The Indian Clerk (34 page)
Authors: David Leavitt
H
E GETS TO the tea shop first; claims a table; watches through the window as Hardy, in a bowler hat and raincoat, saunters
toward the door. Saunters, yes—that's exactly the word for Hardy. He is laconic and sleek, like an otter. He steps inside,
closes his umbrella, signals with his chin. "Littlewood," he says, ungloving a hand, which Littlewood shakes. So dry, that
hand. Which rather contradicts the otter notion. A thin wedge of a man, all edges. What would it be like to embrace him? He
shudders to think.
"Sorry I'm late. I'm just off the train."
"No bother."
"You're doing fine, I trust."
Such a statement brooks no possibility of an answer. "I'm doing fine."
"Good."
"I've got something to show you." Littlewood reaches into his bag. "It's my first ballistics paper. Just printed. See that little speck at the bottom of the last page?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"A tiny sigma. The last line was supposed to read, 'Thus σ should be made as small as possible.'" Littlewood leans back. "Well,
the printer did his job. He must have scoured the print shops of London to find one so tiny."
Hardy laughs so loud the waitress turns and gives him a look.
"I'm glad you think it's funny," Littlewood says. "I've missed having someone around who'd understand why that was funny."
"I may be joining you soon. Who knows? Conscription seems a certainty."
"And this from the secretary of the U.D.C! How goes all that, by the way?"
"The college is in an uproar. Butler's trying to root out everyone who has anything to do with us. Rumor has it he's working
to throw out Neville. And in the meantime none of us can complain because three of his sons are at the front. Butler's. And
the poor man's in an absolute state. He can't seem to fix his attention on anything, he hardly hears what you're saying."
The waitress approaches. "Oh, yes, hello. Earl Grey, please."
"And you, sir?"
"The same. Anything to eat, Hardy?"
"No, I wouldn't care for anything."
The way Hardy says he "wouldn't care for anything" vexes Littlewood. Now if
he
asks for anything to eat—and how alluring the pastries look!—Hardy will doubtless look him up and down reproachfully. And
while it's true that, since they last met, Littlewood has put on a few pounds—well, what's to be done about it? Pie's enlisted
now. You can't stay slim on range tables and military potatoes.
"Just tea. Nothing to eat."
"Very good, sir."
The waitress walks away.
"I've been thinking a lot about our friend Ramanujan lately," he says. "You know, I was never sure if I believed all his talk
of dreaming up mathematics. But then the other night I had a dream in which I saw, clear as day, the solution to a problem,
and of course the next morning I'd forgotten it. So I began keeping a pad and pencil by the bed, and the next time it happened
I woke up, wrote it down, and went back to sleep. And then in the morning I looked at the pad, and you know what I'd written?"
"What?"
" 'Higamus, bigamus, men are polygamous. Hogamus, bogamus, wives are monogamous.'"
This time Hardy does not laugh.
"So what brings you to town this time?"
"Mathematical Society business. We're trying to help a German physicist who got stuck in Reading. Now he's been interned."
"Good of you."
"Well, there are Englishmen stuck in Germany. And the Germans are trying to help them too."
"Strange to think that we're here and they're there. On opposite sides."
"It's merely a change of sign. Trivial. Plus into minus, minus into plus."
"Is that all you think it is?"
"This war is a joke."
"Still, if the Germans win—"
"It might be a fine thing for England."
Littlewood smiles. "One thing I do miss is hearing you make outrageous statements. You know that outrageous statements aren't
permitted at Woolwich."
"Nor should they be. They belong to Cambridge."
"The truth is, I don't miss that side of Cambridge. The bright talk, the witticisms flying. All the goods in the front window."
"So is Woolwich any better?"
"At least there's a certain naked honesty about it. There's a job to do, and you do it."
"Careful, Littlewood, you're starting to sound like an engineer."
"I don't see why I shouldn't end my days as one. I expect I'll lose the gift once I hit forty. And then what's the alternative?
