The Savage Professor
Page 16
“Hello there, young man! What in the world are you doing in Oakland, Heitor? Did you get on the wrong plane?”
“Professor, I am so happy for you! This is the best result, right? To have some bail?”
“Yes, the best, although there’s still a ways to go.”
Heitor gave him the thumbs-up sign.
“Really, though, what gives? D’Iulio said you were in Brazil. Running Mato Grosso state by yourself.”
“Oh, no. But I got some little thing at Stanford for a while, your good friends, Lucile and David, give it to me. Just some fooling around, bioinformatics, maybe they teach me how to use a computer, at last.”
“Lucile and David? The Packards? If only they were my friends. So, you’re around, then, Heitor. Let’s have lunch.”
Masha taking him by the arm now, move along there, enough celebrating. Three minutes later they were in an elevator, Raboy, Harold, Deena, Masha, Linda Maturin, and Landau. Linda suggested eating at one of the pho restaurants on Twelfth Street—Pho Ga 69 was her favorite, from when she used to live in Oakland. Raboy beckoned to Landau, whispering that he had made arrangements with a bail bondsman just in case, if things went their way today, that is. This guy was less of a crook than most, and they would go over to his office after they faced the cameras down in the lobby. Okay, you ready for that? Here we go.
The elevator doors opened, and hubbub ensued. Shouted questions, poked-forward mics, but Landau had been coached to say nothing, just to smile, and he did as coached for once. Then after the mad image-and-statement-stealing set-to they were out on the street, and here there was nobody, absolutely nobody. Eleven-thirty on a Wednesday morning, middle of the workweek, and not a single car was going by, not a single pedestrian. It was as if the neutron bomb had gone off. That was Oakland for you.
chapter 13
The next week an article appeared in the New Yorker, by science-minded Mark Wormser, which made only the most decorous mention of the criminal case. The focus was on Samantha Beevors—always at the right place at the right time, Samantha, a paragon of globetrotting epidemiological enterprise, a defining figure in the age of AIDS/TB/malaria. One of four principals on “Asymptotic stability of constant steady-states for a 4X4 reaction-diffusion system in malaria modeling,” of 1994. One of two on “Optimizing the elgenvalue of the Laplacian in a sphere with interior traps,” 2002. Sheer poetry, those titles, self-parodying titles—Samantha had always been good with naming.
Wormser had handed in his copy before the arraignment, Landau deduced: there was no mention of his being charged with a capital crime, although he was a central figure in the story, as a kind of dire eminence grise, a loomer, a Darth Vader figure. The account of his early modeling treatises correct, as far as it went. Some eat-your-spinach type math talk, Wormser establishing his own expert-hood, his bona fides. No mention of the Entscheidungsproblem, unfortunately, comparing Landau to the towering epochal figure of Alan Turing: Landau had enjoyed that, so he missed it now. But Samantha’s contributions to the field were unthinkable without his own, Wormser proved, and the great mystery of twentieth century mathematical biology was why A. Landau, after three brilliant early papers, had made no theoretical contributions to speak of. Had subsided into a career rather ordinary, as if in retreat from his own inventiveness. The homeless studies, for instance. They were lovely, but many others could have done them, and they had broken no new ground.
Went home, cleaned his house top to bottom. Anti-mildew treatment for the shower. Washed the picture windows on the inside—get some young athlete to do the outside. He found dried blood under the lip of the downstairs sink, thought about calling the police, but no, it was his own, from the slashed cheek—no need to call in forensics.
Phoned Melody Fromm, to consult about his back. They forgot about his back and went swimming instead, at the new pool in El Cerrito. Landau and Georges loved this pool because the water was infused with sea salts, wasn’t over-chlorinated, which made it almost like swimming in the sea. And afterward your skin didn’t smell like Clorox.
