Operation Archimedes

Prologue

In 212 BC, the two year long siege of the city of Syracuse ended with a blood bath.

The Roman troops commanded by Marcus Claudius Marcellus badly needed a victory. Hannibal and his army had been roaming through the Italian countryside, and encouraged by the repeated defeats of various Roman armies, important allies had abandoned Rome, switching their allegiance to the apparently winning side of the Carthaginians.

Sicily, where Rome had previously enjoyed military supremacy, became an unexpected theatre of the Second Punic War (as it is now known), and the siege of Syracuse had been costly. The city’s walls withstood the repeated Roman attacks, and attempts to assail Syracuse from the sea proved to be equally disastrous, with many of the Roman war ships falling victim to the deadly accurate bombardments launched from the catapults designed by a man now in his mid-seventies, Archimedes of Syracuse. His ability to calculate the exact parabolic course of the devastating ammunition fired from the catapults had become known (and feared) well outside Syracuse and Sicily, earning him both respect and admiration, even amongst his enemies.

Little is known about the last moments of the life of Archimedes. The most popular account (which, however, may well be fictitious) suggests that he was resting on a rock, drawing geometric figures in the sand with a wooden stick when a Roman soldier found him. Irritated by the disturbance, Archimedes allegedly called out Noli tangere (or: turbare) circulos meos, but contrary to the express orders of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the soldier ran Archimedes through with his sword.

Cicero, in his Tusculan Disputations, claims that "when I was quaestor in Sicily [in 75 B.C., i.e. 137 years after the death of Archimedes] I managed to track down his grave. The Syracusians knew nothing about it, and indeed denied that any such thing existed. But there it was, completely surrounded and hidden by bushes of brambles and thorns. I remembered having heard of some simple lines of verse which had been inscribed on his tomb, referring to a sphere and cylinder modeled in stone on top of the grave. And so I took a good look round all the numerous tombs that stand beside the Agrigentine Gate. Finally I noted a little column just visible above the scrub: it was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder. I immediately said to the Syracusians, some of whose leading citizens were with me at the time, that I believed this was the very object I had been looking for. Men were sent in with sickles to clear the site, and when a path to the monument had been opened we walked right up to it. And the verses were still visible, though approximately the second half of each line had been worn away."

Archimedes is known to have authored many treatises, and unsurprisingly none of the originals appear to have survived. At least some of his works were preserved as a result of having been copied by mostly unknown scribes over the centuries. One of these documents is generally referred to as the ‘Archimedes Codex C’, copied onto parchment at around 950 AD, possibly in Constantinople. Codex C included part of The Method and is contained in a letter addressed to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who had been appointed to the Alexandrian library. In The Method, Archimedes explained how he first arrived at many of his important results by means of mechanical considerations, namely, by weighing an indefinite number of elements of one figure against similar elements of another (NB: Today, we would call this ‘trial and error’). This (copied) treatise, previously believed to have been lost, was rediscovered in 1906 by J. L. Heiberg in a palimpsest at Istanbul, and became the subject of an extensive research project of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, after having been purchased at a Christie’s auction in New York in 1998 for the princely sum of two million dollars.

The discovery, or rediscovery, of disputations and dissertations of historically important authors always creates excitement, and the Archimedes Codex C was no exception. Extracting at least sections from The Method added a completely new dimension though, because these extracts seemed to suggest to the professional mathematicians and mathematical enthusiasts that Archimedes had not only recognized the concept of infinity, but actually worked with the infinite in his calculations. Hence, xn had taken on a deeper meaning by placing the discovery of infinity much closer to the date of the creation of the world (which happened, of course, as any good Christian will know, on 1st September 5509 BC according to the Byzantine Church, or 23rd October 4004 BC as calculated by Bishop James Ussher – no consensus has been reached on the time of the day as yet by either).

Derived from the Latin word infinitas, infinity (often represented by the symbol ∞) means without end. In mathematics, infinity denotes an unbound limit (x→∞ expresses the concept that x grows without bound). Infinity appears in many forms and shapes. For example: take a medieval manuscript and measure its length and width. More often than not, you will find that the ratio between the combined length and width of the manuscript and the larger one of the two is the same as that between the longer (length) and the shorter (width) of the manuscript. This ratio is known as the Golden Rule (and described by the Greek letter Phi). Known as an irrational number – similar to that of Pi - the Golden Rule consists of an infinite number of digits after the decimal point. Is it a coincident that the conversion factor 1.609344 for miles to kilometers is very close to Phi – or isn’t it?

