Free The Gift of Numbers by Yōko Ogawa

bleeding,
but I could see right away that the Professor's panic was out of all
proportion to Root's injury. The bleeding had nearly stopped, and
Root didn't appear to be in any pain. After I'd washed out the
wound at the kitchen sink, I brought him a towel and told him to
hold it on the cut. In the meantime, the Professor sat motionless
on the floor, his arms frozen as if he were still holding Root. It
seemed almost more urgent to look after him than it was to treat
Root.
    "Don't worry," I said, patting him gently on the back.
    "How could this have happened? Such a sweet, good boy ..."
    "It's just a little cut. Boys hurt themselves all the time."
    "But it's all my fault. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't
want to bother me, so he didn't say anything ... he just sat there
bleeding...."
    "It's no one's fault," I said.
    "No, it's my fault. I tried to stop the bleeding, but I
couldn't.... And then he got so pale, and I was afraid he'd stop
breathing...." He hid his face in his hands, covering the sweat
and tears.
    "Don't worry," I said again. "He'll be fine." As I rubbed his
back, I realized that it was surprisingly broad and sturdy.
    Neither Root nor the Professor were making much sense, but I
finally managed to piece together what had happened: Root had
finished his homework and was trying to peel an apple for a snack
when he had cut himself between his thumb and index finger. The
Professor insisted that Root had asked him for help with the apple,
while Root maintained that he'd done the whole thing by himself.
In any event, Root had tried to take care of the cut but he couldn't
stop the bleeding, and the Professor had found him just as he'd
begun to panic.
    Unfortunately, the clinics in the neighborhood had already
closed for the day. The only doctor answering the phone was a
pediatrician at a clinic behind the train station, who said he
could see him right away. I helped the Professor up and dried his
face, and at that point an astonishing change came over him. He
hoisted Root onto his back, and though I tried to remind him
that the child hadn't hurt his legs, he ran off to the doctor's
carrying Root piggyback. To be honest, the ride seemed so
rough that I was worried the wound would open up again. It
could hardly have been easy for the Professor to carry a sixty-pound
child on his back, but he was stronger than I'd thought.
He charged along in his moldy shoes, gasping a bit from time to
time, but holding Root's legs firmly under his arms. Root pulled
his Tigers cap down over his eyes and buried his face in the Professor's
back, less from pain than from the embarrassment of being
seen. When we got to the clinic, the Professor pounded on
the locked door, as though he were carrying a dying child on his
back.
     
    It took only two stitches to close the cut, but the Professor and
I had to wait in the darkened corridor until they had finished
the examination. They wanted to be sure Root hadn't severed a
tendon.
    The clinic was old and depressing. The ceiling was discolored,
and the grimy slippers stuck to your feet. Yellowed posters on the
walls gave instructions for weaning and inoculations. The only
light in the hall was the dim bulb outside the X-ray room.
    They'd said the test was just a precaution, but Root had been in
the examination room for some time.
    "Have you ever heard of triangular numbers?" the Professor
said, pointing at the radiation sign on the door of the X-ray room.
It was shaped like a triangle.
    "No," I said. He sounded calm now, but I could tell that he was
still a little shaken.
    "They're truly elegant," he said, beginning to draw dots on the
back of a questionnaire that he'd picked up in the lobby.

    "What do you make of these?"
    "Well, let's see. It looks like neatly stacked firewood, or maybe
rows of beans."
    "That's right, the point is they're 'neatly' arranged. One in the
first row, two in the second, three in the third.... It's the simplest
way to form a triangle." I glanced at the dots on the page.