Unusual Uses for Olive Oil by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

sparrow, perhaps, or a robin, neither of which seemed to feature very prominently in heraldry.
    There was a bell pull, which he pulled with a sharp tug. It would take a long time, he thought, for a bell to sound in the depths of this great building, and aneven longer time, he imagined, before anybody would come to the door. But there was no great delay, and within a very short time he heard a key being turned in the lock and the door opened before him. A small, grey-haired woman greeted him politely.
    ‘Professor von Igelfeld?’
    Von Igelfeld bowed. ‘Yes. I believe that Frau Benz …’
    ‘Oh, Frau Benz is certainly expecting you. She is very pleased about your visit. It is a great honour.’
    Von Igelfeld beamed. The modern world was increasingly casual, and ill-mannered. People took others for granted and paid little attention to status. He did not consider himself immodest – far from it – but he
was
the author of
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
, and he was a respected professor of the University of Regensburg, and he did hold several honorary degrees, even if one was only from Belgium and another from an Italian university that had since closed down.
    ‘The honour,’ he said, ‘is entirely mine.’
    The woman smiled as she led him into an entrance hall. It was a room on a comfortable scale, with hunting prints adorning the walls, and a large rack for coats and hats. The only thing singling it out as a room in a
Schloss
rather than a mere country house was the height of the ceiling, and the elaborate plasterwork cornice that bounded it. And perhaps the carpets too, which were those faded Persian rugs of indeterminate blue that vonIgelfeld remembered from boyhood visits to his grandfather’s house; the von Igelfelds did not live on quite this scale, but they need never apologise for the quality of their rugs.
    The woman – a housekeeper, von Igelfeld presumed – led him through the hall and into a large drawing room. There, at the other end of the room, was Frau Benz herself, putting the finishing touches to a flower arrangement on a table in the window. She greeted him warmly, beckoning him across the room to admire the floral display.
    ‘Every one of these flowers is from our own gardens, dear Professor von Igelfeld,’ she said. ‘My gardener has such a marvellous touch with flowers. He is perhaps less accomplished when it comes to vegetables – his heart, you see, is not in it; some gardeners are like that. But flowers are a different matter.’ She paused. ‘Is your own gardener good with flowers?’
    Von Igelfeld shook his head. ‘He is not,’ he said.
    He did not know why he said this. We sometimes speak without thinking, without meaning to mislead, and this was one such case. He should have admitted that he had no gardener – it is not a difficult thing to say:
I have no gardener
is not a statement of which anybody should have reason to feel ashamed. But he did not say this, and instead he heard himself say
He is not
.
    ‘Then you should send him to my Herr Gunter,’ said Frau Benz. ‘He could spend a day with Herr Gunter and Herr Gunter would tell your Herr … What is your gardener’s name?’
    Von Igelfeld looked out of the window.
    ‘Herr von Igelfeld? What is your gardener’s name?’
    ‘Herr … Herr Unterholzer.’
    ‘Well then, you send your Herr Unterholzer to spend a day with Herr Gunter and he will come back to you knowing everything there is to know about flowers! What do you think of that idea?’
    Von Igelfeld laughed nervously. ‘A very good idea! I am sure that they would get on very well.’
    Frau Benz now drew him gently towards the door. ‘I know that you are interested in ceilings,’ she said. ‘So let’s go and look at the ceiling I mentioned to you. The ceiling that depicts the entry of my dear husband into heaven.’
    As they walked along a corridor that led off the drawing room, Frau Benz gave a further explanation of the ceiling. ‘The concept, I must