Wittgenstein Jr (6 page)

He asks it for a third time.

Still more silence.

Okulu ventures a timorous reply. Wittgenstein waves it aside.

Doyle says something. Not good enough!, Wittgenstein says.

Silence, stretching out. Silence, the equivalent in time to Death Valley. To the Russian steppe. To the surface of the moon … Oh God, someone say something!

Wittgenstein’s silence, his eyes closed, like a man already dead. How
old
he seems! As though he’d read everything and forgotten everything. As though he’d lived not
one
but
several
lives.

His silence. He wants to carry us down, as into the depths of the deepest lake. Like the concrete boots that drag down a body. Down he takes us—into the green depths. He wants to drown us in his depths. But we do not want to be drowned … We are too
young
to be drowned …

A walk on the Backs, Wittgenstein walking ahead.

We discuss our most recent hangovers. Mulberry lay in bed for three days. Doyle hallucinated giant spiders dropping from the ceiling. Titmuss heard his name being called by the trees and the flowers. Benedict Kirwin caught the clap. Ede says he’s
still
drunk from last weekend. Guthrie’s never had a hangover, he says, since he’s never stopped drinking. (He’s drinking now, sipping from his hip flask.)

Wittgenstein stops. Turns to us.

Five years of philosophy: that’s all any of us is good for, he says.

It was all his brother was good for, he says. And now it is five years since his brother’s death. Since his brother’s
suicide
. Five years in which he, following his brother’s example, has
tried
to think …

Sometimes he wishes he had never begun his studies in logic. His studies in philosophy! Sometimes, he longs for it all to have been a dream. For his logical studies to have been a kind of
fever
 …

To wake up, with his mother’s hand on his brow. To wake up, with his brother beside him, in the attic room where they used to sleep—his brother who had likewise never begun his mathematical studies, his
logical
studies; his brother, who had never set out for Oxford, as Wittgenstein had never set out for Cambridge … To wake up, and chatter with his brother about the trees they would climb that day, or the pits they would dig, or the rivers they would ford, or the theatrical sketches they would put on, or the songs they would sing together at the piano, or the dens they would build in the woods, or the birds that would sing above them. To wake up, and speak of anything
but
their studies, anything
but
mathematics, anything
but
logic.

The
Maypole
, after class.

DOYLE: Have you heard? They’ve had to remove Scroggins’s bladder.

EDE: What! Why?

DOYLE: Ketamine damage. After the party.

A shocked pause.

Ede googles
bladder
.

EDE (reading):
The organ that collects urine excreted by the kidneys before disposal by urination
. Can you live without a bladder, do you think?

Ede googles
living without a bladder
.

EDE: They have to find some other way for you to piss. A colostomy bag, or something.

Miserable, we all agree. A bladder is really something you’d miss.

A don in our class; one of the older faculty members. Slippers and blazer, and a pipe poking out of his pocket—do people still smoke pipes? Mug of tea in his hand. How cozy he looks!

Wittgenstein greets him courteously. The don says he’d prefer not to sit on one of the classroom chairs. Doyle goes to get an armchair from the common room, and we move our chairs to make space for it when he returns. The don sits and pulls out a notebook.

Has the don come to steal ideas? To perform some kind of
sabotage
? Is the don letting Wittgenstein know he is being watched? Is the don an infiltrator? A
spy
? Is he preparing a
Wittgenstein dossier
for the authorities?

The don takes notes as Wittgenstein speaks. Meticulous notes. And when the lecture finishes, the don stands to leave. Wittgenstein, catching his eye, gives a little bow. The don bows back.

Afterwards, we walk along the Backs.

The Cambridge trap is closing around him, Wittgenstein says. Good! Let it close! The noose of Cambridge is being tightened round his neck. Good! Let them kick away the stool!

The dons are coming for him, he says. Of course they are! They can sense what he is. They know he comes to
judge
Cambridge. And they know their own time is passing. The time of the don is no more.

