haven’t read him, I confess, but I shall certainly do so now . . . Do you think that the ship’s bookshop has his books? . . . Oh they do, I saw a whole pile of them . . . Very interesting . . . I can’t wait for his next lecture . . . ’

  Von Igelfeld strove to catch more, but the comments merged in the general hubbub. One thing was clear, though: this was the crowd on its way from listening to that poor man, Hans-Dieter Dietermann. He must have had an audience of at least three or four hundred, and they all seemed to have enjoyed themselves. How misguided can people be!

  He sat alone at his table over lunch, reflecting on the morning’s humiliation. He had never before had so small an audience. Even in America, where he had been obliged, through a misunderstanding, to deliver a lecture on sausage dogs, there had been a larger and distinctly more enthusiastic audience. It was obviously the company’s fault – possibly the fault of the Captain himself, and there was no doubt in his mind that the Captain should do something about it.

  ‘I am most displeased,’ he told the Captain, when he confronted him on the bridge immediately after lunch. ‘Not enough has been done to ensure support for my lectures.’

  The Captain smiled. ‘But I heard that there had been a very large crowd this morning,’ he said. ‘I understand that it was a great success.’

  ‘That was the other lecturer, Herr Kapitan,’ interjected one of the junior officers. ‘That was Herr Dietermann.’

  Von Igelfeld turned and glared at the junior officer, but refrained from saying anything.

  ‘Oh,’ said the Captain. ‘I see. Everyone went to the other one and not to yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘And I would like something done about it.’

  ‘Well, we can’t change the programme,’ said the Captain. ‘That just confuses everybody.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I could get some of the crew to go. That might swell the audience for the next one.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded. ‘I am sure that they would find it very interesting.’

  The Captain nodded. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to come myself,’ he said. ‘Somebody has to stay up here. By the way, is my cabin comfortable enough for you?’

  ‘It is quite adequate,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I hope that you are comfortable in . . . in that other cabin.’

  ‘I don’t notice these things,’ said the Captain politely. ‘I’m usually so busy I don’t get much time to sleep.’

  ‘Most unfortunate,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘Sleep is very important.’

  He left feeling quite mollified by the Captain’s sympathetic view of the situation. He had great confidence in the Captain, and indeed at the next lecture, which took place after they had left Oporto, some twenty members of the crew, acting under Captain’s orders and all neatly attired in their white uniforms, sat in two solid rows, listening to von Igelfeld’s remarks on the development of the gerundive in Portuguese. Their expression, von Igelfeld thought, tended to the somewhat glassy, but they were probably tired, like the Captain.

  The next day, von Igelfeld received a visit from the officer who ran the ship’s newspaper. She was planning a short interview with all three lecturers, so that she could publish a profile for the passengers to read over their breakfast. She spoke to von Igelfeld about his work and about his interests, noting his replies down in a small notebook. She seemed particularly interested in Portuguese Irregular Verbs, and von Igelfeld spent some time explaining the research which lay behind this great work of scholarship. Then she got on to the personal side of his life.

  ‘Now tell me, Herr Professor,’ she asked, ‘does your wife mind your going off on these lecture cruises?’

  ‘I am unmarried,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I was almost married once, but that did not work out.’ Unterholzer! he thought bitterly. Had Unterholzer not outflanked him in the courtship of Lisbetta von Brautheim then history would have been very different.

  ‘So you would like to get married one day?’ she asked.

  ‘Indeed,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘It is simply a question of finding the right person. You could say, I suppose, that I am ready to propose marriage should the right lady present herself.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the journalist. ‘You are a professor in search of a wife.’

  Von Igelfeld smiled. ‘You might say that,’ he said. ‘However, my heavy workload prevents my being too active in that respect most of the time.’

  ‘But one might have time on a cruise, might one not?’ said the journalist playfully.

  Von Igelfeld allowed himself a slight laugh. ‘One never knows,’ he said. ‘Life is full of surprises, is it not?’

  The profiles of the three lecturers appeared in the ship’s newspaper the next morning. There was a fairly long description of Hans-Dieter Dietermann and a summary of his recent novel. He, it was revealed, was married to a Munich kindergarten teacher and they had three young children. The other lecturer was accompanied by his wife, and there was a photograph of the two of them standing at a ship’s railing, looking out to sea. Then there was the feature on von Igelfeld, with a word-for-word account of the discussion about being single and looking for a wife. Von Igelfeld read this with a certain amount of embarrassment, but he was pleased enough with the lengthy discussion of Portuguese Irregular Verbs.

