1. Alisdair’s Letter
My first meeting with Alisdair Schultz took place during my days at the Victoria University of Wellington. By then I had spent some ten years in this fair city and consequently considered myself an Honorary New Zealander. Alisdair’s letter came when I was preparing an important document on behalf of the Professorial Board. The Government was seeking to abolish our generous sabbatical leave scheme. It was thought that a Report in its support, prepared by a professor who had migrated to New Zealand after a successful career overseas, would sound convincing. I was expected to say that the leave scheme had lured me away from thriving Singapore.
Naturally, the story was more complex than that. Wellington had offered me a Chair of Law when Singapore, where I had been rapidly promoted from an Assistant Lectureship to a Senior Lectureship, decided quite understandably that a further advancement could wait for a few years. I, however, was possessed by the impatience of youth. Quite apart from this, I felt that a move was dictated by personal circumstances. Two years after my arrival in this thriving Eastern metropolis I married a local girl from a traditional Chinese background. When, after the lapse of three years, I had to concede that my wife had remained closer to her family than to myself, I concluded, naively, that the gulf that kept separating us might be bridged if we migrated to a place in which we would have to make a fresh start. New Zealand seemed just right.
So here we were, in windy Wellington, where, after years of loyal service, I had to come up with the need of making a case in support of an academic interest. It was a difficult assignment. The truth be told, there is little justification for academic leave. The argument is that after years of teaching you need a refresher course to save you from boredom and to keep staleness at bay. But town planning, primary school teaching and the lot of an accountant are as dull and as demanding as the work in the ivory tower. Still, my document in support of an extravagant privilege was making progress. Even to me, it started to sound convincing.
Alisdair’s letter came like a cold shower. He introduced himself as a Law Professor at Barnes. An Atlas and a magnifying glass helped me to establish that his college was at a dead spot in nobody’s land in California. But he had big ideas. He said he was going to visit us – no invitation having ever been extended – in order to discuss an exchange scheme between our two illustrious schools. Apparently, his Dean, whose name was as unknown to me as Alisdair’s own, wanted him to raise the matter.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with exchange schemes. If Harvard or Yale had offered to take me on for a few months in exchange for one of their lights, I would have been flattered. But who would wish to go to a tiny University at the outskirts of the academic universe?
Naturally, we could listen to Alisdair and say politely that we would let him know. This would be the diplomatic way. A sheer “no” would be crass. The trouble was that, in the last paragraph of his letter, Alisdair said that he intended to call on the Minister of Education to raise the matter “at an official level.” I could see the Minister rubbing his hands with satisfaction. He had been kicked out of our University in his youth – having found some more interesting pastimes than study – and was now in a position to enjoy his revenge. He would simply love to tell us that, despite my convincing Report, he was going to suggest to Cabinet that a set of exchange schemes would be more effective and considerably cheaper than our expensive sabbatical leave programme.
It seemed best to discuss the matter with the other two senior men in our Faculty - Ron and Jack. We were a strange triumvirate. I was the Head of the Private Law Department. Ron, the Head of the Public Law department, specialised in international law. He was often consulted by the government and occasionally was sent to attend conferences and conventions on its behalf. After several encounters with European diplomats, he developed a senatorial manner. Also, his garrulousness metamorphosed. Earlier on, as a young assistant lecturer, he had spoken at great length in a manner that had, in the very least, the advantage of bringing complex problems within human grasp. Now he convoluted the simple facts of every day’s life into problems that required a computer treatment. In addition, his lucidity – which I thought had been an admirable asset – was waning. Often, you could not tell whether he was approving or remonstrating.
Jack - the Dean - was a very different man. After he had finished his law course at our university, he went to the United States. He soon decided that North America was the best place in the world. His accent became the mid-American drawl, his ties became louder and increasingly broader and his taste for contradicting others assumed gargantuan proportions. If I wanted Jack to say that ours was a good university, I simply ran it down for ten minutes or so in our Staff Club. The speech for the defence was sure to follow. But he was, of course, equally certain to go on the attack if you uttered a few words of praise.
Still, the three of us ran the Faculty harmoniously. Whenever we had friction, Jack and Ron - the two New Zealanders - pretended to themselves that an Israeli of Austrian origin, like me, was some sort of a savage. This enabled them to make allowances. If they quarrelled - about once a fortnight - they generously granted me the privilege of restoring peace. However, despite Ron’s circumlocutions and Jack’s bark, they had their hearts in the right place. Indeed, both were aware of my difficult home life and, on many occasions and with natural New Zealand tact, gave me support when life appeared too difficult. I, too, was usually a co-operative colleague and, despite my eccentricity of persisting in being a foreigner and of speaking English with a pronounced Viennese accent, felt very much at home with both of them. Between the three of us, we had turned Victoria University’s Law Faculty into a really pleasant little place.
We were now ogling at each other in discomfort. Jack’s initial reaction was predictable:
“Tell him to piss off!”
Ron shook his head speechlessly, took it in my stride. “I don’t have the vocabulary in English.”
“Say it in German or Hebrew then” said Jack, who enjoyed teasing me about my two foreign languages.
