Uncle Petros and Goldbach

'Haven't I expressly forbidden you to have anything to do with that man?' he yelled at me, getting so red in the face that my mother started pleading with him to think of his blood pressure.

'No, Father’, I replied truthfully. 'As a matter of fact, you never have. Never!'

'But don't you know about him? Haven't I told you a thousand times about my brother Petros?'

'Oh, you've told me a thousand times that he's "one of life's failures", but so what? He's still your brother – my uncle. Was it so terrible to take the poor fellow his letter? And, come to think of it, I don't see how being "one of life's failures" applies to someone with the rank of Professor of Analysis at a great university!'

"The rank of former Professor of Analysis,’ growled my father, settling the matter of the little 'f.'

Still fuming, he pronounced the sentence for what he termed my 'abominable act of inexcusable disobedience'. I could hardly believe the severity: for a month I would be confined to my room at all hours except those spent at school. Even my meals would have to be taken there and I would be allowed no spoken communication with himself, my mother, or anybody eise!

I went to my room to begin my sentence, feeling a martyr for Truth.

Late that same night, my father knocked softly on my door and entered. I was at my desk reading and, obedient to his decree, didn't speak a word of greeting. He seated himself across from me on the bed and I knew from bis expression something had changed. He now appeared calm, even slightly guilt-ridden. He began by a

This is what he told me:

Uncle Petros had, from early childhood, shown signs of exceptional ability in mathematics. In grade school he had impressed his teachers with his ease in arithmetic and in high school he had mastered abstractions in algebra, geometry and trigonometry with unbelievable facility. Words like 'prodigy' and even 'genius' were applied. Though a man of little formal education, their father, my grandfather, proved himself enlightened. Rather than divert Petros to more practical studies that would prepare him to work at his side in the family business, he had encouraged him to follow his heart. He had enrolled at a precocious age at the University of Berlin, from which he had graduated with honours at nineteen. He had earned his doctorate the next year and joined the faculty at the University of Munich as full professor at the amazing age of twenty-four – the youngest man ever to achieve this rank.

I listened, goggle-eyed. 'Hardly the progress of "one of life's failures",’ I commented.

'I haven't finished yet,’ warned my father.

At this point he digressed from his narrative. Without any prompting from me he spoke of himself and Uncle Anargyros and their feelings towards Petros. The two younger brothers had followed his successes with pride. Never for a moment did they feel the least bit envious – after all they too were doing extremely well at school, though in nowhere near as spectacular a ma

'Why?' I asked Father. 'To enlist?'

'Of course not! Your uncle never had patriotic – or any other, for that matter – feelings. It's just that once war was declared he was considered an enemy alien and had to leave Germany.'

'So why didn't he go elsewhere, to England or America, to some other great university? If he was such a great mathematician -'

My father interrupted me with an appreciative grunt, accompanied by a loud slap on his thigh.

"That's the point,' he snapped. "That's the whole point: he was no longer a great mathematician!'

'What do you mean?' I asked. 'How can that be?'

There was a long, pregnant pause, a sign that the critical point in the narrative, the exact locus where the action changes direction from uphill to down, had been reached. My father leaned towards me, frowning ominously, and his next words came in a deep mur-mur, almost a groan:

'Your uncle, my son, committed the greatest of sins.'

'But what did he do, Father, teil me! Did he steal or rob or kill?'

'No, no, all these are simple misdemeanours compared to his crime! Mind you, it isn't I who deem it so but the Gospel, our Lord Himself: "Thou shalt not blaspheme against the Spirit!" Your Uncle Petros cast pearls before swine; he took something holy and sacred and great, and shamelessly defiled it!'

The unexpected theological twist put me for a moment on guard: 'And what exactly was that?'

'His gift, of course!' shouted my father. 'The great, unique gift that God had blessed him with, his phenomenal, unprecedented mathematical talent! The miserable fool wasted it; he squandered it and threw it out with the garbage. Can you imagine it? The ungrateful bastard never did one day's useful work in mathemarics. Never! Nothing! Zero!'

'But why?’ I asked.

'Oh, because his Illustrious Excellence was engaged with "Goldbach's Conjecture".'

‘With what?’

Father made a distasteful grimace. 'Oh, a riddle of some sort, something of no interest to anyone except a handful of idlers playing intellectual games.'

' A riddle? You mean like a crossword puzzle?'

'No, a mathematical problem – but not just any problem: this "Goldbach's Conjecture" thing is considered to be one of the most difficult in the whole of mathematics. Can you imagine? The greatest minds on this planet had failed to solve it, but your smart aleck uncle decided at the age of twenty-one that he would be the one… Then, he proceeded to waste his life on it!'

I was rather confused by the course of his reasoning. 'Wait a minute, Father,' I said. 'Is that his crime? Pursuing the solution of the most difficult problem in the history of mathematics? Are you serious? Why, this is magnificent; it is absolutely fantastic!'

Father glared at me. 'Had he managed to solve it, it might be "magnificent" or "absolutely fantastic" or what have you – although it would still be totally useless, of course. But he didn't!’

He now got impatient with me, once again his usual seif. 'Son, do you know the Secret of Life?' he asked with a scowl.

'No,I don't.'

Before divulging it to me he blew his nose with a trumpeting sound into his monogrammed silk handkerchief.

'The Secret of Life is always to set yourself attainable goals. They may be easy or difficult, depending on the circumstances and your character and abilities, but they should always be at-tai-na-ble! In fact, I think I'll hang your Uncle Petros' portrait in your room, with a caption: example to be avoided!'