Branstyne and Swinczyc asked about Mario’s ankle. He tried to play down the importance of the mishap, joking about the benefits of exercise. While he was talking, strangely, he felt an excessive awareness of the smiles of the two professors, as if someone was focusing a spotlight on their faces. He thought: I’ve experienced this before.
Branstyne said, ‘See you this evening at the boss’s house.’
‘Of course,’ said Mario. ‘See you there.’
VIII
‘What is professor Berkowickz doing in my office?’ Mario asked brusquely.
Without knocking, he’d barged into the office of the secretary, who never closed her door.
‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you, Professor Rota,’ exclaimed Joyce, smiling behind her desk and standing up from the chair on which she’d spread her flesh. She immediately asked, remorsefully, ‘But what’s happened to your ankle?’
‘It’s nothing,’ answered Mario.
‘What do you mean nothing? Is anything broken? Is it a sprain? Oh, my goodness! You have to be so careful! Just this summer, as a matter of fact,’ Joyce went on, her eyes bright, ‘a friend of my Winnie’s. . incidentally, I suppose you’ve heard that Winnie got into the University of Iowa. I’m so proud of her, imagine: already in university, and she’s really just a little girl. . Anyway, as I was saying, this summer a friend of Winnie’s. .’
Joyce was the secretary to the head of the department. A mature woman, with hair so blonde it looked bleached, eyes without brows, she was at least six foot two and easily weighed over 250 pounds: all this combined to give her a notorious cetacean air. The childish clothing she tended to wear (flowery dresses with flounces, silk ribbons in her hair and around her waist, flared or pleated skirts, kilts) and her innocent ponytails, as well as her habit of swaying down the corridors of the department like a subway car, humming charming popular children’s songs, contrasted starkly with her age and the boundless dimensions of her body. She was a widow and had but one passion: her daughter Winnie, the ups and downs of whose life each and every member of the department could expect to be punctually and personally informed of. At the end of the previous year, however, she made an exception: the day that Winnie received her acceptance from the University of Iowa, Joyce stood in front of the elevator door, on the fourth floor, shouting the news in a tone sounding vaguely like a radio announcer. Later, when the university police — alerted by someone who’d told them a fundamentalist preacher was causing trouble in the building — came to arrest her, Scanlan had to intervene to clear up the misunderstanding.
‘Excuse me for interrupting, Joyce,’ Mario cut expeditiously into the secretary’s discourse. Then, with the impression that he was about to formulate a question that would remain unanswered, he added, ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry. Could you be so kind as to explain what Professor Berkowickz is doing in my office?’
Joyce seemed disappointed: her eyes dulled. She sounded almost irritated. ‘Oh that,’ she said, turning away to sit down behind her desk. ‘Professor Scanlan wants to talk to you. He’ll probably explain it. I just follow orders,’ she concluded while smiling in a way Mario thought either stupid or worrying.
He knocked on Scanlan’s office door.
‘Come in,’ he heard.
He opened the door. Scanlan stood up and came over to shake his hand. He asked about the state of his ankle and how the accident had happened. Then he asked him to sit down in one of the leather chairs facing his desk and said, ‘Just let me finish signing these papers and then we’ll talk.’
Scanlan had been running the department with a firm hand for several years, combining demonstrable administrative capability with academic prestige cleverly carved out over the years not so much with intellectual tools as with political ones. He was getting on in years, a tall man, exaggeratedly slim, with complex, polite, almost cloying gestures. His hair, white and plastered down at the base of his skull and at his temples, lengthened, greying into a pointed goatee beard. Like fish swimming in a fishbowl, his eyes worried the lenses of his glasses. He dressed immaculately with a calculated touch of extravagance.
‘Joyce told me you wanted to speak to me,’ Mario said when Scanlan set aside the papers he’d been signing.
‘Well, there’s no rush,’ said Scanlan, smiling with all his teeth. ‘Really, it’s not so important. We can talk about it some other time more calmly.’
‘Whatever it is,’ said Mario, ‘I’d rather do it now.’
Scanlan lowered his eyes, shifted in his chair, changed position, pensively straightened the papers he’d just signed and stroked his beard. When he raised his gaze, the fish flashed anxiously behind the lenses of his glasses.
‘You’re right, it’s better to do it now,’ he agreed. His tone of voice had changed. ‘It can’t wait till later. Allow me to get straight to the point.’
‘I’d appreciate it,’ said Mario.
IX
‘As I believe you know,’ Scanlan began in a neutral voice, ‘the department is going through a difficult time economically. Actually it’s not just the department: the whole university is over a barrel. The state teaching subsidy has been reduced by five per cent compared to last year and, this past month, we have been obliged to bear a series of expenditures and anticipate others that have put us in the firing line. I’ll spare you the details: the circumstances don’t differ fundamentally from those I described at the last meeting we held in June; if they have changed, it’s for the worse. I don’t know if the elections are going to improve the outlook; what I do know is that at this moment it’s disheartening. I’m left with no option but to battle with it and, believe me, it’s no easy task: the main thing is to protect the general interests of the department, even if this adversely affects one individual. Well.’ He paused, ran his right hand over his hair, stroked his beard, went on in the same tone of voice. ‘On the other hand, as you must undoubtedly know as well, we have managed to attract a professor as prestigious as Daniel Berkowickz. I must admit it wasn’t easy. Between you and me, up to the last minute I didn’t believe we’d be able to achieve it: the conditions he demanded were virtually prohibitive. Nor will I hide from you that I’ve spared no effort to secure what I had set out to achieve. As you’ll understand, it’s barely possible to exaggerate the significance that the presence of someone at the forefront of linguistic investigation and with such an enviable CV might have for the department. But, as well as improving the department’s prestige, I am convinced that Berkowickz will be an invaluable stimulus for us all, even those who publish an article every five years in a third-rate journal.’
Since he’d seen the allusion coming, Mario was able to take it without batting an eye. He just pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger, and, as he noticed his right arm beginning to get faint pins and needles, he eased it off the brace of the crutch. When he heard Scanlan’s voice again he wondered if he might have stopped listening as he changed position.
‘At last we have him here.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What do we have here?’ asked Mario, glancing over his shoulder.
‘Professor Berkowickz, of course,’ Scanlan explained kindly, without apparently registering Mario’s momentary lapse. He went on, ‘To do so we had to make him an offer that I wouldn’t hesitate to describe as attractive. Once again I’ll spare you the superfluous details and summarize; among other things we’ve guaranteed him a minimum of three courses per semester. You’ll understand that this affects you directly: your situation is going to have to change, but I’m convinced you’ll be able to accept the sacrifice for the good of the department.’