Professor Guzman's PhD Student
(1) Graves Humour.
“Take it out if you like”, says the fat man wedged behind the counter.
Professor Guzman’s PhD student extracts the instant vicar costume from its cellophane packaging. White dog collar, fastened with velcro behind, surmounting the black shirt front: a shiny synthetic polymer of the kind that melts on radiators; which elicits in the cerebellum of Professor Guzman’s PhD student an exquisite conceit regarding the plasticity of forms.
“Tache is included,” says the fat man wedged behind the counter, “should be in there somewhere.”
Professor Guzman’s PhD student pokes a finger and a thumb into the cellophane, retrieves thence something resembling a decidedly hirsute caterpillar, holds it up critically to the meagre natural light afforded by the velux.
“The hair is not real, I think,” he says in his unplaceable accent, “a triumph of artifice.”
“Si monumentum requiris,” says the fat man wedged behind the counter, “circumspice.”
“I concede that the ensemble has a certain je ne sais quoi” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “nonetheless it does not quite meet my requirements. Was it Mr Graves to whom earlier I spoke?”
“Only little me, I’m afraid,” says the fat man wedged behind the counter, “Mr Graves is no longer with us. He has mouldered, some years since, in the eponymous trench. Of course they will say that I murdered him, but I didn’t.”
“You mentioned, I think,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “certain other items.”
“In the backroom,” says the fat man wedged behind the counter, “latex. Disconcertingly realistic.”
Professor Guzman’s PhD student parts the bead curtain, glances through the doorway.
“I see what you mean,” he says.
“Try one on,” says the fat man wedged behind the counter, “they’re all sterilised.”
Business concluded. Professor Guzman’s PhD student, standing on the pavement under a dismal sky, opens his umbrella, then turns and looks up at the shopfront, upon which in Comic Sans Serif is luminously etched ‘Graves Humour’. From behind the plate glass of the neighbouring establishment, which rejoices in the name of ‘Sikh Jokes’, a turbaned gentleman peers out at the downpour, evidently in the grip of a profound enervation. Professor Guzman’s PhD student, gripping the brown paper bag, trudges purposively off in the direction of the Esplanade.
**********
(2) Ivory Towers
Late afternoon. Twilight. Outside: teeming rain. The anglepoise illuminates little besides the shaggy head and torso of Professor Guzman who, leaning forwards over his desk, sniffs compulsively, then wipes a tweed-clad sleeve across his matted beard.
“We have given him,” he says with great satisfaction, “one hundred days.”
Professor Guzman’s PhD student sits motionless in the darkness.
“One hundred days,” says Professor Guzman, sniffing again, and again wiping his beard, “that will give him ample opportunity to implement our program. We were in the same year at LSE, you know.”
“You have informed me previously,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student.
Professor Guzman chuckles.
“Dear me,” he says, “I am becoming quite dreadfully garrulous in my dotage. We shared many of the same ideas back then, you know.”
In the distance, thunder. Again, Professor Guzman sniffs, and wipes again his beard.
“Sturm und Drang,” he says, turning and glancing out of the window, “that is why - our ideological affinity, I mean - that is why we are allowing him this window of opportunity.”
“I was under the impression,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “that it would depend upon the outcome of the elections.”
“Dear me, no,” says Professor Guzman affecting a splutter, “Oh dear me, no. He can have his hundred days, of course, although I suspect that posterity will ultimately remember him as something of a Kerensky.”
“Useful idiot,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student.
Professor Guzman wipes his beard, and sniffs.
“That is somewhat gratuitous, I think,” he says.
“That is what Sir Gerald calls them,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “his interns at the Association. Useful idiots.”
“Au contraire,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “they are delightful young people. In fact we are proposing to second several of them for our agrarian shindig. The Rouge.”
“And which particular propaganda of the deed am I expected to engage in?” asks Professor Guzman’s PhD student.
“One or two polling stations to start with,” says Professor Guzman, “There is something ineffably joyous, do you not find, about the burning of ballot boxes. Cauterising the idle fripperies of the democratic sham.”
Thunder peels. The rain intensifies. Professor Guzman with knuckled digit mines nasal cavity, under anglepoise critically examines nacreous ore deposited upon fingernail. Professor Guzman’s PhD student stands, and makes good his departure.
**********
(3) Wessex Rouge
They’re waiting by the fountains when the old man arrives. Four of them, two boys and two girls. The uniform of the activist. Dreadlocks cascade from within Peruvian caps with drawstrings. Three of them in those godawful clown trousers which sag at the crotch. The remaining girl wearing, inevitably and depressingly, a tiger onesie. ‘Deep Ecology Association’ it says on their tabards.
“Like hi buddy, like are you like friendly, yeah?” says the girl in the tiger onesie.
“The geese are flying low over the lake this winter,” says the old man.
The girl in the onesie breathes in sharply. The youth with the longest beard takes control.
“Kvickly Masha,” he says, “claws the vindow.”
“Very good,” says the old man drily, “especially the accent. I hereby proclaim us the district Rouge cadre. Your point of contact is me and only me. You may think of me as Dr Singh.”
“Like the cool kids all love agrarian revolution,” says the youth with the longest beard, “like where’s the like wheels, chief?”
“We go first to Venkataraghavan Terrace,” says Dr Singh.
“Bit of a fuckin’ hike, yeah?” says the girl in the tiger onesie.
