Fermat and the Liar
by Marco Etheridge
Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash
Imagine yourself at a posh party, a standup affair with trays of canapés brought round by aspiring stage actors. Strangers, you and I, until we find ourselves tête-à-tête with only our wine glasses hovering between us. I love this moment, when the game is fresh, and the board is clean. You ask me what I do. I take a slow sip of the red, wave my glass to honour modesty, and charge the field.
As my opening gambit, I tell you that I am the mathematician who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem. You are at a loss for words. Your speechlessness is understandable. My trap is well-laid, and now I have you right where I want you. You have blundered into one of my Big Lies.
I am not a Cambridge mathematician, and I did not win the Nobel Prize. I can barely balance my chequebook. The only talent I possess is the ability to tell amazingly complicated lies. If there was a Nobel Prize for perfidy, I would win in a walk.
As with any branch of knowledge, lying has its own set of rules and best practices. If I tell you that I am the Prince of Wales, you will know me for the liar that I am. However, if I tell you I am the Baron von Bullerbü, last male heir of a forgotten Germanic city-state, you are not so sure. Obscurity is the key.
And so, we find ourselves at this lovely party, with only wine glasses and a grotesque lie between us. What binds us is the human predilection for belief. It will be a lovely story with which to regale your friends, how you met the famous mathematician Andrew Wiles at a party. Charming man, you will say, though a bit younger than I might have thought.
Human beings want to believe. It is more than a desire; it is a need. How much nicer for you to be sharing a glass of wine and conversation with a famous person, rather than a boorish party crasher. You have no idea who Fermat was, no clue that his Last Theorem bedeviled mathematicians for centuries, but Nobel Prize winner has a nice ring to it, so you choose to believe. The odds are with me.
Fermat himself was not above telling a good whopper. After laying out the theorem that would trouble clever minds for a good long while, he suggested there was a solution already at hand. “I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain.” Or, to paraphrase: Here is the grand puzzle of all math problems, which, by the way, I have already solved. I cannot scribble the answer down in this small margin, but trust me, the solution exists. Clever, that. I wish I’d thought of it.
We clink glasses, drink to good old Fermat. I deflect your questions, a paragon of self-effacement. I urge you to tell me about yourself and I know that you will. I am a famous person, after all. You reveal things that should never be shared with a stranger. God, how I love this game!
As my opening gambit, I tell you that I am the mathematician who solved Fermat’s Last Theorem. You are at a loss for words. Your speechlessness is understandable. My trap is well-laid, and now I have you right where I want you. You have blundered into one of my Big Lies.
I am not a Cambridge mathematician, and I did not win the Nobel Prize. I can barely balance my chequebook. The only talent I possess is the ability to tell amazingly complicated lies. If there was a Nobel Prize for perfidy, I would win in a walk.
As with any branch of knowledge, lying has its own set of rules and best practices. If I tell you that I am the Prince of Wales, you will know me for the liar that I am. However, if I tell you I am the Baron von Bullerbü, last male heir of a forgotten Germanic city-state, you are not so sure. Obscurity is the key.
And so, we find ourselves at this lovely party, with only wine glasses and a grotesque lie between us. What binds us is the human predilection for belief. It will be a lovely story with which to regale your friends, how you met the famous mathematician Andrew Wiles at a party. Charming man, you will say, though a bit younger than I might have thought.
Human beings want to believe. It is more than a desire; it is a need. How much nicer for you to be sharing a glass of wine and conversation with a famous person, rather than a boorish party crasher. You have no idea who Fermat was, no clue that his Last Theorem bedeviled mathematicians for centuries, but Nobel Prize winner has a nice ring to it, so you choose to believe. The odds are with me.
Fermat himself was not above telling a good whopper. After laying out the theorem that would trouble clever minds for a good long while, he suggested there was a solution already at hand. “I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain.” Or, to paraphrase: Here is the grand puzzle of all math problems, which, by the way, I have already solved. I cannot scribble the answer down in this small margin, but trust me, the solution exists. Clever, that. I wish I’d thought of it.
We clink glasses, drink to good old Fermat. I deflect your questions, a paragon of self-effacement. I urge you to tell me about yourself and I know that you will. I am a famous person, after all. You reveal things that should never be shared with a stranger. God, how I love this game!
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Days later, after the glow of the party fades, curiosity may compel you to type my name into your laptop. Then Google, my arch nemesis, will unmask my lie. Faced with a bold deception, you will ask yourself why? He seemed like such a charming man. Why did he go out of his way to deceive me? Why, indeed. The answer is far simpler than you might think. I do it because I enjoy it.
