PLEASE CALL ME SERVANT by MILENA ODA (top 100 novels txt) 📕

on the left! It makes sense to categorise the people out there in this way too – as I see them, count them and asses them. I sort them into orderly and disorderly. The sum total: 5,789 disorderly and 3,123 orderly people observed within a period of five years. 5,789: how many disorderly people the world contains! My retreat into passivity and anonymity has truly been the best solution. I was confronted with this disorder too often and experience has proved the best teacher of all, as Caesar said.’
My face falls, white as chalk. I do not understand him.
‘Before you arrived here, at 16:15, I saw 28 people pass by, of which 16 were unknown to me, 12 were faces already familiar. At 8:15 on the other hand, nine were standing in the bakery, three at the newspaper stand and four were drinking coffee in front of the bakery. With binoculars one sees this clearly. I am interested in the question, “How many?” The precise number – no stories, no chit-chat; the subject under discussion is the figures! I explore a kingdom of numbers, using the traditional method – I count. Counting is a natural human activity like eating and excreting. I transform each word, each bird, each object into numbers. I dissect everything into numerals. In my opinion I thus confer a higher significance on everyday objects, as did Pierre de Fermat, Isaac Newton and C F Gauß. My greatest desire is simply to arithmetise the world around me each day. I want to make a breakthrough. I am converting everything into a system of numbers. This is more than a stamp collection or an insect collection, yes, soon I must cease this; a counting voice – no it is my voice counting – pursues me constantly, day and night! That is why you are here Bohumil. You are to save me from decline. You will note the numbers down from time to time, but you must also protect me from the sickly attacks of arithmetic mania!’
He sobs. I do not know what I should do. I stand, awkwardly. Should I offer him a handkerchief? That would be a sensitive sign of concern for the suffering of my master.
‘How romantic mathematical structures feel! The daily contemplation of quantities – Highly romantic! A continuum from linguistic poetry into the poetry of numbers. As Einstein said, the numbers offer so much space for intuition, we must simply allow the speechless connections and collisions and their sparks to shine like the midday sun. In thinking, speaking and writing, numbers repeatedly appear; Gödel demonstrated this. And according to Wittgenstein thought must not accompany activity.’
I struggle with every word this gentleman says.
‘These few tasks each day are enough for me. I am forced – I force myself – to write the numbers down. You have made me happy, Bohumil – the fact that you are here! Your tendency to stay quiet and stand still means you might pass muster. Those are your strengths?’
I smile a little, and describe my serving qualities: ‘Yes sir. Even if an infuriating fly lands on my face and scuttles around I will never relax my upstanding stance.’ How sincere and serious I wish to appear, standing immobile all day, waiting by the door. ‘I am a true servant,’ I take a deep bow. I wish to show him how respectable and reliable I am, loathing indolence, even when the master is not currently resident in his palace. There is always work to be done.
‘What forceful energy there is between us! It is fate, Bohumil! We should honour the coincidences which land in our palms, Descartes said.’
He scrutinises me with amazement, rolls his eyes back and forth: ‘Too tall to serve.’
Is he saying the familiar words of vilification? My splendid arrogance, which I had prided myself on, leaves me. I feel insecure, look down at myself briefly.
‘Stop shaking!’
Now this! Is the master critical of the new assistant, who is pinning his hopes on this post and cannot hide his shaking under his livery?
His mood changes suddenly. Almost in tears, he cries, ‘My dear Bohumil, everyone – you understand? – everyone has left me! That demonstrates finite formal proof of consistency; people undermine each other and I have driven them away with my general contempt. My world was reduced to rubble by them!’
According to Rule 9 I must demonstrate sympathy for my master. Should I pull a sorry face? I compress my cheeks and shoulders together. I forbid myself from doing more. I should plane off all emotion like a plank. Like the English royal footmen.
‘From this we can deduce that I do not belong to the swarm of wasps; that is the mathematical consistency! I no longer hesitate there. I very much like to eat beans. I ate a substantial breakfast today. And you?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘I ate soft-boiled eggs and fried potatoes with beans. I do love beans. Ideally the green ones, not the dried red ones.’
‘Hmm,’ I murmur. The British queen also likes green beans; I should love to inform him of this. What I don’t know about the royal palace! Your majesty, I bow from sheer reverence and respect at the memory of the one true beauty, her royal highness! The master is royal! I smile at this impressive notion. I remember the TV series in which the royals eat beans, remember how elegantly they consume their victuals altogether. Such a vision is a delight; each bean I eat is in memory of it.
