The Mathematician’s Shiva Page 19

  “You have no idea. I’ve looked plenty. Here, taste.” Yakov held out his spoon.

  “You’re going to do this every day? Feed me?”

  “Were you disappointed last time?”

  “Can’t say that I was.” This was undeniably true.

  “Then taste again.” I reached down and Yakov fed me like I was a baby.

  “Really is good. You’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. And it’s healthy. Perfect. I don’t understand how you can live in bumblefuck Alabama when you could live here, be with a woman like Jenny, and be with your family. You’re crazy.” Yakov was trying to claim an edge over me in hard-won wisdom.

  “I wouldn’t have a job.”

  “Now that’s a lie. The people in your department here. What do they call it, meteorology?” There it was: the dismissiveness of all mathematicians toward any field that wasn’t mathematics.

  “The department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences is what it’s called.”

  “Whatever. People add ‘sciences’ to a department name only when they are worried they aren’t really scientists. They would hire you in a heartbeat. Your mother told me. You broke her heart staying away, you little moshennik.” He took his free index finger and scolded me. If I had reached over just a bit, I could have chomped on his reprimanding finger and ended our little discourse instantly.

  “My mother understood my reasons.”

  “You and your mother. I never understood either of you. Your mother was too smart. And you, you’re just perverse on purpose.”

  “I hope you’re wrong. But it could be so.”

  “You have Jenny’s number or am I going to have to find it in the phone book?”

  “The phone book would be best. You had better be careful. She is a smart one, you’re right. Used to come to our house and talk with my mother about men, right where you are sitting. One of my mother’s little sisters, coming here for advice. She’ll see right through you.”

  “My intentions are entirely honorable, Sasha.” Yakov looked genuinely affronted.

  “I see. What happens if she burns the food one day, Yakov?”

  “Everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Maybe you are in love after all.”

  It was day two of the shiva, and people already looked tired, except for Yakov, who seemed to be thriving in the presence of all of his friends, heroes, and the good Russian food of Jenny Rivkin.

  “What did you mathematicians do last night, anyway?” I asked Yakov. I was truly curious.

  “We went to the conference room at the department. All of us. We drank. We worked. What the hell else can we do? It’s who we are.”

  “And what exactly were you working on?”

  “Do I have to tell you?”

  “Navier-Stokes is hard, isn’t it?”

  “Shut up. Of course it’s hard.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. It would take years to come up with a solution. Plus, there are too many cooks working on the recipe. Over a dozen of you together in one room. It’s madness.” I had hit a nerve. Mathematicians are solitary creatures by nature. They sit in their offices day after day looking into space, and wait for the moment when they can actually use the paper and pencil they have on their desks. It can take days, months, and maybe years before they actually write anything meaningful. A mathematician will even dream about his or her unsolved problem, often to no avail. Then one day it happens for no apparent reason. Just like that a solution appears, or a major step to a solution is envisioned. To the unfortunate mathematicians tackling major problems like Hilbert’s sixth, though, it’s likely that no solution will ever come. Success will always be beyond their grasp.

  “I know, I know. It sounds like something doomed to failure. But in other fields people work in teams nowadays. It’s the new way of business. Look at physics. They are like armies now, with soldiers and officers clawing their way to solutions. Maybe it’s time for us to work that way. That’s what Zhelezniak says, at any rate.”

  “So by day you mourn and by night you try to solve something my mother supposedly cheated death to finish.”

  “Did she finish it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Now you’re torturing me.”

  “That memoir I mentioned at the funeral? Last night, I translated some more. It seems she was working on it.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Yeah, she was working on Navier-Stokes sixty years ago when she was eleven years old. That’s what her memoir says.”

  “We already know that. Everybody knows that.”

  “I didn’t. It was news to me.”

  “She never told you?”

  “It didn’t come up in conversation, no. My father there last night?”

  “No. He was busy, he said. He is a doting great-grandpa now, did you hear?”

  “I’ve noticed, yes. He’s hogging my nakhes. I’ve barely seen my daughter and granddaughter because of him. This morning he called to say he would be late. He’s making blini for Amy.”

  “Really? I haven’t had good blini in such a long time.”

  “Maybe you should marry my father. He’s actually a pretty good cook.”

  “Your father would be hell to live with.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  The geographic distribution of people in the house had changed overnight. The mathematicians, both the men and women, were all in the living room. My small family, sans my blini-making father and his granddaughter and great-granddaughter, were in the dining room.

  “The parrot likes Jenny, I noticed,” Yakov said. “She moves to the cage door when Jenny is near, like she wants to get a better look. I can sympathize.”

  “Pascha likes all women.”

  “She doesn’t like you?”

  “Tolerates me, but no, she doesn’t like me. And she’s known me for over thirty years.”

  “You were competition for your mother. Why did your mother have a bird, anyway? A little thing in a cage like that. I would think it would be depressing.”

  “A Polish friend was moving to Israel and they couldn’t take the parrot. Pascha knew a few Polish words. My mother taught her many more. She’s pretty amazing, actually.”

