against one wall. There was a single notebook lying open on the desk, but no computer, and the Professor wasn't holding a pen or pencil. He simply stared at a fixed point off in space.
"If there's nothing particular you want, I'll just make something. But please don't hesitate if there's anything I can get for you."
I happened to glance at some of the notes pinned to his suit: "... the failure of the analytic method ... ," "... Hilbert's thirteenth ... ," "... the function of the elliptical curve...." Shuffled in among the fragments of obscure numbers and symbols and words was one scrap that even I could understand. From the stains and bent corners of the paper and the rusted edges of the binder clip, I could tell that this one had been attached to the Professor for a long time: "My memory lasts only eighty minutes," it read.
"I have nothing to say," he said, turning suddenly and speaking in a loud voice. "I'm thinking at the moment. Thinking. And to have my thoughts interrupted is like being strangled. Don't you know that barging in here when I'm with my numbers is as rude as interrupting someone in the bathroom?"
I bowed and apologized repeatedly, but I doubt he heard a word of what I said. He had already returned to his fixed point somewhere off in space.
To be shouted at like that on the first day could be a serious problem, and I worried that I might become the tenth star on his file card before I'd even started. I promised myself that I would never disturb him again while he was "thinking."
But the Professor was always thinking. When he came out of the study and sat at the table, when he was gargling in the bathroom, or even when he did his strange stretching exercises, he continued thinking. He ate whatever was set in front of him, mechanically shoveling the food in his mouth and swallowing almost without chewing. He had a distracted, unsteady way of walking. I managed to find the right moment to ask him about things I needed to know—where he kept the wash bucket or how to use the water heater. And I avoided making any unnecessary noise, even breathing too loudly, as I moved about that unfamiliar house, waiting for him to take even a short break from his thinking.
I made a cream stew for dinner, something with vegetables and protein that he could eat with just a spoon—and that he could eat without removing bones or shells. Perhaps it was because he'd lost his parents at such a young age, but he had less than perfect table manners. He never said a word of thanks before he started eating, and he spilled food with almost every bite. I even caught him cleaning his ears with his dirty napkin at the table. He did not complain about my cooking, and he remained silent as he ate. Each time he plunged the spoon into the stew, he looked as if he might lose it in the bowl.
"Would you like some more? I've made plenty." It was careless of me to speak up suddenly like that, to take such a familiar tone, and all I got by way of an answer was a burp. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he got up and disappeared into his study. There was a small pile of carrots at the bottom of his bowl.
At the end of my first day, I noticed a new note on the cuff of his jacket. "The new housekeeper," it said. The words were written in tiny, delicate characters, and above them was a sketch of a woman's face. It looked like the work of a small child—short hair, round cheeks, and a mole next to the mouth—but I knew instantly that it was a portrait of me. I imagined the Professor hurrying to draw this likeness before the memory had vanished. The note was proof of something, that he had interrupted his thinking for my sake.
Over the next few days, I introduced myself by pointing to the note on his cuff. The Professor would be silent for a moment, comparing my face with the picture on his sleeve, trying to recall what the note had meant. At last he would make a little huffing sound and ask me my shoe size and telephone number. But I realized that something dramatic had changed when, at the end of my first