The History Boys Page 8

Irwin Though in any case the scholarship questions aren’t limited to a particular curriculum.

  Hector But how can you teach the Holocaust?

  Irwin Well, that would do as a question. Can you … should you … teach the Holocaust? Anybody?

  Akthar It has origins.

  It has consequences.

  It’s a subject like any other.

  Scripps Not like any other, surely. Not like any other at all.

  Akthar No, but it’s a topic.

  Hector They go on school trips nowadays, don’t they? Auschwitz. Dachau. What has always concerned me is where do they eat their sandwiches? Drink their coke?

  Crowther The visitors’ centre. It’s like anywhere else.

  Hector Do they take pictures of each other there? Are they smiling? Do they hold hands? Nothing is appropriate. Just as questions on an examination paper are inappropriate.

  How can the boys scribble down an answer however well put that doesn’t demean the suffering involved?

  And putting it well demeans it as much as putting it badly.

  Irwin It’s a question of tone, surely. Tact.

  Hector Not tact. Decorum.

  Lockwood What if you were to write that this was so far beyond one’s experience silence is the only proper response.

  Dakin That would be your answer to lots of questions, though, wouldn’t it, sir?

  Hector Yes. Yes, Dakin, it would.

  Dakin ‘Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.’

  Hector groans and puts his head in his hands.

  That’s right, isn’t it, sir? Wittgenstein.

  Irwin Yes. That’s good.

  Hector No, it’s not good. It’s … flip. It’s … glib. It’s journalism.

  Dakin But it’s you that taught us it.

  Hector I didn’t teach you and Wittgenstein didn’t screw it out of his very guts in order for you to turn it into a dinky formula. I thought that you of all people were bright enough to see that.

  Dakin I do see it, sir. Only I don’t agree with it. Not … not any more.

  Timms Sir.

  Hector (head in his hands) Yes?

  Timms You told us once … it was to do with the trenches, sir … that one person’s death tells you more than a thousand. When people are dying like flies, you said, that is what they are dying like.

  Posner Except that these weren’t just dying. They were being processed. What is different is the process.

  Irwin Good.

  Hector No, not good.

  Posner is not making a point.

  He is speaking from the heart.

  Dakin So? Supposing we get a question on Hitler and the Second War and we take your line, sir, that this is not a crazed lunatic but a statesman.

  Hector A statesman?

  Irwin Not a statesman, Dakin, a politician. I wouldn’t say statesman.

  Dakin Politician, then, and one erratically perhaps, but still discernibly operating within the framework of traditional German foreign policy …

  Irwin Yes?

  Dakin … and we go on to say, in accordance with this line, that the death camps have to be seen in the context of this policy.

  Pause.

  Irwin I think that would be … inexpedient.

  Hector Inexpedient? Inexpedient?

  Irwin I don’t think it’s true, for a start …

  Scripps But what has truth got to do with it? I thought that we’d already decided that for the purposes of this examination truth is, if not an irrelevance, then so relative as just to amount to another point of view.

  Hector Why can you not simply condemn the camps outright as an unprecedented horror?

  There is slight embarrassment.

  Lockwood No point, sir. Everybody will do that.

  That’s the stock answer, sir… the camps an event unlike any other, the evil unprecedented, etc., etc.

  Hector No. Can’t you see that even to say etcetera is monstrous? Etcetera is what the Nazis would have said, the dead reduced to a mere verbal abbreviation.

  What have we learned about language?

  Orwell. Orwell.

  Lockwood All right, not etcetera. But given that the death camps are generally thought of as unique, wouldn’t another approach be to show what precedents there were and put them … well … in proportion?

  Scripps Proportion!

  Dakin Not proportion then, but putting them in context.

  Posner But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.

  Rudge ‘Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.’

  Hector groans.

  Irwin That’s good, Posner.

  Posner It isn’t ‘good’. I mean it, sir.