In learned mathematical circles, the association with infinity is denied in the case of Prime numbers (i.e. numbers which are only divisible by 1 and themselves: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17…..) and Fibonacci numbers. The latter consist of a sequence of numbers, starting with 0, whereby each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers in the sequence, thus yielding: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55……

Completing the sequence of both Prime and Fibonacci numbers soon comes to a point where the assistance of a super computer is indispensible, but so far, even after many attempts, nobody has been able to show whether there is a limit to either prime or Fibonacci numbers (NB: Hence I venture to suggest that by the very nature of their calculation, there cannot be a final Fibonacci or Prime number), or whether there is none. Hence, it might be open to argument whether the possible absence of such (known) limit suggests an infinite number of both Prime and Fibonacci numbers.

It has been suggested that infinity principles are related to, and part of, the Chaos Theory. Its discovery generally being attributed to the meteorologist Edward Lorenz, it has developed ‘behind the scenes’ without attracting major attention from the public, even after Jeff Goldblum, cast as the character of chaos mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park predicted from the very beginning that ‘Jurassic Park’ was inevitably bound to fail because chaos theory says that complex systems, with certain conditions, cannot be controlled (nicknamed in the movie the Malcolm Effect).

The most popular illustration of what Chaos Theory entails is based on imagining the long downward facing slope of a mountain that is littered with irregularly-shaped bumps, rocks, stones, and other obstacles of varying sizes. Standing on top of the mountain, you release a ball and allow it to roll downhill letting gravity take over. Each time you repeat this exercise, you will note that the ball will take a different downhill course and come to rest in a different location at the foot of the mountain. Anyone who has ever spent time in front of a pinball machine will understand the frustration that Chaos Theory can create.

Unknowingly and certainly unintentionally, we recreate this example in our lives on a daily basis. Just imagine you decide to sleep an extra 5 minutes tomorrow morning or to take a different train to work, to walk on the left sidewalk of the street or skip the morning coffee purchase. Each time we change a ‘routine’ in our lives, this becomes the equivalent of the ball hitting a rock at a slightly different angle compared to the previous downhill roll, causing it to bounce off at a different angle – and thus following a new and different course from the last time. Many Hollywood script writers have (probably unwittingly) exploited Chaos Theory by allowing their movie’s hero to meet the woman of his dreams (or nightmares?) because he overslept and therefore collected his Starbucks’ coffee five minutes later than usual – and there she was….

Multiply these ‘routine changes’ by several million (or billion) people, and you will find it less difficult to understand the Malcolm Effect. Whether the number of resulting changes is merely so large that it is incalculable or reaches infinity may be a purely academic question (which means that it may occupy generations of theoretical mathematicians) because most of us are not particularly concerned about the borderland between what is finite and what is infinite – this is a realm for philosophers, mathematicians, and physicists.

Most of us, though, will associate the name of Archimedes with the exclamation of ‘Eureka’ (the equivalent of today’s ‘WOW’), which followed his discovery that the volume of water splashing over the rim of his bathtub was exactly equivalent to the volume of his own body. Less well known may be the Archimedes Screw, which permits liquids (e.g. water) to be transported from lower to higher levels, and which found frequent use before the invention of the electric pump.

Very few have heard of ‘Operation Archimedes’. It was the code name given to an operation that started in 2008, and only a small group of individuals know what it was about. Those who do are not inclined to share their knowledge. And for good reasons.

Chapter 1

When she returned to her three-bedroom apartment in Upper Manhattan, she grabbed the still unopened bottle of Grey Goose from her freezer, tossed the screw cap on the counter, and poured the clear thick liquid into an empty coffee mug. Seconds later, the mug was empty. Allowing herself a top up, she struggled to remove the Donna Karan jacket, dropping it onto the kitchen floor before walking into the family room, keeping a tight hold on the mug, and crashing out on the brown sofa amongst the carefully arranged cushions.

OK, she said aloud. It’s the big ‘C’ then for you, Mary McKenzie.

Dr. Wellington, her physician, had been very straight with her, bordering on being brutally honest.

Mary, your constant headaches, the nausea, the vomiting, the weakness you have felt over the last weeks, the slight clumsiness you mentioned, and the difficulties in walking you noticed: they are all symptoms of a possible brain cancer. Now, don’t get me wrong, there could be many other causes as well, but, as you know, and purely on a precautionary basis, we have done some tests, MRIs, CT scans, and so forth. Well, you know it all since you went through it.

