Stepping Westward

by Malcolm Bradbury

  Now, he sat in the third row of the audience in the Fogle Auditorium, and watched Walker, a little figure behind the microphones, wriggling with embarrassment, beside the American flag, at the English perspectives he had to put. His English socks poked out beneath the too-short trouser cuffs of his American seersucker suit. The ghost spoke, and sounded more like Hamlet. It was not the kind of statement that Froelich would have wished for, had he been a totally political man. But he was not. What he felt, as Walker’s halting words at last turned to the loyalty oath, was a sense of personal triumph. What had happened was that he had given Walker what he had come here for, a moment of truth and test, an historic moment of growth. Visibly the man had changed and grown, won himself and destroyed himself. Walker’s statement was almost incidental, really: he had taken up a cause that he knew little about, one he had not much right to, one that others could have handled better. But the real point, for Froelich, was his own personal achievement in doing all this; he had linked Walker so inexorably to himself that their spirits now had to sing in tune. The words spoken had Froelich in them. They cut Walker off from Bourbon (who was contorting himself excruciatingly in the row ahead); they cut him off from President Coolidge (who was looking down urgently at the pressmen as if to stun them into deafness). They might well cut him off from his fellowship because the state legislature was not going to like this one little bit. But there was another fellowship that they didn’t cut him off from, the right-minded fellowship, the warmth and the goodness, of Froelich himself. Here was the lesson given.

  As the audience, or what was left of them after the walkout, applauded politely, Froelich got up from his seat and caught up with the man from the Dimity Gazette, who was making for the exit door to reach the telephone.

  ‘Quite a story,’ said Froelich.

  ‘It was?’ said the journalist suspiciously.

  ‘The most remarkable speech I ever heard on this campus,’ said Froelich confidently.

  ‘You think it’s big?’ asked the pressman.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, but it’s coast-to-coast stuff if you ask me,’ said Froelich. This work done, he followed the man out of the exit doors and found his way back through Fogle into the wings. Walker and President Coolidge stood nodding at each other in the semi-darkness of the wings; ropes hung around them, and Walker was clutching his blue file under his arm.

  ‘Yes, well, now, Walk, that was very interesting,’ President Coolidge was saying, ‘but I think it was probably a betrayal of hospitality. That’s dangerous ground you were treading through, there, Walk. I was sweating inside my shorts, I don’t mind telling you.’

  ‘I don’t think I said anything very extreme, did I?’ said Walker.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not blaming you, Walk, because I don’t think you saw what was coming, but I think we’re going to have to do some real talking to the regents to make them like this if it slaps the front pages tomorrow. Maybe we can get you on television to disclaim it; there’s ways round, we’re not beaten yet. But I don’t know, I’ll tell you. I’ve seen men put back in the breadline for this kind of thing.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Well, that loyalty oath’s a real bone of contention in this section of the country. I’ll tell you, Walk, in the days when it was a really live issue we ran this one up the flagpole and shot at it from all directions, and I mean it, it was a real bomb from start to finish. The previous president got the golden handshake over it.’

  ‘I didn’t realize so much had happened,’ said Walker.

  ‘Oh, it was a bomb, Walk. This is why I came to this campus. I came here determined to reconcile all the factions. The faculty were all resigning because the loyalty oath existed or else because it wasn’t tough enough. I did a real Potsdam agreement with it. I got all the reds on campus, and I got all the rightists on campus, and I put them round a table, and I said, “Boys, we can blow ourselves to pieces over this one, or we can stay quiet and play it by ear and wait until the shouting’s all through.” I prognosticated what would happen. I told those men, I said, “Look, friends, this is the poop. Two years ago everyone was worrying about fluoridating the water. Two years from now they’ll be worrying about cancer-causing deodorants or civil rights. This is a phase and we’re going to weather this phase and I’m going to tell you here and now how to weather this phase.” And by God, Walk, we weathered it.’

  In the darkness Froelich trod on something, perhaps a discarded pretzel, and Coolidge said, ‘Hey, there’s someone back there. Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Froelich, coming forward.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ said Coolidge, the look of despair on his face wiped off as rapidly as a smear in a television commercial, ‘I remember the face but the name’s slipped. I’m Coolidge.’

  ‘I’m Froelich, President.’

  ‘English?’ said Coolidge.

  ‘Yes,’ said Froelich.

  ‘You know, Walk,’ said Coolidge, thoroughly his old disconcerted self, ‘I hate to forget a name. We’ve got a big faculty here, but I try to remember all my men. You were out there, Dr Froelich? How do you think they all took it?’

  ‘I thought very well,’ said Froelich, ‘except for the people who walked out. They didn’t like it, but we don’t worry about them, do we?’

  ‘Well, you know, Dr Froelich, I think we do,’ said Coolidge. ‘We mind what everybody thinks. We have civic responsibilities in this U, and we got to be responsible to those responsibilities.’