• • •

Once, the dons were part of something, Wittgenstein says. Part of the genius of Cambridge, like the ivy on the bridges, like the boathouses along the river. Once, the dons carried the whole history of England on their shoulders, in their processions and their ceremonies—soaring patriotism, a sense of moral purpose, eccentricity, unworldliness, diffidence: resting on the shoulders of the dons.

All of England was once a
lawn
, Wittgenstein says. The whole of the country, with its uplands and lowlands, with its suburbs and towns, was once the
quintessence of lawn
.

The English lawn ran right into the Houses of Parliament. It ran right into Buckingham Palace, into Whitehall and the Law Courts. And into the media empires and the great publishing companies.

The English lawn rolled up to middle-class houses, just as it rolled up to aristocratic mansions. And even if it was halted by working-class concrete, it ran nonetheless through the
heads
of the working classes, just as it ran through the heads of the middle classes and the upper classes—a timeless idea of England.

England has always imagined itself in terms of
rural idyll
, Wittgenstein says. Of the fields’ patchwork, all openness and breadth. Of the village green, with its war memorial. Of the parish cemetery, covered with elms. Of pretty little wildernesses, marked off from working land. Of
ornamental
lawns, close-clipped victories over age. Of
informal
lawns, with deer parks and temples. Of
panoramic
lawns, divided only by ha-has. Of
landscaped
lawns, framing the great country houses …

It was for the green peace of meadow and hedgerow that
English soldiers defended their country from foreign invaders, Wittgenstein says. And it was for the rural idyll they went forth to conquer the world. Wasn’t it a simulacrum of the English lawn that they watered in the hill stations of India? Didn’t they try to roll out the English lawn in the white mountains of Kenya?

And it was in the name of the English lawn that the
enemy within
was kept down, Wittgenstein says. The Peasants’ Revolt was crushed for seeking equality on the English lawn. The Diggers were transported for declaring that the English lawn was part of the commons. And the new industrialists sent their sons to become
good little gentlemen
in the public schools of the English lawn.

But never was the English lawn so lush as in the
great universities of England!
, Wittgenstein says. Old expanses of lawn, strewn with meadowsweet and buttercups in high summer. Crocuses blooming in spring. Students picnicking, all white-flannelled elegance.

And the old dons, of the
great universities of England
—the English lawn ran through their hearts, Wittgenstein says. The old dons lived out their lives on the English lawn. They sipped warm beer and watched cricket on the English lawn. They munched crustless sandwiches at garden parties on the English lawn. And one day, they were
laid to rest
in the English lawn.

The dons drew all their strength from the English lawn, Wittgenstein says. They were always
sure of things
on the English lawn. You could never
best
a don on the English lawn. You would only
break your lance
tilting at a don on the English lawn.

Of course, the English lawn was ultimately
provincial
,
Wittgenstein says. The philosophy of the English lawn was concerned exclusively with
English lawn issues
, which is to say with nothing of any real importance. Nothing really
mattered
in English-lawn philosophy, he says. Nothing was really
at stake
in English-lawn thought. The don was a
lawn-head
! No more than a lawn-head!

But perhaps there was
something
to the world of the dons, Wittgenstein says. Perhaps there was something to be said for donnish amateurism, for donnish pottering-about. Perhaps there was a value to pass-the-port philosophy. To home-counties philosophy! Perhaps there was a
freedom
to the English don—no German stuffiness, no French pretension …

The old world! The old dons! The old lawn—spreading into the distance! The old dream of a Jerusalem to be built on England’s green and pleasant land!

The English lawn is receding, Wittgenstein says. And with it, the world of the old dons of Cambridge.