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"And I find the truth to be both boring and tiresome. Don't You?" |
There are underlying reasons, of course, deeply rooted causes and the like that might explain my behavior, but they are bedded in truth, and thus suspect. And I find the truth to be both boring and tiresome. Don’t you?
Ah, very well, I will indulge you this one time. My early years were empty of trauma. I have no history of child abuse, nor of ragged poverty. I am neither orphan nor urchin. My childhood was a blur of beige, sketched in dull charcoal. Being a clever child, and easily bored, I began to invent alternatives to ward off the dullness of my existence. Once started, I never stopped.
My father was no longer an accountant working day in and day out under the glare of fluorescent lights. He became a courageous labor leader, then a communist. I reinvented my mother as well. A drab housewife emerged from her shabby cocoon, transformed into a beautiful and wild bohemian, the sort of woman who posed for nude paintings daubed by avant-garde artists.
They met in Tangier, where he was hiding out and she was smoking hashish and sleeping with musicians. I was the fruit of their torrid love affair, born in a narrow back alley of the Casbah. So much better than growing up amongst endless rows of council flats. If novelists can do it, why can’t I? Never mind that Paul Bowles lived a rich, full life, while mine is an empty shell.
Does that bring us back full circle to the why that you are at this moment pondering? The answer may be that necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is my stock in trade. I am nothing without it.
If you were to cross the threshold of my monastic cell, a thing that you will never be allowed to do, you would learn nothing from contents therein. Two rooms furnished in prefabricated modern, insipid and unrevealing. The walls of my hideout are devoid of photographs, the shelves empty of anything remotely personal.
I perform my daily ablutions in solitude, those voluntary and biological tasks that none of us are immune from. To use the vulgar, here is where I shit, shower, shave, and sleep, unseen by any prying eyes. This sterile flat is my hidden fortress, my womb of solitude. It is the empty husk that contains my emptiness. It is only when I lace up my shoes, when I step through the door and lock it behind me, that I become someone. Who I become is my choice. Is that not freedom?
The roles that I assume are limited only by my imagination, and I am a very imaginative person. I have been any number of obscure yet somewhat famous artists. Strange professions make easily filled off-the-rack costumes. When I am desiring something more physical, I can become a blind person, or a deaf mute. The latter takes practice. Not reacting to sound is harder than you might think.
There are risks, of course. This city, large as it is, does not guarantee a permanent immunity. Chance encounters do occur, unfortunate events where I might bump into someone who knows another of my personae than the one I am currently wearing.
Take yourself, for example. You recognize me as, say, a Nobel prize laureate in mathematics when today I am, in reality, deaf and dumb. There is an understandable embarrassment, a moment of awkwardness during which I answer your indignant questions with faux sign language.
It is for awkward moments such as this that I have conjured an evil twin brother. My evil twin is mentally unstable. He suffers from a multiple personality disorder. The poor deranged fellow causes no end of problems. I’m sure you can understand.
You might think it a transparent ruse, but it is surprisingly effective. People choose to believe, even reluctantly, rather than admit they have been duped.
Which is how we find ourselves, you and I, standing on a rain-soaked sidewalk while pedestrians stream around either side of us. You are hurt, even angry. Your sense of betrayal is understandable. But it was not I who caused you pain. It was that bastard brother of mine. I write it down for you, scribbling on my pad.
I cast my face into a quizzical mask, pretend to read your lips. As I scrawl out an explanation, raindrops spatter the coarse paper of my notebook. The ink runs, making a mess of everything. I hold up the streaked pad for you to read, but you are already stalking away under the shelter of your brolly. The rain streams down in torrents as you disappear into the throng.
The downpour beats a tattoo against the crowded sidewalk, breaks over the stream of impatient
pedestrians. I have no protective cover. My head is soaked and dripping. An icy rivulet runs down the back of my neck. The noise of falling water thunders in my skull, my ears deaf no longer. The wall of silver noise lodges in my brain. A sudden vicious vertigo threatens to spin me down onto the pavement. I wheel about and run, reeling like a drunkard, the panicked flight of a coward.
My heart is pounding in my chest when I finally reach my council flat. I ignore the lift, take the stairs two at a time. A dripping trail marks my frantic passage. I fumble with the keys, open one deadlock, then the second. The door slams shut, and I claw at the locks, sealing my fortress from the outside world.
Hands on my knees, I gasp for breath. Remnants of rain dribble from my sodden clothes. A small puddle forms on the cheap parquet floor. It does not matter. I am inside my hideout. I think that I am safe, but I am not.
