The History Man

by Malcolm Bradbury

  'A rather contentious item,' he says, introducing a proposal that the number of student representatives be increased from six to eight. The six students already there, most of them in sweatshirts, breathe hard, look fierce, lean their heads together; they separate to discover that there has been no discussion, and that the item, presumably in weariness, has been passed immediately. The tea-ladies come in to remove the cups. Trading on success, the student representatives propose that membership of the department meeting be further expanded, to include representatives from the tea-ladies. The motion is put and passed. Benita Pream, the administrative assistant, intervenes here, whispering first in Marvin's ear, then addressing the meeting; she states that under regulations the tea-ladies are not entitled to membership of department meetings. The meeting passes a recommendation urging Senate to change regulations in order to permit tea-ladies to serve on department meetings. The resolution and the preceding one are both ruled out of order from the chair, on the ground that neither refers to any item on the agenda of the meeting. A resolution that items not on the agenda of the meeting be allowed is proposed, but is ruled out of order on the grounds that it is not on the agenda of the meeting. A resolution that the chair be held out of order because it has allowed two motions to come to the vote which are not, according to standing orders, on the agenda of the meeting is refused from the chair, on the grounds that the chair cannot allow motions to come to the vote which are not, according to standing orders, on the agenda of the meeting. Outside it rains a great deal, and the level of the lake rises considerably.

  'Are all your meetings this boring?' asks Melissa Todoroff, who will later be discovered not to be entitled to be in the meeting at all, since she is only a visitor, and will be asked to leave, and will do so, shouting. 'Don't worry,' whispers Howard, 'this is just a preliminary skirmish. It will warm up later.' It warms up, in fact, shortly after 17.05, when it is beginning to go dark, and when Professor Marvin reaches item 17, which is concerned with Visiting Speakers. 'A non-controversial item, I think,' says Professor Marvin. 'A few proposed names here, I think we can accept them.' Roger Fundy raises his hand and says, 'Can I ask the chair under whose auspices the invitation to Professor Mangel was issued?' The chair looks bewildered: it says, 'Professor Mangel? As far as I know, Dr Fundy, no invitation has been issued to Professor Mangel.'

  'Can I draw the chair's attention to the departmental memo, circulated this very morning, which states that Professor Mangel has been asked here to give a lecture?'

  'I sent out no such departmental memo,' says the chair. 'I have here a copy of the departmental memo which the chair says it did not send out,' says Roger Fundy. 'Perhaps the chair would like to see it.' The chair would; it inspects the memo, and turns to Minnehaha Ho. 'It was on the dictaphone,' says Miss Ho, with wide oriental eyes, 'so I sent it out.'

  'It was on the dictaphone so you sent it out?' murmurs Professor Marvin, 'I didn't put it on the dictaphone.'

  'Can I ask the Chairperson,' says Melissa Todoroff, 'if that person is aware that this invitation will be seen by all non-Caucasians and women on this campus as a deliberate insult to their genetic origins?'

  'This is trouble, man,' says one of the student representatives, 'he's a racist and a sexist.' Professor Marvin looks around in some mystification. 'Professor Mangel is to my knowledge neither a racist nor a sexist, but a very well-qualified geneticist,' he says. 'However, since we have not invited him here the question seems scarcely to arise on this agenda.'

  'In view of the opinion of the chair that Mangel is neither a racist nor a sexist,' says Howard, 'would that mean that the Chair would be prepared to invite him to this campus, if his name were proposed?'

  'It isn't proposed,' says Marvin. 'The point is that Professor Mangel's work is fascist, and we've no business to confirm that by inviting him here,' says Moira Millikin. 'I had always thought the distinguishing mark of fascism was its refusal to tolerate free enquiry, Dr Millikin,' says Marvin, 'but the question needs no discussion, since there's no proposal to invite this man. I doubt if we could ever agree on such an invitation. It would be an issue.'