  Dakin But when we talk about putting them in context it’s only the same as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. After all, monasteries had been dissolved before Henry VIII, dozens of them.

  Posner Yes, but the difference is, I didn’t lose any relatives in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

  Irwin Good point.

  Scripps You keep saying, ‘Good point.’ Not good point, sir. True. To you the Holocaust is just another topic on which we may get a question.

  Irwin No. But this is history. Distance yourselves.

  Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don’t see it and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past and one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be … even on the Holocaust.

  The bell goes.

  Irwin I thought that went rather well.

  Hector Parrots. I thought I was lining their minds with some sort of literary insulation, proof against the primacy of fact. Instead back come my words like a Speak Your Weight Machine. ‘Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.’ Ugh.

  Irwin I was rather encouraged. They’re getting the idea.

  Hector Do you know what the worst thing is? I wanted them to show off, to come up with the short answer, the handy quote. I wanted them to compete.

  It’s time I went.

  Irwin Went where?

  Dakin and Scripps come in, a touch awkardly.

  Hector Oh, home. Home.

  Oh, Dakin, I’ve got the Statesman for you in the staff room.

  Dakin I’ll get it tomorrow, sir.

  I just want to ask Mr Irwin something.

  He waits until Hector goes.

  We were having a discussion, sir, as to whether you are disingenuous or meretricious.

  Irwin I’m flattered.

  Dakin Disingenuous is insincere, not candid, having secret motives.

  Meretricious is showy and falsely attractive.

  We decided, sir, you were meretricious but not disingenuous.

  Irwin Thank you.

  Dakin What you were saying about the perspective altering, sir …

  The stuff we generally do with Mr Hector, the poetry, Shakespeare and all that, will the perspective alter on that?

  Irwin Not now, no, probably not.

  Scripps Better shelf-life than your stuff, then, sir.

  Irwin That’s the point. It’s art. It has a different shelf-life altogether.

  Dakin Never mind, coach. (He pats him on the back.) We still love you, even if you are a bit flash.

  Irwin goes.

  Scripps You flirt.

  Dakin I don’t understand it. I have never wanted to please anybody the way I do him, girls not excepted.

  Scripps It’s this making it up I can’t get used to. Arguing for effect. Not believing what you’re saying. That’s not history. It’s journalism.

  Dakin Just wait till you get started on sex. You’re making it up all the time. Being different, outrageous. That’s what they go for. I tell you, history is fucking.

  Scripps Discuss.

  Anyway I’m not going to, am I? Not while God’s still in
the frame?

  Dakin Hector’s gone right off me.

  Scripps Lucky you.

  Dakin Thinks I’ve gone over to the enemy.

  Scripps I did notice the lifts seem to have stopped.

  Dakin No. That’s something else.

  He’s going, you know.

  Scripps The big man?

  Dakin Don’t let on. Fiona says.

  Scripps Sacked? Who complained?

  Dakin shrugs.

  That’s why the lifts have stopped.

  Dakin Poor sod. Though in some ways I’m not sorry.

  Scripps No. No more genital massage as one speeds along leafy suburban roads.

  No more the bike’s melancholy long withdrawing roar as he dropped you at the corner, your honour still intact.

  Dakin Lecher though one is, or aspires to be, it occurs to me that the lot of woman cannot be easy, who must suffer such inexpert male fumblings virtually on a daily basis.

  Are we scarred for life, do you think?

  Scripps We must hope so.

  Perhaps it will turn me into Proust.

  Headmaster’s study.

  Headmaster A letter from the Posner parents. Charming couple. Jewish of course. Father a furrier, retired and, I suspect, elderly. Posner a … Benjamin is it …? A child of their old age.

  Irwin He’s clever.

  Headmaster Jewish boys often are, a role though nowadays that is more and more being taken over by the Asian boys, intelligence to some degree the fruit of discrimination.

  It was apropos the Holocaust.

  Irwin It came up in discussion.

