The Kennedy Moment

by Peter Adamson

  Back in his rooms he turned off the computer. The others would be arriving in a few minutes. And suddenly the whole idea of the weekend seemed contrived, even embarrassing. He had imagined chairing a review of how and why ideas and ideals had changed between gilded youth and tarnished middle age, but he had somehow envisaged presiding over the occasion as someone who, without compromise, had reached the summit of his profession. He checked the room a final time before sitting again in the window seat from which so many hopes had been entertained, unable to lift his eyes to the stone-mullioned windows on the opposite side of the quad.

  In what he had called a brief ‘tour d’horizon’, Stephen had for some minutes been reviewing the salient features of the two decades since they had all last been together, beginning with the failure of the Bay of Pigs and ending with the rise of the Chicago School and the dissipation of radical energies in identity politics. From one of the armchairs, Michael, who sat through worse than this most weeks, stared at the backs of his hands, the greater part of his attention occupied with finding himself back in this world where nothing seemed to have changed; the surroundings redolent of the long gone, of damp wood and mildewed books, of worn rugs and toast burnt on two-bar electric fires; of centuries of patient study and ticking clocks. And of her faint perfume. That same perfume. He looked down, surprised to see a pair of startlingly white sneakers at the ends of his legs.

  The armchair from which Stephen was still holding forth had been positioned at the apex of the little seating arrangement, ensuring that the others were all slightly angled towards it. Toby, who had seen this game played by better practitioners than Stephen Walsh, had broken the pattern by perching on the window seat overlooking the quad. From here he was making a show of darting his eyes around the far corners of the room, implying that he could not be expected to keep a straight face if his eyes met any of the others.

  ‘About myself,’ Stephen appeared to be concluding, ‘there is little to say except that these are of course the times I have struggled in and with. I needn’t mention that it has not always been easy to deny oneself the promotions and preferments enjoyed by those who have seen fit to adjust their ideological sails to the prevailing political winds …’

  Over on the window seat, Toby was watching a female undergraduate approaching the porters’ lodge and vaguely remembering that, in his day, the college statutes forbade any woman to enter except laundresses who had to be ‘of such an age, condition and reputation as to be above suspicion’. He craned his neck to satisfy himself that the girl below did not meet any of these criteria.

  ‘However …’ Stephen gave his little academic cough and seemed about to end. ‘I think we might now make a start, and perhaps just go around the room? And as we have all, I’m sure, heard about the rise and rise of Dr Michael Lowell, I think perhaps we might begin with him?’

  Toby pointedly returned from the window to his armchair, collecting a couple of biscuits on the way.

  Michael reprised his two decades in one minute. Four years at Harvard Medical School, followed by internship and a year’s residency before switching to a Master’s in Public Health at Hopkins; two years with the US Centers for Disease Control in West Africa in lieu of national service; two years at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, much of it spent in the field laboratory at Matlab; secondment to the World Health Organization’s smallpox-eradication team for most of the 1970s before being appointed to his present post as director of the Global Immunization Programme.

  He glanced around to see who might go next, but Hélène intervened, laughing. ‘There’re just a couple more little things that might have been worth a mention, Michael, like eradicating the biggest killer disease in human history.’

  Michael began to say something about the thousands of national vaccination teams and volunteers who had participated in the smallpox-eradication programme only for Hélène to interrupt again. ‘I’m very glad to hear you crediting the footsoldiers, Michael. But I’m afraid in this case the generals might deserve some of the credit, too. Everyone knows it was a master class in epidemiology.’

  Stephen held up both hands. ‘Let’s not get bogged down in detail just yet. We can come back to it all later. Seema, you’re up.’

  ‘And we don’t just want the CV, sweetheart,’ said Toby, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching out his legs.

  ‘I think what we’d really like to know,’ Stephen interrupted with exaggerated forbearance, ‘is why devote yourself to the topic of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves in 19th-century Virginia? What’s the connection with you, Seema? What’s it got to do with who you are?’

