by Lily Tuck
Maybe we should pull over for a while, until the storm passes, she says.
Don’t be silly, he answers.
“In fact,” Philip adds in class, “many math historians feel that the Poisson distribution should have been renamed the Bortkiewicz distribution. I don’t have a strong opinion either way on the subject except that, frankly, I find Poisson a lot easier to spell.”
Now, she will die some other way.
She pours herself more wine; the bottle is half empty.
Every surface—the desk, the tables, the chairs, the windowsills—in his office downstairs and in his office in Cambridge is filled with stacks of papers, periodicals, journals. There are similar stacks all over the floor.
Philip rarely talks about his work—his work outside of his teaching—or if he does, he describes it as the art of counting without counting.
If Nina tries to describe it she says: the probabilistic methods in combinatorics.
Can you be a bit more specific, dear? Philip says, shaking his head and laughing at her.
No, I can’t, Nina replies. Something to do with randomness.
Derandomization.
There you go, Philip says. You’re getting warm.
Don’t move anything, Philip warns Marta, the housekeeper. Don’t touch anything.
No, no, Mr. Philip. I touch nothing, Marta replies, frowning. Her look conveys both disapproval and martyrdom.
Marta is from Colombia. Her two children, whom she has not seen in three years, live in a remote mountain village with her parents. Once a month, she sends the money she can spare back home to them.
Marta has worked for Nina for eight years. Nina trusts her completely. She gives Marta old clothes, leftover food, whatever she does not want. Every Wednesday morning at nine, she goes to pick up Marta at the bus stop and at three in the afternoon she drives her back.
What will she tell Marta on Wednesday?
A Catholic, Marta believes in God, in Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, in a whole bunch of saints. Marta will pray for Philip’s eternal soul.
If only she could pray. But it is too late to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God. And what would she pray for?
To be reunited with Philip in heaven? According to what she once read—she tries to remember where—the people on earth who have found the perfect spiritual and physical partner will be joined again in heaven for the rest of eternity in a union that—she now remembers where—Emanuel Swedenborg calls conjugial love.
And how did Swedenborg arrive at this belief?
Angels, he claimed, spoke to him.
Angels—Nina scoffs at the idea.
The bedroom curtains billow out in a sudden draft and startle her.
Again, she reaches for Philip’s hand and, absently, she starts to twist the wedding ring around his finger—the ring they bought to replace the one he lost in the sea, off the coast of Brittany.
How did the silly story he told her go?
A fish, most probably, attracted by the shine of gold swallowed the ring, then, most probably, too, a bigger fish swallowed that fish, then a still bigger fish, a shark, swallowed the second fish and, who knows, Philip continues, my ring may finally have come to rest in an elegant restaurant in Shanghai or in Hong Kong. A surprise gleaming at the bottom of a bowl of shark fin soup.
When, years later, Philip is invited to a conference in Hong Kong, he comes back dazzled, dazzled by the sights and sounds and smells of China—nearly China.
The food as well.
At one of those floating restaurants in Aberdeen Harbor—a restaurant called Tai Pak—I got to pick the fish I wanted to eat out of a tank, he tells Nina, and, at the time, I couldn’t help thinking about my wedding ring and wondering what my chances were of finding it inside the fish. A million to one? A billion to one?
But these things happen, Philip says. They happen more often than you think.
The fish I picked, he adds, was delicious.
He also attends an elegant dinner in someone’s home on the Peak. The couple collects jade and the wife is Eurasian, he tells Nina. Her name is Sofia, like the city. Her father was born there, she confided to Philip during dinner. Her mother is Chinese. He drinks tea and eats tea cakes in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel as the orchestra plays Strauss waltzes, he spends an afternoon at the horse races in Happy Valley, and goes shopping on Hollywood Road, where he buys Nina a red silk coat embroidered with green and blue peonies. An antique, but she rarely wears it. The coat smells of a too-sweet perfume—of tuberoses. It hangs in the back of her closet, its bright sheen hidden in plastic, so as not to eclipse her ordinary darker clothes.
