What is the most expensive Corbusier? — I’ve just sat down at the Free Press, a pub in Cambridge (UK). This is where one of the Claire College Men’s rowing teams come to drink. And, that voice? That belongs to the young man staring at me from across the table. The question is his sort of Billy Goat’s Gruff. The price for continuing to sit here is answering the question correctly. A list of more than eighty-five thousand waits for affordable Council housing, I respond, anticipating that the question has something to do with buildings. I’ll come to learn that I can’t read his mind.
Corbusier? I know this one! I tell myself. I used to date an architect who had a facile affair with the ideas of Corbusier. Le Corbusier, to use the moniker preferred by the man in his life. The Swiss, become French architect. His ideas sought to change how architects thought about architecture in early in the twentieth century. They were ideas that extended from the architecture of buildings to the architecture of the moveable objects within buildings — meubles, the French call them. Le Corbusier’s ideas — accepted and lauded, repudiated, rehabilitated, restored, and repudiated again — come around like wooden horses on a merry-go-round.
It’s wise, knowing so little about Le Corbusier, as I do, not to address the question that I’ve been given. It has the scent of the first of a series of “interview questions”. The University of Cambridge’s admissions interview questions are notorious for spelunking through the minds of its applicants. One question will lead to another, and, another ever deeper, ever more telling of the interviewee’s aptitude for cognitive processing, reasoning and ultimately judgment, or, conversely, the aptness of iron to rust.
I am of no mind to determine how rusty my mind has become. I’ve just come from a walk across the city. It’s been a hot, cloudless, yet humid day. And, like a mad dog, I’ve made the journey under a noon-day sun … like an Englishman. I’m tired.
Throughout the lunch hour, I’ve dodged the shuffling footfalls of young women, to distraction. Why so many women? I can’t help but notice them, as they clique in the center of the street. — All the while, the BBC World Service is whispering into my ears. It has implanted discussion of a crowd navigation study into my thoughts through ear-plugs wired to a radio. It’s not quite the cognitive implants discussed in a previous story on the future of robotics. I can’t access the whole of Wikipedia or Google as I wend my way. — Nonetheless, as I seem to be caught in a slow-moving human tsunami headed toward the food stalls of Market Square and the restaurants of King’s Parade, I am reminded of a Japanese study on refugee movements. Published coincidentally after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, it too discusses crowd navigation. Unlike the study being discussed by the World Service, the Japanese study has been picked up by programmers in the gaming community, to inform zombie simulations. This quirky detail and something about the shuffle brings me to this moment of awakening.
I acknowledge that focusing my attention momentarily on the women of Cambridge might come off as sexist. I can’t help it. No matter how hot it is, I walk fast. And, they’re in my way. Besides, the men of Cambridge haven’t given me much to contemplate. I’ve noticed, they’re observing behaviors that can be found in almost any Friday-night country-and-western bar across North America. Like wolves watching a flock of sheep, they’re on the margins, scrutinizing the women as they pass, perhaps waiting for one to stray. The women, this while, — free-association assures me — are not sheep. Zombies, rather. And, here they are. They’re putting their posses through paces that form the catwalk of the Lion Yard, a malled shopping street through the City Centre. Apparently, it’s thē place to be seen. Each pose, remarkably alike. Mannequins interrupted in the course of construction. Upper torso precariously disjointed from the lower, with only a hand-on-hip keeping them together. I’ve seen this walk — this wounded bird behavior — before, I recall, among ground nesting birds, luring a predator away from the nest. Perhaps, the clique is the nest! Surprisingly, it is strapless summer shoes — for all intents and purposes, dress flip-flops, not the impossibility of their poses — that gives them their over-glossed zombie movements. I may be reading them incorrectly. Perhaps, this is their lure. They’ll capture the men one-by-one as they attempt to strike. Devour them. And, divine the future from their entrails, over a relaxing cup of mint tea. Men are made to be discouraged! I hear one of the women say.
