The housekeeper and the professor - By Yoko Ogawa Page 0,2

new housekeeper. No bow, no greeting. If there is one ironclad rule in my profession, it's that you always give the employer what he wants; and so I told him.

"Twenty-four centimeters."

"There's a sturdy number," he said. "It's the factorial of four." He folded his arms, closed his eyes, and was silent for a moment.

"What's a 'factorial'?" I asked at last. I felt I should try to find out a bit more, since it seemed to be connected to his interest in my shoe size.

"The product of all the natural numbers from one to four is twenty-four," he said, without opening his eyes. "What's your telephone number?"

He nodded, as if deeply impressed. "That's the total number of primes between one and one hundred million."

It wasn't immediately clear to me why my phone number was so interesting, but his enthusiasm seemed genuine. And he wasn't showing off; he struck me as straightforward and modest. It nearly convinced me that there was something special about my phone number, and that I was somehow special for having it.

Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort.

Every morning, during the entire time I worked for the Professor, we repeated this numerical q and a at the front door. To the Professor, whose memory lasted only eighty minutes, I was always a new housekeeper he was meeting for the first time, and so every morning he was appropriately shy and reserved. He would ask my shoe size or telephone number, or perhaps my zip code, the registration number on my bicycle, or the number of brushstrokes in the characters of my name; and whatever the number, he invariably found some significance in it. Talk of factorials and primes flowed effortlessly, seeming completely natural, never forced.

Later, even after I had learned the meanings of some of these terms, there was still something pleasant about our daily introductions at the door. I found it reassuring to be reminded that my telephone number had some significance (beyond its usual purpose), and the simple sound of the numbers helped me to start the day's work with a positive attitude.

He had once been an expert in number theory at a university. He was sixty-four, but he looked older and somewhat haggard, as though he did not eat properly. He was barely more than five feet tall, and his back was so badly hunched that he seemed even shorter. The wrinkles on his bony neck looked a little grimy, and his wispy, snow-white hair fell in all directions, half-concealing his plump, Buddhalike ears. His voice was feeble and his movements were slow. If you looked closely, though, you could see traces of a face that had once been handsome. There was something in the sharp line of his jaw and his deeply carved features that was still attractive.

Whether he was at home or going out—which he did very rarely—the Professor always wore a suit and tie. His closet held three suits, one for winter, one for summer, and one that could be worn in spring or fall, three neckties, six shirts, and an overcoat. He did not own a sweater or a pair of casual pants. From a housekeeper's point of view, it was the ideal closet.

I suspect that the Professor had no idea there were clothes other than suits. He had no interest in what people wore, and even less in his own appearance. For him it was enough to get up in the morning, open the closet, and put on whichever suit wasn't wrapped in plastic from the cleaners. All three suits were dark and well-worn, much like the Professor himself, and clung to him like a second skin.

But by far the most curious thing about the Professor's appearance was the fact that his suit was covered with innumerable scraps of notepaper, each one attached to him by a tiny binder clip. Every conceivable surface—the collar, cuffs, pockets, hems, belt loops, and buttonholes—was covered with notes, and the binder clips gathered the fabric of his clothing in awkward bunches. The notes were simply scraps of torn paper, some yellowing or crumbling. In order to read them, you had to get close and squint, but it soon became clear that he was compensating for his lack of memory by writing down the things he absolutely had to