A cold day, with rain-sprays. They hurried from the warm dressing rooms clad only in swim-togs, pulling on squeaky latex caps, and plunged directly into the water, because it was no fun with that rain hitting you. Ah. Ah. Landau nearly fell out of his outsized trunks—had to cinch them underwater. It was odd, he felt weaker without his vest of flab; before, he had bestrode the waves like a killer whale, making half the distance just by displacing volume, whereas now he moved by the flutterings of his feet and the pullings of his arms alone. No more manatee-miles for him—now he had to work for what he got.
Lunch afterwards. Melody had some patients coming at two, so couldn’t linger.
“So good, so far?”
“You mean, the new office? Yes, I guess so,” she said. “I had an office before. This is just a new partnership.”
“How many patients?”
She named a modest number. All insurance referrals, paid at a low rate.
“That’s good. Sounds like you’re on your way,” Landau encouraged.
“Maybe.”
Here was what was occupying all her thoughts and feelings these days: not the new partnership but the divorce. It had come to that—a divorce. They had irreconcilable differences, Arthur and she. Arthur had started it all, carrying on with a finance senior analyst at the university, and now that that torrid fling was over, he thought things should go on as before, more or less.
“For me it’s different. Something unforgivable has happened. I don’t mean that what he did was so bad—it’s only in the context of the marriage, which has been bad for years. I’ve given everything I had, and it’s only gotten sadder and sadder. I can’t do it anymore.”
Landau nodded—divorce bad, sad marriage also bad. She had his sympathy.
“What I dislike more than anything is hurting another person. That sounds simpleminded, but that’s me. Now he says that if I leave he’ll be ruined, and he wants us to stay in the house. But I would go under. Like a swimmer under the waves.”
She had a pretty complexion post-swim, Landau reflected, the skin a bit dry and stretched-looking, blanched, but growing rosy again. Though she was speaking of unhappiness and sadness she spoke slowly and quietly, taking small bites of her modest salad.
“Not wanting to hurt somebody else is limited as a guide to behavior. I recognize that. Maybe you’re just trying to control that person by being so kind,” she said. “Maybe that’s why the marriage got so lackluster. Me being kind and good to the point where he wanted to tear my head off. He’s had other women, not just the finance senior analyst. He’s telling me all about them now. It just rolls off me.”
It struck Landau that she was confident; most people would not have confessed so easily to being betrayed. She did not seem to be asking for sympathy, exactly. There was a disinterested tone, which interested him.
“What’s funny is that I’ve been aware for some time of having turned myself into an unsexy good person, and I think that’s how I struck back at him. I can be sexy and difficult, too, but I wasn’t going to give him that. I’m sorry. This must appear so petty compared to the problems you’re facing. I mean, you might go to jail for the rest of your life. And here I am telling you about Arthur. Boring Melody and Arthur.”
He had a vision of her: her getting out of the pool half an hour ago. Not climbing out by the metal ladder but hoisting herself over the edge coping like an acrobat. Smooth shoulder, shapely leg. Blue tank suit. He had that before his eye, in his mind’s eye.
“Petty, not at all. It’s a relief not to think about that for a minute,” he replied, “I mean, not exactly a relief, but a welcome change. All that madness.”
Still, she was determined not to talk about the divorce. She had read about the bail hearing. And that woman on Channel 4 had something new to say almost every day. Next came the trial, was that right?
“I hope it works for you.”
After she left, Landau took a bus downtown, then another up into the hills. Elfridia Mattos had used to come to his house to clean on this same bus. Still raining out, colder now. Maybe winter wasn’t over after all. Some people out on his lawn, a remnant-looking group, doing something in front of a wood structure with a rough pyramidal shape about seven feet tall. It’s a shrine, he suddenly realized, to the innocent victims. Bits of paper attached, colored ribbons, homely drawings, and people were just standing there, silently communing—soon they would light votive candles, perhaps. Landau tensed as he walked by, one hand half-raised to protect his face, but they ignored him as if he had, indeed, receded from reality. A larger principle was in play, the issue of attacks against women, and he was but the ugly occasion. He himself was unimportant.
