The Indian Clerk (42 page)

"No, I don't want to be in High Barnet. It'll have to be somewhere more central. Bloomsbury, perhaps."

"As you like."

"And what we can't fit in the flat, we'll leave with my parents until we're settled somewhere else."

"Yes, of course."

"And you'll show them, Eric. Perhaps you can go to Oxford. That would show them."

"I doubt I could get a position at Oxford."

"Well, then, anywhere." She touches his face. He starts to cry again.

"Darling—"

"Shall we have a baby?" she asks.

"Yes, let's." And they kiss. Simple as that, he's happy! So much easier than to make Ramanujan, or Gertrude, or Littlewood
happy. And if she can make at least one person happy, that's something, isn't it? Something to be proud of. She releases him,
and lets herself sink into that very soft chair.

"A nursing hostel!" Hardy says. "But why?"

"Oliver Lodge?"

"And in the middle of the conversation poor Ramanujan keeled over with a terrible sharp pain in his stomach."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"He insisted we not trouble you. We fetched the porter, and the porter fetched a doctor. And the doctor said he must go in
the nursing hostel."

"But I saw him just yesterday morning and he seemed fine."

"My impression," Mahalanobis says, "is that he has been hiding the severity of his symptoms for some time now."

Hardy puts on his coat, and they walk together to the nursing hostel. It is early in the spring, the season when you veer
to the sunny rather than the shady side of the street, when despite the chill—ice crystals still hang from awnings—you can
feel incipient warmth on your head. Ramanujan in a hospital: although he wouldn't say so to Mahalanobis, Hardy feels as annoyed
as he is alarmed. Either God has once again vexed him, or Ramanujan is acting out of sheer perversity, as he did the night
he left his own dinner party and went to Oxford. For he has managed to get sick not just as spring is beginning but just as
they are completing their big paper on the partitions function—and this is something Hardy would never allow himself to do.
Even if he did get sick, he wouldn't let it stop him from working. He'd keep working.

No, no. Unreasonable. A man can't help what happens to his stomach. You can't expect him to ignore pain. Also, for all Hardy
knows, Ramanujan may be working even now, writing out formulae in his bed.

When they arrive at the nursing hostel, a matron wearing a severe and elaborate hat leads them up to Ramanujan's room. Although
it is a room designed to hold two inmates, he is alone in it. The furniture consists of two iron bedsteads, two side tables,
two chairs, and a dresser. No pictures on the chalky white walls, just the one window, which looks out on the Cam. The scent
of Dettol permeates the air.

Ramanujan is lying in the bed closer to the window, gazing with pallid indifference at the river.

No pad, no pencil.

"Ramanujan," Hardy says, and he turns; smiles faintly.

Hardy pulls up a chair and sits next to him. His appearance is alarming. Perhaps it's the glaring hospital light that does
it, revealing a haggardness and a leanness that the gloaming of Trinity disguised. Or is the truth that anyone would look
sick in such a light? Hardy as well? He wishes there was a mirror in the room.

"So I gather you were taken ill," he says.

Ramanujan's lips, when he speaks, are parched. "I had a pain in my stomach," he says. "Perhaps some curd I ate."

"Where exactly does it hurt?"

"Here. The right side."

"Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain?"

"It is not a continuous pain. I seem to be feeling fine, and then there are . . . stabs, shall we call them?"

"And have you seen the doctor?"

"Dr. Wingate will be in later this morning, sir," says the matron, who's pouring water from a jug into a basin. "He'll examine
the patient then."

"Of course."

"The trouble is, he won't eat his breakfast."

"Mr. Ramanujan is a Hindu. He has a very strict diet."

"It was only porridge."

"I have no appetite, thank you," Ramanujan says, glaring at Mahalanobis, who looks away. Is he angry, Hardy wonders, that
Mahalanobis disobeyed his instructions and told Hardy that he was in the nursing hostel?

"Did you bring the book?"

"I shall bring it this afternoon," Mahalanobis says.

"What book? I can bring you books," Hardy says.

"It doesn't matter."

"But I assure you—"

"It doesn't matter."

Mahalanobis looks away. And now Hardy understands, or thinks he does: the book in question must be one Ramanujan doesn't want
Hardy to know that he wants. Perhaps a cheap novel. Or something by Oliver Lodge?

