“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” - Hebrews 11:8-9
The rest of the exams came and went, and graduation followed immediately after. Everything is completely pedestrian – the robes, the sunshine, the complementary glass of prosecco, the organist playing Coldplay’s Clocks, the master of ceremony pitifully trying to get the audience to join in the weird Latin song which was apparently written by Erasmus himself. Even as they call my name to pick up the diploma, I fall approximately in the middle of the pack with my vaguely respectable 2:1. In the end, a better result in Gwyn’s Cell Compartmentalisation class would not have been enough to improve my classification, proving that my fear and panic on that day was an overreaction. There is a kind of serenity in this realisation. Mhairi on my left is trying to make conversation, and I oblige as best as I can but in this moment nothing can wash away the regret over one more future that never came to be. I still remember how impotent I felt against her improbably voluptuous figure gliding like a cloud under the ethereal murals of Alasdair Gray at our graduation ball in the Oran Mor. And yet, I sense that this too will be forgotten. It’s hard to believe – I would not have believed this if you had told me in the early days of first year – but I am strangely glad this is all over. I have no desire to resist this moment slipping through my fingers. It is ending, and it must end. Sic transit gloria mundi. I must go on to do something else now, though I know not what, and these people, most of whom I never really liked or cared for, will not figure in this dark and uncertain future. In the end it’s right, I hope they have the time of their lives...
When all the above has been accomplished, when I’ve received my little red tube and taken all the photos and returned the black robe and eaten and digested the celebratory meal, the time comes for a little adventure – one which is not a major event in itself, but which serves as a very fitting transition from one part of the story to the next; one which afficionados of video games would call a “side quest”. It contains all the essential themes of both the preceding and the following parts and ties them neatly together into one episode, like a cute little bow.
A few months prior to graduation, I signed up to and paid for a short summer school in Utrecht, perhaps hoping that this would guide my decision on what to do next. I paid the course fee along with the accommodation while still receving the student loan payments and bursaries which sustained me financially during my degree. In the folly of my youth, I did not calculate how quickly the funds would dry up after graduation, and how woefully insufficient my zero-hour contract with Quality Link would be for plugging the gaps. Thus, I find myself sitting on my laptop on a June evening, perhaps three or four days before the start of the course, trying to figure out how to scrape enough money to travel to Utrecht from my pitiful bank balance. A flight is out of the question, naturally. I sit with the dreadful corollary for a few moments. There is no way out, or around the problem. Having swallowed my pride, the next step comes relatively easy, and I quickly manage to find a connection to Utrecht for only twenty pounds sterling – a twenty-four-hour bus journey, with an overnight stop in London. As if this wasn’t enough of a challenge, my bus will arrive in Utrecht late on Sunday afternoon, giving me less than an hour to find the university office to pick up the key to my accommodation for the next two weeks. If I’m late, I can only assume that I’ll have to spend the night in a bus station – for the second night in a row. What in the world had I gotten myself into? The number of things that could go grievously wrong on this journey is vast and daunting. I feel almost like I am signing my own death warrant by going, and yet the sunk cost of more than five hundred euros does not permit me to stay at home. I must go and suffer whatever happens and who knows – I might even learn something.
***
It is late in the morning when I cross the border. The grim and Calvinistic land of the Scots gives way to expansive, green and lush fields and soft little hills - the pleasant pastures that Hubert Parry wrote about, so vivid and tangible now. A queue of cottages, churches and livestock streams past my window. Eventually I feel sated by the beauty of these scenes and I fully commit myself to my book. The contrast between the tranquil landscape and Edmund Burke’s account of the barbarity of the French revolution could not be more stark. I’m spellbound by Burke’s argument, written in 1790, which predicts the worst horrors of the period long before they happened, all the way up to the rise of Napoleon. Burke saw through the moral character of the revolutionaries and their squalid ideology which was barely more than a lust for blood and violence hiding behind a mask of humanitarianism and enlightenment. Suddenly the pieces began to fall into place, my great dilemma from the previous months started to resolve into something clearer. I began to sense that every one of the genocidal regimes of the 20th century, each one alone sufficient to stain the conscience of humanity until the end of time, each one armed with the sacred and invincible conviction that they are on the side of progress, traces its lineage back to those crimson cobblestones of Paris and Vendée in 1793. But there was one more observation that Burke made which piqued my interest. He pointed out that amid all the hatred and spite that the revolutionaries harboured for the French monarchy and aristocracy, there was one more institution that they despised with equal fervour, and which they too wished to grind into the mud – the Roman Catholic Church. At the time I was reading this, I had little to no sympathy for the Church. I still held the view, formed half from my experience with Polish clergy, half from reading Dan Brown novels, of Catholicism as an obscurantist, quasi-fascist sect - the perennial enemy of science, progress, liberty and human rights. Now, in the same way that Roger Scruton responded to the 1968 student riots with the pithy conclusion “whatever they are for, I am against”, I found myself questioning everything I ever thought I believed about Rome. I reflected more and more on the many times in history when the most wicked and inhumane regimes raised their banner against the Church because they knew it was an obstacle to their designs – from Nero and Diocletian through Mohammed to Robespierre, Bismarck, Lenin, and Hitler. Whatever they are for, I am against.
