Now too, he is well aware of why he fell in love with her: that vitality. Her lust for life, her exuberance. The way she stood there at that machine, the one they bought together at a factory in Münster, where she apparently knew everything there was to know about brands and model numbers, interrogated the salesman in fluent German about rpms and blade positions. She was his new beginning, she repaired his willpower. That is why he cannot walk over to her now and disassemble himself in front of her.
Not only did Tineke’s morning visits draw him out of his syrupy self-pity, but also without her he would never have discovered mathematics. She rang the bell at least once, sometimes twice a week, mostly when Margriet was sitting at the mail-sorting machine across town, and then he would yank the rope that disappeared via a pulley into the stairwell, down to the front door bolt, and she clumped up the stairs, with or without Joni on her arm—blond, large, attractive, cheery, interested, intelligent. She emptied his thermos into the kitchen sink and made fresh coffee, helped him onto the balcony if it was sunny, sometimes brought a loose chair or table leg that needed sanding, sat next to his bed and chatted to him about her day, her life, about how the construction of Hoog Catharijne was coming along downtown. On one of those mornings she came to cheer him up she brought him a box full of reading material: Libelle, Ariande, Privé, Panorama, a home and garden magazine, and some of it such junk he wondered why she read it, why that blues singer of hers read it.
“From my mother,” she said, and told him that her parents lived in Tuindorp, the neighborhood where she’d grown up, and only later in the week did he rummage through the box, and maybe already then, or later, three small moss-green books with Olympic rings slid out, it was a symbol he couldn’t look at without going all bilious, and those rings nearly prevented him from thumbing through the rest of the books.
Mathematics. Arithmetic. Long ago, in Delft, algebra and geometry came easily to him, which was the only reason he did MULO-B in high school: as few languages as possible, but all the so-called difficult subjects, they were a breeze. No time for anything but judo. Everything—his penchant for motorcycles and cars, his chess set, the high school, where his father had hoped he would study—took the backseat to judo. In retrospect, it was remarkable that no one, including himself, found it the least bit strange that he passed math and physics exams without doing any homework, without studying, yes, without prior knowledge. Let’s see, what do they want from me—that’s how he took an exam. Got an eight out of ten by inventing the wheel on the spot; right there in the lecture hall he figured out how to factor a quadratic equation.
It may have been his boundless boredom, with the mother of all wet blankets having been tossed over his life, that made him take a look at the problems in those booklets. He saw mathematics for the first time in twelve years, for the first time since the Oranje-Nassau MULO. He skimmed the word problems, the geometric figures and illustrations. There were five problems in all. He took a ballpoint pen and, on the cardboard cover he’d torn off one of the magazine folders, he tackled the first problem, fussed around with the data he’d distilled from the question, made a rough sketch. Just like a joke occurs to you, or the idea for a limerick, a solution welled up in him. OK, it’s got to go like this. And if not that, then like this. After forty-five minutes he had cracked the first problem, his solution was spot-on, he knew it for sure. He went straight to the second problem, and then yet another, until soon enough he himself throbbed with spot-on-ness. If he hadn’t been confined to a plaster cast he’d have bounded down the stairs to ring Tineke’s doorbell and show her what he’d accomplished.
Usually he just sat out the tedious hours; in that kitchen it seemed like evening would never come, and when evening did come it seemed bedtime would never come, but now, suddenly, Margriet was standing there in front of him with Wilbert, who wasn’t at school yet and spent days at his grandmother’s in Wijk C. It was already getting dark, but everyday reality passed him by, he’d misplaced it somewhere, he was lost in an opaque, radiant world where closely related phenomena were either true or false, with such clarity it filled him with a thrilling energy. Rather than staring peevishly out into space, or picking petty arguments with Margriet—this wasn’t her choice either, to be cooped up with such a bitter old fart—he spent the rest of the evening engrossed in the moss-green booklets, and part of the night too; it was cold, he still remembers, it froze in the kitchen, but he let his arms and fingers go numb, and when he’d answered all the questions he went through them again, solved a few in an even better way, out of camaraderie with the problem itself—what kind of feeling was that?—and honed his scribbled calculations or improvised embellishments.
