Portuguese Irregular Verbs

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The students who believed in fencing were naturally attracted to von Igelfeld. Not only was it his name that appealed to them, being redolent of an earlier era and lost territories, it was the knowledge of the estate in Austria and the close connection which von Igelfeld enjoyed with noble Bavarian families. For these reasons, von Igelfeld had been invited to take a glass of wine with the fencing faction.

  The members of this group immediately realised that von Igelfeld, for all his background, was an unredeemed intellectual and therefore quite unsuited to any further involvement with their own, rather dark, social activities. At the same time, his background deserved respect and so they listened attentively to him as he spoke to them about his interest in the arid wastes of medieval Latin verse.

  ‘And this Prinzel character,’ one of them said. ‘We see you about with him a great deal. Tell us something about him.’

  ‘Prinzel’s an amazing athlete,’ von Igelfeld said. ‘He’s one of those people who’s just naturally good at sports.’

  This remark was met with silence. Several glances were exchanged.

  ‘Is he a swordsman?’ asked a rather heavily scarred young man, casually.

  ‘He’s a fine swordsman,’ said von Igelfeld enthusiastically. ‘In fact, I’m sure he’d be honoured to meet any of you gentlemen. At any time!’

  Further glances were exchanged, unnoticed by von Igelfeld, who, draining his third glass of wine, was becoming slightly drunk.

  ‘I’m most interested to hear that,’ said the bearer of the scars. ‘Could you tell him that I shall meet him next Friday evening at a place to be notified? Just for a bit of fun.’

  ‘Of course,’ said von Igelfeld, expansively. ‘In fact, I can accept on his behalf, right now. We’ll be there!’

  Glasses were raised in a toast, and the conversation then moved on to the arrival in Heidelberg of two girls from Berlin whose interests were much to the taste of the group and whose company was being sought that Friday night, after the duel.

  Prinzel was dismayed.

  ‘You had no right to do that!’ he protested, his voice raised in uncharacteristic anger. ‘You had no right at all!’

  Von Igelfeld gazed at his friend. So complete was his admiration for Prinzel, so utter his belief in the nobility of Prinzel’s character, that he could not entertain the thought that the other might object to what was being proposed for him. It was as if he did not hear him.

  ‘But it’s all arranged,’ went on von Igelfeld. ‘And I shall be your second.’ He added: ‘That’s the person who stands by, you know. He carries the towel.’

  ‘For the blood?’ snapped Prinzel. ‘To mop up the blood?’

  Von Igelfeld laughed dismissively. ‘There’s no need for blood,’ he said. ‘Blood hardly comes into it. You’re not going to kill one another – this is merely a bit of sport!’

  Prinzel waved his hands about in exasperation. ‘I simply can’t understand you,’ he shouted. ‘You seem to have a completely false notion of my character. I’m a scholar, do you understand? I am not an athlete. I am not a hero. I have absolutely no interest in fencing, none at all! I’ve never done it.’

  Von Igelfeld appeared momentarily nonplussed.

  ‘Never?’ he said.

  ‘Never!’ cried Prinzel. ‘Let me repeat myself. I am a scholar!’

  Von Igelfeld now seemed to recover his composure.

  ‘Scholars sometimes engage in martial pursuits,’ he asserted. ‘There are many precedents for this. And swordmanship is a traditional matter of honour at universities. We all know that. Why set your face against our heritage?’

  Prinzel shook his head. For a few moments he was silent, as if at a loss for words. Then he spoke, in a voice which was weak with defeat.

  ‘Who are these types?’ he asked. ‘How did you meet them?’

  Noting his friend’s tone of acceptance, von Igelfeld laid a hand on his shoulder, already the reassuring second.

  ‘They are a group of very agreeable characters,’ he said. ‘They have some sort of Korps, in which they drink wine and talk about various matters. They asked to meet me because they thought I was old-fashioned.’

  Von Igelfeld laughed at the absurdity of the notion. They would see next Friday just what sort of friends he had! Old-fashioned indeed!

  Prinzel sighed.

  ‘I suppose I have no alternative,’ he said. ‘You seem to have committed me.’

  Von Igelfeld patted his friend’s shoulder again.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a very exciting evening. You’ll see.’