Turn around, let me look at you, Philip says, when she first tries on the coat for him.
It fits you perfectly.
It was made to measure for you.
The color, too, suits you.
Sofia. She says the name outloud to herself.
Dr. Mayer, a therapist Nina went to for a year—the year she and Philip lived in Berkeley—tells her that jealousy sustains desire or that, at least, it arouses it, which also suggests how fragile desire is.
Dr. Mayer specializes in sex therapy. The walls of her office are covered with drawings of naked men and women coupling. She asks Nina a lot of intimate and embarrassing questions to which Nina replies with lies.
Not only do we need to find a partner, Dr. Mayer tells Nina, but we also need to find a rival.
She dislikes Dr. Mayer, she dislikes her self-assured tone, her taste in artwork, yet she feels duty bound to keep seeing her.
She tries to remember Dr. Mayer’s first name. An unusual name. A name that does not suit her.
You cannot change the present but you can reinvent the past—did Dr. Mayer say this as well? Or did someone else?
What, she wonders, would she reinvent?
Philip did not know Iris. Iris is a stranger. Only as he is leaving the party—a graduation party from college—does he stop at the door and offer her a ride. She is standing alone—her friends have left without her. Also, it has begun to rain; lightning flashes in the sky followed by the not so distant sound of thunder. Perhaps he has noticed her earlier, perhaps they spoke briefly. Or he dances with her. He hardly remembers. She is wearing a pretty sleeveless dress with a pattern of some kind. Her arms are slender, and it turns out she lives a few blocks from Philip.
No problem, he says, I’ll drive you home.
Thank you, I appreciate it, Iris says.
She does not have a coat. Gallantly, Philip takes off his jacket and puts it around her shoulders as they run to the car in the rain.
I’ve seen you around campus, he says, once they are inside his car.
I’m a freshman.
Oh.
What will you do next? Iris asks.
Go to graduate school. M.I.T.
Is that in Boston?
Cambridge, actually. And you? What do you want to do?
I don’t know yet. Maybe teach. I like kids. There are seven of us in my family. She laughs when she tells Philip this.
Lucky you. I only have one brother.
Oh, yeah. Is he older or younger?
Boy, look at that rain come down, he might also have said.
Can you see all right? Since she does not drive herself, she is not overly concerned.
So what do you want to teach? Philip asks, turning to look at her with a smile.
They might have gone on talking like this until they reach her home. Polite conversation, small talk. She is pretty in a pale, fragile sort of way and Philip might have wondered whether he will try to kiss her when he drops her off and whether she will let him—except that around a sharp curve in the road, a truck going the other way takes the curve too wide and crosses the dividing line. To avoid hitting the truck, Philip drives off the road.
Iris holds out her slender arms as if to ward off a blow and she lets out a little scream, more like a yelp.
Unaware of what has occurred, the truck driver
keeps on going in the blinding rain.
Philip has no memory of the near miss or of the truck.
Only, on occasion, on a predawn, dark morning, awakening, he again hears that yelp.
She and Philip have been married for forty-two years, six months, and how many days? How many hours?
How childish she is.
And during those forty-two years how many countries have they been to? How many houses have they lived in? How many animals have they owned?
The animals are for Louise.
Two dogs, a cat, a hamster, several goldfish.
Louise must have finished dinner by now, she thinks.
And, of course, in those forty-two years, how many times have they made love?
What is the old joke about the beans in the jar? A bean goes into a jar for each time a couple makes love during their first year of marriage, then a bean comes out of the jar for each time the couple makes love ever after.
