A hundred years ago there was an amateur mathematician named Paul Wolfskehl who got rejected by the woman he loved and decided to commit suicide. Since he was a mathematician, his plan had to be both precise and conceptually satisfying, so he decided to shoot himself in the old noggin at the stroke of midnight. That meant he had a few hours to kill. He read a paper by a mathematician named Kummer, who was trying to disprove a mathematician named Cauchy, who had been trying to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. Wolfskehl thought he saw a way he could disprove Kummer’s disproof of Cauchy, so he worked on his idea all night and missed his appointment. He was wrong about Kummer, but now he was in love with Fermat’s Last Theorem—which, it occurs to Mette, you might say had never yet abandoned a suitor. So instead of killing himself, he founded the Wolfskehl Prize.
Fifty years ago, another mathematician, named Yutaka Taniyama, did manage to off himself. He had tried and failed for years to prove a conjecture involving L-functions of elliptic curves. He left a suicide note that has haunted Mette over the past few days, so much so that she knows parts of it by heart. Until yesterday I had no definite intention of killing myself . . . As to the cause of my suicide, I don’t quite understand it myself . . . Merely may I say, I am in the frame of mind that I lost confidence in my future.
Today, an unimportant computer programmer and hack mathematician, rejected in love and without confidence in her future, either does a Wolfskehl or a Taniyama. Is she still near enough to Copenhagen that, so long as no one looks, she can do both? Neither Fermat’s Last Theorem nor the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture can save her, because the former was proved in 1995 and the latter in 1999.
Well, there’s always the 3n + 1 problem. Ha ha.
They’ve arrived at the island. The ferry honks again, turns around, backs into the slip. She and the other passenger, a woman, walk off. There’s an empty expanse of gravel and two prefab buildings with red metal roofs, both locked and empty. A one-lane road heads off between brown fields patched with snow. She lets the other woman pull ahead, so there’ll be no danger she’ll be spoken to. All the blue in the sky has disappeared, the stiff wind is cold. After five minutes she comes to the one cluster of houses on the island. (None of this is a surprise, she previously google-viewed everything.) There are eleven, seven of them large, looking like manor houses with flanking outbuildings. Since there are only twelve permanent inhabitants, some of these must be summer residences, unless the island is filled with loners who like to rattle around in a dozen rooms like marbles in a maze. Anyway, rich people.
The other woman peeled off somewhere. No one else is out. Mette walks out the far side of the settlement and continues between more brown and snowy fields. There are almost no trees, even along the road, so the wind has free rein. She has an image of herself flailing her arms in chaotic motion, fucking up in a quirky way. There’s no other ferry today, so if the nutjob isn’t home she’ll have to retrace her steps and throw herself on the mercy of a rich misanthrope. Or just freeze to death. She comes to a path heading left that she has already examined from the Google empyrean. Two more empty fields to left and right, more cold wind smacking her face. Now a frozen marsh. Who would want to live here. She can see the mill ahead, looking of course like its photos: pepperpotty and small, clad in brown shingles, perched on a stone foundation. The sails have been rebuilt, a nutjob job. It stands immediately in front of the beach, which is invisible from this vantage point. Expanse of gray ice and gray sea beyond. The sails are turning. Satisfying riposte to the stiff sea breeze she’s begun to hate.
She hears a dog bark. A Border Collie pops into view over the verge of dead grass and races toward her. A man sticks his head out the mill door and yells, “Lila!,” then says something in Danish. Mette doesn’t know the language, but she’s been told gramps speaks English, so she calls, “It’s all right, I like dogs.” The dog circles at close quarters, sniffing, wagging her tail. Mette continues up to the door, Lila following.
“Can I help you?” the man asks from the doorway in unaccented English. Like his mill, he’s recognizable from an old photo Mette has seen, from the commune days. He’s short like her mother, with pale blue eyes. Trim gray hair and beard, fit body. Wiry, you could say. An escape artist, her mother says.
“Maybe,” she says. “I’m Saskia’s daughter, Mette.”
“Of course you are.” He stands back from the door. “Welcome.”
She mounts the stone steps. “Lila, you stay out for now,” he says. Inside is an octagonal room, brighter than Mette expected, owing to three large windows in the west, south, and east walls. The northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast walls are each filled floor to ceiling with books. The door she came through is in the north wall. In the middle of the room, descending from the ceiling and sinking into the floor, is the beveled wooden beam of the mill shaft, rotating. A circular table has been built around the shaft.
“Take off your shoes.” He points to a vinyl mat. “Choose a pair of slippers.” To the left of the door is a wooden case holding eight pairs in different sizes and colors. “Hang your pack
