Bradbury, Malcolm - The History Man.txt

by The History Man (lit)

  'You've made it quite clear now, haven't you?' says Howard, 'You _are_ accusing me. Let's be explicit.'

  'I don't want to,' says Carmody, 'I just want fairness.' Howard sits on his desk and looks at Carmody. He says, 'There are many things you fail to understand, George. One of them is the right to intellectual freedom.'

  'I don't know how you can say that,' says Carmody, red with anger, 'doesn't that include me? Don't I get any? That's all I'm asking you for.'

  'No, you're not,' says Howard, 'you're accusing me of political bias in my marking, and threatening me with exposure if I don't improve your marks. Aren't you?' Carmody stares. He says, 'Look, give me a chance. That's all I want.'

  'No,' says Howard, 'you're blackmailing me. I never want to see you in my classes again.' Carmody's eyes fill with tears. 'I'm not blackmailing you,' he says quietly. 'Of course you are,' says Howard, 'I've given your work the marks it's worth, you can't accept the judgment, so you come to me, and accuse me, and threaten me, and question my fairness and competence in every possible way. We call that blackmail.'

  Carmody's hands clutch oh the back of the grey chair. He says: 'I was just asking for a chance. If you won't give it me, I'll have to ask Professor Marvin for it. I want someone else to read these essays, and see if these marks and comments are right and fair. That's all I want.'

  'Well, you go to Professor Marvin,' says Howard. 'Make your complaint, and I'll make mine, and advise him about this blackmail attempt, and we'll see how it all comes out.'

  'Christ,' says Carmody, 'I don't _want_ to complain about you. You've pushed me this way.'

  'But I do want to complain about you,' says Howard. Carmody bends down and picks up his briefcase. He says, 'You're crazy. This'll look just as bad for you as it does for me.'

  'I don't think so,' says Howard. 'Now get out. And don't ever come to a class of mine again.'

  'I think you're obscene,' says Carmody, turning and opening the door. 'George,' says Howard, 'who is your tutor in English? I'll have to advise her you're not getting any more sociology, and therefore have presumably already failed your degree.'

  'You're destroying me,' says Carmody. 'I need her name,' says Howard. 'It's Miss Callendar,' says Carmody. 'Thank you,' says Howard. 'Don't bang the door when you shut it.' Carmody drags himself out of the room; the door, predictably, bangs behind him. Howard gets up off the desk, and walks to the window. After a moment he goes back to the desk chair and sits down, pulling open the second left-hand drawer of the desk, and taking out a slim book. He opens the book, finds an entry that says 'Callendar, Miss A', and opposite it a telephone number. He pulls the handset towards him, and begins to dial the number; but then a thought crosses his mind, for he stops, replaces the receiver, and gets up from the chair again. He crosses the room to his bookshelves, and finds, among the routine paperbacks on sociology, a, slim Penguin. He takes it to the desk, thumbs through its pages for a while. Then he picks up the receiver, and dials Miss Callendar's number. The telephone rings along the line; 'Callendar,' says a sharp voice at the other end. 'Hello, Callendar,' says Howard, 'Kirk.'

  'Och, yes, Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, sounding very Scots, 'I've got a class in my room. I can't engage in casual conversation.'

  'Oh, it's not casual,' says Howard, 'it's a serious matter of university business.'

  'I see,' says Miss Callendar, cautiously, 'Of an urgent kind?'

  'Very,' says Howard, 'A serious problem has arisen with one of your advisory students.'

  'Could you ring me again after lunch?' asks Miss Callendar. 'I presume you take your responsibility to your students seriously?' says Howard. 'I do,' says Miss Callendar. 'I think we ought to deal with it now, then,' says Howard. 'Just a minute,' says Miss Callendar, 'I'll ask my class to step outside.' There is a small babble at the other end of the wire; then Miss Callendar returns onto the line. 'I hope this isn't part of your seductive campaign,' says Miss Callendar, 'we were right in the middle of _The Faerie Queen.'_ 'I think you'll see this is serious,' says Howard. 'You have an advisee called George Carmody.'

  'A big, fairhaired boy who wears a blazer?' says Miss Callendar. 'An unmistakable boy,' says Howard, 'the only student in this university with a trouser press.'

  'I know him,' says Miss Callendar, with a giggle. 'You sent him to see me,' says Howard. 'I did,' says Miss Callendar, 'I saw him yesterday, for the first time, I looked through his marks, and found he was failing your course. I'm afraid he'd not seen his situation. I told him to come and talk to you. I said you'd assist him in every way possible.'

  'Well, he came,' says Howard, 'and he tried to blackmail me.'

  'My goodness,' says Miss Callendar, 'he wants you to leave some money in a phonebox?'