Nina first has sex on a camping trip. Inside a tent, on a sleeping bag, she remembers the discomfort of it—a stone or a root digs into the small of her back—then the sharp pain of her hymen tearing. In his excitement, the boy, whose name is Andrew, comes right away. They are camped near a stream and, as soon as he rolls off her, she takes the flashlight and goes outside. Shining the light on the insides of her legs, she sees that they are smeared with blood and sperm. Barefoot, she walks into the stream. The stones hurt her feet but the water is so cold it numbs them. Squatting, she begins to wash, throwing the cold water up herself with her hands when, across the stream, she hears a thrashing noise.
Andrew, she calls.
The thrashing is louder.
A bear, she thinks. A bear attracted by the smell of blood.
Andrew, she calls again.
Sounds are magnified at night, Andrew tries to explain.
A squirrel or a rabbit, he guesses.
She tells the story to Philip, only she changes it. For some unacknowledged reason, she does not want Philip to know how or when she lost her virginity and how distasteful it was. Instead, she tells him how, unexpectedly, during the night, she gets her period and how, flashlight in hand, she goes to the stream to wash. I’ve never run so fast, she says.
The probability of a bear—Philip starts to say, but Nina cuts him off.
Priscilla—she remembers, Dr. Mayer’s first name.
For an instant, she wonders what has become of Andrew.
Doctor? Lawyer? Fireman?
She hardly remembers what he looks like—only that he was blond and robust—and chances are she would not recognize him—people change, age.
Sex with Philip is fine, she tells Dr. Mayer. They make love at least once a week. On Sunday morning, usually. And, yes, she always has an orgasm. The problem lies elsewhere. That part is partly true. Nina feels resentful, bored, unfulfilled—how many different ways are there to describe this? The truth is, she refuses to sleep with Philip on Sunday or on any other day. A way of punishing him—she is not sure for what—only she does not tell Dr. Mayer this.
Dr. Mayer suggests that Nina find something to do. Something that interests her and makes her feel useful. She, Dr. Mayer, for instance, goes to a hospice in Sausalito once a week. She counsels people who are dying.
Why don’t you volunteer? she asks Nina. Volunteer at a homeless shelter.
For no reason she can explain, Nina starts to cry.
Dr. Mayer suggests that Nina and Philip come in together, as a couple.
The suggestion makes Nina cry harder.
Dr. Mayer suggests Nina take medication. Homeopathic medication.
Philip rarely takes anything—not even an aspirin after he falls and cuts his head in the restaurant on Belle-Île and when, the next day, the whole side of his face is black and blue.
What about when you fell out of the tree and broke your leg? Nina asks him. A compound fracture with the bone sticking out must have been very painful.
I guess it was. A stoic, Philip rarely complains.
How old were you then?
I’m not sure. Nine or ten.
Outside, the rain, heavy now, beats against the window pane.
The year they spend in Berkeley, it rains every day—thirty-four inches of precipitation in that year alone. Or dense fog. She hates the eucalyptus trees that line the street on which they live—how their bark hangs in long loose strips like flayed flesh. The rented house has a deck with a hot tub on it but she soon grows tired of sitting in it by herself. How old is Louise then? Eleven, twelve? She has to drive her everywhere: to school, to tennis lessons, to piano and ballet. Except on Saturdays, when Louise goes horseback riding and Philip drives her to the stables in Marin. He sits in the car and corrects student papers while he waits for her. Or else he goes to a nearby coffee shop and reads the newspaper. Lorna lives in Marin. Lorna, the brilliant, unstable, curly-haired Irish astrophysicist, who overdoses on sleeping pills.
Each morning, Nina takes the little white pills Dr. Mayer has prescribed. The pills look alike but are gold, silver, copper, and she lets them melt on her tongue. They are supposed to dispel her anxiety, her malaise.
Another nice word.
Chou-fleur, malaise—she will keep a list.
And, twice a week, she drives across the Bay Bridge to work in a battered-women’s shelter in San Francisco. She works in the office, stuffing envelopes, licking and stamping them—mind-numbing work.
Away all day, in addition to teaching, Philip is doing research at the university. He is stimulated, satisfied, and exercised.
