It was about this time that while on the street of a distant city in a strange land in another time, for no reason at all she looked at the compass; the needle was pointing at an old pawnshop across the street. At once she recognized it as the same one where her adventure had begun. And upon entering the shop, she found behind the counter the same old man.
“I presume you want this back now,” said our friend.
“Certainly,” said the old pawnbroker. “It’s time.”
And he took back the compass and refunded our friend’s money.
“It is a very fine compass,” commented our friend, who did not know what to say.
“Yes, it is,” said the pawnbroker. “People are always teaching one another how to use such instruments. This instrument, our beloved compass, teaches people how to use themselves.”
“I hope someone will come soon to your shop and purchase it,” said our friend.
“Oh, they will come and look,” said the pawnbroker, “but it’s rare indeed for anyone to buy it from me. You see, people are well educated these days. They know there are four cardinal points; they know what compasses should do. Because they know some things, they think they know everything else. And not only that, almost no one walks in here to trade and to learn; rather, they come here to have their knowledge confirmed and their personalities gratified. They come to negotiate, to see if something here attracts or excites them, to show me what they know. What they want, often, is simple—to be satisfied.”
“Satisfied?”
“They leave satisfied with themselves, having proven they are wary and streetwise—too smart, for instance, to be cheated by a wily old pawnbroker with a defective compass.”
Mathematics, of course, is an art both practical and sacred. And there are some new practitioners who, by moving the work forward, also recover the ancient association of numbers with a divine order. I cannot identify this mathematician by name, since she works in so dignified a profession and her reputation is one of the utmost sobriety.
She lives in Amsterdam. However, like any good scientist, she is willing to go where her work takes her. She has taught in England, Switzerland, and France. She loves Amsterdam, and told me that in her extended family tree is the artist M. C. Escher, in whose work any one line may mark both a boundary and a place of transformation.
MATRICES
Once upon a time there was a mathematician who specialized in matrices, which are arrangements of numbers in a coordinated order. Once put in such order, each number can be referred to by coordinates that give its location; and, what is more, one matrix can be linked up with another, of a similar type, so that a wholly new arrangement can be composed. All this, however, did not satisfy our mathematical friend, who wondered if she could put two matrices together and come up with something that wasn’t even a matrix. Such speculations were typical of our mathematician, who owned an exploratory, strange, calculating, keen nature.
To try this experiment, she put into a matrix, in place of numbers, real things from the world, things for which she had a certain affinity. For example, in one matrix she put parrots, old opera capes, excellent cigarettes, and cinnamon sticks. In another she put a deck of cards, a forest, bread, and a bicycle.
Then, with the superb precision for which mathematicians are known, she fitted the matrices together to see what would come of it. And sure enough, right there in her study, she saw before her on the paper of her calculations, as in a vision, herself. She was in the forest practicing a bewildering yet harmonious series of circus tricks: wearing an opera cape, with a parrot on her shoulder, she did card tricks and smoked a cigarette with great relish, all as she rode around on a bicycle; only then to leap from the bicycle and begin to juggle cinnamon sticks.
Never had she felt so exuberantly mathematical. But yet, delighted as she was, she was puzzled not to find the bread from the second matrix; but just then from the kitchen her husband entered bearing a fragrant loaf of bread, just baked, that he meant to share with her. And, excited by her discoveries, and stimulated by the opportune tastiness of the bread, they gave themselves over to an afternoon of delectation—matrix to matrix, as it were.
Her fellow mathematicians, it is sad to note, have been slow to adopt her combinatorial techniques, and to this day prefer to set numbers, rather than the real elements of the world, into the specific order of matrices—an order, we now know, so ripe for extension, for trickiness, for conjuration.
Our friend, however, working either in solitude or with her willing and delighted husband, extended her investigations. And just as she was able to produce real bread in her initial investigations, she can now, with her refined techniques, produce whole days of real events in the world.
This is all in hopes that with her work in mathematical logic—her professional concentration, of course—she’ll one day be able to prove with beautiful rigor that the algebra of numbers leads naturally and inevitably to the algebra of reality.
Told on the third floor of the Pinacoteca, in Siena, Italy. The paintings are early, full of gold, with a blaze of light that can be detected from outer space. I was standing before the painting of an old Sienese master named Simone Martini, when I realized that I had someone by my side, who had stood for an equally long time, as if we participated in the same trance of beauty.
WHO NEEDS A LOVER
Sheila was a cook. She prepared pasta and bistecca fiorentina; she made bread and little pizzetas, sauces of Gorgonzola, and vegetables steaming and flavored with grappa. And in all these fragrant and splendid concoctions, at some point in her simmering and touching-up, her sautéing, marinating, blending of subtleties that makes for the exaltation of the senses, at some point, in every case she used olive oil. Now, it could be presumed that her fondness for olive oil derived from the way, at home each night, her boyfriend took some of the thick sunny liquid into his hands, smoothed it over her body, and made love to her until she glowed in the dark. But this was no more than a good cook had a right to expect. Though she admitted that it was splendid to have such a lover, still—the movement of light she felt within her days did not come from pleasure alone. It came from her certainty that she was doing the work she was born for, that her work would lead her somewhere; that cooking and love lead somewhere.