Mathematicians gone to seed make excellent vice-chancellors."
"I could see you as a vice-chancellor."
"I'd rather be shot."
"Given the work you're doing now, you'll certainly be able to position the gun."
"Yes, that I will. Although I'm not exactly a crack marksman. That's why they leave me to work things out on paper."
The waitress brings the tea. Two women with very straight backs sit at the next table. A three-tiered tray has just been delivered
to them, stacked with sandwiches, scones, crumpets, and those pastries, studded with sultanas, that Littlewood covets.
And why aren't they eating? With studied nonchalance, the women sip their tea, exchange a few words, ignore the delicacies.
They do not put sugar in their tea. In all likelihood, no sugar has been used in the pastries; no eggs, either, for this is
wartime, and Hardy has chosen a fairly expensive tea shop, the clientele of which cares about appearances. Heaven forbid that
these women should be confused with workers for whom nourishment must be taken in quantity, and fast, if the job is to be
done! Or that they should be seen as not respecting the sumptuary laws imposed by war—at least in public. Who knows what they
have hidden away at home?
On the other hand, at working-class tea shops—there is one in Woolwich that Littlewood frequents—all the customers put sugar
in their tea.
If any of this concerns Hardy, he doesn't show it. He pours out. He does not ask for sugar. Come to think of it, has Littlewood
ever once seen Hardy take sugar in his tea? It's as if, his whole life, he's been obeying sumptuary laws of his own invention.
"Ramanujan sends his regards, by the way," Hardy says.
"And how fares Ramanujan?"
"All right, I think. I wish I could get him to concentrate."
"Don't make him concentrate too much, though. Is he happy?"
"To be honest, he seems a bit depressed. Perhaps it's all the reading he's doing. My hunch is that he's finally recognizing
how much he doesn't know."
"Then maybe he shouldn't read so much."
"But even if he didn't, he's too intelligent not to see what he couldn't see in India. Now he realizes that he's handicapped.
The very thing that was always his calling card—his lack of schooling—he understands now how it's hurt him."
"What was it Klein said? Mathematics has been advanced more by those distinguished for intuition than by those distinguished
for rigorous methods of proof."
"Easy for Klein to say, with his education."
"I think we should just leave Ramanujan in an empty room with a slate and let him come up with whatever he likes."
"If only. The trouble is, he's ambitious. And this in spite of the goddess Namby-Pamby and the dreams and what have you. You
know he still keeps pestering me about the Smith's Prize? An undergraduate prize! And he's getting his B.A. By God, he's determined
to take that B.A. back to India with him."
"B.A.s matter in India."
"So better a B.A. than proving the Riemann hypothesis? Better a B.A. than immortality?"
"But what is immortality?"
"Whoever proves the Riemann hypothesis will be immortal."
"The difference between a great discovery and an ordinary one is a difference of kind, not a difference of degree."
"Ah, but is the difference between a difference of kind and a difference of degree a difference of kind or a difference of
degree?"
"The answer is elementary." Littlewood gazes, for a few seconds, into his tea. Then he says, "Hardy, a few years ago—I never
mentioned this at the time, but Norton told me you were writing a novel. A murder novel."
"That's ridiculous."
"Well, he said that you were. And in it the victim proves the Riemann hypothesis and the murderer steals the proof and claims
it as his own." Littlewood empties his cup. "It's a very good idea."
"And when am I supposed to have time to write novels?"
"I just wouldn't want you to think, well, that I'd be bothered if you, let's say, based a character on me. Maybe the murderer.
You could work in the ballistics angle. And the tiny sigma."
"Never listen to Norton. Half of what he says is deranged fantasy. We need more milk." Hardy looks over his shoulder. "I wish
I could get that waitress's attention! They're always looking the other way when you want to signal them! I think they do
it on purpose."
"Are you in a rush?"
"No, I just haven't been to the flat yet."
"Anne is pregnant."
Hardy pauses; swallows.