  'May I ask why?' asks Dr Zachery, the British Journal of Sociology forgotten. 'Why?' asks Fundy. 'Do you know what the consequences of inviting that man would be? One doesn't tolerate…'

  'But that is just what one does,' says Dr Zachery. 'One tolerates. May I propose, and I think this is in order, since the agenda permits us to make suggestions for visiting speakers, that we issue a formal invitation from this department to Professor Mangel, to come and speak to this department?' There is much noise around the table; Howard sits silent, so silent that Flora Beniform leans over to him and murmurs, 'Don't I see a hand at work here?'

  'Ssshh,' says Howard, 'this is a serious issue.'

  'You wish to put that as a motion?' asks Marvin, looking at Zachery. 'I do,' says Zachery, 'and I should like to speak to my motion. I observe, among some of my younger colleagues, perhaps less experienced in recent history than some of us, a real ignorance of the state of affairs we are discussing. Professor Mangel and myself have a background in common; we are both Jewish, and both grew up in Nazi Germany, and fled here from the rise of fascism. I think we know the meaning of this term. Fascism, and the associated genocide, arose because a climate developed in Germany in which it was held that all intellectual activity conform with an accepted, approved ideology. To make this happen, it was necessary to make a climate in which it became virtually impossible to think, or exist, outside the dominant ideological construct. Those who did were isolated, as now some of our colleagues seek to isolate Professor Mangel.' There are many murmurs round the table from the sociologists, all of whom are deeply conscious of having definitions of fascism they too could give, if asked. 'May I continue?' asks Zachery. 'Fascism is therefore an elegant sociological construct, a one-system world. Its opposite is contingency or pluralism or liberalism. That means a chaos of opinion and ideology; there are people who find that hard to endure. But in the interests of it, I think we must ask Professor Mangel to come here and lecture.'

  'Then you'll get your chaos all right, if he does,' says Fundy. 'You know what the radical feeling is about this. You know what uproar and violent protest there always is when someone like Jensen or Eysenck is invited to lecture at a university. The same will happen with Mange!.' Justified violence and protest,' says Moira Millikin. 'I'm extremely disturbed, Mr Chairman,' says Dr Macintosh, 'to see so many of my colleagues stopping us from inviting someone we haven't even invited.' But now there is much shouting across the table, and Professor Marvin has to stand, and bang his wodge of files down hard onto the desk in front of him, before something like silence returns. 'Gentlemen!' he shouts. 'Persons!'

  'Oh, Howard, Howard, is this you?' whispers Flora. 'Flora,' whispers back Howard. 'Stop taking the plane to bits once it's left the ground.'

  'You're playing games,' whispers Flora. 'I've not spoken,' says Howard. Professor Marvin, now, has resumed his seat. He waits for full quietness, and then he says: 'Well, Dr Zachery has proposed a motion, which is now on the table, that we in this department of Social Studies issue an invitation to Professor Mangel to come and lecture here. Does that motion have a seconder?'

  'Go on, Flora,' whispers Howard; Flora puts her hand up. 'Oh,' says Marvin, 'well, let me briefly note that this issue could become a bone of severe contention, and remind the department of the experience of other universities who have ventured in this unduly charged area, before I put the motion to the vote. Let us be cautious in our actions, cautious but just. Now may we vote. Those in favour?' The hands go up around the table; Benita Pream rises to count them. 'And those against?' Another group of hands, some waving violently, go up; Benita Pream, rises once more to count these. She writes the results down on a piece of paper, and slips this over the table top to Marvin, who looks at it. 'Well,' he says, 'this motion has been carried. By eleven votes to ten. I'm sure that's just, but I'm afraid we've committed ourselves to a real bone of co
ntention.' There is uproar at the table. 'Castrate all sexists,' shouts Melissa Todoroff; and it is now that, on a point of order from Dr Petworth, a constitutional spirit dedicated to such precisions as points of order, it is discovered that Miss Todoroff is not, as a visitor, formally a member of this meeting at all, and therefore has been voting without entitlement, and so she is taken from the room, shouting, 'Sisters, rebel,' and, 'Off the pigs'. The table settles; Howard's hand goes up; 'Mr Chairman,' he says, 'may I point out that the vote just taken-and passed by only one vote-is now clearly invalid, since Miss Todoroff's should not have been cast.'