He rides home on his bicycle and they argue.
You said you would be home at seven. It’s now after eight. Ten past eight.
I’m sorry. The meeting went on longer than I thought.
Dinner is ruined.
I said I was sorry.
Last night you said—
Nina, please don’t start that up again.
Tell me why not?
Mom. Dad.
Okay, honey. Let’s sit down and eat.
And Nina slams down the overcooked dish on the table, spilling some of its contents, and runs upstairs.
Mom!
Louise is thirty-five and not yet married.
Who will walk her down the aisle?
She takes another sip of wine.
Mon chéri, she leans over to whisper to him.
Ma chérie, is how he answers her.
So Louise won’t understand, they occasionally speak French. They say things like Un avion est tombé au milieu de l’Atlantique et il paraît que tous les passagers sont morts, or On dit que Jim le garagiste en ville a violé une petite fille, but soon Louise understands enough French and asks, What plane crashed? Who died? or Jim did what?
Now they speak about more ordinary things; sometimes, she swears in French—merde, she says, if she accidentally bumps into something or if she drops a dish and it breaks.
Merde is also how one says “good luck” in French.
“Luck alone,” Philip tells his students, “rarely solves a mathematical problem but concentration and imagination do. Especially the imagination.” To prove his point, he tells the story of what the German mathematician David Hilbert is reported to have said when one of his students dropped out of his math class to become a poet: “Good—he did not have the imagination to become a mathematician.”
“Any of you poets?” Philip asks.
For a few seconds lightning illuminates the room and Philip’s face—his high brow, his deep-set eyes, his determined, chiseled chin.
Abe.
The nickname some of his colleagues have given him on account of his height and lanky frame; she rarely uses it.
He has also been mistaken for a Jew, but his grandparents were Polish Catholics from a town in Silesia.
One and two and three and four and five, Nina counts, waiting for the thunder, which sounds at number seven.
She is afraid of thunderstorms, of lightning striking the house, but tonight it will not ma
tter.
She is not afraid.
A loud clap of thunder followed by a blue light filling the cabin of his boat is how Jean-Marc describes being struck by lightning to her. The acrid smell of ozone and burning electrical insulation, he adds, grimacing and reaching for her pack of cigarettes although he does not smoke.
She is sitting outside in a deck chair, sunbathing. She is topless.
She did not hear him arrive and it is too late to put the top of her bathing suit back on.
Overhead, dark clouds have begun to form and, in the garden, the hydrangeas have taken on a darker, almost navy blue hue. It is about to rain. The reason they talk about the weather and the possibility of an approaching storm.
He has brought over a book for Philip. A book on sailing.
Philip is out, she tells Jean-Marc. He’s playing tennis.
Dieu merci, the sailboat was grounded, Jean-Marc continues, exhaling a stream of smoke, but the lightning destroys the radio, the radar, the Loran, the navigation lights, all the electronics on board. Fortunately, I was not far from shore.
How far? she asks.
You have nice breasts, he says.
Just then she feels a drop of rain.
Reaching for her shirt, she says, we better go in the house.
Just then, too, Philip drives up in the car.
It’s raining, he tells them. We had to stop playing.
The affair lasts only the one summer. If Philip was to suspect or if he was to accuse her of it, she would deny it.
She is a liar.
The liar says: This is a lie.
She can never get it. If it is false then it must be true, yet it cannot be true because then it would be false—the paradox eludes her. The reason, perhaps, that mathematicians go mad trying to solve problems of logic.
Or are they trying to solve problems of Truth?
Another flash of lightning and she stands up too quickly. Dizzy, she waits a moment for the feeling to pass. Then groping her way in the dark, she goes to the bathroom. Once inside, she shuts the door and turns on the light.
The light is sudden and too bright. In the mirror, her face looks strange—pale and her eyes are enormous. She picks up her hairbrush and starts to brush her hair. What for? she says out loud to the face in the mirror and puts the hairbrush down.
