Still the Same Man (4 page)

The professor belonged to a family of dentists. His grandfather, father, and two of his uncles had all practiced dentistry. Out of all of them all, the professor’s father had enjoyed the most prolific career, having made a small fortune from the patents of various professional instruments—two endodontic clamps, a drill burr, a barbed broach, and, most significantly, a dental milling cutter universally praised by his colleagues in the field.

The professor’s students liked to point out the appropriateness of him being part of a family who’d made their money inflicting pain on others, and they considered the professor’s move from dentistry to teaching math as a sign of his loyalty to the family tradition, and his personal refinement of it.

He specialized in algorithm theory and recursive mathematical functions and was not exactly up there among the most popular professors in the School of Engineering. He owed his less than favorable reputation to the excessive demands he placed on his students, along with his penchant for upsetting and intimidating them, inciting such levels of insecurity that, for a few, the problem became congenital.

In one of the first of the professor’s classes Joanes attended, the former took the whole lecture hall by surprise with an inflammatory speech defending the duodecimal system. According to him, various strong cases could be made for replacing the modern decimal system with a duodecimal one. Calculations would become far easier, he assured them. Multiplication and division would be far more practicable, owing to the duodecimal system having four factors—two, three, four, and six—while the decimal system, to its detriment, only had two—two and five. Another of the arguments he put forward was the widespread acceptance—both historical and geographical—of a base 12 numeral system, as demonstrated by the existence of the twelve signs of the zodiac, the division of the year into twelve months, and of the foot into twelve inches. He concluded by pointing out—in case more or clearer explications were necessary—that human anatomy lends itself to counting in divisions of twelve—four of their fingers have three phalanges, and four times three is twelve. The thumb serves as a pointer when counting the phalanges on the other fingers.

“Think about it,” he told them.

A few days later, the professor asked them if they’d thought about what he’d said. The first voices in favor piped up timidly. But many others soon jumped on the bandwagon, expressing their approval for the duodecimal system and chipping in with new reasons to support it. The professor listened with a satisfied smirk on his face. After a while, the room fell silent. All eyes were on him as the students waited to hear what he would say about the lively response his speech had inspired. But rather than adding anything, he burst out laughing, and his laugh reverberated through the room like the sound of stone scratching stone.

“You are bunch of idiots,” he told the students. “How could you possibly think that I consider the signs of the zodiac or the twelve moons of the year to be just reasons for changing our elegant numeral system?”

And he repeated.

“Idiots.”

Then he added, “And ignoramuses.”

By that point, he’d stopped laughing, and his face was puce.

“I fed you that load of nonsense merely to test your critical faculties. And I regret to confirm that you do not possess any such faculties. From this moment on,” he cautioned, pointing at them with a threatening finger, “it is your duty to question everything I say from this podium or write on this blackboard. Absolutely everything.”

Joanes didn’t miss a single day of the professor’s Numerical Analysis course. When he was with his friends, he joined in their harsh digs of him. But in his case, it was all an act. What he really felt for the professor was admiration.

This feeling was only amplified by the professor’s encyclopedic knowledge (encyclopedic from a student’s point of view), his assured, precise manner of teaching, his aristocratic indifference toward his students, and the frequent and prolonged silences into which he fell, sometimes mid-sentence, during which he would stare blankly into the distance, as if the students and everything in the room had vanished into thin air. Often, after one of these silences, he would scribble a few lines in the notebook that he kept in his breast pocket. Then he’d continue the class where he’d left off.

Joanes’s admiration of the professor was also fueled by the fame and recognition the man enjoyed in his field, and the impressive row of dog-eared books with his name on the spine that sat in the college library.

On numerous occasions, Joanes tried to get close to the professor, to gain his confidence, but the man’s distant character and the school’s educational model, which did not allow for contact between faculty and students, rendered any efforts useless. He took out a few of his books from the library and flicked through them fervently, but their contents were too advanced for him. He had to resign himself to simply admiring the beautiful, castle-like configurations of his equations.

All this changed when, in the middle of the course, the professor published a biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing. Turing had been one of the pioneers of computing and was greatly admired by the professor, who often cited him in class. His previous articles had been published in renowned journals in the field. However, his book about Turing, whose title was a pun—
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
—was published by a little-known house specialized in texts on chess.

