All Souls (2 page)

AS
I
MENTIONED
BEFORE
, my duties in the city of Oxford were minimal, a fact that often made me feel I was playing a purely decorative role there. On realising, however, that my mere physical presence was insufficient in itself to decorate anything, I occasionally felt I ought to put on my black gown (obligatory now on only very few occasions) with the primary aim of satisfying the many tourists whom I would pass en route from my pyramid house to the Taylorian and with the secondary aim of feeling both disguised and slightly more justified in my role as ornament. I would therefore sometimes arrive in this guise at the room where I gave my few classes or lectures to various groups of students, all of whom treated me with an excessive degree of respect and an even greater degree of indifference. In age I was closer to them than I was to most of the members of the congregation (as the assembly of dons and teachers of the university is called, in keeping with the strongly clerical tradition of the place) but the mere fact that I spent our few hours of eye contact perched nervously above them on a dais was enough for the gap between the students and myself to verge on that between king and subjects. I was above and they were below, I had a smart lectern in front of me and they only ordinary desks embellished with graffiti, I wore my long black gown and they did not (to widen the gap between us still further, my gown boasted the bands denoting a Cambridge rather than an Oxford degree) and that sufficed for them not only to allow any tendentious statements I made to pass undisputed but also to let me hold forth unquestioned for an hour on the sombre literature of post-civil war Spain, an hour that seemed to me as interminable as the post-war period had to its writers (to those few writers opposed to the regime).

The students did, on the other hand, ask questions in the translation classes, which I taught in tandem with various of my English colleagues. The latter were responsible for the choice of texts for these classes (in order to avoid creating a purely gratuitous and, indeed, minor enigma, I would prefer for the moment not to reveal the bizarre name by which these classes were known), texts that were couched in such abstruse or obscurely vernacular language that I often had to invent spurious definitions for antiquated or unintelligible words that I had never seen or heard before and which, of course, the students would never see or hear again either. Of those pretentious, memorable words (clearly the products of sick minds) I recall with particular enthusiasm:
praseodimio, jarampero, guadameco
and
engibacain
(and how could I forget
briaga,
a term that cropped up in a particularly elegant passage on the wine trade). At the risk of appearing a fool, now that I have translated them into English and know perfectly well what they mean, I confess that then I was totally ignorant of their existence, which, even now, surprises me. My role in those classes, that of walking Spanish grammar and dictionary, was a more hazardous one than in my lectures and caused considerable wear and tear on my reflexes. The etymological questions were the most taxing but, after a while, borne along by impatience and a desire both to please and to get myself out of trouble, I became quite unscrupulous about inventing wild etymologies on the spot, convinced that neither the students nor my teaching colleague would ever be interested enough to check the truth of my replies. (And even if they did, I was sure they would have compassion enough not to throw the blunder in my face the following day.) So, confronted by what seemed to me malicious and absurd questions such as: "What is the origin of the word
papirotazo?'
I had no compunction whatever about supplying them with answers that outdid the questions themselves in absurdity and malice.

"Ah, yes,
papirotazo.
This is a flick delivered with the thumb and forefinger and derives its name from the method used to test the toughness and thereby establish the age of papyruses found in Egypt at the beginning of the nineteenth century."

When I saw that, far from provoking any violent reaction or it occurring to any of them to point out that one
papirotazo
would have been enough to reduce any such dynastic papyrus to confetti, the students were instead diligently taking notes and my English colleague - doubtless stunned by the vulgar sonority of the word and intoxicated perhaps by this sudden evocation of a Napoleonic Egypt — was endorsing my explanation ("Did you get that?
Papirotazo
comes from the word
papiro:
pa-pi-ro, pa-pi-ro-ta-zo"), I even found the nerve to go on and compound my lie with an erudite footnote: "It is, therefore, a fairly recent word, created by analogy with the more ancient
capirotazo,
as this painful and offensive blow is also known," and I paused to illustrate the word, flicking the air with thumb and forefinger, "for it was just this kind of flicking blow that was dealt to the hooded penitents taking part in Holy Week processions, or rather, that was levelled at the tips of their hoods or
capirotes,
with the intention of humiliating them."

