Mark Dunn - American Decameron

It was all hard work. It required time. Time was something that Kleerekoper had in great abundance. This is what pi looks like taken to the 761st decimal place:

3.1415926535

8979323846

2643383279

5028841971

6939937510

5820974944

5923078164

0628620899

8628034825

3421170679

8214808651

3282306647

0938446095

5058223172

5359408128

4811174502

8410270193

8521105559

6446229489

5493038196

4428810975

6659334461

2847564823

3786783165

2712019091

4564856692

3460348610

4543266482

1339360726

0249141273

7245870066

0631558817

4881520920

9628292540

9171536436

7892590360

0113305305

4882046652

1384146951

9415116094

3305727036

5759591953

0921861173

8193261179

3105118548

0744623799

6274956735

1885752724

8912279381

8301194912

9833673362

4406566430

8602139494

6395224737

1907021798

6094370277

0539217176

2931767523

8467481846

7669405132

0005681271

4526356082

7785771342

7577896091

7363717872

1468440901

2249534301

4654958537

1050792279

6892589235

4201995611

2129021960

8640344181

5981362977

4771309960

51870721134

Kleerekoper planned to reach the 800th decimal place by the end of summer. He would celebrate his accomplishment with a dish of creamy Dutch Advocaat. He wondered if Mrs. Fairfax had ever tried it.

He was thinking of her.

He was thinking of her because she was at that moment on this third morning getting out of her car, which was parked right in front of his apartment building. Her son was with her. The woman was like a Dutch Shepherd Dog with a bone. He was the bone. It rankled him. He was curious about what tasty dessert she’d brought along this time, but still, it rankled him.

It was cake, as it turned out. A sweet, citrus-smelling, frosting-drizzled lemon pound cake.

His resistance was shattered.

Within minutes of Mrs. Fairfax’s arrival Kleerekoper had agreed to tutor the boy twice a week. He had wanted, in spite of the cake, to tell the woman and her son to leave him alone now and forevermore, but there was an earnestness about the boy that touched him. Jim seemed willing to really apply himself. He didn’t have a head for numbers, but that wasn’t his fault. Kleerekoper’s own head was too filled with numbers, he sometimes thought. Because they were his refuge. Pi was his refuge. He wondered how he should go on living if he didn’t have something to occupy his empty hours. Only so much of his time could be given to his undergraduates. And during the long winter break, there weren’t even any of them around.

“Twice a week,” Kleerekoper repeated. “Ninety minutes a session. Make note that I plan to work you hard.”

Jim nodded.

The first two tutoring sessions went well. Jim learned things. He retained important mathematical concepts imparted to him by an excellent teacher. Kleerekoper had never had a child, had spent very little time around children or adolescents. This was something new for him — working with the boy, guiding him, helping him to understand the simple things that Barend had mastered in early childhood.

The third session found Jim unfocused, distrait.

“What’s the matter? Why can’t you concentrate?” asked the teacher.

“I’ve been noticing: there are no pictures on your walls.”

“No. I’m not an aficionado of the visual arts, of any of the aesthetic arts. Seeking beauty in an ugly world is, to me, a fairly unavailing occupation.”

“I mean, Dr. Kleerekoper, that there aren’t any photographs —no photographs of people on your walls. Or anyplace else.”

The boy was restless. He wandered around the room, touching its naked, empty paneling.

“My family is dead. I choose to remember them only through my memories.”

“My mother told me this — about your family. Last night.”

“What else did your mother say about my family?”

The boy sat back down. “It doesn’t matter. I’m having trouble with problem number four. Can you help me with number four?”

“I’ll help you with number four if you’ll tell me why the subject of my family came up last night.”

Jim took a moment to answer. When he spoke, he withheld his gaze. It was hard to look at Kleerekoper as he said it. “We saw pictures of some of those men in the camps. The ones who survived. They looked like skeletons.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“My mother prayed last night with me. She prayed to God that He won’t let this ever happen again.”

Kleerekoper sat down at the table next to Jim. He put his palm under the boy’s chin and raised his face to look at him. “I regret to inform you, James, that her prayers are in all likelihood falling on nonexistent ears.”

“You don’t believe in God?”

The professor allowed the question to answer itself.

“I sometimes wonder if there’s a God myself,” said Jim. “I haven’t told my mother.”

“It’s best to keep such musings to yourself. James, I want to show you something.” Kleerekoper got up from his chair and fetched a folder from his desk across the room. “You’re the first to see this,” he said, opening the folder. “I spoke of pi the other day. Do you remember?”

“It’s a number that has no end. It goes on and on like eternity.”

“That’s right. I’ve calculated this unending number to the 761st decimal place. See?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you calculate a number that has no end?”

“I happen to derive some measure of satisfaction from it. Why do we do any of the things we do?”

“Are you looking for something, Professor?”

“What do you mean, ‘looking’?”

“Numbers that continue on and on like that, at some point something has to happen, right?”

“I still don’t get your meaning, boy.”

Jim wriggled slightly in his chair. “I don’t know how to say it. You say they’re just a bunch of numbers that don’t make sense. What if they did make sense? I mean, all those numbers — they have to be coming from somewhere .”

“They’re coming from nowhere , Jim. They’re already here. I just want to find out what they are. I’m inquisitive. Most mathematicians are .”

“What if God put them there?”

Kleerekoper smiled. “I thought you weren’t sure if there was a God.”

“I’m playing the devil’s — what?”

“The devil’s attorney, I think it is. Yes, you are, James. But there is no God. Show me the proof of God’s existence against all evidence to the contrary, my boy, and I will engage you further in this discussion. But for now, we must return to our far less fanciful discussion of binomial coefficients. What’s giving you trouble about problem number four?”

Two weeks later, Barend Kleerekoper took pi to the 762nd decimal point. The number was 9. A week after that, he calculated pi to the 763rd place. Another 9. He’d seen double 9s before. Nothing unusual here. School was back in session. The next decimal place wasn’t reached for another couple of weeks: a third 9. Interesting. There had only been three previous appearances of numerical triplets up to this point: a trio of 1s, then 5s, then 0s. A week and a half later, very early in the morning, Dr. Barend Kleerekoper made a rather startling discovery: a fourth 9. Quadruplet 9s! The very first appearance of a numerical foursome. He celebrated his discovery by eating a whole plate of brownies left by Mrs. Fairfax when she picked up Jim the night before.