1.Leave in Hambourg
Another three years passed by since this last, most revealing, encounter with Alisdair. During this period I published additional learned articles, won some court cases and was defeated in a number of others. Also, I lost the remnants of what had once been an acceptable shock of hair. Although Mei Ling kept her word and organised a period of study leave, I had to postpone embarking on it as one of my collaborators left the Faculty in order to pursue a far more lucrative career at the Bar. All, though, ended well. A famous Institute in Hamburg, which hosted the best comparative law library in Europe, awarded me a prestigious fellowship and, at long last, I departed for four months of a much needed refresher cum study leave.
It was my first lengthy stay in Continental Europe since a sabbatical taken during my period of service in Wellington. Although I retained my preference for Austria and Southern Germany, I soon felt at home in Hamburg, sombre town as it is. I was particularly pleased with the progress made with the project I was pursuing in the Institute.
In this regard, I was greatly indebted to the constant help given to me by the Chief Librarian. Löwe, a man in his mid sixties, was one of those devoted and conscientious librarians, who simply love books and who are prepared to take all the pains necessary to trace unintelligible references in order to unearth obscure publications. He kept drawing my attention not only to unknown German and French texts but also to rare and little used English monographs, old tracts and textbooks in my field. I suspect that, in reality, he derived just as much satisfaction out of my poorly concealed embarrassment as from my profuse thanks. We soon started to have luncheons together in the cafeteria and to converse informally. In a sense, we were quite at ease with one another as Löwe, who came from a small town in Bavaria and who retained his heavy accent despite his thirty years in Hamburg, had a mannerism and outlook reminiscent of Vienna. Actually, he even had some proficiency with the dialect of my family’s district. He, in turn, was rather surprised by my command of the accents of Passau and of the Schwarzwald.
I came to know Löwe particularly well during a period of three weeks in which my wife, who had by then developed a dislike for Hamburg, took a trip to the States in order to attend the wedding of one of our numerous nieces. Löwe, who I suspect tended to be a loner and who had been a widower for a number of years, was happy to go out occasionally for dinner or to the theatre. He was, further, not unduly perturbed by some of my slightly eccentric habits, although, on one occasion, his eyes popped out of his head when I ordered two separate glasses of wine, placing one at the far end of the table with a salute. On another occasion, he humoured me when I suggested, at the Hamburg carnival known as the Dom, that we take ride on the merry go round. Naturally, my only motive was nostalgia and the scientific urge to compare the Hamburg wheel with the facility of the famous Viennese amusement park, the Prater. But I must concede that the bystanders showed natural mirth at the sight of the relapse into childhood of two aged gentlemen, me with my sagging shoulders and bold head and Löwe with his huge bulk and pot belly. Still, in it was all fun.
It occurred to me from time to time that Löwe was a librarian of the same class and standing as Alisdair Schultz. But it was only towards the end of my blissful period in Hamburg that Alisdair’s name cropped up. On this occasion, I called on the Löwe to take my leave, to express my thanks for all his help and to volunteer some assistance in respect of their South East Asian holdings. As we were talking, my eye fell on a recent issue of a well-known periodical and I noted that its new editor was none other than Alisdair in person.
“When did Professor Schultz take over the Editorship?” I wanted to know.
“Oh, about a year ago; do you know him?”
“Certainly; an excellent man,” I said and then could not resist adding: “He tried to interest us in an exchange.”
Löwe, who had a typical Bavarian sense of humour, grinned knowingly: “He used to have some odd ideas on the subject; tried it on us too; this is how we came to know him. But you know, he seems to have had a change of heart.”
He paused for a minute and then, in reply to my inquisitive glance, continued: “I suspect not many exchanges worked out. So now he is arranging Conferences or, as he prefers to call them, Conventions. Last year we had one in Mexico City; many Law Librarians came, about three hundred; Schultz was the President; the Guest of Honour, incidentally, was the Minister of Culture and Education. It was a great success; Schultz gave a polished and, h’m, grand speech.”
The last few words were uttered with a slight touch of irony. My feeling was one of sheer glee.
“Are you having another Conference?”
“Indeed; in this very Institution; in October; all is going smoothly and we have an excellent programme. The only snag is on the ceremonial side.”
Chuckling heartily, he elaborated: “Schultz insists we invite the Kanzler or, in the very least, the Federal Minister of Education. But I fear he’ll have to settle on the far less distinguished Mayor of Hamburg.”
“But the programme in the least is real?!” I said. “Actually, what has caused him to drop the exchanges and embark on this new … idea?”
“I don’t know for sure, but, wait, he told me that some eccentric Mendicant Professor of Law, born in Vienna, whom Schultz had originally met in Wellington, put the idea in his head.”
He was about to add something but checked himself with a start, bestowing on me a searching glance: “Any idea who that chap might be?”
“None whatsoever,” I said, trying hard to look puzzled. “I only met this Schultz fellow a couple of times; but that Professor must be quite a guy; almost as remarkable as Alisdair Schultz himself.”
I must have said too much! A look of recognition or realisation replaced Löwe’s startled expression of the previous minute. Grinning from ear to ear, he nodded his head vigorously.