by Unknown
third-year group is tricky because Robin Kenworth used to be
*At a conference ? *
Alice Murphy's boy-friend but lately he's been going around with
'Shooting wild pigs, I'm told.'
Miranda Watkins, and as they're all in the same group you may Morris wondered if he had heard aright, but let it go.
find the atmosphere rather tense...
' What about the other professors ?'
The letter continued in this vein for several pages, des-
'There's only the one.'
cribing the emotional, psychological and physiological
'I mean the other teachers.'
peculiarities of the students concerned in intimate detail.
'It's the vacation,' she repeated, speaking with delibera-Morris read through it in total bewilderment. What kind of tion, as if to a slow-witted child. 'You do get them coming in a man was this, that seemed to know more about his stu-from time to time, but I've not seen anybody this morning.'
dents than their own mothers? And to care more, by the
'Who should I see about my teaching programme?'
sound of it.
' Dr Busby did say something about it the other d a y . . . '
He opened the other drawers in the desk, hoping to find
' Yes ?' Morris prompted, after a pause.
further clues to this eccentric character, but they were
'I've forgotten, now,' said the girl dejectedly. ' I ' m empty except for one containing a piece of chalk, an ex-leaving in the summer to get married,' she added, as if she hausted ball-point, two bent pipe-cleaners and a small, had decided on this course as the only way out of a hopeless empty can that had once contained an ounce of pipe to-situation.
bacco, Three Nuns Empire Blend. Sherlock Holmes might
'Congratulations. Would there be a file on me some-have made something of these clues . . . Morris moved on to where?'
examine the cupboards and bookshelves. The books did no
'Well, there might be. I could have a look,' said the girl, more than confirm Swallow's confession that he had no parti-obviously relieved to escape. She left Morris alone in bis cular scholarly field, being a miscellaneous collection of Eng-office.
lish literature, with a thin representation of modern criticism, He sat down at the desk and opened the drawers. In the Morris's own not included. He established that the cup-top right-hand one was an envelope addressed to himself.
boards were empty, except for one at the top of the book-It contained a long hand-written letter from Philip shelves which was too high for him to reach. Its inaccessi-Swallow.
bility convinced Morris that it contained the revelation he 62
63
was looking for - a dozen empty gin bottles, for instance, or concluded.' He's busy with the Fire Chief right now. I know a collection of women's underwear - and he clambered on he'll call you.'
to a chair to reach the catch of the sliding door. It was Philip found his room on the fourth floor. A sallow youth stuck, and the whole bookshelf began to sway dangerously as with a mop of frizzy hair was squatting outside, smoking a he tugged. The catch suddenly gave, however, and a hun-cigarette. He was wearing some kind of army combat jacket dred and fifty-seven empty tobacco cans, Three Nuns with camouflage markings and he looked, Philip Couldn't Empire Blend, fell on his head.
help thinking, just the sort of chap who might plant a bomb somewhere. As Philip fitted his key into the Yale lock, he
'You've been allocated room number 426,' said Mabel scrambled to his feet. A fluorescent KEEP KROOP button Lee, the petite Asian secretary. 'That's Professor Zapp's glowed on his lapel.
office.'
' Professor Swallow ?'
' Yes,' said Philip.' He'll be using my room at Rummidge.'
'Yes?'
Mabel Lee gave him an amiable, but non-attending
'Could I see you?'
smile, like that of an air-hostess - whom, indeed, she
•What, now?'
resembled, in her crisp white blouse and scarlet pinafore
'Now would be great.'
dress. The Departmental Office was full of people just ad-
'Well, I've only just arrived...'
mitted to the building, loudly discussing the bomb which
• You have to run that key twice.'
had exploded in the fourth-floor mensroom. Opinion This was true. The door opened suddenly and Philip seemed to be fairly evenly divided between those who dropped some of his papers. The young man picked them up blamed the Third World Students who were threatening to adroitly and made this an opportunity to follow him into the strike in the coming quarter, and those who suspected police room. It was stuffy, and smelled of cigars. Philip threw up provocateurs aiming to discredit the Third World Students the window and observed with satisfaction that it opened on and their strike. Though the conversation was excited, to a narrow balcony.
