Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man

'What you wanted,' says the girl. 'I hope what you wanted too,' says Howard. He continues teaching through the morning; at lunchtime he finds it necessary to go and seek out Peter Madden, and sit in a corner of the cafeteria with him; they eat salad plate together amid the noise, and discuss. The discussion is long, and it is just before two o'clock when Howard gets back to his room. As he unlocks his door, the telephone on his desk starts to ring. He takes off his coat, sits down in his chair, and picks up the phone. 'This is Minnehaha Ho,' says a voice, 'Professor Marvin wishes you.'

'Hello, Minnie,' says Howard, 'Professor Marvin wishes me what?'

'He wants you to come and see him now, in his room,' says Miss Ho. 'Well, just a moment,' says Howard, 'I have to check whether I'm teaching.'

'It's urgent,' says Miss Ho, 'also you are not teaching. Professor Marvin checked already.'

'Oh, did he?' says Howard, 'very well. I'll be along in a moment.'

Howard gets up from the desk, locks his door, and goes along the corridor to the Department Office. The secretaries, just back from their lunch-hour, during which they have been shopping with string bags, are sitting at their desks. Professor Marvin's room is a sanctum beyond the department office, its entrance guarded by Miss Ho. 'Hello, Minnie,' says Howard, 'what does he want me for?' Miss Ho does not look up from the letter she has in her typewriter; she says, 'I don't know. He'll tell you.' Just then the door of Marvin's office flies open; Marvin himself stands in the doorway, very little, the familiar row of pens sported in the top pocket of his worn suit. The spirit of the age has tempted him into wearing his facial hair down to the level of the bottom of his ears; this provides him with a solemn expression. 'Ah, Howard,' he says, 'come on in.' Marvin's room is more spacious than those of the rest of his colleagues, for he is a man of many affairs; it has a thick carpet, and fitted mahogany bookcases, and a small xerox copier, and its own pencil sharpener, and a very large desk, big enough to hold a coffin, on which stands a dictaphone and three telephones. Small Arabic and Oriental features are included in the decor; there are framed wall tiles inscribed in Arabic script, and pictures of Istanbul and Trebizond and Shiraz, and a photograph of Marvin, taken when younger, riding very high on a camel, in Arab headdress. 'Do have a seat, Howard,' says Marvin, putting himself behind his desk, against the light, 'You know I hate to interrupt my colleagues when they have better things to do. But I've a problem on my plate, and I thought we needed a word.'

'About Carmody?' asks Howard, not sitting. 'Yes,' says Marvin, seating himself, 'that little bone of contention.'

'Then I think we do,' says Howard, 'I gather you've consulted my colleagues about his essays, despite my protest. I formally object.'

'I had to, Howard,' says Marvin, 'there is an official procedure. I gather you've also objected informally, by talking to them about it.'

'I found that necessary, yes,' says Howard. 'Of course that may explain why my little exercise turned out, something of a failure,' says Marvin. 'I warned you it would,' says Howard.

'Well, you might like to know what happened,' says Marvin, 'if you don't already. The essays were seen by six examiners. Three mark him at passing level, with small variations, but mostly around high C or low B. Roughly in accord with my own judgment, in short. Two gave him Fs, much as you had, and one refused to mark altogether, saying you had told him this was interference with a colleague's teaching.'

'It seems to me a very instructive result,' says Howard. 'As I told you, marking is not an innocent occupation. It's ideologically conditioned.'

'In all my examining experience I've never had such a pattern of discrepancy,' says Marvin, 'so I think there might be a lower explanation. But I don't propose to go into those murky waters.'

'I'm sorry,' says Howard, 'but I'm afraid I feel my point's established. There's no such thing as objective marking.'

'It may be hard,' says Marvin, 'but in my view it's the task of a university to try for it. And if we can't manage that kind of disinterestedness, then I'm damned if I know what justification there is for our existence.'

'That's because you live in a liberal fantasy,' says Howard. 'Well, what do you propose to do about Carmody now?'

'Well, I've spent a somewhat painful weekend thinking over the situation,' says Marvin. 'And then I saw Carmody and his adviser this morning, and told them I could see no way of improving his situation. I also informed them that you had made a complaint against him.'

'In short,' says Howard, 'you told him that he'd made a malicious and unfounded assertion.'

'I could hardly say that,' says Marvin. 'After all, you've been instructing me in the fact that there's no disinterested marking. I had to ask him if he wished to take the matter further. He then became hysterical, said that he did, and then proceeded, in what I fear was a most unfortunate way, to make further accusations.' Howard stares at Marvin; he says, 'What sort of accusations?'

'Well, I'm afraid of a most gossipy character,' says Marvin, 'of a kind that in normal circumstances I would not have listened to. But I can't feel these are quite normal circumstances, in view of the specific challenge that's involved to our conventions and expectations of marking. Briefly, what his point boiled down to is that your marking, which disfavours him, favours others.'

'I see,' says Howard, 'which others?'

'The case he mentioned was that of a Miss Phee, who has, I see from the mark-sheets, been getting good marks in your course,' says Marvin. 'She's a good student,' says Howard. 'Why am I supposed to have favoured her?'

'Well, the point was partly abstract and political,' says Marvin, 'but I'm afraid it was also concrete and, so to speak, physical.'

'I don't quite understand,' says Howard. 'Carmody's way of putting it was crude but terse,' says Marvin. 'He said he could have done as well in your seminar if he'd had a left-wing head and, er, female genitals.'

'And what did you take that to mean?' asks Howard. 'He said you were having an affair with her,' says Marvin. 'There's one thing I agree with you about. He's a somewhat nasty man.'

'It's hardly your business, is it?' asks Howard, 'Even if it were true.'

'Precisely,' says Marvin, 'that's just what I told him.'

'Good,' says Howard. 'Yes,' says Marvin, 'I told him I felt the matter was becoming more moral than pedagogic. And hence that I could not listen to it.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' says Howard. 'And that the only person competent to deal with such questions was the Vice-Chancellor,' says Marvin. 'You sent him to see the Vice-Chancellor?' says Howard, looking at Marvin. 'No,' says Marvin, 'I simply told him what his options were. I pointed out that the charges were very serious, and if they were false he would find himself in the severest trouble. Indeed I advised him strongly to withdraw them, and go no further.'

'And did he agree?' asks Howard. 'No,' says Marvin, 'he said he felt his evidence made the accusation quite watertight.'

'His evidence?' asks Howard. 'Sit down, Howard,' says Marvin, 'I can't tell you how much I've detested all this. But it's as if you wanted it to expand like this.'

'What is his evidence?' asks Howard. 'One has to say this much for Carmody,' says Marvin, 'he has a certain capacity for research. If only he could have harnessed it to better use.'

'You mean he's been doing research into me?' asks Howard. 'That's it,' says Marvin. 'He's been taking great interest in your recent movements.'

'You mean he's been following me around?' asks Howard.

'You know,' says Marvin, leaning forward over the desk, 'I've always thought of myself as a very busy man, with a full diary of engagements. But if what he says is true, what your diary's been like lately I can't imagine. I don't know when you've had time to wash and shave.'