  Michael recognized the warning sign as Seema’s eyes widened. She allowed a second to pass, as she had always done, then replied in a voice that was a fraction slower than normal. ‘I wasn’t aware that one had to have a personal connection in order to specialize in a particular field, Stephen.’ Michael watched as she shifted her gaze slowly to the window. There had always been a slow-motion quality about her, an unhurried grace. ‘What, for example, is your own personal connection to the Soviet five-year plans of the 1950s?’

  Toby chuckled and snuggled further down into his chair.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Stephen stiffly, ‘it relates directly to my chosen ideological position. Alternatives to free-market ideologies have a political – ergo a personal – connection to my own convictions.’

  ‘I see,’ said Seema after a beat had passed. Michael watched, entranced by her way of composing her face to a perfect calm before speaking, even while debating a point, sometimes even pausing to think and yet not inviting interruption. ‘I see. Then my personal connection with the issue of slavery is a belief that history should be about those who don’t have a voice as well as those who make the most noise—’

  ‘That’s what Marxist history—’

  ‘And I’m wondering if what you might really be saying here, Stephen’ – overruling him without raising her voice – ‘your subtext, as you might call it, is that it’s quite all right for an American or a Brit to specialize in, say, the history of India or Pakistan, but not for a Pakistani to specialize in the history of the United States?’

  Toby could hardly contain his glee as Hélène moved to defuse the tension. ‘Tell us how it all happened, Seema. Going to live in America and all.’

  She avoided Michael’s eyes as she briefly told of the Jefferson Scholarship in Hawaii and the romance that had carried her to the eastern seaboard of the United States. ‘A few months later I was married and enrolled in the doctoral programme at Harvard.’

  Toby leaned forward with a little intellectual frown that looked dangerously like a parody of Stephen’s habitual expression. ‘Wasn’t there a rumour about Jefferson being quite close to one of his female slaves – I mean, really quite extraordinarily close?’

  ‘You sound like my publisher, Toby. And, yes, he was.’

  Stephen’s hand rose once again. ‘We’ll come back to any historiographical issues later, if you don’t mind. Toby, you’re next.’

  Toby looked for a moment as if he might be about to rebel, but eventually reached into the briefcase beside his chair to withdraw a miniature videocassette player. Struggling over outstretched legs, he turned on the TV and attached the cable. He glanced at Seema as he resumed his seat – ‘Life and times of the other TJ’ – then aimed a small remote control at the device.

  The others shifted their positions as the screen came to life, showing rapidly changing close-ups of Toby, starting with the 1960s and ageing him twenty years in a matter of seconds: the hair receding, the face broadening, the flesh loosening, the sequence coming to a halt with a still photo that came disconcertingly to life with Toby addressing the camera. ‘Hi there, possums. Well, here we all are at Stephen’s little reckoning. Dress rehearsal for the Pearly Gates, what? Hardly worth my showing up. Anyway, here’s my very own chronicle of temps perdu.’ The image of Toby’s face dissolved into a rapid series of clip
s from British and American TV commercials, the real Toby looking pleased at the cries of ‘I remember that’ and ‘You didn’t do that, Tobe?’ There followed a fast-forwarded sequence of Toby in morning dress leaving a church with a bride who looked like a supermodel, followed after another couple of ads by the same scene in fast reverse, bride and groom rattling back into the darkness of the church. Another commercial break and there was Toby fast-forwarding again from a registry office with a different bride. More ads followed, intercut with a graph showing what might have been a rising salary or career trajectory superimposed on a photo of Toby becoming more and more dispirited until the film shuddered to an end with a distorted close-up seen through what appeared to be the bottom of a dimpled whisky glass that gradually filled and overflowed down his cheeks.

  When the television went dead the silence was broken by slightly strained laughter and applause. Stephen continued staring at the screen, nodding slowly.