  The place chosen for the match was a field which lay behind an inn on the outskirts of the city. The field was ringed by trees, which gave it a privacy which had been much appreciated by those who over the years had used it for clandestine purposes of one sort or another. When von Igelfeld and Prinzel arrived, they thought at first that there was nobody there, and for a brief joyous moment Prinzel imagined that the whole idea had been a joke played on von Igelfeld. This made him smile with relief, a reaction which von Igelfeld interpreted as one of confidence.

  ‘Of course you’re going to win,’ he said excitedly. ‘And afterwards we shall all have a grand celebration at the inn.’

  Then, from out of the shadows, there stepped four members of the Korps. They looked perfectly sinister, clad in capes of some sort, with long suitcases in which the swords were concealed.

  ‘Look, there they are!’ shouted von Igelfeld excitedly. ‘Hallo there, everybody! Here we are!’

  Prinzel froze. Had von Igelfeld had the eyes to see, he would have been presented with a picture of a man facing a firing squad. Prinzel’s face was white, his eyes wide with horror, his brow glistening with beads of sweat.

  The scarred student stepped forward and shook von Igelfeld’s hand. Then he crossed to Prinzel, bowed and introduced himself.

  ‘This is a fine evening for sport,’ he said. Gesturing to the weapons, he invited Prinzel to make his choice.

  ‘We shall have six rounds of three minutes each,’ said one of the Korps. ‘When a gentleman draws blood, the contest shall stop.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded eagerly.

  ‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘That’s how we do it.’

  Prinzel glanced at his friend.

  ‘How do you know?’ he hissed angrily. ‘If you know so much about this, why don’t you fight instead of me?’

  ‘I fight?’ said von Igelfeld, astonished. ‘That’s quite out of the question. I would lose, I’m afraid.’

  Prinzel muttered something which von Igelfeld did not hear. It was too late now, anyway, as his opponent had now taken his position and everybody else was looking expectantly at Prinzel.

  There was a flash of swords. Prinzel thrust forward and parried his opponent’s strike. Then his own sword shot forward and steel met steel with a sharp metallic sound. Von Igelfeld gave a start.

  Then it was stand-off again. Prinzel watched warily as his opponent began to move around him, sword raised almost to the lips, as if in salute. Then, so rapidly and daintily, as if to be invisible, the other’s sword cut through the air with a whistling sound and, with almost surgical grace, sliced off the very tip of Prinzel’s nose.

  Prinzel stood quite still. Then, with a low moan, he dropped his sword and went down on to his hands and knees, as if searching for his severed flesh. For a few moments von Igelfeld was paralysed, unable to believe what he had seen. But then, remembering his duties as second, he shot forward, picked up the tip of the nose, a tiny, crumpled thing, and pressed it against his friend’s face, as if to stick it back on.

  Slowly Prinzel rose to his feet. There was not much blood – at least there was not as much as one might have expected – and he was able to maintain an aloof dignity.

  ‘Take me to the hospital,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘And keep your hand where it is.’

  Prinzel’s opponent watched impassively.

  ‘Well fought!’ he said. ‘You almost
had me at the beginning.’ Then, almost as an afterthought: ‘Don’t worry about that nick. It always seems so much worse than it really is. Imagine what a distinguished scar you will have! Bang in the middle of your face – can’t be missed!’

  The landlord of the inn called an ambulance, complaining all the while about the inconvenience to which students put him.

  ‘They’re always up to no good,’ he grumbled, peering at Prinzel. ‘I see you’ve been fencing. Would you believe it? This is the Federal Republic of Germany, you know, not Weimar. And we’re meant to be in the second half of the twentieth century.’

  Von Igelfeld looked at him scornfully.

  ‘You don’t even know what this is all about,’ he said. ‘It’s a student matter; nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.’

  It was Prinzel’s misfortune to be attended at the hospital by a doctor who was drunk. Von Igelfeld thought that he could smell the fumes of whisky emanating from behind the surgical mask, but said nothing, reckoning it might be ether, or it might indeed be whisky, but used for medicinal purposes. Prinzel by now had closed his eyes, and was determined to hear, see and smell nothing. He felt von Igelfeld release the pressure on his face, and he felt the doctor’s fumbling fingers. He felt a cold swab on his exposed arm, and then the prick of an injection. And after that, there was only numbness.

