way.”
‘“Suppose I said nothing at all, then.”
‘“It’s still the same. You’d be suppressing one name or the other, and, no matter which, my chances would still be one in two.”’
This baffles them. They can’t see why the governor is in the story at all. A could simply imagine a governor coming to him and speaking a name. So A’s chances of survival are always one in two?
‘That’s right,’ I lie. Why do I enjoy lying to them? They’re doing their best.
I finally ask Professor Rice to put his escape plan into action.
‘All right. Look at the corner of the cell. There, see where the ceilingand floor corners are? Now, why do they have to be inside corners? Couldn’t they just possibly be the outside corners of a crooked cube?’
I stare at them until they are. We jump back, avoiding the big lopsided cube as it falls over. We’re free.
Two other freed prisoners rush over to thank him. They even shake his hand.
‘I’m A,’ says the taller. ‘This is my cell-mate, B. I’m afraid C was crushed beneath a big stone block. Good thing his insurance coverage started a few minutes ago.’
The four of us get on a train (and five get off). Professor Rice finds his clipboard on the floor and makes a note.
I feel I’ve heard A’s story before: ‘B and I are related. We hang around together, doing odd jobs. You know, chopping wood, pumping water in and out of tanks. Or racing. We race a lot. Rowboats, upstream and downstream, stuff like that. Good clean fun.’
What is it I like about A so much?
‘Fun!’ B has the shoulder slump of a born loser. ‘Like if I ride a bike from X to Y, A has to race me in a car, passing me at –’
‘That’s not fair,’ A says. ‘You generally have twice as many apples as I do, before you give me half the –’
‘Give, give, give! It’s been the same ever since you were as many years old as I am younger than you were when –’
‘Ignore him.’ A turns to me. ‘It all goes back to our parents, a lawyer and a model. They met at a footrace. The lawyer could go faster uphill and on the level, but mother was faster on the downhill parts. So naturally mother won.’
Professor Rice does not look up from his work. ‘I take it you mean the lawyer was your mother.’
B, still sulking, says, ‘A’s not my brother, you know.’
I feel it’s true.
‘It’s true!’ Professor Rice is fascinated. ‘I calculate the number of passengers generated within this carriage as exactly – uh, I have the figures here – exactly
one.’
I hate to say it. ‘Professor, have you counted yourself?’
He adjusts his taped glasses, turns over the pages on his clipboard for a moment or two. Finally he says:
‘Have I told you about my novel?’
The train wheels begin to scream. I know what’s happened: The tracks are getting narrower as we near the horizon.
I get off alone at the next station. (No one gets in.) Along the deserted platform, I hear voices from the exit tunnels. Going alone through the tunnel, I hear feet and voices on the escalators.
No one is on the escalators. No one in the ticket-collector’s box, where I find his burning cigarette on the shelf. Outside there are traffic noises, murmuring mobs of shoppers, the cry of a newspaper man. But of course when I get there, it’s to see: abandoned cars; a stack of papers peeling offand blowing away; an ice-cream cone on the pavement, just starting to melt. London, perhaps the world, is one big
Mary Celeste,
with everyone suddenly out to lunch.
Professor Rice’s office is here, in a blue glass tower where brokers and lawyers, on a normal day, might sit and reason with one another.
All I can find of his novel is in the typewriter:
‘If I’m God,’ said God, who was, ‘then why can’t I do anything I like? Why can’t I lock myself in a prison from which even I can’t escape?’
He found this, like all questions, rhetorical.
‘I know the answer to that one,’ he cried, paring his
‘“Suppose I said nothing at all, then.”
‘“It’s still the same. You’d be suppressing one name or the other, and, no matter which, my chances would still be one in two.”’
This baffles them. They can’t see why the governor is in the story at all. A could simply imagine a governor coming to him and speaking a name. So A’s chances of survival are always one in two?
‘That’s right,’ I lie. Why do I enjoy lying to them? They’re doing their best.
I finally ask Professor Rice to put his escape plan into action.
‘All right. Look at the corner of the cell. There, see where the ceilingand floor corners are? Now, why do they have to be inside corners? Couldn’t they just possibly be the outside corners of a crooked cube?’
I stare at them until they are. We jump back, avoiding the big lopsided cube as it falls over. We’re free.
Two other freed prisoners rush over to thank him. They even shake his hand.
‘I’m A,’ says the taller. ‘This is my cell-mate, B. I’m afraid C was crushed beneath a big stone block. Good thing his insurance coverage started a few minutes ago.’
The four of us get on a train (and five get off). Professor Rice finds his clipboard on the floor and makes a note.
I feel I’ve heard A’s story before: ‘B and I are related. We hang around together, doing odd jobs. You know, chopping wood, pumping water in and out of tanks. Or racing. We race a lot. Rowboats, upstream and downstream, stuff like that. Good clean fun.’
What is it I like about A so much?
‘Fun!’ B has the shoulder slump of a born loser. ‘Like if I ride a bike from X to Y, A has to race me in a car, passing me at –’
‘That’s not fair,’ A says. ‘You generally have twice as many apples as I do, before you give me half the –’
‘Give, give, give! It’s been the same ever since you were as many years old as I am younger than you were when –’
‘Ignore him.’ A turns to me. ‘It all goes back to our parents, a lawyer and a model. They met at a footrace. The lawyer could go faster uphill and on the level, but mother was faster on the downhill parts. So naturally mother won.’
Professor Rice does not look up from his work. ‘I take it you mean the lawyer was your mother.’
B, still sulking, says, ‘A’s not my brother, you know.’
I feel it’s true.
‘It’s true!’ Professor Rice is fascinated. ‘I calculate the number of passengers generated within this carriage as exactly – uh, I have the figures here – exactly
one.’
I hate to say it. ‘Professor, have you counted yourself?’
He adjusts his taped glasses, turns over the pages on his clipboard for a moment or two. Finally he says:
‘Have I told you about my novel?’
The train wheels begin to scream. I know what’s happened: The tracks are getting narrower as we near the horizon.
I get off alone at the next station. (No one gets in.) Along the deserted platform, I hear voices from the exit tunnels. Going alone through the tunnel, I hear feet and voices on the escalators.
No one is on the escalators. No one in the ticket-collector’s box, where I find his burning cigarette on the shelf. Outside there are traffic noises, murmuring mobs of shoppers, the cry of a newspaper man. But of course when I get there, it’s to see: abandoned cars; a stack of papers peeling offand blowing away; an ice-cream cone on the pavement, just starting to melt. London, perhaps the world, is one big
Mary Celeste,
with everyone suddenly out to lunch.
Professor Rice’s office is here, in a blue glass tower where brokers and lawyers, on a normal day, might sit and reason with one another.
All I can find of his novel is in the typewriter:
‘If I’m God,’ said God, who was, ‘then why can’t I do anything I like? Why can’t I lock myself in a prison from which even I can’t escape?’
He found this, like all questions, rhetorical.
‘I know the answer to that one,’ he cried, paring his
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