One of the problems stuck with him ever since, not so much because of the Olympic connotation, or its inventiveness, but because he came up with a variant of his own: “ada/kok = .fastfastfast …” was the given, and the question was which digits could replace the letters so that the equation would be correct. He licked that one pretty fast, but had to work much harder to give Ada a friend: “pele × play = kick × goal,” the fruits of incredible mental acrobatics that kept him awake until he heard Margriet showering upstairs.
Pelé and his goal was the first thing that Tineke’s father wanted to talk about. Unannounced and totally to his surprise, a week later the man stood next to his makeshift bed; he was more gentleman than anything, he wore a distinguished lemon-yellow spencer and had soft white hair that looked as though it had been washed and touched up on the way over. “So this is the culprit,” said Mr. Profijt, his future father-in-law, mathematics teacher at the Christelijk Gymnasium on the Diaconessenstraat. The elegant hand that sported a slim wedding ring held up the fully scribbled magazine cover that, he gathered, Tineke had brought him. “Young man,” he said earnestly, “I’ve spent my whole weekend on that Pelé kicking a goal. I can’t crack it. Save me.” Whereby Tineke’s father squatted down next to his bed and Sigerius explained, step by step, in a ring notebook the man pulled out of a leather attaché case with a flap, how he constructed the brainteaser.
“Beautiful,” said the man who was Joni’s grandfather. “Robust. And elegant at the same time. Playful too. My daughter claims you’re not a mathematician. She is mistaken. Where did you study, if I may ask?”
“In Delft,” he replied. “Oranje-Nassau MULO.”
A moment of silence. Then: “That’s impossible,” Profijt said. Tineke’s father had a friendly voice in which he wrapped schoolmasterish sentences. “It is not possible that you’ve only done MULO.”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Profijt.”
“Then you must have had help. Is this your handwriting? Do you know what these are?” He tapped one of the moss-green booklets.
“Math problems?”
“These exercise books contain the second-round problems from the National Mathematics Olympiad, 1969 edition. These five open questions, young man, were devised by the brightest mathematical minds in the country. The most talented A+ high school students train for a year, only to bang into this wall of mathematical ingenuity.”
“Aha.”
“The majority of that elite corps, the flower of the nation, one could well call it, scores two out of five. At best. Twenty points out of a possible fifty. Those students can go home well pleased. The top ten score between thirty and forty. Sometimes, but only sometimes, once every five years or so, there will be an exceptionally gifted boy among them, sadly they are always boys, a lad who gets almost everything right. Only once in the history of the Olympiad, I believe in 1963, did someone get a perfect score. Like you did. Zero mistakes. Fifty points. Flawless.”
“Nice.” From the middle of that little kitchen, which he now saw as unbearably filthy, musty, and shabby, Tineke stood beaming at him as though he’d just been knighted. She resembled her father, their faces had the same disarming roundness.
“It is not nice,” said Profijt. “Because it is impossible. I’ve studied your work with extreme interest. At times it’
s brusque, mostly surprisingly graceful. And always efficacious. It appears that certain operations and standard formulas have been derived—no, designed—on the spot. On this piece of cardboard are two, I repeat, two different proofs for Pythagoras.” He stopped briefly, weightily. “One of them, I’ve never even seen before. The other is three centuries old. If what you say is true, then I must congratulate you.”
“Dad,” Tineke said, “of course what Siem says is true. Come on, give them to him.”
Her father extended his hand. “Congratulations.” This was the first mathematician whose hand he shook, hundreds more would follow, perhaps thousands, but Tineke’s father was the very first. The hand was not calloused like a judo hand; it was also unlike his in-laws’ hands, which were clammy and jittered if they weren’t holding a bottle.
