Chapter 17

I know Maria told me she was my first point of contact but, frankly, I am anxious and really want a good chat with someone else. She says that Sione is someone I am allowed to talk to about what is going on, so perhaps I should contact him. What is the best way of doing that so as not to attract attention? Presumably, my emails and phone calls are being monitored. I will leave it until tomorrow. I receive an email asking me to a meeting on Thursday from 2 to 3 pm with Human Resources to discuss my orientation experiences. That sounds tedious. I don’t recall much in the way of orientation processes as such though I have been introduced to the university in various ways, such as through the pōwhiri. Oh well, confirm the time and see what they want to ask me.

I have a curriculum review committee meeting on Wednesday. We are getting into the tricky stuff. The analysis of enrolments in different subject areas is bound to be contentious. My own position is a little unusual as mine is the only full time position in Gender Studies. The other teaching comes from those primarily based in other areas. Two of the main ones are my office neighbours: Marion and Carolyn, whose primary affiliations are Psychology and English respectively. I’ve been told how a group of staff in a variety of subject areas gave birth to Gender Studies by tilting existing courses they taught in that direction. You could take the view that there is a staff complement of one in the area. But the mathematics of student:staff ratios required that a proportion of time of such staff be deemed to lie in Gender Studies. But there is disagreement about how you calculate that. Where there are students who are taking a course sitting in both Psychology and Gender Studies purely as an elective, there is no way of registering whether it was the psychology branding or the Gender Studies branding that drew them to it. Oh dear! Is this the kind of problem I joined a university to consider? Relax! All jobs have their equivalent of cleaning the toilets, and cleaning toilets is such important work.

I open the meeting, and we approve the minutes of the previous meeting. As we proceed to assess student:staff ratios, tension rises. Many of the subjects taught within the Faculty do not meet university targets. The languages face particular difficulties. Each language, to be viable, needs to teach from absolute beginners level, while there is another group of students with significant existing competence who need to start at a higher level. In Finland you could count on existing foreign language capacity. Māori language enrols well, particularly at beginners level. Samoan is the only Pasifika language being taught, not wholly surprising since Samoan is the third most widely used language in New Zealand after English and Māori, perhaps tied with Chinese. The only other languages taught are Chinese and French.

One line of argument that comes up is that New Zealand has three official languages: English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, so shouldn’t we be teaching all three? This does not help our current situation at all. The discussion then seems to merge into one of supporting students with disabilities of various kinds. I must exert my authority as chair of the meeting. McDuff, whose subject could suffer if too much resource is put into the languages, argues against the teaching of New Zealand Sign Language. I support his opposition but try and put it mildly. Of course, in an ideal world the teaching of sign languages would have a place in university curricula (and indeed they would) but it does not seem possible in current circumstances. The only thing we can agree on is that a subcommittee should be established to develop some specific proposals for regularising the teaching of languages. I undertake to produce some flexible targets for subject areas in general. An additional agenda item for the next meeting is the introduction of common compulsory courses. That should be fun!

Thursday rolls around and I dutifully turn up to my meeting with Human Resources. It is held in a room decorated with Pacific Island mats. One of the men I met when I first signed on initiates a kind of light discussion about my early experiences with the university and whether he can help me in any way. I talk a little about my first reactions to aspects of the institution, making comparisons with other institutions honestly enough, without developing too complaining a tone, I hope. He seems to take any implied criticisms well, but after ten minutes or so he says that the Chancellor would like to have a chat with me and makes a call. Within a minute, Sione Latu enters.

“I was hoping to have a chat with you,” I say, feeling much more engaged than I was with curriculum review matters.

“Yes, I thought you might.”

“I didn’t know how best to contact you. Can we speak freely here?”

“Yes it has been swept this morning,” Sione reassures me. “I realize you know that I asked Aroha McLean to enrol Maria as a graduate student so you could easily talk face to face with an agent involved in the case. You might like to know how I am involved in these matters.” Sione pauses. “When in the UK, I worked in intelligence.”

“For which government?” I ask.

“For the New Zealand government, though initially for another government. While I have retired from that work, I am brought in as a consultant on some matters from time to time, and it was convenient for me to assist in this matter as I have an official role in the university.”

I decide to cut to the chase. “Do you think I am a spy?”

“No.” He pauses. “Would you like to be?”

“Whatever do you mean? Are you trying to recruit me?”

“Not exactly, but we are impressed with how you have acted under pressure. Also you have been appropriately discreet.”

“I don’t think of myself as a discreet person,” I confess.

“In this matter you have been very careful, though. You handled the police interview perfectly and found a way to deliver your short message. You acted well when those agents were bugging your house. You did not tell Aroha McLean what role Maria is playing. You refrained from contacting me when you might have wanted to, a wise move when we have concerns about the security of communications.”

I am flattered but not tempted. “No. I know I contemplated this kind of thing, for the other side, when I was young but that was enough for me. I want to fully cooperate with the New Zealand authorities but I do not want to be an agent.”

“That is a shame. But it is not my job to recruit you. I mainly want to offer you my support.”

This gives me an opportunity to bring up what I have in mind. “While I am trying my best to carry on as normal and up to a point am succeeding, I am really very anxious about the situation. I have been told that my home is bugged but I can’t tell my lodger, Mikaere, which is uncomfortable. My email is compromised. I can never be sure whether my office is bugged. Worst of all, I am expecting Zoltan to contact me again. He must know, or at least strongly suspect, that I have been in contact with you somehow. He is dangerous and I don’t want to be his next victim, assuming he did kill Sammy.”

Sione considers me for a moment and then says quietly, “All your thoughts and concerns about this are perfectly reasonable. All I can say is that we are keeping an eye on you and expect matters to come to a head in a week or two. Please carry on acting in the excellent way you have been.”