"No need to pretend you don't know about us. She told me this morning."
"Well, I'm not sure what to say . . . Are congratulations in order?"
"Decidedly not. She won't marry me. She insists on staying with her husband." He puts his head in his hands. "Oh, Hardy, what
am I to do? It's not that I want to marry her, I can't see us living like the Nevilles on Chesterton Road . . . But I love
her. And the child. Is it wrong of me to want the child to know me as its father?"
"No, it's not wrong . . . Only if she doesn't want to marry you, what can you do?"
"Nothing. I can't do anything." He runs his fingers through his hair. "Well, that's it. I just needed to tell someone. I hope
you don't mind."
"Of course not."
Once again, Hardy tries to signal the waitress. He reached out his arm, and Littlewood takes it in his hand; pushes it, gently,
down onto the table.
"Not yet. Just a few minutes. Just wait with me a few minutes. I'm hungry."
Now Littlewood waves to the waitress. She comes instantly.
"Those pastries look awfully good," he says. "The ones with the sultanas. I'll have one, please. You too, Hardy?"
"No, I wouldn't—" He coughs. "Oh well, why not?"
"Very good, officer," the waitress says to Littlewood, backing away, her eyes on his face.
And Littlewood winks.
F
ROM THE TEASHOP, Hardy turns left and walks to the Underground station. In his pocket is a letter from Thayer. Not much of
a letter; then again, Thayer's letters never contain much beyond the basic information (when he has a leave coming up, which
day he plans to be in London) and the basic question: at what hour might he call at Hardy's flat "for tea"? Whether Thayer
employs this euphemism for the benefit of the censors or to satisfy some standard of his own, Hardy does not know; he only
knows that he finds this whole business of answering Thayer's letters—the reply sent to a military address, and consisting
solely of a suggested hour for the "tea" appointment, as if he were some benevolent great-aunt—as exciting as it is annoying.
In any case, the system seems to work. Twice, now, they have convened at the flat in Pimlico for early afternoon assignations.
The first time Hardy was anxious; he actually took the trouble to purchase biscuits, to boil water and put out the tea things,
all of which turned out to be quite unnecessary. No tea was poured. Instead Thayer, almost the instant the door was shut,
hurled himself into Hardy, enveloped him in the woolly, wet stink of his greatcoat, pressed his mouth into Hardy's mouth,
so that their teeth knocked. Then they were on the floor, clothes were being pulled off so roughly Hardy could hear buttons
breaking. That Thayer, as it turned out, wanted to be buggered came as no surprise. Keynes had alerted him to the curious
fact that nearly all the soldiers home on leave wanted, when they met up with queers, to take the passive role. "Mind you,
I'm not complaining," Keynes said, "only it does strike one as a bit strange, doesn't it? I'd have thought
they'd
want to do the buggering, so that they could tell themselves they weren't 'really' queer, that they were simply taking advantage
of an opportunity, cheaper than whores and all that—but no." Instead, it seemed that they wanted, as one of Keynes's paramours
phrased it, "to see what it felt like." It was as if, after so many weeks in the trenches, after taking lives and nearly dying,
they required a more extreme variety of erotic stimulation than ordinary intercourse could provide. Nor was Hardy unwilling
to oblige when Thayer got on his knees and thrust his rear end in the air—this despite the fact that, though he had admitted
this to none of his friends (not even Keynes), he had never actually engaged in buggery before, his sexual repertoire having
been limited to some of the various unnamed "acts of gross indecency" that the law punished with a less severe sentence. Wanking
and sucking, though in Hardy's case, much more of the former than the latter, due to his mother's inculcation in him of the
belief that germs enter mostly through the mouth. Gaye had laughed at him for that.
And what would Gaye have thought had he seen him that first afternoon with Thayer, on his own knees and thrusting away while
Thayer writhed and grunted under him? Indeed, he must have been doing a fairly decent job of the thing, from the way Thayer
moaned and swore—so decent a job that for a moment he wondered whether he might not, after all, try having it on with a woman.