  Hélène was looking troubled. ‘Okay, Toby, explain the significance of all that!’

  Toby let his arms flop down by the sides of the chair. ‘Oh, there’s no significance to any of it, sweetie.’

  The mood had become noisier, more relaxed as Stephen held up both hands. ‘We can deconstruct Toby’s artistic little presentation later, but I think we’ve all got the gist so why don’t we break for coffee and then hear what Hélène has to say?’

  4 | Spare me the cold chains

  It is not the intention here to recount all the conversations of that weekend. But, in touching only on those passages which had a bearing on what was to follow, there is a risk of portraying the discussion as purposeful when in fact most of it was directionless. Only in retrospect were the conversations in the Fellows’ Garden on that first morning, and in the University Parks later that day, of any special significance.

  The day being fine, there had been a general agreement on continuing the meeting outdoors. Stephen had suggested the Fellows’ Garden, which as undergraduates they had been denied. After admitting them with a flourish of his personal key, he caught up with Seema on the gravel path on to which an occasional pine cone had trespassed. He gestured at his surroundings as if to indicate despair. Her smile was a gentle peace offering as she too looked around at the immaculate lawns and shrubberies.

  ‘Certainly a long way from NYU.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking of leaving.’

  ‘Quitting Oxford?’

  ‘Of course you’ll know that line of Cyril Clemens – “One of the greatest temptations of life is the temptation never to leave Oxford”.’

  ‘Wasn’t he a complete neurotic?’

  ‘Well, I’m not absolutely certain about that.’

  ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘Oh, nothing fixed. Considering one or two offers. Fact is, Oxbridge palls after a while. Far too pleased with itself. And of course structurally reactionary when you blow off the progressive froth. I assume that New York is not entirely unconducive to academic life?’

  After taking a turn around the gravelled perimeter, its herbaceous borders dying back into winter, the five arranged themselves on the grass under the canopy of the ancient copper beech. Stephen held up a hand to still the conversation, summoning attention with a formal little cough.

  ‘Time to hear from Hélène, I think.’

  Hélène looked up into the canopy of leaves, fighting back the tiredness beginning to stir in her veins. ‘Pretty much the beaten path for a while. Med school at McGill, Royal College Certification, all of it as much to keep my parents happy as anything else. Lord knows they were unhappy enough about my sudden godlessness, for which they blamed Oxford, and for which I blame you. I was a good Catholic girl, you’ll remember, before I fell in with present company.’

  Toby was about to say something but thought better of it.

  ‘Anyway, licence to practise safely tucked away, I joined up with Canadian University Service Overseas in Liberia, then got myself recruited by CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. That kept me in West Africa. Zaire. Mobutu. Terrible. I can’t tell you.’

  Stephen nodded slowly as Hélène continued. ‘Got involved in the Ebola virus thing in ’76 …’

  ‘More than involved.’ Michael, sitting cross-legged on the grass, spoke to the others but raised a hand towards her. ‘Hélène and a few dozen others stopped Ebola in its tracks. Stopped it spreading God knows where when we had no real way of coping.’

  Hélène looked down at the grass. ‘Meant I had to leave, though. We had to move quickly, burn the corpses, stomp all over local ways of reverencing the dead. No way could I work there after that. Got a posting to Côte d’Ivoire with an international NGO out of Ottawa, trying to do primary health care in half a dozen countries. Been with them the last eight years.’

  ‘And doing a wonderful job.’ Michael cursed himself, knowing it had sounded patronizing.

  Hélène attempted a smile.

  ‘Not wonderful at all, Michael. Not even addressing the real problem which, as you know, is that the poor get to be sick and their kids get to die because nearly all the resources are soaked up by ten per cent of the population trying to imitate the lifestyles they see in the West.’

  Stephen continued to nod slowly, staring at her over his spectacles. ‘Interesting. Interesting. We’ll come back to that.’

