The Last Samurai

and he went to another bookcase that was full of books and he said why didn’t I take one of his books in Czech or Finnish or something and he would sign it and it would be unique.

I said You don’t have to do that and he said No I insist, and he asked me which language I would like and I said Well how about Finnish?

He said Don’t tell me you know Finnish and I said Do you want me to lie about something like that and he said Gordon Bennett.

He said Just out of curiosity is there any language here you don’t know? I looked at the books and I said No but there are a lot I don’t know very well and he said Sorry I asked and gave me another humorous look.

He said:

Why don’t I make this one more personal, is there something you’d like me to say?

I thought: I’ve got to say something. I thought: Am I just going to go away without saying anything? I said: What did you have in mind?

He said: How about, for David, I promise never to decrease the market value of this book by signing another Finnish edition, your friend in Mammon Val Peters? He was grinning at me and holding a pen.

I said: Say whatever you want.

He said: I’d like to say something more personal but everything you think of saying always sounds so wet.

I said I probably wouldn’t sell it anyway so it didn’t have to be unique.

He said: Well in that case why don’t I just put For David with best wishes Val but you’ll know it came from the heart. He did not really say this with another humorous smile because he was smiling humorously throughout. I said Fine, thanks, and he scrawled something in the book and handed it over.

It was not hard to imagine a world where my body stood in this room with something else inside it. If I said something he would see that other world. I thought: Well am I going to go away?

I said:

Do you ever bury your books?

He said: What?

I said: You could bury your books in a plastic bag a few metres down, one on each continent. Then if there was a cataclysm they’d be preserved for posterity. They could dig them up again.

He said he hadn’t tried it.

I said: What they should really do is bury a book in the foundation of each house. Sealed in plastic. It would help archaeologists in a millennium or so.

He smiled. He said: I hate to throw you out, but I’m gonna have to throw you out. I’ve got work to do.

I thought again that I could say something and everything would be different, and seeing his casual slightly complimented look I wanted to say it.

Then I thought:

If we fought with real swords I would kill him.

I thought:

I can’t say I’m his son, because it’s true.

v

He obviously thinks he’s a samurai

1

A good samurai will parry the blow

The night I met him I went outside to sleep on the ground. It was stupid, I wasn’t going anywhere. I rolled up my sleeping bag and brought it inside. I went upstairs and slept on the mattress, covered in blankets.

I could sleep outside if I had to.

I finished Njal’s Saga. I had planned to go back to Inuit when I had finished but now there did not seem to be any immediate point so I decided to go on with aerodynamics.

I put the book on aerodynamics in my backpack as well as the two Schaum Outlines in case I needed Laplace transforms or Fourier analysis. I went to the National Gallery and sat on a bench in front of The Virgin & Child Enthroned between a Soldier Saint and St. John the Baptist.

4.9 Bound Vortex

It was shown in the last section that the force on a body is determined entirely by the circulation around it and by the free stream velocity.

Now I believe you read my book, said my father.

In an identical manner, it can be shown that the force on a vortex that is stationary relative to a uniform flow is given by the Kutta-Joukowski law.

Thanks, said my father. I mean that. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

The vortex that represents the circulation around the body

Thanks, said my father. I mean that.

departs in its characteristics from that of a vortex in the external flow

Thanks, said my father.

in that it does not remain attached to the same fluid particles

I mean that, said my father. That’s the nicest thing

I got up and went to the main wing and sat in front of A Young Man Holding a Skull by Frans Hals. My father didn’t say anything. I opened Kuethe & Chow on Foundations of Aerodynamics to page 85.

4.10 Kutta Condition

The Kutta-Joukowski theorem states that the force experienced by a body in a uniform stream is equal to the product of the fluid density, stream velocity, and circulation and has a direction perpendicular to the stream velocity.

I think you’re going to have to wait a while, said my father.

The Kutta-Joukowski theorem states that the force experienced by a body in a uniform stream is equal to the product of the fluid density, stream velocity, and circulation and has a direction perpendicular to the stream velocity.

I think he’s one of the greatest writers this century, said my father.