Case of Lies

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “What’s going to happen with the student and the wife?”

  “They’ll leave my sphere quietly, I think. None of us wants trouble.”

  Nina said, hesitating, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I’d rather have dinner with you, and talk about life and the world to come, and not talk about my everyday problems.”

  What a relief. She didn’t want to talk about her everyday problems, either. “So, how long have you been at Tahoe?”

  “Three years. I’m thinking of taking a teaching job in L.A. Living at the beach.”

  “Do you like teaching mathematics?”

  “I love it. I love showing kids the beauty and elegance of math, how certain and satisfying the equations can be. I like undressing Nature. Seeing beauty bare. Do you like practicing law?”

  “Yes,” Nina said. “Although I fuss about the hours and the stress all the time.”

  Mick waited, but Nina didn’t go on. She had said what she usually said, and seldom did anyone want her to go farther. But Mick seemed genuinely curious, in a pedagogical sort of way.

  “That’s all you have to say about it? Why work so hard? Why put yourself on the line for strangers?”

  Nina said, laughing, “No boundaries, I guess.”

  “Be serious.”

  “Okay. This case I’m working on: I want to catch a man and make him see what he’s done to a family. All the law can do is take his money and liberty. I want to make sure he understands what he did.”

  “You want more than what’s required. Or even humanly possible. You’re setting yourself up.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “But if this bad guy came to you and asked you to defend him, you would?”

  “I might. To make sure the punishment is proportionate to the crime. To make sure he gets due process. What if he’s mentally ill? What if there are mitigating circumstances?”

  “You take on conflicting roles, avenging angel, bleeding heart.”

  “Sounds like the name of a great Chinese movie. Zhang Ziyi would be in it.”

  Mick said softly, “What’s wrong, Nina?”

  He had asked, in that disinterested tone of his, as if she were an equation with an unknown variable he wanted to investigate. She decided, just like that, to tell him.

  She said slowly, looking down at her glass, “The problem is that sometimes my work attracts violent people.”

  “You can’t mean Gottlieb Braun.”

  “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  “You know, I don’t want to talk about it, Mick. I want you to stay outside all that.”

  “I understand.”

  A long, comfortable silence ensued. Nina heaved a sigh.

  “So here you are.”

  “Trying to be useful.”

  “You don’t look like a lawyer tonight.”

  “Glad I can still surprise people now and then.”

  “Lots of people?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you go out a lot?”

  “Given my son and a twenty-four-hour job, I barely make it to the grocery store.”

  “Who’s Bob’s father?”

  “Bob’s father? Oh, a musician who lives in Germany.”

  “Still married?”

  Nina said, “We never married. But I have been married twice. And I just left a two-year relationship.”

  Mick said, smiling, “I was intimidated before, but now I’m terrified. What happened with the marriages?”

  “My first husband took up with a divorce lawyer. My second husband died.” Talking about Kurt, and Jack, and Collier, and Paul in this way made her uncomfortable. It didn’t seem dignified. Or maybe it was her complicated love life that sounded undignified. Since Mick’s love life was even more undignified, it didn’t matter as much.

  They ate and talked on. Mick told her about his downfall at UC Berkeley, another student-teacher affair. He might be a hound for women, but he was funny and charming and understanding. She reflected that these qualities of Mick’s might have been exactly what had gotten him into his trouble.

  During the tiramisu, Nina said, “I found two of the witnesses. You helped a lot.”

  “Gottlieb Braun came through? You saw him?”

  “I went to Boston.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed. What’s he like?”

  “Judging from the short time I spent with him, like something that makes a loud cracking noise and chips off the Antarctic Shelf.”

  “That’s what I figured. Nothing personal, I’m sure, but a lot of mathematicians don’t understand why other people need to take up space on their plane. Erdös called nonmathematicians ‘trivials.’ And he was considered sociable for a mathematician. So you nailed your witnesses?”

  “I managed two taps of the hammer. But I still have one more for the hammer, and I think he may be the most important one.”

  “Another math student?”

  “He dropped out of MIT in his first year of the Ph.D. program,” Nina said. “He was listed as a candidate two years ago. I can’t pick him up on the Web for the last two years.”

  “He’s not publishing, then. Most of the papers are at least indexed on the Web.”

  Nina said, “Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly are all those papers about? There seemed to be hundreds of thousands in all sorts of journals.”

  “They’re proofs,” Mick said. “Proofs of hypotheses, extensions of specialty fields, refinements. There are about two hundred fifty thousand published each year.”

  “What exactly is going on in math?” Nina said. “Are all kinds of developments occurring that I won’t hear about for five years?”

  “You’ll never hear about them,” Mick said. “The profession wanders in the wilderness. Nobody’s had a new idea in number theory since Selberg years ago. The heyday of math was the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Look at Riemann. He came up with his hypothesis about the primes in 1854. We desperately need a new Euler or Riemann to burst on the scene.”

  “Are you being honest, or bitter?”

  “Both. I haven’t got the skill or dedication to write a paper. But that’s okay. I’d rather see a student’s mouth drop open when she finally gets Pascal’s Triangle. I have to say, I’d be as happy as Gottlieb if somebody came up with a new idea.”

