Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

Like the consul, she was telling him where to go, but she seemed less personal and intrusive. Nachman didn’t object.

It was an extremely cold morning. Marie walked with a long stride, easily and steadily. Nachman supposed that she could walk like that for hours and remain indifferent to the cold. He found himself adjusting to her rhythm, though he was hunched up in his overcoat, chin buried in his scarf, his arm muscles tight against his ribs. He didn’t walk as smoothly as Marie. The pain of freezing air in his face was relentless. It got to his feet, too; made them blocklike.

“Do you go to church regularly?” he asked.

“I haven’t been inside a church since I was a child,” said Marie. “This one is famous, visited by many foreigners. I thought you might want to see it, but we can go directly to the ghetto. The church isn’t important.”

“Do you want to see the church?”

Marie became silent and for a moment seemed to wonder if she wanted to or not. Then she said, “Do you want to see the synagogue?”

It wasn’t an answer. Maybe Marie felt she’d answered enough questions, or maybe he’d been mildly reproached. She seemed to resist conversation as if it were a distraction from the main thing. The girl had a strong character, but Nachman wondered if it was merely a kind of psychological narrowness or limited imagination. Look how she walks. No dreamer, this girl.

“My grandparents lived in the ghetto,” said Nachman. “I don’t know where, of course, but I want to see the synagogue. My grandfather was known for his piety. It is possible that he worshipped in that synagogue. But I know almost nothing. My parents saw no reason to talk to me about their life in Poland.”

The way they walked in the cold seemed to shape Nachman’s remarks, each phrase or sentence the length of a stride, more or less.

“You know almost nothing about your grandparents?”

“I have some old photos, so that’s something, but I know very little. My grandmother died young, I think. In the photos she seems much younger than my grandfather.”

“They didn’t go to America with your parents?”

“My parents never forgave themselves. I suppose they didn’t care to remember Poland and preferred that I never think about it. How much could they say that a child should hear?”

“I see. As a result, your life has been spared bitter memories.”

“As a result, not a day passes that I don’t think about it.”

“You’re more than curious about your grandfather. You want very much to know.”

Nachman said lightly, “It’s why I do mathematics.”

The words surprised him. They sounded so simple and light, rather as though he merely meant what he said. He had intended to be ironic.

Marie glanced at Nachman, as if she had a question in mind, but decided not to ask it. Nachman continued, “As for my grandfather, he was frequently mentioned, but always in a mythical way. I heard that he was consulted by Polish nobility for his business acumen — what business, I don’t know — and respected by the Jews for his piety and learning. What does piety mean? I’m sure many Jews observed the rituals, but only a few were respected for their piety. How is it recognized?”

“He must have been an interesting person.”

“He was also a musician, and he was good at numbers. I heard that he could speak well on ceremonial occasions. I was told he was witty. But all of this is mythology. When I asked what instrument he played, I was told, ‘Many instruments.’ When I asked what he did with numbers, I was told, ‘He did everything in his head and never used pencil or paper.’ I don’t know what he spoke about in public, or on what occasions. I was told that I look like him. I inherited his name, Raphael Nachman.”

“The Germans didn’t destroy Cracow, only your family history. That’s why you came to Cracow.”

“I was invited to lecture at the university. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. If I learn something here it will be entirely by chance. Everything I know, I have always learned by sitting in a room with a pencil and some paper. My grandfather could do everything in his head. I’m not as good as he was. Maybe the problems have become different, or more complex. I’ll tell you something strange. Ever since I arrived, I’ve had an uncanny sensation. It’s as if I’d been here before. When I walk around a corner I expect to know what I’ll see. I couldn’t tell you in advance, but when I see it — a small square with a church and a restaurant or a theater — I feel I’ve seen it before. Cracow is a small city, but even so, one could get lost. I’ve walked around several times without a map and I get lost, but not for long. I have no sense of direction, yet sooner or later I find my way back to the hotel. Even the pavement has a strange familiarity. It seems to recognize me. It pulls at my feet.”

“You don’t need a guide.”

“I certainly do. I don’t know where things are.”

“We will go directly to the synagogue.”

“No, no. Take me to the church first. I would like to see what is interesting to visitors. We’ll go first to the church, then to the ghetto and the synagogue.”

Nachman was aware that he’d talked extravagantly, precisely what the American consul had warned him against. But Nachman wasn’t in love, and he was talking more to himself than to Marie.

She seemed to listen to him with the most serious concentration, her expression so intense it was almost grim. She respected Nachman as a mathematician, no doubt. Perhaps she was now fascinated by his personal revelations. Maybe she felt privileged to hear about him in a personal way, but her feelings were of no consequence to Nachman. Still, he wanted her to be less reserved, perhaps to suggest that she liked his company and wasn’t merely doing a job. She was a kid from the countryside, not a worldclass Polish beauty like Eva, the receptionist at the American Consulate. There was no danger that Nachman would fall in love in two minutes. He felt free to talk, despite the consul. After today, he’d never see the girl again. No, he wasn’t in love.

Nachman had never been in love for long, perhaps never at all, and he sometimes wondered how people knew they were in love. He’d had girlfriends, but the idea of any passionate derangement had never appealed to him. He played the violin and he solved problems in mathematics. His need for ecstasy was abundantly satisfied. Nachman wasn’t especially sensual. Two or three bites took care of hunger. The rest was nutrition. He considered himself a congenital conservative, which is not to say anything political. He was frugal by nature, and had no lust to consume the world, and he didn’t feel one was enlarged or made wise by experience. He’d been outside the United States only once before, to attend the funeral of an aunt in Toronto. This was his first trip to Europe. He walked to work and hardly ever went anywhere farther than a mile from his house in Santa Monica, though he visited his mother regularly in San Diego. Every morning in Cracow he made the bed in his hotel room and cleaned up after himself in the bathroom. The room looked as if Nachman weren’t guilty of existence.

If you said he was dull, many would agree, especially his American colleagues at U.C.L.A. They were rarely excited by Nachman’s mind in action. While some mathematicians went flying toward proofs, Nachman demanded tedious repetition. He was slow in conversation with colleagues, which was unusual for a mathematician, but the published work of Slow and Repetitious Nachman was distinguished. Some colleagues suspected that he wasn’t slow, only perverse. Like a crab, Nachman seemed to go backward while others were flying toward solutions, yet he often arrived before them.