The housekeeper and the professor - By Yoko Ogawa Page 0,53

floor, as embarrassed as I was. But I knew from experience what to do in this situation. You simply had to be resolute, like the Pythagorean theorem or Euler's formula, and to keep the Professor happy.

"Really?" said the Professor.

"Of course. Don't worry. I'll be right here waiting for you, no matter how long it takes."

I knew it was impossible to reassure him, but I repeated myself anyway. As the door to the examination room closed behind him, he turned around as if checking that I'd keep my promise.

The treatment took longer than expected. A number of people who had been called in after the Professor had already settled their bills and gone home, and still he had not reappeared. He rarely brushed his teeth and did little to care for his dentures, and I doubted he was a particularly cooperative patient, so the dentist probably had his hands full. I got up from time to time to try to peer through the receptionist's window, but I could only see the back of the Professor's head.

When he finally emerged from the examination room, his mood was even worse than before. He looked exhausted, and his face was bathed in sweat. His mouth, still numb from the anesthesia, was pinched into an annoyed pout, and he sniffled constantly.

"Are you all right? You must be tired," I said. I stood up and held out my hand to him, but he brushed me aside and walked away without a look.

I called after him, but it was as if he hadn't heard me. He shuffled out of the office slippers, pushed on his shoes, and walked out the door. I paid the bill as quickly as I could and chased after him down the street.

He was reaching a busy intersection when I finally caught up with him. He seemed to know the way home, but he had charged out into the street, oblivious to the traffic and the signals. I was surprised to see how quickly he could walk.

"Wait!" I called out to slow him down, but this only succeeded in drawing wary looks from the people nearby. The heat and glare of the summer sun were dizzying.

I was starting to get angry. He had no reason to be so rude to me. It was hardly my fault that it had been so painful; and it would have been far worse had we ignored it. Even Root was braver than this at the dentist.... Of course! That was it! I should have brought Root along. The Professor would have felt compelled to behave more like an adult with a child present. To treat me like this, after I'd kept my promise and waited for him the whole time....

I knew it was cruel, but I had half a mind to let him go off on his own. I slowed my pace and he charged ahead, apparently determined to get home as soon as possible, ignoring the oncoming traffic. His hair was wild, and his suit was rumpled. He looked smaller than usual as his tiny, receding figure disappeared in the evening shadows. The notes on his jacket, catching a glint of sunlight, helped to keep him in sight. They blinked like coded messages, signaling the Professor's whereabouts.

Suddenly, my hand tightened around the handle of my parasol and I checked my watch. I calculated the time from the moment the Professor left the waiting room until he returned. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty ... I ticked off the intervals. Something was wrong.

I ran after him, shuffling to keep my sandals on my feet, my eyes fixed on the bright scraps of paper clipped to his suit as they disappeared around the corner into the shadows of the city.

While the Professor was taking a bath, I tried to straighten up his issues of the Journal of Mathematics. He seemed to live for the puzzle problems it published, but he didn't pay much attention to the rest of magazine and left the barely opened copies strewn around his study. I gathered up all the issues and arranged them in chronological order; then I checked the tables of contents and pulled out the ones in which the Professor was mentioned for having won a prize. That still left quite a few issues. The names of prizewinners were printed in bold type and boxed in a fancy border, so they were easy to spot. The Professor's name seemed especially grand to me, printed there in magazine after magazine; and the proofs themselves,