  Headmaster As it should. A shaping circumstance. A line drawn. Before and after.

  However, Posner père, who seems a little overexcited, has taken some exception to your remarks that it should be kept in proportion.

  Irwin I didn’t quite say that.

  Headmaster Mr Posner calls it ‘a unique historical event’ and says that it can’t be compared with the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

  Well, who in his right mind would think it could?

  Irwin We did discuss how the Holocaust should be tackled in the event of them getting a question on it.

  Headmaster Prefaced presumably with all the right disclaimers?

  No suggestion above all that it didn’t happen.

  Irwin No, no … only the boys were asking.

  Headmaster (suddenly angry) I’m not concerned with what the boys were asking. What concerns me is what you were telling them.

  Irwin I was telling them that there were ways of discussing it that went beyond mere lamentation. The risk the historian …

  Headmaster Mr Irwin. Fuck the historian.

  I have two angry Jewish parents threatening to complain to the school governors. I have explained to them that you are young and inexperienced and that your anxiety that the boys should do well has perhaps outrun your sense of proportion.

  You will write them a letter of apology on much the same lines.

  They also complain that Hector has had the boy singing hymns.

  Irwin Posner likes singing.

  Headmaster Hymns?

  Irwin Anything.

  Headmaster Not … Gracie Fields?

  Irwin Possibly.

  Headmaster Didn’t I suggest you grew a moustache?

  Posner sings a verse of Gracie Fields’ ‘Sing as We Go’.

  Irwin Do you tell them everything that goes on at school?

  Posner He’s old, my father. He’s interested. I just said the Holocaust was a historical fact like other historical facts.

  It was my uncle who hit me.

  Irwin I’m sorry. It was my fault. I was too … dispassionate, I suppose. The Holocaust is not yet an abstract question. Though in time, of course, it will be.

  Pause.

  No more singing, too, I gather?

  Posner Not hymns. They’re fine with Barbra Streisand.

  Pause.

  Sir, sorry to keep on about it, but if the Holocaust does come up …

  Irwin At home?

  Posner No, as a question.

  Irwin Surprise them. You’re Jewish. You can get away with a lot more than the other candidates.

  Equivalent would be Akthar singing the praises of empire.

  But … say what you think.

  Posner They don’t send your papers home?

  Dakin My duty to Your Lordship.

  Irwin (going) Your essays, so called, are on the table.

  Dakin I really enjoyed doing this one. And I’m beginning to get it. Turning facts on their head. It’s like a game. (He looks at his mark.) Shit. He never gives an inch, does he? ‘Lucid and up to a point compelling but if you reach a conclusion it escaped me.’

  Scripps Have you looked at your handwriting recently?

  Dakin Why?

  Scripps You’re beginning to write like him.

  Dakin I’m not trying to, honestly.

  Scripps You’re writing like him, too.

  Posner No, I’m not. Dakin writes like him. I write like Dakin.

  Dakin It’s done wonders for the sex life.

  Apparently I talk about him so much Fiona gets really pissed off. Doing it is about the only time I shut up.

  Scripps Would you do it with him?

  Dakin I wondered about that. I might. Bring a little sunshine into his life. It’s only a wank, after all.

  Scripps What makes you think he’d do it with you?

  Dakin smiles.

  You complacent fuck.

  Dakin Does the Archbishop of Canterbury know you talk like this?

  Scripps So you broke through with Fiona. The Western Front.

  Dakin Broke through. Had the Armistice. The Treaty of Versailles. It’s now the Weimar Republic.

  Scripps Decadence?

  Dakin nods happily.

  Posner Aren’t you frightened it’s all going to be over too soon?

  Dakin What, sex?

  Posner I mean, what have you got to look forward to?

  Dakin More of the same. You can’t save it up. I like him.

  I just wish I thought he liked me. (He goes.)

  Posner Irwin does like him.

  He seldom looks at anyone else.

  Scripps How do you know?