  'I hope you're taking this seriously,' says Howard, 'it is serious.'

  'Of course,' says Miss Callendar. 'What did he do?'

  'He claimed that he was failing because I marked with a political bias,' says Howard. 'He didn't!' says Miss Callendar,'I'm afraid that's very rude of him. I'll urge him to apologize to you.'

  'That's no use,' says Howard, 'it's gone much further than that. I, of course, refused to reconsider his marks. So he proposes to see my head of department and complain.'

  'I'm afraid we live in an age of dreary legalism,' says Miss Callendar. 'Isn't the best thing for us all to sit down and talk it over?'

  'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'I want him to complain. I want the man to expose himself. I want him out of this university.'

  'Oh, Dr Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, 'isn't that a bit harsh? Aren't we all making a mountain out of a molehill?'

  'You say you don't know this man very well?' asks Howard. 'I don't,' says Miss Callendar, 'I'm new here.'

  'I think I do,' says Howard. 'He's a juvenile fascist. He's both incapable and dishonest. I mark his work for what it is, totally devoid of merit; he then tries to solve his problems by accusing me of being corrupt. I think we need to make the real corruption here quite visible. It's the classic syndrome; arrogant privilege trying to preserve itself by any means once it's threatened.'

  'Is it like that?' asks Miss Callendar, 'Isn't he just being rather pathetic and desperate?'

  'I hope you're not excusing him,' says Howard. 'After all, he's just gone to see my professor and challenge my professional integrity.'

  'Yes,' says Miss Callendar, 'but who'll believe him?'

  'Oh, many would like to,' says Howard. 'Of course they daren't. He wants to destroy me; in fact he's already destroyed himself. He'll get no more sociology teaching, so he won't get a degree. And I think our regulations permit us to get rid of him.'

  'You make me feel sorry for him,' says Miss Callendar. 'I thought you might feel sorry for me,' says Howard. 'Here's a student of yours putting my career at risk. I have the rights of the victim.'

  'I'm sorry for both,' says Miss Callendar. 'I've been looking at his file while you're talking. His father died. He had a period of depression and psychiatric counselling. He's kept up his work well. His tutors in English and History give him quite favourable reports.'

  'He said he'd been getting As and Bs in English,' says Howard, 'I find it hard to believe.'

  'Well, Bs and As,' says Miss Callendar. 'He's said to have a good critical intelligence. There's a person here, and a background. Oughtn't we to go into it?'

  'I don't think I want to go into it,' says Howard. 'But you do take your responsibility to your students seriously?' asks Miss Callendar. 'What are you proposing?' asks Howard. 'Can't we talk about it?' asks Miss Callendar. 'I don't know,' says Howard. 'When?'

  'I could come to your room this afternoon, or one afternoon this week,' says Miss Callendar. 'I've a department meeting today,' says I--toward, 'and a very full diary.'

  'Isn't there any other time? asks Miss Callendar. 'I did ask you to have dinner with me,' says Howard, 'we could discuss it then.'

  'Oh,' says Miss Callendar, 'I hope this isn't a scheme.'

  'Oh, Miss Callendar,' says Howard, 'can we make it Thursd
ay night?'

  'All right,' says Miss Callendar. 'Try and be hungry,' says Howard. 'Oh, can I just check a literary reference with you?'

  'My class is rioting outside,' says Miss Callendar. 'It won't take a second,' says Howard, 'I'm looking at the Penguin Poets _William Blake,_ page 98, "Proverbs of Heaven and Hell". Here's a quotation from the Proverbs of Hell: "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires".'

  'Yes,' says Miss Callendar, 'what's your question?'

  'How you came to reverse it when we talked this morning?'

  'Ah,' says Miss Callendar, 'I did it via the instrument of literary criticism.'

  'This is your good critical intelligence,' says Howard. 'That's it,' says Miss Callendar, 'you see, I was offering a paraphrase of its implicit as opposed to its surface meaning. You see, read the lines carefully, and you'll find the fulcrum is a pun around the words "infant" and "nurse". The infant and the desires are the same. So it doesn't mean kill babies if you really have to. It means it's better to kill desires than nourish ones you can never satisfy.'

  'I see,' says Howard, 'so that's what you people do over there in English. I've often wondered.'

  'I'm only saying it's not the seducer's charter you took it for,' says Miss Callendar, 'and as for an interest in the substructure, I don't think that's confined to English.'

  'It's hardly the same substructure,' says Howard. 'We're concerned with exposing the true reality, not with compounding ambiguity.'

  'It must be nice to think there is a true reality,' says Miss Callendar, 'I've always found reality a matter of great debate.'

  'Well, we obviously disagree,' says Howard, 'you keep your Blake, and I'll keep mine. You may find mine has something to offer.'

