After a refreshing night in my Kuopio hotel, I took on a hefty breakfast before getting down to the business I had come for. I opened the dissertation of the doctoral student I was to examine, now being familiar with him as the young pilot who had ferried me from Helsinki the evening before. His thesis had been printed professionally; its bulk was roughly equal to a thick issue of Reader’s Digest, and its contents, I had discovered, were suitably encyclopedic.
I had read through his entire volume at least twice before, making marginal notes I might use as questions. Now, with the examination looming, I sharpened my approach. I began on page one and read each sentence carefully, perused each paragraph, and jotted detailed notes along the margins. After all, this was to be a significant public event with faculty, friends, and relatives of the candidate all in attendance. It would be a big deal, and I had agreed to do my part.
My attention to my duty waxed and waned during that weekend. I took breaks and strolled for hours through Kuopio’s streets on the Midsummer holiday. I enjoyed a lovely dinner in the home of my host professor and his wife, and I read a few chapters of a novel I had brought along. But I also completed my preparations. By Sunday evening I was soundly prepped, armed and ready, to perform my job as what the Finns call an opponent.
I knew the entire process would be noticeably formal, that the event required academic regalia. Since I had none, I borrowed cap, gown and hood from a good friend of mine, an academic pathologist. The outfit he provided came in a fine shade of Kelly green, the color denoting medical doctors, and it created a surprisingly majestic aura. After climbing into that costume, and evaluating my image in a full length mirror, I realized that never before had I looked so professorial, or so wise. I wasn’t surprised when the driver who took me to the auditorium called me “sir”.
The preliminaries went off without a hitch. At the appointed time, the candidate and I made our appearance, he stage left, I stage right, in the sizeable hall. I can’t say with certainty how many were in attendance, but I think a hundred or more filled the seats. The candidate and I were introduced to the audience by the chairman of the physiology department, the candidate gave his opening address, and then I was invited to begin my questioning.
We each were provided with a chair and small desk, along with tablet and pencil, and of course each of us had brought our marked copy of the all-important thesis. A number of experiments described therein had a flavor close to several performed in my own laboratory, and others described were sound as well. I don’t like being tethered to desk or lectern, so for much of the time I stood and wandered about the stage.
As I lobbed my questions to him, I took care to portray my positive impression of the work he had done, and I listened patiently to his answers, which at times were quite detailed. Nevertheless, in my role as his opponent, I thought it necessary to press him for further clarifications, thereby forcing him to put even finer points on his results. The audience remained attentive throughout.
And so we went, back and forth, and back and forth again, in English of course, not in the young man’s native tongue, for some ninety minutes. Long before the end, it was obvious to me, and I think to all present, that the candidate knew his stuff, that he deserved his doctorate. After I decided that enough had been covered, and in proper detail, I turned to face the audience.
I had been coached earlier on how to report, in Finnish, that the candidate had passed my examination, this to be done primarily so his grandmother and other older relatives, with no grasp of English, would know immediately of my decision. I had a hunch my joust with Finnish would not go well, for my practices had tangled my tongue. The Finnish language has more than the normal load of complexities, but when the time came I sputtered the multi-syllabic phrase with gusto (knowing the Finns never mumble as the Danes do), and then stepped over to congratulate the man I had grilled.
His grip shocked me. His hand could not have been colder had it been pulled from a snowbank, a clue that his performance on stage had been accompanied by substantial stress. We immediately were surrounded by a group of well-wishers, and after some moments I excused myself and returned to my hotel, thinking the entire affair had gone off smoothly. I had no basis for comparison, but signs suggested the afternoon had been successful, the only oddity being the temperature of the hand I shook. I managed to catch a short nap before freshening up and making my way to a restaurant just across the street from my hotel, the site where a celebratory dinner was about to begin.
A sizeable group had already arrived when I entered the restaurant. My successful doctoral candidate/pilot was standing near the entrance, greeting his guests. He had a cocktail in hand and offered it to me. How kind of him, I thought, to have a drink ready for me. I passed into the room reserved for our dinner, chatting with a number of guests and feeling relaxed and pleased that all had gone well. Gradually we seated ourselves, and I was about to begin the first course when my stomach alerted me that certain parts of my internal machinery were slipping out of whack. I tried to ignore the message and focus on the delicacy before me, but my symptoms revved up rapidly, sending the distinct message that trouble lay ahead, that I was about to make a mess of my plate, and probably more.
With little grace, I excused myself and tumbled out of the restaurant feeling terrible. I rushed across the street to my room, barely making the bathroom before the eruptions began. That night went on and on, a thoroughly unpleasant interval, with the bathroom as my refuge. During this miserable time, as I passed through the various modes of emptying myself, questions naturally arose. I began to wonder whether the doctoral candidate thought my treatment of him had been unfair, or maybe even a bit rough. The frost on his hand certainly suggested he had suffered an ordeal. After having provided me with a fine flight the night before, did he presume he deserved to be treated gently as a form of repayment? (That made little sense to me, because I thought he had performed very well under my questioning, that with my help he had shone brightly all afternoon.) Still, considering my sudden and unexpected distress, I couldn’t avoid wondering whether he had concocted a clever method of revenge. Why did he have that cocktail for me at the ready? And what else could conceivably have brought on my abrupt distress? Wasn’t all of this quite suspicious?
Now, decades later, those questions remain unanswered. Were my suspicions justified? Who knows? Maybe some mysterious virus just happened to slip into my digestive tract at an inopportune time and trigger my set of erroneous suppositions. So, in conclusion, I have no answer. But even now the question lingers. Did he, or didn’t he?