During the professor’s routine digressions on Alan Turing, Joanes sensed a level of admiration similar to that which he felt for his don, and on this basis, he thought that the book might hold clues to certain facets of the professor’s personality that he kept hidden from his students, information on his tastes and interests. The moment that
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
was published, he rushed straight out to buy it.

The book included absolutely no mention of Turing’s private life, focusing solely on his professional career. He ran through the most celebrated episodes of that career: the publication of his famous article, “On Computable Numbers,” in which Turing postulated the existence of a hypothetical machine—the “a-machine”—which, by applying a finite series of steps, would be capable of determining the veracity or falseness of any affirmation; the mathematician’s crucial role in World War II, helping to decipher the Germans’ cryptographic codes using the Enigma machine; and his subsequent, failed attempts to bring the a-machine to life.

The last part of
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
was somewhat nebulous. Regarding Turing’s death, at the tender age of forty-one, the professor made only a fleeting reference to the “lamentable circumstances” in which it had transpired. There then followed a series of reflections—more philosophical than mathematical—on Turing’s lasting influence on mathematics and computer science.

Joanes’s efforts to get to the bottom of the professor’s character had been mostly in vain. The professor clearly admired Turing, but everybody knew that. His enthusiasm was clear from the book’s rambling writing style, light years away from the strict precision of the language he used in class and demanded of his students. Joanes wasn’t the least surprised that the hagiography that was
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
had been published by a minor press. He saw it as a personal whim, a way for the professor to let his hair down, almost like when scientists publish science fiction under pseudonyms.

Given how few conclusions about the professor he’d been able to arrive at by reading what
was
written in
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
, Joanes decided to look for some in the things he
hadn’t
written. In order to do so, he got ahold of another Turing biography, one that was more comprehensive and not so blatantly partial. He discovered that Turing was an eccentric, known for holding up his pants with a rope instead of a belt and for chaining his teacup to a radiator each night. These behaviors, coupled with his private nature and scant social skills, kept him outside the relevant mathematics circles, where he was looked upon with disdain or, at best, with paternalistic tolerance.

What’s more, he was homosexual, and in mid-twentieth-century England, this wasn’t to the benefit of anyone’s professional career.

In 1952, Turing began a relationship with a young man from Manchester. He was called Arnold Murray, and he was nineteen. Murray’s incessant requests for money drove them to a violent argument. A few days later, Murray broke into Turing’s house. Turing called the police. The subsequent investigation exposed the kind of relationship the mathematician and the young man shared. In accordance with Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, Turing was accused of gross indecency.

To avoid serving jail time, he agreed to undergo a treatment that would “cure him of his illness.” The estrogen injections administered to him as a form of chemical castration had side effects. Turing gained weight and developed breasts.

On the morning of July 8, 1954, Turing’s housemaid came across his dead body. He was in bed, and beside him was an apple with several bites taken out of it. A post-mortem examination revealed that the fruit had been laced with cyanide.

From the moment of its first release, Turing had been fascinated by the Disney movie
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
One of his little eccentricities was reciting the verse that the evil stepmother spoke as she poisoned the apple she’d later offer to Snow White:

Dip the apple in the brew.

Let the Sleeping Death seep through.

None of this was mentioned in
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
. Joanes had previously thought that the professor had simply gotten swept away in the writing of his book, but this new information changed everything. The professor had put himself through a stringent process of self-control in order to divert his focus away from what he considered to be the most reprehensible aspects of Turing’s life. Comparing the two texts, Joanes concluded that what most vexed the professor was the weakness of Turing’s character, the immature facets of his personality, which had proved so harmful to his work. His immaturity had impeded the pragmatism so admired by the professor, the pragmatism that had first driven Turing to tear through the tough, translucent membrane that separates theory and practice, to abandon the crystal palace of pure mathematics and begin frequenting the workshops where engineers got their hands dirty. And if this so maddened the professor, perhaps it was because he feared that he, too, suffered from the same kind of immaturity, that his private life was an obstacle in the way of his professional life.