  There was a long pause, during which Toby gazed at her, hands locked behind his head. ‘Personal life off limits, darling?’

  ‘No,’ said Hélène ruefully. ‘But there’s not a lot to say. Married to the job, as they say.’

  Afterwards the conversation drifted desultorily towards lunch. Toby, eyes closed, face tilted towards the October sun, was listening to Hélène and Michael talking shop. Stephen had been questioning Seema about the history faculty at NYU, but it had soon become apparent that he was no longer listening, his attention drawn to the argument developing between Michael and Hélène, who was in full flow.

  ‘Stupid things we’ve known how to prevent for years, Michael. Measles, tetanus, whooping cough for God’s sake – killing, what, four, five million kids a year? And nobody cares.’

  ‘You know there’s a global target …’

  Hélène waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t give me your targets and resolutions, Michael. Nothing’s going to change. You know who the latest appointee to your Executive Board is?’

  Michael lowered his head in resignation, knowing what was coming.

  ‘Thought you might. And you might also know that he’s the one who’s been spending two-thirds of the country’s health budget on building an imitation of Massachusetts General that will serve about two per cent of the population. That’s why kids don’t get immunized. And that’s why ten years from now WHO will just be announcing a new target …’

  ‘But you’ve also got to recognize the logistical …’

  ‘Oh, spare me the logistics and the cold chains, Michael. You know as well as I do it could all be gotten around if the powers-that-be cared one little bit …’

  ‘Sure, the technical problems could be gotten around, but—’

  ‘And what would it cost? Half a billion dollars a year? A billion? To immunize every kid born into this bloody awful world? For Christ’s sake, Michael, it’s less than a dozen modern jet fighters. People like Mobutu and his cronies have more than that in their Swiss bank accounts.’

  Michael met Hélène’s look but said nothing. Toby was picking the heads from a few late daisies. A half smile played at the edges of Stephen’s mouth. Around them the lawns were dappled with leaf shadow. Eventually Michael said simply: ‘You’re right, of course.’

  Hélène reached to cover his hand with her own. ‘Sorry to rant, Michael. But it’s not often I get to address a senior official of the World Health Organization.’

  Seema looked on as Michael smiled his slightly twisted, self-deprecating smile, opening the doors of the past. At their first meeting under the light of the window in Holywell it had seemed e
asy to look at him with all the delight and pleasure at seeing an old friend after so long, but ever since she had found it difficult.

  Stephen was touching his fingertips together in a little steeple. ‘Pause there just a moment, if you will. Surely we’re just discussing surface phenomena here?’ He waved a hand freely as if to say that this could be taken for granted. ‘And of course if one focuses on technical fixes, exempli gratia antibiotics, vaccines, etcetera, then is it not the case that the oppressed will simply fall victim to some other surface phenomenon because of course the underlying causes remain unaddressed?’

  Stephen had fallen into the slightly sing-song tone, lending his arguments a quality of inevitability that his students found intimidating. But Michael Lowell was a different proposition.

  ‘That’s partly true, Stephen, but it’s not the whole nine yards. First’ – he grasped the first finger of his left hand – ‘how long do the poor have to wait before progress against the underlying causes means their kids can get immunized? So they can grow up without being malnourished, diseased, blind, paralysed?’ He pushed aside Stephen’s attempted interruption and grasped the next finger, cursing himself for falling into this old habit in front of Seema. ‘Second, the things you say are symptoms also happen to be causes. Do you think poverty isn’t made a lot worse when kids’ minds and bodies don’t develop as they should because of disease? Do you think a family’s ability to work and earn a living isn’t affected when a son or daughter is crippled for life by polio, or left blind by measles or vitamin deficiency? Do you think it advances economic equality when more or less permanent illness means poor kids drop out of school into a lifetime of illiteracy?’

  Seema looked down, shaken, remembering. Michael could be awkward, tongue-tied, unable to find quite the right words. But get him on his home ground …