If there's one thing he's learned from me, W. says, it's not to work in the evenings. Two hours of work - real work - is enough, W. says, and that's what I taught him. Of course, I never even manage that, W. observes. Two hours - when I have ever worked for two hours? When have I ever worked at all? But he admires my resolution never to work in the evenings and never to work at weekends.
W. would like to be a layabout, he says. He'd liked to do nothing at all, not even work. But he thinks of little else but work, he says, and when he's not working, he feels a terrible urge to work and a guilt about not working. It's Protestant guilt, W. says. We all feel it, W. thinks, even him, who is a Catholic from a Jewish background. It's everywhere, says W.
He knows my views on the topic. He knows I think it should all stop and right now, he says. But haven't I fallen into the administrative trap? Aren't I in the office dawn until dusk, administrating? W. had thought I'd be the one to break from work. He thought I'd give it all up and go somewhere else.
This country, says W., is terrible. He tells everyone he meets to leave. Leave immediately, he says. Of course, when he left, he only came back, W. says. His time in Strasbourg, that great, peaceful city, taught him only that he was British, and couldn't live anywhere else. There's something wrong with him, he says. And with me, he sees it too. We're British - and worse, he says, English, and though we despite England and everything it stands for, we're stuck here.
Despite everything, though, W. still dreams of Canada: that's his escape route, he says, his line of flight. It's Canada that would teach him to work less. Canada with its great lakes and great forests. The sheer expanse of Canada soothes him, W. says. The fact of Canada. It's not like England with everyone swarming around, W. says. The Yukon: if only he could there, W. says. He'd be a gentler person, W. says, a kinder one. His soul would expand like the open expanses of Canada,, W. says.