Philip missed the expected note of outrage and fear.
'Nice view,' said the youth, who had stolen up silently
' Does, er, this sort of t h i n g . . . happen often ?' he asked.
behind him. Philip started.
•Hmm? Oh, yeah. Well, I guess it's the first bomb we've
•What can I do for you, Mr, e r . . . ?'
had in Dealer.' With this ambiguous reassurance Mabel Lee
'Smith. Wily Smith.'
proceeded to hand over the keys to his room, together with a
'Willy?'
wad of forms and leaflets which she briskly explained to him,
'Wily.'
dealing them out on the counter that divided the room: Wily perched himself on the only part of the desk that was
'Identity Card, don't forget to sign it, application for car not covered with books. Philip's first thought was that it was parking, medical insurance brochures - choose any one rather careless of the Zapp fellow to leave his room so un-plan, typewriter rental application - you can have electric tidy. Then he registered that many of the books were still in or manual, course handbook, income tax immunity form, unwrapped postal packaging and addressed to himself.
key to the elevator in this building, key to the Xerox room,
'Good Lord,'he said.
just sign your name in the book each time you use the
• What's the problem, Professor Swallow ?'
machine . . . I'll tell Professor Hogan you've arrived,' she
' These books . . . Where have they come from ?'
64
65
' Publishers. They want you to assign them for courses.
'Fine. And while I think of it, Mrs Hogan and I are
'And what if I don't?'
having some folks round for drinks on Sunday, 'bout five,
'You keep them anyway. Unless you want to sell them. I could you make it ?'
know a guy will give you fifty per cent of the list price...'
' Well, yes, thank you very much. About my courses -'
' No, no,' Philip protested, greedily tearing the wrappers
'Fine. That's just fine. And how are you settling in, Mr from huge, heavy anthologies and sleek, seductive paper-Swallow?'
backs. A free book was a rare treat in England, and the sight
' Oh, fine, thanks,' said Philip mechanically.' I mean, no, of all this unsolicited booty made him slightly delirious. He that is -' But he was too late. With a last' Fine', Hogan had rather wished Wily Smith would leave him to gloat in rung off.
solitude.
' So do I get into the course ?' said Wily Smith.
' What is it you want to see me about, Mr Smith ?'
' I would strongly advise you against it,' said Philip. 'Why
'You're teaching English 305 next quarter, right?'
are you so keen, anyway ?'
'I really don't know what I'm teaching yet. What is
' I have this novel I want to write. It's about this black kid Engl
ish 305?'
growing up in the ghetto . . . '
'Novel-writing.'
'Isn't that going to be rather difficult?' said Philip. 'I Philip laughed. 'Well, it's certainly not me, then. I mean, unless you actually are...'
couldn't write a novel to save my life.'
Philip hesitated. He had been instructed by Charles Boon Wily Smith frowned and, plunging his hand inside his that ' black' was the correct usage these days, but he found combat jacket, produced what Philip feared might be a himself unable to pronounce a word associated in Rummidge bomb but which turned out to be a catalogue of courses.
with the crudest kind of racial prejudice.' Unless you've had
'English 305,' he read out, 'an advanced course in the the experience yourself,' he amended his sentence.
writing of extended narrative. Selective enrolment. Winter
'Sure. Like the story is autobiographical. All I need is Quarter: Professor Philip Swallow.'
technique.'
Philip took the catalogue from his hands and read for
'Autobiographical?' Philip scrutinized the young man, himself. ' Good Lord,' he said weakly. ' I must stop this at narrowing his eyes and cocking his head to one side. Wily once.'
