‘Very amusing,’ said von Igelfeld quickly. ‘Except for the fact that one should say e Germania, the ex form, as you know, being appropriate before a vowel, hence, ex Africa in the original. Be that as it may, certainly far more amusing than anything I heard in Cambridge. I’m afraid it’s true, you know, that the British don’t have a sense of humour.’
‘I’ve heard that said,’ agreed the Librarian. ‘Very humourless people.’
‘But if I may return to the situation here,’ pressed von Igelfeld. ‘Ex institutione aliquid novi?’
The Librarian smiled. He knew exactly what von Igelfeld would be interested in, which would be whether anybody had requested a copy of Portuguese Irregular Verbs in his absence. Normally, the answer to this would be a disappointing negative, but this time there was better news to impart, and the Librarian was relishing the prospect of revealing it. But he did not want to do it too quickly; with skilful manipulation of von Igelfeld’s questions, he might be able to keep the information until coffee, when he could reveal it in the presence of everybody. They were always cutting him short when he had something interesting to say; well, if they tried that today, then they would have to do so in the face of very evident and strong interest on the part of von Igelfeld.
Oh yes, the world is unjust, thought the Librarian. They – Prinzel, Unterholzer and von Igelfeld (Zimmermann, too, come to think of it) – had all the fun. They went off to conferences and meetings all over the place and he had to stay behind in the Library, all day, every day. All he had to look forward to each evening was the visit to the nursing home and the short chat with the nurses and with his aunt. It was always a pleasure to talk to his aunt, of course, who was so well-informed and took such an interest in everything, but afterwards he had to go back to his empty apartment and have his dinner all by himself. He had been married, and happily so, he had imagined, until one day his wife walked out on him with absolutely no notice. She had met a man who rode a motorcycle on a Wall of Death at a funfair, and she had decided that she preferred him to the Librarian. He had tracked her down to a site outside Frankfurt – the sort of wasteland which funfairs like to occupy – and he had had a brief and impassioned conversation with her outside the Wall of Death while her motorcyclist lover raced round and round inside. He had implored her to come back, but his words were lost in the roar of the motorcycle engine and in the rattling of the brightly painted wooden planks that made up the outside of the Wall of Death.
Such was the Librarian’s life. But at least von Igelfeld was kind to him, and it would give him very great pleasure to tell him, when the moment was right, that a copy of Portuguese Irregular Verbs had been requested, and despatched, to none other than Señor Gabriel Marcales de Cinco Fermentaciones, cultural attaché at the Colombian Embassy. This was remarkable news, and although he could not say with certainty what it implied, it undoubtedly had interesting possibilities.
‘Yes,’ he said to von Igelfeld. ‘I believe that there is something which will interest you. I shall obtain the details – I do not have them on me right now – and I shall tell you about it over coffee.’
During the hours before coffee, von Igelfeld busied himself in his room, going through the circulars and other correspondence that his secretary had not deemed sufficiently weighty to send on to Cambridge. Most of this was completely unimportant and required no response, but there were one or two matters which needed to be addressed. There was a request from a student in Berlin that he be allowed to work in the Institute for a couple of months over summer. Von Igelfeld was dubious; students had a way of creating a great deal of extra work and were, in general, the bane of a professor’s life. That was why so few German professors saw any students; it was regrettable, but necessary if one’s time was to be protected from unacceptable encroachments. On the other hand, this young man could be useful, and could, in the fullness of time, become an assistant. So von Igelfeld wrote a guarded reply, inviting the student for an interview. That task performed, he set himself to a far more important piece of business, which was to discover evidence of Unterholzer’s having been in his room during his absence.
Von Igelfeld knew that Unterholzer could be cunning, particularly when it came to issues of rooms and chairs. He would not have done anything so unwise as to have left a sign on the door with his name on it; nor would he have moved any of the furniture. Of course, one could check the position of the chairs and possibly find that one or two had been shifted very slightly from their original position, but this was not proof of any significance, as the cleaners often moved things when they were cleaning the room. There were other potential clues: the number of paper-clips in the paper-clip container was a possibility, but then again Unterholzer would have been aware of this and would have made sure that he had replaced any such items.
Von Igelfeld looked closely at the large square of framed blotting paper on his desk. This was the surface on which he normally wrote, and if Unterholzer had done the same, then one might expect to find evidence in the form of the inked impression of Unterholzer’s script. He picked up the blotter and examined it carefully. He had not had the foresight to insert a fresh sheet of paper before he left, and the existing sheet had numerous markings of his own. It was difficult to make out what was what, as everything was reversed. Von Igelfeld paused. If one held the blotter up to a mirror, then the ink marks would be reversed and everything would be easily readable.
He made his way quickly to the men’s washroom, where there was a large mirror above a row of hand-basins. Switching on the light in the darkened room, he held the blotter up to the mirror and began to study it. There was his signature, or part of it, in the characteristic black ink which he used: M . . . . . M . . . . von Ige . f . . d. And there was half a line of a letter which he recalled writing to Zimmermann almost six months ago. That was all legitimate, as were most of the other markings; most, but not alclass="underline" what was this? It was clearly not in his handwriting and, if he was not mistaken, it was Unterholzer’s well-known sprawling script. Moreover, and this suggested that no further proof would be needed, the blotting was in green ink, which was the colour which Unterholzer, and nobody else in the Institute, used.
‘I have my proof,’ muttered von Igelfeld under his breath. ‘The sheer effrontery of it!’
It was at this point that the Librarian entered the washroom. He stood in the doorway, momentarily taken aback at the sight of von Igelfeld holding the blotter up to the mirror.
‘Professor von Igelfeld!’ he exclaimed. ‘May I help you in some way?’
Confused and embarrassed, von Igelfeld rapidly dropped the blotter to his side. ‘I have been looking at this blotter in the mirror,’ he said.
‘So I see,’ said the Librarian.
For a few moments nothing further was said. Then von Igelfeld continued: ‘I am in the habit of making notes to myself – memoranda, you understand – and I have unfortunately lost one. I am searching for some trace of it.’
‘Ah!’ said the Librarian. ‘I understand. It must be very frustrating. And it would appear that poor Professor Dr Unterholzer must suffer from the very same difficulty. A few months ago I came across him in here doing exactly this, reading a blotter in the mirror!’