My noon walk — full sun in a cloudless sky — was a drastic reaction to the last two days, living with a sinus headache. I haven’t been thinking clearly. The more I walked, the more my sinuses felt as though they were draining. Now, though, that I’ve settled before my inquisitor at the Free Press, I can feel sinus cavities filling. I’d been bailing, it seems. With that realization, I’ve given up, though I doubt a half-pint of bitters will be enough to drown me.
My inquisitor looks to be a kind of Harry Potter. He’s got the glasses anyway, even if they might be a bit too big. And, the smile. He’s wearing his black academic gown, over a grey suit, with a bow tie. What’s the most expensive Corbusier? he asks again in an up-tempo tone. I’ve noted his hair-style, too. It’s 1960s FBI chic. Straight and flat. Look, I say. “Look” is an American expression — derived from the English of 1940s British movies. Look here, a character would call attention to himself. I do say. American’s have shortened the phrase to its most essential. The British have almost entirely abandoned it. Look, I’ve had an exhausting day. I plead. I’m in no mood for twenty questions — still mindful that more interview questions are likely to follow. Alright, then, he says in chipper agreement. Just one! What’s the most expensive Corbusier?
He gets marks for persistence. He’s staring at me. His eyes are swimming in those glasses. I’m struggling not to look at them, to understand the meaning of “expensive”. In what sense? I think. — To build? — To insure? — To purchase on the resale market? — In terms of up-keep? — With or without regard to location? — Perhaps, in terms of square feet? — Or, the incomparable English measure of value: the number of bedrooms, no matter how small.
With the closure of an up-market furnishings store only blocks away — its windows hosting a Le Corbusier chair and a love seat at discounted, but still outrageous prices — it will later surprise me that I haven’t thought about Corbusier’s furniture. No wonder they’re going into administration, I’ve heard one person after another remark. “Going into administration” is the British expression for “going bust”. The opening of a Poundland just next door put a point in the shape of a one pound coin on the expense of the furniture. How, I wonder, would the people from the second hand furniture store a few blocks away value this stuff if it were donated for resale? Perhaps years of expectation built at America’s Walmart stores leave me anticipating the eventuality of couple staring through the window. They might remark on the furniture with fresh insight. Look, she might say disapprovingly. They caint even spell Lee right! While he might ask, Who’s Lee Core-busy-err anyway? His question might be ridicule, if it didn’t seem linguistic slap-stick. If only my inquisitor knew where my mind might have been, …
It’s summer in Cambridge. The churches are open for tourists alongside lunch-time services for the devout. These churches have become my refuge. Failure to cake myself with sunscreen before leaving home has left my fair skin vulnerable to burn. I’m not the only one to have taken shelter in them.
— In one, an old ladies church brigade. They, the ladies are multiplying, the way bunnies used to. The gardener has just done a bit of trimming-up outside; and, they’re coming in with the clippings, using them to decorate altars. Many of the clippings will have the faint wilt of a funeral come Saturday morning. Several already do. — Hmm, feignt willed? — The grasping curl of such a leaf, still green.
— Serendipitously, the approaches of another church bear the scent of death; though frankly, it is difficult to determine if the smell originates from the refuse bins of the church next door. Its narthex has been turned into a fairly exclusive dining hall. Young men in cassocks serve meals from silver platters. Slender men clothed in impeccable suits and women wearing designer dresses handle their silver settings like doctors in an operating theatre. The great pane of glass that allows the passer-by to see beyond them, down the nave of the church, must shield them from the stench that has clawed its way up my nose.
— Back inside the neighboring church, I find the homeless. There: tens of tens of preoccupied faces turn to me as I enter. After awhile, most turn mindlessly back toward the altar. They leave the impression that they’ve always been there; and, like sunflowers; always searching but never moving away. A bit later, as I turn to leave, one of them stands. He crosses in front of me to bless himself with holy water, while I open the door onto a portico. He follows. Asks for change. The few coins that I give him will not change much.
