The Gift of Numbers by Yōko Ogawa

since
the group to our left politely ignored him, while the man sitting to
our right was amused. He helped us to keep the Professor calm.
    "You seem to know a lot more about it than that lousy announcer,"
he said. "You'd make a great scorekeeper. Why don't you
figure out how the Tigers can win the pennant?" When he wasn't
cheering for the players on the field, he appeared to listen carefully
to everything the Professor said, even though I doubt he could understand
it. Thanks to this kind man, the Professor's mathematical
commentary moved beyond the level of farce and, in some sense, revealed
a kind of logic to the game. For that, the man shared his
peanuts with us.
    The Tigers held their lead through the fifth inning on hits from
Wada and Kuji. The sun had gone down and the evening grew
chilly, so I made Root put on his jacket and I handed the Professor
his lap robe; then I was busy wiping everyone's hands before we
ate, and by the time we were properly settled, I was amazed to see
that two more runs had been scored. Root, beside himself with
happiness, was screaming through his megaphone, while the Professor,
resting his sandwich on his lap, applauded awkwardly.
    He had become completely absorbed in the game. The angle of
the ball flying off the bat would leave him marveling, squinting at
the field and nodding. From time to time he would peek into the
picnic basket of the people sitting in front of us, or glance up at
the moon shining between the branches of the poplars just outside
the stadium.
    Hanshin fans seemed to dominate the stands behind third base.
The area was blanketed in yellow jerseys, and the cheers for the
Tigers were loud and long. Even if the Hiroshima supporters had
wanted to answer, they had little to cheer about as Nakagomi
struck out one batter after another.
    The Tigers fans roared each time Nakagomi threw a strike; and
when a run came in, the stadium erupted. I had never in my entire
life seen so many people united in celebration. Even the Professor
looked positively elated—and here was a man who only seemed to
have two facial expressions, the one he wore when he was thinking
and the one he gave me when I interrupted those thoughts. You
might even say that he, too, had been transported by the cheers.
    But the prize for the most original way of expressing enthusiasm
went to the Kameyama fan clinging to the wire fence of the
backstop. In his early twenties, he wore a Kameyama jersey over
his work clothes and had a transistor radio clipped to his belt. His
fingers were wrapped tight around the backstop and he hung
there throughout the game. When Kameyama was out in left field,
the young man's eyes never left him, and when he appeared in the
on-deck circle, he grew agitated. When Kameyama was up at bat,
he called out his name in one continuous chant that went from joy
to despair. In order to get a few millimeters closer to his hero, he
had pressed his face against the fence, so that the mesh pattern
had become imprinted on his forehead. He wasted no energy booing
the other team, nor did he complain when the great man himself
struck out. Instead, he poured his whole heart and soul into
repeating that one word: Kameyama.
    As we watched him, we began to wonder what would happen
if Kameyama actually got a hit; and when, in the middle of the
fourth inning, he knocked it into left field, the spectators sitting
behind him reached up out of their seats, as if expecting him to
faint dead away. Kameyama's ball shot between second and third
and bounced into the outfield. It glowed white against the grass,
and the outfielders scurried after it. The young man screamed for a
long time, and even after his lungs were empty, he sobbed faintly
and writhed against the fence. Paciorek was up next, and this ecstatic
display continued well into his warm-up. By comparison,
the Professor's reaction to the game was reserved and respectful.
    He didn't seem to care that none of the players were familiar
from the cards he had