And on top of this was the matter of Turing’s homosexuality. One might guess that the absolute surgical removal of this topic from
Turing: Pragmatic Mathematics
was owing to the revulsion, or unease, that it awoke in the professor. Joanes fantasized about how perturbed the professor would be by the image of Turing’s lifeless corpse—stretched out on the bed with his fingers interlocked atop his stomach, his pajamas stretched across his estrogen-produced breasts, his eyes closed peacefully, as if he were waiting for a prince to come and wake him with a gentle kiss on the lips.

Joanes’s readings led him to believe that he knew the professor better than ever, and certainly better than the rest of the students. He saw it as a personal triumph, as if no one else could have read the same books and arrived at similar conclusions. The knowledge that he had insights into what he considered to be the private opinions—and, as such, weak spots—of the professor made Joanes bolder in class. He no longer bowed his head when his eyes met the professor’s. He liked to think that the don had noticed what had happened and held him in special regard.

Joanes passed Numerical Analysis with the highest grade in his class. And in his subsequent years at the school, he never lost sight of the professor, regularly crossing paths with him in the School of Engineering. The professor responded to his greetings with dispassionate nods. He didn’t seem to remember who Joanes was.

There was only half a bottle of water left, which Joanes offered to the professor’s wife. She drank thirstily. Afterward, she dampened a handkerchief and patted her face and neck with it. Her husband then had a drink, after which she hastened to take back the bottle and kept it on her.

The professor asked Joanes what he was doing in Mexico, and Joanes gave him the short version of events.

“So why aren’t you with your family?”

Joanes explained that his wife and daughter had gone on ahead and were already in Valladolid. The professor wanted to know the reason why he’d stayed behind, so Joanes explained the episode with the monkey.

“It was wearing a collar. I suppose it must have escaped from somewhere. There are a bunch of theme parks in the area. It’s possible at least one of them keeps monkeys. It was wearing a bracelet, too. A cheap little accessory, with blue and pink beads.”

“How curious,” remarked the professor.

In the rearview mirror, Joanes kept an eye on the woman. Most of the time, she had her eyes closed.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked her.

She stared at him for a few seconds then said, “Are we very far from the place?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t think so.”

She mumbled something unintelligible and closed her eyes again.

The professor looked out at the landscape, an anxious look on his face. Joanes told himself that it would be better to save any questions for later.

The professor had the road map laid out on his lap, and he kept a watchful eye on the road signs. It was past midday when he tutted and drew the map right up to his nose to study it closer.

“Is there a problem?” asked Joanes.

“I’ve just seen a sign saying how many miles it is to Valladolid.”

“A nd?”

“The number of miles was higher than it said on the last sign.”

“Are we lost?” asked the wife.

“No,” answered Joanes and the professor in unison.

Though they couldn’t be certain. Every crossroad and fork was a chaos of vehicles either joining or exiting the main stream of traffic, to the extent that you couldn’t even tell which was the main road. Not long after, they passed a sign that didn’t even mention Valladolid. The professor went back to studying the map.

“I think we’re somewhere around here,” he said, pointing to an area north of the highway that they should have stayed on and which, to all appearances, they’d strayed from without realizing.

“How far from Valladolid?” asked Joanes.

“I don’t know. This map covers the whole of Mexico. You should have gotten a detailed one of just the state.”

He went back to look at the map again and said that they might be forty miles from Valladolid. Maybe more.

The three of them looked at their watches, then at the sky, which was still clear. Joanes tried to appear calm, although he felt far from it.

He wasn’t just worried about how close the hurricane was. He had hoped to have received a call by now from the man who was, up until the day before, an almost sure client. He hadn’t told Joanes the exact time the meeting with whoever it was had been scheduled for, but in Spain, seven hours ahead, it was already evening.

He told himself to think positively. Perhaps the meeting had been postponed until the following day. For as long as Joanes had known him, his client had never given him any reason to mistrust him. If he’d said that he’d call, he’d call. Then Joanes would have the chance to explain the markdowns—minimal ones, but markdowns all the same—that he’d applied to his offer.

To top it all off, his phone was nearly out of battery. The night before, busy going over the hotel deal, he’d forgotten to charge it. By the time he realized the next morning, he’d already set off, but he figured that the remaining battery would last him for the rest of the journey. He hadn’t counted on the terrible traffic, or on getting lost.