And my colleague again endorsed my view ("Did you get that? Ca-pi-ro-te, ca-pi-ro-ta-zo"). The delight some teachers took in pronouncing preposterous Spanish words never failed to move me, and their preference was always for words of four or more syllables. I recall that the Butcher enjoyed them so much that he would lose all composure and, raising one leg (a combination of very short socks and huge voracious shoes resulting in the exposure of one brilliant white shin), would uninhibitedly, and not without a certain grace, rest it on an empty desk and bounce it up and down in time to his own
euphoric syllabification of the word in question ("Ve-ri-cue-to, ve-ri-cue-to. Mo-fle-tu-do, mo-fle-tu-do"). In fact, as I realised only later, my colleagues' applause for my invented etymologies was a consequence of both their excellent manners and a dual sense of solidarity and fun. In Oxford no one ever says anything directly (frankness would be considered the most unforgivable, not to say the most disconcerting, of sins), or at least that is how I understood Dewar the Inquisitor's parting words to me at the end of my two-year stay when, in the midst of other splendid remarks, he said:

"What I'll miss most is your extraordinary etymological knowledge. It never ceased to amaze me. I can still remember my surprise when you explained that the word
papirotazo
came from
papo,
jowl, and signified a blow delivered to another's
papada
or double chin. Really astonishing." He paused for a moment with some satisfaction to observe my embarrassment. Then he tutted and added: "Etymology is such a fascinating subject, it's just a shame that the students - poor undiscerning creatures that they are - forget ninety-five per cent of the marvels they hear, and their bedazzlement at our brilliant revelations lasts only a matter of minutes, at most for the duration of the class. But I will remember it: pa-pa-da, pa-pi-ro-ta-zo." He flexed one of his legs slightly. "Who'd have thought it? Quite fantastic."

I think I probably blushed deeply and, as soon as I could, rushed to the library to consult the dictionary and discover that, in fact, the now famous
papirotazo
did indeed come from the
papo
on which in former times the ignominious blow was received. I felt more of an impostor than ever, but at the same time my conscience felt clearer, for it seemed to me that my crazy etymologies were no more nonsensical, no less likely than the real ones. Or, rather, the true etymology
of papirotazo
struck me as being almost as outlandish as my invented one. Anyway, as the Ripper had pointed out, such ornamental knowledge, whether false, genuine or merely half-true, enjoyed only a very short life span. When true knowledge proves irrelevant, one is free to invent.

I
SPENT
ENDLESS
HOURS
walking round the city of Oxford and consequently know almost every corner of it, as well as its outlying villages with their trisyllabic names: Headington, Kidlington, Wolvercote, Littlemore (and, further off, Abingdon and Cuddesdon). I also came to know almost all the faces that peopled it three years ago and two years ago, however difficult it subsequently proved ever to find them again. Most of the time I walked with no set purpose or goal, although I well remember that I spent about ten days during my second teaching term there (Hilary Term as it is called, comprising eight weeks between January and March) walking the streets with a goal that was neither very adult nor - while it lasted - one I cared to admit to myself. It was shortly before I met Clare and Edward Bayes and in fact my interruption or abandonment (yes, abandonment is the word) of that goal came about because of that meeting with Clare Bayes and her husband and not just because, around that time, one windy afternoon in Broad Street, the goal itself was simultaneously achieved and frustrated.