But no. What he really enjoyed wasn't the fucking itself so much as the obvious paroxysms of pleasure that Thayer was experiencing.
Thayer disengaged himself, turned on his back, put his legs on Hardy's shoulders. Now the scar from the shrapnel wound was
just to the left of Hardy's mouth—red and jagged—and as he plunged into Thayer he could not help running his tongue along
the length of it. Thayer howled, shot off. Hardy shot off too. "Damn," Thayer said, pulling himself back along the length
of the floor with his elbows. "My damn leg."
"Did I hurt you?"
"No, it's just the position I'm in." Then he stood. He seemed far more naked in the wake of the act than he had in the course
of it. "May I wash now?" he asked. And Hardy said that yes, of course he could wash.
And afterward—
then
he wanted the tea. That was the oddest thing. You might have thought he'd have tried to get out of there as fast as he could,
that shame or horror at his own gluttonous passivity would have overwhelmed him. Nothing of the kind. Instead he put his uniform
back on, and they sat down to tea and biscuits, and Thayer talked. He talked once again about his sisters, and his parents,
and about a girl named Daisy with whom he had for some years had, well, they had known each other for some years and, though
nothing had been put into words or writing, it was sort of understood—but now, with the war, was it fair of him to marry her
if the likelihood was that he would leave her a widow? But if they waited until the war was over—and who could guess how long
that would be?—it would be rather late to start a family, wouldn't it? And he wanted children. He wanted a boy, whom he would
name Dick, for his friend Dick Tarlow.
Hardy listened. They might as well have been in the hospital again, with the rain coming through the blinds and the cricket
field outside. Then Thayer stopped talking, and looked at his watch, and said, "Well, I'd best be going. I've got to catch
the train for Birmingham." And he got up, and Hardy got up, and they walked to the door, where Thayer put on his greatcoat
and turned to him. What Hardy hadn't realized at the hospital was how tall he was. "Look," Hardy said, "won't you take some—"
He was reaching for his wallet. Thayer stopped his hand; shook his head no. "Please," Hardy said.
"No," Thayer said. And held out his hand. They shook hands manfully. Suddenly Thayer pulled him close again, kissed him hard
enough this time to draw blood. "Ta-ra" was his last word, along with a military salute, before he turned on his heels and
went hobbling down the stairs.
This happened twice more. Then, yesterday, another letter arrived. Telegrams were exchanged. Today their appointment is set
for two o'clock, and Hardy is eager to get to the flat, to prepare the bed and himself before Thayer arrives.
From Ramanujan he has picked up the habit of going everywhere by tube. Now he descends at Russell Square, rides the Piccadilly
Line to South Kensington, then switches to the District, which he takes to Victoria. At the station he buys a packet of biscuits
(Bath Oliver, the kind, he has learned, that Thayer likes best) as well as some flowers to put in the vase on the kitchen
table. It's a sunny afternoon, albeit a cold one, and while the prospect of seeing Thayer fills him with what he would be
willing to call joy, nonetheless an awareness of trouble in the world, in his life, in Littlewood's life, darkens his humor.
Increasingly, it seems that one only has these brief moments, and then trouble comes again. And what intensifies his joy at
seeing Thayer, every time he sees Thayer, is of course the blessed fact that Thayer isn't yet dead.
Some crocuses are blooming in St. George's Square. Removing his gloves, he bends down and picks a few, which he adds to the
bouquet he's purchased, then trips up the stairs to the flat. He is whistling—what? Something silly, something he must have
heard on the wireless somewhere:
For Belgium put the kibosh on the Kaiser;
Europe took the stick and made him sore;
On his throne it hurts to sit,
And when John Bull starts to hit,
He will never sit upon it anymore.
He checks his watch. One-thirty. Only a half an hour, then, to wait until Thayer rings his bell.
He opens the door. A woman screams. From the doorway to the kitchen, Alice Neville stares at him, her hand on her chest.
