One Hundred Twenty-One Days (15 page)

And thus the Yawning Deep forever o’er us closed.

in dodecasyllabic verse—even though the original Italian verses of the
Divine Comedy
all have eleven syllables. She had looked in the Sorbonne library for other translations of the end of Canto xxvi,

Until the sea above us closed again.

Hell and the sea, the meter of the poetry, the words and the numbers…

CHAPTER IX

The Numbers

The numbers, in order, starting with the negatives:

-25,    the temperature (in degrees Celsius) in Upper Silesia in January 1945 during the evacuation of Auschwitz

0.577215…,  Euler’s constant

0.625  or 5/8 Jewish would have been each of Mireille’s and André’s children

1        single bullet managed to remove one of M.’s eyes, his nose, and half of his jaw

1.414213…,  the square root of 2, the length of the diagonal of a square with a side of 1

2        grenadiers returning to France in a poem by Heine

3        croissants for a breakfast at the Hotel Raphael

3.14159…,  π, the constant allowing one to calculate the length and surface area of all circles

5        daughters (and one son) had Christian and Marguerite M.

6
TH
    Artillery Regiment, the one in which Gorenstein was serving when he had the sense knocked out of him

7        kilometers, the distance between Monowitz and the main camp of Auschwitz

8        minutes, the length of time it took for Sacco to die on the electric chair

9        Rue de Médicis, the home of the Duvivier family

11,      answered the nurse when the numeromaniac polytechnician asked her for a number

12,      the number of syllables in a translation of one of Dante’s hendecasyllabic verses

12.3569111418…,  Gorenstein’s constant

13
TH
  of August, the date the uprising started in Paris in 1944

14      years old, Claude Yersin’s age when he was looking for his uncle’s remains on the battlefield

14.134725…,  the imaginary part of one of the zeros in the zeta function

15      years old was the boy when they decided to send him to Paris

16      meters, the height of the cylinder Beckett describes in
The Lost Ones

17      years old, Kürz’s age when he enlisted in the navy

18
TH
  of January, the day the Auschwitz camps were evacuated

19      years old, the age of the future great poet when he jumped out of a trench

20      years that Meyerbeer studied Gorenstein

22      years old, Gorenstein’s age when he committed a triple murder

23
RD
  of June, the date Christian and Marguerite were married

24
TH
  of June, the last day Andre and Mireille saw each other

25      the only square that becomes a cube when you add 2 to it

26,      the canto number in the
Inferno
in which the sea closes over Ulysses and his companions

27      German physicists were winners of the Nobel Prize of Physics

28      is a perfect number

29      days had the month of February in 1916

31      years old, André’s age when he died in Mariahilf

39,      the number of survivors from the convoy in which Silberberg was taken

40      prisoners were held in each cell of the Cherche-Midi prison

41,      the largest dimension for which Kürz managed to demonstrate Silberberg’s lemma

42.8    meters cubed of rubble per person after the bombing of Dresden

48      hours that André and Sonntag marched side by side

50      meters, the circumference of the cylinder Beckett describes in
The Lost Ones

60,      the number of the convoy that took André to Upper Silesia

65,      the smallest integer whose square can be written in two ways as the sum of two squares

67      kilometers, the length of what became known as the Auschwitz death march

70      kilos, the weight of the bags of phenyl-beta that Klein had to carry while he was at the camp

80      victories (at least) had been achieved by Guynemer

103     years old, M.’s age when he died

120     pages of M.’s dissertation were recopied by Marguerite

121     days of happiness for André and Mireille

131     cities were attacked by the Royal Air Force

209,    the number of the hospital where Gorenstein’s aunt worked as a nurse

250     years old was the University of N. in 1937

340     men in Convoy 60 were sent to Monowitz

400     individual detached houses could have been constructed for the cost of one insane asylum

475,    the number of Mozart’s Fantasia in the Köchel catalog

479     is a prime number and one quarter of 1916

491     men and women from Convoy 60 were taken by SS officers and dogs and immediately gassed

600     barricades were erected during the Parisian uprising

800     meters, the track event in which André was university champion

1000,   the number of Jews in the convoys

1796,   the year Bonaparte made his entry into Milan at the head of his young army

1800    meters, the total length of the cylinders in which the V-2 rockets were constructed at Dora

1801,   the year Beethoven composed his fourteenth sonata
Quasi una fantasia

1821,   the date Heinrich Heine evoked the books burned during the Reconquista

1858,   the opening of the Kaffeehaus & Konditorei Korb & Schlag in N.

1926,   the year Vito Volterra invented a model for predator-prey systems

1933,   the date the books of Heinrich Heine were joyously burned in public squares

1949,   Gorenstein’s death

1950,   the lovely summer evenings were started again in N.