  There was then the sound of someone bumbling through ropes and over the scattered props in the semi-darkness, and the big bulk of Harris Bourbon appeared. Worry was designed across his features. ‘How’d it all go, Har?’ asked Coolidge.

  ‘Well,’ said Bourbon, taking out his pipe and playing with the threads of tobacco that overhung its bowl, ‘it was a nice talk, but the citizens didn’t understand.’

  ‘Talk to the press at all, Har?’ asked Coolidge.

  ‘No, they all rushed out in a hurry.’

  ‘Goddam that, I ought to have acted,’ said Coolidge, ‘but I’ll act now. I’ll call up some editors I know. We’ll have our rebuttal out before they have their story. Don’t worry, Walk, we’ll get this straight if I can.’

  Walker stood and looked confused; his moral growth was evidently not yet complete. Froelich felt for a moment that he ought to trip Coolidge or grab his coat, anything to delay the man on his mission of concealment, but he was gone. ‘I felt I could have done so much better,’ said Walker to them both.

  ‘Waal, Mis’ Walker, all I kin say is thank goodness you didn’t,’ said Bourbon.

  ‘I don’t quite see the need for all the fuss,’ said Walker.

  ‘Waal, maybe you don’t, Mis’ Walker, but this isn’t just a university matter, you know. You’re moving in the realms of state and national policy when you touch this loyalty oath business on a public occasion. It’s one thing to raise it in the department meetin’s or in the U, and another to raise it here.’

  ‘I didn’t think I said anything very much.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Froelich, ‘but maybe the world will make it into something.’

  ‘Waal, I guess there’s nothin’ we kin do ’cept go home,’ said Bourbon. ‘Can I give you a ride back, Mis’ Walker?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Walker.

  ‘It was very good,’ said Bourbon. ‘Nice talk. Just that the folks didn’t really get the level you was talkin’ at.’

  The following morning, Froelich was out on the porch, in his Black Watch tartan dressing gown, almost as soon as the delivery boy had hurled the packed-up copy of the Dimity Gazette from his motor scooter in the general direction of the house. He retrieved it from the branches of the pine tree into which it had lodged and took it indoors. On the front page was a photograph of an old lady who was hitting a middle-aged man, with some energy, with her purse; inset was a photograph of Walker speaking on the podium, his hair ruffled, his paunch looking particularly vast. British Author
Lashes Loyalty Oath, said the headline; and the story began: ‘In front of a protesting audience and a red-faced president in BAU’s Fogle Auditorium last night, British angry-young-man author James Walker angrily lashed his hosts for asking him to sign the obligatory state loyalty oath . . .’ Froelich began cracking open his breakfast eggs with some glee.

  ‘It looks like your friend James Walker’s in a mite of trouble,’ he shouted to Patrice, who still lay in bed clad in the lower half of a pair of pyjamas and reading Moby Dick.

  ‘I guess we all know who got him into it,’ said Patrice. Froelich finished breakfast and drove down to the English Building in his car, which had been returned to him from the repair shop just two days before. When he reached the door of his office he found waiting outside it a very large student with a crew-cut, his long arms holding his notebook neatly lodged in front of his crotch. His name was Jabolonski and he was present at BAU largely because the football coach had been drawing heavily on the college patriotism of his tutors; Jabolonski, academically a cretin, was one of their best players. Walker, who had been taking him for composition, had had several difficulties with him, the chief one being that he had taken it into his head that the course consisted of one class only, the first.

  ‘Oh, duh,’ said Jabolonski.

  ‘Looking for someone?’ asked Froelich, unlocking the door.

  ‘Duh,’ said Jabolonski, ‘I was lookin’ for my teacher, this man Walker. The president of the fraternity I’m pledging said I gotta withdraw from his course.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, duh, I dunno, he says we all got to withdraw ’cause of sumpn he said. I dunno, I’m all confused, shoot, what’s it all about, why are we here, what have I gotta take these courses for anyways?’

  ‘The mystery of life, Mr Jabolonski,’ said Froelich.

  ‘Is that what it is?’ said Jabolonski doubtfully.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Froelich.

  ‘What time if I come back later will you be expectin’ him to come in?’ asked Jabolonski.

  ‘Well, he has to be in for a class at eleven,’ said Froelich.

  ‘Well, duh, okay, I’ll come back when he’s in and see if he is,’ said Jabolonski.

  Froelich went inside and sat down at his desk, awaiting the moment of Walker’s arrival. A few minutes later the door opened, but it was Luther Stewart and William Van Hart; they had a cabin in the canyon and rode in on motorcycles, together.

  ‘Seen friend Walker?’ asked Froelich.

  ‘No,’ said Stewart. ‘Maybe he’s been kidnapped by the Party Friendly Mortuary.’

  ‘I thought he gave a cute lecture,’ said William Van Hart.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Froelich.

