Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“Yes, I do.”

He grimaced.

“So here you come.”

“Yes.”

“You are the first.” He plucked a wedge of meat from the spoon and set it on the tablecloth. “You first to come ask about it.”

“I suppose I’m happy to hear that.”

“You are topologist like him?”

“No, I’m not. I work in a very different field.”

He set another piece of meat on the tablecloth. “A dirty field?”

“A what?”

“A dirty field?”

“It’s not mathematics. Is that what you mean, Dr. Fodor?”

“ Brother Fodor.” Into the new bowl he lunged. The waiter skirted past and refilled our water glasses. “Like my countryman, Erdős — every man’s brother.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Financials?” he said over the steaming spoon.

“Is that what I do? Yes, it is.”

For a moment he appeared jubilant. Then angry. Then puzzled. He poured his water into his soup bowl, twisting off the glass like a sommelier. “Clearly you are three times more intelligent than your father.”

“Clearly not.” I signaled to the waiter for more water, then for tea. “Look,” I said. “I read your proof. I read it thoroughly. It’s very good.”

“Is logic.”

“Yes, of course. It’s logic. I understand how it pertains. I understand what it means.” I composed my features. “About the Malosz theorem, Dr. Fodor. Brother Fodor.” I cleared my throat. “It could disprove what my father proved. What he won the Fields for.”

He smiled gaily. “The Fields is a plate of shit.”

“Perhaps so.”

“Yes,” he said into the bowl. “Perhaps so. I love this. Perhaps so!”

I tried to smile.

He said, “I did for the curse.”

Another piece of meat onto the tablecloth.

“The curse of knowledge.” Steam drifted from his mouth like exhaust from a dryer. He was still smiling. “I did for the curse of humanity.”

I looked closely at him. The oily lips, the damp glasses, the starved eyes. “Ah, yes,” I said. “Of course. All for the cause of knowledge. The cause of humanity.”

“Yes, excuse!” He laughed. “ Átok. Curse is átok . I meant cause .”

His own mistake seemed to win him over.

“Would you like another soup?”

“Yes, please!”

The waiter was quick with the third one. Fodor poured another glass of water into it, then attacked. By now a half circle of meat dampened the linens. When he’d finished, he said, “Of course I do not wish to hurt anyone reputation.” He set his spoon upright into the glass and folded his hands. “He is great man, your father. And he is the father, so you have come for defending.”

“Yes, perhaps. Though perhaps we don’t think of it exactly the same way. I’m obliged to defend him, but in other ways I don’t feel that I am. I’m obliged more to the truth. That’s what it is. I believe my father would agree with that statement.”

He looked curiously at me.

“I meant no offense, Dr. Fodor.”

“Tell me, he is well?”

“No, he’s not well. Actually, he’s rather ill.”

“I do not mean to cause harm. Particularly.”

“I can see that you don’t.”

“You are his friendly son.”

“Perhaps.”

“Why perhaps?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you understand however?”

“Do I understand what? The proof?”

“Yes.”

I sipped my tea. “Yours or his?”

“His. Mine is not proof. Mine is question. The maths are of your father.”

“Yes, I do understand. A reasonable part of the proof, anyway. I think I do. But I’m no topologist.”

Another silence. He looked at me suspiciously.

“Would you like another bowl of soup?”

“No. Is good.”

He turned his head suddenly, looking out the door.

Finally, I said, “Brother Fodor, may I ask you something?”

Without turning around, he said, “Yes. Please ask it.”

“Do you think my father knew?”

At that very moment the tea arrived. It was poured. Fodor turned and gazed into his cup. Held his hands in the steam. Their backs were lashed with pen marks. Finally he raised his head. “Does he knew what ?”

“That there was an error. That the logic, at a certain point — that the logic of his proof falters.”

He leaned across the table and stared at me. With his hand he moved a piece of meat on the tablecloth: slightly left, slightly left again, slightly right. His eyes were wide, looking through to the back of my skull.

Then, just like that, he composed himself. “Is complicated proof,” he said, looking up again. “Mr. Andret. Do you know how complicated?”

“Yes, I think so. I work in probability. As I said, I’m no topologist, but I believe I do understand. What he did and what you did. Both of you.”

“Is a very, very complicated proof. You saw this?” He was smiling broadly now. Dark gums shading his molars. “Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. How many would you say?”

“How many what?”

“How many very .”

“Five is good.”

“Yes, agreed! Very. Very. Very. Very. Very complicated.” He grinned like a boy now. “Few understand. Few topologist even.” Then he bowed from the neck. “I no topologist, either. I think myself as nothing. Not even nothing. Only shadows of nothing.” He nodded at me, still amused. “I believe however that you are one really?”

“One what? A topologist? No.”

“Yes.”

“My question is, Mr. Fodor — may I ask you? I believe you may be one of the few, I believe you may be the only — perhaps in the world — the only one who might be able to answer this.” I leaned down and tried to capture his eyes, but they darted away. “Your paper isn’t exactly a refutation of my father’s proof. I understand that. But nonetheless it alludes to a mistake. A central mistake.”

“A problem in the maths.”

“Yes, exactly. My question, Mr. Fodor. My question is, do you think my father knew of this problem?”

“Ah.” The smile switched off like a lamp. He looked away. “You mean, at then moment?”

“Yes, did he know of it at the time it occurred?”

“You will not speak this, please.”

“Of course not.”

Then he thought. The way another man might have signaled for the bill, or turned his back to place a phone call, or stood to fetch the car, Benedek Fodor sat across the table from me and thought. He closed his eyes, brought his bearing straight, and sat. A pulse showed in his jaw.

After fifteen minutes — I was checking the clock — he made a little nod with his chin. “I will pose question,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Do you think he knew?”

I closed my own eyes. I pictured him. The boxed-up bottles. The useless drawings.

I opened them again. “Yes,” I said. “I believe he probably did.”

“Then, yes, Mr. Andret. I say that I agree. Great mathematician always knows.”

DR. GANDAPUR LEANED to the window, half crossing himself. “Does the Lord not work in unexpected ways?”

“He’s been like this since they arrived.”

With his women around him now, Dad had mustered himself. In the garden, Cle was trickling water from a bucket, and my mother was drawing a rusted hoe through the clods. Dad made the rear, bending forward as he moved up the line, wrapping long weeds in his fist and trying to pull them up. Now and then he succeeded. Sitting alongside the plot was a wheelbarrow, where he’d toss them. When my mother bent to move it a few feet, he lifted his head to watch her.

“And your mother?” said Dr. Gandapur. “She doesn’t mind the arrangement?”