So the months passed. It was in early June, and, one day when she was in the storeroom, just about the time she was coming to the end of her stock of olive oil, she noticed the old bottle standing on the floor, in the corner. It was a tall graceful bottle, of clear, handmade, firm brilliant glass, and it looked to her as if it had been there forever. The oil inside was dense dark gold.
It seemed too good to cook with, so she took it home—which, as it turned out, was a lucky thing. Because that night, when she and her lover lay together with a sweat upon them both hot and cool, both sweet and salt, as they lay in bright thankfulness for the chance to love, for every detail of the world—in this state, they noticed that the adjoining room was crazy with light.
She had left the old bottle of olive oil in there.
Now, an inexplicable luminosity undid the dark of the night, though it seemed in its ripe strangeness like a natural phenomenon. Of course, neither of them was in the mood, not to mention the posture, to make a practical investigation of the light. And so, in each other’s arms, they ventured into sleep.
In the morning, they went and found the bottle exactly where she had left it—standing there, plain, golden, quiet.
Next night, though, the same thing happened. And when, this time, they bestirred themselves to look, they saw in darkness the bottle of olive oil embraced with light, possessed by light; they saw within the glass a steady, perfect, tawny incandescence.
Back in bed, the two of them took counsel and decided that it would take a summer of lovemaking to figure out this mystery. And in that conclusion, they were wholly correct. For during all the cool black hours that summer the oil shone with a play of light that brightened softly all their house and all th
eir lives. And by summer’s end, at the autumnal equinox, they knew enough to wait; and just as they thought, the house held its darkness all through the night.
And that was how they found out that in this world, each thing may be enamored, may have its match, may make its union.
And that was how they found out that when there is shining, then there is loving.
And that was how they found out that olive oil has a lover: the light of summer.
This set of sayings was given to me by an unusual writer who seeks, and publishes, anonymously, statements that come from years of revision of her manuscripts. Some of the lines here were, at one time, whole novels. One conversation with her was worth a novel.
She lives in London, where she is a distinguished leader of a technology firm. None of her colleagues are aware of her novels and her proverbs. They are aware of her insistence on concision.
SHE REVISED HER STORIES UNTIL THEY BECAME PROVERBS
Every gem was once a rock—and still is.
The musculature of a man, perhaps; but does he have the bones to support any such strength? The brain of a man, perhaps, but . . .
First foundations, and hope; even if, especially if, we cannot recognize a wall.
So skilled at following maps, he never left home.
Nobody believes in flying carpets, except secretly, in the privacy of their own homes, where the carpets are.
We buy hammers, who would not recognize a nail.
He was afraid of bees, so he thought honey was bitter.
A man who never went out of doors, because he was sure the sun was looking at someone else.
The lighthouse, which warns of rocks, is probably made of them.
A doctor in Dallas, Texas, told me this one recently. I met her in the intensive care unit and noted the grace and ferocity of her concentration. She refused to talk about the story afterward. I felt, in her presence, a kind of cleansing fear.
And it made me think once again about how it seems always to be true, that in order to have and wield real power, a woman has to have the skills to conceal, when necessary, that very power.
BEAUTIFUL DOCTOR OF FAITH MEETS THE JANITOR
I never expected that I would meet so handsome a doctor. Even before I had begun my work as the office cleaning lady, I had heard of him. He was a graceful man with dark hair and large soft brown eyes. I thought that it was unusual that he would want to interview a cleaning lady, but one evening, there I was, alone with him in his expensive offices. He asked me many questions, but mostly he told me about himself.
His clinic provided special services to wealthy people. He fixed their faces. But, as he explained, he took the earnings and used them to treat the poor and the sick; everyone, he said, should have the benefits of beauty. There was, beginning in the afternoon, a long line of raggedly supplicants at the back door of his office. Some of those who were admitted were examined and treated for free. Gradually, over the years, the generosity and dedication of the doctor came to public notice, which brought him even more patients, both rich and poor. What mattered to him, he said, was to be trusted by all his patients. He was a religious man, he explained, and trust in God meant, on earth, trust in the good will of a caregiver, someone who could see in each of us the divine image. Without such faith, there could be no successful treatment of the sick or the ugly. In the love and faith that moves between doctor and patient, he said, our healing begins.
Now, I must say that I thought this language a bit curious, but I needed a job. I had just finished high school in the deserts of northern Mexico, and I needed to earn some money to make my way to college.
