Interviews
J. Weintraub

Many years ago, when one of the most promising candidates in the program returned from the Winter Convention without a position in hand, we all assumed that it must have been his fault. Perhaps some ugly secret out of his past had suddenly come to light or maybe he stumbled over his words during the interview or perspired too freely. In any case, from that time on we avoided him in the lounges and the lecture halls as if he suffered from some hideous contagious infection, and when he vanished from sight on the eve of his orals, our suspicions about him were confirmed.

But the next winter others of equal ability returned without even the hope of a position, and the following season only one of our candidates was placed. By the time my class entered its final year, many of us refused even to register for the Convention, and I sympathized with their gesture. But I was one of the few in the program to be invited for an interview, and failure to appear would have meant disgrace for our department. Moreover, it was rumored that in the future positions would be awarded through more rigorous, more scientific means, and if such rumors were true, this Winter Convention would be the last of what had always been a grand human spectacle.

Some years later I met an old classmate of mine, sitting on a park bench, his head bowed over a book. He admitted that he was still attending the Winter Convention, occasionally delivering a paper before a small gathering, hoping to be noticed. But except for Association officers and delegates, and those reading papers to each other, few bothered to register. "Not like our last year," he said, "when those of us with interviews rushed the elevators like passengers at the rail of a sinking liner, seeking space on the final lifeboat!" He smiled, proud of his simile, and it recalled to mind the anxious luster in the eyes of the men and women crowding into the hotel that first morning of the Convention, as if they had spent the entire night there in the lobby, awaiting the dawn.

I, too, had failed to sleep the previous night. Nor had I eaten any breakfast since I was running late for my group interview, and I was delayed even further by the mob of candidates in the lobby. Elbowing my way through, excusing myself each time the sharp corner of a briefcase bounced off my shins, I crossed over to the grand staircase, hoping to gain time by using the elevators on the mezzanine.

After reaching the sixth floor and a run down the long hallway, I knocked lightly on the door to room 648, but there was no response. I waited a few moments, knocked again, and slowly turned the knob, intending no more than a brief look or, if need be, a brief explanation. But although the door was unlocked, it budged only slightly, as if a heavy weight were leaning against it.

Pressing my eye against the narrow fissure, I observed what appeared to be a meeting or lecture in progress. Standing against the walls, squatting on the floor, sitting by twos on the available chairs was an audience outfitted in tweed suits and teardrop glasses. Phi Beta Kappa keys dangled from watch chains and bracelets.
Realizing now that my entrance would hardly be noticed, I shoved against the door. Someone stumbled forward, but no one turned as I squeezed through the opening and joined the others.

"I'm supposed to have an interview here," I whispered into the ear of a neighbor.

"You're five minutes late," he replied. "The interview's almost over."

"Where's . . . "

"There," he said, and pointed toward the entrance to the bathroom. Standing there was a tiny, balding man in shirt-sleeves. He was speaking into a microphone that emitted a low electrical hum, obscuring his voice rather than amplifying it. Apparently oblivious to the interference, he seemed to be unconsciously modulating his voice to harmonize with the drone, further obliterating his message.

I edged forward to hear what I could of the interviewer's concluding remarks: " . . . not materialized. Budgetary difficulties * * * declining enrollment * * * Nor can I promise * * * regrettable situation. Never have I seen such a well qualified * * * endeavor to determine the candidate most suited to our temporary needs."

The wall-phone rang. "Again!" he exclaimed, and picking up the phone, he shouted into it, "No more today!" He dropped the receiver, leaving it dangling by its wire, and he turned back to us.

"So, not to prolong matters," he said, pointing with the microphone to the end-table beside him, "if you would be so kind as to place your resumes here along with whatever additional material you've brought along that will enable us to arrive at an equitable decision, I would be most gratified."

Hardly had these words been spoken when the entire room bent over as one and, sounding like a round of cannon fire, a hundred briefcases snapped open simultaneously. Soon the end-table was tottering under an ever-ascending heap of documents. The Gideon Bible fell to the floor, the table lamp shattered against the baseboard, and finally the end-table itself toppled, spilling its burden at the interviewer's feet.

Still papers continued to pour forward, and the heap rose to his waist. Curricula vitae and references, reprints and abstracts, manuscripts and theses snowed thickly about him as if a trap in the ceiling supporting a ton of confetti had suddenly been sprung. The pile grew to his chest.

