Fariba Hachtroudi - The Man Who Snapped His Fingers

Nine months later, on a fine spring morning, Vima received a DHL parcel from the United States. The sender was the Colonel’s wife. It was quite large, and contained a letter and a gift-wrapped cardboard box. Vima hesitated. Should she read the letter before opening the package or the other way around? For a long while she stared at the box, with its blue tissue paper wrapping, which was creased and torn in places. A web of purple ribbon was knotted in a tangled clump, stuck to the middle of the parcel with a heart-shaped sticker. She picked up the box, shook it, and put it back down on the table. It wasn’t very heavy. She would read the letter first. She put it in her handbag and left the apartment. She needed human contact, people around her. She went to the most crowded outdoor café in town, ordered an espresso and opened the envelope. The letter was typed on letterhead from the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA.

Dear Vima,

In spite of all the precautions you took, I had to refuse to meet your contact. I didn’t want to take any risks before leaving the country. He arranged to have the package re-sent through a traveler we could trust. Recently I received your letter, my husband’s testament, and your manuscript. Thank you for your condolences. Before I reply to your request concerning your manuscript, and offer you my opinion in all sincerity, just a few words regarding my husband’s assassination. Thank you in advance for disregarding my language, which tends to be rather threadbare when it comes to feelings. When they were little my children reproached me for my mathematical way of speaking. They were imitating my husband. If human beings could communicate in mathematical language — which is more poetical than any other language — the world would be an easier place to live. Perhaps one day we will follow Nature’s example, for her immense book is written in mathematical language, as Galileo has affirmed. But let us get back to the main thing. My husband’s death was reported in the media and received a lot of commentary. It was a first, after many years. The policy of the regime — as you know — had hitherto consisted in silencing defections, particularly those of military personnel. But the murder of

that ignominious traitor

was justified as an

emanation of divine will.

This headline from an official newspaper typifies the tirades on the part of the pencil-pushers in the service of the government, which has clearly claimed responsibility for the assassination. Henceforth one conclusion prevails: the leaders’ change of tactics contains a clear message to anyone who might be tempted to follow Ala’s example. They eliminated him and they’ll start again. Anyone who might be bold enough to try now knows what to expect. Nowhere is safe. Like Ala’s friends, I also believed he’d been the target of the despots. But now your letter, which refers to Ala’s “testament as a free man,” as he calls it, has stunned me. The news affected me above all because of my children, for they know nothing about the true circumstances surrounding their father’s death. I’ll tell you more when we meet, soon I hope. I have been in the United States for not even two weeks. I just got my green card, and the administrative formalities regarding my employment at NASA are underway. As soon as my children are enrolled in high school and university, respectively, I will come and see you, if that’s all right with you. I intend to bring a suit against persons unknown for the murder of my husband. The lawyer specialized in international law whom I consulted here suggested I sue the Theological Republic. In other words, to substantiate the theory put forward by the criminal investigation police in your adoptive country. According to the lawyer, that’s the only way the mice will emerge from their hole. A situation that might seem comical if it weren’t a tragedy for my children. Obviously I will be grateful to you if you agree to help me once I get there. Take time to consider any inconvenience or problems you might encounter before you decide. Don’t take any risks. Regarding your writing, thank you again for taking the time to transcribe my husband’s declarations so admirably. I recognize him, in the intensity of his emotions, but not in the way they are expressed, which is yours. His message is extremely important to me. My children will have to learn about it sooner or later. I am sure it will help them overcome the ordeal they are undergoing. They were deeply disturbed by the way the media went after their father. They could not wait to leave the country, despite their fear of the unknown and the sorrow of leaving family and friends. I’m sure they will be better off here than back there. Unless… There are always the what-ifs. Science is based on nothing other than what-ifs, and skepticism with regard to the preconceived notions that make up the material world.

