Convenience

A day in the life of Professor R.R. Tameemi

Though the sun was still hovering a few degrees below the horizon, a whit of silvery light broke through his window, and as was his wont, the professor woke up quarter past six and sat up facing Arthur Kampf’s Scena z Fausta Początek, an oil painting gifted to him years ago by a certain dilettante who had invited the professor over to his house to discuss some ‘strategic’ matters, and after noticing how the professor stood rapt in front of the artwork, he insisted that the professor take it home. How magnanimous, said the professor, with a glint in his eyes, and the man assumed a facial expression that suggested it was nothing. Half an hour later the professor, still buoyed by the gift, made a pledge to render his services and was hired by the man for ‘strategic’ purposes. You scratch our backs and we shall, if need be, scratch yours, he was told over some coffee and cognac that evening. But that morning, years later, the sight of Faust weighed on him for some vague reason, perhaps a case of dormant scruples gnawing at one’s subconscious, he didn’t quite know, as he sat and looked at it rather morosely, cogitating whether it would look better and become less weightier in his office, but soon he moved past the tormenting image and onto his morning routine. After a shave and shower, he boiled a couple of eggs, scooped the yolk out and had the whites with a cup of coffee while casting dispassionate glances at the newspaper under jagged bands of cold sunlight. From his bag the professor took out a copy of the article he was meant to discuss later with his students, his face turned taut with pride when he read the author’s name, for he could almost recite that piece word for word from memory. It was Zbigniew Brzezinski’s How The Cold War Was Played from the 1972 issue of Foreign Affairs, which he had taught to many a class of Modern International & Strategic Relations Post World War 1. A tinge of excitement traversed the professor’s spine which, at this stage of his academic career, was not a frequent occurrence. On most days he dragged his body across the campus and into the classrooms crammed with an equally weary youth waiting passively for the onslaught of knowledge. After exchanging a few words with his neighbor, the professor got into his car, turned on the radio, and drove across the roads of the capital. He entered the university ten past eight and headed towards the conference room where a weekly department meeting was being held. He sat or suffered through it without deigning to contribute anything to the discourse. He just nodded his head at whatever his fellow academics were saying: men, women sipping their coffee and saying nothing that hadn’t been said already in the previous department meetings. Relieved when it was over, he walked to his office and sat in his chair, waiting for the clock to dictate his next move. He looked outside the office window: students, professors, workers, shadows in constant motion, and although he was eager to discuss his late professor’s analysis of the cold war with his class, a nauseating weariness stole over his body, and he kept sitting in his chair motionlessly and devoid of thought for a while before it was time for his class. In the corridor, he walked past more shadows with his head bowed, and entered the classroom with a somewhat cheery disposition. The students opened their course packs and before a more serious discourse, he started out with an anecdote about his own experience of learning from Brzezinski as a graduate student at Columbia. The only C in my transcript was handed out by Dr. Brzezinski, the professor said with a mild chuckle while gazing at the ceiling, somewhat lost in the distant past, but I always considered that a feather in my cap, an absolute honour gentlemen, to have sat across the same room as one of the chief architects of the cold war. He didn’t say anything for a minute or two and kept gazing at the ceiling. His reverie was dismantled by a disgruntled voice of one of his students, a curly-haired young man who wasn’t amused by the reading material, and registered his protest: sir, in the last week’s class we discussed at length Dr. Kissinger’s 27-paged memorandum for President Nixon, his so-called talks with Chou En-Lai during his well-documented visit to Beijing, and though it paved the path for a subsequent visit of Nixon himself, the report had some superfluous details about Kissinger’s personal impression of the Chinese, and I have no idea why he went on and on about his penchant for Peking duck, going as far as to urging the president to try it out himself. What has these bits of detail anything to do with International and Strategic relations? It’s understandable, however, for the memorandum was meant for Nixon’s eyes only, but why are we reading such a document for the class is my concern. Are we supposed to sit here and worship Dr. Kissinger’s diplomatic genius? The professor’s face crimsoned by this unexpected monologue but the student went on: and though Dr. Brzezinski’s article is much more cogent and devoid of superfluous stuff, but it’s still a U.S-centric evaluation of the cold war, predictably and brazenly biased. Violence sanitised. Numbers. Assumptions. These people know their way around words, that must be said. I have a question, a somewhat naïve question, professor! I want to know whether any intellectual from Cambodia, from Laos, from Vietnam, from Russia and China even, have recorded their impressions of how things panned out in these years. I am sure at least one or two people, if not more, must have had their say about the overt and covert operations carried out in the sixties and beyond. Such a document might have been translated into English as well. But for some reason, we have never read or discussed the other side’s say in these matters. It’s as if the other side had absolutely nothing to say or didn’t have the smarts to say it, to make the world listen to their version of the story. It’s akin to a trial where the defendant’s mouth is taped, his hands tied behind his back, his eyes scooped out of their sockets, and then the verdict, the so-called justice is carried out amidst applause and nods. And much like in our very land……the student wanted to say more but he lost his train of thought or became intentionally reticent and resorted to drinking water from his bottle. The professor’s heart was beating so fast that it could have stopped or exploded in his chest. Never in his teaching career before was he confronted with such a question, which is to say he had never prepared himself for anything like it, and so he said nothing and feigned a haughty smile, indicating that responding to such vileness was beneath him. He furtively scribbled the name of that student on a piece of paper: A. Qumbrani (Politically Suspect?) and moved on to other students’ impressions of his beloved Columbia professor’s take on the cold war, but those impressions his conscious could only register in fragments: like where he talks about the phase of containment…..the crusading mood of Washington…….the expansion of strategic