Ashes Read Free

“The special feature of the quadratic equation is that such an equation can and usually does have two answers, two completely different answers to just one tiny problem. Please show us this, Fräulein, if you can tear yourself away from TheCall of the Wild .”
    I could hear a few giggles behind me—not from Rosa, of course. She sat across the aisle, and I knew she sympathized with me.
    The problem, you see, was the unfailing politeness of Herr Doktor Berg. It would have been so much better if he had given me a Watschen , a good slap. But instead he used his tongue like a strop and his polite, mannerly phrases mysteriously acquired a razor sharpness. As I walked to the blackboard to demonstrate the special feature of the quadratic equation, I felt as if my skin had suffered hundreds of little cuts, each seeping thin threads of blood.
    Herr Doktor Berg rocked back and forth on his heels and addressed the class. “Perhaps Fräulein Gabriella does not realize that literature can have many levels of interpretation, but can they all be simultaneously truthful? Whereas in mathematics there is usually only one right answer, one truth. But the oddity of the quadratic equation, indeed its elegance, is that there can be two completely different answers, each truthful.”
    I illustrated his point, quickly, neatly, precisely. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been listening. Papa had shown me this stuff already. Such are the advantages of having a professor of astrophysics as a father. At the blackboard I explained that although both answers were “truthful,” only one was correct for the equation Herr Doktor Berg had written.
    â€œAnd why is that, Fräulein?”
    â€œBecause, Herr Doktor Berg, if x equals ten or if x equals sixty, either will make the equation into a true statement. But x equals ten is the right answer in this case.”
    â€œWhy?” Doktor Berg pressed. He paused and raised his incredibly bushy eyes brows above his spectacles. “Why can you not apply the second answer? Why is the second answer like extra baggage?”
    â€œWell, I guess because it is not reasonable for the particular situation you described when setting up this problem.”
    â€œPrecisely, Fräulein.” His eyes drilled into me. “It seems that although you have mastered the operations of demonstrating the oddities of quadratic equations, you have not mastered certain elements of real life, the real life of this classroom. You are cluttering it with your extra baggage. I think I need to help you out by collecting some of it. At the end of this period, you will kindly deliver to me the book you have been reading.”
    My heart sank. It was almost as if I could feel a little plop at the base of my rib cage. I was only into the second chapter and Buck the magnificent dog, half Saint Bernard, half sheepdog, had just watched as his best friend, the dog Curly, was killed, her face ripped off by a pack of huskies. What would happen to Buck? What would happen to me? This was the second book Herr Doktor Berg had “collected” (his word, not mine. I would have said “confiscated”) from me since the beginning of spring term. Where could I find another one? A friend of Papa’s had sent this one from Heidelberg when we couldn’t find a German translation in Berlin.
    The bell rang. School was over, but before I could get up from my desk Herr Doktor Berg was standing beside me. His hand was stretched out, ready to receive the book. I gave it to him. He made a small, snuffy sound high in his nose, took it, and began to leave. “Herr Doktor . . .” The words sounded more like raggedy tatters of phlegm in my throat. He turned around, clasping the book to his chest, and raised his eyebrows expectantly but said nothing. “Uh, Herr Doktor Berg . . . at the end of term, might I have the two books back . . . please?”
    He blinked, his pale gray eyes unreadable