  “Not like you.” Yakov gave a hearty chuckle. “Your Polish is probably as bad as your Russian.”

  “No, it’s worse.”

  “It’s hard to believe you were born in Moscow. Impossible, actually.”

  “It’s been a long time. I can hardly believe it myself.”

  He got serious and looked toward Pascha. “We’re very interested in that bird, Sasha.”

  “Who is we?”

  “The people in the living room.”

  “You think Pascha holds secrets?”

  “We are desperate enough to think anything.”

  “A bird brain is not going to solve Navier-Stokes.”

  “No, it won’t. But that bird might have memorized a few important lines from a human being who probably did solve that problem but kept it to herself.”

  “Now you’re starting to talk like Otrnlov.”

  “That man is crazy. We’re just crazy about mathematics. There is a difference.”

  “I can’t tell any difference at all, to tell you the truth.”

  “Enough. The heavenly soup is gone. I’m going to call up Miss Jenny Rivkin, tell her how much I admire her cooking. If I’m lucky, I’ll eventually convince her to move with me to my wholesome state in this gentle, warmhearted, but somewhat ignorant country. Go. You’ll kill the mood. Now it’s time for you to go to the living room. They want to talk to you there.”

  “For what it’s worth, there is a list of numbers on the corkboard next to the phone. It’s a good guess that Ms. Rivkin’s phone number is on that list.”

  Someon
e from the synagogue Sisterhood had been thoughtful enough to bring folding chairs from the synagogue. Otherwise, there was no way this collection of geniuses and the merely supersmart could have all fit into a single living room. The only upside of their presence was that I did not have any trouble getting together a minyan for evening prayers before dinner. I stood before the mathematicians, leaned against a doorjamb—where pencil marks and notations indicated my growth as a youth—and listened.

  “She should have won the Fields. It’s a travesty that she didn’t,” Eva said. The Fields was the aforementioned Fields Medal, the international award given to two to four mathematicians under the age of forty-one every four years.

  “It’s true. But the time was not right,” Zhelezniak said.

  “What do you mean? They had until 1970 to do it. That’s twenty years of her waiting in vain for an award she should have won in 1950,” Eva pressed on. This was her style, and it’s probably why she was successful working with my mother. She wasn’t intimidated by anyone.

  “It’s because she was a woman. Those bastards wouldn’t give it to her,” Virginia Potter said.

  “That’s not true,” one of the Karansky triplets said. “Vladimir should have received the Fields, too. It was because of the Cold War. No Russian won the Fields until 1970. All those years and just one medal.” The other two triplets nodded their head in approval. It’s no wonder I couldn’t tell them apart.

  “Enough. It’s all in the past now,” Zhelezniak said. “I’ve had a good career. I have no complaints.”

  “I was there in 1970 when the announcement came about Novikov,” Eva said. “Rachela was furious. That was her time and the committee wouldn’t do it. Novikov. It’s like they knew just which name would make Rachela angriest.”

  “The committee blackballed her. Boyle from Oxford. An anti-Semite bastard,” Ben-Zvi said. “It wasn’t because Rachela was a woman or a Pole.”

  “Axton Boyle, oh my god,” Eva said. “I forgot. Rachela hated him.”

  “I don’t know if he was an anti-Semite, but Abraham is right, he was a bastard,” Zhelezniak said. “There wasn’t much to like about Boyle.”

  “Shackleworth was a student of Boyle’s, wasn’t he? So ironic. Him tutoring Rachela’s great-granddaughter,” Eva said.

  “Shackleworth is a different man entirely,” Zhelezniak said. “A true gentleman in every way.”

  “True, but still,” Ben-Zvi said. “Can you imagine if Rachela knew about a student of Boyle’s teaching her own flesh and blood? She would be on the first plane to Berkeley to strangle him.”

  It brought back memories, hearing the fractious gossip about this and that mathematician being discussed in the room. That anyone, much less these thirteen people, could devote such passion to opinions about others, which in effect absurdly elevated those others to celebrity status, was kind of amusing. Famous mathematicians are about as common and likely as famous auto mechanics.

  “Yakov said you wanted to talk to me,” I said.

  “Yes, we do,” Zhelezniak said. “We need your help, Sasha.”

  “I think I’m the one who should be getting help, quite frankly,” I said. “From all of you. Or at least the small favor of not getting in the way while I try to be a good son and grieve over the loss of someone I loved.”

  “Everyone grieves in their own way,” Ben-Zvi said.

  “You’re telling me that you are grieving by solving Navier-Stokes?”

  “It’s a way to celebrate your mother,” Ito said. “It’s our way.”

  “It’s the only way we know how, Sasha,” Eva said.

  “Even so,” I said. “If she solved the Navier-Stokes problem—which I doubt she did—and, as Yakov says, chose not to share it, then you are trespassing on her wishes.”

  “That would be my fault, if that was her wish,” Zhelezniak said.

  “My mother didn’t like you, but don’t think you’re so important that you influenced her worldview.”

  “It was beyond not like. It goes back a long time. When you were young.”