Ron, finally, intervened. Brushing his thick light hair with his hand, he heaved a mournful sigh, and turned to Jack. “What’s wrong with an exchange scheme?”
“We don’t want to lose our leave.” Jack’s voice became doctrinaire.
We searched for a suitable formula to fend Alisdair off. North Americans tend to be insensitive to the spirit of a foreign environment. His meeting with the Minister could do only harm. Unfortunately, we conceived no plan. It was difficult to tell an apparently well-meaning colleague from overseas that he had the plague.
In the end, I wrote to Alisdair a warm letter of welcome but took the liberty of suggesting that he might postpone the arrangements for a meeting with the Minister pending his visit to our Faculty. We were going to brief him, I said. Alisdair did not swallow the bait. He sent us another long letter - with a three page eulogy of exchange schemes - in which he mentioned that his interview with the Minister had already been “booked.” It then dawned on me that a North American could not be expected to miss the opportunity of meeting the great. From remote boyhood, I remembered the American travellers, who visited my father’s home in Tel Aviv for business purposes, and who glorified in making remarks about the pearls of wisdom they had imparted to the Prime Minister, the Chief Rabbi or any lesser luminary who had granted them an audience.
2. Alisdair’s Visit
We waited for Alisdair with trepidation. To our surprise, he turned out to be a mildly spoken and patently gentle human being. He did not attempt to bully us about his idea. In truth, he steered away from any business during the lunch that we provided for him.
After lunch, we convened in Jack’s office to discuss Alisdair’s proposals. Things then took a strange turn. Alisdair repeated the contents of his letter. He told us all about the importance of academic contacts. Bag after bag of coals was brought to our New Castle. Only one element was missing. Alisdair refused to discuss the financial aspects. As the whole essence of an exchange scheme is the solution of these problems, the meeting started to appear pointless.
I am an impatient man. In the end, I threw caution to the wind and turned on Alisdair. “All this is exciting. But if you want to take matters further we have to consider the practical side. For example, who will pay for the travel involved and who will bear the brunt of covering salary differentials?”
Alisdair was unabashed. Smiling benevolently, he said with confidence. “We can settle this later. This is only a discussion of the principle.”
“We know all about exchange schemes,” I said impatiently. “The question is how to arrange them. You want to propose one. What, then, are the terms?”
Jack smiled approvingly. My tactlessness suited his own style. Ron looked away. This was not the way in which a diplomat ought to behave. Alisdair looked peeved but retained his calm.
“Perhaps I shall discuss this with your Minister,” he said.
Jack tried to explain that our universities were independent and that any scheme would have to be worked out with us. Despite his mild manner and gentle voice, Alisdair remained adamant. He was going to act in what he considered our best interest. At this stage, Jack lost his temper.
“We can look after ourselves,” he said roughly. “But how about your Dean? Could we see his proposals. We don’t have the time to pursue a scheme that may come to nothing.”
Alisdair looked thunderstruck. Jack had stepped on his Achilles heel. I was now convinced that Alisdair was free lancing. It seemed best to leave well alone. If the Minister took him seriously, and raised some embarrassing questions based on his forthcoming encounter with the blither, we had a line of last retreat.
Alisdair left somewhat diminished in stature. We moved to Ron’s room for a cup of tea and a post mortem. As could be expected, Jack embarked on a tirade. I was prepared to listen, he had clarified the issues and put Alisdair in his place. Ron, though, cut him short. For once, he dropped his magisterial tone and, reverting to his mannerism of days gone by, said:
“Shit!”
Jack’s mouth fell agape but, dexterously, he managed to catch the pipe that had dropped from it. For a minute, he looked bewildered. The moment, though, was soon over. Ron, who was flabbergasted by his own momentary lapse, resumed his genteel airs. Soon we joined fronts in an attempt to find a practical solution. We searched our befogged brains but came up with a blank. It was impossible to stop Alisdair’s visit to the Minister and only a seer could predict the outcome. All that was left to us was to wait and see.
3. Investigating Alisdair’s Background
Usually, I would have been glad to leave things at that. But Alisdair had puzzled me. He claimed to be interested in my own area but I had never read a paper emanating from his pen. My ignorance contrasted with his familiarity with my own substantial writings in a narrow area. It did not make sense. To satisfy my curiosity, I went to look him up in the bibliographical section of our library. His name did not appear in the staff list of the Law School at Barnes. I raised my eyebrows. I then discovered that he did not have an entry in the American “Who is Who in our Law Schools.” This was even stranger. Why had this vain little man kept his name out of the directory?
In the end, I looked up a general biographical publication. It threw light on the situation. Alisdair Schultz was not a law teacher at all. He was the Law Librarian at Barnes. Undoubtedly, he was entitled to refer to himself as a Professor. All American law librarians had the title. But it seemed most unlikely that his Dean would use him as an emissary. Law Librarians were considered poor relations of their teaching colleagues.
I mentioned my discovery to Ron and Jack over morning coffee. Jack – the staunch egalitarian – delivered a speech on human rights. Remembering his American loyalties, he defended the fellow. Ron simply grunted. But he had to admit that my researches had unearthed a weapon against any daydreams imparted by Alisdair to our hostile Minister.
