The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (11 page)

‘I knew which side he was on,’ he explained. ‘But I never gave him the impression that I knew. He therefore did not know that I knew.’

‘But why is he a schismatic?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘What drives him?’

‘A desire to find a point to his life,’ said the Patriarch. ‘The feeling that he is being useful to somebody, even if only schismatics.’

‘And that young research assistant of his, Beatrice?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s actually working for my side,’ said the Patriarch. ‘She files regular reports for us.’

‘Oh,’ said von Igelfeld, rather lamely.

‘But I’m withdrawing her from active service,’ said the Patriarch. ‘She has done enough.’

‘Will she need a job?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘Have you anything for her to do.’

‘No,’ said the Patriarch. ‘But I have just this moment fixed her up with a new post. I spoke to your colleague Professor Unterholzer about her and gave him a full description of her talents. He very kindly agreed to take her on with immediate effect.’

Von Igelfeld was silent.
Unterholzer!
How utterly transparent! He began to shake at the thought of the injustice of it, and was still shaking half an hour later when the party had broken up and he found himself lying in bed in his darkened room, gazing out of his window at the moonlit mountainside. Oh, the injustice of it! Why should Unterholzer, who deserved nothing, get everything? It was so, so unfair.

He took a deep breath. He would rise above this, as he had risen above all the other injustices that blighted his life. After all, he was Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of
Portuguese
Irregular Verbs
, friend of cardinals and popes. That was something to think about.

He stopped. Should he say friend of cardinals and popes when he knew only one of each, or should he say friend of a cardinal and a pope, or even friend of a cardinal and the Pope?

Puzzling on this difficult point, von Igelfeld eventually fell asleep, and dreamed that he was playing solitaire in a remote field, a long time ago, while at the edge of the field the Pope swung out on a rope over a river that ran silently and very fast. And he was happy again, as was the Pope.

THE PERFECT IMPERFECT

IT WAS CLEAR TO EVERYBODY at morning coffee that something was tickling Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld. Morning coffee at the Institute was normally a relatively uneventful affair: the Librarian might expound for some time on the difficulties of finding sufficiently conscientious nurses to attend to the needs of his aunt; Unterholzer might comment on the doings of the infinitely wearying local politicians in whose affairs he seemed to take such an inordinate interest; and Prinzel would sit and fiddle with the ink reservoir of his pen, which was always giving him trouble. Von Igelfeld had given up pointing out to him the folly of buying French pens when there were German alternatives to be had, because Prinzel refused to listen. Well, thought von Igelfeld, here we have the consequences – pens that never work and which cover his fingers in ink.
We get the pen we deserve in this life
, he said to himself. It was an impressive-sounding adage, and he was quite pleased to have coined it, but then he began to wonder about its meaning. Do we, in fact, get the pen we deserve? His own pen worked well – and that was possibly a matter of desert – but then Unterholzer had a particularly satisfactory pen, which never went wrong, and which had served his father well too. Unterholzer did not
deserve
a good pen – there could be no doubt about that – and so the theory was immediately disproved. On the other hand, perhaps Unterholzer’s father had deserved a good pen and Unterholzer was merely enjoying his father’s moral capital. That was quite possible; so perhaps the adage was correct after all.

That morning, when von Igelfeld entered the coffee room with a smile on his lips, Prinzel had removed the barrel of his pen and was attempting to insert a straightened paper-clip into the reservoir. Unterholzer was snorting over an item in the local paper and pointing indignantly at the photograph of a politician, while the Librarian browsed through a leaflet published by a private nursing company.

‘Something amusing?’ asked Prinzel, now attempting to work out how to remove the paper-clip from the pen’s innards.

‘Mildly,’ said von Igelfeld.

The Librarian looked at him.

‘Do tell me,’ he said. ‘My poor aunt needs cheering up and I find there’s so little positive news I can bring from the Institute.’

‘I received a very amusing letter,’ said von Igelfeld, extracting a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. He paused, watching the effect of his words on his colleagues.

‘Well,’ said the Librarian. ‘Do tell us about it.’

