Skios

2

Why does one do it? thought Dr. Norman Wilfred as he sipped his complimentary business-class champagne and gazed absently down upon the world five miles below. Why does one do it?

Round and round the same treadmill one went. Another view like all the others over some unidentifiable part of the earth’s surface five miles beyond one’s grasp. Then another airport, and another waiting car. Another eager assurance that everyone was so excited at the prospect of one’s visit. Another guest room with two towels and a bar of soap laid out on the bed. The Fred Toppler Foundation, it was true, had a reputation in academic circles for treating its visiting lecturers well. He foresaw drinkable wine and comfortable chairs set out in soft sunshine or warm shade. All the same, when he thought of all the performance he would have to go through to earn these small compensations, he felt a familiar weariness in the marrow of his bones.

“Dr. Norman Wilfred?” people would say when introductions were made, and he could already see the way the expressions on their faces would change. He could feel the way he would smile and incline his head slightly in return. Once again he would bring out the topics he kept ready for the obligatory mingling with his fellow guests. Once again he would lay out his little stock of unusual knowledge, original thoughts, and interesting opinions. He would offer the scraps of gossip he had brought. He would tell the tried and tested stories.

And then the lecture itself. The faces raised expectantly towards him. The fulsome introduction with the record of his career paraphrased from the CV that Vicki had sent them and edited down to manageable length by omitting, always, the most important publications and appointments. His head modestly lowered as he listened to it all once again, revealing the way the years were beginning to extend his high forehead up over the top of his head.

The applause as he goes to the lectern and opens the text of his lecture …

His lecture! Had he got it? He felt in his flight bag once again, just to be sure. Yes, there it reassuringly was. He always kept the text of his lecture with him on his travels. He and his luggage had become separated too often over the years for him to take any risks. Toothbrushes and pajamas could be replaced; the lecture was part of himself, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. He took it out of the bag, just to be doubly sure. The same scuffed old brown binder that had traveled so many thousands of weary air miles with him, personalized by the red wine stain it had acquired in Melbourne, the smeared remains of some small tropical insect in Singapore. He would add a few introductory remarks, as he usually did, to make clear the special relevance of the lecture to this particular time and place, but the body of the text was the material that had slowly taken its present form, like his scalp, over many years. A whole lifetime of thought and study was concentrated in these pages, its expression gradually refined and adapted, like all human knowledge, to current circumstances. The carefully crafted phrases were as familiar and reassuring as the wine stain and the dead insect. “Perhaps foremost among the challenges facing us today … The hopes and fears of mankind … Within an overall framework of social responsibility…”

He saw the words as they would look up at him from the warm pool of light on the lectern, like well-behaved children at their fond father. “These problems must be squarely faced … And here a note of caution must be sounded…” He heard the accomplished but still apparently spontaneous delivery. The little extempore variants and asides. The laughter. The reasonably prolonged applause at the end. The words of appreciation from his host—“thought-provoking, insightful, fascinating”—not all of them perhaps entirely insincere …

Why did one go on doing it, though? When one could be sitting in one’s office at the institute and doing real scholarly work. Struggling to understand the latest research by younger rivals who had invented some incomprehensible new vocabulary of their own, or to master the institute’s draft accounts before the next meeting of the committee of management, or to sort out the muddle into which the manuscript of one’s new book seemed to have descended.

And instead, here one was again, five miles up, glass of champagne in hand. Why, why, why?

It was true that there was also some satisfaction to be derived from being Dr. Norman Wilfred. Purely as a consequence of his being who he was, seriously worded documents drafted by the labor of others were placed in front of him to be signed. His advice and his skills as a chairman did not go unappreciated. As soon as people heard the name they knew exactly what they were going to get. They were never disappointed. Dr. Norman Wilfred was what they expected, and Dr. Norman Wilfred was what they got.

And if there were benefits in being Dr. Norman Wilfred, he thought, as the cabin attendant refilled his glass, then God knew he had earned them. He had arrived at being who he was only slowly and with sustained application, thought by thought, opinion by opinion, appointment by appointment. There had been many letdowns along the way; many failures, rebuffs, and slights; many mornings when he had looked in the shaving mirror and seen someone he didn’t much like the look of gazing back at him. He had his problems even now. His blood pressure had to be kept under control. He had developed a serious allergy to onions. He suffered perhaps from a slight tendency to take himself too seriously.

Also from this apparently incurable propensity to find himself on planes with a glass of champagne in his hand, and the prospect of yet more debilitating comfort and flattery in front of him.