The Mathematician’s Shiva (26 page)

DAY 7

A
fter six eventful days in which God created so very much, the story goes that he rested. The titans of mathematics who had descended upon Madison, Wisconsin, had, save for Yakov, accomplished very little over their six days in my mother’s house, but they, too, in their pale imitation of Adonai, decided that enough was enough. This was all well and good as far as my family was concerned. By the end we were openly hostile to most of them. We sat in the dining room. They worked in the living room. Pascha would squawk some mathematical phrase in Polish whenever one of the mathematicians would enter the kitchen, and I had half convinced myself that these were taunts from a perceptive parrot.

There is a well-known joke—at least well known in mathematics—about how mathematicians work. A mathematician and a Starbucks barista are each placed in front of a stove with a kettle and a nearby faucet and told to make boiling water. Both do the same thing. They fill the kettle with water from the faucet, light the stove with a match, and place the water-filled kettle on the stove. Mission accomplished.

The mathematician and the Starbucks barista are next placed in front of a stove with a kettle that they are told is filled with clean water and told to make boiling water yet again. The barista lifts the kettle off the stove for a moment, lights the stove, and puts the kettle back on. The mathematician lifts the kettle off the stove, pours out the water into a sink, puts the newly emptied kettle back on the stove and says, “The problem has been reduced to the previously solved case. Q.E.D.”

This joke is not so far-fetched for many mathematicians. This is indeed how they think, not just in mathematics, but in life. Solutions to problems never trespass into anything of real value. No water ever gets boiled. Living with such people can be exhausting.

The truth is, though, that not only mathematicians succumb to this trap of wanting to repeat some pleasant event from the past, the previously solved case, no matter how ridiculous it seems to an observer. We do this, perhaps, in matters of the heart most of all. We try, or at least some of us try, to revisit our past loves in hopes of bringing back that wonderful feeling of connection and passion. Some of us may spend years retracing our steps and try to win back a former lover, convinced that he or she is our one true soul mate.

In 1973, Peter Orlansky was a twenty-two-year-old Ph.D. with his first university job, an assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin. My mother was nearly twice his age, confident, poised, elegant, and, unlike any other female mathematician in the United States, accepted as a giant in her field. In contrast, Orlansky, while obviously very, very smart, lacked anything approaching poise and confidence. Physically, he towered above all, including my mother. But his shyness was also apparent to all, and when he lectured in front of a class he seemed incapable of projecting his voice beyond the first two rows. Orlansky, despite his prodigious mathematical talent, was going to go nowhere as an academic without someone mentoring him. “He needs some work, that one,” my mother said of her colleague. If anyone was capable of transforming Peter Orlansky, it was my mother. That’s exactly what she did. Peter Orlansky became my mother’s project for one year.

Under my mother’s direction, Orlansky began to dress not like a twenty-two-year-old student but like a mature professor, complete with a dark suit, black leather shoes, and tie. He cut his shaggy Beatles ’do and sported the neat look of a Midwestern TV newscaster, combing his hair straight back to reveal his widow’s peak. Making eye contact would always remain difficult for him, but my mother took him to a speech coach, and he not only began to project his voice—which it turned out could boom with authority with the best of them—but also was able, at least in front of a classroom, to sound like a real adult. The childish cadences of his former speech were barely present.

This surge in confidence, and the emergence of a man who, at least in terms of his public persona, could make a certain type of female undergraduate swoon, was noticed by all. Its cause—my mother’s hard work and creative hand—was also noticed by all. It is a truism that the halls of academia, while filled with people of high intellect, are worse than high school in terms of gossip and sex rumors. It’s true today. It was true in 1973, and back then in the Midwest the word for such things was still “affair.” The vagueness of that word contrasted with the weight it carried. In the Midwest, sexual revolution or no, an affair between a young man and an “older woman” was not a minor thing. It was viewed as unseemly, especially in a professional environment. Within two years Peter Orlansky was gone from the University of Wisconsin, off to the less sexually prudish urban east of Princeton, where the rumor of his affair with my mother seemed to enhance his reputation. A cynic would say that since Princeton couldn’t get my mother on board, they decided to settle for the next best thing, her lover. Of course, no one really knew for certain that Peter Orlansky and my mother had actually been a couple. Like the high school rumor mill, the academic rumor mill was not particularly reliable. My mother certainly wasn’t going to say anything. No one was going to confront her, either.

Orlansky and my mother would work together on several highly regarded papers and many minor papers over the years. With every publication, the rumors would flourish anew. I never knew what was true and what wasn’t. I was a grown man lost in my own work and personal life. Who my mother did and didn’t sleep with was far less important to me than who I slept and didn’t sleep with. I’d see Orlansky very infrequently, sometimes in Madison, sometimes when I went to Princeton. He was a kind, gentle spirit who never forgot to send me Jewish New Year cards and happy holiday season cards that contained pictures of his children doing cute things.

