The Indian Clerk

by David Leavitt

“I didn't have the time.”

  “Don't forget who's talking to you, Harold. You could have made the time. Only you're as afraid as you are eager. That's why you sent Littlewood to the India Office, and Neville to Madras.”

  “I didn't send him. He was going anyway.”

  “It comes to the same thing.”

  Hardy looks away. Gaye's perspicacity, after his death, irritates him almost as much as it did when he was alive. “Oh, go back to your broom closet,” he says, but when he turns around, the shade has already vanished.

  He looks at Gertrude. She has woken and resumed her knitting.

  “Well, I suppose now we just wait,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “Word from the Nevilles.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn't realize we were still on that subject.”

  “What's odd is that the decision's very possibly been made already. Everyone over there may know. And we're just waiting for a letter.”

  “Didn't he say he'd cable?”

  “Would he cable if it was bad news?” “Monday may bring something.”

  “Yes,” Hardy says. What he does not say is: But how am I supposed to get by until Monday?

  January 27th, 1914

  Hotel Connemara, Madras

  My Dear Miss Hardy,

  No doubt the cable that my husband sent has already arrived, therefore you have heard the happy news. After a prolonged sojourn in the region of his childhood home, Mr. Ramanujan has returned to Madras and informed my husband that he will, indeed, come to Cambridge. While I am not entirely clear on the details, I gather that he spent several days at the temple of Namakkal, praying to the Goddess Namagiri for guidance. Yet the strongest impediment to his making a decision in the affirmative was unquestionably his mother, and it was only after that good lady announced that she had had a favorable dream that he was able at last to reconcile his desires with his conscience. In this dream, his mother said, she saw Mr. Ramanujan in the company of white people and heard the voice of Namagiri commanding her to withdraw her objections and give the journey her blessing; in the case of Mr. Ramanujan, Namagiri is reported to have said, the prohibition against crossing the seas could be lifted, as traveling to Europe was necessary to the fulfillment of his destiny.

  I cannot tell you with what gratitude and happiness Mr. Neville and I learned of this fortuitous chain of events. Now Mr. Neville says that we must focus our attention on making sure that sufficient funds are available, both in Madras and Cambridge, to pay for Mr. Ramanujan's passage and to make sure that his needs will be met during the period he spends at Trinity.

  We depart in a few weeks, and perhaps Mr. Ramanujan will sail with us. Let me reiterate, Miss Hardy, how much my husband and I look forward to greeting you and your brother upon our return. In the meantime, I remain

  your affectionate friend,

  Alice Neville

  PART THREE

  Cheerful Facts About the Square of the Hypotenuse

  1

  IT'S DECIDED THAT they should meet over lunch—Sunday lunch, at Neville's house, where Ramanujan will have arrived the evening before. Hardy loathes introductions, the formality of first handshakes, the rote inquiries about the journey and the throat clearing afterward. If it were possible (and perhaps someday physics will make it possible) he would like to own a device akin to Wells's time machine, but more modest in purpose, designed so that one might leap over awkward moments and into a more tolerable future. Instantly. If you had such a machine, you would never have to wait for the results of an examination to be posted, or judge whether the newly arrived “Ph.D.” from Princeton was going to answer your advances with friendliness or hostility. Instead you could just pull a lever or push a button and be already in possession of your exam results, or on the way to bed with the friendly “Ph.D.,” or safe at home after being rebuffed by the hostile one. And if you knew that you wouldn't have to go through these things, then you wouldn't have to dread them. As Hardy dreads this first meeting, this first lunch with Ramanujan.

  Why does he dread it? Too much expectation, he supposes; too much wrangling with institutional forces, and too many delays, and far, far too many letters. A fat file of them: from Neville, from Alice Neville, from various colonial bureaucrats, from Ramanujan himself. As it happens, finding the money to get Ramanujan to England has proven to be far more difficult than was persuading him to come. In the opinion of Mallet, it was highly unlikely that funds sufficient to support a student at Cambridge could be raised in Madras. Trinity promised only to consider giving Ramanujan a scholarship after he had been there a year. Nor was there any question of the India Office itself contributing so much as a penny. Indeed, Mallet wrote to Hardy, in his opinion Neville had made a grave mistake encouraging Rama-nujan to come in the first place; there was “a danger that a student in India might count on Mr. Neville's kindly assurance, and assume that a Cambridge don would find it easy to raise the money required.” Which, beyond the £50 a year that he and Littlewood were prepared to pledge, this Cambridge don hadn't.

