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

In the end, a ray of hope came from an unexpected place. I had gone to pick up my paycheck at the Akebono Housekeeping Agency and was talking with some of the other housekeepers. As the Director was listening, I had avoided mentioning the Professor, and just said that my son had been wanting baseball cards and I'd had no luck finding good ones. Then, out of the blue, one of them mentioned that her mother used to run a little store, and she remembered seeing some leftover cards that had been included with candy in a shed where her mother stored old stock.

The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that her mother had retired and closed up the shop in 1985. She had ordered some candy to take on a trip her seniors group was planning, and the chocolates with the cards had been included in the shipment. Thinking the old folks would have no use for them, her mother had peeled off the little black prize envelopes stuck to the back of each box. She'd been planning to give them to a children's club, but had gone into the hospital later in the year and then closed the shop for good. This was how nearly a hundred mint-condition baseball cards had been stored in a shed all this time.

We went straight from the agency to her house, and I headed home with a dusty cardboard box. I told her I wanted to pay her for them, but she flatly refused. In the end, I took them gratefully, not daring to tell her that these discarded prizes were worth far more than the chocolate they had come with.

As soon as I got home, we set to work. I cut the envelopes open while Root removed the cards and checked them. It was a simple process, and we fell into a rhythm. We were now rather experienced with baseball cards, and Root could distinguish between the various types just by touch.

Oshita; Hiramatsu; Nakanishi; Kinugasa; Boomer; Oishi; Kakefu; Harimoto; Nagaike; Horiuchi; Arito; Bass; Akiyama; Kadota; Inao; Kobayashi; Fukumoto… The players appeared one after the other; just as the man at the shop had said, some of the cards had embossed pictures, some had original autographs, and some were actually gilded. Root no longer allowed himself the editorial comments on each card. He seemed to feel that we would achieve our goal more quickly if he concentrated harder. A drift of little black envelopes had begun to collect around me, while the stack of cards Root had collected toppled and scattered between us.

Each time I reached into the box my hand stirred up a moldy odor, mixed with the smell of the chocolate. But by the time we had worked our way through half the box, I had begun to lose hope.

There were too many baseball players. Which was hardly surprising as every team fielded nine players at a time, and there were so many teams that they were divided into Central and Pacific leagues, and the history of the game in Japan spanned more than fifty years. I knew that Enatsu had been a great star, but there were others-Sawamura, Kaneda, Egawa-each of whom had his own fans. So, even with this big stack in front of us, it was unlikely we'd find the one card we wanted. I found myself lowering my expectations, hoping that the effort would at least satisfy Root. After all, I had a perfectly good present hidden in the back of the closet. They weren't particularly fancy shoes, but they were well designed and comfortable-looking, and they had cost considerably more than a baseball card. I was sure the Professor would be pleased with them.

"Ah… " Root let out a very grown-up sound, the kind you might make if you'd just discovered the solution to a complex word problem. The little cry was so quiet and restrained that it took me a minute to realize that the card he was holding in his hand was the one we had been looking for. He sat staring at the card, keeping Enatsu to himself for a moment. Neither of us spoke as he showed me the 1985 limited-edition card containing a fragment of Enatsu's own glove.

It was a wonderful party, the most memorable one I've ever attended. It was neither elegant nor extravagant-in that sense it had much in common with Root's first birthday party at the home for single mothers, or the Christmases we'd spent with my mother. I'm not sure whether you would even call those other events parties, but I am sure that Root's eleventh birthday was special. It was special because we celebrated it with the Professor, and because it turned out to be the last evening the three of us would ever spend together in the cottage.

We waited for Root to get home from school, and then set about preparing for the party. I worked on the food while Root mopped the floor in the kitchen and did other little tasks I assigned him. Meanwhile, the Professor ironed the tablecloth.

He had not forgotten his promise. That morning, once he had confirmed that I was the housekeeper and the mother of the child named Root, he had pointed to the circle on the calendar.

"Today is the eleventh," he said, fluttering the note on his chest as if he hoped to be congratulated for having remembered.

I had not intended to ask him to do the ironing. He was so clumsy that it would almost have been safer for Root to do it, and I had been hoping that his only contribution would be to rest as usual in his chair and to stay out of the way. But he had insisted on helping.

"How can I just sit here watching when you've got a little boy working so hard?"

I might have foreseen this objection, but I would never have guessed that he would produce the iron and offer to press the tablecloth. I was astonished that he knew there was an iron in the closet; but when he pulled out the tablecloth, it was like watching a magician performing a sleight of hand. In the six months I'd been working in the cottage, I'd never seen a tablecloth.

"The first thing you need for a party is a clean, ironed cloth on the table," he said. "And I'm quite good with an iron." There was no telling how long the cloth had been stuffed in the back of the closet, but it certainly was a wrinkled mess.

The heat of summer had finally lifted and the air was clear and dry. The shadows in the garden seemed different as well. Although the sky was still light, the moon and the evening star had appeared and the clouds streamed by in ever-changing patterns. Smudges of darkness were beginning to collect around the roots of the trees, but they were still faint, as if the night had agreed to hold off for a bit longer. Evening was our favorite time of the day.

The Professor set up the ironing board on the arms of his easy chair and went to work. From the way he managed the cord to the way he set the temperature, you could tell that he knew what he was doing. He spread out the cloth, and, like the good mathematician he was, divided it into sixteen equal folds.

He sprayed each section with the water bottle, held his hand near the iron to make sure it wasn't too hot, gripped the handle tightly, and pressed down carefully to avoid damaging the fabric. There was a certain rhythm to the way the iron slid across the board. His brow furrowed and his nostrils flared as he forced the wrinkles to submit to his will. He worked with precision and conviction, and even a kind of affection. His ironing seemed highly rational, with a constant speed that allowed him to get the best results with the least effort; all the economy and elegance of his mathematical proofs performed right there on the ironing board.

The Professor was definitely the best man for this job, we had to admit, since the tablecloth was made of delicate lace. All three of us worked together, and we took unexpected pleasure in preparing for the party. The smell of the roast cooking in the oven, the drip-drop of water from the mop, the steam rising from the iron-all blended together and heightened our expectations.

"The Tigers are playing Yakult today," said Root. "If they win, they'll be in first place."