The housekeeper and the professor

Journal of Mathematics.
He seemed to live for the puzzle problems it
published, but he didn't pay much attention to the rest of magazine and left
the barely opened copies strewn around his study. I gathered up all the
issues and arranged them in chronological order; then I checked the tables
of contents and pulled out the ones in which the Professor was mentioned
for having won a prize. That still left quite a few issues. The names of
prizewinners were printed in bold type and boxed in a fancy border, so they
were easy to spot. The Professor's name seemed especially grand to me,
printed there in magazine after magazine; and the proofs themselves,
though they lost the familiarity they had in the Professor's own handwriting,
seemed all the more impressive in print, the force of their incomprehensible
arguments all the more powerful, even to me.

---

The study was hotter than the rest of the house, perhaps because it had
been closed up and silent for so long. As I packed away the issues of the
journal that did not mention the Professor, I thought about the dentist's
office and I calculated the time again. With the Professor, you always had to
keep in mind his eighty-minute memory. Still, no matter how many times I
added it up, we'd been apart less than an hour.
I told myself that the Professor was only human, and even though he was
a brilliant mathematician, there was no reason why the eighty-minute cycle
should be entirely reliable. Circumstances change from day to day, and the
people who are subject to them change as well. The Professor had been in
pain, and strangers were poking around in his mouth; perhaps this had
thrown off his inner clock.
The stack of magazines containing the Professor's work was as high as
my waist. How precious they were to me, these proofs he had devised,
studded like jewels in an otherwise featureless journal. I straightened the
pile. Here was the embodiment of the Professor's labors, and the concrete
proof that his abilities had not been lost in that terrible accident.
"What are you doing?" He had finished his bath and was back in the
study. His lips were still slack from the Novocain, but his jaw was less
swollen. He seemed more cheerful, too, as if the pain had eased. I glanced
quickly at the clock on the wall; he had been in the bath for less than thirty
minutes.
"I'm straightening up the magazines," I said.
"Well, thank you, I appreciate it. But I don't think I really need to keep
them. It's a lot to ask, but would you mind throwing them out?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because they're full of your work," I said, "the wonderful things you've
accomplished."
He gave me a hesitant look but said nothing. The water dripping from his
hair made blotches on his notes.

---

The cicadas that had been crying all morning suddenly fell silent. The
garden baked under the blinding glare of the summer sun. If you looked
carefully, you could see a line of thin clouds beyond the mountains at the
horizon, clouds that seemed to announce the coming of autumn. They were
just at the spot where the evening star would rise.
Not long after Root started school again, a letter arrived from the 
Journal of
Mathematics.
The Professor's proof, which he had worked on all summer,
had won first prize.
The Professor, of course, showed no sign of pleasure. He barely looked at
the letter before tossing it on the table without a word or a smile.
"It's the largest prize in the history of the 
Janaruobu
," I pointed out.
Afraid I would mangle the pronunciation of the long foreign title, I had
taken to calling it simply the 
Janaruobu
.
The Professor gave a bored sigh.
"Do you know how hard you worked on that proof? You barely ate or
slept for weeks. You literally sweated out the answer—and there are salt
rings on your suit to prove it." Knowing he had forgotten all this, I wanted
at least to remind him of his efforts. "Well, I remember how hard you
worked," I said. "And how heavy the proof was when you gave it to me to
mail, and how proud I was when I got to the window at the post office."
"Is that so?"
No matter what I said, he barely responded.
Perhaps all mathematicians underestimated the importance of their
accomplishments. Or perhaps this was just the Professor's nature. Surely
there must be ambitious mathematicians who wanted to be known for the
advancements they made in their field. But none of that seemed to matter to
the Professor. He was completely indifferent to a problem as soon as he had
solved it. Once the object of his attention had yielded, showing its true
form, the Professor lost interest. He simply walked away in search of the
next challenge.

---

Nor was he like this only with numbers. When he had carried the injured
Root to the hospital, or when he had protected him from the foul ball, it had
been difficult for him to accept our gratitude—he was not being stubborn or
perverse, he simply couldn't understand what he had done to deserve our
thanks.
He discounted the value of his own efforts, and seemed to feel that
anyone would have done the same.
"We'll have to celebrate," I said.
"I don't think there's anything to celebrate."
"When someone has worked hard and won first prize, his friends want to
celebrate with him."
"Why make a fuss? I simply peeked in God's notebook and copied down a
bit of what I saw...."
"No, we're going to celebrate. Root and I want to, even if you don't." As
usual, I played the Root card. "And now that you mention it, we could
combine this with Root's birthday party. He was born on the eleventh. He'll
be delighted to share the celebration with you."
"And how old will he be?" My stratagem had worked. He was finally
beginning to show some enthusiasm.
"Eleven," I said.
"Eleven." He sat up and blinked, then ran his hand through his hair.
"That's right. Eleven."
"An exquisite number. An especially beautiful prime among primes. And
it was Murayama's number. Truly wonderful, don't you think?" What I
thought was that everyone has a birthday once a year, and that was far less
interesting than a mathematical proof that had won a major prize; but of
course I held my tongue and nodded. "Good! Then we should have a party.
Children need to celebrate. Nothing makes them happier than some cake,
some candles, and a little applause. That's simple enough, isn't it?"

---

"Yes, of course," I said. I took a marker and drew a big circle around the
eleventh on the calendar, big enough to catch the attention of someone as
distracted as the Professor. For his part, he made a new note—"Friday,
September 11, Root's eleventh birthday party"—and found a spot for it just
below his most important note.
"There," he said, nodding in satisfaction as he studied the new addition.
"That should do."
Root and I talked it over and decided that we would give the Professor an
Enatsu baseball card at the party. So, while he was napping in the kitchen,
we crept into the study and I showed Root the cookie tin. He was
immediately fascinated and seemed to forget we were keeping a secret from
the Professor. Sitting on the floor, he began to examine each card,
reverently admiring their every detail.
"Be careful with them," I fussed nervously. "They're important to the
Professor." But Root hardly seemed to hear me.
It was the first time he had really had a chance to look at baseball cards.
He knew that people collected them—his friends had shown him theirs—
but it was as if he had avoided developing an interest in them. He was not
the sort of boy who would ask his mother for something frivolous.
But once he had seen the Professor's collection, there was no going back.
Another part of the world of baseball had opened up before him, and it held
a very different appeal from that of the real game. Each card was a talisman
of an imaginary game that was separate from the one he saw played out on
the field or heard on the radio. A photograph capturing a crucial moment,
an inspiring story, and the historical record inscribed on the back—all
captured on a rectangular card in a clean plastic case you could hold in the
palm of your hand. Everything about the cards fascinated Root, and this