The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [125]
Ranjit agreed without hesitation. “Do you know where he’s been in that contraption? He started at Naguleswaram, north of Jaffna. I don’t know how many other temples he visited, but when he was at Munneswaram, he was just north of Colombo, and of course he could not visit the city and not stop to see us. Now he’s heading south to Katirkamam, although that temple’s more likely to be used by Buddhists these days. And I think he’s going to pay a visit to the Skyhook terminal, too.” He hesitated, then added thoughtfully, “He’s very interested in science, you know?”
Myra gave him a sharp look. “What is it, Ranjit?”
“Oh….” He gave it a dismissive shrug that did not quite dismiss the subject. “Well, the first thing he said to me outside was he reminded me that I still owned my father’s old house and it was just sitting there vacant.”
“Well, but your work’s here,” Myra told him.
“Yes, I said that. Then he asked me if I was surprised that he talked about scientific things like his new car so fluently. And he said, ‘But I learned from your father, Ranjit. One can believe in religion and still love science.’ And then he looked really serious and said, ‘So what about the opposite? Can one love science and still honor God? What of your children, Ranjit? What sort of religious education are you giving them?’ And he didn’t wait for an answer because he knew what the answer would be.”
“Ah,” Myra said, because she knew what the answer would have to be, too, and knew that hearing it would have hurt Surash. They had discussed the matter of religion long since, she and Ranjit, and they were of the same mind. If Ranjit quoted one obscure twentieth-century philosopher’s “All religions were invented by the devil to hide God from mankind,” she might retort with, “The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by the church. The church doesn’t know what to do with morality. It thinks morality is defined by the will of a nonexistent person.”
Still, Myra knew how fond her husband was of the old monk. Lacking any ideas that would satisfy them all, she changed the subject. “Did you see what Robert was doing for Surash when you were coming in?”
He blinked at her. “No—oh, wait a minute. He was doing one of his little jigsaws, wasn’t he?”
“Not so little, Ranjit. That was a five-hundred-piecer he did in the kitchen. And there’s something else he’s been doing.”
She stopped there, smiling. Ranjit took the bait. “Are you going to tell me what that is?” he demanded.
“I’d rather show you. Let’s go up to his room.” She wouldn’t say anything more until they were there. Robert, sitting before his screen and its pictures of animals, looked up with a big smile on his face. “Robert, dear,” his mother said, “why don’t you show your dad your pentominoes?”
The news that his son was interested in pentominoes wasn’t entirely a shock to Ranjit. He had been fascinated by them himself, at the age of five or six, and he was the one who had first tried to interest the boy in them. He had patiently explained the little tiles to Robert: “You know what a domino looks like, two squares stuck together. Well, if you stick three squares together, you call it a trimino, and it can take two shapes—one that looks like a capital I, the other a capital L. Do you see what I mean?”
Robert had peered gravely at his father’s demonstration but wouldn’t commit himself about understanding. Nevertheless Ranjit had plunged on. “If you go to four squares, together it’s called a tetromino, and it can take four shapes—”
He drew swiftly:
“Rotations and reflections don’t count,” he added, and then had to explain what rotations and reflections were. “None of the tetromino shapes is particularly exciting, but when you go to five squares stuck together, things start to happen!” Because, he said, there were twelve of the five-squared pentominoes. When you put them all together, you had a