‘He who eats beans is a loner who likes to live cloistered and rarely achieves contact with other people. The Japanese nutritionalist Dr Kaichin Kurichama has pioneered a new branch of scientific enquiry: fruit and vegetable psychology. By analysing the various elements found in species of fruit and vegetables they eat he can sort the character and talents of the person into solitude and togetherness. He uses the most rigorous academic methods in his work, he wrote to me. What talents do you have? Bohumil, don’t look so astounded. Your incredulous face! It is by no means unusual. You will see how much I like to eat beans and what effects they have. One farts – yes it’s true. Willhelmina has complained and no longer wishes to cook beans – as if farting were inhuman. Do you eat beans? What do you eat?’
‘Lentils,’ I answer quickly.
‘Lentils? Then you too fart, and by the way you are too withdrawn – above all when it comes to the female sex – no wonder. He who eats beans and lentils must withdraw... Or are you suffering, are you afraid? What of? Bohumil! But I love to eat lentils too. My best friend ate cucumbers every day with a passion and was a thoroughly gregarious person. He made friends rapidly and was liked by all, a genuine dandy! He also found it hard to say ‘no’. All thanks to the cucumbers. Successful with money, blind in love – because I like peanuts. I hide my sensitivity behind a rough hull, in horror of sentimentality. All because of cherries, which I consume with a passion. According to Kurichama that makes me intolerant, very intolerant. Is that not the case? Of course it is. I am after all a professor. A distinguished person. Do you like cherries and peanuts too?’
I simply nod again.
‘On the very first day we have discovered so many things we have in common! My Bohumil. My visionary, my poet and writer. Amor dei intellectualis!’
Why does he continually call me Bo-hu-mil? What kind of name is that? He calls me a poet and writer? Me? He must be mistaking me for someone else!
‘Your rigid head, your cramped eyebrows and lips are swollen. Are you in pain? Like me, no doubt exactly like me!’
Why does he not ask after my particulars, instead of playing a game I don’t understand with me? As a servant however, I must understand everything, immediately, without asking myself what sense the master’s questions, commands or behaviour make. As a servant I may not ask ‘why’ (Rule 6). My rules radiate through my head like a ray of sunlight guiding me. To keep on your toes is the trick.
‘Bohumil, how tired I am, always having to look for someone and ask if he can count, or if he wants to learn a foreign language. The greatest artists can do both and that is us! For my research it is necessary to be an artist of life. To comprehend the celestial bodies each night and determine the results arithmetically, with intelligence and aptitude. Do you understand me? Yes or no? Here lies our illusion.’
‘Yes sir.’ I offer my master my ‘yes’, accompanied by a gentle bow.
I participate in the conversation with renewed strength. Even the servant must resort to wiles to please his master, without necessarily himself finding pleasure in the conversation. My reverence for my master is genuine however. I am making assumptions about what he is discussing, taking the risk I may be misunderstanding him. Then my master might penalise me in accordance with Rule 4, banish me to the punishment corner. Through inexperience I am placed in a very awkward situation. I ask myself how this will end. I make sure not to adopt a questioning grimace; my acquired calm can easily abandon me when I have to suffer an ordeal. The fight inside me is exacerbated by my inadequate intelligence. But I repeat Rule 6 to myself: the servant must not think or reflect; he simply carries out instructions which have already become habit, in every minute variation. I retain the firm belief that I have not practiced all these years in vain. I will not add bitterness to the pain of rejection.
‘I can no longer bear it. The numbers are destroying me! They are robbing me of my health. Too many numbers jostling all around me! I have a burning desire to end this endlessness. I hereby announce: the end! Bohumil I wish to call stop, to achieve it with your help... I am exhausted. I am on my last legs. What luck that you are here now and are breathing the same air as me – sometimes it is stuffy. We will make it fresh again!’ He looks fevered. His despondent face crumples and his mouth sticks out. ‘Now it really has to end, a definite end. I wish to be the opposite of Pi. I long for an end.’ His body shivers, he tumbles and I leap towards him and hold his heavy body in my arms. ‘I beg you, such a highly adorned servant as yourself must surely be the best assistant for my scientific purposes. We will experience a great deal together. Stay Bohumil. I need you. Have you noticed, I have given you a truly honourable name. Do you know this, my poet and actor?’
He is pleased to own the Servant? I can belong to a master? He calls me ‘Servant’! I can hardly believe it. Now I stagger too – has he recognised the Servant? Is it really true, or is he deceiving me in his fever? Only the strange name I find hard to take.
‘Your devotion and passion makes you interesting. Very important in a poet!’
In me? I answer him: ‘Thank you, sir!’ I bow modestly, barely moving from my obedient position. It is really true. I take these words of honour on board. I bow deeper, much deeper than Rule 2 dictates. Can I possibly be this happy?!
‘You are my stroke of luck Bohumil.’
‘My dear, dear master, I thank you, but do not anger yourself over your most respectful, ugly Servant. I am wretched, that is the truth, but no doubt you can fathom the servant’s soul standing before you in his livery. Rest assured, as a devoted