Smith's complexion was about the shade of Philip's own a With Wily Smith's assistance he telephoned the Chairman week after his summer holiday, when his tan would begin to of the Department.
fade and turn yellow. 'Are you sure ?'
'Professor Hogan, I'm sorry to bother you so soon,
'Sure I'm sure.' Wily Smith looked hurt, not to say b u t - '
insulted.
'Mr Swallow!' Hogan's voice boomed out of the receiver.
Philip hastily changed the subject: 'Tell me, that badge
'Mighty glad to hear you arrived. Have a good flight?'
you're wearing — what is Kroop ?'
' Not at all bad, thank you. I -'
Kroop turned out to be the name of an Assistant Pro-
' Fine! Where are you staying, Mr Swallow ?'
fessor in the English Department who had recently been
'At the Faculty Club for the time being, while I look -*
refused tenure. 'But there's a grass-roots movement to have
' Fine, that's fine, Mr Swallow. You and I must have lunch him kept on here,' Wily explained. 'Like he's a real groovy together real soon.'
teacher and his classes are very popular. The other pro-
' Well, that would be very nice, but what I -'
fessors make out he hasn't published enough, but really 66
67
I
they're sick as hell because of the raves he gets in the Course
makes Austen swing,' was one comment. Only 'A' students need Bulletin:
apply.
And what was that ? It was apparently a kind of con-sumers' guide to teachers and courses based on question-Miss Slade was just about to knock on Morris Zapp's door naires handed out to students in previous quarters. Wily to inform him that there was nothing in the files about his produced the current issue from one of his capacious pockets.
teaching programme, when she heard the noise of the
'You won't be in there, Professor Swallow. But you will hundred and fifty-seven tobacco cans falling out of the next quarter.'
cupboard. He listened to the sound of her high heels fleeing
' Really ?' Philip opened the book at random.
down the corridor. She did not return. Neither did anyone English 14s. Augustan Pastoral Poetry. Asst. Professor Howard else violate his privacy.
Ringbaum. Juniors and Seniors. Limited enrolment.
Morris came into the University most days to work on his Sense and Sensibility commentary and at first he appreciated Ringbaum, according to most reports, does little to make his the peace and quiet; but after a while he began to find these subject interesting to students. One commented: 'He seems to amenities oppressively absolute. In Euphoria he was know his material very well, but resents questions and discussion as they interrupt his train of thought.' Another comment: 'Dull, constantly being pursued by students, colleagues, adminis»
dull, dull.' Ringbaum is a strict grader and, according to one trators, secretaries. He didn't expect to be so busy at report, 'likes to set insidious little quizzes.'
Rummidge, at least not initially; but he had vaguely supposed the faculty would introduce themselves, show him
'Well,' said Philip with a nervous smile. 'They certainly around, offer the usual hospitality and advice. In all modes-don't mince their words, do they?' He leafed through other ty Morris imagined he must be the biggest fish ever to swim pages on English courses.
into this academic backwater, and he was prepared for a re-English 213. The Death of the Book? Communication and ception of almost exaggerated (if that were possible) interest Crisis in Contemporary Culture. Asst. Professor Karl Kroop.
and excitement. When nobody showed, he didn't know what Limited enrolment.
to do. He had lost the art, cultivated in youth, of making his existence known to people. He was used, by now, to letting Rise early on Enrolment Day to sign on for this justly popular interdisciplinary multi-media head-trip. 'Makes McLuhan seem the action come to him. But there was no action.
slow,' was one comment, and another raved: 'the most exciting As the beginning of term approached, the Departmental course I have ever taken.' Heavy reading assignments, but flexible corridor lost its tomb-like silence, its air of human desertion.
assessment system. Kroop takes an interest in his students, is always The faculty began to trickle back to their posts. From behind available.
his desk he heard them passing in the corridor, greeting each other, laughing and opening and shutting their doors. But
' Who compiles these reports ?' Philip inquired.