Some ten days before I was introduced to Clare and Edward Bayes and began to get to know them, I was coming back from London — on a Friday - on the last train, which then left Paddington around midnight. It was the train I caught most Fridays or Saturdays on my return from the capital where I had nowhere to sleep unless I stayed in a hotel, a luxury I could only permit myself from time to time. Usually I chose to return home and, if necessary, to travel down again the following morning if something or someone required my presence there
–
London
is less than an hour away on the fast train. The midnight train from London to Oxford, however, was not fast, but any inconvenience this caused me was compensated for by the pleasure of spending another hour in the company of my friends Guillermo and Miriam, a married couple who lived in South Kensington and whose conversation and hospitality formed the final stage of those days spent wandering the streets of London. Catching that last train involved changing at Didcot, a town of which I have never seen more than its gloomy station, and that only after dusk. The second train, which was to transport us with incomprehensible slowness from there to Oxford, would not always be standing ready at its platform for the arrival of the six or seven passengers from London making the connection (British Rail obviously believed any travellers on that train to be inveterate nightbirds who would not in the least mind getting to their beds a little later still) and then I would be forced to wait at the silent, empty station, which, so far as one could make out in the darkness, appeared to be entirely cut off from the town it served and to be surrounded on all sides by countryside, as if it were some rural halt.

In England strangers rarely talk to each other, not even on trains or during long waits, and the night silence of Didcot station is one of the deepest I've ever known. The silence seems even deeper when broken by voices or by isolated, intermittent noises, the screech of a wagon, for example, that suddenly and enigmatically moves a few yards then stops, or the unintelligible cry of a porter whom the cold wakes from a short nap (rescuing him from a bad dream), or the abrupt, distant thud of crates that invisible hands quite gratuitously decide to shift despite the complete absence of any urgency, at a time when everything seems infinitely postponable, or the metallic crunch of a beer can being crushed up then thrown into a litter bin, or the modest flight of a single errant page from a newspaper, or my own footsteps vainly pacing to the edge of the platform and back
just to pass the time. A few lamps, placed some yards apart (so as not to squander electricity) timidly light those as yet unswept platforms that resemble the aftermath of some rather pathetic street party. (The women who will sweep them in the morning lie dreaming now in darkest Didcot.) In the hesitant light of each lamp, you can just make out brief stretches of platform and railway lines, just as one lamp lights both my own face framed by the turned-up collar of my navy blue coat and a woman's shoes and ankles whose owner remains engulfed in shadow. All I can see is the shape of a seated figure in a raincoat and the glow of the cigarettes that she, like me, smokes during the wait, even longer than usual that night. The shoes were lightly tapping out a rhythm on the platform, as if the person wearing them could still hear in her head the music she'd perhaps spent the whole evening dancing to; they were the shoes of an adolescent or an ingenue dancer, low-heeled with a buckle and rounded toes. They were very English shoes and kept my eyes swivelled in their direction, making the interminable hour spent in Didcot station more bearable. The butts of our respective cigarettes consorted on the ground. Whilst I flicked mine - using a genuine
papirotazo
—
towards the edge of the platform over which they occasionally failed to fall, she tossed hers in the same direction with an arm movement reminiscent of someone rather feebly throwing a ball. And when she made that movement, her hand entered the beam of light allowing, for a fraction of a second, just the glimpse of a bracelet. I got up from time to time, partly to peer out at the dark rails in the distance and partly in an attempt to see something more of the woman who sat — with her legs now crossed, now uncrossed — smoking and tapping out that unknown rhythm with her illuminated feet. I took two or three steps in her direction and then returned to my place, having managed to see nothing beyond the English shoes and her ankles, made perfect by the penumbra. At last she got up and walked slowly along the platform, just a couple of
minutes before the slow, sluggish appearance of the delayed train and the announcement by a slurred, amplified voice (with such a marked Indian accent that a foreigner could only guess at what was being said) of the arrival of the train in Didcot and its subsequent stops: Banbury, Leamington, Warwick, Birmingham (or was it Swindon, Chippenham, Bath, Bristol? I can't be bothered to look at the map; my memory contains both series of destinations and perhaps one has now become confused with the other). She remained standing now, swinging her small bag while she waited. I opened the carriage door for her.