‘It’s from a shipping company,’ von Igelfeld said. ‘They run cruises which go from Hamburg to the Aegean, and they have lectures on these cruises. They have invited me to be one of the lecturers.’

‘Oh,’ said the Librarian. ‘And will you go?’

‘Of course not,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am a philologist, not an entertainer. It’s an outrageous suggestion.’

‘Good,’ said Unterholzer quickly. ‘In that case, may I write to them and offer my services in your place? I would love to go on one of those lecture cruises. So would my wife. The lecturers can take their wives for nothing, I gather. That is, if one has one, of course, which you don’t.’

‘I’d very readily go too,’ interjected Prinzel. ‘I can think of nothing more enjoyable. Sitting on the deck, watching the sea go past! Occasionally having to sing for your supper, but not too often! What a wonderful way of spending a few weeks.’

Von Igelfeld was quite taken aback. He had assumed that his colleagues would have shared his disdain for the whole idea, instead of which they seemed anxious to take his place. This was troubling. Perhaps he had been too quick to turn the company down. In fact, he probably had a duty to do it now, as this would be the only way he could prevent Unterholzer from going in his stead and subjecting all those poor passengers to some terribly dull set of lectures on the subjunctive. It would quite ruin their holidays. No, he would have to re-examine his decision.

‘On the other hand,’ he said quickly. ‘It is perhaps our duty to impart knowledge to the public from time to time. Perhaps I have been too selfish; perhaps I should go after all.’

‘But you said that you wouldn’t,’ protested Unterholzer. ‘If your heart isn’t in it there is no point in your going. It’s not fair to the company or to the passengers. I, by contrast, would be very enthusiastic.’

Von Igelfeld ignored this. ‘I think I must go after all,’ he said firmly, adding: ‘It would be a pity to disappoint the organisers. I’m sure that you would do it very well, Herr Unterholzer, but the organisers did ask for me and not for you. If they had wanted to get you, then they would have written to you rather than to me. Perhaps next time, after I have done it, they might ask for you personally. One never knows.’

Unterholzer muttered something and returned to his newspaper. Prinzel, however, was beginning to warm to the theme.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard about these lecture cruises. They usually get art historians or archaeologists to talk about the places that the ship visits. They have lectures on Minoan civilisation and the like. Or even talks on Byzantine history.’

‘My aunt went on a cruise,’ said the Librarian. ‘They had a famous psychologist who lectured on relationships. My aunt wasn’t much interested in that. But they also had a man who told them all about sea trade in the early Mediterranean. She enjoyed that very much, and still talks a lot about it. And I’ve even heard that they’ve had Marcel Reich-Ranicki and famous people like that.’

Von Igelfeld beamed. He was pleased to discover that instead of being insulting, the invitation was something of an honour. They must have taken soundings, he thought; they must have asked people for recommendations before they came to me. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The entertainments officer of the cruise company had chosen von Igelfeld’s name from a list of German writers on Portugal. Since the cruise was calling in at both Oporto and Lisbon, before steaming on to the Mediterranean, it had been decided that some of the lectures should reflect this fact. They had tried to get the services of an authority on port wine, who was known to give extremely interesting lectures on the history of the trade, but he was being treated in a clinic and could not oblige. So they had picked von Igelfeld more or less at random, noting that he had ‘written a well-known book on the Portuguese language’.

‘He’ll be able to talk about amusing Portuguese folk tales and the like,’ said the entertainments officer. ‘With a name like that he could hardly be anything but entertaining.’

‘I hope so,’ said the manager. ‘Let’s give him a try.’

‘And you never know,’ speculated the entertainments officer. ‘He might be a success.’

The cruise left Hamburg on a warm June evening. It was a large ship, and the voyage was fully subscribed. They would sail down through the English Channel and out into the Bay of Biscay. Their first port of call was Oporto, and after this they would make their way to Lisbon and Gibraltar before entering the Mediterranean. Von Igelfeld’s lectures would start after they arrived at Oporto and continue until they docked at Naples. Thereafter, unencumbered by duties, he would be free to enjoy the remaining ten days of the voyage that would take them all the way to Piraeus.