A nervous laugh from Dr. Wellington had followed. He did that frequently, much to her annoyance.

"Dr. Weinstein, who is the top brain specialist in town, had a look at your MRI, and we have checked your blood tests over and over again – well, in short, we all essentially agree on the diagnosis."

Which is? McKenzie was afraid of the answer she would get.

Well, without using the technical jargon, and giving it to you straight: there is a tumor in the center of your brain, which appears to have been growing for a little while. It’s currently just under half of an inch in diameter, and lodged in the center of your brain. Its growing size exerts pressure on your brain, and this, combined with a spreading inflammation in the adjacent areas, is responsible for all the symptoms you have experienced. Very soon, you may also get mild seizures, which over time, may become more aggressive.

Allowing the words to sink in, McKenzie had countered: OK, then, you or Dr. Weinstein can cut this thing out, or I can get Chemo or something, right?

Dr. Wellington picked up a pencil from his desk, and pressed the sharpened tip of the lead several times into the skin of his thumb. A former smoker, he had picked up the habit of playing with his pencils to keep his hands occupied. The pain that the pricking inflicted was part of the therapy and intended to remind him that he had chosen the lesser of two evils.

Mary, I wish I could promise you a miracle cure of your tumor, but there is none. Dr. Weinstein confirmed that in his opinion, it is inoperable because any attempt to remove it would most likely cause severe and lasting damage to your brain. Due to its location, any form of chemotherapy is also out of the question, and radiation therapy does not look viable either – all for the same reasons. Dr. Weinstein also said that because of the awkward location of the tumor, a biopsy is not possible. It really is in the worst possible location, I am sorry to say. As you probably know, a biopsy would help determine if the tumor is benign or malignant. Frankly in this instance this is a somewhat moot point as we cannot get to it. All we know is, based on the comparison of the MRIs that you had done over two month intervals, that it is growing in size. At an alarming rate.

OK, then, what do we do? Where do I go from here?

It was more a plea for help than a question.

Mary, as matters stand, the prognosis is that in about 3 – 5 weeks, your symptoms will get progressively worse, up to the point where you may get rapid and perhaps even severe seizures. Is there anyone who can look after you? If not, perhaps you should give some thought about home hospice care. Obviously, there are many counselors that can advise you on the best choices for you. You may also want to discuss this with your health insurance carrier to see what options they offer. Mary, I am so sorry, and I wish I could give you some better news.

On the outside, how long have I got? It was a difficult question for her to ask, but it had to be.

Well, one can never be accurate in these cases, and a lot depends on how fast the tumor continues to grow.

Doc, how long? The impatient tone of her voice could not be missed.

About three months. Four on the outside.

A year ago, her career had really taken off. She had been made full equity partner in her law firm, starting to earn serious money and making a severe dent in her remaining student loans. Her life-time dream of living in an Upper Manhattan apartment had been fulfilled, even if it was presently a place without a view over Central Park. The view had to wait.

The headaches had started at about the same time. Not surprising, she thought at the time, given that she worked between 12 – 14 hours every day, including weekends. There was no time for hobbies, and as she had no family, apart from her kid brother who lived in Utah, the need to make quality time available for the loved ones did not arise. Working on her career was her life, with occasional bouts of client marketing and entertaining. Swallowing a few pain killers in the morning, followed by some boosters in the late afternoon, became a habit, and initially, it helped.

Then she had switched from the hard tablets to the soft gels as they dissolved quickly and impacted on her system in less time. For nearly three months, this appeared to do the trick, but the effect was short-lived, and eventually she decided to see Dr. Wellington to get some more serious stuff.

Then came the sudden spells of nausea, the dizziness, and the occasional memory lapses. In addition to the prescription pills, she added a few soft gels nearly every two hours. Day and night. Just to keep her going.

Despite all, her headaches were getting worse, and she could barely focus on her work. The time had come to see Dr. Wellington for a full check-up to get to the bottom of the problem. Twice she missed important client meetings, simply having forgotten to put them in her diary.

Ok, she thought, pouring more Grey Goose into the coffee mug, she had gotten to the bottom of the problem, and it read: three more months, on the outside.

