The Housekeeper and the Professor

by Yoko Ogawa

  The Professor copied out a new tag and read it quietly to himself.

  "My memory lasts only eighty minutes."

  5

  I'm not sure if they were related to his mathematical abilities, but the Professor had some pretty peculiar talents. For instance, he could instantly reverse the syllables in a phrase and repeat them backward. We discovered this one day when Root was struggling to come up with palindromes for a homework assignment in Japanese.

  "It doesn't make any sense, but it's the same forward and backward: 'A nut for a jar of tuna'—what's that supposed to mean? Nobody would trade a jar of tuna for a nut."

  "Nut a for natu of jar a trade would dybono," the Professor murmured.

  "What did you say, Professor?" Root asked.

  "Sorfespro, say you did what?"

  "What are you doing?"

  "Ingdo you are what?" said the Professor.

  "Mom, I think he's gone crazy," Root said.

  "We'd all be crazy if we said things backward." The Professor sounded a bit sheepish. I asked him how he did it, but he didn't seem to know. He hadn't practiced, he did it almost without thinking, and had assumed long ago that it was something anybody could do.

  "Don't be ridiculous," I told him. "I couldn't reverse syllables in my head like that. You could be in the Guinness Book, or on one of those TV shows."

  The prospect of being on TV seemed to alarm the Professor; and yet, this trick came to him with even greater ease when he was anxious. One thing seemed clear, however: he was not reading the reversed syllables from a picture in his head. It was more a matter of rhythm, and once his ear had caught it, he instinctively flipped the syllables around.

  "It's like solving a problem in mathematics," he said. "The formula doesn't just come floating into your head in finished form. It starts as a vague outline and then gradually becomes clearer. It's a bit like that."

  "Can you do it again?" Root said, forgetting his homework. He was completely fascinated by the Professor's ability. "Let's see. Try Hanshin Tigers."

  "Gersti shinhan."

  "Radio calisthenics."

  "Icsthenisca odira."

  "The cafeteria had fried chicken today."

  "Dayto enchick fried had riateecaf the."

  "Amicable numbers."

  "Bersnum blecaiam."

  "I drew an armadillo at the zoo."

  "Zoo the at lodilmaar an drew I."

  Root and I tossed out sentences for the Professor one after another, challenging him with longer and tougher ones. At first, Root wrote out each one and checked it, but the Professor's performance was flawless, and Root eventually gave up. We simply said something—anything at all—and the Professor spoke it back to us in reverse syllables, without a second's hesitation.

  "Unbelievable! It's awesome, Professor! You should show people. You should be proud. How come we didn't know after all this time?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean," said the Professor. "What is there to be proud of?"

  "But you should be proud! It's amazing! People would love to see this!"

  "Thank you," said the Professor, looking down bashfully. He placed his hand on Root's flat head—a head oddly suited to supporting a hand. "This skill of mine is completely useless. Who needs a lot of scrambled-up words? But I'm glad you find it interesting."

  The Professor thought of a palindrome for Root's assignment:

  "I prefer pi."

  The Professor had another talent: finding the first sign of the evening star in the afternoon sky.

  "Ah!" he said one day from his easy chair, when the sun was still high up in the sky. Thinking he was talking in his sleep or muttering something to himself, I didn't answer. "Ah!" he said again, and pointed with one unsteady finger out the window. "The evening star."

  He was not speaking to me, but to himself. I stopped what I was doing in the kitchen to look where he was pointing—though I couldn't see anything but the sky. Perhaps too many numbers are causing hallucinations, I wondered; but, as though he'd read my mind, he pointed once again. "Look, there it is."

  His finger was wrinkled and cracked, and there was dirt under the nail. I blinked and tried to focus, but I couldn't see anything but a few wisps of cloud.

  "It's a little early for stars," I said as gently as I could.

  "The evening star means night is coming," he said, as if I'd never said a word. Then he lowered his arm and nodded off again.