Von Igelfeld had been allocated a cabin on the port side. He was shown the way by a steward, who then left him standing in the doorway, contemplating his home for the next eighteen days. It was not very large; in fact, it was one of the smaller cabins, and von Igelfeld was very doubtful as to whether the length of the bed would be adequate. And although there was a small table, it was hardly large enough to write upon. Opening a cupboard, he noticed that there were only four coat hangers and a shoe rack with space for two pairs of shoes at the most, and small shoes at that.

For a few minutes he was uncertain what to do. He had only been on a ship once before, when as a research assistant he had accompanied Professor Dr Dr Dr Dieter Vogelsang to Ireland. That was many years ago and he had very little recollection of the accommodation. But the situation was quite different now: far from being the young scholar, happy to make do with what was offered him, he was now Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
. The thought of this spurred him on. If the shipping company thought that they could put the author of
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
in cramped accommodation like this, then they should be promptly disabused of that notion. The thought crossed his mind:
You get the cabin you deserve in this life
. Well, if that were the case he should get something very much larger and more suitable.

Leaving his bags in the corridor, von Igelfeld made his way back to the central reception hall, where the purser and his staff were engaged in the myriad tasks which accompanied the settling-in of passengers.

‘I regret to say that I think there has been a mistake,’ said von Igelfeld to a smartly dressed officer. ‘I need a larger cabin.’

The officer looked him up and down.

‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘The ship is full. We can’t really change people around at this stage.’

‘In that case, I demand to see the Captain,’ said von Igelfeld.

‘He’s busy,’ said the officer. ‘The ship is about to leave port.’

‘I am busy too,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘There is a paper which I must complete on this voyage. I must see the Captain.’

A small group of passengers, sensing that something was wrong, had gathered by von Igelfeld’s side.

‘Why can’t he see the Captain?’ said one elderly woman. ‘Is there something wrong with the Captain?’

‘Is the Captain ill?’ asked another slightly worried-looking passenger.

The officer sensed that the situation was getting out of control. Ships were breeding-grounds for rumour and, if the passengers got it into their minds that the Captain was ill, or evading them, the whole vessel would be awash with panicky rumours by the following morning.

‘Please calm down,’ said the officer. ‘I shall take you to see the Captain.’

The officer escorted von Igelfeld up a steep flight of stairs and on to the bridge. The Captain, dressed in his formal uniform, was standing over a chart, talking to another officer, while several others were engaged in various tasks. The officer who had escorted von Igelfeld up spoke briefly to the Captain, who glanced in the Professor’s direction and frowned.

‘I really must insist on something more appropriate,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘If nothing is available, then I must ask you to release me from my obligation to lecture.’

The Captain sighed. If von Igelfeld withdrew, the lecture programme would be thrown into disarray and there would be complaints, which were always troublesome. They only had three lecturers on board as it was, and that was cutting matters somewhat fine.

‘Have you nothing else?’ he asked the junior officer.

‘No, sir. Everything’s occupied.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said the Captain. ‘Professor von Igelfeld, you may have my cabin. I’m sure that I shall be comfortable enough in yours.’

Von Igelfeld smiled. ‘That’s very generous, Herr Kapitan! I had not intended to inconvenience you, but I am sure that this arrangement will work very well. Thank you.’

Before the ship put to sea, von Igelfeld was transferred from his inadequate, cramped cabin to the Captain’s gracious quarters behind the observation deck. Not only did he receive a larger sleeping cabin, but he also had a substantial sitting room, with a bureau. This suited von Igelfeld extremely well, and he had soon unpacked his clothes into the copious wardrobe and spread his papers about the bureau. His earlier ill-humour had deserted him and to celebrate the beginning of the voyage he decided to go down to the bar and take a small sherry.

They put to sea in the evening, with the ship sounding its horn and the lights of the pilot boat weaving about in the half-darkness. Von Igelfeld returned to his cabin and spent an hour at work before dinner. In the dining room, he discovered that he had been put at a table with several other passengers, but a firm complaint to the steward resulted in his being moved to a solitary table near the door. This suited him very much better, and he enjoyed a good meal before retiring to his cabin for the night.