It’s already dark, approximately 9 or 10pm, and these reflections are still floating loosely around my mind as the bus finally pulls up to Victoria Station. I have a brief look around; there are plenty of seats and I sit down in one for a few moments while I decide what to do next. Even though the station is busy enough and there are certainly cameras and some form of security, I have no intention of falling asleep. Eventually I realise that I must go out and procure some kind of caffeinated drink, and so I rise with all my bags and head to the nearest Tesco. When I return, I settle into my seat and pull out my next book. I had finished Burke’s Reflections on the bus; now it is time for Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, Penguin Classics edition. Before I have the chance to get well into the introduction, my mum calls me. We go through all the formalities – are you ok yes I’m okay – and then we hang up and I am alone once more. No matter – “I have my books and my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in their armour.”
“Where are you from?”
I didn’t see the man coming over, and he must have come over, because he wasn’t next to me when I sat down. I hesitate briefly, but after a quick look over he seems not to be a threat.
“Poland?”
“Ooo, tak myślałem, ja też!”
The sound of me speaking our common tongue on the phone drew him to me like a desperate sailor to a siren.
“What are you reading?”
I showed him the cover.
“You must be very smart!”
I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.
So our conversation began, sputtering clumsily like a World War I fighter jet taking off. Minutes and minutes passed and we gained altitude and velocity. I learned who he was and how he ended up here. He was not travelling like me. The station was his home - he slept here when he could because he had nowhere else. Tomorrow in the afternoon, he told me, he would go to a food bank to pick up some lunch. They always had some decent sandwiches at an affordable price. He also told me that on the Monday he was taking the coach back to Poland to move back in with his elderly and chronically ill mother. The Consulate arranged these journeys regularly for those of our compatriots who hadn’t succeeded in the New World. Perhaps they came for work and didn’t find any, perhaps they got into debt, perhaps they got into jail and couldn’t survive in the real world afterwards – every one of these was loaded up onto a bus and sent back to the homeland to pick up the pieces and start over. I wasn’t sure if I believed this last part of his story, if he was only telling me that he had resolved to do something with his life to gain my sympathy. I suspected the part about his mother was true at least. I had considered the odds of him robbing me if I fell asleep, but this was not on the cards. If you had seen him, you would know. This truly was a man at the limits of the human experience, the archetypical poor immigrant, the wretched refuse of Emma Lazarus, and yet he gave off an unmistakeable impression of having maintained the most precious commodity any human being can have – his conscience. After half an hour of speaking to him I knew as surely as the ten fingers on my hands that this man would do me no harm. In any case, it didn’t matter anymore because we had gotten so lost in our conversation that before we even realised, the sun was coming up. My bus was now due in less than half an hour, so I bid the man goodbye. Understandably, he asked me if I had any spare change. Embarrassed, I had to explain to him that I had as little money as he did, if not less. This was true of course, but I can’t imagine how confounded he must have felt by this. With our farewells out of the way, I once more went to Tesco to pick up some food for the journey.
***
When I finally arrive at my accommodation in Pythagoraslaan I am in no mood to socialise. I made it into the university office with about three quarters of an hour to spare, and though the walk to the student quarter was very nice, I am utterly spent. Nevertheless, I am greeted in the common kitchen by a Greek couple – a swarthy lad with a bit of stubble and a tall and skinny blonde. They are also part of the same course – everyone on our floor is. They are visibly moved by my physical appearance and I explain my situation and that I will shower and go to bed immediately after. They are somewhat impressed by the heroic effort I made to come here and release me from my social obligations.