air command……Mao’s naïve remarks during a visit to Kremlin……Khrushchev’s speech on national liberation struggle on the eve of Kennedy’s inauguration…..Pax Americana……it all screeched in his ears, and the professor only nodded and occasionally smiled. He lauded the class for doing their reading and despite wanting to say a lot at the outset, he could manage very little and only anchored the discussion carried out by his students. He ended the class well before time and left for his office. He flumped into his office chair, visibly distraught, and copied the scribbled contents from the paper to his cellphone, sent a text message to someone, and left the office to grab lunch at the faculty cafeteria. There he sat alone and slowly ate a plate of chicken manchurian with rice and washed it down with a cup of tea. On his way back to the office, he was stopped by a couple of colleagues for small talk, nothing of real importance, nothing of substance, just the usual petty inter-departmental bickerings which he had no time or energy for, but he was polite enough to squander a few minutes of his time. Back in his office, he turned on the computer and found in his mailbox a letter signed by several academics from all corners of the world, condemning the murder of a Palestinian academic and poet, along with calling for an end to genocide in Gaza. The letter also featured a poem written by the late poet and academic, which he read twice, almost welling up on the second read, his heart turning heavy with each word, each line-break. He rarely read any poetry and didn’t pretend to know much about it, but this poem struck a chord, and he spent a few minutes thinking about it. He pasted his electronic signature on the letter and even forwarded it to his colleagues at the university. He wished he could do more but for now that’s all he could do: sign the letter to express solidarity with a fallen poet, a fellow academic who deserved to live. How was this allowed to go on, what a terrible world, a world devoid of decency and scruples, he thought to himself, shook his head, and then started grading assignments from last week. Outside, the afternoon waned and soon morphed into dusk as the professor read his students’ papers with diligence. It was time to head home but before the professor could grab his things and leave, a man walked into his office without knocking. Professor, I have been sent for you, he uttered in a serious tone. The professor looked up, recognised the familiar face, put on a gentle smile and sat down again. Sorry, I forgot it was today, I have been busy with classes…..and look at this stack of papers. This job is killing me! Anyway, care for some tea or coffee? The man didn’t respond. Ok, alright, settled. Let me just grab the flash drive and we shall be on our way, said the professor. There’s a car waiting outside the back gate, professor, don’t worry, we will drop you back to your car when we are done. You know the drill. The professor smiled again and off he went with the man. Although generally averse to small talk, the professor tried his best to have some sort of a conversation with the man when they were walking towards the car, but he failed to induce any response, and so silence reigned for the rest of their journey towards the adjacent city. The professor kept gazing at the cloud-strewn horizon, thinking about the caustic remarks of that lout of a student, thinking about Faust’s image from that morning, the image that seemed to hemorrhage crimson under certain configurations of silvery light, and then he thought about the letter and the poem which moved him so much, but before he could be moved more he was asked to move out of the car by the man. They entered the house and the professor was given a hug by his old friend. Coffee and cognac were already on the table and the professor was urged to help himself. They were joined by more men. The professor asked for a projector and took his flash drive out, smiling and sipping his liquor, his nerves jangling out of a vague uncertainty. The man who had been sent for the professor came into the spacious drawing room with a projector. The professor finished his drink, poured some more, got up and went over to the projector. The gentlemen watched him without saying much. The flash drive was plugged in, the map appeared, and the professor began: rough terrain gentlemen, you know it better than anyone, it’s not easy to navigate a mountainous terrain. He magnified the image. And the hideouts, well, you can ask your men down there. They come out of nowhere. It’s absurd. See, it’s a purely geographical advantage…….before the professor could carry on rambling, he heard something strange. Muffled screams, shouts, thuds, rattles, subterranean commotion, the Celestial Stags terrorising the miners, disruptive blabbering, the racket of pain, blows heaped upon blows, noise amassed; it had rendered the professor inert. He couldn’t go on. Other men seemed unperturbed but the professor was on the verge of a panic attack, sweat oozing from his pores. It intensified. Sempre cresc. The racket now came from a discernible direction. From the bowels of the earth. It was the basement of the house, right underneath the professor’s feet, as if done on purpose, as some sort of a morbid joke. The men saw the situation and asked the professor to join them at the table. He was told to relax. Try a relaxation technique, It’s alright, professor, calm down, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, the agitators, you know it, get a hold of yourself, professor. Fucking chicken shit, muttered one of the men, barely concealing his disgust. The professor’s hands were shaking. Oh, it’s the winter, my good professor, its general silence augments even a tiny bit of racket. They gave the professor another glass of cognac and sent a man down in the basement. Ask them to beat it. Now. The professor took a deep breath, gulped down the drink, and looked at the men, as all the noise came to a dramatic halt. Then he stared at the ceiling, holding back his rage or sadness or fear, who knows, it could have been anything. Ordinarily, he began in a quivering voice, I wouldn’t care, I swear I have stronger nerves than that. It’s just that. I can’t. I can’t……when I can clearly recognise some of those voices……the faces behind them. The personal affiliation, however arbitrary……you can’t expect me to maintain a cold indifference. It happened last winter too. I am sorry. I just…..it all takes me back to the classroom…..free association. I know it’s the right thing but the voices haunt me in my sleep. They haunt me, gentlemen…..and I am sorry I can’t help it. I know it’s the right thing. But I can’t help it. The men looked at the professor, his lips trembling, and assured him that it won’t happen again. The professor said nothing and only made a pitiful face. A few moments passed. Silence reigned again, pure silence, out of the deepest pits of commotion. His nerves eased out. The unmistakable smile made its way back. He could begin the presentation again but he decided to take his time. His company didn’t mind. More cognac, my good professor?