  No sooner, though, had Hardy rushed off a letter warning Neville to “be a little careful” than he learned that Neville, entirely on his own, had managed to persuade the University of Madras to provide Ramanujan with a £250 per annum scholarship, a £100 clothing allowance, the money for his passage to England, and a stipend to support his family in his absence. What the India Office had assured Hardy could never be done, Neville, in the course of three days, had done.

  Neville the hero.

  And now Ramanujan is in England, and Hardy has still to meet him face-to-face, to see if the reality of him bears any resemblance to the image his mind has conjured—an image, no doubt, to which the descriptions offered by each of the Nevilles has contributed, as has (he cannot deny it) the endlessly fascinating spectacle of the cricketer Chatterjee. Not that it's been easy to forge from these fragmentary and not always complimentary clues a face on which his mind's eye, at least, can gaze. Neville is hardly what one would call a wordsmith. “Stoutish, darkish,” he said when he got back from Madras. Well, what else? Tall? No, not tall. A mustache? Perhaps. Neville couldn't recall. Hardy thought of asking Mrs. Neville but feared that if he did, he might give away the game; might reveal to her shades of anxiety that she, unlike her husband, would be perspicacious enough to glean. So he has kept his mouth shut and tried to make do with the little he's been given.

  As it happens, he's in London this week, alone in the Pimlico flat. Ramanujan is also in London. His ship docked on Tuesday. Neville went with his brother, who has a motor car, to meet him, after which they ushered him immediately to 21 Cromwell Road, across from the Natural History Museum. The National India Association has its offices there, as well as some rooms that it makes available to Indian students just off the boat in order to ease their transition into British life. Hardy went up for Easter and stayed on—needing a change of air from Cambridge, he told his sister. And if, in the course of the week, he's happened to wander past the Natural History Museum a few times, happened to gaze across Cromwell Road at number 21 and taken note of the Indians coming in and out the front door—well, what of it? It's natural to wonder if he'll recognize Ramanujan, to see if the face matches the image in his mind. A genius. What does a genius look like? What does Hardy himself look like? Hardly the typical messy-haired scientist, who, when on occasion he makes an appearance in a Punch cartoon, is usually gazing abstractedly over the tip of his pipe, his jacket misbuttoned and his shoelaces untied. Figures dance above his head, a cloud of Greek letters, punctuation marks, logic symbols, all meant to indicate his remoteness from worldly concerns and occupation of a realm at once too complex and too dull to be worth the effort of trying to enter. The scientist, in such cartoons, is estimable but laughable. Genius and joke. Whereas Hardy is the sort whom those who refer to themselves as “us” would consider “our sort.”

  And Ramanujan? Standing outside 21 Cromwell Road, Hardy has no idea. Perhaps he comes in or goes out. Perhap
s not. Nor will Hardy ask Neville—though he knows that Neville is coming down to London on Saturday to fetch Ramanujan—whether he might accompany him and Ramanujan to Cambridge. He does not want to give, even indirectly, the impression that his attitude toward this momentous arrival is anything but blasé. After all, G. H. Hardy is an important man, with many important things to worry about. Still, on Saturday morning, he takes a last stroll by the Natural History Museum before heading off to Liverpool Street to catch his train.

  Back in Cambridge, he returns to the safety of his rooms, to Hermione and his rattan chair and Gaye's bust. Ramanujan, he knows, will be staying with the Nevilles until accommodations can be found for him at Trinity. Everyone agrees—it's much commented upon in Hall—that the Nevilles have been absolutely splendid, have gone beyond the call of duty. Indeed, a few days ago, a classics fellow came up to Hardy and congratulated him on the role he'd played in “bringing Neville's Indian to Cambridge.” Hardy smiled thinly and walked away.

  The day of the lunch, he meets Littlewood in Great Court. Little-wood is whistling. “A great occasion for us,” he says as they head out through the gates on to King's Parade. “After all this effort, we've finally got him here.”

