What’s My Name?

Diary Entry: August 23, 2024

The name of the bar escaped me, but its fish burger was a minor revelation, the potatoes a study in crispness. In conversation with Professor Pigou, as I worked my way through the flaky architecture of the fish, my mind unspooled, tracing the improbable path that had led me here. The more I contemplated my exodus from legal practice into the groves of academia, the more settled the rightness of the decision became. Not that I hadn’t found a certain thrill in the theatre of the courtroom or the intricate craft of a contract, but I had my fill of it. Towards the end of my career in that gilded cage, the faces had begun to blur into a gallery of nameless colleagues. I’d find myself whispering to a coworker, a spectral confidence in the hum of the office.

“Dave, who is the paralegal over there?”

He, with perfect misdirection, would indicate a boy in a red shirt.

“No, not him — the woman, standing.”

“Ah. That’s a notary, not a paralegal. She’s here for the shareholders’ meeting.”

Excellent. The only thing more humbling than not knowing a person’s name is to fundamentally misidentify their species.

Professor Pigou and I first crossed paths in 2016, when I was a mere LLM student at Illinois, adrift in the vast American Midwest. Always impeccably dressed, with a smile that seemed both genuine and professionally calibrated, he made an immediate impression. I was already calculating, already strategizing how to court a potential mentor, to lay the groundwork for the doctoral studies I envisioned and apprentice myself in the subtle art of academic patronage.

An advisor, I knew, was the key — the North Star in the firmament of one’s chosen discipline. A true mentor doesn’t hand you the answers; he illuminates the hidden scripture of the profession. He resists the urge to do the work for you — for we are creatures forged in struggle and error — but provides direction, a compass for the wilderness. With such a guide, the labyrinth of learning becomes navigable, even productive. In law, the stakes might seem low; one can’t lose much by entertaining a flawed argument in the privacy of one’s mind. But in other fields, the proper codification of skill from the outset is paramount, for flawed foundations are nearly impossible to rebuild. I was fortunate; I had found the man who embodied the platonic ideal of a thesis advisor.

But permit me a moment of self-congratulation. As much as Professor Pigou was a master of his craft, I credit my own diligence in selecting him. I understood myself. I did not require a mentor who would father me, as so many students seemed to need. I could write and defend a thesis on my own merits. So, the directive I gave myself was clear: “Leo, avoid the cloistered, socially maladroit academics, the brilliant weirdos. Seek out a man who smiles, who possesses grace, who radiates a welcoming spirit.” This was my algorithm, and it led me to Professor Pigou. This is not to say he was any less a scholar than the oddballs; one needn’t be a legal expert to discern his intellectual heft. His curriculum vitae was its own argument.

When I finally broke from practice, guided by an impulse I could only attribute to the invisible hand of God, or some other celestial creator, I composed a long letter to him, seeking counsel. I expected little, unsure if I even remained a flicker in his memory. His reply was a lifeline: a two-page email that not only recalled me but encouraged my new trajectory, laying out crucial details for the path ahead. His words are still seared into my mind — the prophecy that I had an excellent chance of becoming one of the great bankruptcy scholars in all of Eastern Europe. His support never wavered; it became a constant current. Whenever a significant event occurred in his world, he ensured I was, in some way, present.

I was thus privileged to attend — virtually — one of his crowning academic achievements: his investiture as a named professor, the chair endowed by some benefactor with a vaguely Armenian surname who had paid a handsome sum to have his legacy bolted to a prestigious university. A luxury available to anyone, it seems, with sufficient capital. It was a grand affair, an auditorium brimming with academics, dignitaries, and family. I was not there in the flesh, of course, being some 14,000 miles distant in Tbilisi. Can you, dear reader, fathom my surprise, the jolt of validation, when the email arrived with the invitation? You likely cannot. I was to join via Zoom, a disembodied presence at this fascinating ritual. Professor Pigou was granting me a piece of his world, allowing me to feel a part of an academic family so remote and yet, through a screen, so intimate.

And the pinnacle of it all? He said my name. In the midst of his address, he paused to acknowledge the students joining from across the globe, a constellation of disciples. And the farthest of them all, he announced, was Leo, from Tbilisi. Or was it someone from China? Jina, perhaps?

It was one of the purest moments of happiness in my life. The gratitude I felt was immense, even extending to his support team, who had arranged a technically sophisticated connection. A connection that was severed the very instant Professor Pigou concluded his speech. The timing was so precise it suggested the decision to press the END button had been made well in advance, a masterclass in temporal efficiency. One simply had to wait for the designated moment to execute. The delay was everything.

It was this infusion of hope that convinced me to undertake the journey, a pilgrimage for which I would sacrifice five years of my life, my intellectual energy, and my savings.

The voyage to America was its own odyssey of delay and complication. Securing tickets on short notice meant choosing between financial ruin and a profoundly late arrival. I chose the latter, embarking on a 40-hour purgatory that stitched its way from Turkey to Denmark, then to Iceland, before finally delivering me to Chicago. The journey was a fugue state of stale air and recycled announcements. From O’Hare, I began the final leg to Urbana-Champaign on a rickety, groaning train, as direct buses were non-existent. Shockingly, this domestic traverse proved nearly as arduous and lengthy as the flight from the Caucasus.

I arrived after dark and had to navigate the unlit streets to my rented apartment on foot. I found the house, but not without a struggle. The next day, at the Dean’s office, I learned that Professor Pigou had already inquired after me. “Yes,” they had told him. “He is here.”

Renting in Champaign then was a peculiar challenge. The market was managed exclusively by companies demanding year-long commitments — a baffling piece of prairie collectivism. By sheer luck, I found a room in a three-bedroom apartment.

All of this cascaded through my mind there at the bar, amid the hiss of my Coke, the crisp fracture of a potato dipped in mayonnaise, the ritual of wiping my hands and lips. And then, a strange, insistent hammering began in my skull — not a pain, but a rhythm, a percussive and unending internal construction that I could not explain. It wasn’t a bother, just a presence.

I was roused from this state only when Professor Pigou’s phone appeared inches from my face. I looked at him, startled. His arm was extended, the screen aimed at me like a single, luminous dragon’s eye.

“Is this your name?” I heard him ask, for the second time.

“Huh?” The situation failed to compute. Then clarity dawned: he was exchanging phone numbers with me. It was a significant gesture of collegiality, a move few professors would make. With his signature caution, he had typed out my name and turned the screen toward me, seeking confirmation of the spelling.

And the question followed, a refrain that suddenly possessed the weight of an oracle, a chorus from some forgotten pop masterpiece. What’s my name?