“You’ll be laid up another couple of months?” Profijt brought his attaché case to his lap and carefully removed a small stack of books. “I shall take responsibility for providing you with nourishment.” In addition to four Olympiad booklets he called “snack food,” Tineke’s father gave him something he had saved since his own student days: books sheathed in brown paper on integral calculus, on linear algebra, on integer theory, but also A Course of Pure Mathematics by G. H. Hardy, a final-year gymnasium textbook, Struik’s History of Mathematics, and even a satirical mathematics novella called Flatland.
“Work through them and let me know how you make out. Promise me that. And when you’ve finished I’ll bring some more. In return I would ask that as soon as you can walk again we pay a visit to the Uithof.”
“The Uithof?”
“The Utrecht mathematics faculty. And get well quickly, if you please. You’ve no time to waste.”
She sees him. She switches off the saw, takes off the ear protectors. “Coffee? Yes, please!” she calls out, laughing; slaps her work gloves onto a workbench outfitted with a variety of vises; glides, smiling, past a futuristic cabinet. She approaches him—carefree, unaware. His thoughts bounce over their countless discussions about Wilbert, with the late ’80s as desperate nadir, arguments that challenged everything they thought they knew about parenting. After the court case their marriage nearly fell apart, worn out as they were by that nut case. Yes, once Wilbert was out of the way they started arguing with each other, about everything. As a result she bloated up like a balloon, abandoned all discipline. After a hostile year she went off to a summer course in England, a top-notch academy for furniture makers, “the chance of a lifetime,” but in fact it was pure escapism. She spent three months in Dorset and he missed her terribly. So badly that before she got back he invested a small fortune transforming the abandoned stall into a studio: troughs and timber out, table saws in, storage racks, compressors for the vacuum, staple guns, a whale of a veneer press.
“What’s up?” she asks cheerfully, looking at him under halogen lighting so bright that he’s afraid she can read his thoughts.
Here? Now? What a mistake to think that he can spill out his pathetic, putrid news here, under the rafters of this hopeful hut. For ten years now, this workshop has symbolized the success of their marriage, every piece of furniture that has emerged from it reminds them that they have a grip on their lives, that they do have the power to influence events. And he’s going to tell her here, of all places, about Wilbert and Joni? Maybe because he doesn’t answer, his mouth just a slit from which he can see his breath, Tineke picks up the conversation. “You know what I was just thinking?” she says, taking his hand between her surprisingly warm fingers. “Wouldn’t it be a great idea to fly to California in February, around carnival time? Surprise Joni? I think that would be such fun.”
She has rented two films, it’s his choice. Secrets and Lies doesn’t seem like a good idea (he does not say why), so they curl up next to each other on the sofa for Magnolia, which is not unsavory enough to keep him from dozing off. What he dreams, he doesn’t know, he’s in a stifling quagmire, he’s in The Hague, but also in the Delft of his youth, he doesn’t know.
“Y’KNOW,” her voice suddenly blares in his ear. He bolts up with a start, she sounds so close by, the crown of her head tickles his chin. “You know what I forgot to mention?” She pauses the DVD.
“I was sleeping …”
“The mail,” she screams, or does it only seem like she’s screaming? “This strange envelope came last week. Have you had a look at the mail yet?”
He tries to talk and inhale at the same time. “No,” he says in a weak stammer, “well, yes, glanced through it.”
“That brown padded envelope,” she continues, “the fat one. Did you see it? Sent to the wrong address. There wasn’t a stamp, no return address either, I only realized later. Somebody must’ve delivered it by hand.”
“Why’s the movie stopped?”
“Because this suddenly occurred to me. Monday, I think it was. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I opened it up. A really strange little package, Siem. So strange.” Her voice sounds alarmed, as though a suppressed fear is rearing its head. “I tried to phone you about it.”
There is sand in his mouth, he can’t get a word out, and still he hears something: “What was inside?”
“I’ll just go get it,” she says, and makes a move to get up. “I taped it back shut. It’s not really—”
“Wait,” he says, wide awake now. “It’s upstairs, I think. I took the mail up to my study.” Before she can respond, he’s up off the sofa, walks toward the hall without looking back. “Want some wine?” she calls after him.
Numb, he stumbles up the stairs, his head is a reactor vessel. Throw the envelope out? Confess everything? Play dumb? Has she read the note? Like a zombie he opens the drawer.