Then the doctor comes in, all swagger and flourish, sweeping into the room when in Hardy's view a doctor ought to step in
mildly, just as a lecturer ought to speak with minimal inflection. Like a character in a Shakespeare play, he enters from
stage left, carrying a pad, followed by a retinue of assistants and a nurse. He is in his early fifties, with raisin-shaped
eyes and pockmarks on his cheeks. "Hello, there!" he says, and the matron motions to Hardy to get up from his chair. "Well,
now, Mister—what's his name?"

"Ramanujan," Ramanujan says.

"I won't try to pronounce it. So what seems to be the trouble?"

"A pain in his stomach, doctor."

"Shall we let the man speak for himself?" Dr. Wingate puts his hand on Ramanujan's head. "Any fever?"

"None this morning, doctor. Last night 99.5."

"And where exactly is the pain? You do speak English."

"Yes." Ramanujan points to the right side of his abdomen.

"I see. May I?" The doctor holds out his hand and flexes his fingers. "Now I won't press too hard. Just tell me when you feel
the pain. Here? Here?" Ramanujan waggles his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Pain now and again," Hardy says.

"Here?"

Ramanujan winces and cries out. "There's the trouble spot," Dr. Wingate says with triumph, and writes something on the pad.
"And what brings you to Trinity, young man? What are you studying?"

"Mathematics."

"How interesting. I once had a mathematician as a patient. I said, 'Sir, you have a distinctly odd sense of humor,' and he
said, 'How do you mean odd? 3, 5, 7?'"

Ramanujan looks at the window.

"Yes, to the same gentleman I said, 'Even if you're feeling better, you must finish your medicine.' And he said, 'How do you
mean even?'"

"When may I go home?"

"Not any time soon."

"But my work—"

"You're not in any shape to be working. Intermittent fever, a severe, undiagnosed pain." Dr. Wingate puts the pad under his
arm. "No, you'll need to stay where we can watch you, at least until we can work out what's wrong with you. Who are you, by
the way?" He is speaking to Hardy.

"G. H. Hardy."

"And what's your relationship to the patient?"

"Mr. Hardy is a don at Trinity," Mahalanobis says. "Mr. Ramanujan is his pupil."

"I see. A word, if you don't mind?" And he motions for Hardy to follow him into the hall. "Now don't quote me on this," he
says in a low voice, "but ten to one, he's suffering from gastric ulcer. Has he been under any strain lately?"

"I don't know . . . He's been working hard. But no harder than usual."

"Anxieties over the war? Family troubles?"

"Not that I . . . He hasn't mentioned anything."

"Well, we'll keep an eye on him. If it is gastric ulcer, he'll need to be on a special diet."

"He's already on a special diet. He cooks all his own food. He's a strict vegetarian."

"That may be the problem. Not much in the way of fresh vegetables to be had these days." Dr. Wingate holds out his hand. "A
mathematics don, eh? Beastly stuff, mathematics. My brother was better at it than me, he was a senior optime in—1898, I believe."

"Yes, I remember a Wingate."

"Do you? He's with the home office now. Well, good day, Hardy."

"Good day."

Then the doctor, followed by his retinue, exits stage right. Hardy goes back into Ramanujan's room. The matron is fussing
with a white enameled ewer and basin. Mahalanobis, who is now sitting on the chair by the bed, jumps up as soon as he sees
Hardy.

"It's all right," Hardy says. "Stay where you are."

"No, please," Mahalanobis says, offering the chair with the obsequiousness of a waiter.

"But I don't want to sit."

"What did the doctor say?" Ramanujan asks.

"He thinks you may be suffering from gastric ulcer."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know exactly. I only know that it's caused by strain. So you'll have to relax."

"Probably it's something you ate," Mahalanobis says. "Or didn't eat."

"The curd, I think."

"You have to take better care of yourself, Jam! You cannot be too careful with curd."

"I have not had time to think about cooking. I have been busy."

Hardy looks at his watch. "Well, I must be going," he says. "I have to give a lecture. Mahalanobis, will you be coming or
staying?"

"I must go as well," Mahalanobis says. "I shall come back this afternoon."

"Oh yes," Mahalanobis says. "We all are."