In my room, the noises coming from parties in the other buildings can be heard quite vividly, but I know that even this will not stop the invincible tide of sleep. The window, which covers half of the entire circumference of the room, gives a beautiful view of the apartment complex. Though the buildings themselves are ugly and Soviet, everything is covered in moss and vines, like the Dharma Inititative buildings in Lost, and we are surrounded by trees on almost every side. It feels almost tropical.
The bathroom is also a common one, and as I do not have the confidence to walk around in my towel, I bring the bare minimum of clothing with me. Inside, there is an open space with sinks for brushing your teeth and shower cubicles. I don’t see any space to leave your clothes, and so I hang all my clothes on the little hanger inside the cubicle, hoping that I can manipulate the shower head so that nothing gets wet. The floor is a little bit rough, like in a public swimming pool, but as soon as the hot water hits me I begin to transcend my corporeal form. I must now begin to fight for consciousness. I could fall asleep here – there is almost nothing stopping me. I haven’t slept in approximately 36 hours, and now the stream coming out of the shower head is wrapping itself around me like a magical and heavenly blanket. When I finish the bathroom is still empty, yet I had barely finished wrapping the towel around my waist when Charlotte appears – a petite Belgian blonde with little beady eyes like Tintin. One would expect in a situation like this some brief exchange of greetings. Charlotte, entirely oblivious to my embarrassment, holds me prisoner for longer than I am comfortable with. She wants to know where I’ve come from, what I do, and all sorts of small talk like that. Meanwhile, my nakedness is all I can think about. I am on the verge of begging her to let me leave when the conversation finally ends. I go back to my room, change into my pyjama, and check my phone one last time. It’s still light outside and the parties are still carrying on while I surrender to the bliss of my hard-earned sleep.
In the morning is a short induction in the lecture room which will become our headquarters for the next two weeks. I meet the remainder of the class who not are staying in Pythagoraslaan – Eva, who is a Dutch native, Roberto the stereotypically gregarious Italian, another Greek, a couple of Iranians, two girls from the UK, a Filippino, and a Czech. Our course organisers are Tom, a dirty-blonde Dutch man, and Mark, a slightly shorter brown-haired German. Tom gives us a little introduction to the course, the city, the university, and finally Netherlands itself. Some interesting tidbits are about the obscene and abnormal average height of Dutch people, and the fact that over 90% of them speak English. Not that they really need to, since their language is already a silly mix of English and German. The best news comes at the end when Tom unveils his staff card which gives him free access to the coffee machine and announces that said card will be at our disposal for the duration of the course.
Before the day is up, a Whatsapp group is created and some of the group already agree to go out on the first night to watch the football – likely to watch Charlotte’s team against against Japan in the first knockout round. Before I had left, England had already recorded their 6-1 win against Panama. Now, as I walk through the streets of Utrecht, far off in the distance some sporadic renditions of Three Lions can be heard. The summer school will end on the 13th of July, two days before the final, meaning that if football does come home it will do so very shortly after me. Two weeks later, as I see the sun rising on the cliffs of Dover from the window of my ferry, I wonder how much different the mood in this moment would be if England hadn’t eventually lost to Croatia in the semi-final. For now, all of these are unknowns, and the only thing that is real and tangible is the jubilant atmosphere, simmering beneath the surface, ready to burst into flame at any moment. It is July, I am strolling through the streets of a foreign city, and the world cup is marching on towards its conclusion. Oddly, this time the Netherlands have not qualified, and so the only support will be for foreign teams. As my evening walk takes me back to the university office, I see a small crowd of immigrants following the game, huddled around their phone. A timid wave of excitement passes through them – not a goal, but perhaps a card, a corner, or a near miss. Eventually, I decide to follow the demands of nature and procure some food. My budget allows me approximately five euros for my dinner. With the accommodation paid for, the university campus a short walk away, and a free lunch and unlimited coffees included in the course, breakfast and dinner are the only things I really need to spend money on, but even here I need to be careful. Eventually I begin to feel much less anxious about money, especially once the funds I withdrew from my savings account are finally deposited, but this takes nothing away from the miracle of frugality that I achieved by surviving those two weeks. Of course none of this is on my mind as I survey the menu of the kebab shop, the first one I found. A hamburger with chips comes in at about 4.5 euros. I take my spoils and return to a bench near where the immigrants are still watching the match.
