Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd Page A

where she was, her gaze unfocused and she seemed to see John, in her mind’s eye, hurrying back to the flat. She saw the sunny street, the shiny cars, the comical way he was trying to read the newspapers as he walked, his arms full of groceries. The shadows the buildings cast were striped obliquely across the street, light and shade. John walked through gloom and glare toward her.
    The odd trance passed. She shivered, naked, in the sitting room. She ran back to their bed and slid between just warm sheets.
    USMAN SHOUKRY’S LEMMA
    Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kwarizmi was an Arab mathematician from Khiva, now part of Uzbekistan in the USSR. He lived in the first part of the ninth century A.D. and is remarkable in that he not only gave us the word algebra (from the title of one of his books—Calculation by Restoration and Reduction—al-jabr means “Restoration”), but also, more interestingly, from his name—al-Khwarizmi—is derived the word algorithm. An algorithm is a mechanical procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, a procedure that requires no ingenuity .
    Algorithms are much beloved mathematical tools. Computers operate on algorithms. They imply a world of certainty, of rotas and routine, ofcontinuous process. The great celestial machine, programmed and preordained .
    However, algorithmic procedures are of little use for phenomena that are irregular and discontinuous. Fairly self-evident, you would have thought, but how often have we tried to solve the problems in our life algorithmically? It doesn’t work. I should know .
    There is another appellation in the world of mathematics that comes faintly tinged with contempt. A Lemma. A lemma is a proposition that is so simple that it cannot even be called a theorem. I appreciate lemmae—or lemmas, maybe—they seem to have more bearing on my world. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”…“More baste, less speed ”…
    Usman gave me a lemma once .
    We were in bed, it was dark and we had made love. The roof fan buzzed above our heads and the room was cool. I could hear only the steady beat of the fan and the noise of the crickets outside. I turned to him and kissed him .
    â€œ Ah, Hope,” he said—I couldn’t see his smile in the dark, but I could hear it in his voice—“I think you’re falling in love with me .”
    â€œ Think what you like,” I said, “but you’re wrong .”
    â€œ You’re a difficult person, Hope. Very difficult .”
    â€œ Well, I am feeling happy,” I said. “I’ll give you that. You make me happy .”
    Then he said something in Arabic .
    â€œ What’s that ?”
    â€œ It’s a saying. What we always say. A warning: ‘Never be too happy .’”
    Never be too happy. Usman Shoukry’s lemma .
    Sometimes I wonder if a lemma is closer to an axiom. Axioms are statements that are assumed to be true, that require no formal proof: 2 + 2 = 4. “A line is a length without breadth.” Life is full of lemmae, I know. There must be some axioms .
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    Usman said he would be on the beach that afternoon if I wanted to meet up with him after my provisioning trip. As it happened I was finished by half past three and a hotel taxi took me down to the bathing beach. I saw Usman’s car, parked alongside a few others in the shade of a palm grove, and let the taxi go.
    The palm trees here were very tall and old; their tensed,curved, gray trunks looked too slim to hold themselves erect, let alone bear the weight of their shaggy crowns and burden of green coconuts. The ground beneath them was grassless and hard, almost as if it had been rolled and swept. This had been an exclusive beach once and all along the shoreline were the remains of wooden beach houses and cabanas. Most had rotted away over the last few years, or had been dismantled for their timber and tar paper roofs. Locals