• • •
We walk back along the river. Mulberry, stripped to his MESSIAH T-shirt, carrying Doyle on his shoulders. Guthrie, flush-faced, walking on his hands. The Kirwins, all muscle, in matching rowing vests, shouting and laughing. Chakrabarti, in deep conversation with Ede. Titmuss, flowers in his dreads, chanting om. And Wittgenstein at our head, beaming.
Cambridge opens to us as to Christ and his disciples.
After philosophy, the fact of Cambridge will overwhelm us, Wittgenstein says. The fact that it is, that it even exists.
After philosophy, we will lose our way in Cambridge, he says. The most familiar streets will become unknown.
After philosophy, Cambridge will hatch. The walls of the colleges will crack like eggshells …
After philosophy, the suburbs and exurbs will crumble, and the new developments will return to grass. After philosophy, the hideous buildings will fall down one by one …
Saturday. End of term. Parents come to collect their offspring. The open boots of cars packed with things — with Anglepoise lamps, with bicycles, with rolled-up posters, with pots of cacti … Boarding school all over again.
A last walk with Ede.
EDE: So you’re really staying on?
ME: I’m staying on.
EDE: Do you really expect to be able to help him?
ME: I want to be here when he calls.
EDE: Peters! Help me mit mein lederhosen!
Farewells on the steps. Hugs. See-you-laters. Saying goodbye like World War II fighter pilots. Well, this is it, old man. Cheerio, old chap. Take care now. Goodbye, old sock. Toodleoo, old thing. Chocks away, groover. Chin-chin, old pal! Goodbye for six weeks, until the new term in January. Goodbye, until the new calendar year.
TITMUSS (pressing his palms together in a Hindu gesture): Namaste.
I embrace Chakrabarti in a rush of spurious emotion. Safe journey home, old chap. And goodbye to Guthrie. Goodbye to the Kirwins! To Okulu! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
4
The campus, deserted.
The colleges, hired out for conferences, on every topic under the sun. Dental Hygiene. Phospholipids. Phage Display. Entrepreneurial Innovation. Angel Investors. Process Design. Tapeworm Infrastructure …
A handful of tourists, dressed up against the cold. A few dedicated postgraduates, in Moon Boots and puffa jackets …
Snow, in drifts. A frozen River Cam. The sky, blue and cold and far. Cambridge, as Scandinavia. Cambridge, at the North Pole.
Monday comes. Then Tuesday. Then Wednesday.
A text from Wittgenstein. Please come. Am unwell.
I buy a bag of scones from the patisserie, and clotted cream and jam from Sainsbury’s.
He looks ill, in his armchair, with his flannel pyjamas and his dressing gown, and his hair in disarray.
I make tea in his kitchen. A metal teapot. A tin for loose leaves. An enamel tray.
He’s had fever for a week, he says.
On his desk, tiny slivers of paper. Trimmings from a photograph, of a young woman at a piano with her eyes closed. His mother, he says.
Picture-taking is a sacred thing, he says. It should be like learning to see. It should take a great mental effort. That’s why he’s trimming his photo, he says — he’s trying to learn how to see.
For the Kabbalists, beauty was once a golden whole, which then shattered, he says. But it isn’t so. Beauty is real. Beauty is here. It is we who have shattered.
Next day. Another text. Do come again.
Up the staircase, with another bag of scones. He wears a chunky sweater, like a ’60s folk singer.
He serves tea.
His hands are refined. Not delicate, exactly. Wise. A philosopher’s hands.
To be touched by those hands … To be held by those hands …
He’s been reading Augustine’s Confessions, he says — the most serious book ever written.
It’s not as if Augustine has anything dreadful to confess, Wittgenstein says. It’s not as if Augustine was a murderer. He is really only typically sinful.
Augustine’s distinction lies in his awareness of his sin, Wittgenstein says. He is aware of it as others are not. He has the capacity for awareness, as others do not. This is what makes him more sinful—extra sinful.
His voice drops to a whisper. He dreams of confession, he says. Of simply showing his sins. Even the sin of self-consciousness, he says — barely audible.
After philosophy, everything will be shown, he says. There will be no shadows. After philosophy, there will be a name for everything, and not just for every kind of thing.
After philosophy, we will have learnt the art of reading faces, he says. There will be no secrets. Our inner lives will be open to all, like glassfish.
After philosophy, the dark side of the moon will turn to face us.
7th December
He texts after lunch. Need to wash off brain. A film? Something trashy?
Pretty Woman, showing at the Kino. He sits up close to the screen, wholly absorbed. He laughs and claps his hands at the final scene. The snow-white limo, necktie tied to the aerial like a knight’s colours. La Bohème blaring. Richard Gere standing through the sunroof, a bunch of roses in his hand, waving. Julia Roberts on the fire escape, letting down her hair. Richard Gere clambering up, sweeping her into his arms, kissing her …
RICHARD GERE: What did the princess do when her knight came to rescue her?
JULIA ROBERTS: She rescued him right back.
We walk back through the snow in silence, following the great walls of the colleges.
Do I know what he said to himself when he came here? Wittgenstein asks.
I will do such things—
What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth.
And what did he do? He smiles. The walls did not come tumbling down. Everything remains exactly the same. Cambridge is Cambridge is Cambridge …
He speaks of the Cambridgean void. Of the Cambridgean nothingness. He speaks of the Cambridgean emptying-out. Of the Cambridgean hollowing.
He speaks of eroded hours and emptied-out days. He speaks of time void of time—of minutes, of seconds. Nothing is happening, not in Cambridge, he says. Nothing is happening — rubble is piling upon rubble, and that is all.
Cambridge is a shore, he says. A shore, waiting for a sea. When will the sea crash in and reclaim the Fens? When will the flood come that will drown Cambridge?
8th December
Carollers in the courtyard. The vast Christmas tree — a present from Norwegian alumni.
The Hasidim say that everything in the world to come will be almost as it is in this world, Wittgenstein says. Just as the Christmas tree is now, so will it be then. Where the carollers sing now, so they will sing then. The gloves and hat we wear in this world, those we will wear then. Everything will be as it is now, only a little different …