The Last Samurai

One of the children was about my age. He asked where I went to school. I said I didn’t go to a school. He said everybody had to go to school. I said my mother thought I should identify a field of particular interest and just go straight to university, though I would probably find the students rather immature.

The conversation flagged. My companions absorbed chocolate; this gone, they turned again to combat.

Presently Sibylla and the woman came through the checkout lanes.

Sib was saying All I’m saying is if we imagine setting up a society with no knowledge of the place we are to occupy, we are highly UNLIKELY to sentence ourselves to 16 odd years’ absolute economic dependence upon persons of whose rationality there can be no guarantee, and highly LIKELY to stipulate a society in which

The woman was laughing softly.

Sibylla looked with ill-concealed horror at the bechocolated crew which now converged whining on the other trolley.

The woman smiled mildly.

No, Micky, no! Felicity, what did I say? she began—

and then she stopped. She was staring at the Schaum Outline on Fourier analysis which I had brought in case I got bored.

She said What school does he go to?

Sibylla said I was studying at home.

Now the woman stared at me, and now she stared at Sibylla like a prisoner of fate who sees hope of reprieve. She said You mean you’re teaching him yourself! But that’s amazing!

and she said I wonder—it would be the most enormous favour—would you consider helping Micky? I’m sure he’s very bright, but he’s had a few problems, and the school just doesn’t want to know.

The most enormous favour did not sound good, and sure enough she went on to say Nothing formal.

Sibylla was stammering But surely you

The woman said What with the other two

Sibylla said Well

We walked home with rations for the week.

I said: Who was that?

Sibylla said she was someone

She said: She once saved my life.

She said: Had our positions been reversed, of course, she would have been preserved thanks to me for what we now know lay in store.

She laughed and said: This reminds me of that line in Renan!

She frowned and I thought she was not going to be able to remember the line from Renan. She said: The Aryan language had a great superiority in the conjugation of verbs, that marvellous instrument, the conjugation of verbs, that marvellous instrument, that marvellous instrument of metaphysics … The Arab race handicapped for fifteen hundred years by the inferiority of their moods and tenses—

and she said ce merveilleux instrument, ce merveilleux instrument

and suddenly she laughed and said I wonder if I can do it in Arabic!

I said: Do what in Arabic?

Sib said: Had our positions been reversed, of course, she would have been preserved thanks to me for what we now know lay in store.

She said: Let’s do it in Hebrew and Arabic and see if he’s right! You do Hebrew, I’ll do Arabic—

and she said lau …

I said: How did she save your life?

Sib said she did not know much about it because she had been unconscious at the time but apparently the woman had called an ambulance in the nick of time.

I said: How do you know about the case endings?

Sib said: What case endings?

I said: Of the lost silent tribe, they’re not in the book

Sib said: lau …

I said: And the chess isn’t in the book

Sib said: Isn’t Robert Donat on TV tonight?

I said: Did HC tell you after the seminar?

Sib said: This thing by Renan is mysterious. It seems to me that philosophical Greek would be more troublesome to translate into Latin than Arabic. What we should do is compare a Latin translation of, say, Plato with one in Arabic and maybe some passage of Maimonides on a related subject and see which is more awkward.

I said: The chess

Sib said: Look Ludo, an Illinois Fried Chicken!

I said: isn’t in the book

Sib said: You can go to SOAS and work on it

I said: SOAS won’t let me in

Sib said: You simply explain that you are working on a project for school

She said: & if I type Tropical Fish Hobbyist for four hours we can catch Robert Donat at 9:00. You can work on Plato to get ready for this project at SOAS.

I said: Are you really going to teach the Little Prince?

She said: The Little Pauper, wits gone a-begging. It will kill me to do it but it must be done.