  The drunken doctor examined the severed tip and realised that all that was required were several well-placed stitches. These he inserted rapidly. Then he stood back, admired his handiwork, and asked a nurse to apply a dressing. It had been a simple procedure, and there was no doubt but that the nose would heal up well within a few weeks. There would be a scar, of course, but that’s what these young men wanted after all.

  ‘You’ve made a very good recovery,’ von Igelfeld said to Prinzel a fortnight later. ‘You can hardly see the scar.’

  Prinzel gazed at himself in the mirror. It was all very well for von Igelfeld to congratulate him on his recovery, but there was still something wrong. His nose looked different, somehow, although he could not decide exactly why this should be so.

  Von Igelfeld had also studied Prinzel’s nose and had come to a dreadful conclusion. The drunken doctor had sewn the tip on upside down. Of course he could not tell Prinzel that, as such knowledge could be devastating – to anyone.

  ‘I shall remain silent,’ thought von Igelfeld. ‘In time he’ll become accustomed to it, and that’ll be the end of the matter.’

  For Prinzel there was one consolation. Von Igelfeld no longer talked about his sporting prowess, and whenever references were made by others to such matters as fencing, or even noses, von Igelfeld immediately changed the subject.

  EARLY IRISH PORNOGRAPHY

  IN THE FINAL YEARS OF his doctoral studies it had been von Igelfeld’s dream to be invited to serve as assistant to one of the world’s greatest authorities on Early Irish. This language, so complicated and arcane that there was considerable doubt as to whether anyone ever actually spoke it, had attracted the attention of German philologists from the late nineteenth century onwards. The great Professor Siegfried Ehrenwalt of Berlin, founder of the Review of Celtic Philology, had devoted his life to the reconstruction of the syntactical rules of the language, and he had been followed by a long line of philologists, the latest of whom was Professor Dr Dr Dr Dieter Vogelsang. It was with Vogelsang that von Igelfeld wished to work, and when the call at last came, he was overjoyed.

  ‘I couldn’t have hoped for a better start to my career,’ he confided in Prinzel. ‘Vogelsang knows more about past anterior verbs in Early Irish than anybody else in the world.’

  ‘More than anyone in Ireland?’ asked Prinzel dubiously. ‘Surely they have their own institutes in Dublin?’

  Von Igelfeld shook his head. ‘Nobody in Ireland knows anything about Early Irish. This is a well-established fact.’

  Prinzel was not convinced, but did not allow his doubt to diminish his friend’s delight in his first post. He himself was still waiting. He had written to several institutes in Germany and Switzerland, but had received few encouraging replies. He could continue to study, of course, and complete another doctorate after the one on which he was currently engaged, but there would come a point at which without an assistantship he would seriously have to reconsider his academic career.

  The post as assistant to Professor Dr Vogelsang involved a move to Munich. Von Igelfeld acquired lodgings in the house of Frau Elvira Hugendubel, the widow of the retired lawyer and dachshund breeder, Aloys Hugendubel. Dr Hugendubel had been the author of Einführung in die Grundlagen des Bayerischen Bienenrechtes, and Frau Hugendubel felt, as a result, that she was a part of the greater intellectual life. The presence of an academic lodger provided reassurance of this, as well as providing the widow with something to do.

  Von Igelfeld settled happily into his new life. Each morning he would walk the three miles to Vogelsang’s institute, arriving at exactly nine-fifteen and leaving in the evening at six o’clock. The hours in between were spent checking Vogelsang’s references, searching out articles in the dustier corners of the library, and preparing tables of adjectives. It was the lowest form of work in the academic hierarchy, made all the more difficult by the tendency of Professor Vogelsang to publish papers based almost entirely on von Igelfeld’s work, but under the Vogelsang name and with no mention made of von Igelfeld’s contribution. In one case – which eventually prompted von Igelfeld to protest (in the gentlest, most indirect terms) – Vogelsang took a paper which von Igelfeld asked him to read and immediately published it under his own name. So brazen was this conduct that von Igelfeld felt moved to draw his superior’s attention to the fact that he had been hoping to submit the paper to a learned journal himself.