  'I had seen that constitutional point, Dr Kirk,' says Marvin. 'I'm afraid it leaves us in a very difficult position. You see, that applies not only to the last vote, but to all the votes taken throughout the meeting. Unless we can see a way round it, we may have to start this entire meeting from the beginning again.'

  There are groans and shouts; Benita Pream, meanwhile, has been fumbling through papers; now she whispers a brief something into the ear of the chair. The chair says: 'Oh, good.' There is still much noise in the room, so Marvin taps the table. 'I feel quite sure,' he says, 'my colleagues will bear with me if I say that it is undesirable to re-run this entire meeting. It now appears that this is the only motion today which was passed on a margin of one vote. With the consent of the meeting, I will assume all other votes satisfactory. Do I have that?' The sociologists, weary from the fray, agree. 'Now our last vote,' says Marvin. 'As your chairman, I have to consider the position here very carefully. Do we happen to know the way Dr Todoroff voted?'

  'It seemed to me rather obvious,' says Dr Zachery, 'from her comments on leaving.'

  'That's injustice,' says Moira Millikin, 'a ballot should be secret. When one individual's vote can be singled out in this way, the system's wrong.'

  'I think there may be another way to answer this,' says Marvin, looking at another note from Benita Pream. 'I think I've resolved it, I hope to the satisfaction of this meeting.' The meeting looks about itself; it does not have the air of a group easily satisfied. ' If Dr Todoroff had voted against the motion,' says Marvin, 'and we simply subtracted her vote, that would leave the voting as eleven to nine, with the motion carried. Do we agree?' The meeting agrees. 'If, on the other hand, she had voted for the motion, and her vote was subtracted, that would give us a tie, at ten ten. But in the event of such a tie, I as chairman would have had to use my casting vote. In the circumstances, and only because of the circumstances, as a pure matter of procedure and not of preference, I would have had to vote for the motion. Either way, therefore, the motion may be presumed to be carried.'

  There is once again much uproar. 'Wishy-washy liberal equivocation,' shouts Moira Millikin, while her baby squawks by her chair. 'A crime against mankind,' says Roger Fundy. 'I can only tell you, Dr Fundy,' says Marvin, 'that I do not myself greatly relish the idea of Mangel visiting this campus. Not because what has been said about him seems to me true, but because we as a department do much better without these contentious situations. But this has been forced on me, and there was no other way procedurally for justice to be done.'

  'A reactionary reason,' says Moira Millikin. 'Justice!' cried Roger Fundy. 'Democratic justice is clear injustice.'

  'You always seem to find it convenient when it is in your favour,' says Marvin. This generates much more uproar, through which come many shouts for the vote to be retaken, and the level of the lake outside continues to rise, and the darkness increases beyond the big windows with their rattling blinds. The dumper-trucks have stopped; the pile-drivers have been put away; but, high in the dark, the lights of the Durkheim Room shine bright. The meeting goes on, and then, at 17.30, there is a loud ping of Benita Pream's alarm clock, and it is over. Or almost over, for even now they have to consider a proposal that, since there has been no tea interval, a notional time should be set for the actual consumption of the tea and the biscuits; it is this spot of notional time that is finally used to justify the fact that the meeting has gone on a few minutes longer in order to consider whether it should go on a few minutes longer. The sociologists rise and disperse; Professor Debison, who has not spoken at all, hurries off to his taxi, which will take him straight to Heathrow; in the corridor outside the Durkheim Room, caucuses huddle and discuss coming upheaval. 'You were very quiet,' says Flora Beniform to Howard, as they leave the room. 'Well,' says Howard, 'some of these bones of contention are very hard to resolve.'

  'You've never had that trouble before,' says Flora. 'You want Mangel. You want a fight.'

  'Who, me?' asks Howard, innocently, as they get into the lift. They stand there, waiting for the doors to close. 'I've got a babysitter,' says Howard. 'I see,' says Flora, and reaches in her bag, and gets out her diary, and deletes from the page marked with a thread a word that says: 'Provisionally'. 'Secret assignation?' asks Henry Beamish, getting into the lift, his arm sticking out stiffly before him, 'Well, Howard, that was very enjoyable. I'm glad I took the trouble to come. There were some issues there that greatly concerned me.'

  'Were there, Henry?' asks Flora. 'What were those?'