I had by this time concluded that my interview was at an end, and as I closed the door behind me, my resume still in my hand, I took a final look inside. Through the fluttering sheets of paper, I could barely discern the small, balding man backing into the bathroom, an anxious smile quivering on his face.

I let the elevator carry me to the basement. I wanted to wash my hands, but I also wanted to be alone, and stationed in every restroom of the hotel was an attendant in a red blazer. I hoped to find in the basement an employees' washroom, and after stumbling into linen closets, boiler rooms and onto loading docks, I finally stood before the welcome "Employees Only!" sign.

Inside were two stalls and a single sink, and everywhere -- between the yellowish tiles, encircling the rim of the sink bowl, even encrusted around the light installations -- was a dark copper rust. Still, I was content to be alone, and as I splashed my face with water, I groaned with pleasure and relief. Needless to say, I was horrified when, upon opening my eyes, I saw in the mirror a dwarfish black man approaching me, a whisk broom poised in his hand.

"I'm not ready yet!" I snapped back at him. Shrugging his shoulders and without a word, he returned to the corner of the room and climbed onto the three-legged stool there to wait for me to finish.

"Well, at least he's not wearing a red blazer," I muttered, searching my pocket for change. But no sooner had I found my last quarter than I noticed in front of me, just below the mirror, scrawled among the phone numbers and graffitti, the following inscription:

The message was signed with a flourish by a "Dr. Johnson."

The attendant, still atop his three-legged stool, had fallen asleep.

"Excuse me," I said, shaking him by the shoulder, "excuse me, please." He awoke; his eyes were yellowed and bleary, his face the texture of an old prune.

"Room 1A. Could you direct me to Room 1A. Lower Level." I displayed the quarter and added it to his dish of coins.

He smiled a brilliant gold smile and nodded toward one of the washroom's stalls. An out-of-order sign hung on the door and above that, in decals, "1A."

"It's out-of-order," I said as I crossed over to the stall. "What am I supposed to do?"

"You stick in the dime and you walk right in."

"But I don't have a dime. I gave you the last of my change."

The attendant rummaged through his coins and flipped me a dime. "On the house," he said, and flashed another golden smile.
I inserted the coin, turned the handle, entered the stall, and, as expected, found only a toilet.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Flush it!"

I flushed it. There was a rumbling from within the wall, and I heard wheels grinding from somewhere beneath the tiles. Suddenly, the toilet seat slammed shut and the entire bowl dropped into the floor. Pipes began to spin and screw themselves into the ceiling; the wall split open and slid back. I looked down. At my feet was a staircase descending into the darkness.

"Go on down," shouted the attendant. "The Doctor's waiting. He's got plenty of time." He laughed. "Plenty of time."

There was no railing, and as I descended, I clung to the concrete wall for support. Overhead pipes intersected. I could hear the hollow dripping of water and occasional hisses of steam, and through my fingertips I sensed the throbbings of subway trains.

Gradually the steep decline of the stairway leveled, leading me into a narrow corridor dimly lit by a row of widely spaced light bulbs. In the middle of the corridor stood a wide, flat desk, covered with papers and writing implements, and seated behind it, periodically twitching and grimacing ferociously, was a ponderous figure dressed in a faded brown waistcoat and a yellowed shirt with lace cuffs. What appeared to be a periwig was tilted awkwardly on his head, and as I drew near I could hear the rhythmic tapping of his long oaken staff punctuating my approach.

"Your business, Sir!" he demanded as I halted before his desk, the "Sir" reverberating back and forth against the walls.

"On the wall . . . upstairs . . . the position."

"Then you are late, Sir." He raised aloft a sheaf of papers. "This, I trust, is your application -- your vitae and other sundry minutiae?"

"Well, yes, it seems so. But how . . . "

"That, Sir, is my business. Your business is to reply to my interrogatory with whatever truth and circumspection are within your grasp."

Before I could respond, he had already begun thumbing through the papers in front of him, occasionally snorting as he picked up a sheet and held it close to his nose.

"Well, Sir," he said after elaborately clearing his throat, "a mighty impressive display!" and shaking the papers exuberantly before me, he added, "This is the property of a man of parts!"

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

"'Tis not what I mean, but what you are. And do have the civility to acknowledge a compliment when it is proferred in the manner befitting a gentleman in your position, Sir."

"Would you kindly inform me just what that position is . . . Sir!" I answered in a tone that betrayed both my fatigue and mounting irritation.

"Sir, if I have offended you, I am indeed sorry. The boys in the streets throw stones at the King's horses to prove their discipline. 'Tis considered not a rebuke but a signature of worth." And then he added in a far gentler voice, "There is sufficient offense in this tired world without one seeking it where it was never meant to be."