Calls from Georges, Jad, the New Yorker fellow. “Landau here, what’s up, Wormser?”
“I thought you might not want to talk yet. Thanks for calling back.”
“Yes, and so?”
Wormser wondered how he had liked the article. Landau made a noncommittal sound.
“It’s only sixty percent what I wrote. They took out half the math,” the writer explained. “There’s a follow-up coming, and maybe one more after that, and we’ll get more of the math in then.”
“It’s already too mathy, Wormser. Give your readers what they want, more of the dead girls, more slashing, bleeding. Think what Tina Brown would have had you focus on if she were still at the magazine. This isn’t a brainy story, this is raw tabloid stuff. Take it and run with it.”
“No, that’s not how I want to go.”
Next month there would be more about the Congo, too, Wormser assured him. He wanted to ask him a few questions about Samantha and their travels there together.
“We never did go there together. We went to South Africa, but that’s different, isn’t it? I remember that paper she wrote about Central Africa, modeling war effects, modeling the war as it was ongoing. She’d gone off the cliff by then, modeling her models of models.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Look, they’re all running up against the same problem, the modelers. Disappearing up their own behinds. I don’t know much but at least I know there’s a problem.”
Wormser fell silent.
Landau, after several seconds: “You there?”
“Can I quote you on that, sir? I don’t mean word for word, but can I repeat what you just told me?”
“No, why would you?”
“Are you working on mathematical limits again? Disproof of modeling? That’s very close to your original work. Nonexistence of a certain class of solutions.”
“No, I am not working on that. I have nothing more to say about that. I am a has-been, Wormser, you said so yourself. A second-rater.”
Wormser was excited, though. The idea that Landau might be “working” again, that got his heart racing. Picking up the old treatise-writing pen.
“Could I email you a few questions, then?”
“What for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Look, I’m in New York today. I could be in Berkeley on Saturday. Let me buy you a croissant at Café Roma, on Bancroft, at 10:00 a.m. Saturday. Is it a date?”
“No, it’s not. I’m off croissants. Anyway, my lawyers have imposed a strict press moratorium. Mum’s the word.”
“It would be off the record, if you prefer.”
“Off the record, on the record. Stay where you are, Wormser, don’t come. Don’t buy that ticket.”
Felt like an old tease afterward. An old pro, lipstick misprinted on her lips, but still able to get a rise from the young ones, with a bit of the old hoochy-coochy. Speaking the right dirty words.
Sat down at his computer. Wrote something half-coherent. Had an urge for a strong cup of coffee. Mentation, unfettered mentation. Once that had been his joy.
Three hours later, eight thirteen by the clock, some tapping at his front door. One of the votive-candle holders? Asking for a match? Outside it was full dark, rain pouring down now. A miserable cold day it had turned out to be, except that it had been fun to get in the pool with a female. He crept along his darkened front hall, peered out his foyer window, saw someone on his front stoop, someone shaped like a woman. Dorothea, perhaps? Come back for another slice at him?
“Yes, can I help you?” he asked, opening the door Mrs. Bamberg-style, only two inches.
“It’s me again,” said Melody.
Landau blinked. “Oh, right. Come in. You’re all wet.”
She had parked her car downhill, she said. Then taken a wrong turn walking up. She knew his neighborhood well, but still the paths and winding lanes sometimes fooled her.
“The streets rearrange themselves at night, mysteriously. Here, give me your coat. I’ll hang it over the heater.”
“I have a patient on your street,” said the physical therapist. “Leora Bamberg? The MacArthur winner?”
“MacArthur winner? She won a MacArthur?”
Landau offered her tea or wine. Sensing an increase of social warmth indoors, Freddy appeared at the door to the deck, and Landau grudgingly let him in. They had cat talk for a while, Melody telling of a tabby cat she had owned once, named Luther, who had been a real character. Looked a lot like Freddy.