  I don't know what the evening star meant to him, perhaps finding it in the sky soothed his nerves, or maybe it was simply a habit. And I don't know how he could see it so long before anyone else—he barely noticed the food I set right in front of him. For whatever reason, he would point his withered finger at a single spot in the vast sky—always the right place, as I eventually discovered—and that spot had significance for him and no one else.

  Root's cut healed, but his attitude was slower to recover. He behaved himself when we were with the Professor, but when it was just the two of us, he became moody and short. One day, when his clean, white bandage had begun to look dingy, I sat down in front of him and bowed my head.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "It was wrong of me to doubt the Professor, even for a moment. I'm sorry and I apologize."

  I thought he might ignore me, but he turned and looked at me with a very serious expression. He sat up straight, picking at the end of his bandage.

  "All right, I accept. But I'll never forget what happened." And at that, we shook hands.

  It was only two stitches, but even after he'd grown up, he still had the scar between his thumb and forefinger—proof of how much the Professor had cared about him.

  One day while I was straightening the shelves in the Professor's study I came across a cookie tin buried under a pile of mathematics books. I gingerly pulled off the rusted lid, thinking I'd find moldy sweets, but, to my surprise, the box was filled with baseball cards.

  There were hundreds of them, packed tightly into the large tin, and it was clear that the collection had been treasured by its owner. The cards were spotless, protected from fingerprints and dirt in individual cellophane wrappers. Not one was out of place nor was there a single bent corner or crease. Hand-lettered dividers labeled the players by position—"Pitchers," "Second Basemen," "Left Fielders"—and each section was in alphabetical order. And to a man, they were all Hanshin Tigers. They were perfectly preserved, but the pictures and player bios on them were quite old. Most of the photos were in black and white, and while I could follow a few of the references—"Yoshio Yoshida, the modern-day Mercury," or "the Zatopekesque pitching of Minoru Maruyama"—I was lost when it came to the "diabolic rainbow ball of Tadashi Wakabayashi," or "the incomparable Sho Kageura."

  One player had been given special treatment: Yutaka Enatsu. Instead of being filed by position, he had a separate section all to himself. While the other cards were covered in cellophane, Enatsu's were protected by stiff plastic sheaths.

  There were numerous Enatsu cards, depicting him in various poses, but this was not the potbellied Enatsu I knew. In these cards he was trim and young and, of course, wearing the uniform of the Hanshin Tigers.

  Born May 15, 1948, in Nara Prefecture. Throws left, bats left. h:179cm. w:90kg. Graduated Osaka Gakuin High School, 1967; drafted 1st by Hanshin. Following year, broke Sandy Koufax's record (382) for most strikeouts in a Major League season with 401. Struck out 9 consecutive batters in the 1971 All-Star Game (Nishinomiya), 8 failed to make contact. 1973 season, pitched no-hitter. "The Lofty Lefty." "Super Southpaw."

  Enatsu's player profile and statistics appeared on the backs of the cards in tiny print. Here he was, glove on his knee, reading the signals. Or in full windup. Or again, at the end of the pitch, eyes boring into the catcher's mitt. Enatsu on the mound, his fierce stance like a Deva King guarding a temple. And always on his uniform, the perfect number 28.

  I returned the cards to the box and pressed the lid down as carefully as I'd taken it off.

  Hidden farther back behind the she
lves, I found a stack of dusty notebooks. Judging from the discoloration of the paper and ink, they were nearly as old as the baseball cards. Long years of pressure from the tightly packed books had loosened the string holding the thirty or so folders together, and the covers were warped and bent.

  I flipped through page after page, but I found no Japanese— just numbers, symbols, and letters of the alphabet. Mysterious geometric forms were followed by equally strange curves and graphs, all the Professor's work. The handwriting was younger and more vigorous, but the ribbonlike fours and the slanted fives were unmistakable.

  There is nothing more shameful for a housekeeper than to rummage through her employer's personal property. But the exquisite beauty of the notebooks made me oblivious. The formulas snaked across the pages by some logic of their own, ignoring the lines on the paper; and just when they seemed to resolve into a kind of order, they would divide again into apparently random strands. They were punctuated with arrows and and ∑ and all sorts of other symbols, they covered the paper with dark blotches in some places, and traced faintly like delicate insect tracks in others.

