Yôko Ogawa - The Gift of Numbers aka The Housekeeper and the Professor

"If numbers never end, then there should always be more twins, right?"

"That makes sense, Root. But when you get to much bigger numbers-a million or ten million-you're venturing into a wasteland where the primes are terribly far apart."

"A wasteland?"

"That's right, a desert. No matter how far you go, you don't find any. Just sand as far as the eye can see. The sun shines down mercilessly, your throat is parched, your eyes glaze over. Then you think you see one, a prime number at last, and you go running toward it-only to find that it's just a mirage, nothing but hot wind. Still, you refuse to give up, staggering on step by step, determined to continue the search… until you see it at last, the oasis of another prime number, a place of rest and cool, clear water…"

The rays of the setting sun stretched far into the room. Root traced the circles around the twin primes as the steam from the rice cooker floated in from the kitchen. The Professor stared through the window as if he were looking out at the desert, though all he could really see was his tiny, neglected garden.

The thing the Professor hated most in the whole world was a crowd, which is why he was so reluctant to leave the house. Stations, trains, department stores, movie theaters, shopping malls-any place people gathered in large numbers was unbearable for him. There was something fundamentally incompatible between crushing, random crowds and pure mathematical beauty.

The Professor wanted peace, though that didn't necessarily mean complete silence. Apparently, he was not disturbed by Root when he ran down the hall or turned up the volume on the radio. What he needed was internal calm uninterrupted by the outside world.

When he had solved a contest problem from one of his journals and was making a clean copy to put in the mail, you could often hear him murmur, "How peaceful…" He seemed to be perfectly calm in these moments, as though everything were in its rightful place, with nothing left to add or subtract. "Peaceful" was, to him, the highest compliment.

When he was in a good mood, he would sit at the kitchen table and watch me making dinner; and if I were making dumplings, he would look on with something approaching wonder. I would take a dumpling skin in the palm of my hand, spoon on a bit of filling, and then pinch up the edges before setting it on the platter. A simple process, but he was completely absorbed by it, watching me until the last dumpling had been stuffed. I have to admit that the scene struck me as so funny that I hardly could keep from laughing.

When I was done at last and the dumplings were neatly arranged on the plate, he would fold his hands on the table and nod solemnly. "How peaceful…"

On the sixth of May, at the end of the spring holidays, Root cut himself with a kitchen knife. The Professor did not take it well.

After the four-day break, I arrived at the Professor's house only to discover that the sink had been leaking and a puddle had spread into the hall. By the time I'd called to have the water shut off and hired a plumber to come in, I was probably a bit out of sorts. To make matters worse, the Professor had seemed more remote than ever, and no matter how often I pointed out my picture among the tags on his coat, he seemed confused or oblivious. By evening he had still not come out of his shell. While my irritation might have contributed to Root's accident, the Professor was in no way to blame.

Shortly after Root arrived from school, I realized that I'd run out of cooking oil. I was uneasy leaving the Professor and Root alone, so I talked to Root before I left.

"Do you think it's okay?"

"Is what okay?" he replied, almost curtly. It is hard to say exactly what worried me, I had no premonition, I was simply anxious about leaving the Professor in charge.

"I've never left you alone with the Professor and I was just wondering if that's okay-"

"Don't worry!" Root said, running off to the study to have his homework checked.

I was gone no more than twenty minutes, but when I opened the door, I knew immediately that something was wrong. I discovered the Professor, sobbing and moaning, crouched on the kitchen floor, holding Root in his arms.

"Root… Root… his hand!"

He could barely speak, and the more he tried to explain what had happened, the more incoherent he became. His teeth chattered and sweat poured down his face. I pried Root loose from his arms.

Root wasn't crying. He may have been trying to keep the Professor calm, or he may have been afraid I would be angry with him, but whatever the reason, he had been lying quietly in the Professor's arms, waiting for me to return. Their clothes were smeared with blood and the cut on Root's hand was still bleeding, but I could see right away that the Professor's panic was out of all proportion to Root's injury. The bleeding had nearly stopped, and Root didn't appear to be in any pain. After I'd washed out the wound at the kitchen sink, I brought him a towel and told him to hold it on the cut. In the meantime, the Professor sat motionless on the floor, his arms frozen as if he were still holding Root. It seemed almost more urgent to look after him than it was to treat Root.

"Don't worry," I said, patting him gently on the back.

"How could this have happened? Such a sweet, good boy…"

"It's just a little cut. Boys hurt themselves all the time."

"But it's all my fault. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't want to bother me, so he didn't say anything… he just sat there bleeding…"

"It's no one's fault," I said.

"No, it's my fault. I tried to stop the bleeding, but I couldn't… And then he got so pale, and I was afraid he'd stop breathing…" He hid his face in his hands, covering the sweat and tears.

"Don't worry," I said again. "He'll be fine." As I rubbed his back, I realized that it was surprisingly broad and sturdy.

Neither Root nor the Professor were making much sense, but I finally managed to piece together what had happened: Root had finished his homework and was trying to peel an apple for a snack when he had cut himself between his thumb and index finger. The Professor insisted that Root had asked him for help with the apple, while Root maintained that he'd done the whole thing by himself. In any event, Root had tried to take care of the cut but he couldn't stop the bleeding, and the Professor had found him just as he'd begun to panic.

Unfortunately, the clinics in the neighborhood had already closed for the day. The only doctor answering the phone was a pediatrician at a clinic behind the train station, who said he could see him right away. I helped the Professor up and dried his face, and at that point an astonishing change came over him. He hoisted Root onto his back, and though I tried to remind him that the child hadn't hurt his legs, he ran off to the doctor's carrying Root piggyback. To be honest, the ride seemed so rough that I was worried the wound would open up again. It could hardly have been easy for the Professor to carry a sixty-pound child on his back, but he was stronger than I'd thought. He charged along in his moldy shoes, gasping a bit from time to time, but holding Root's legs firmly under his arms. Root pulled his Tigers cap down over his eyes and buried his face in the Professor's back, less from pain than from the embarrassment of being seen. When we got to the clinic, the Professor pounded on the locked door, as though he were carrying a dying child on his back.

It took only two stitches to close the cut, but the Professor and I had to wait in the darkened corridor until they had finished the examination. They wanted to be sure Root hadn't severed a tendon.

The clinic was old and depressing. The ceiling was discolored, and the grimy slippers stuck to your feet. Yellowed posters on the walls gave instructions for weaning and inoculations. The only light in the hall was the dim bulb outside the X-ray room.