when he ventured into the corridor himself they seemed to
' I do,' said Wily Smith.' Do I get into your course ?'
avoid him, bolting into their offices just as he emerged from
' I ' l l think about it,' said Philip. He continued to browse.
his own, or else they looked straight through him as if he English 350. Jane Austen and the Theory of Fiction. Professor were the man who serviced the central heating. Just when he Morris J. ZaPP' Graduate Seminar. Limited enrolment.
had decided that he would have to take the initiative by Mostly good reports of this course. Zapp is described as vain, ambushing his British colleagues as they passed his door at sarcastic and a mean grader, but brilliant and stimulating. 'He coffee-time and dragging them into his office, they began to 68
69
acknowledge his presence in a way which suggested long but spectator sport - but the amount of screen time devoted to it not deep familiarity, tossing him a perfunctory smile as they was meagre. There was a four-hour programme of sport on passed, or nodding their heads, without breaking step or Saturday afternoons which he had settled down to watch their own conversations. This new behaviour implied that expectantly, but it seemed to be some kind of conspiracy to they all knew perfectly well who he was, thus making any drive the population out to the soccer stadiums or to the attempt at self-introduction on his part superfluous, while at supermarkets or anywhere rather than watch ladies' arch-the same time it offered no purchase for extending acquain-ery, county swimming championships, a fishing contest and tance. Morris began to think that he was going to pass a table-tennis tournament all in breathtaking succession.
through the Rummidge English Department without any-He switched on to the other channel and that seemed to be a one actually speaking to him. They would fend him off for cross-country race for wheel-chairs, as far as you could tell six months with their little smiles and nods and then the through the sleet.
waters would close over him and it would be as if he had He had a brief honeymoon with Radio One that turned never disturbed their surface.
into a kind of sado-masochistic marriage. Waking early
in Morris felt himself cracking under this treatment. His the Rummidge hotel on that morning when his breath vocal organs began to deteriorate from disuse - on the rare turned to steam, he had flicked on his transistor and listened occasions when he spoke, his own voice sounded strange and to what he took, at the time, to be a very funny parody of the hoarse to his ears. He paced his office like a prisoner in his worst kind of American AM radio, based on the simple but cell, wondering what he had done to provoke this treatment.
effective formula of having non-commercial commercials.
Did he have halitosis? Was he suspected of working for the Instead of advertising products, the disc-jockey advertised CIA?
himself- pouring out a torrent of drivel generally designed to In his lonely isolation, Morris turned instinctively for convey what a jolly, amusing and lovable guy he was - and solace to the media. He was at the best of times a radio and also advertised his listeners, every one of whose names and TV addict: he kept a radio in his office at Euphoric State addresses he seemed determined to read out over the air, tuned permanently to his favourite FM station, specializing plus, on occasion, their birthdays and car registration in rock-soul ballads; and he had a colour TV in his study at numbers. Now and again he played musical jingles in praise home as well as in the living-room because he found it easier of himself or reported, in tones of unremitting jollity, a to work while watching sports broadcasts at the same time.
multiple accident on the freeway. There was almost no (Baseball was most conducive to a ready flow of words, but time left for playing records. It was a riot. Morris thought it football, hockey and basketball would also serve.) He rented was a little early in the morning for satire, but listened a colour TV soon after moving into his apartment in entranced. When the programme finished and was followed Rummidge, but the programmes were disappointing, con-by one of exactly the same kind, he began to get restive. The sisting mainly of dramatizations of books he had already British, he thought, must be gluttons for satire: even the read and canned American series he had already seen. There weather forecast seemed to be some kind of spoof, predicting was, naturally, no baseball, football, hockey or basketball.
every possible combination of weather for the next twenty-There was soccer, which he thought he might get interested four hours without actually committing itself to anything in, given time - he sniffed, there, the mixture of spite and specific, not even the existing temperature. It was only after skill, gall and grace, which characterized an authentic four successive programmes of almost exactly the same 70