“Tabby cats are good,” Landau opined, “although gray-stripeds are also unpretentious.”
“Unpretentious? Oh, I don’t know. I’d say they’re all damned cheeky fellows.”
Nice to have a woman in his kitchen, an unexpected woman. He wanted to kiss her, just for appearing. He drank three glasses of wine too quickly, pushed the bottle away. She had put on a bit of blush, some lip gloss, a touch of mascara. Lovely, she was, made up or not. She was dressed in a longish dark skirt, long-sleeved charcoal sweater, complex shoes, vaguely fetishistic, with crossed straps. Otherwise she looked quite demure.
Remember, he told himself, she is anticipating divorcing. People who are divorcing are all mad, no matter how convincingly they dissemble being sane. Their worlds are on fire. They may need your assistance escaping the burning castle, but that’s all.
In his bed later, both clothed except for their shoes, the bedside lamp casting mellow light, Landau asked if she would walk on his back. She declined to, saying that that wasn’t really good for your spine. She arranged him on his left side instead, his topmost leg half-bent, and enveloped him in her arms while using her full body to press upon the bent leg. Then she rolled him onto his other side.
“Georges does that to me, too,” said Landau. “It’s an old chiropractor’s move. I’ve never understood it.”
“It helps loosen things up. Take a deep breath, and now let go.”
You’re the first woman to lie on top of me in over a year, he wanted to say. I’ve been deprived for quite some time, you see. Watch out.
“Something felt like it released that time.”
“Yes, maybe,” he said.
“It’s never more than subtle when it works.”
He wanted to compliment her on her bravery, coming to see him like this. Perhaps she was a crazed thrill-seeker herself, like the women who proposed marriage to murderers in prison. But no, he thought, probably not.
“Would it be okay if we just lay here? Lay here together for a while, with that lamp off?”
“Yes, sure,” he said.
There—just lying here in the dark, together. She turned on her side with her back toward him. Landau put his arm around her. Then withdrew it.
“Don’t you want to make love to me?”
A bit tak
en aback, he said, “Yes, I suppose. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“You can, but you have to do everything yourself,” she explained. “I’m going to lie here perfectly still, like someone who’s never been in bed with a man before. I’ll do whatever you say but you have to direct me.”
“Okay, fair enough.”
“I don’t even know how to take my clothes off. My leggings, for instance. I’d like to take them off, but I can’t manage it.”
Landau’s hands didn’t work properly. He felt like a bumbling youth himself, and for long moments he was unable to find the waist to her leggings. He pictured an elastic zone around her middle. What he found was much lower down, on her hips—these must be some new cut of tights, designed to perplex.
“I’ve taken down your tights now, young lady. Now turn over. I’m going to spank you.”
She laughed. “Oh, please don’t do that. Please—don’t hurt me.”
“Yes, but you’ve been a bad girl, a very bad girl. I can tell.”
God, that’s not a little girl’s bottom, he reflected: that’s a full luscious woman’s derriere, warm beneath my hand, velvet smooth. He spanked it. Melody made a sound of alarmed surprise. She was a good play-actor—convincing.
“Keep your legs together,” he commanded. “I insist that you be ladylike, no matter what.”
Heavens, where does this come from? Why are we behaving in this nonsensical mode, instead of in one of a million others possible? He had an impertinent erection now—he was half embarrassed by it, half wanting to show her.
“Put your hand over here,” he ordered.
“Why?”
“Just do it. I said so, and I am your commander.”
“Oh, my. Oh, my. It’s so big.”
“Yes, and now get up on your hands and knees. I’m going to show you what to do with it.”
Uncertain rustlings in the bed. She wasn’t sure what he wanted, she was so inexperienced, you see. Landau tore back the covers impetuously, tossed his cushy blankets to the floor.