Have you talked to your grandmother about your brother?

Yes. I had to tell her.

What did she say?

She started crying. She kept saying his name.

Did she say anything else?

She asked me if I was calling from Italy.

Is she going to go to Italy?

No. She wouldnt know how to do that.

You could take her.

No. I couldnt.

All right.

But it’s not all right. Is it?

If you dont want to talk about your brother I can understand that. I dont know. Did you say anything to him? Did you think he might be able to hear you?

I told him I would rather be dead with him than alive without him.

I’ll take that as a forewarning.

Your life is set upon you like a dog.

Is that a quote?

Not that I know of.

Not Jewish anyway.

No.

Do you have any Jewish family connections?

No. We didnt grow up Jewish.

But you knew you were Jewish.

No. I knew something. Anyway, my forebears counting coppers out of a clackdish are what have brought me to this station in life. Jews represent two percent of the population and eighty percent of the mathematicians. If those numbers were even a little more skewed we’d be talking about a separate species.

Isnt that a bit farfetched?

No. It’s not fetched far enough. You can have separate histories in the same house. Darwin’s question remains unanswered. How do we come by mental abilities that have no history? How is it that the brain seems to prepare for what’s coming? No idea. How much of the brain’s circuitry is undedicated, simply awaiting the arrival of new opportunities? Any? How does making change in the market prepare one’s grandchildren for quantum mechanics? For topology?

Grandchildren?

You can fill in the greats.

I dont know. I’m not sure that I’m following you. Why dont we get back to you?

This is me.

Your personal history. Where were you before you came here?

In the dayroom.

You’re being a smart aleck.

I was in Italy. Waiting for my brother to die.

How long were you there?

Two months. A little more.

They waited two months to ask your permission to terminate life support?

No. They just got more insistent.

Did you speak Italian?

I do okay. Anyway, maybe that’s what he would have wanted. I dont know. I only knew that I couldnt do it. I ran for my life.

Are you all right with that?

No. Good God.

When you arrived here you had quite a lot of money.

Not that much. My brother and I had inherited money from our paternal grandmother. When he gave me my share there wasnt really anything that I wanted. So I bought this rather extraordinary Amati. I knew the instrument. I’d seen it in two books and of course in the Christie catalog. The last time it was sold was in 1863 and I figured it wouldnt be coming on the market again anytime soon.