The housekeeper and the professor - By Yoko Ogawa Page 0,36

pushed me away and turned his back; and as he did, I realized I had made the most basic mistake: he no longer remembered the baseball game, or even who I was. He sat on the bed staring down at his lap, his back more hunched over than it had been the day before. His tired body remained still, his mind wandered in a fog. All passion had deserted him, and even the affection he showed toward Root was gone.

A moment later, I realized he was sobbing quietly. At first, I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from him—it sounded like the stuttering of a broken music box. These sobs were very different from the ones he'd cried when Root cut his hand; they were private, desolate, and for no one other than himself.

The Professor was reading the note clipped in the most prominent spot on his jacket, the one he could never avoid seeing as he got dressed. "My memory lasts only eighty minutes." I sat down on the edge of the bed, unsure whether there was anything more I could do for him. My mistake had been the simplest one—and perhaps the most fatal. Every morning, when the Professor woke up, a note in his own hand reminded him of his affliction, and that the dreams he'd dreamed were not last night's but those of some night in the distant past back when his memory had ended—it was as though yesterday had never happened. The Professor who had shielded Root from the foul ball last night was gone. Somehow, I had never quite understood what it meant for him to wake up alone each morning to this cruel revelation.

"I'm your housekeeper," I said, when the sobs had subsided for a moment. "I'm here to help you." He looked up at me through his tears. "My son will come this evening. We call him Root, because his head is flat. You gave him that name." I pointed to the picture of me on his jacket, grateful it had survived the bus ride home from the ballpark.

"When is your birthday?" he said. His voice was weak from the fever, but I was relieved to hear a sound other than sobbing.

"February twentieth," I said. "It's an amicable number, 220, good friends with 284."

His fever lasted three days, and he slept nearly the whole time. He didn't wake up for meals or show any interest in the snacks I left by his bed, so finally I was forced to feed him bite by bite. I would prop him up in bed and pinch his cheeks, and when he opened his mouth, I was ready with the spoon. He could barely stay awake for a full cup of soup, nodding off before I'd managed to feed half of it to him.

In the end, he recovered without seeing a doctor. Since going out had caused his fever in the first place, I felt that the best thing was to keep him at home in a peaceful place. Besides, it would have been all but impossible to get him up and dressed and out to the clinic.

When Root arrived from school, he would go straight to the study and stand by the Professor's bed, watching him sleep until I told him he had to do his homework.

On the morning of the fourth day, the fever finally broke, and he soon made a quick recovery. He started sleeping less, and his appetite returned. Soon, he was well enough to sit at the dinner table, and then to tie his own tie; and before long he was back in his easy chair reading his math books. He even resumed working on his puzzles. I knew he was fully recovered when he began scolding me for interrupting his work, and when he started greeting Root at the door again with a hug. They took up their math drills, the Professor rubbed Root's head—everything was normal again.

Not long after the Professor had recovered, I received a message summoning me to the office of the Director of the Akebono Housekeeping Agency. It was a bad sign to be called in when it wasn't time for a regular performance review. It could mean that a client had complained and you were going to be reprimanded, or that someone was demanding a formal apology, or that you were about to be fined for some transgression or for damage to the client's property. But I knew that the Professor's limited memory made