I never started work until everyone was gone for the day. Then I cleaned everything, the rooms with their medical waste, the closets, the toilets; the scabs, the blood, the puke. I dusted the doctor’s office, his books, and all the plaques, certificates, and commendations that recognized his charitable work.
One room, located just behind the doctor’s office, was always locked. I was told it was a storeroom, and that I never need enter there. This injunction violated my sense of responsibility and thoroughness, but that was not what really bothered me. Not even the rustling sounds that issued from the locked room bothered me, because I knew what they were. They were the sounds of moving rattlesnakes. I had gotten to know many snakes—one might say on a first-name basis—in my home desert. I came to love them, and I knew what they sounded like. There were at least a hundred thick diamondbacks in that room.
It didn’t seem like something I could ask about. But I didn’t want to, especially since I never saw the doctor, except now and then: I would be cleaning and suddenly know I was not alone. I’d turn, and there he’d be, standing silently, watching me. Then he’d tell me that he needed to retrieve the file of a patient, or prepare an emergency medication for someone.
I figured I could understand more if I came into the office on one of my nights off. I knew that once a month the doctor would gather with his friends in his office. I cleaned up the cigar butts. So on the night I thought I’d find them, I hid myself in a big ventilation duct, so that I could look out through the vent into the doctor’s office. If you want to know the best hiding places, ask your cleaning lady.
The first thing I noticed was the physical perfection of the men who gathered in the office. They all, I believe, had been patients, and there was a glossiness to them, a fixed symmetry of features, all wonderfully angled and shaped, and overall a sense of fitness and bounteous good health. They positively shone, as though covered with some imported, precious salve.
The doctor touched a button, and the material on the wall behind his desk folded back. Behind the material was another wall, this one of glass. It allowed us all to see the room full of diamondbacks. The room, except for the side that was the window, had walls made of mirrors. As I watched, the doctor rose, left the room, and returned with a patient whom I knew he had operated on that day. Slowly, with his sure touch, he took the bandages off; and he told the patient that he thought the surgery had gone fine, and he was eager to bring him before a mirror.
All the beautiful men in the room were holding their stomachs, trying to restrain a boom of laughter. The patient was disfigured ingeniously. His nose was a piece of purple rubble. His ears were sacks of flesh that swung as he staggered around the room. His teeth had all been pulled. His eyes were bleeding smudges; his eyelids had been snipped off so that he could not blink. All of his skin was scaly, bruised, suppurating. It looked like the hide of a beaten, dying iguana.
With a reassuring whisper, the doctor pushed his patient into the room of snakes. The patient saw his face in all the mirrors, reflected over and over; then he saw the doctor watching with his friends. He screamed fiendishly, until blood bubbled out of his throat. The snakes moved slowly toward him, as if trained. They followed him as he ran around the room, molten with horror, slamming absurdly into the mirrors. Because he kicked the snakes, and stamped on them, they struck him, starting with his legs. It took quite a while. As the man weakened, finally a few got their fangs in his face. The doctor and his friends watched him swell with poison and hatred; and then die in rampant agony.
They burst into applause.
The next day, I gave my notice of departure. The doctor wanted to do what he called an exit interview. I was eager to leave, but I thought I was owed an explanation. When I recounted to the doctor all I had seen of his nighttime show, he was completely calm. He said:
“I am a good and pious man. Everyone knows this. My friends and I, we have a position of exceptional responsibility in the world. By the beauty of our faith, reflected in our own beauty, we are inspired to carry out our obligations to society. We are, to state it plainly, the men to restore the world. We cannot allow these—call them the doubters—to deride our good works. If you do not admire us, you attack us. If you have no faith in our goodness, then you mock us. The man you saw was disrespectful of me; he offered no thanks at all, no openhearted adoration of the chance he had, here
with us. We were not angry. But this is behavior we cannot permit. We must show such a man how, at last, history is ours. We make them face justice, which is ours because of our beauty.”
I did not reply; I just walked over to the room with the snakes and wrenched it open. I used the low, long whistle I learned in the desert that makes a diamondback fall asleep. Then I gathered all the snakes into three big cleaning bags. The doctor did not raise his voice, but I thought there was a small glint of panic when he said:
“You must be a witch—”
Which, of course, had some truth in it. I was the daughter of a tribal healer who still knew some of the plain sorcery of my people. I went over to the doctor and touched his soft, handsome face. He was, no doubt, used to such a touch from women. But mine is different. I have a touch that turns people, as it were, into themselves; they show themselves helplessly. For example, I touched one young woman, and everyone could see the wild playfulness in her, her grace and swiftness: briefly she had the body and poise of a gazelle. Then she resumed her womanly countenance, full of light.
When I touched the doctor, his head changed shape, into the blunt, short snout of a scorpion. The dull black eyes fit well. The thick, plated neck looked odd coming from the white collar of his doctor’s coat. Overall, though, the scaly body he now sported gave him a certain rough grace.
The Hot Climate of Promises and Grace Page 6