  “What about computers?”

  “Yeah. Computers. Well, the kiddies are on top of base two now, but the real impact is a new emphasis on experimentation in math rather than developing algorithms. Like the prime numbers. Computers meaninglessly spin them out, one by one. I think we have a couple billion listed now. What good is a random list? Machines waste time. They don’t prove anything. They create shopping lists. Am I boring you?”

  “Not at all,” Nina said. “This ex-student…”

  “Care to give me a name?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I might know the little slacker.”

  “Maybe you can help me indirectly. Why would a young man who has been accepted into a Ph.D. program at MIT drop out?”

  “Probably not money problems. MIT takes care of you at that point. Problems at home? Psych problems?” Mick stroked his chin reflectively. “By definition, he’s a whiz kid. Have you looked at the list of high-school national prize winners? Maybe he won something before college. Like the National Merit, or Westinghouse Science Talent Search Award. The runners-up will be listed on the Web. You think he’s the one who bought the books?”

  “One chance out of three.”

  “The American Institute of Mathematics had a Riemann seminar a couple of years ago. And there are summer institutes just for young scholars. The Ross Program at Ohio State. MIT has something, the, uh, Research Science Institute I think it’s called. Look up the teams in the USA Mathematical Olympiad. It’s like Jeopardy! for high schoolers, only harder. Here’s a napkin to write on.”

  As he rattled off names, Nina wrote them down. “You mentioned psych issues,” s
he said. “What do you mean? Stress-induced problems?”

  “Sure. It’s a rough time, the late teens. That’s when schizophrenia breaks out, especially in boys. I don’t know where to go with that. Medical records will be confidential, won’t they?”

  “I wonder about this boy,” Nina said. “Maybe I can locate him through the other two, but they have an obstructive, odious lawyer all of a sudden.”

  “Can I help? I’d like to know more about this,” Mick said.

  “I wish I could talk more about it,” Nina said. “But…” The waiter brought the bill. Mick paid. They walked out under the stars, the forest looming.

  “Late movie?” Mick said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Drink?”

  “I’m sleepy already.”

  “Drive up Echo Summit and neck on the lookout? Or Mount Rose, if you’re feeling particularly brave?”

  Nina laughed. “Not tonight.”

  “We sadly settle for an after-dinner mint, then.” He produced one.

  “I think I should be getting back.” She was thinking about Bob, home alone, feeling panicky.

  “Is it me?”

  “Of course not. You know you’re attractive,” Nina said.

  “Okay.” At her cabin, he jumped out, opened the door, and helped her out. They stood in the driveway.

  Nina wondered if Bob was peeking out the window. “Thanks, Mick.”

  “Any time. Let’s have a hug, okay?”

  They embraced. Mick’s strong arms wrapped her tightly. His mouth sought hers and they kissed. His lips were soft, not demanding. Unfamiliar.

  Fine. Unfamiliar was just fine.

  16

  ELLIOTT’S PSYCHIATRIST TOLD HIM THE DREAM precipitated his psychosis. He wasn’t supposed to think about it: It would hinder his recovery. He spent more than a month in the psych hospital in Seattle, missing so much of spring semester of his junior year that he had to make it all up in the summer.

  In a way, he enjoyed his stay. They let him wear earplugs so he wouldn’t have to hear the TV. They made sure he slept and ate a lot. He wasn’t allowed to do math, but the meds made that cool, too.

  He gave up on six years of work. He decided that Riemann’s work had been stupendous, but not supernatural. His talks with Silke about physics returned to him again and again.

  A rest cure, his father called it. Elliott had allowed the breakdown to happen, gone exploring in the zeta landscape with full knowledge of the danger, and had taken a tumble, breaking something.

  He had also brought something away with him, which no meds could make him forget. Scrawled in his black notebook, his function filled several pages, in handwriting that didn’t even look like his. He had his idea, but no proof yet.

  That summer, he returned to MIT. Raj was in Madras, Silke in Germany. He rowed on the Charles during the hot hazy afternoons.

  In the evenings, he worked on the prime numbers, taking care to knock off by eleven and sleep at least seven hours.

  He now took life slowly, but there was never any question of turning his back on the primes. A very few people are granted knowledge of their destinies at an early age-gymnasts, musicians, great beauties, scientists, and many mathematicians. He had been blessed with a certain future. He knew his fate, but he also knew now that he wasn’t God; he couldn’t run rampant toward his goal; he would have to approach it stealthily, the painstaking calculations on the infinite sequence he had discovered, the endless checking and rechecking of the algebraic expressions.

  He tried to explain it to his father over the phone, but Pop couldn’t follow anymore. “The only actual numbers are primes,” Elliott said. “The composite numbers are just junk in the road, piling up, slowing down the primes.”

  “Are you sleeping?” his father said.

  “Each prime is a cloud of probabilities, like quanta.”

  “Come home as soon as classes are over.”

  “I’m back to the li line. I have finished the first phase of my work. If you give me any number up to three hundred digits, I can tell you egg-zackly how many primes there are to that point. Do you know what that means, Pop?”