  ‘Okay, the sharp-edged mind of Froelich says what did he say, but I’m a Chicago Aristotelian and I say how did he say it?’ said William Van Hart.

  ‘A lecture should not mean but be,’ said Luther Stewart.

  There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ said Froelich. The door opened and one of Froelich’s freshman students, a tall, confident, handsome girl with ringlets falling down to her shoulders, and named Willa Anne Papp, came in. ‘Can I see you for a moment, Dr Froelich?’ she said.

  ‘Okay, come on in and sit down.’

  Miss Papp sat down and said, ‘You’ve got a big problem here, Mr Froelich. It’s me.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Froelich, ‘and what’s your trouble? Pains in the abdomen? Titillation of the middle ear?’

  ‘No, it’s about these grades I been getting. You keep giving me Fs and I know I’m more capable.’

  ‘Well, let’s take a look. Is this your last theme?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Papp, handing over a theme paper on Shakespeare and the Sonnet, which began: ‘Petrarch had one foot in the Middle Ages while with the other he became the father of the Renaissance,’ and which had been heavily marked by him in red pencil. Miss Papp leaned her ringlets close to him and said, ‘I don’t understand why you marked this bit here.’

  ‘Well, let’s take a look and see,’ said Froelich. ‘You say, “This poem is almost, but not quite, unique,” and I recommended you to turn up a page in the Handbook for Writers. That’s what HW means. Did you turn up the page?’

  ‘I didn’t know what HW meant,’ said Miss Papp. ‘I think you ought to tell us those things.’

  ‘I did, in the second meeting,’ said Froelich.

  ‘Well, I missed that.’

  ‘Well, if you turn up the page in Handbook you’ll find it says you can’t have comparatives of “unique”.’

  ‘I don’t see why not, in the modern world of today.’

  ‘Oh, hell, Miss Papp, you just can’t. A thing either is or it isn’t.’

  ‘I think that’s ridiculous,’ said Miss Papp.

  ‘Well, it’s like saying “almost but not quite a virgin”.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Or “almost but not quite pregnant”.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Well, how are these situations possible, Miss Papp? Tell me, baby.’

  ‘You haven’t been around very much, have you?’ asked Miss Papp.

  ‘Maybe I’m the one who needs teaching,’ said Froelich.

  ‘I’d gladly do what I can,’ said Miss Papp.

  ‘How about if I call you sometime, Miss Papp, and we talk about those grades some more.’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ said Miss Papp.

  Miss Papp rose, and Froelich noticed that Walker had come in. ‘Oh, hello, James,’ he said, ‘how’s things?’

  ‘Hellish,’ said Walker, sitting down, ‘I’ve been getting phone calls.’

  ‘Good. What kind of phone calls? Obscene ones?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a woman who keeps calling me and thinking of new four-letter words.’

  ‘She’ll soon run out of permutations,’ said Froelich. ‘Take it easy. Any favourable calls?’

  ‘One or two college kids called to say it was the best speech they’d ever heard.’

  ‘Fine, it’s going nicely.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t think it was such a sensational speech.’

  ‘No, it was kind of wishy-washy, but you picked a good occasion for it.’

  ‘I liked it,’ said Miss Papp. ‘I thought it was almost but not quite sensational.’

  ‘Well, that’s Mr Walker,’ said Froelich. ‘He has one head cocked in the general direction of the nineteenth century while with the other becoming the father of the modern world of today.’

  ‘Well, I just want you to know that a lot of the kids liked it,’ said Miss Papp. ‘’Bye now.’

  When Miss Papp had gone, Walker looked at his shoes and said, ‘I wonder whether I ought to issue some kind of modification, saying that it was a general point and not a specific attack on the university.’

  ‘No,’ said Froelich. ‘You’ve done your bit, as they say. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Mr Jabolonski was looking for you.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to know the meaning of life.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him. And yeah, there was something else – his fraternity president has put him up to withdrawing from your class in protest.’

  ‘I didn’t realize I’d caused so much trouble.’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t mean anything.’

  Just before Walker set off across campus to meet his composition group, Bourbon came in. He stood haltingly in the doorway and warned Walker to beware of trouble; two of the students in the course had come to him to ask for Walker to be fired, on two grounds: because he was a fellow traveller, and because nobody could understand his accent anyway. ‘He doesn’t even talk the English language properly,’ one of the students had said. Three other freshmen, all pledging the same fraternity, had come in to ask to be assigned to a different instructor. He gave their names; one of them was Jabolonski.

  ‘They don’t even attend class anyway,’ said Walker.

  ‘T
hey want to be absent from the classes of a different instructor in future,’ said Luther Stewart.

  ‘Waal, Mis’ Walker,’ said Bourbon, looking at his booted feet, ‘I felt I had to accede to their wishes, particularly as one or two sections is running a bit lightweight. But it don’t mean anything.’