  “So we have,” Hardy replies. “Now we have to decide what to do with him.”

  “Shouldn't be a problem. Let him continue as he's been going. Oh, and teach him how to write a proof.”

  “Yes, merely that.” Hardy pulls his collar tighter against his neck. The breeze chills his bones even as the sun warms his face. Such a confluence of opposites has a calming effect upon him, so much so that, by the time they reach Chesterton Road, he's nearly forgotten his anxiety. But then, as Neville's house comes into view, his heart starts racing. Prize Day all over again. Were he alone, he might turn around, hurry back to his rooms and send a note to the Nevilles pleading illness. For better or worse, though, Littlewood is with him. Little would Littlewood guess (Little would Littlewood) the extent of his terror.

  Ethel, the housemaid, answers his knock. Hardy hasn't seen her since the tea the previous autumn. In the interval, she's put on weight, looks like a loaf of unbaked bread. The sitting room into which she leads them is flooded with a natural light that lends to the purple wallpaper a gruesome, almost funereal aspect, exposing the smudges on the window glass and the thin coatings of dust on the mahogany side tables. This effect, of sunlight on a room meant to flatter the dark, enchants Hardy. For a moment he's so distracted that he fails to notice Neville getting up from the Voysey settee, holding out his hand in greeting, guiding Hardy to the spinster armchairs, from one of which a murky figure rises. This is Ramanujan.

  The time-skipping machine works: the moment's over before he even blinks.

  Familiar names—one of them his own—are repeated. They shake hands (Ramanujan's dry and slippery), and all at once some other voice—some public orator's voice, a headmaster's voice—is booming from Hardy's throat. Words of hearty welcome. A pat on Ramanujan's back, which is warm, meaty. Ramanujan appears to be even more nervous than Hardy is. Sweat beads on his forehead: that's the first detail that Hardy takes in. His skin is the color of coffee blended with milk, and pitted with smallpox scars. He does not have a mustache. Instead there's a shadow that, from a distance, might be mistaken for a mustache, because Ramanujan's nose (squat, pronounced) comes down very low, nearly touching his upper lip. He is neither as short nor as stout as Neville suggested. The appearance of shortness and stoutness, rather, owes to his clothes: a tweed suit a size too small, a collar so tight around his neck he looks as if he's being strangled. The jacket, every button of which he has buttoned, strains to cover his belly. Even the shoes seem to clamp his feet.

  Littlewood is introduced—a smoother business. Then they all sit down, and Mrs. Neville comes in, aflutter with apologies for being delayed, and greetings for Gertrude, and questions about Gertrude. She sits next to her husband, who puts his arm over the back of the settee so that his fingers fall lightly on the nape of her neck.

  A disquieting silence falls, which no one seems to know how to fill, until once again that headmaster's voice comes crashing forth from Hardy's throat. “Well, Mr. Ramanujan,” he says. “And how was your journey?”

  “Quite pleasant, thank you,” Ramanujan says.

  “Although he was seasick for much of it,” Mrs. Neville puts in.

  “Only the first week.”

  “And how do you find England so far?” Littlewood asks.

  “I must admit, I find it rather cold.”

  “Not surprising,” says Neville. “Today in Madras it's probably a hundred degrees.”

  “For us, Mr. Ramanujan, this is warm weather,” Mrs. Neville says.

  “Still,” Hardy says, “I'm sure the Nevilles will have made you comfortable.” (What idiotic chatter! Every cell in his body resents it. He wants to rip off his clothes, to smash windows.)

  “Most comfortable, yes. They have been very good to me.”

  “He didn't close his door last night! I said to him this morning, Ramanujan, why didn't you close your door? But Alice reminded me, when we were at the hotel in Madras, the Indian guests never closed their doors.”

  “Eric, don't embarrass Mr. Ramanujan.”

  “I'm not. I'm just asking a question. Why don't Indians like closed doors?”

  “In our dwellings we do not have doors to close.”

  “Whereas we English do everything behind closed doors!” Littlewood says, laughing and scratching his ankle.

  “Yes, I fear we're a prudish people,” Alice says. “I've heard that at the department stores in London only ladies are allowed to change the clothing on the female mannequins.”

