Yoko Ogawa - The Housekeeper and the Professor

We called him the Professor. And he called my son Root, because,he said, the flat top of his head reminded him of the square rootsign.

"There's a fine brain in there," the Professor said, mussing myson's hair. Root, who wore a cap to avoid being teased by hisfriends, gave a wary shrug. "With this one little sign we can cometo know an infinite range of numbers, even those we can't see."He traced the symbol in the thick layer of dust on his desk.

Of all the countless things my son and I learned from the Professor, the meaning of the square root was among the most important. No doubt he would have been bothered by my use of the word countlesstoo sloppy, for he believed that the very origins of the universe could be explained in the exact language of numbersbut I don't know how else to put it. He taught us about enormous prime numbers with more than a hundred thousand places, and the largest number of all, which was used in mathematical proofs and was in the Guinness Book of Records, and about the idea of something beyond infinity. As interesting as all this was, it could never match the experience of simply spending time with the Professor. I remember when he taught us about the spell cast by placing numbers under this square root sign. It was a rainy evening in early April. My son's schoolbag lay abandoned on the rug. The light in the Professor's study was dim. Outside the window, the blossoms on the apricot tree were heavy with rain.

The Professor never really seemed to care whether we figuredout the right answer to a problem. He preferred our wild, desperateguesses to silence, and he was even more delighted when thoseguesses led to new problems that took us beyond the original one.He had a special feeling for what he called the "correct miscalculation,"for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as theright answers. This gave us confidence even when our best effortscame to nothing.

"Then what happens if you take the square root of negativeone?" he asked.

"So you'd need to get -1 by multiplying a number by itself?"Root asked. He had just learned fractions at school, and it hadtaken a half-hour lecture from the Professor to convince him thatnumbers less than zero even existed, so this was quite a leap. Wetried picturing the square root of negative one in our heads: The square root of 100 is 10; the square root of 16 is 4; the squareroot of 1 is 1. So the square root of -1 is ...

He didn't press us. On the contrary, he fondly studied our expressionsas we mulled over the problem.

"There is no such number," I said at last, sounding rather tentative.

"Yes, there is," he said, pointing at his chest. "It's in here. It'sthe most discreet sort of number, so it never comes out where itcan be seen. But it's here." We fell silent for a moment, trying topicture the square root of minus one in some distant, unknownplace. The only sound was the rain falling outside the window. Myson ran his hand over his head, as if to confirm the shape of thesquare root symbol.

But the Professor didn't always insist on being the teacher. Hehad enormous respect for matters about which he had no knowledge,and he was as humble in such cases as the square root ofnegative one itself. Whenever he needed my help, he would interruptme in the most polite way. Even the simplest requestthat Ihelp him set the timer on the toaster, for examplealways beganwith "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but ..." Once I'd set thedial, he would sit peering in as the toast browned. He was as fascinatedby the toast as he was by the mathematical proofs we did together,as if the truth of the toaster were no different from that ofthe Pythagorean theorem.

It was March of 1992 when the Akebono Housekeeping Agencyfirst sent me to work for the Professor. At the time, I was the youngestwoman registered with the agency, which served a small cityon the Inland Sea, although I already had more than ten years ofexperience. I managed to get along with all sorts of employers,and even when I cleaned for the most difficult clients, the ones noother housekeeper would touch, I never complained. I prided myselfon being a true professional.

In the Professor's case, it only took a glance at his client card toknow that he might be trouble. A blue star was stamped on theback of the card each time a housekeeper had to be replaced, andthere were already nine stars on the Professor's card, a record duringmy years with the agency.

When I went for my interview, I was greeted by a slender, elegantold woman with dyed brown hair swept up in a bun. Shewore a knit dress and walked with a cane.

"You will be taking care of my brother-in-law," she said. I triedto imagine why she would be responsible for her husband'sbrother. "None of the others have lasted long," she continued."Which has been a terrible inconvenience for me and for mybrother-in-law. We have to start again every time a new housekeepercomes.... The job isn't complicated. You would comeMonday through Friday at 11:00 A.M., fix him lunch, clean thehouse, do the shopping, make dinner, and leave at 7:00 P.M. That'sthe extent of it."

There was something hesitant about the way she said the wordsbrother-in-law. Her tone was polite enough, but her left hand nervouslyfingered her cane. Her eyes avoided mine, but occasionallyI caught her casting a wary glance in my direction.

"The details are in the contract I signed with the agency. I'msimply looking for someone who can help him live a normal life,like anyone else."

"Is your brother-in-law here?" I asked. She pointed with the caneto a cottage at the back of the garden behind the house. A red slateroof rose above a neatly pruned hedge of scarlet hawthorn.

"I must ask you not to come and go between the main houseand the cottage. Your job is to care for my brother-in-law, and thecottage has a separate entrance on the north side of the property. Iwould prefer that you resolve any difficulties without consultingme. That's the one rule I ask you to respect." She gave a little tapwith her cane.

I was used to absurd demands from my employersthat I weara different color ribbon in my hair every day; that the water for teabe precisely 165 degrees; that I recite a little prayer every eveningwhen Venus rose in the night skyso the old woman's requeststruck me as relatively straightforward.

"Could I meet your brother-in-law now?" I asked.

"That won't be necessary." She refused so flatly that I thought Ihad offended her. "If you met him today, he wouldn't rememberyou tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"He has difficulties with his memory," she said. "He's not senile;his brain works well, but about seventeen years ago he hithis head in an automobile accident. Since then, he has been unableto remember anything new. His memory stops in 1975. Hecan remember a theorem he developed thirty years ago, but hehas no idea what he ate for dinner last night. In the simplestterms, it's as if he has a single, eighty-minute videotape insidehis head, and when he records anything new, he has to recordover the existing memories. His memory lasts precisely eightyminutesno more and no less." Perhaps because she had repeatedthis explanation so many times in the past, the oldwoman ran through it without pause, and with almost no sign ofemotion.