He returned to the papers before him, this time examining them even more closely, often scratching notes in the margins. When he finished he leaned back, crossed his legs, inspected his fingernails, and muttered, "Quae terra nostri non plena laboris."

He gazed up at me again with his large, tired eyes. "I find here much to be commended. A diligence toward philological enquiry, a persistent joy in the search for truth, and an appreciation of scholarship for its own sake, for its own sake, I say. These are precious commodities, and I weigh them as such. They have occasioned your presence here today."

"Then I'm qualified?"

"Eminently so. The others, too, must consider, but of their general approbation, I make not the slightest doubt."

"The others?"

"The others," and he motioned to the left and to the right with his quill. My eyes had by now become accustomed to the dark, and I saw that we were not alone.

Seated along both walls on benches extending into the distances was a series of motionless, shadowy forms, packed tightly together like cadavers in an ancient catacomb. I could hardly distinguish one figure from the next, although I did notice that many had their heads bowed over open books propped on their knees. But they could hardly have been reading, since thick layers of dust covered the pages.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Candidates. Candidates all."

"But what are they doing here?"

"Every generation or so the world undergoes a monstrous superfoetation, following which the city and countryside vomit forth swarms of candidates. Clerks, scribes, schoolmasters, unbeneficed clergymen, doctors of jurisprudence, and many, many more who, like a congregation of migratory fowl, flock here and roost for the long winter."

"But why are they here?"

"Here is where they belong."

"You're evading my question," I said, and then added, somewhat sullenly, "Maybe I should ask one of them."

"That, Sir, would be an impertinence. Nay, I would no more ask one of them his reason for being here than I would ask a man about to be hanged his reason for standing on a scaffold with his hat off. Not only are you likely to hear an uncivil remark, you are likely to gain a knock in the head for your pains. But you may direct questions of a less provocatory nature with perhaps more fortuitous results."

He shoved the heavy desk forward, stood up, and called to his right, "Mr. Cholmondeley. Mr. Cholmondeley, I say!"

Failing to elicit a response, he snatched the inkpot from his desk and flung it against the wall so that it clattered above the head of a gaunt, sallow youth whose complexion matched the hue of his stringy, yellow hair. He raised his watery eyes toward us, and then creakily -- so slowly that the dust on his shoulders hardly shifted -- arose.

"Mr. Cholmondeley is a theologian of excellent parts. While still resident at Oxford he published his first volume of sermons -- at only minor expense to himself -- and his dissertation on the ancient beauties of the Thames, which appeared in The Critical Review, was widely thought to be from the pen of Dr. Warton himself. Mr. Cholmondeley, will you favor us with a reading?"

Mr. Cholmondeley smiled and bent over to remove a massive quarto from beneath his seat. After clearing his throat and coughing, he opened it and began to read: "'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.' Thus saith the Preacher. But how might this passage presage the Universal Redemptive Energy of Our Savior? And how, you might also enquire, does it reconfirm our faith in the Transubstantive Power of the Corpus Christus? Momentary reflection will at once reveal that the truths are evident and undeniable. To begin, the Chaldeans, as we know from Bishop Duckworth's admirable treatise God's Primitive Mysteries Made Manifest . . . "

"Can you stop him?" I asked, having no desire to question Mr. Cholmondeley or to hear him further.

"Mr. Cholmondeley."

" . . . a vile practice, abhorrent to all but our present-day latitudinarians . . . "

"Mr. Cholmondeley! . . . That will do. Thank you. We are in your debt."

Mr. Cholmondeley, happy to have had the opportunity to recite from his works, smiled once more, replaced his volume beneath the bench, and again sat down, bowing his head.

"Please . . . why is he here?"

"Mr. Cholmondeley was degree'd at a time when advancement in the Church was simply not to be had, even for divines of the most sober propensities and scholarly aptitudes. There were so many. . . . Thus, Mr. Cholmondeley came here."

"But he's a man of 'excellent parts.' You said so yourself!"

"All here are men and women of parts, Sir. All are talented, educated, possessing strong faculties and often literary facility. And all have come here; whether through circumstance or inclination, here they come to sit and wait."

"That hardly seems fair!"

"Fair? The globe turns and a thousand persons stumble and topple off every day. Fair? A dog crosses the street and is squished flat by a carter. It is indeed unfair, Sir, but the dog is nonetheless dead."

"The position. You've said nothing about the position."