I have crossed the threshold of my monastic cell. When I said that the two rooms of my flat are devoid of anything personal, I lied. Yet another lie, this one more dangerous to me than all the others.
Ah, very well, I will indulge you this one time. My early years were empty of trauma. I have no history of child abuse, nor of ragged poverty. I am neither orphan nor urchin. My childhood was a blur of beige, sketched in dull charcoal. Being a clever child, and easily bored, I began to invent alternatives to ward off the dullness of my existence. Once started, I never stopped.
My father was no longer an accountant working day in and day out under the glare of fluorescent lights. He became a courageous labor leader, then a communist. I reinvented my mother as well. A drab housewife emerged from her shabby cocoon, transformed into a beautiful and wild bohemian, the sort of woman who posed for nude paintings daubed by avant-garde artists.
They met in Tangier, where he was hiding out and she was smoking hashish and sleeping with musicians. I was the fruit of their torrid love affair, born in a narrow back alley of the Casbah. So much better than growing up amongst endless rows of council flats. If novelists can do it, why can’t I? Never mind that Paul Bowles lived a rich, full life, while mine is an empty shell.
Does that bring us back full circle to the why that you are at this moment pondering? The answer may be that necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is my stock in trade. I am nothing without it.
If you were to cross the threshold of my monastic cell, a thing that you will never be allowed to do, you would learn nothing from contents therein. Two rooms furnished in prefabricated modern, insipid and unrevealing. The walls of my hideout are devoid of photographs, the shelves empty of anything remotely personal.
I perform my daily ablutions in solitude, those voluntary and biological tasks that none of us are immune from. To use the vulgar, here is where I shit, shower, shave, and sleep, unseen by any prying eyes. This sterile flat is my hidden fortress, my womb of solitude. It is the empty husk that contains my emptiness. It is only when I lace up my shoes, when I step through the door and lock it behind me, that I become someone. Who I become is my choice. Is that not freedom?
The roles that I assume are limited only by my imagination, and I am a very imaginative person. I have been any number of obscure yet somewhat famous artists. Strange professions make easily filled off-the-rack costumes. When I am desiring something more physical, I can become a blind person, or a deaf mute. The latter takes practice. Not reacting to sound is harder than you might think.
There are risks, of course. This city, large as it is, does not guarantee a permanent immunity. Chance encounters do occur, unfortunate events where I might bump into someone who knows another of my personae than the one I am currently wearing.
Take yourself, for example. You recognize me as, say, a Nobel prize laureate in mathematics when today I am, in reality, deaf and dumb. There is an understandable embarrassment, a moment of awkwardness during which I answer your indignant questions with faux sign language.
It is for awkward moments such as this that I have conjured an evil twin brother. My evil twin is mentally unstable. He suffers from a multiple personality disorder. The poor deranged fellow causes no end of problems. I’m sure you can understand.
You might think it a transparent ruse, but it is surprisingly effective. People choose to believe, even reluctantly, rather than admit they have been duped.
Which is how we find ourselves, you and I, standing on a rain-soaked sidewalk while pedestrians stream around either side of us. You are hurt, even angry. Your sense of betrayal is understandable. But it was not I who caused you pain. It was that bastard brother of mine. I write it down for you, scribbling on my pad.
I cast my face into a quizzical mask, pretend to read your lips. As I scrawl out an explanation, raindrops spatter the coarse paper of my notebook. The ink runs, making a mess of everything. I hold up the streaked pad for you to read, but you are already stalking away under the shelter of your brolly. The rain streams down in torrents as you disappear into the throng.
The downpour beats a tattoo against the crowded sidewalk, breaks over the stream of impatient
pedestrians. I have no protective cover. My head is soaked and dripping. An icy rivulet runs down the back of my neck. The noise of falling water thunders in my skull, my ears deaf no longer. The wall of silver noise lodges in my brain. A sudden vicious vertigo threatens to spin me down onto the pavement. I wheel about and run, reeling like a drunkard, the panicked flight of a coward.
My heart is pounding in my chest when I finally reach my council flat. I ignore the lift, take the stairs two at a time. A dripping trail marks my frantic passage. I fumble with the keys, open one deadlock, then the second. The door slams shut, and I claw at the locks, sealing my fortress from the outside world.
Hands on my knees, I gasp for breath. Remnants of rain dribble from my sodden clothes. A small puddle forms on the cheap parquet floor. It does not matter. I am inside my hideout. I think that I am safe, but I am not.