I wasn’t thinking about Orlansky at all on the morning of the seventh day of shiva. I woke up and looked outside my window, saw the stars in the sky, and had the urge at the ridiculous hour of 6:00
A.M.
to visit my mother’s grave. I knew I’d be going home tomorrow and just wanted to say good-bye one last time, just me in that oh-so-cold cemetery, looking down at the raw frozen earth where my mother’s body lay.

I quickly put on several layers of clothing and a down coat that I always kept in my mother’s house, brought the Volvo back to life—noting that its battery would not likely last the winter—and drove to Forest Hill with a funeral prayer book on the seat next to me. I nursed a cup of coffee I bought along the way and, while the heater in the boxy sedan slowly kicked in, felt like a cop on duty. All I needed was a donut or two.

I made the turn into the cemetery. The oak trees were bare of leaves and stark against the sky. I slowly passed tombstone after tombstone along the skinny pavement. Then I saw him in the distance, Peter Orlansky, standing where I had imagined myself standing. He was wearing a fedora and blue wool topcoat over his sport coat and wool pants. That was it.

Orlansky was my age, give or take a year, and looking at him, I thought a bit about myself and how I looked to others. Up close, you could tell his age. There were the sags under the eyes and a loss of definition around the chin. He still looked good, don’t get me wrong, but like me, I’m sure many now said “sir” as they addressed him. We were no longer young. There wasn’t even a hint in our faces that we once were.

“How long have you been here, Peter?” I asked as I shook his gloved hand.

“A while,” he said, looking at the ground.

“Is all night a while?” I asked.

“More or less,” he said. “People were going to your uncle’s house. I definitely didn’t want to do that. Coming here seemed like a better idea.”

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“I walked.”

“It’s what, three miles from where you’re staying?”

“It was good. Cathartic. That hotel is really a piece of crap, by the way.”

“It’s always been awful. Even when it was new it wasn’t much. You must be cold.”

“Oh yes, definitely freezing.”

“You probably could use something warm. I have some coffee in the car.”

“No, I’ll be OK.”

“How were you going to get back?”

“The same way I came, I guess. My plane doesn’t leave until the afternoon.”

“How about I drive you back? Save your feet a bit.”

“It’s probably a good idea. Thanks, Sasha.”

There is an old joke in Finland, a country proud of its collective introspective character and shyness. “How do you know when a Finnish man likes a woman? He stares at her shoes instead of his.” I noticed that Orlansky was staring at my shoes.

“I came to say kaddish,” I said. “How about we do it together and then drive back?”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“By the way, at the graveyard ceremony, the rabbi screwed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said the standard kaddish, not the one for a burial.”

“Why didn’t you correct him?”

“I didn’t want to have anyone stand there any longer than necessary. It was cold. No one would know except for me and my uncle, I thought. He’s a minor league rabbi. You can’t expect much.”

“So you came back this morning to fix the mistake?”

“I thought I’d do that, yes. But there were other reasons.”

“Well, I’m glad you came to do this fix. It’s somehow, I don’t know, reassuring.”

I held out the little booklet that contained the burial ceremony prayers. Orlansky looked up from our pairs of shoes, now next to each other, to the open page. The sky was beginning to lighten a bit, and we both could make out the words. Orlansky’s voice was loud and clear. He was, in this moment of two middle-aged men mourning the loss of someone they loved, trying to reclaim some strength. Orlansky recited the words the way my grandfather would, using a Polish-accented Hebrew that hadn’t been taught anywhere in decades, and even then, only in Orthodox synagogues and Jewish schools like those I attended in my youth, “
Yiskadal, viyiskadash, shimay, rabow.”
I fell back into the old cadence and accent easily. When we were finished he said something under his breath, his eyes on my mother’s grave again. I dared not ask him what he said.

We walked back to the car and I asked if he wanted to stop for some breakfast. He said no.

As we drove, Orlansky said not a word. The air was heavy. I spoke up out of desperation. “I’m glad there was someone with me this morning, Peter. But my uncle might be angry that I didn’t wait for him to come along.”

“You have a right to be angry, too. We just spent six days invading your life trying to solve a problem your mother solved years ago.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Definitely, yes. I know your mother and what she was capable of doing. She definitely solved that problem.”

Peter Orlansky flew back to New Jersey that day. He still sends me Jewish New Year and happy holiday season cards every year, or at least his wife does that for him. I, of course, send him our cards in return.