This pattern fills out the majority of the two weeks – breakfast in the common kitchen in our apartment, lectures in the morning, lunch in the beautiful and well-lit cafeteria, labs in the afternoon, a walk through the city and some takeaway dinner in the evening. This might seem dull and repetetitive, but in reality it was bliss. Something different happened every time to make each day a little bit unique and special. One day it was walking past the bells of the Dom Tower while they played Vivaldi’s Summer. Another day it was a short getaway to Amsterdam, where I managed to notice all the things I couldn’t when I was there with my friends and all we cared about was weed and pints of Amstel. I went to the palace, where, in the main hall, is a giant map of the world dating back to the 17th century, mostly accurate but with large sections simply blank, with the the coastlines of continents charted out but the inlands unexplored. Close your eyes and you can smell the spice and gunpowder, hear the creaking wood of the great galleys sent thousands of kilometres away to subjugate islands and tribes that nobody had ever heard of. Now you see the merchant houses lining the spiderweb of canals in a different way. You can see the logical progression, how this great trading city graduated from selling obscure Asiatic teas and spices to cannabis and women’s bodies. Thus the entire history of Western liberalism is told in these buildings and canals. And yet, there are still traces of the old world dotted around some street corners. I visited the Oude Kerk, which had been just a short walk from our hostel when we went in 2015. How did we manage to miss this gem? I went to St Nicholas’s for Evensong. After a whole week imbibing the impossibly arcane and unreadable texts of Aquinas I felt myself drawing closer to the world represented by these buildings and rituals. I still felt entirely alien sitting in the pew, listening to Latin chants about Biblical stories that I knew vaguely. It meant nothing to me personally, but it sounded nice and edifying.
Then comes the ending. On the Wednesday, the organisers treated us to dinner in a local restaurant. Afterwards, a group of us broke away to the pub to watch the rest of the semi-final between England and Croatia. England were already 1-0 up when we got there. Slowly and surely the game began to slip from England until Croatia equalised. England were barely hanging on when the whistle finally blew, marking the break before extra time. When the game resumed, it was only a matter of time before Croatia went ahead, and when they did, a ripple of joy passed through the pub, although small enough to indicate that approximately half of the crowd had been rooting for England. It was dark when we left the pub, and I remember walking with Roberto and the Iranian lads, whose flats were on the other side of the motorway from me. We parted and I walked the rest of the way myself. I stuck my headphones in and World In Motion came on, which sounded bitter and ironic now, as it always does after England lose. I begin to feel the end coming now, and the reality of having to return to Glasgow from this pleasant little bubble. On the Thursday we go on a field trip to a Biotech company in some small town the name of which I can’t remember. As we pass through the Dutch countryside on the train, everything seems so flat and green that it cannot possibly be real. I guess this is a testament to the great skill and intelligence of the Dutch that they have manipulated their land to this extent.
The visit is unspeakably dull and we spend much of it thinking about our presentations tomorrow. I already have an idea of what I will do, but I will need to do a bit of reading to tie the whole thing together. I somehow manage to fit this around the cleaning we do collectively on Thursday night, because we have been asked to clean our apartment before we leave. Friday is a short day and once the presentations are done we are free to go. There is some food and refreshments outside, and we all have a quick chat. I know, they know, and we all collectively know, that we will never see each other again although most of us do end up adding each other on facebook. I still see Roberto’s posts quite often, and I do wonder if Eva ever did that Master’s degree in Sweden. I wonder how the Iranian lads are doing, and how they feel about the protests in their country. It doesn’t really matter. They’re all out there somewhere, and they seem intelligent enough – I'm sure they’re getting on well with their lives.
There is a shop next to the bus station, and as I have been so niggardly over these two weeks, I have enough pocket money left to purchase a couple of travel-sized miniature bottles of wine. I consume these on the bus discreetly even though I know that nobody really cares. When the bus boards the ferry and we need to get off, the driver has to shake me awake. I am not annoyed, because it means I spend the next hour watching a glorious sunrise over the channel. Just when I thought this journey was over, it keeps producing wonder after wonder like this. This return journey is a mirror of the first one – it is daylight when I arrive in London, and daylight still when I finally get to Glasgow. I feel perfectly safe, and I only await the comfor of my own bed after two weeks. Everything is fine.
This is a serial fiction project published fortnightly in collaboration with Ross Anderson at The Broken Quill.