  This book, the article said, is generally regarded as one of the most important books to be published in Germany this century. As a work of scholarship, it is said by many to be without parallel and is known throughout the world. It is clearly a book that we all should read, if we ever had the time. The Company is honoured to have one of the most distinguished scholars in the world lecturing to its passengers – another example of the high standards of excellence which the Hamburg and North Germany Cruise Line has long maintained.

  Von Igelfeld re-read this passage several times. He resolved to drop a note to the officer who wrote it and thank her for her perceptive and accurate remarks. He might send a copy to the Librarian at t
he Institute – just for record purposes, of course, and Prinzel and Unterholzer would probably like to see it as well, now that one came to think of it.

  He arose from his breakfast table, folded the newspaper carefully, and walked out of the dining room. As he did so, some sixty pairs of eyes, all belonging to the middle-aged widows and divorcees who formed the overwhelming bulk of the cruise passengers, followed his progress from the room. These same eyes had just finished reading the profile in the paper, skipping over the paragraph about Portuguese Irregular Verbs but dwelling with considerable interest on the passage about von Igelfeld’s single status. That was a matter of great significance to them, as it was undoubtedly the case that of the three hundred widows and divorcees on the ship, at least two hundred and ninety of them harboured a secret wish in her heart that she might meet a future husband on the cruise. Unfortunately, for complex reasons of demography, von Igelfeld was the only unmarried man on the boat, apart from the younger members of the crew, who were too young and who were anyway under strict instructions not to socialise with the passengers; and the two hairdressers, who were not suitable, for quite other reasons.

  ‘What a nice, tall man,’ whispered Frau Krutzner to her friend, Frau Jens. ‘Such a distinguished bearing.’

  ‘So scholarly!’ said Frau Jens, dreamily. ‘And such a waste! I do hope that he meets a suitable lady soon. In fact, I’m sure that I could look after our dear Professor von Igelfeld myself.’

  ‘Frau Jens!’ said Frau Krutzner. ‘You have many talents, my dear, but I fear realism may not be one of them. Poor Professor von Igelfeld will be looking for somebody a bit younger than you.’

  ‘Such as you?’ retorted Frau Jens.

  ‘I was not going to suggest that,’ said Frau Krutzner. ‘But since you yourself have raised the possibility, well, who can tell?’

  There were many similar conversations amongst friends, the general gist of which was to discuss the prospects of snaring von Igelfeld before the voyage was out. Strategies were laid; outfits which had been brought ‘just in case’ were retrieved from trunks and pressed into service. The two hairdressers, busy at the best of times, were inundated with requests for appointments and there was a serious danger that supplies of hair dye would be exhausted before there was time to replenish stores at Marseilles.

  Von Igelfeld himself was quite unaware of all the excitement amongst the passengers. That afternoon, there were due to be two more lectures: Portuguese: a Deviant Spanish? from him, and Romantic Heroes from Hans-Dieter Dietermann. Von Igelfeld was reconciled to an audience of twenty-five – composed of obedient crew members and the hard core of his own attenders – with the result that he was astonished when he went into the room and found that it was so packed with people as to allow standing room only for late-comers. For a few moments he thought that he had come to the wrong room; that he had wandered, by mistake, into the auditorium in which Hans-Dieter Dietermann was due to speak. But the officer who was accompanying him assured him that they had come to the right place and that the audience was expecting him to lecture.

  For the next hour, von Igelfeld lectured to an enraptured audience, composed, with the exception of the crew members, entirely of ladies. Everything that von Igelfeld said, every move and gesture, was followed with rapt attention by the excited ladies, and after the lecture, when von Igelfeld tried to leave, he was mobbed by eager questioners.

  ‘Tell me, Herr Professor,’ said one matron. ‘Is Portuguese all that different from Spanish? I’ve been dying to know the answer to that question. And my name, by the way, is Frau Libmann. I am from Munich. Do you know Munich well? My late husband had a large printing works there.’

  And: ‘Dear Professor von Igelfeld! What a marvellous lecture. I hung on every word – every word! I am Frau Baum from Regensburg. Yes, Regensburg too! Do you know Professor Zimmermann? I have known him for many years. Will you perhaps come and have dinner with Professor Zimmermann and myself some day?’

  And: ‘Herr Professor! I can’t wait to read your book! I am trying to read Herr Dietermann’s at the moment, but I am sure that your own book is far more interesting. Do they stock it in the ship’s book shop, I wonder? Could you perhaps come and help me find it there?’

  Von Igelfeld tried valiantly to deal with all these questions, but eventually, after an hour and a half, when it was apparent that the tenacity of his audience knew no bounds, he was rescued by one of the officers and escorted back to his cabin. On the way they passed the bar where, had they looked, they might have seen a disconsolate Hans-Dieter Dietermann sitting on a stool, wondering why it was that his audience had dwindled to eight.