“Ah,” she says as he returns to the living room, “so you’ve already opened it.” She sets two glasses of red wine on cork coasters. “And? What do you think?”
“Haven’t looked yet,” he says. Before he’s even sat down she grabs the envelope out of his hands and shakes the contents onto the sofa between them. The stockings, the panties, the handkerchief, they fall noiselessly to the seat cushion, the jet-black object bounces and lands on the back of his left hand; as though it is a huge insect, a giant caterpillar, a black widow, he yanks back his hand, the thing leaps up, clatters via the coffee table to the tiled floor.
Silence.
He is deft, socially speaking. He knows just how to look when he’s taken a swallow of scalding tea while standing face-to-face with the queen, he can debate in parliament, he can debate in parliament even while being called a fucking wanker. But now, he’s stuck. He slumps back with a groan, his burning back against the cold leather.
Hours later, walking across what is no longer his campus, he tells himself that the story he dished up was consistent and in a certain sense more logical than the truth. Although it was a pretty rough evening, the end of which is not yet in sight—tonight might never end, he thinks, Tineke is going to start brooding, she won’t leave it at this, he knows her, she’s going to fret as well, maybe she’s fretting already, she’s gone to bed, lies there staring up at the ceiling—at the same time he experiences both the relief of confession and the satisfaction of a well-told lie.
A late-autumn breeze drives waves over the athletic fields, the campus is a turbulent sea of curled leaves, the scent of damp dirt and rot forces its way into his stuffed-up nose. Removed from the world, he crosses the wet gravel of the dimly lit 400-meter track, sheltered by a wide ring of dancing alder and hazel trees. He put all the blame on Wilbert—of course he did, without any scruples. The son of a bitch deserves it, finally he’s of some use. Now that he can think it over in relative peace and quiet, Wilbert’s intrusion seems, all things considered, not so bad after all—as long as he keeps a tight rein, of course, he mustn’t forget that.
The ensuing quarrel was out of his control. Tineke’s conviction that the package was not intended for them turned out to be a form of vague self-deception. “Siem?” she said at once. “Are you mixed up
with this? Don’t tell me you know something about this.”
The solution presented itself like a mathematical proof, logical, irrefutable, organic …“Yes, dear, well, I do know something about it,” he admitted, but instead of starting at A he started somewhere around Z, quite naturally, he thought, and yet careering forward, whispering to himself to keep as close as possible to the truth. In a somber tone of voice he told her that the text messages had started that summer, scarcely a week after that reception where Menno Wijn had shown up. At first he had no idea who was sending them, nor what they referred to, but he was hardly pleased to get them. Joni was a whore, that’s what it boiled down to, and did he know, and it was just what he deserved—yeah, it was awful. Some time later—“and here it comes, Tien, brace yourself, this isn’t pretty”—one of those texts contained a website address, advising him to have a look. So he did.
“And? Well? Where are you going with this? Siem—quit being so sinister! What did you find?”
“I’ll explain, honey,” and he took her hand in his. She reacted quite calmly to his account of the website, perhaps because he presented it so calmly, euphemistically, avoiding the word “porn,” while distracting her with his alleged concurrent suspicion that Wilbert was behind those texts—go on, shoot the messenger. “Well, I got the shock of my life,” he said. “Tien, it was one of those sites, I couldn’t believe my eyes, although at first I couldn’t believe I was looking at Joni.”
The strange part was that her indignation was not directed at Wilbert (that’s how accustomed she was to his monkey business, no doubt), nor at Aaron and Joni (she only seemed to partly realize it), but at him. Why wait till now to bring it up? It was a lot to handle all at once, of course: the nasty erotic junk lying there between them, all that “wanker” stuff. (“Why does he call you that?” “You know what a filthy mouth he has.” “Are you keeping something from me? Siem? What’re you up to?” “Me? Nothing, darling, just calm down.”) Yes, the why of his long silence, she made a point of it, the cavernous gap between May 2000 and now. “Six months, Siem.”
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