  “Is that true?” Hardy asks.

  “Of course, times are changing. For instance, I feel I can say with comparative certainty that of those of us present—those of us who are English—not one had parents who slept in the same bedroom.”

  The silence that greets this supposition also affirms it. Neville coughs in embarrassment. What a saucy character this Alice is, Hardy thinks, or at least aspires to be! Fortunately at that moment Ethel announces lunch. She holds open a door and the five of them file into the dining room, which faces the back of the house. Here the furniture, like the wallpaper, is William Morris, the chairs slat-backed and rush-seated. As for the round table, Hardy can tell from the way it's been set that Mrs. Neville considers this an occasion. She has put out silver, the best wedding china, starched white napkins. At the center there is an arrangement of spring flowers, bluebells and violets and crocuses, in a fluted bowl.

  Ethel circles with a bottle of wine, which Ramanujan politely refuses. No doubt another injunction imposed by his mad religion.

  And his vegetarianism? For an awful moment, Hardy fears lest Mrs. Neville should have prepared a traditional Sunday lunch—a joint and Yorkshire pudding and two veg and spuds, to welcome the foreigner and introduce him to English ways. In which case, what will he do? Hardy panics at the prospect of this poor Indian having to refuse even the potatoes, which will have been cooked with the meat, until he remembers that, having been to India, Mrs. Neville should know perfectly well that Ramanujan is vegetarian and have made for him, at the very least, a separate set of dishes.

  It turns out that she's gone one better. “In anticipation of your arrival, Mr. Ramanujan,” she says, “I've been studying vegetarian cookery.”

  “Much to the chagrin of the cook,” Neville adds, laughing.

  “Eric, please. The last time we were in London, Mr. Neville and I ate at a vegetarian restaurant—the Ideal on Tottenham Court Road— and we had a very appetizing meal.”

  “Aside from the meat, the only thing missing was flavor.”

  “And I purchased a vegetarian cookbook. I hope you're pleased with the results.”

  Ramanujan waggles his head in a way that might mean yes and might mean no. Such effort on his behalf seems to have left him at a loss for words. Fortunately right then Ethel comes back in, bearing a
soup tureen. Lentil soup—not bad, if a little bland—is followed by a salad, after which Mrs. Neville disappears into the kitchen, only to return bearing an immense silver platter covered with a bell. This she lays ceremoniously on the table. “As our main course today,” she says, “we have a special dish. A vegetable goose.”

  With a flourish, she removes the cover. A brown, lumpen mass, surrounded by boiled potatoes and carrots and sprigs of parsley, sits in the middle of the platter. Ramanujan's eyes widen as he takes the thing in. His mouth opens. At this, Mrs. Neville laughs brightly. “Oh, please don't worry, Mr. Ramanujan,” she says, “it's not a real goose. No fowl of any kind was involved, I assure you. We simply call it a vegetable goose because—well—it's a sort of mock goose. A mock stuffed goose.”

  “You see, Ramanujan,” Neville says, “we English are basically cavemen. Given our druthers, we'd tear raw meat off the bone with our teeth, and so when we eat vegetarian food, we try to create simulacra of the sorts of things we crave. Vegetable goose, vegetable sausage, vegetable steak-and-kidney pie.”

  Appalled silence greets this menu. “What? Do you think I'm joking? I've had a look at Alice's cookbook, and all these are bona fide recipes.”

  Ramanujan is blushing. A little smile has crept onto his face. Neville is chaffing him, Hardy sees, and he is enjoying it.

  “Call the dish what you will,” Mrs. Neville says, slicing into the lump. “All that it is is a vegetable marrow stuffed with bread, sage, and apples and then baked.”

  Steam escapes from the first incision, carrying with it a strong whiff of cinnamon. A first slice is produced, plated, and put before Ramanujan.

  “There's just one thing I don't understand,” Littlewood says, as the rest of the plates are handed round. “Why on earth would a vegetarian want to eat imitation meat? I thought the whole point was … well… not to eat meat. To eat vegetables.”

  “Personally, I'd rather have this than a plate of cold boiled turnips,” Neville says, tucking in. “Delicious, darling.”