We had to wait three months for the Minister’s reaction. It came by way of a strongly worded letter from our Vice Chancellor. He had lunch with the Minister and was appalled to discover that we had entered into clandestine negotiations for an exchange scheme and that – without taking the trouble to consult him – we had avowed a preference for such a scheme over our present leave scheme. It was easy to explain the position to him. It was less pleasant to face, at his request, the eagle-eyed Minister of Education.
Ron and Jack united in conferring the task on me. Jack’s excuse was plausible. Although the ruling party had offered him a safe seat, he had recently thrown his lot in with the Labour opposition, from whose back benches he was destined to rise to meteoric heights in years to come. His appearance would have been a red rag to the Minister’s wrath. Ken’s excuse was banal. He developed laryngitis!
4. Meeting the Minister
My interview with the Minister was short and to the point. It appeared that he had not taken to Alisdair. When his secretary placed the Schultz file in front of him, his dark searching eyes expressed resentment. As he went through the file carefully, I studied him. He was a tall man, who managed his affairs with great agility despite the permanent injury to his right arm, sustained in the Korean War. To the amazement of his many friends, he had followed up his distinguished war record by spending some twelve years in running his family’s sheep farm in the Wairarappa. But he was no ordinary farmer. His lengthy report as the ad hoc Chairman of a certain government Committee, written ten years before he became a full time politician, demonstrated that he had settled in the country (away from suburbia) out of choice.
Eventually, the Minister raised his eyes from the file. For a few moments he kept seizing me up. I could read his decision to go directly to the heart of the matter.
“What really happened?” he wanted to know. “I take it that Barnes is not Mecca?” he added, with gusto.
I explained the position in simple words, making no secret of our having been fooled into believing that, in the very least, Alisdair was a proper Law Professor rather than a Librarian. The Minister chuckled.
“I wondered about his statements. His assertions conflicted with the views expressed in your Report on Leave.”
He drew the report out of one of the files on his desk and grinned. I felt uncomfortable. This was not rough, it was ridiculous.
“You really need the leave scheme?!” he asked.
“We do!” I retorted.
“We’ll see what my colleagues think,” he said warmly, adding reflectively. “I thought that Schultz chap was a braggart.”
“That was very perceptive of you, you were not fooled like us. What made you wise to him?”
The Minister reflected. With a New Zealander born and bred he might have maintained his reserve. With me this was unnecessary. In the ultimate, I was an outsider.
“We gave him an excellent lunch. Best spring lamb from my own farm. But he left half of it, the beggar. And do you know what he said? He said American doctors believe lamb is bad for you. What bullshit. And he thinks you need an exchange with his blighted law school. We can look after our own academicians if they need refresher leave.”
I left the massive stone building with satisfaction. It was clear that the Minister was going to support our leave scheme. Alisdair had done us proud. He deserved a medal for his unintentional service. But when the Government’s favourable decision was published, the laurels went to me. Everybody praised my Report. I did not have the heart to reveal the true story. Late at night, though, I used to blush when I thought about the matter. It was not altogether flattering that Alisdair’s gaffe had been considerably more effective than my elaborate arguments. All the same, I felt grateful to Alisdair. Little did I know that he would surface again during my lengthy academic career and that, on each occasion, his appearance would be of benefit.
5. Leaving Wellington
A few months after Alisdair’s visit, I left Wellington for good. My wife, who had never managed to adjust to New Zealand ways, had been nagging me for years to take her back to Singapore. This I was not prepared to do. At that time, I had a phobia of traversing my steps. Still, it seemed appropriate to seek the counsel of both Jack and Ron.
Jack’s reaction was plain and, for just one occasion out of his tendency to preach. “Look here, Peter, you ask me to give you an advice based on rational thinking. Your issue, though, concerns an emotive issue. You must make up your own mind. All I can say, we would be sorry to see you go. Aren’t you happy here? You do fit in.”
Ron’s reaction was similar. Just for once he dropped his diplomatic airs and reverted to being the common-sense chap of days long gone. “Peter, what you try to do is to sidestep a highly emotional problem by seeking a rational way out. But can you be sure that Pat would be happier if you take her back to Singapore? Occasionally, you must sort things out by opting for a break and a new start. You are happy here. So why leave us?”
In my heart of hearts, I knew that the two of them were right. Pat and I had tied the knot because both of us had been lonely. She would have made a truly good wife to a Chinese businessman. He would have found her resourceful and reliable and who would have appreciated her loyalty to tradition. I was not ‘mister right’. Pat was unable to emphasise with my academic aspirations and intellectual restlessness. Still, I kept hoping that a move way from Wellington might help her find her feet, or, in the very least, give us a fresh start.
Eventually, I opted for a compromise. When Monash University in Melbourne advertised a Chair, Pat insisted that I apply for it. Initially, I was opposed. Why leave a place where at least one of was a home? But, in the end, I yielded. Australia seemed a good place and, also, the salary was higher. I got the job.