  “No, I don’t, son.”

  “It’s big.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. I’m sleeping. I’m eating. It’s linked with physics. This correction we’re looking for-there is information loss from the more fundamental structure behind what we see as primes. I’m moving into phase two.”

  He had traveled beyond Riemann. Keeping his excitement in check, he stayed on the safe side of the precipice. He corralled his imagination and worked on debugging his proof, which would be a long and arduous process.

  The angel did not come to him again.

  When the first year of their graduate programs began a year and half later, Elliott and Raj and Silke resumed their gambling jaunts. Elliott and Silke did it for the money. Raj did it for the kick. Even Carleen came along a time or two. She had decided against grad school and taken a job with a company on Route 128 that made security software.

  Not wanting to see pity in them, Elliott avoided Silke’s eyes. She and Raj were never apart. Fiercely entwined and forbidding to outsiders, they were as tight as barbed wire.

  After a Fourth of July trip, the team was barred from the casinos in Atlantic City. Their photos were circulated. They dressed differently, changed their signals, and concentrated on Nevada, where they were still uncaught.

  November came. They picked a weekend.

  They chose Tahoe.

  Something was wrong between Raj and Silke on the flight west. Even Elliott, who didn’t pay much attention to silence and surly expressions, could feel it. Silke stared out the window, arms crossed, face shuttered. She ignored Raj. He didn’t seem to care. He teased the attendant and drank some of the wine they served, which was very unusual for him.

  Elliott sat behind them. He slept most of the way.

  They took a cab to some motel by the state line, paying cash as always from the stash in Silke’s purse. It was a Saturday morning, cool, dry, bright, airless from the altitude.

  Later, inside Harveys, Elliott played desultorily, waiting for Carleen or Silke to signal him to move to a hot table. Silke suddenly came to him, tears in her eyes.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “Can we go outside?”

  “Let me tell Raj…”

  “Don’t tell him.” They wound through the banks of slots and went through the revolving doors. At 6:00 P.M. or so the evening shift of tourists had just begun.

  “Shall we go back to the motel?”

  “No. Let’s go toward the mountains.” They crossed the busy highway and walked through Caesars’ acre-wide parking lot. Then they were really in the mountains, walking uphill on a dirt path, alone.

  “Did you hear? Raj is getting married.” Silke walked ahead of him, wearing those high-heeled boots that seemed so silly away from a city.

  “Oh.”

  “Is that all you can say? His parents found him a wife. A Wellesley girl whose family is from Madras. Tower Court, that’s her dorm address. Sounds grand, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He loves me, but he’ll marry her. Wait, though. He won’t marry her right away. He’s checked his calendar and squeezed us both into his future! First, he and I continue to live together while we get our doctorates, he, a man with two foolish females to keep happy; I, the doormat; she the ignorant, innocent dupe. She’ll finish grad school, marry him, and become a banker, he says, at least until the four children come. I, at that point, well, he forgot to say what I will be doing right then. But doesn’t his life sound wonderful?”

  She was really messed up, Elliott could tell by the perfection of her grammar, but she had always known this day would come. To tell the truth, he was glad Raj was finally leaving her. The old passion rose in him again, with the thought that she would be alone and lonely and perhaps turn to him.

  Then he chas
tised himself for his unquenchable egotism, which converted her pain into a potential advantage for himself.

  “He thinks he’s another Ramanujan,” Silke said as they walked. “But he has never had an original thought. Except in bed. He’s very original. When we make love, he-can I say this?”

  “Say whatever you want.”

  “He says, ‘I-am-Ram!’ over and over. You know. In rhythm.”

  “Who is Ram?”

  “A Hindu god.”

  “Does it make things more interesting?”

  “It’s funny! I’m making fun of him! What would it be like with you, Wakefield? ‘I have the proof!’ Climaxes all around.”

  “Silke, you are savage.”

  “Only because-I do feel savage.”

  Elliott puffed now as the trail became steeper and rockier, petering out. He could hear the sound of a stream to his left. “Let’s go this way.” Silke followed him as he picked his way across the rocks. “Let’s sit down,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.” Bushes clustered along the bank of the streamlet he had found. He reached down, letting the cold pure water run over his hand.

  “He gave her an engagement ring.” Tears choked her voice.

  “His family is wealthy,” Elliott said practically. “Conservative. So is he. You always knew that.”

  “He loves me!”

  “He does.”

  “He can’t leave me.”

  “How do you mean? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not thinking,” Silke said. She let out a bitter laugh, then said, “Do you still love me?”

  “I’ll always love you.”

  “I’ll always love Raj.”

  “Stay with him, then, for as long as you can.”

  “But-” She brushed away her hair and looked at him dubiously. “I’m too good to be second best. I deserve-”

  Elliott said, “What use is pride? What does it do besides keep you away from the one you love? I never let it stop me.”

  “I’d start to hate him.”

  “I haven’t started to hate you.”

  “You’re an idiot, that’s why. You should hate me.”

  “Why are you so harsh to me, Silke? Why do you say things like that?”