Читаем The Last Samurai полностью

She said: We’re having a guest for dinner, so I’m afraid my husband won’t be able to talk to you tonight. He may not be able to fit you in at all, you know, he’s terribly busy these days, still you may as well come in, no use letting the grass grow, if he can find a time you can fix it all up straight away. What is your name?

I said: Steve.

She said: Well come in Steve and we’ll see what we can do for you.

I followed her into the house. A television was on in a room to the left off the hall. She led me into a large room to the right.

A tall, thin, grey-haired man stood by the window looking into the street. He was holding a glass of sherry. He said he thought we were a long way from understanding that.

Sorabji said he thought the next few years would be critical. He was standing by the fireplace holding a glass of sherry. He began to talk about stellar winds, gesturing with his free hand and then putting down the glass of sherry to gesture with his other hand. The only thing I could understand was that he was talking about stellar winds. I’d never thought of reading about stellar winds. The other man said something which I also could not understand and Sorabji began to talk about Wolf-Rayet stars. A Wolf-Rayet star is a highly luminous star with broad emission bands in carbon or nitrogen. I could not understand what Sorabji was saying. I would have liked to say something brilliant but the only thing I could have said was that a Wolf-Rayet star is a highly luminous star with broad emission bands in carbon or nitrogen.

Sorabji was still talking impetuously though we were standing by the door. His skin was paler than a dark tan; his eyes were piercing and black; his hair was black and wavy. It did not seem impossible that I could get away with it. He would not decide I could not be his son on the basis of abysmal ignorance of stellar winds and the single scattering maximum and Wolf-Rayet stars, but I did not want to tell him and watch him think that Sesame Street was about the right level.

He was still talking impetuously when his wife interrupted without waiting for a good moment.

She said: GEORGE. This boy wants to talk to you. It’s for a school project. Can we find him a time?

He laughed. He said: Does it have to be in the next 18 months?

She said: GEORGE.

He said: I can’t think about it now, I’ve almost convinced this heretic of the error of his ways, isn’t that right Ken?

The man by the window gave a dry smile.

I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that.

Sorabji began to talk impetuously again and she said: GEORGE.

He said: I’d have to check my diary. I daresay I can manage something. I’ll have a look later. Why don’t you stay for dinner?

I said: Thank you.

He said: Splendid, my wife will find you some problems to do—

His wife said GEORGE again but he said No, a rule’s a rule, and he explained that the rule was that if you finished a page of problems you got to eat with the grown-ups. He explained that his children had a page of problems to do every night. He said grinning: Don’t take it too seriously, will you? God knows the girls don’t, they’d far rather eat in front of the TV than sit listening to Ken and me talking nineteen to the dozen, if you find you can’t hack it you can stay and watch EastEnders and we’ll go through my diary later on.

His wife took me into the other room.

She said: George has this bee in his bonnet about mathematics, Steve.

I said it was all right.

The TV was on. Three girls were watching it and working on pages of problems. She introduced me and they looked up and then back at the TV. She said I could work on anything I thought I could do, and she said now she really must see about dinner.

The youngest girl was working on a page of problems in long division. I thought that they would take a long time to do, and what was the point? He was not going to think much of it if I brought in a page of long division. It wouldn’t matter whether it was right or not, it would be the type of thing anyone could do.

The middle girl was working on a lot of equations in three variables. He was not going to think much of it if I just came in with solutions to three-variable equations, and they would take a long time to do.

The oldest girl was working on a page of determinants. It would be hard enough to be worth doing, but there were so many problems that it was going to take a long time.

I said to her: Are there any other problems I could do?

She said with a shrug: You can see if you can find anything in there.

She was pointing to a folder on the table. They all laughed. I said: What is it? And they said: Nothing.

I opened the folder and in it was a big pile of printed pages with problems on them. There were a lot of things I couldn’t do, but I could see there were some about Fourier analysis so I thought that would probably be all right.

At the top of each paper it said 3 hours. I said: When is dinner?

They said: He starts at 8:00.