Last of the Just (eBook)

Chapter 1:
Final Acts

Che had printed out the letter that had come attached to an email, and it now lay on his bare desk. ‘Dear Dr Glock,’ it read under the Three Ponds University heading and logo, ‘On behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, I accept, with regret, your resignation after twenty-seven years’ service.’ The electronic signature at the bottom of the letter belonged to someone who worked in human resources. Che put his bottle of methylated spirits down on the chipped Formica top of the desk beside the letter. A steel leg of the desk had burst out of the chipboard long ago, and that corner sat on two thick telephone directories, one with pages of yellow paper and one with pages of white. Che stared at them. How many businesses listed there were defunct, he wondered, and how many people were deceased, workers who had been adept at tasks for which there was no longer any call?

‘I’m a revolutionary communist!’ Festus had bellowed when Che had been summoned to the dean’s office weeks before to agree on a research plan. It was an unusual greeting, and one that suggested the possibility that Professor Festus was less than appreciative of Che’s area of research. ‘When there was a proposal to set up religious studies at Auckland, I voted against it,’ he had declared exuberantly, in case Che had missed the point. ‘I don’t believe in jobs as they are currently socially constructed,’ he had continued, laughing at the irony, and introducing the issue of Che’s employment to the discussion. Festus suggested that Che switch his area of research with immediate effect. ‘There’s a sociology conference in Auckland in three months,’ he said, no longer laughing. ‘I want you to present a paper.’ Che must have hesitated, allowing the dean to lean forward and lock his eyes on Che’s. ‘Or shall I put you down as non-compliant?’

Che felt that the needle had never got down into the groove the whole of his time here. He looked up from the telephone directories to the bare shelves where his books had sat for two decades, their spines fading and cracking a little bit more each year. Their musty scent lingered gently in the empty space. He had thought that at least he would be well-read in this job, but he never had time. He felt like he’d done three PhDs, and those research projects were three specks of light in a dark void of unknowing as big as the inky night sky.

‘I hate my body,’ his wife had announced at breakfast. ‘I’m fat. I’m now an old woman.’ Then she noticed her pyjama pants were on back-to-front. She went and changed them around and came back feeling much better. Che had left the house for his final day at work feeling that he’d gone through his whole life not fitting in anywhere, but he could do nothing about it.

Che took a box of unread books, sent by publishers as thanks for assessing proposals and reading submissions, and headed back down to his car. He juggled the box and fumbled for his key fob and then leaned against the car, trying not to drop the box.

‘You look as if you’re in trouble there,’ said Father Frank Fahey, crossing the road.

‘Just a bit dizzy,’ said Che. The priest took the box, and Che found his key.

‘You’ve read all these, I take it,’ inquired the university’s Catholic chaplain as he felt the weight of the box.

‘Absolutely, every last one of them,’ Che lied as he unlocked the car.

He sat in the car until the light-headedness faded and then drove slowly downtown where a former student in Browsers bookshop told him to leave the box and they’d see if they wanted any.

‘So you’re leaving the varsity?’ she asked.

‘Yes, moving on,’ said Che in what he hoped was a carefree and confident way.

Stepping out of the bookshop, he met Pic Gardner, who was heading towards Scotts Epicurean Cafe. The Dutchman looked dapper and happy as always. In a few hours he would become a former colleague.

‘Hey, I hear you finally got the axe,’ said Pic, trying to look concerned.

‘No, I quit.’

‘Really? I thought maybe a student walked into your office when you were having a rigid fidget.’

‘No, I quit.’

Pic didn’t seem convinced, but Che’s answer allowed him to drop the concern and return to his usual carefree demeanour.

‘Twenty-seven years, eh? That’s quite a stretch!’

‘Yes, but I got time off for good behaviour!’

‘As long as you didn’t dob in your accomplices to get it!’

Che had once co-taught a first-year course on democracy with Pic. A student had been hired to take the tutorials. Pic now had a child with her. ‘You know what they say, Pic,’ Che had joked at the time, ‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’ Pic’s stony face suggested that he had heard that one before.

‘I’ll stick it out for a few more years,’ said Pic. ‘I do just enough to keep them happy. It’s not hard.’

‘You do seem happy,’ admitted Che.

‘Happy’s better than unhappy,’ Pic pointed out. ‘Your problem was that you were always looking for something that’s not there.’

‘The search isn’t over yet,’ Che reminded him.

‘So what will you do now?’

‘Haven’t a clue!’

‘Whatever it is, have fun!’

‘I will!’

Che strolled along Victoria Street towards the Central Library. He would use his freedom to read some classic works of literature, ones that people probably assumed he had already read but he had always been too busy. He was nearing the library entrance when he spotted the familiar figure of Kition Stower standing in the centre of Garden Place, holding a plastic bag.

‘I thought I was to meet someone here at noon,’ Kit said uncertainly when Che approached him, ‘but no one has showed up.’ Kit walked with him towards the library as the first cool drops of rain fell. ‘I saw the notice of your resignation,’ he said on the way. ‘The university never cancelled my email when I retired. What happened?’

‘I promoted myself to a non-teaching position and took a 100 per cent pay cut.’

‘I hope you thought it through,’ said Kit carefully.

They sat upstairs on the armchairs so Kit could keep an eye out the window on the square below.

‘Fistface suggested I switch my research to the sociology of religions in New Zealand today. I chose not to.’

‘Why not? You’re versatile.’

This was one of Kit’s jokes. The Englishman had managed to keep his teaching narrowly focused. On the course on modern political theorists, Kit taught all those whose name was John, leaving Che to struggle with an Italian, a Swiss, and two Germans, not all of whom he could read in the original, adding to his feeling that he lacked expertise.

‘Yes, but why?’ asked Che. ‘We could write the conclusion now before I do the research, something about harmony, respect, and how much we can learn from each other.’

‘It would get money,’ suggested Kit. ‘Especially now, of course, after Christchurch.’

‘Academic freedom has been outsourced to the funding providers,’ agreed Che. ‘Besides, if I did that, then I’d be a bloody sociologist, like Fistface.’

They laughed at sociologists for a few moments, and that reminded them of their colleague, Bill, who had worked in a trade union office downtown before joining the sociology department. Bill had told his colleagues he was leaving for a job at the university.

‘Chartwell?’ replied one. ‘Well done!’

‘No,’ said Bill, ‘The other one, Three Ponds.’

‘There’s another university in this town?’ asked his colleague. ‘Where?’

Che told Kit that when he handed in his resignation, Festus had warned him that quitting his job would mean leaving the middle class.

‘Really? He said that?’

‘I know. I wish I’d recorded it.’

They recalled the time when they had been notified that the average grade on their political theory course was lower than that for political studies overall. They had briefly considered whether this was because political theory was an area of political studies with intellectual rigour before deciding simply to change the multiple-choice questions to make them easier. They were sure that every student would tick the veil of ignorance as the device used by John Rawls to discern justice in society once the other options were changed to the poncho of puzzlement, the burqa of bewilderment, and the singlet of social indifference. They were wrong.

Kit had retired the year before, giving Che just one shot at teaching English-speaking liberal political theorists whose names were John before Che’s time was up too.

‘Did you enjoy the Johns?’

‘It was a whole lot of work for very little payback,’ said Che. ‘But I was surprised that John Locke could find no foundation for human rights other than God’s property rights as the creator of people.’

‘Everything comes down to property rights for Locke, and we didn’t make ourselves.’

‘How English.’

‘Now, now. It left its mark on the world, including here.’

Che asked him how retirement was going. ‘Well,...