  Needless to say, I could not understand any of the mysteries concealed in the notebooks. Yet somehow, I wanted to stay there forever, just staring at the formulas. Was the proof of the Artin conjecture that the Professor had spoken of somewhere here? And certainly there must be some of his work on the beloved prime numbers ... and perhaps the notes for the thesis that had won Prize No. 284 were here as well. In my own way, I could sense all kinds of things from the mysterious numbers and figures—the passion in a pencil smudge, the impatience of a crossed-out mistake, the certitude in a passage underscored with two thick lines. This glimpse into the Professor's world thrilled me deeply.

  As I looked more closely, I began to notice scribbles here and there in the margins that even I could read: "Define terms of solution more carefully." "Invalid when only partially stable." "New approach, useless." "Will it be in time?" "14:00 with N, in front of the library."

  Though these notes were simply scrawled in the spaces between the calculations, the handwriting here seemed much more purposeful than the scribbled notes attached to the Professor's suit. In these pages, the Professor had walked beyond beaten paths, looking for truth in a place no one knows.

  What had happened in front of the library at two o'clock? And who was N? I found myself hoping that the meeting had been a happy one for the professor.

  I ran my fingers over the lines of the formula, a long chain of numbers and symbols that flowed from one page to the next. As I followed the chain, link by link, the room faded and I found myself in a dark, silent place of numbers. But I felt no fear, certain in the knowledge that the Professor would guide me toward eternal, unchangeable truths.

  As I turned the last page of the last notebook, the chain abruptly broke, and I was left in the shadows. If I could have read on just a little further, I might have found what I was looking for; but the chain simply slipped from my fingers and I would never grasp its end.

  "Excuse me," the Professor called from the bathroom. "I'm sorry to bother you when you're busy...."

  I quickly put everything back in its place. "Coming," I called, as brightly as I could.

  In May, I bought three tickets for the Tigers game against Hiroshima on June 2. The Tigers played only twice a season in the town where we lived and, if you let the chance go by, it was a long wait until the next game.

  Root had never been to a ball game. In fact, with the exception of a trip to the zoo with his grandmother, he had never been to a museum or a movie theater or anywhere at all. From the time he was born, I had been obsessed with making ends meet, and somehow I had forgotten to make time to have fun with my son.

  When I'd found the baseball cards in the cookie tin, it had suddenly occurred to me that a baseball game might be just the thing for a disabled old man who passed his days wandering in the world of numbers and a boy who had spent nearly every day of his life waiting for his mother to come home from work.

  The price of three reserved seats on the third baseline was a bit more than I could afford—especially since I'd just had the unexpected expense of our visit to the clinic. But there would be plenty of time to worry about money later; who knew when the old man and the boy would have a chance to enjoy a ball game together. Besides, the Professor had only known baseball through his cards; if I could show him the real thing—the sweat-soaked pinstripes, the home-run ball vanishing into a sea of cheers, the cleat-scarred pitcher's mound—that would be a privilege. Even if I wouldn't be able to produce Enatsu.

  I thought it was a wonderful idea, but Root's reaction surprised me: "He probably won't want to go," he muttered. "The Professor hates crowds." He had a point. I'd had trouble convincing the Professor to go to the barbershop; and a baseball game was the antithesis of his beloved peace and quiet. "And how are you going to get him ready? He can't think about it ahead of time." Root always showed amazing insight when it came to the Professor. "Everything's a surprise for him. He can't plan ahead, and if you spring something big on him out of the blue like this, he could die of shock."

  "Don't be ridiculous," I said. "What if we pin the ticket to his suit?"

  "I don't think it'd work," Root said, shaking his head. "Have you ever seen him remember anything from all those notes?"

  "Well, he checks my picture on his sleeve every morning when I arrive."

  "But he couldn't even tell the difference between you and me from that terrible drawing."