  Posner Because nor do I. Our eyes meet, looking at Dakin.

  Scripps Oh Poz, with your spaniel heart, it will pass.

  Posner Yes, it’s only a phase.

  Who says I want it to pass?

  But the pain. The pain.

  Scripps Hector would say it’s the only education worth having.

  Posner I just wish there were marks for it.

  Hector, Irwin and Mrs Lintott are sitting behind the table, pretending to be the examination board.

  Irwin Anything provocative in your papers and they may question you on that. Otherwise they are likely to be the usual, ‘What are your hobbies?’ type questions.

  Mrs Lintott Mr Akthar. You say you’re interested in architecture. Who is your favourite architect?

  Akthar Richard Rogers.

  Mrs Lintott I was thinking more along Wren–Hawksmoor lines. Richard Rogers? Doesn’t he write musicals?

  Akthar Oh, miss. It’s a different one. You wouldn’t get far, miss.

  Mrs Lintott Nor will you. Next. Now, Mr Crowther. One of your interests is the theatre. Tell us about that.

  Crowther I’m keen on acting. I’ve done various parts, favourite being …

  Irwin Can I stop you?

  Don’t mention the theatre.

  Crowther It’s what I’m interested in.

  Irwin Then soft pedal it, the acting side of it anyway.

  Dons … most dons anyway … think the theatre is a waste of time. In their view any undergraduate keen on acting forfeits all hope of a good degree.

  Hector So much for Shakespeare.

  Irwin It’s not the plays, it’s the acting of the plays, Shakespeare, anybody. It’s no fun teaching the stage-struck.

  Hector And is
n’t being stage-struck part of their education?

  Posner Music is all right though, isn’t it, sir? They don’t frown on that.

  Hector No. You should just say what you enjoy.

  Posner Mozart.

  Irwin No, no. everyone likes Mozart.

  Somebody more off the beaten track. Tippett, say, or Bruckner.

  Posner But I don’t know them.

  Hector May I make a suggestion? Why can they not all just tell the truth?

  Irwin It’s worth trying, provided, of course, you can make it seem like you’re telling the truth.

  Hector Oh, yes, a degree of presentation.

  Dorothy. Have you anything you’d like to add?

  Mrs Lintott I hesitate to mention this, lest it occasion a sophisticated groan, but it may not have crossed your minds that one of the dons who interviews you may be awoman.

  I’m reluctant at this stage in the game to expose you to new ideas, but having taught you all history on a strictly non-gender-orientated basis I just wonder whether it occurs to any of you how dispiriting this can be?

  It’s obviously dispiriting to you, Dakin, or you wouldn’t be yawning.

  Dakin Sorry, miss.

  Mrs Lintott Women so seldom get a turn for a start, Elizabeth I less remarkable for her abilities than that, unlike most of her sisters, she did get a chance to exercise them.

  Am I embarrassing you?

  Timms A bit, miss.

  Mrs Lintott Why?

  Timms It’s not our fault, miss. It’s just the way it is.

  Lockwood ‘The world is everything that is the case,’ miss.

  Wittgenstein, miss.

  Mrs Lintott I know it’s Wittgenstein, thank you. Tell me, just out of interest, did he travel on the other bus?

  Hector Bus? Bus? What bus?

  Irwin On the few occasions he went anywhere, yes, I believe he did.

  Mrs Lintott You can tell.

  Because ‘The world is everything that is the case’ seems actually rather a feminine approach to things: rueful, accepting, taking things as you find them.

  A real man would be trickier: ‘The world is everything that can be made to seem the case.’

  However, je divague.

  Can you, for a moment, imagine how dispiriting it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude?

  Why do you think there are no women historians on TV?

  Timms No tits?

  Hector Hit that boy. Hit him.

  Timms Sir! You can’t, sir.

  Hector I’m not hitting you. He is. And besides, you’re not supposed to say tits. Hit him again!