In the run-up to his trip to Mexico, Joanes had rented a satellite telephone. With the hotel contract still in the air, he wanted to be reachable anytime and anyplace. The product description had promised it was designed “for the toughest customer, in the toughest conditions.” These words were accompanied by a photo of a soldier in desert gear standing in front of a horizon of sand dunes, talking on the very same phone. But with the battery dead, it wasn’t much use to anyone. He regretted now not having asked for the whole accessory pack, which included a spare battery, a charger that connected to the car lighter, and a portable solar panel that would allow the phone to charge without any electricity at all.

“What are we going to do?” asked the professor’s wife.

Joanes said that they’d keep going until they came to a sign that would help them get their bearings. But not long after, they found themselves stuck on a stretch of road with a single lane in each direction, both bumper to bumper.

“Now what?” the professor wanted to know.

Joanes looked at his watch again. Then he got out of the car to see how far the backup went on for. A U-turn wasn’t possible at the moment, nor was it a particularly appealing option. He made signs to try to catch the attention of the driver in the car that had come to a standstill next to them in the opposite lane. The man was Mexican, and he was eating a slice of pineapple. There was a woman in the passenger seat and four young children in the back. Tied to the car roof was a mattress.

“Which way to Valladolid?”

The Mexican man pulled a puzzled face. He looked ahead of him and then turned back, peering between his children’s heads, as if he didn’t know where he was, either.

“That way,” he said, pointing ahead with his slice of pineapple, in the exact opposite direction from the one Joanes’s car was facing.

“Is it far?”

“I don’t think so.”

Joanes waited for the man to go on, but he didn’t elaborate. He got back into the car.

“Shall we turn around?” asked the professor.

“It’s impossible here. We’ll have to go on a bit further.”

Twenty minutes later, they’d only advanced about half a mile. Once again, Joanes asked which way it was to Valladolid. Another Mexican man pointed in the opposite direction as the last guy.

Joanes took stock of the situation. At this rate, they’d take hours to get to Valladolid, where they’d still have to find accommodations for the professor and his wife. And then there was the telephone issue. The moment the wind picked up along the coast, the Federal Electricity Commission would cut the supply across the hurricane zone. They did this to prevent even more damage in the event the bad weather knocked down the overhead cables. The blackout could last for a number of days. Joanes estimated that they had about two or three hours left before the winds hit. He needed to get his phone charged before then.

“We can’t stay here,” the professor’s wife protested. “My back is in ruins.”

“Are you pretty sure it’s only forty miles to Valladolid?” Joanes asked the professor.

“It could be farther. But not much. What are you thinking?”

A few feet ahead of them there was a sign marking an exit in the direction of a town three miles away—Los Tigres. There was another sign fixed to the post with wire, a rectangle of plywood painted with the words the english residence. rooms for rent.

“What do you think?” asked Joanes.

“About staying there?” the others replied together, clearly alarmed.

He relayed to them what his wife had said about the accommodation problems in Valladolid. He told them that, at this stage in the game, even if they did accept them in some hotel, they’d have no choice but to sleep on a mat in a hallway.

On hearing this, the professor’s wife let out a groan.

“And what you’re suggesting as an alternative,” said the professor, “is to stay here, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the hurricane zone?”

“In Valladolid they expect the hurricane will barely have any effect at all. And we’re pretty close to Valladolid.”

The professor nodded, more to encourage Joanes to go on than as a sign of agreement.

“We can stay here the night,” Joanes went on, “until the hurricane’s past, or at least the worst of it. We’ll head off in the morning.”

The three of them looked at the makeshift sign.

“Who knows what it’ll be like,” said the professor.

“The English Residence,” Joanes read aloud. “The name bodes well, at least. And right now I’ll settle for any room that has a bed and four walls. And I imagine you both would, too.”

The professor turned to his wife.

“What do you think?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Can’t you go on a little longer?”

“A little longer?” she asked. “A little longer? How long? Haven’t you heard a word of what he’s been saying? We might not even have anywhere to sleep in that other place you’re taking me, wherever it is.”

“OK, calm down,” he told his wife.

And turning back to Joanes, he said, “We don’t know if they have any rooms free.”

“If they don’t, we’ll ask for directions to Valladolid.”