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Tuesday
For five years I’ve been anxiously awaiting the publication of the final volume of Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust trilogy and would have stood in a midnight bookstore line like a Harry Potter fan to get it. I can now report that The Rose Field is as delicious as anticipated.
Before reading it, however, I reread the second book in the trilogy. In the process, I discovered that The Secret Commonwealth packs more of a punch now than it did five years ago. That’s because it captures what many Americans are experiencing daily under the Trump administration
The novel features scenes where agents from the Consistorial Court of Discipline (CCD) barge into previously off-limits Oxford University, carting away faculty and staff without any due process. The CCD is the enforcement arm of the Magisterium, which Pullman sets up as a cross between the Catholic Church of the Spanish Inquisition and the repressive Geneva church of John Calvin. The episode that got to me was two agents invading the home of an elderly professor and twisting her arm behind her back to get her to talk. Two other women, upon arriving, behave not unlike those brave protesters in L.A., Chicago, Charlotte and elsewhere when they see ICE grabbing people. Brenda is the more fearless of the two:
“Let her go at once,” Brenda demanded. “Take your hands off, stand back, move right away. Go on.”
Topham’s reply was to twist even harder. Hannah couldn’t help a little gasp of pain.
At one point in the interchanges, the two women are shoved to the floor but come up wielding fire irons. Brenda says defiantly, “Now turn around, go outside, and leave. You’re not getting any further with this. I don’t know who you think you are or what you think you’re doing, but by God you’re not going to get away with it.”
Janet, once a timid secretary, also refuses to back down, earning a threat from the second CCD agent. “I remember you,” he says. “You can say goodbye to that job.”
Brenda and Janet are also upset about the arrest of housekeeper Alice Lonsdale, who (again like a number of American protesters) has been arrested for lipping off to the CCD. Neither woman backs down:
Janet was trembling with shock, but Brenda seemed to have no fear, confronting the two CCD men as if all the moral power in the situation belonged to her, which it did.
“You seem to be unaware that we have authority to carry out investigations”–Manton began, but Brenda’s voice overwhelmed his.
“No, you haven’t, you thief, you coward, you thug. No one has the authority to come into anyone’s house without a warrant—you know that, and I know that. Everyone knows it. Nor do you have the authority to arrest people without a cause. Why did you arrest Alice Lonsdale?”
“Nothing to do with—”
“It’s got everything to do with me. I’ve known that woman since she was a child. There’s not a criminal bone in her body, and she’s been a first-rate servant to Jordan College too. What did you do to the Master to make him give her up?”
“That’s got nothing—”
“You can’t give me a reason because there isn’t one, you wretch, you bully, you sneaking villain.”
The two agents ultimately decide to cut their losses and beat a tactical retreat, although not before Brenda berates them one final time. “We’ll find her,” she says, speaking of Alice. “We’ll have her out of your custody, you lawless vermin. The day’ll come when the bloody CCD is drummed right out of this country with your tails between your legs.”
To save face, one of the agents utters one final set of threats on his way out:
“We know you,” he said, looking at Janet, “and we’ll have you before long,” he went on, looking at Hannah, “and we’ll find out who you are easy enough, and you’ll be in real trouble,” he finished, looking at Brenda.
Just the coldness in his eyes was enough to frighten Janet, but she felt defiant too, having helped in a small way. It might be worth losing her job to feel like that for a minute or two.
When Janet goes into work the following day, she discovers that she has in fact been fired. The administrator who has capitulated to CCD, however, can’t look her in the face as he delivers the news. I thought of those universities and school systems that have capitulated to Trump’s extortion threats, as well as those who fired faculty and staff for posting disparaging comments about rightwing provocateur Charlie Kirk following his assassination:
“Janet, I’m sorry but I have some unfortunate news,” he said.
He was speaking quickly. He still didn’t look at her. She felt her stomach about to sink, and held her tongue.
“I—um—it’s been made clear to me that it would be difficult to—ah—continue your employment,” he said.
“Why?”
“It seems that you unfortunately made a, umm, well, a bad impression on the two officers who came here yesterday. I must say I saw nothing of that sort myself—always valued your complete professionalism—and it may be that their attitude was a little excessive—nevertheless, these are not easy times, and…”
Janet explains what the agents were doing in words that apply only too well to ICE’s behavior:
“They were stealing the property of an old lady and treating her brutally, and I happened to see it going on, and me and my friend stepped in and helped her. And that’s all, Mr. Stringer, that’s all that happened. Is this the kind of country we’re living in now, that people can be sacked from jobs they do well just because they inconvenience bullies and thugs from the CCD? Is that the kind of place this is?”
The Bursar put his head in his hands. Janet had never in her life spoken to an employer like that, and she stood with fast-beating heart while he sighed heavily and three times tried to say something.
“It’s very difficult,” he said. He looked up, but not at her. “There are things I can’t explain. Pressures and tensions that…umm…college staff, domestic staff are quite properly protected from. These are times unlike any…I have to protect the staff from…”
And at the end:
He was pretending he couldn’t hear her. His face was turned down; he sat perfectly still; he was pretending she wasn’t there, and that no one was asking him questions, and he seemed to think that if he sat still and didn’t look at her, what he pretended would come true.
There are craven Bursars all over the United States right now. Thankfully, there are also Brendas and Janets. Thanks to their courage and resolve, there’s a better chance that a day of reckoning will come for ICE bullies and their enablers.
Of course, we shouldn’t need brave souls having to step up. As Galileo says in Bertolt Brecht’s play about him, “Unhappy is the land that is in need of heroes.”