"I assume you mean his work with radio waves?"

"No, we are interested in his writings on psychical phenomena. You know that Mr. Lodge is president of the Society for Psychical
Research."

"So I've been told."

"Ramanujan in particular is interested in psychical phenomena. Dousing rods, poltergeists, automatic writing. Hauntings."

"Ramanujan?"

"Yes."

"It probably won't surprise you to learn that in my view it's all nonsense."

"No, I am not surprised. Nor would Lodge be surprised. He anticipates scorn, and accepts it as inevitable."

"Then why does he go on?"

"Because he believes that supernatural phenomena merit investigation."

"But these phenomena aren't real. They're in people's imaginations."

"Who can say? Have you never experienced the supernatural, Mr. Hardy?"

Hardy thinks of Gaye; his occasional, if unwelcome, visits. How disconcerting those sudden entrances could be! Yet he dreamed
them all—didn't he?

"No, I never have. Have you, Mr. Mahalanobis?"

"In India," Mahalanobis says, "these things are regarded as . . . shall we say, part of ordinary life. My grandmother often
claimed to have psychic visions. Once she received a message from the flames in her fire. A voice warned her not to visit
a neighbor's house. She obeyed, and that very day, in the neighbor's house, there was an outbreak of typhoid."

"As for me, they say certain rooms in King's are haunted by dead fellows. Last winter I put a scarf on the bedstead one night
before I went to sleep. In the morning it was gone. I turned the room upside down looking for it. I assumed that my memory
was faulty, that I had left it in Hall or on the train. And then, the next winter, the first cold day, it turned up again,
perfectly folded, in my drawer."

"Well, you could have put it in the drawer and forgot."

"I open that drawer every day. No, I suspect the ghost needed the scarf."

"I don't think ghosts are supposed to feel the cold."

"That would be the kind of question Sir Oliver would have us look into."

Hardy laughs. "And this is what you talk about, while you have your supper?"

"At first Ananda Rao and I were skeptical. Ramanujan, however, convinced us. You see, he too has had certain . . . experiences."

"Such as?"

"I doubt you will believe him."

"Try me."

Mahalanobis looks away for a moment, as if trying to decide whether telling Hardy will amount to a breach of confidence. Then
he says, "All right. This was in Kumbakonam, before he came to England. One night he had a dream. He was standing in a house
he did not know, and under one of the pillars on the verandah he saw a distant relative. The relative was dead, and his people
were in mourning. Then the dream passed, and he forgot it, until some time later he had occasion to visit the same relative,
who was then living in a town far from Kumbakonam. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that the house was the same house
he had seen in his dream—and not only that, but that there was a patient undergoing medical treatment staying in the house.
Later he saw the man lying on a mattress under the same pillar that he had seen in his dream. And the man died there."

Hardy raises his eyebrows. "But in the vision it was his relative who died," he says. "Not a stranger in the relative's house."

"Yes. An inconsistency. Perhaps a sort of . . . mistranslation, or miscommunication. Sir Oliver makes the point that the messages
received during seances cannot always be taken literally."

"Hedging his bets."

"Perhaps. Still, why not investigate these matters? Scientifically, of course. Controlled experiments."

"But how can we investigate them? What tools would we employ?"

"Dousing rods, the board . . . There are tools for those willing to use them."

They have arrived at the gates of Trinity. With great formality, Mahalanobis bows. "Well, I shall leave you now. I must return
to my own college. Good day, Mr. Hardy."

"Good day, Mr. Mahalanobis." And they shake hands. All very odd, Hardy thinks as he steps into the porter's lodge. If only
Gaye would appear right now, spit out some of his acid wisdom, and in so doing help Hardy to burn through the morass of Mahalanobis's
words! And yet if Gaye appeared, that would count as a psychical phenomenon. In which case Lodge would be proven right.

Hardy approaches the porter's desk. The porter is writing figures on a ledger. "Good afternoon, sir," he says. "Been to visit
Mr. Ramanujan?"

"Indeed."

"He looked quite poorly last night. I hope he's feeling better."

"Better, yes. He asked me to bring him a book. Might I borrow the key to his room?"

"Of course, sir." And the porter extracts an enormous ring, hung with dozens of keys, from a hook under his counter. With
astonishing speed he rifles through them before detaching one and handing it to Hardy.