  'I doubt it,' says Miss Callendar, 'but to quote again from the same source, "Opposition is true Friendship". Goodbye, Dr Kirk.'

  Howard hears the telephone click at the other end; he puts down the receiver. He gets out his diary, and makes a note in it; Miss Callendar, Thursday, dinner. As soon as he has finished doing this, the telephone rings again. 'It's Minnehaha Ho,' says the voice, 'Professor Marvin for you, Howard.' The equipment clicks; there are mumblings; another voice says 'Howard?'

  'Hello, Professor Marvin,' says Howard. 'Ah,' says Marvin, 'are you, er, alone?'

  'I am,' says Howard. 'Good,' says Marvin, 'I've got here a matter of exceptional delicacy.'

  'Oh, yes?' says Howard. 'A student of yours has just been to see me,' says Marvin, 'I've just had a very tearful session with him.'

  'I take it the tears were his?' asks Howard. 'Oh, yes,' says Marvin. 'His name is Carmody.'

  'Ah,' says Howard, 'I was just going to ring you about him. To lodge a formal complaint.'

  'Oh, dear, dear,' says Marvin. 'He was complaining about you, you see. He thinks you've marked him rather harshly.'

  'Did he tell you he'd attempted to blackmail me?' asks Howard. 'No,' says Marvin, 'he didn't say that. He did say that you and he didn't get on, and that he'd like to be taught by someone else.'

  'He doesn't seem to have told you very much at all,' says Howard. 'He's failing, of course, and he wanted his marks raised. His way of trying to obtain this was not by doing passing work, the way of most of our students. No, he was going to expose the political bias of my teaching, unless I cooperated. He visited you because I didn't.'

  'Oh,' says Marvin. 'Urn, um.'

  'I hope you kicked him out,' says Howard. 'No, I didn't kick him out,' says Marvin, 'I gave him a glass of sherry.'

  'I see,' says Howard. 'He told you he wasn't satisfied with my marking, so you sat him down and gave him sherry.'

  'Yes,' says Marvin. 'As head of department, I think I have a duty to do him the fairness of listening.'

  'To unfair nonsense,' says Howard. 'He came with a sense of injustice,' says Marvin, 'I felt it my duty to explain to him how we work here. The concept of academic disinterestedness.'

  'I hope that impressed him,' says Howard. 'If so, it would be the first concept he'd ever grasped.'

  'Can you kindly tell me how this situation has got this far?' asks Marvin, 'He tells me you refuse to teach him.'

  'I do,' says Howard, 'I don't teach blackmailers.'

  'Oh, look, Howard,' says Marvin, 'can't we resolve this as between gentlemen?'

  'How do you think we should do that?' asks Howard. 'He accepts his grades,' says Marvin, 'you take him back, and do all you can to bring his work up to passing level.'

  'You may be a gentleman,' says Howard, 'but he isn't, and in another sense nor am I. I come with a sense of injustice too. He made a corrupt accusation, and I won't teach him.'

  'Then I'll have to move him to someone else,' says Marvin. 'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'I can't accept that either.'

  'I don't understand,' says Marvin, 'someone has to teach him.'

  'No,' says Howard, 'I want him banned from the department. I want him disciplined.'

  'Howard,' says Marvin, 'I hoped we could cope with this informally. You're forcing an issue.'

  'Yes,' says Howard, 'it is an issue.'

  'There are two sides to every case,' says Marvin, 'I shall have to listen to his.'

  'But there aren't two sides to every case,' says Howard, 'you'll just sink into your liberal mess, if you accept that.'

  'I have to accept it,' says Marvin, 'I shall need both your complaints in writing, please. And then I shall have to read those disputed essays.'

  'That won't help,' says Howard. 'I think it might,' says Marvin. 'No,' says Howard, 'why should your judgment be better than mine? In any case, the marks aren't just for what he's written. We try to take everything into account here, don't we? Isn't it our ideal to judge the man in as many ways as possible?'

  'I agree we try in marking to take some account of seminar performance,' says Marvin, 'I shall take that into consideration. But I have to read those essays. Unless, of course, you think there's still an informal solution?'

  'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'by all means, let's have an issue.'

  'That doesn't delight me,' says Marvin, 'it can only open many doors better kept shut.'

  'I'd like them open,' says Howard. 'I've never understood your taste for confrontation,' says Marvin. 'As Blake says,' says Howard, '"Opposition is true friendship".'

  'I haven't noticed the note of friendship,' says Marvin, 'but so be it.' The telephone goes down at the other end. Howard replaces his receiver; then he walks to the window, and looks out, with pleased regard, on the wet campus.

  IX

  'It's a very serious issue,' says Roger Fundy, excavating into a jacketed baked potato filled with false cream, 'it's the ultimate test of whether sociology is a relevant subject.'

