Flat No. 8B

I was feeling pretty excited today. We had just moved to this new flat in a totally new neighbourhood. I wanted to explore every nook and cranny of it ASAP. Since the unpacking was done, there was nothing to stop me from spending the entire day outdoors if I wished. So, after a hasty breakfast, off I went decked up in a pair of jeans and a tee.

My first stop was of course the local store to buy some chocolate. There was an old man there. He had gray eyes and white hair. He reminded me of Gandalf somehow.

“New here eh?”, he asked, with a slight wheeze.

“Yes. Just moved in. Flat number 5D.”

“Oh I see. I’m in flat number 8B. We’re practically neighbours! Say why don’t you come up for a quick cup of coffee?”

“I guess!”

So there I was 15 minutes later in some total stranger’s house, drinking some lovely coffee. He even cooled  it in South Indian style, using two tumblers and pouring the milky beverage first into one then the other.

“So, when did you move in?”, asked my companion.

“Just last week. Thursday I think.”

“Good. Oh by the way my name is Dan and I’m retired. I used to work in accounts.”

“Cool! My father’s a financier. Can’t say I like his brand of work though. I want to be an engineer.”

“That’s good. We need intelligent people like you out there. Keep us senile old people from committing too many blunders.”

Just as he finished speaking I got a text from Ma. She wanted me to come home and help set up the TV.

“Well sir, I guess that calls it a day”, I said to my new friend.

“Sir? Don’t “Sir” me laddie. Call me Dan! What are titles between friends?”

“OK Dan. See you around.”

Call me paranoid, but I felt a tiny chill as he grasped my hand. His eyes were still creepy. They were sort of blank. But when he smiled and asked me to come again, he seemed to genuinely mean it.

The funny thing is Dan and I really hit it off and most afternoons after school, I would drop by his house for a chat. Dan loved to talk. He went on about his family. His daughter had eloped, against his wishes when she was 16. He hadn’t heard from her in some time.  Dan was widowed. His wife had died of pneumonia in ’86.

Dan also lent an ear to my troubles. He asked about classes, crushes and bullies alike. Suffice to say, we became friends very quickly. He just never wanted to come meet my parents or allow me to return his hospitality.

“I’m too old laddie. My social radar’s off balance. I don’t think meeting your folks is a good idea. Now pass me that book there and I’ll tell you a tale that’ll astound you!” he said.

Now, I mentioned school. My least favourite subject there was maths. I didn’t get why I always flunked in it. I understood the stuff well enough. The teacher who taught at school wasn’t any help. He didn’t like me much. The dislike was mutual.

I brought this up one day, on one of my visits to Dan. There was a maths test next week on differential calculus. Needless to say I was not looking forward to it.

“Well laddie, maths is fun. Did anyone ever tell you that? In fact numbers are everywhere. Look around you. There’s a lot of maths going on here in this room. For example, the number of blades on the ceiling fan.The number of creaks my old joints make when I get up or sit down. Come now, what seems to trouble you about it?”

“Well Dan, I understand it well enough, but I somehow can’t seem to crack the sums. I make a mistake early on that jeapordizes the entire sum. Just the other day, I wrote 15 instead of 5.”, I said meekly.

“Well laddie, that’s common enough. You just need to look out for yourself. Now take this test. You said it’s differentiation. What part?”

“Maxima and Minima”

“OK imagine a pole vaulter. He takes part in the Olympic Games, wins the gold. Next year he wins it again. The third time it’s the silver. So his performance curve has started to dip. He was at his peak having won the gold twice in succession. Now he’s in the silver. The next time it’s bronze. Then suddenly, he gets disqualified. So he’s at the lowest point with reference to his performance curve- the minimum point. Now he comes back next year to take the bronze. Things are looking up. In the next 2 Olympics, he’s back at the top. Back at maximum. You see laddie? Whenever a curve hits maximum, it goes down. Then it hits minimum and starts back up again. The ol’ rock bottom play.  Make sense now?”

“Sort of. So I have to find the points where the curve is lowest and where it’s highest.”

“Yeah. Now based on the question, you need to use either the lowest or the highest value of the curve. That’s upto you laddie. Go with the question.”

“OK then. Let’s give it a whirl.”

And sure enough, somehow what he had said made some sense. I managed to do quite well on the test. My finals were coming up too. I spent my afternoons with Dan brushing up on my Maths. We would talk about vectors- he would point to a bird on the window; ask me to imagine an eagle in flight. When we did integrals, he talked of a surgeon putting a body back together. Permutations and combinations were a girl’s wardrobe to him. I loved the way he taught. It really did seem easy. My fears washed away. I became good at solving sums.

The finals were a breeze. I did fairly well. I goofed up a few sums but got a fair percentage. The first place I went to after the results were out was Dan’s. I was in for a surprise. The door was locked.

The building’s janitor was in the hallway, having a smoke. I asked him about flat 8B.

“Flat 8B? It’s been empty for years kid. An old man called Dan lived there. He was teaching his grandson maths and went to refill his cup of coffee. He fell in the kitchen and hurt his head. Died on the spot actually. People say it’s haunted or something. Either way, it’s never been lived in since.”

I was somewhat shocked. I had seen Dan just last week! How is it that Dan had been dead? Had he never existed?

Or could it be, that somehow he had been waiting for someone? Someone who like his grandson needed help with maths? Someone like me?

I wondered if I had seen a ghost on my way down to my floor. Ghost or not, one thing was clear. I would never be afraid of maths ever again.

The Bilge Master