— A last church bears a steeple studded with dove-cotes. (All of the other churches have had dull towers, capped with parapet walls.) It suggests refuge, though it looks like the nose of a military jet climbing toward a stall. As I approach, I notice a steady sting of individuals pushing-in then swallowed-up by the church’s ancient wooden doors. Yet, once inside, there is no one. Not a soul, but mine.
So, tell me, I hear my inquisitor speak, as I shake off the unsettled recollection of what I see next, what is the most expensive? Here, I recall the moment in the Indiana Jones and the last crusade movie when the last of the Knights Templar encourages Jones to choose wisely. This face, my inquisitor’s, is beginning to look familiar. I haven’t yet placed it.
My entry to this church gave pause to the procession of those entering. It’s now resumed. A woman, followed at some distance by a man, walks nervously up the nave’s center aisle. One after the other, they pause and genuflect, before the altar. Rise, and, cross themselves; head bowed. Then, they turn and briskly walk toward what, in a traditional church, should be the sacristry. Before its door, they stop — pause, as if they feel themselves being watched. The woman crouches, lifts a brass ring from the floor. She opens a trap-door, descends into an undercroft. He follows, his hands treading the door until it closes upon them. In the time that I remain in the church, this same procession continues. All of the traffic is one way. No one ever lifts the door from inside and climbs out. For a brief moment, I fancy that I’m witnessing the dead returning to their crypts. But, it’s the lunch hour; and, I haven’t yet eaten. Hunger, I know from a life-time of migraines, can change what I see.
So, here I am. — Back at the Free Press. My half-pint still has its head. My inquisitor still has his question. And, a plowman’s lunch has just arrived.
What is the most expensive Corbusier? I say repeating the inquisitor’s question. I don’t know, I answer. La Chapelle de Ronchamp, Notre Dame du Haut? I say, fearing my inquisitor’s next question, Why?, or the retort, No! Choose again. The latter would be difficult to resist. I know that a demand is not a second question.
Instead, he has another, unexpected demand. Look into my eyes, he says. — Isn’t that the question Bela Lugosi’s Dracula asks, before he bites? — All this while it seems, I’ve been doing nothing but looking into his eyes. Rolling around in those big circular glasses, I’m reminded of birthday cards with cartoon faces and paste-down plastic eyeballs. Black irises swimming, like fish in a bowl. My mother used to use those eyes on stuffed animals she made as prizes for the church carnival. The fear is that, if I answer correctly, I may be forced to take him, as a prize, home with me.
What is the most expensive Corbusier? He repeats himself, adding, This is not a question, rather — he pauses — a predication. It’s an odd clue — predication, but nothing of this exchange has been anything other than odd. Corbusier is the most expensive, I say hesitantly. Yes! Shouts my inquisitor, Indeed. I’ve been wrong about the question. It hasn’t been an entry examiner’s question. It has been a beer drinker’s question. It is then that I recognize the face. The young man is a replica of a youthful Le Corbusier. For all I know, from the heat and exhaustion of the day’s walk, it is Corbusier, himself. He’s begging recognition before he returns to the undercroft and the stone that knows his name.
The Japanese study of refugee movements:
Asakura, Koichi and Hiroki Aoyama. Movement algorithms for refugee agents for virtual disaster simulation systems. Published in: KES-AMSTA'11 : Proceedings of the 5th KES international conference on Agent and multi-agent systems: technologies and applications. Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer-Verlag, 2011. Pp. 583-591.
Drowning in a half-pint of bitters:
I will remember later that Le Corbusier died by drowning during the lunch hour.
Poundland:
Something like a Dollar Store. Only more expensive, if you’re thinking in US dollars.
Walmart:
The owner of ASDA supermarkets in the UK.
Something like a Poundland, only better. An American one-stop discount store and market town rolled into one. Any one of its “outlets” covers the pitch of four football fields, if not more, with everything from groceries to food, pharmaceuticals to electronics, clothing to gardening supplies, and so on and on.
The face of the young man:
Corbusier