  ‘You were a real hit back there,’ said the officer. ‘They loved everything you said. It was quite surprising.’

  ‘Oh?’ said von Igelfeld. ‘Why should it be surprising? Is Romance philology not intrinsically interesting? Why should those agreeable ladies not find it fascinating?’

  ‘Oh, of course, of course,’ said the officer quickly. ‘It’s just that I have never seen so many of our passengers become so . . . how shall I put it? So intrigued by one of our lecturers.’

  Von Igelfeld bade farewell to the officer and entered the cabin. He felt quite exhausted after the demanding question session and he looked forward to a short siesta before he ventured out on to the deck for a walk. But as he sat down on his easy chair, he noticed that there were several parcels on the table. He rose to his feet and crossed the cabin. He was puzzled: the steward must have delivered something while he was lecturing. But who would be sending him parcels?

  There were three. One was a large box of chocolates, to which a card had been attached: To one who is lonely, from one who knows what loneliness means. Else Martinhaus (Cabin 256). The second parcel, which von Igelfeld opened with fumbling, rather alarmed hands, was a handsome edition of Rilke’s poems, on the fly leaf of which had been inscribed: A woman’s soul is a huntress, forever in search of him who can quench the soul’s fire. To dear Moritz-Maria, from Margarita Jens (second table from yours in the dining room). And finally there was a framed picture of the ship, again a purchase from the on-board shop, signed with the following motto: I will go to the end of the seven seas for you. The signature on this present, regrettably, was illegible.

  Von Igelfeld sat down weakly. This was extraordinary. Why should three ladies whom he had never met take it upon themselves to send him presents? And why, moreover, should they make these protestations of affection when he had done nothing to encourage them to do so? Was this the way that respectable German widows behaved these days? If it was, then Germany had changed utterly and profoundly from the Germany he had once known. It was still necessary, however, to observe the formalities and to thank the donors of the gifts. He would write a note to Frau Jens and ask the steward to deliver it to her table. Frau Martinhaus had given him the number of her cabin and so he could simply slip a note under her door. And as for the donor of the picture, if she could not identify herself properly on her gifts then she should not be surprised to receive no acknowledgement.

  Von Igelfeld sat at the Captain’s desk and wrote out the notes. He thanked the donors for their kind gifts and expressed his pleasure that they had enjoyed his lecture so much. He trusted that they would enjoy the remaining lecture, and assured them that if he could help them at all – on any point of philology or Portuguese grammar – they had only to ask. The notes written, he had a long, luxuriant bath in the Captain’s bath, and then dressed for dinner.

  In the dining room, there was a murmur of excitement as von Igelfeld made his entry. This was the signal for five determined ladies, including Frau Jens and Frau Martinhaus, to rise to their feet simultaneously, all with the thought of intercepting von Igelfeld before he reached his table and inviting him to dine at theirs. Victory went to the fastest of these. Frau Jens’s legs, unfortunately, were too short to carry her across the room with sufficient despatch, and the first person to reach von Igelfeld’s side was Frau Magda Holtmann, the widow of
a Bonn lawyer, whose previous skills as a member, some forty years ago, of the University of Gottingen’s Women’s Sprint Team gave her a distinct advantage over the other four.

  Von Igelfeld had no wish to have dinner with anybody, but felt unable to turn down the invitation. So, under glares of barely concealed anger from other tables, the ladies of Frau Holtmann’s table enjoyed his company over dinner, each of them thinking privately what a perfect match he would make for them individually and wondering whether fourteen days would be enough to accomplish the task of securing an offer of marriage. Each had gone over the advantages which she might have over her rivals – and rivals there undoubtedly were. In many cases it was fortune – perhaps the Professor had had enough of working in his Institute and would appreciate the life of a private scholar? In some cases it was social prowess – a small, but appreciative salon, perhaps, for the society of Wiesbaden? And in other cases, it was skill in culinary matters. How did a mere man survive without somebody to ensure that the table was always properly furnished with good German delicacies? Did the poor Herr Professor eat in restaurants all the time? Did he even get enough to eat? Men needed their food – it was well-known. He was very thin; marriage would change all that.

  By the end of dinner, von Igelfeld was exhausted. He had spent the entire meal dealing with the ladies’ questions. What were his hobbies? Did he have relatives in Munster, by any chance? There had been a Professor Igelfold there, had there not, and the Igelfolds could be a branch of the same family, could they not? Did he enjoy walking? The hills above Freiburg were very suitable for that purpose! Was he ever in Freiburg? Did he know the von Kersell family? There had been a Professor von Kersell once, but something had happened to him. Did he know, by any chance, what that was?

  After coffee had been served, von Igelfeld had looked very publicly at his watch and had excused himself.