  "He's a math genius, not an artist."

  "Every time I see the Professor writing a note with that little pencil, I feel like crying," Root said.

  "Why?"

  "Because it's sad!" he said. He was almost angry now. I just nodded, unwilling to argue further. "And there's one more problem," he added, in a resigned tone of voice. "None of the players he knew are still on the Tigers. They all retired."

  He was right again. If the players on his cards did not appear in the game, he would be confused and disappointed. Even the team uniform had changed since his day. The baseball stadium itself was bound to upset the Professor as well—with the fans drinking and shouting and screaming, it was the very opposite of a tranquil mathematical theorem. Root's fears were all justified.

  "I see what you mean, but I've already bought the tickets. Forget about the Professor for a moment; would you like to see the Tigers play?"

  He looked down for a moment, perhaps trying to preserve his dignity, but he soon began to squirm and finally, unable to contain himself, he danced all around me.

  "Yes!" he shouted. "More than anything!" He danced and danced and then hung on my neck. "Thank you!" he said.

  It was rainy season, and we'd been worried about the weather, but June 2 dawned bright and sunny. We set out on the four-fifty bus, while there was still a good bit of light in the sky. Some of the other passengers seemed to be heading to the game as well.

  Root carried a plastic megaphone he had borrowed from a friend, and, of course, he wore his Tigers cap. Every ten minutes or so, he asked me if I'd remembered the tickets. I was carrying a basket of sandwiches in one hand and a Thermos of tea in the other; but his constant questions made me uneasy, and I found myself slipping my hand into the pocket of my skirt just to be sure.

  The Professor was dressed as always: a suit covered with notes, moldy shoes, pencils in his breast pocket.

  I'd told him about the baseball game at three thirty, exactly eighty minutes before the bus was due to depart. Root had already arrived from school, and we tried to bring up the game as casually as possible. At first, the Professor didn't understand what we were saying. I don't think he was even aware that professional baseball was played at stadiums all over the country and that anyone who wanted to could buy a ticket and go to a game—not that this was especially odd, since he had only recently learned that you could listen to a game on the radio. Until now, baseball had only existed in the form of statistics and as illustrated cards.

/>   "You want me to go?" he asked, sounding apprehensive.

  "You certainly don't have to if you don't want. But we'd like you to come with us."

  "To the stadium ... on a bus?" Thinking about things was the Professor's special talent, and if we'd left him alone, he might have considered the matter until long after the game had ended. "And will we see Enatsu?" He'd struck us where we were most vulnerable, but Root gave the answer we'd agreed on.

  "Unfortunately, he played against the Giants at Koshien the day before yesterday, so he won't be pitching today. I'm sorry, Professor."

  "You don't have to apologize. But it is a shame.... Did he win the other day at least?"

  "Sure he did. His seventh win of the season."

  At the time, in 1992, the pitcher who wore number 28, Yoshihiro Nakada, played only rarely due to a shoulder injury. It was hard to know whether it was lucky or unlucky that no one in the dugout would be wearing number 28. If the player wearing Enatsu's number wasn't a pitcher, the Professor would have realized something was wrong, but if he had seen number 28 throwing in the bullpen, perhaps he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. He'd never seen Enatsu play, so he wouldn't recognize his windup. But if the Tigers decided to play Nakada, there would have been no mistaking him from the mound and the Professor's shock could have been terrible. Nakada was not even a lefty, like Enatsu. It would have been easier all around if there were no 28 at all.

  "Let's go!" Root urged. "It'll be more fun if you come, too." And that was enough—the Professor decided to go.

  He sat gripping the arms of his seat all the way to the stadium, just as he had at the barbershop. When we had to get off the bus he let go of the armrest and held tightly to Root's hand. We were mostly silent as we walked through the grounds to the stadium and stood in the crowded passageway leading to our seats. The Professor was no doubt shocked to find himself in a place so utterly different from his usual surroundings, and Root was overcome with excitement at the prospect of seeing his beloved Tigers. They both seemed to have lost the power of speech and merely stared around in awe.