  “A problem from Hilbert. I know about that one.”

  “You don’t know about it. No one here does.”

  “Actually, I do know more than a bit. I heard my mother on the phone a long time ago. I was little, it’s true, but I remember the shouting.”

  “With Kolmogorov?”

  “You know that conversation?”

  “Yes. I was listening, just like you. That’s funny. Except I only heard what Andrei said, not your mother.”

  “It wasn’t so funny, Vladimir.”

  “What’s this about?” Virginia Potter said.

  “This is old history,” Ben-Zvi said. “Ancient rumors about stolen papers.”

  “It’s not really a rumor. It’s the truth, isn’t it, Vladimir?” I asked.

  “You and I both know what is true and what isn’t,” Zhelezniak said.

  “What?” Peter Orlansky shouted out of nowhere, his temper flaring. “Vladimir, you really stole Rachela’s papers on Hilbert’s thirteenth problem?”

  “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t steal them. Andrei had the papers. He gave them to me. I did use them, yes, but there was much more work to be done. Even Rachela, bless her soul, would admit this. Ask Viktor. He undoubtedly knows.”

  “Your career is a fraud, Vladimir!” Peter Orlansky jumped out of his chair. I had never seen him so angry. The others present were as surprised as I was. The ugliness of what was being revealed turned Peter into an instant champion in their eyes. All the slights and deceits these competitive people had endured over the years in their quest for recognition in mathematics were being relived.

  “Calm down, Peter. Andrei had some drawings and initial work from Rachela. You know how she loved to draw. We looked at her work for months. Without her work, I would never have been able to solve that problem, I admit.”

  “All these years, Vladimir, taking sole credit. It’s criminal,” Peter said.

  “Peter, Peter! We put her name on the paper. The academy forced us to take it off! They were furious. A defector as an author. It was completely unacceptable to them. Andrei couldn’t say anything, or you know where both of us would have ended up.”

  “You should not have published, then.”

  “The academy already had the paper. Hilbert’s thirteenth problem solved. You think they would have let such a golden achievement of Soviet mathematics go unpublished?”

  “It’s your shame.”

  “Yes, it’s my shame, and I’ve had to live with it. Now we have this.” Zhelezniak reached inside his blazer, pulled out two ancient pieces of onionskin paper, and placed them on the mahogany living room coffee table. I looked at them from afar. I knew the handwriting, of course. I recognized the style of the sketches as well.

  “Where did you find them?” I asked.

  “Poponov had them for thirty years. Then he died. His wife kept everything.”

  “It’s probably what she was looking for when she visited Moscow State. And for the last twenty years, where were they?”

  “I told your mother I had them five years ago. She said to keep the papers, she had no use for them.”

  “That’s impossible,” Peter said.

  “Oh, it’s quite possible,” I said. “I’m sure she said a lot more than that.”

  “Nothing I care to share in mixed company,” Zhelezniak said.

  “I’m sure. And you need my help, do you?”

  “These drawings by your mother. We know they are about Navier-Stokes. I’ve been staring at them for years now. There must be others. I swear, if we manage to solve this problem, there will only be one author on the paper: Rachela Karnokovitch. The Millennium Prize, too. It will all go to your family.”

  “Good. As of yesterday, I learned that I might have two more mouths to feed.”

&
nbsp; “It’s not a joke, Sasha.”

  “I don’t know where any papers are located, Vladimir.”

  “Can we look?”

  “Where do you want to look?”

  “Here. Rachela’s office, too.”

  “But what if she really didn’t want us to uncover her work?” a young female professor asked.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Kelly Hickson.”

  “Where do you teach?”

  “Minnesota.”

  “My mother never liked Minnesota.” I laughed, remembering her insults about that school.

  “I know. We’d invite her to give talks and she always said no. What was that about?”

  “She gave a talk there in 1954. According to her they asked some dumb questions. That was that. Minnesota was off the list. And where did you go to school?”

  “MIT.”

  “They must believe in ethics at MIT.”

  “I don’t know about that. It’s just that if your mother wanted to keep a secret, we should follow her wishes.”

  “If you all can solve this without additional help from my mother’s work, that would be OK with you?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Kelly said. “It’s important work. Someone needs to solve it and make it public.”

  I sighed. “My guess is that my mother knew you’d all find a way to look at her papers. Maybe she knew you’d all crash this shiva.”

  “Your mother was not only smart. She was also a magid atidot,” Ben-Zvi said.

  “What’s that mean?” Kelly asked.

  “‘Prescient,’ which is true,” I said. “You don’t know any Hebrew, do you, Ms. Hickson?”

  “Not a word. No Russian, obviously, either.” Kelly looked a bit embarrassed.

  “Eva, did you bring Dr. Hickson and the other young one—I don’t know your name, sorry—for fresh blood and new ideas?”

  “Of course, Sasha.”

  Getting through to mathematicians is never a simple thing. I decided to try a visual stunt. “OK, I want to show you something, Dr. Hickson. It’s my growth chart from when I was little. It’s right here on the doorjamb. Take a look at it.”