  'Ah, what's that?' asks Dr Zachery, the micro-sociologist, a small man who works on small problems, approaching the table in his wool hat, carrying his tray, 'I've been looking for such a test for a very long time.'

  'You're a reactionary, you wouldn't know an issue if you saw one,' says Fundy, 'I'm talking about the visit of Mangel.'

  'The visit of Mangel?' says Zachery, sitting down and taking off his hat. 'There's no visit of Mangel.'

  'A departmental memo just came round to say that Mangel's coming here to speak,' says Moira Millikin, at the further end of the table, peering down into her baby's carrycot, which lies in the aisle where the students pass back and forth. 'You know, I already had four food contacts today already,' says Melissa Todoroff, a strong-minded American lady who is at Watermouth on a year's leave from Hunter College, here to study English women, 'can anyone do me a quick calory count on this hunk of steak-and-kidney pie?'

  'Mangel the geneticist?' asks Howard Kirk, sitting in the precise middle of the table, and looking about with innocent curiosity. 'Mangel the racist,' says Fundy. 'He studies the genetics of race,' says Flora Beniform, at the end of the table, 'I don't think that makes him a racist.'

  'I thought we'd driven biological explanation right out of sociology,' says Moira Millikin, 'I thought we were thr
ough with all that shit.'

  'Hey, any of you kids into _I Cling_ yet?' asks Melissa Todoroff. 'You've also driven sin and evil right out of sociology,' says Flora Beniform, 'which doesn't prove there's no sin.'

  'I'm all for making the subject as economical as possible,' says Dr Macintosh, 'it does mean less work.'

  'A serious and well-known scholar,' says Zachery, 'very distinguished work.'

  'It's obscene,' says Moira Millikin. 'Jesus Christ was a Capricorn,' says Melissa Todoroff, 'what's your sign, honey?'

  'I'm a little bewildered, I think,' says Zachery, 'we believe in differentiation by class, and promote those for the tension they create. Yet not the racial ones. Now, how is that?'

  'Class is cultural, race is genetic,' says Moira Millikin. 'I don't believe in astral influence,' says Dr Macintosh, 'in any case it gives an advantage to people whose mothers have good memories.'

  'Of course, Flora,' says Howard, 'you know Mangel. You worked with him at the Tavvy at one time, didn't you?'

  'Yes, I did, Howard,' says Flora, 'I worked in social anthropology with him. He's a fat, ugly man, he smells of borscht, he's serious and liberal, he believes we have a biology, which most of us here actually do, like it or not, and he's certainly not a racist.'

  'It's all been exposed by the radical press,' says Moira Millikin, 'all that tradition. Jensen, Eysenck, Mangel. It's all been shown to be racist.'

  'Don't you believe in _anything,_ honey?' asks Melissa Todoroff. 'We can't have him, we've got to stop him,' says Roger Fundy.

  The sociologists are sitting at a large plastic table, taking lunch, under the domed plexiglass and Plexiglas of Kaakinen's university cafeteria. Students talk, girls yelp, babies squall. The great fancy room towers above them, a thing here of stark places, there of wild Scandinavian frenzies. Such is the detail of design that the very food they eat seems converted into artefact: Jackson Pollock hash, Mondrian fried eggs, Graham Sutherland chicken leg are followed by David Hockney ice cream and Norman Rockwell apple pie. The sociologists eat off their trays; as they eat, they examine, with formal solemnity, the agendas for their coming meeting, turning over the stencilled pages, lifting a bean or a sausage, passing from main agenda to supplementary agenda to document A and document L and document Y, moving from egg to yoghurt. At the time when he conceived the refectory facilities at Watermouth, Kaakinen was taken by a great, democratic dream; deeply mindful of the social symbolism of eating, he was determined at a stroke to remove those distinctions between senior and junior common-room which privatize the essential communion of food, and so have the formal effect of separating, in some root way, the student from his teacher. Instead, therefore, Kaakinen invented prandial community; he made rooms, and corners of rooms, where, under one roof, in democratic babble, every sort of social mixture might occur. Thus, as the fancy takes you, you might sit over there, among rubber plants, with a view through thick leaves straight out over the artificial lake, and eat in some grandeur, at some expense; or you might sit over here, in a place of purity and simple functionalism, where, with specially designed plastic forks that look like spoons, and knives that look like forks, you may, having waited in the cafeteria line, practise contemporary eating of contemporary, plastic-wrapped food at a most modest cost. This of course, has the informal effect of separating the student from his teacher; it is the faculty who sit among the rubber plants, eating _oeufs en plat_ and _pommes frites d la chef; _the students sit at the plastic tables, with their plastic implements, eating their egg and chips.