New housing estates, where once was open countryside … A new science park where once were allotments and orchards … New apartment blocks near the station, their balconies in shade … And towering barbarisms: Varsity Hotel, looming over Park Parade; Botanic House, destroying the Botanic Gardens; Riverside Place, desecrating the River Cam …

They’re
developing
the English lawn, Wittgenstein says. They’re building glassy towers on the English lawn. They’re laying out suburbs and exurbs on the English lawn. They’re developing new business parks on the English lawn. They’re constructing Megalopolis on the English lawn.

And they’re developing the English
head
, Wittgenstein
says. They’re building glass-and-steel towers in the English
head
. They’re building suburbs and exurbs in the English
head
 …

The new don is nothing but a
suburb-head
, Wittgenstein says. The new don—bidding for funds,
exploring synergies with industry
, looking for
corporate sponsorship
, launching
spin-off companies
. The new don, courting venture capitalists, seeking business partners, looking to
export the Cambridge brand
. The new don—with a
head full of concrete
. A finance-head. A capitalist-head.

Do we believe the dons
teach
at Cambridge? No, they
train
at Cambridge! Do we believe the dons
think
at Cambridge? No, they
bid
at Cambridge! They
network
. They grub about for money. They ride the waves of global finance.

The new don has sold his soul!, Wittgenstein says. The new don has sold his university! The new don has
monetised
Cambridge! The new don has made Cambridge into an
advert
.

It was the new dons who made Oxford unbearable for his brother, Wittgenstein says. The new-style philosophers!

English philosophy has become
business
philosophy,
grant-chasing
philosophy, his brother told him. The Oxford philosophy department dreams only of being
Big Philosophy
, his brother said. Of founding Philosophy Parks, of donning philosophical lab coats …

There are Oxford chairs in the
desecration
of philosophy, his brother told him. In the
murder
of philosophy. In the
destruction
of philosophy. In the
strangulation
of philosophy.

His brother overheard a don use the phrase
learning competencies
, Wittgenstein says. His brother was asked to
demonstrate the
real-world applicability
of his fundamental work in logic. His brother was expected to make a case for the
impact
of his thought on the world at large.

His brother said nothing, Wittgenstein says. He kept mute. But he knew he had to leave the high table, and to leave Oxford. He knew he had no choice but to
leave England
.

Almost all of us have liaisons. Brief encounters, lasting no more than a night. But
relationships
—no, not really. Never anything that serious. There is never anything that serious at Cambridge. The Cambridge years don’t count. They’re years out, years on holiday.
Frivolous
years, not part of ordinary life. Cambridge is just a playground …

Brief encounters … One-night stands … One-week flings … One-term relationships … But
romance
? Romance has nothing to do with us.

A one-nighter—snog in a club, home in a taxi, pulling off clothes, opening a condom packet, a study-bedroom fuck, bed rocking, bed creaking, staggering home in the dawn. A whole weekend—lying in bed and doing it again, and then again and again. As long as a fortnight—as long as infatuation surges through us, until, one day, lust gets bored, yawns and stretches its limbs …

But Ede’s love for Phaedra (Fee) is entirely different, he says.

He tracked her down, he says. He found her at some dreadful rah birthday party.

Raves are full of posh girls now, waving glowsticks and going all trippy, he says. And the DJs have double-barrelled names.

And there she was, in the middle of it all, Ede says. The sum of all beauty. The centre of the world.

EDE: Do you know what it means to dance, Peters? To really move?

He danced, Ede says. He broke out his moves. He mouthed song lyrics. He acted them out. He was slick. He was funny. She laughed. He smiled. He mouthed,
I like you
. She looked demure. He mouthed,
Shall we go outside?
She mouthed,
Yes
.

Outside into the cool clear night. Fee: the centre of the world. And he, beside Fee, close to the centre. The pair of them, carving out their little channel in space-time.

Everything is true
, he thought to himself, as they walked.
The stars are hard and bright and true. The moon is true. The night is true …

Remember this
, he thought to himself.
I am awake and the world is new. Life is alive in me. Life is alive in a new way
.