‘I accept whatever Ms Isaacs alleges.'
`Dr Rassool, you have something you wish to say?'
`Yes. I want to register an objection to these responses of Professor Lurie's, which I regard as fundamentally evasive. Professor Lurie says he accepts the charges. Yet when we try to pin him down on what it is that he actually accepts, all we get is subtle mockery. To me that suggests that he accepts the charges only in name. In a case with overtones like this one, the wider community is entitled -'
He cannot let that go. 'There are no overtones in this case,' he snaps back.
`The wider community is entitled to know', she continues, raising her voice with practised ease, riding over him, 'what it is specifically that Professor Lurie acknowledges and therefore what it is that he is being censured for.'
Mathabane: ‘If he is censured.'
‘If he is censured. We fail to perform our duty if we are not crystal clear in our minds, and if we do not make it crystal clear in our recommendations, what Professor Lurie is being censured for.'
‘In our own minds I believe we are crystal clear, Dr Rassool. The question is whether Professor Lurie is crystal clear in his mind.'
Иxactly. You have expressed exactly what I wanted to say.'
It would be wiser to shut up, but he does not. 'What goes on in my mind is my business, not yours, Farodia,' he says. 'Frankly, what you want from me is not a response but a confession. Well, I make no confession. I put forward a plea, as is my right. Guilty as charged. That is my plea. That is as far as I am prepared to go.'
`Mr Chair, I must protest. The issue goes beyond mere technicalities. Professor Lurie pleads guilty, but I ask myself, does he accept his guilt or is he simply going through the motions in the hope that the case will be buried under paper and forgotten? If he is simply going through the motions, I urge that we impose the severest penalty.'
‘Let me remind you again, Dr Rassool,' says Mathabane, 'it is not up to us to impose penalties.'
`Then we should recommend the severest penalty. That Professor Lurie be dismissed with immediate effect and forfeit all benefits and privileges.'
`David?' The voice comes from Desmond Swarts, who has not spoken hitherto. 'David, are you sure you are handling the situation in the best way?' Swarts turns to the chair. `Mr Chair, as I said while Professor Lurie was out of the room, I do believe that as members of a university community we ought not to proceed against a colleague in a coldly formalistic way. David, are you sure you don't want a postponement to give yourself time to reflect and perhaps consult?'
`Why? What do I need to reflect on?'
‘On the gravity of your situation, which I am not sure you appreciate. To be blunt, you stand to lose your job. That's no joke in these days.'
`Then what do you advise me to do? Remove what Dr Rassool calls the subtle mockery from my tone? Shed tears of contrition? What will be enough to save me?'
`You may find this hard to believe, David, but we around this table are not your enemies. We have our weak moments, all of us, we are only human. Your case is not unique. We would like to find a way for you to continue with your career.'
Easily Hakim joins in. 'We would like to help you, David, to find a way out of what must be a nightmare.'
They are his friends. They want to save him from his weakness, to wake him from his nightmare. They do not want to see him begging in the streets. They want him back in the classroom. ‘In this chorus of goodwill,' he says, 'I hear no female voice.' There is silence.
`Very well,' he says, let me confess. The story begins one evening, I forget the date, but not long past. I was walking through the old college gardens and so, it happened, was the young woman in question, Ms Isaacs. Our paths crossed. Words passed between us, and at that moment something happened which, not being a poet, I will not try to describe. Suffice it to say that Eros entered. After that I was not the same.'
`You were not the same as what?' asks the businesswoman cautiously.
‘I was not myself. I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorce at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros.'
‘Is this a defence you are offering us? Ungovernable impulse?'
‘It is not a defence. You want a confession, I give you a confession. As for the impulse, it was far from ungovernable. I have denied similar impulses many times in the past, I am ashamed to say.'
`Don't you think', says Swarts, 'that by its nature academic life must call for certain sacrifices? That for the good of the whole we have to deny ourselves certain gratifications?'
`You have in mind a ban on intimacy across the generations?'
`No, not necessarily. But as teachers we occupy positions of power. Perhaps a ban on mixing power relations with sexual relations. Which, I sense, is what was going on in this case. Or extreme caution.'
Farodia Rassool intervenes. 'We are again going round in circles, Mr Chair. Yes, he says, he is guilty; but when we try to get specificity, all of a sudden it is not abuse of a young woman he is confessing to, just an impulse he could not resist, with no mention of the pain he has caused, no mention of the long history of exploitation of which this is part. That is why I say it is futile to go on debating with Professor Lurie. We must take his plea at face value and recommend accordingly.'
Abuse: he was waiting for the word. Spoken in a voice quivering with righteousness. What does she see, when she looks at him, that keeps her at such a pitch of anger? A shark among the helpless little fishies?
Or does she have another vision: of a great thick-boned male bearing down on a girl-child, a huge hand stifling her cries? How absurd! Then he remembers: they were gathered here yesterday in this same room, and she was before them, Melanie, who barely comes to his shoulder. Unequal: how can he deny that?
‘I tend to agree with Dr Rassool,' says the businesswoman. Щnless there is something that Professor Lurie