"You know all those keys by heart?" he asks—noticing, for the first time, something he's always seen but ignored.

"Yes, sir."

"But that's extraordinary."

The porter points a finger to his own skull. "Just part of the job."

"I see. Well, thank you. I'll bring this back later." And he heads out into Great Court, full of wonder and vexation. Nothing
makes sense today. Climbing the stairs in Bishop's Hostel, he feels that he must move stealthily, like a thief. And why? He's
no thief. Still, when he opens Ramanujan's door, and the hinges creak loudly, he winces. Stepping inside, he pulls the door
to more slowly than he opened it, but this only prolongs the creak. Just as slowly he shuts it until it catches.

There. He's in. No one, so far as he knows, has seen him.

He looks around himself. It's the first time he's been in Ramanujan's rooms since the infamous dinner party. That evening
everything was tidy. Today the room is in disarray. A loose purple garment is thrown over the back of the chair. The bowls
from which, presumably, Ramanujan and his friends were eating when he had his attack are piled by the gas ring. Papers are
scattered on the desk. Justifying his earlier sense of himself as an intruder, Hardy rifles through them: mathematics mostly,
relating to the work they're doing right now on compositeness and the primes. And yet there is one sheet that surprises and
tempts him as much as Alice's diary did. The heading is "Theory of Reality." He reads it through twice.

Hardy blinks. The hand-writing is Ramanujan's. The neat, fine strokes are unmistakable. He recalls receiving Ramanujan's first
letter, the bewilderment he felt when he encountered the equation 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + . . . = — 1/12. So is what he's reading
now just another example of Ramanujan's peculiar shorthand? Or perhaps the ideas that Ramanujan is trying to express are philosophical
rather than mathematical. When, in his heyday, McTaggart lectured the Apostles, Hardy would yawn and look at his watch, while
Moore sat riveted, taking in every word. Even today he doesn't know what Moore heard that he didn't. So perhaps Moore could
make sense of Ramanujan's "theory of reality."

He glances through the opening pages; reads:

Mrs. Verrall, of course, Hardy knows, or knew. She was the widow of Verrall, one of the elderly Apostles who held sway during
his youth, and a classicist herself. She died only the summer before. And now, reading back a few pages, he begins to grasp
the sequence of events. At a seance, "Richard Hodgson" (a ghost?) left an obscure message for Lodge that Lodge then passed
on to Mrs. Verrall, who interpreted it as a reference to a passage from Horace. The passage from Horace is one Hardy himself
remembers from his days at Winchester: it describes how lightning struck a tree that then fell, and would have landed on Horace,
had Faunus, guardian of poets, not stopped it. This message Lodge interpreted as meaning that "some blow was going to fall,
or was likely to fall, though I didn't know what kind . . ."

A few days later his son died. The eponymous Raymond. Hardy turns to the frontispiece. Is it only because he knows his fate
that Hardy sees, in the youth's face, a certain expression of doomed indifference? Raymond is far from handsome, with a pear-shaped
head and flat brown hair. The first section of the book is described as its "normal portion," and consists of Raymond's letters
from the front and letters from the officers he fought with. Then there is a "supernormal portion" and a section called "Life
and Death." Opening to a page at random, Hardy reads:

The hypothesis of continued existence in another set of conditions, and of possible communication across a boundary, is not
a gratuitous one made for the sake of comfort and consolation, or because of a dislike to the idea of extinction; it is an
hypothesis which has been gradually forced upon the author—as upon many other persons—by the stringent coercion of definite
experience. The foundation of the atomic theory in Chemistry is to him no stronger. The evidence is cumulative, and has broken
the back of all legitimate and reasonable scepticism.

There is a knock on the door. Hardy jumps, nearly dropping the book.

"Mr. Hardy," he hears a voice call from the corridor.

It is Mahalanobis. Hardy opens the door and lets him in. "You startled me," he says.

"I'm sorry," Mahalanobis says. "The porter told me I would find you here."

"Yes, I thought I'd get Ramanujan that book he wanted."

"I came for the same reason."

"Oh, I see. Then the one in Hindi?"

"So that's not the one he wants either?"

"No, sir. He asked for Carr."

"Carr?"

"May I?"

"Of course."