Regarding the manuscript you hope to publish, you have asked me to give you permission to present it as the testimony to a life. If you insist, I have no objection. Even though as far as I’m concerned your book is still a novel. I read it as a novel. I did not see myself in your idealized protagonist, any more than I did in the relation with the husband. This relation has been sublimated, like all the characters. At the risk of disappointing you, I am far more ordinary — at least as an individual — than the Vima in the book. The scientist might eventually become admirable if she works at it. I haven’t reached that point. Ala was blinded by his love. Would he have continued to be so blind if he had known and seen my shadow side? But then, how could he have, I hid it so well myself. We all do, to a degree, I think.

To try and help you understand me, I’ll tell you briefly about myself. I was born into a lower-middle-class family. My mother was a teacher, my father an accountant. I was a studious child, I liked school, I worked hard, but no more than that. The discovery of my gift for mathematics dates from the time of my mother’s death. I lost her when I was eight years old. I was raised by my father, who never remarried. He cherished me, protected me, and encouraged me. But gradually I withdrew into myself. A sort of autism, due to absence. But while I was turning into an introverted little girl, I also became increasingly curious. I made up for the lack of a mother through a quest for knowledge. I interrogated the sky, where my mother was supposed to have found eternal rest. I wanted to understand the world beyond my immediate surroundings, there on solid ground. I was obsessed by shapes and space, and naturally by figures and numbers. My professors could see I was brilliant at math. I was not much older than ten when, without knowing it, I happened upon the golden ratio. How did I do that? While playing. My games were solitary. I would draw shapes — squares, rectangles, triangles. I measured them, and constructed mathematical diagrams with the few tools I had at my disposal. The multiplication tables and a compass, basically. Purely by chance I discovered the so-called golden rectangle, whose side lengths are in the golden ratio. It was by juxtaposing rectangles of varying sizes hundreds of times that I obtained the visual result that was so surprising. I aligned two rectangles along their base, one horizontally, the other vertically. Then I drew a diagonal from the first rectangle and prolonged it into the second. Result: the diagonal line joined the tops of the two rectangles. I was in a trance. I tried the same thing again with certain rectangular books and it worked. I measured the sides of these rectangles and intuitively understood that it was the ratio between the two measurements that gave me this result. But I didn’t know how or why. My father couldn’t explain the miracle to me. He took me to see one of his friends who was a math teacher at the high school. It was a memorable day for me. The professor explained that this sort of rectangle is known as a golden rectangle because, indeed, the proportion between the long side and the short side of the rectangle is the same as that between the entire rectangle and its largest part. In other words, it is the golden ratio that makes a golden rectangle. To his great surprise, I understood everything he explained because I had already guessed it, even if I hadn’t calculated it. He taught me how to do this: one plus the square root of five, divided by two. Everything became clear and a new world opened up to me. He had me take a test. At the end of this test he told my father, This little girl will go far. She’s gifted, very gifted. Not long after that, thanks to this professor, to whom I owe my vocation, I was enrolled free of charge at the school for gifted children in the capital. I have wonderful memories of the two years I spent at that school. During the day I learned, and as soon as it was dark I studied the sky, playing with figures. I calculated the distances between the stars of the Big and Little Dippers with the help of a compass and some information I found in a science magazine. I was never wrong. My world fell apart when the revolution came. I had just turned fourteen. The school for gifted children closed its doors. My father was transferred to the provinces. He sank into depression, and the country was thrown into a state of unrest. Increasingly, I found refuge in the embrace of the Milky Way, while I waited for better days. And so I found out that the reason the galaxies seem to curl upon themselves like rose petals has to do with the golden ratio. I surpassed the level of all the instructors at the only school for girls in the little provincial town where we were living. They were all newly hired, on the basis of ideological criteria. My father was killing himself working as a taxi driver after his day at the office so that he could buy my books and pay for me to have private lessons. I became a true autodidact. That was the situation at the time I celebrated my fifteenth birthday. I had reached the level of the math baccalaureate, but I couldn’t obtain it. I was expelled from high school, in spite of my grades — straight As in science — because I got an eliminatory F in ideological instruction. Naturally this F also disqualified me from the right to sit for the baccalaureate exam as an independent candidate.