  'The question of the grant for research into senile delinquency,' says Henry. 'We can really move forward on that one now.'

  'Did we discuss that?' asks Flora. 'Flora, you weren't attending,' says Henry, 'it was one of the most important items. I thought we'd have a battle over it, but it went straight through without discussion. I suppose people see its importance. A very uncontentious meeting, I thought.'

  'Were you attending?' asks Flora, 'I noticed a certain flurry round the matter of Mangel.'

  'I found that terribly predictable,' says Henry. 'The trouble with sociologists is that they usually fail to take genetics seriously. They talk about the balance of nature and nurture, but when it comes down to it they're all on the side of nurture, because they can interfere with that. They can't realize how much we're genetically predetermined.'

  'But it is, as the chair says, a bone of contention,' says Flora. 'It'll blow over,' says Henry. 'Will it, Howard?' asks Flora. 'I doubt it,' says Howard. 'There's a lot of passion on this.'

  'Oh, God,' says Flora, 'I must admit I was really hoping for just one quiet term. Without an issue, without a sit-in. I know it sounds terribly reactionary. But even though permanent revolution may have its claims, I really think before I die I'd like the peace to write one decent book.'

  'But we won't let you,' says Howard. 'No,' says Flora, 'so I see.'

  The lift stops at the fifth floor, and they get out, back into Sociology. 'Funny how it came up,' says Henry, 'it was all a bit of an accident.'

  'Henry,' says Flora, wearily, 'there are no accidents.' Henry turns and looks at her, puzzled. 'Of course there are,' he says. 'I don't think Howard agrees with you,' says Flora. 'I must go home and work. Take care of yourself, Henry.'

  'Of course,' says Henry. The three of them separate, going along three of the four corridors that lead away from the lift, to collect up the briefcases and the books and the new essays and the new department memos, the accumulated intellectual deposit of the day, which will now need fresh attention. 'Grand girl, Flora,' says Henry, a few minutes later, when Howard comes to the door of his room, to remind him of their appointment. Henry's room, like all the rooms, is a matching version of Howard's own, with the Conran desk, the Roneo-Vickers filing cabinet, the gunmetal wastepaper basket, the red desk chair, all in approximately similar places in the rectangle. The difference is that Henry has domesticated the space, and filled it with potted plants, and a bust of Gladstone, and a modernistic silver-frame mirror, and a loose-weave Norwegian rug for the floor, and a machine called a Teasmaid, which links a teapot to a clock, and throws out an intense smell of tea-leaves. 'Are you ready, Henry?' asks Howard. 'I've got a somewhat busy evening. And I've got to take you home for your steak.'

  'I think that's about it,' says Henry, 'I shan't get much work done tonight like this. I wonder, Howard, if you could give me a hand to get my raincoat on? The prob
lem is to fit this arm of mine in somewhere.'

  'Let's put it over your shoulders,' says Howard, 'and I'll button it up for you at the neck.' They stand in Henry's domestic room, Henry with his chin up, as Howard attends to his coat. Then they pick up their briefcases and walk down the empty corridor towards the lift.

  The lift comes quickly, and they get inside. 'I do hope you're not angry with me,' says Henry, as they descend. 'Why should I be?' asks Howard. 'I mean, over the Mangel question,' says Henry, 'I had to vote for him, of course, on principle. It was quite clear to me, though I respect the other point of view. I suppose you voted against.'

  'I abstained, actually,' says Howard. 'But I know what you must have thought,' said Henry. 'If only Henry had done the sensible thing, and stayed at home, and then the vote would have gone the other way.'

  'Nonsense,' says Howard, 'if you'd stayed at home, we wouldn't have had an issue. Now there'll be trouble, and it will radicalize everyone, and we shall have a good term.'

  'Well, I don't think we agree on that,' says Henry. The lift doors open, and they step out into the empty foyer. The Kaakinen waterfall has been turned off for the night; many of the lights are out; the floors are being cleaned by a cleaner with a cleaner. 'No,' says Henry, 'I'm like Flora. I cry for peace. My political days are good and over. I'm not sure I was ever really very far in. In any case, politics were fair, in the fifties.'