"An additional wing has been conjoined to the fourth sublevel. For qualified candidates, of course, but you, Sir, have much to recommend you."
"The salary?"

"Quantum cedat virtutibus aurum! With virtue weighed, what worthless trash is gold."

"The duties?"

"They also serve who only stand . . . ha! ha! who only sit and wait. Milton had barbarous politics, but the man could write, Sir, the man could write!"

I thought it would be pleasant to sit down for awhile. Nevertheless, I began to back away.

"I don't know. You see, there's a problem . . . my asthma . . . the air here is so close . . . I don't think . . . "

"Poh! This is shilly-shallying!"

"But my asthma! It's noted in my resume."

"You are trifling, Sir. Earlier you spoke of a confusion about your position. Perhaps now you are more sensible to it. If not, you would do well to proceed most expeditiously to the fourth sublevel where you may reflect in tranquillity 'til you comprehend your proper place in the sight of ALMIGHTY GOD!"

I began to retreat even more hastily.

"I think I'd better go now."

"Go, Sir?"

"I'm not supposed to be here."

"Stuff!" he bellowed. "If you were not supposed to be here, you would not be here. You are here because you belong here, and there's an end on't!" and he slammed his staff down on top of the desk as if making a final proof for the existence of matter.

But I already had turned my back on Dr. Johnson, and as I ran toward the stairway, I could hear the accusation of "Presumption! Presumption!" booming down the corridor and echoing in the pipes.

I was awakened by the sound of metal clanging against metal. Gray light filtered through the opening I had left between the can and its lid, and I reproached myself for having fallen asleep there. My joints were now so stiff I could hardly move without pain, but before I could silently allude to Beckett, I remembered that I had renounced literary references forever. Besides, there was nothing metaphorical about my hiding inside a trash can. It was simply a convenient refuge from Dr. Johnson's booming voice and his cohorts, who may not have been as sedentary as they first appeared. Also, others would soon be looking for me. I had not paid my hotel bill, there was the draft, and what would my department think of my refusal to accept Dr. Johnson's offer?

A nearby can clanked against its neighbor. Somebody was approaching, searching through the garbage, and I huddled as tightly as I could against the metal ridges, regretting that there was not enough trash with which to cover myself.

The concussions grew louder and began to ring in my ears. A can banged against mine, and after I was kicked to see if I were empty, the lid was shoved to one side.

I looked up. Staring down at me was an old man with disheveled hair and cheeks bristling like gray prickly pears. "'Scuse me," he said as he rummaged through the trash at my feet. Finding nothing of interest, he mumbled a few oaths, pushed the top back onto the can, and proceeded to the next one, kicking it and poking through it as he had done with mine.

But then there was a long silence.

My lid was again drawn back and his face reappeared.

"Say, bub," he said, "my insides is awful empty. Can you spare some change?"

"Sorry," I said, "I gave my last quarter to the washroom attendant."

"I'll bet," he replied in disgust, and slammed the lid back over my head.

"Wait a minute!" I stood up. The lid spun to the pavement and rolled down the alley. "Can you help me hide. Go underground, sort of. Just for awhile?" I removed my wallet. His eyes narrowed and his nose twitched as I displayed the bills inside.

"Sure thing, bub," he said. "Been spending my life doing it," and after scooping the contents of my wallet into his pocket, he grabbed me beneath the armpits and lifted me from the can. "But first we're going to have to make some changes," and he ordered me to strip.

I stripped to my underwear, handing him in succession my tweed coat, linen tie, button-down Oxford shirt, and chinos, all of which he deposited in the trash can. "Try these on for size," and he offered me some old clothes from the satchel slung across his back. They seem to be all of flannel and hung loosely about me, but although the pants scratched my legs, they were comfortable.

Stepping back a few paces, he examined me with a critical eye, his fingers stroking his chin.

"You're too clean," and he rumpled my hair with both of his sooty hands and smudged my cheeks. A sudden gust blew newspapers and other refuse in from the streets, and as it flew past, he snatched from the air a soiled, gray felt hat.

After positioning it carefully on my head, he again stepped back to admire his work.

"Not bad," he concluded. "They'll never know who you are now, and here's something that'll help you forget, too."

He bent down, rolled up a pants leg, and removed the flask strapped to his hairy, bony shin. After uncorking it and wiping the rim, he lifted the flask to my lips. The wine was thick and sweet and tasted good.

Giggling, he wagged his behind as if a short tail protruded from it, and with his arm around my shoulder, we descended together toward the street.