I have crossed the threshold of my monastic cell. When I said that the two rooms of my flat are devoid of anything personal, I lied. Yet another lie, this one more dangerous to me than all the others.
"People choose to believe, even reluctantly, rather than admit they have been duped."
In my narrow entry hall, just beyond the edge of the growing puddle at my feet, there is a door. Behind this door is a cramped coat closet. Shoes are arranged on the floor, coats and jackets hang from the rod, all of it quite ordinary with the exception of one perilous object.
At the top of the closet, perched on a shelf all its own, rests a wooden box. The box is the size of a small travel case. There is a hasp on the front of the box, and a heavy padlock, locked, always locked fast.
The wooden box is the casket of my past, and inside it is a substance more dangerous to me than kryptonite to Superman. Hidden within that horrible crate are photographs, letters, all the damning evidence of another life.
There are black and white snaps with scalloped borders. The greens and blues of the coloured prints have faded to sepia. Peering out of the photos is my father with his tight smile, an accountant never to be a courageous communist. My
mother is beside him, captured as the drab housewife she will remain her entire life. And pinioned before these two parents, their hands binding his shoulders, a small boy squints into the sun.
He is an ordinary boy of average height, a boy who earns average marks in school. There is nothing unusual about him, except perhaps the suspicion with which he views the invading camera. It is the look of a child who knows what the world has in store for him and wants no part of it.
All evidence of the boy’s existence, every image, each scrawled note, every memento, is locked and sealed, but the seals are now broken.
The malevolent power imprisoned within the casket begins to seep out, oozing from under the locked lid, filling the closet with a glowing green vapour. Tendrils of the stuff curl from under the closet door, wrap themselves around my feet, my ankles, clinging like noxious vines. They twine themselves up my legs, reach my heaving chest, bind me in their iron grip.
I do not possess the strength to resist. The pull is too strong, the weight too heavy. My legs crumple beneath me. My hands slip from my knees. I collapse facedown onto the floor, my forehead pressing against the hard parquet. My face is a distorted reflection in the puddled water. Tears stream from my staring eyes, silver droplets falling down to strike my
dappled reflection.
My limp body is inert, helpless. The tears continue to fall, adding to the spreading pool that surrounds me. The tidewaters of the past rise, patient, unstoppable, and beneath them I will surely drown.
At the top of the closet, perched on a shelf all its own, rests a wooden box. The box is the size of a small travel case. There is a hasp on the front of the box, and a heavy padlock, locked, always locked fast.
The wooden box is the casket of my past, and inside it is a substance more dangerous to me than kryptonite to Superman. Hidden within that horrible crate are photographs, letters, all the damning evidence of another life.
There are black and white snaps with scalloped borders. The greens and blues of the coloured prints have faded to sepia. Peering out of the photos is my father with his tight smile, an accountant never to be a courageous communist. My
mother is beside him, captured as the drab housewife she will remain her entire life. And pinioned before these two parents, their hands binding his shoulders, a small boy squints into the sun.
He is an ordinary boy of average height, a boy who earns average marks in school. There is nothing unusual about him, except perhaps the suspicion with which he views the invading camera. It is the look of a child who knows what the world has in store for him and wants no part of it.
All evidence of the boy’s existence, every image, each scrawled note, every memento, is locked and sealed, but the seals are now broken.
The malevolent power imprisoned within the casket begins to seep out, oozing from under the locked lid, filling the closet with a glowing green vapour. Tendrils of the stuff curl from under the closet door, wrap themselves around my feet, my ankles, clinging like noxious vines. They twine themselves up my legs, reach my heaving chest, bind me in their iron grip.
I do not possess the strength to resist. The pull is too strong, the weight too heavy. My legs crumple beneath me. My hands slip from my knees. I collapse facedown onto the floor, my forehead pressing against the hard parquet. My face is a distorted reflection in the puddled water. Tears stream from my staring eyes, silver droplets falling down to strike my
dappled reflection.
My limp body is inert, helpless. The tears continue to fall, adding to the spreading pool that surrounds me. The tidewaters of the past rise, patient, unstoppable, and beneath them I will surely drown.
Marco Etheridge is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His scribbles have been featured in many lovely reviews and journals in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. Notable recent credits include Coffin Bell, In Parentheses, The Thieving Magpie, Ligeia Magazine, The First Line, Prime Number Magazine, Dream Noir, The Opiate Magazine, Cobalt Press, Literally Stories, and The Metaworker, amongst many others. Marco’s first volume of collected stories, Orphaned Lies, is available worldwide. Author website at: https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com
A 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee, Etheridge's story can be found in Issue 24 of Glassworks.