DAY 7

“S
he had a crush on you back in middle school. I remember that distinctly,” Bruce said.

“She was what, twelve? I was twenty-two already, maybe twenty-three. Gas was still twenty cents a gallon. It’s ancient history.”

“She asked back then if I had a picture of you. I gave one to her. She probably still has it,” Bruce said.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“A girl’s first love should never be taken lightly, Sasha,” Bruce said.

“All of a sudden you’re an expert on women?” I said.

“Do you know how much time it took to make this?” Yakov asked, his fork, which had just speared a pelmeni, extended toward me.

“You trying to feed me again?” I asked.

“No, you get your own this time. This plate is all mine. It’ll be my last good meal in I don’t know how long. Something like this, you have to start the night before. You need to marinate the meat. Then you have to wake up early and make the dough. Roll it out. Cut them. Fill each pelmen. Pain in the ass. Hours, it takes. I know. I saw my mother do it many times,” Yakov said.

“It was Gogol’s favorite,” I said.

“See, she knows you like Gogol, too. I know you’re not stupid, Sasha. So I must assume that you’re being purposely obtuse,” Yakov said.

“He’s being passive-aggressive. It’s his standard pose when he knows he’s on the wrong side of an argument,” Bruce said.

“Somebody wonderful wants him and he has to put up a fight. What an idiot,” Yakov said.

“You should see his taste in women, too. Little pieces of cotton candy that fall for his dumb ‘I’m a Russian immigrant, a lost soul’ act,” Bruce said.

“You two are ganging up on me,” I said. “And then there is Anna, telling me time and time again I have to find someone real. She put you two up to this?”

“No, we are operating independently,” Bruce said. “But you should never cross Anna.”

We were in my mother’s kitchen. Yakov had come to say good-bye to my family, and of course have one last bite to eat. I had my doubts that he thought saying farewell was as important as eating Jenny Rivkin’s food.

“You think she’s been cooking for your family? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s for you,” Yakov said.

“I thought it was for you, Yakov,” I said.

“Don’t mock me, Sasha. If Jenny Rivkin deigned to cook for me, I’d be in heaven for the rest of my life,” Yakov said.

“If you weren’t interested in her, Sasha, you wouldn’t be toying with us like this,” Bruce said.

“It’s true. He wouldn’t be trying to act dumb. He knows he isn’t getting any younger,” Yakov said.

“Thanks, Yakov, for the reminder,” I said.

“I’m just stating a fact. It’s true for me, too. I feel it every morning I wake up. Then I look in the mirror. Ach. What has become of me?”

“You’ll live to be one hundred, Yakov,” I said.

“Not without a good woman next to me, that’s for sure. I’m tired of being alone. That’s why I’m going on sabbatical to the University of Manitoba next year.”

“Manitoba? Why on earth are you going to Manitoba?” Bruce asked.

“There are one hundred thousand Ukrainians in Winnipeg is why. Ten thousand Jews. That means there are thousands of suitable women used to cold weather for whom Lincoln, Nebraska, would be considered a lush tropical paradise. If there is any justice in this world, I am going to make one of them fall in love with me and bring her back home.”

“And what happens if you’re not successful, Yakov?” I asked.

“Failure is not an option. But if God laughs at my quest, you are going to have to promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’re going to promise that your wife-to-be sends me CARE packages at least twice a year. I deserve at least that for talking sense to you.”

“Already you have me married. That was quick. I barely know this woman.”

“You know enough, more than enough,” Yakov said.

“He’s right, Sasha. You do know enough,” Bruce said.

“She barely knows me, that’s for certain,” I said.

“She knows enough, too,” Yakov said. “And she’s smart enough to act. You sure she was born in this country?”

“Positive,” I said.

“Very unusual. American women aren’t like this, typically. They want to be wooed. Sweet-talked. Romanced. They want a big fantasy first. Reality comes later. I never have luck with American women. By the way, who is going to take me to the airport? If I don’t leave soon, I’ll be late.”

“Call a cab, Yakov,” I said. “We’re not a chauffeur service.”

“OK, OK, I’ll take a cab. But I’m going to tell you, when someone makes you a meal like this, you call her. You thank her, and you don’t wait seventy-two hours to do it. That’s American craziness, this waiting business. Her number, as you know, is on the corkboard right there.” Yakov pointed with his left hand, his right one still dearly holding onto his food-laden fork. “Jenny Rivkin. R-I-V-K-I-N. You call her. You thank her. You ask her to go to dinner with you. And you, lucky brat that you are, she’ll say yes to. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, Yakov, OK, I’ll call.”

“Good. But call a cab for me first. I’m not getting out of this chair. I need to savor every last bite before I leave.”