2066,   the year M.’s writings will enter the public domain

8000   meters high, they say, was the height the smoke reached after the bombing of Hamburg

14521.8  square kilometers of Germany were allocated to France by the Versailler Diktat

116800  Reichsmarks would have been the cost of a mentally ill patient if he had been looked after for forty years

157034,  the number tattooed on a survivor’s arm and jotted down on a page from a blue notebook

CHAPTER X

The Binder

(
NOTES
2006–2010)

From a blue notebook, torn pages: notes from another visit to N., notes on Kürz and M. from the information given and the archives lent by Pierre Meyer, with various documents attached… all rearranged in chronological order and divided into eighteen pouches in a red binder.

POUCH 1

NOTES ON PIERRE MEYER

Met for the first time in September 2006. Born January 13, 1915. M.’s son-in-law and Silberberg’s friend. A great eyewitness. Several interviews recorded in November and December 2006.

Summary: born and raised in Strasbourg, studied mathematics, worked at the library before the war. Friend of Silberberg, involved in anti-Nazi resistance groups. Mobilized (in an anti-aircraft defense unit, near Nevers). After the Armistice with Germany, demobilized, decides not to return to Strasbourg: Alsace, annexed by the Reich, is too dangerous for him, with his name listed and put on file for his political actions (his father was Jewish, even
though he was killed in the German uniform in 1915). In Paris, false papers, works in the offices of the French national railway (SNCF) under a false identity. Transportation of leaflets and more, for a Resistance network, on bicycle or on foot. Takes part in the fighting for the liberation of Paris. Wounded in the arm, he cannot rejoin the army. Stays in Paris and goes back to studying mathematics, after five years’ interruption. Classes with Pariset and M. at the Sorbonne. Through Pariset, meets Mireille Duvivier. By chance, also meets Bernadette, a medical student and his future wife. Coincidentally, she is M.’s daughter.

Coincidences… the publication of M.’s letters in the planning stage in 2005, return to N. in 2006. While seeking out the beneficiaries, met Pierre Meyer. He saved Bernadette M.’s papers, among which was the diary kept by her mother, Marguerite Janvier, during World War I, along with letters, announcements. And Mireille Duvivier’s papers. Thanks to Marguerite’s diary from the hospital, connection with Gorenstein. From Pierre, information on Silberberg and the story of Mireille Duvivier (another connection with Gorenstein) and her one hundred twenty-one days of happiness.

POUCH 2

HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM IGNACE M. TO HIS SISTER BERNADETTE (10-15-44)

(copy, original with Pierre Meyer)

Paris, October 15, 1944

My dearest big sister,

Since you left for Normandy two weeks ago, things have gotten worse here. I know you’re looking for peace and solitude in the country, but I’m writing to ask you to please return to Chatou because Mama is not at all well. She is very depressed, does not talk to anyone, and spends all day in a chair or in bed, staring into space, doing nothing. I don’t know what has caused this listlessness. Maybe it’s simply the repercussions of the strange and terrible years we’ve just lived through.

You and I have already spoken about this, and I still don’t know what she really thought about Papa’s public stances and his German friends. Now with the Liberation, and Papa’s suspension, maybe this, too, is eating away at her. Our grandparents’ arrival has not helped things. Grand-Papa is very authoritative and, since the time he and Grand-Mama arrived, it feels like he’s the one in charge of the house. For several days, because of the state Mama is in, Marthe has been taking care of everything, but under Grand-Papa’s orders.

I beg you, my dear Bernadette, please don’t show this letter to anyone. I’m sure Papa will take care of things in order to impress the purge committee and nothing will happen to him. I’m also sure Mama knows this, she’s used to it, so on the one hand she has no reason to worry and on the other, it’s actually more depressing. I must add that our grandparents didn’t need to come all the way here. Grand-Papa screams that Papa is an imbecile, and the atmosphere reminds me of the worst points of Papa’s anger when we were little. We’re nearly expecting to witness a belt beating, like the time when you secretly brought me chocolate, do you remember? When I see them together, I’m almost sure Papa was beaten with a belt when he was a child, too.

Even though the tense atmosphere I’ve described here is worse than it was before you left, you have to come back. Mama needs someone who will talk to her like you do, Thérèse has far too much to do taking care of the baby, and the three others can only fall down on their knees and pray. My dear Bernadette, I beg you, come back.

Your little brother who loves you,

Ignace

P.S. What’s more, I’m going to need a little support as well: I’m being reprimanded for going to Tiedemann’s house in Germany to join the Compulsory Work Service, and I have to explain myself in front of a committee at school. See why you can’t stay far away?

Note: Research trip (under the cover of forced labor) for the son, perhaps negotiated over the dinner of July 1943? How could one possibly know?

POUCH 3

WRITTEN NOTES ON M.

M.’s statements at the purge committee (summarized by Pierre Meyer): the sole aim of his relations with the Germans was to ease the plight of our prisoners of war; the talks in Germany had been ordered by the minister.

Look in the archives of the purge committee (at the National Archives).