“Closest place with no cctv,” says Dr Singh, “I keep a room in an establishment there.”
“Is that how you like pronounce it, chief?” says the youth with the longest beard, “Venkatterwotsit, yeah?”
“How in God’s name should I know?” says Dr Singh, “I am from the Punjab, it is like asking a Portuguese about Polish.”
“Like is it like true you people keep like knives in your like turbans?” says the youth with the longest beard.
The last fifty metres of the esplanade, misleadingly some years back renamed Venkataraghavan Terrace. Four or five dilapidated b&b’s. Then two or three bungalows, ceding to a gritty shingle where, under an oily, drenching rain, cagouled tourists hemmed in by high tide jam against wind breaks, lurk under umbrellas, sip stuff from flasks. Very cold. Hard to believe it’s May. Old couples in old cars parked facing the ocean stare silently outwards at the moiling breakers. The final b&b, notable for its aluminium windows and its excrudescence of small plastic Union Jacks.
Another old car arrives and, being kerbed, disgorges Dr Singh. He with discombobulating agility springs up the steps to the final b&b. Thereof the front door swings open on rusty hinges. Absorption of Mr Singh into thereof the bowels.
Rain sweeps in hard under a low dogshit sky. The Union Jacks flutter. They flap. Gusts.
The door at the top of the steps, groaning again, farts out the Wessex Rouge district cadre. They descend the steps, group around the venerable charabanc of Dr Singh.
“Before we set off,” says Dr Singh, “I must warn you absolutely not to meddle with anything festooned with wires.”
**********
(4) Post Mortem
“In the final analysis,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “revolutionary terror amounts merely to the grandiosity of inadequate little men gratifying their own narcissism.”
Professor Guzman, illuminated by anglepoise, leans across desk, sniffs compulsively, wipes tweed-clad sleeve across matted beard.
“Oh, come now,” he says, “don’t be like this. We were all heart-broken. Especially Sir Gerald. He sent flowers to the families.”
“You do realise the elections would have gone ahead anyway,” says Professor Guzman’s student, “even you cannot be that deluded.”
Professor Guzman’s PhD student, sitting in the shadows across the desk, stares out of the window behind the Professor, at the shitbrown mantle lowering over the rooftops.
“I used the safe house,” he says, “I think I covered all my tracks. Otherwise, God help you.”
Professor Guzman’s features distort into a smirk, foul beyond all comprehension. He sniffs, and wipes his matted beard.
They listen to the rain.
“I wore a mask in case you wondered,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “latex. Sufficient unto the purpose, if questionably hygienic. I was Dr Singh for the day.”
“A Sikh joke,” says Professor Guzman, fleetingly delighted at his own witticism. He sniffs again, and again wipes his matted beard.
Professor Guzman’s PhD student shrugs.
“I do not think that I will complete my studies here,” he says, “I intend to return home, where the Ministry will no doubt find me another more suitable posting. I will of course advise them to terminate this association. The sponsorship also. Especially that. It serves no purpose that I can justify.”
Professor Guzman again sniffs, and again wipes his matted beard.
“You have valid concerns,” he says, “I can see that of course. All the same, I urge you to reconsider.”
“I would have died with them,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “if we had not driven past the lake. I had to get out to urinate, seeing all that water. That is why I survived.”
Professor Guzman displays again his disgusting smirk.
“Fatum dixit,” he sighs.
“You made me,” says Professor Guzman’s PhD student, “you made me keep company in an enclosed space with four congenital idiots and a bomb. And now you have the effrontery to speak of fate.”
**********
(5) Sikh Jokes
Superintendent ‘Gloucester’ Oldspot, put to the inconvenience of investigating the grisly episode by the lake, confesses to some perplexity regarding certain features of the case. In particular, no trace has been found of the occupant of the driving seat, not even by the divers he sent to poke around in the sludge underneath the lily pads.
The remains being promptly identified, Superintendent Oldspot’s enquiries draw him back to the City, where Sir Gerald, with whom the Superintendent enjoys a social acquaintance, only confesses to sharing his perplexity.
Superintendent Oldspot turns his attention to the vehicle, the registered keeper whereof was one Dr Singh. Superintendent Oldspot, divining this personage to be the fifth man in the case, discovers the room in Venkataraghavan Terrace. However, the room has been most assiduously cleaned. Dr Singh has left behind nothing but his conscience.
That Sunday night, Superintendent Oldspot is presented with a second case, in the form of the discovery by traumatised cleaners of the corpse of Professor Guzman, who has mislaid his head. Superintendent Oldspot strongly inclines to the view that the most fruitful line of enquiry involves Professor Guzman’s PhD student, an altogether mysterious individual who appears to have made an expeditious return to the land of his forefathers.
At this point, Superintendent Oldspot receives a visit from a brace of exquisitely tailored gentleman in another branch of the government service. These gentlemen advise him not to pursue the matter.
The fat man in Graves Humour eases himself from behind the counter, and shuffles out of the shop door, which by electronic bombination commemorates his passage. The fat man, troubled by the presentiment that he will suffer the blame for the drainage odour which lately has suffused the place, eyes moodily the latex bust of the turbaned gentleman staring out at him from behind the plate glass of the rival establishment. The fat man wonders why this gentleman, so mottled and green and sickly-looking, has replaced the healthier specimen which stood sentinel for all those years.