  ‘I can’t see why you are objecting,’ said Vogelsang haughtily. ‘The paper will achieve a far wider readership under my name than under the name of an unknown. Surely these scholarly considerations are more important than mere personal vanity?’

  As he often did, Vogelsang had managed to shift the grounds of argument to make von Igelfeld feel guilty for making a perfectly reasonable point. It was a technique which von Igelfeld had himself used on many occasions, but which he was to perfect in the year of his assistantship with Professor Vogelsang.

  Frau Hugendubel, of course, provided copious amounts of sympathy.

  ‘Young scholars have a difficult time,’ she mused. ‘Herr Dr Hugendubel never treated his young assistants with anything but the greatest courtesy. Herr Dr Hugendubel gave them books and encouraged them in every way. He was a very kind man.’

  There were, of course, some benefits to which von Igelfeld was able to look forward. At the beginning of his assistantship, Vogelsang had alluded to a field trip to Ireland at some future date, and had implied that von Igelfeld could expect to accompany him. For some months, nothing more was said of this until the day when Vogelsang announced that they would be leaving in a fortnight’s time and told von Igelfeld to arrange the tickets.

  Frau Hugendubel insisted on packing von Igelfeld’s suitcase herself. She starched his collars particularly carefully, folded his night-shirts and ironed the creases. A pile of freshly laundered handkerchiefs was tucked into a corner of the case and beside these she put a small jar of Bavarian honey for her lodger’s breakfast toast.

  They travelled by train to St Malo, where they caught the night steamer to Cork. Vogelsang and von Igelfeld had been allocated a shared cabin, an arrangement over which Vogelsang protested vociferously until von Igelfeld offered to sit up all night on the deck. By the time the coast of Ireland hove into sight through the morning mist, von Igelfeld was yawning and bleary-eyed; Vogelsang, fresh from his comfortable berth, greeted him cheerfully but berated him over his lack of enthusiasm for the sight of the Irish coast.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There, before us, is the blessed coast of Ireland, the island of saints. Can you not manage more than a yawn?’

  They docked, and the German party made its way down t
he gangway of the steamer, into the welcoming arms of Dr Patrick Fitzcarron O’Leary, formerly of the Advanced Technical College, Limerick, and now Reader in Irish in the University College of Cork. He and Vogelsang knew one another well, and addressed one another as old friends. Then, turning to von Igelfeld, Vogelsang introduced his assistant.

  ‘My assistant – Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Patrick Fitzcarron O’Leary opaquely, seizing von Igelfeld’s hand. ‘How are you then, Maria old chap?’

  Von Igelfeld blanched. Maria? What a strange way to address somebody whom one had only just met. Did the Irish use the second Christian name in such circumstances? If that indeed was the custom, then how should he address O’Leary? Would it be rude to call him Dr O’Leary, which seemed the most correct thing to do?

  For a few moments, von Igelfeld was utterly perplexed. So concerned was he to follow correct usage at all times, and in all places (even in Ireland), that it seemed appalling to him that he should run the risk of committing a social solecism virtually the moment he set foot on Irish soil. He looked to Vogelsang for assistance, but his superior just stared back at him blandly, and then looked pointedly at the suitcases, which he was clearly expecting von Igelfeld to carry.

  ‘Very well,’ mumbled von Igelfeld. Adding, in his confusion, ‘Not bad, in fact.’

  ‘Good fellow,’ said O’Leary. ‘Absolutely. Good for you.’

  O’Leary now seized both suitcases and led the visitors off to a somewhat battered car which he had parked up against the edge of the quay. Then, with von Igelfeld in the back seat and Vogelsang sitting beside the Irishman, they drove off erratically in the direction of the red-brick guest house in which the two visitors were to spend their first night in Ireland. It was all very strange to von Igelfeld, who had never before been further than France and Italy. Everything was so here and there; so well-loved and used; so lived-in. There were men with caps, standing on the street corners, doing nothing; there were women with jugs propped up in their doorways; there were orange cats prowling on the top of walls; churches with red walls and white marble lintels, and white religious statuary.