Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

My friend . Andret took a seat across from the desk and accepted a scotch. Again Hay skipped the ice.

“I’ve forgiven you for your behavior with Mrs. Petrinova, by the way,” Hay began, twisting the cap back onto the bottle and returning it to the drawer. “Well, not with Mrs. Petrinova, of course, but for your behavior with me when I spoke to you about her. That’s behind us.” He pursed his lips tersely and picked a bit of lint from his sleeve. “Last year, Milo — when we spoke in my office.”

“What do you need, Knudson?”

“I’m a practical man. I don’t stew. I do what’s best for the department.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I did you a favor with Mrs. Petrinova.”

“And I did the Pentagon work for you in return. That makes us even.”

“Indeed you did, Milo. Indeed you did.” He picked at another spot of lint, then folded his hands. “The reason I’ve asked you here is to tell you that the department’s been given an endowment. A very nice one.” He leaned forward. “You might even say an obscenely nice one. For a newly named chair. The Hyun Chair in Experimental Mathematics. It would be an entirely new subdepartment — still under my direction, of course, but new . Man-Sik Hyun runs the Hyun Electrics Company, in Seoul, South Korea. And now in Camden, New Jersey, as well. Geometer, himself.” He smiled efficiently. “He wanted to call it the Hyun Electrics Chair, actually. But someone from endowment explained the problem.”

Andret chuckled.

Hay gestured to the glasses. “Refill?”

“Please.”

“And you’re one of those up for consideration, Milo.”

“I don’t have tenure.”

“You’d get it.”

“I’ve solved one problem in my career, Knudson.”

Hay raised his glass. “But what a problem it was, Milo.”

“Well, thank you.”

“In any case, it’s a circumstance I can take care of. They give me that kind of latitude here. I’m talking about early tenure and promotion, you realize. The chair of a subdepartment and a major new endowment.”

Andret sat up.

Hay lowered his voice. “What are you working on these days?”

“Still the damned Abendroth conjecture.”

Hay leaned back, letting out a whistle. “Well, you certainly can’t be accused of giving up on anything.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Tell me, though, are you close?”

“Close to what, Knudson?”

“Don’t be coy. Dr. Hyun would like to see something solved with his name attached to it. Something big and famous.” He raised his glass. “Like Abendroth’s last conjecture.”

Andret gazed evenly at him. “I might be,” he said.

“A year?”

“Perhaps.”

Hay studied him. “I should tell you,” he continued, topping off the drinks. “There are those in the department who are against it.”

“Okay.”

“They find you — let’s see, how do I put it?” He looked down at the stack of papers on his desk. “Abrasive. Arrogant. I’ve heard both those words.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything, Andret. I’m just letting you know. These are the difficulties I face in making a decision. You could help me out, you know.”

“How could I do that?”

Hay set down his drink and neatened his pile of papers. “You could begin,” he said, “by behaving a little more civilly.”

—

LATER THAT WEEK, a note in his mailbox. A pink office slip this time, folded over, with Helena Pierce’s initials on the front. The square alongside PHONE MESSAGE had been checked. The caller: Professor Earl Biettermann.

So the son of a bitch was a professor now. It was strange that he hadn’t heard.

He unfolded the sheet and read the Selectric’s dark type:

Sad news. Hans Borland has passed away.

Asked that you be notified.

Jesus. Even now he heard the old man’s sour voice. He set his arm against the mailboxes and felt the same mean game of jousts between them, as though even in death his teacher had managed to deliver one last blow with the pike. He shook his head and turned to the wall.

Behind him, the office door creaked. He was still looking at the wall when a hand tapped his shoulder. “Professor Andret?”

She hadn’t addressed him kindly in years.

“I’m okay.”

“Professor Andret—”

“Really — I’m fine.”

The footsteps retreated. A moment later, a box of tissues. He accepted one.

“I know he must have been important to you.”

“He was, he was. He was — I can’t really figure it.” His own words surprised him. “Oh,” he said, turning. “Oh, Helena.”

“I’ve been looking for you all morning, Professor Andret, to be honest. Since the call came in.” There seemed to be tears in her eyes. “Professor Biettermann told me how upset it would make you. But I guess Professor Borland had asked him to give you the news, if it happened. I know he was sick for a while, but it still must have been such a shock to hear it like this. I’m so sorry, Milo.”

He looked more closely at her: yes, those were tears in her eyes. “He’s the reason I’m here,” he said softly.

She nodded at him, her hands on her mouth.

“His voice is the one that tells me to keep going.”

“Oh, Milo, I’m so sorry. I should never have just left a note. I should have come and found you. I’m really so sorry about all of it.” She laid her hand on his arm.

He touched it there and looked up again: yes, he could see it — she was sorry. He didn’t in any way deserve it; but there it was.

—

LATE THAT VERY afternoon, his phone rang at home. This time Hay’s voice was curt. “We need you down here right now, Andret. It’s important.”

When he pushed open the frosted-glass door of the chairman’s office, a line of startled faces looked up at him. It was the nine most senior members of the department, arranged around the elegant oak meeting table.

Hay rose from the chair at the end. “I thought you’d have knocked. But thanks for coming on such short notice.”

At the news of Borland’s death, Andret had spent the day at Clip’s, where they’d somehow run out of bourbon and had served him rye instead. Now he felt darkened. Darkened and wrapped, like a man in a sack. Hay had spoken, but it took a moment for him to understand that the faces in the room were awaiting a response. The sheen on the windows broke into a row of angled prisms. “Well, I didn’t,” he said, turning away.

A silence. Some of the heads glanced around.

“Knock,” he clarified, directing his gaze to the carpet.

“Well,” said Hay. He cleared his throat. “This is an unusual circumstance, but some of the department wanted to speak to you in person. I’ll be frank — as you know, you’ve been nominated for the Man-Sik Hyun Chair in Experimental Mathematics. Which of course would be bestowed with tenure. And a subchairmanship. Did you have anything you wished to say?”

“Wished to say?”

“To the committee, Milo.”

He looked up. “I’ll do a top-notch job, gentlemen.” He nodded at the faces. Then, gravely: “I’m a damn good mathematician, and I appreciate the opportunity.”

Hay smiled. Andret folded his hands. When he glanced at the windows again they were just windows. He turned his gaze then to the familiar Eastern European features in the room. His colleagues at the table looked like the survivors of a sunken Lithuanian ferry, with the exception of Hay, who looked like the captain of the Nordic vessel that had rescued them. The Department of Broken Englishes — that’s how they were known around campus. A startlingly uniform wall of bulbous Semitic features, threadbare sport coats, and colorless ties. He was gripped with the abrupt, sour understanding that he hated them all.