Don't forget to remember

I picked up this book, "The Housekeeper and the Professor" on Wednesday while browsing through MPH literary fiction section. I wanted a light reading soon after an eye review that my eye sight is improving. Yet I do not wish to dwell on romance. Not that day!

It's a book about a mathematics professor, his housekeeper and her ten year old son. After an accident, the professor only has 80 minutes of short term memory. It means, every morning, the housekeeper has to re-introduce herself to the professor before she can go into his house.

It is just a simple experience of getting to know someone, but with a twist: the person forgets everything in 80 minutes. How do you form a relationship with a person who cannot remember?

And I asked, after finishing the story - a little stressful on my eye - Are our immediate experiences more important than our memories?

There are many numbers in the book. I was never a "Maths" person in school. Maths made no sense to me when I was sitting in the class with the Math teacher! Most of the times, I was day-dreaming. I have longer memories - I seldom passed a Maths test!

Here is just a co-incidence on the numbers - 18 and 14 from the book. If you are a Malaysian, you would be very sensitive to the number 14, or the 14th floor -

“I tried picturing 18 and 14, but now that I’d heard the Professor’s explanation, they were no longer simply numbers. Eighteen secretly carried a heavy burden, while 14 fell mute on the face of its terrible lack.”

Strangely, Math is a sensual experience the way the author has presented in the book!

If you love cooking, or if you love making dumplings, you would probably be delighted to know that making dumplings could be peaceful, read this -

“…and if I were making dumplings, he would look on with something approaching wonder. I would take a dumpling skin in the palm of my hand, spoon on a bit of filling, and then pinch up the edges before setting it on the platter. A simple process, but he was completely absorbed by it, watching me until the last dumpling had been stuffed….

When I was done at last and the dumplings were neatly arranged on the plate, he would fold his hands on the table and nod solemnly. “How peaceful…”

And the book talks about children and friends -

“He treated Root (Root is the Housekeeper's son whose head is flat, the Professor called him Root as it's like the square root in Maths) exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world.

I still take out that note sometimes and study it. On sleepless nights, or lonely evenings, when tears come to my eyes thinking about friends who are no longer here. I bow my head in gratitude for that one line.”

And I think, if my Maths teacher taught Maths like how this Professor did, I would be a lot smarter!