On the bright side, she thought, no more need to worry about keeping her figure or keeping her weight down. From now on, it would be steaks, burgers, and fries every day. On the not-so-bright-side, she would have to get her affairs in order. She got up and grabbed a legal pad and pen from the kitchen counter. OK, let’s start with making a will, a living will, and find a cheap and cheerful place for the cremation. Her credit cards were paid off in full, except a small balance on a Visa card, but that could be dealt with when the next statement came in.

Throwing the pad and pen onto the coffee table, she poured herself another drink. ‘Inoperable’, Dr. Wellington had said. The term sounded offensive to her. This was, after all, the 21st century, where the moon could be populated with volunteers if a sufficiently generous sponsor agreed to pay for it, where computers could perform miracles, torn limbs be sewn back on. She knew that Dr. Wellington had spared her the coup-de-grace by not describing in greater detail what her last few weeks would look like. He did not have to because she knew.

Fumbling through the drawer of her bookcase, she located a pack of Marlboros that someone had left behind after a party she threw on getting her partnership. Lighting her first cigarette in over fifteen years, it felt good to inhale the smoke and blow it through her nostrils. No worries about lung cancer here, she thought, that’s already been taken care of.

Wrapping up her affairs at the office would be problem. She dreaded the thought of speaking to the managing partner, a dreary guy whose main concern would be for how long she could keep up her billings. He was not called ‘Mr. Humanity’ for nothing.

There was no way she could stay out her time with her kid brother. She hated Utah, and all Uhtarians, as she liked to call them. In any event, he would not know what to do with her. He had two left hands, unless it had something to do with computers. If the term ‘nerd’ had not already existed, it would have had to be invented for him. She cast her eye on his photograph that stood on one of her bookshelves. His reddish hair unruly as ever, a Starbucks coffee cup in his hand, ill-fitting jeans, and a T shirt. That was her brother alright.

Pressing the ‘on’ button on her remote, she flicked through the channels until she hit the CNN News. There had been some explosion somewhere in Iraq, several US soldiers killed in Afghanistan, a small Cessna had landed on the I-95 near Newark in NJ, causing a gigantic pile up of vehicles with several dead or injured. Who cared, she thought. Wall Street was in turmoil over yet another investment scandal, and an American tourist had been killed somewhere in Norway of all places by a hit-and-run truck driver. The news reporter claimed to have heard from ‘informed sources’ – whatever that meant

– that the guy was a CIA agent. What on earth was he doing in Norway anyway, she thought, remembering fondly several skiing vacations in Colorado Springs. That was the place to go during the winter.

Sensing that the effect of the last batch of pain killers had worn off, she took a couple of the new prescription drugs that Doc Wellington had given her, adding three gel capsule pain meds, and washed them down with more Grey Goose.

Chapter 2

"In a letter to N. D. Doedes, written on 2nd April 1873, Charles Darwin said:

‘I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose.’

And that is really how we may feel about the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking has made both Big Bang and Black Holes popular subjects, and helped to illustrate in his unique way how our universe appears to have developed, but unless we can fully absorb, and wrap our minds around, the true meaning of the word ‘infinite’, we shall always fall back onto Darwin’s inquisitive statement, and be consumed by the feeling that we are only relating to, or exploring a ‘universe within a universe’. The real question is: what existed before ‘Big Bang’? Can we say with any degree of certainty that there was no ‘time’ before it – that ‘time’, as we know it, did not exist? But I have digressed. Next time, we shall deal with permutations, and talk about Evariste Galois and Niels Abel, and how they are connected to what is called group theory in abstract algebra. You are, as always, at liberty to read the next chapter in the course book if your otherwise busy schedule so permits.

Soren Bergman directed a friendly wave at his students to confirm that they were dismissed for the day, and somewhat reluctantly, they rose from their seats, packing their belongings in no particular rush, strolling gradually out of the lecture room.

It was strange how times had changed, Bergman mused. When he still was a full-time professor at the University of Bergen, lecturing mostly on advanced algebra, chaos theory as well as number theory, his students were always in great haste to leave his lectures, occasionally storming out the very moment there was an indication that he was coming to the end.

But now, lecturing only part-time on the history of mathematics, the degree of interest his students showed appeared to have changed – or had he? Storing his notes in his aging brown leather briefcase with the now broken straps, he could not help the feeling that it was he who had changed.

It started when Christina died. Even though they never had children, he and Christina had been a closely-knit unit, and her unexpected passing as a result of a pulmonary embolus had turned his world upside down.

Their years of happy marriage had been wiped out by her sudden death. Desperately trying to make the immense feeling of emptiness more bearable by consuming consistently growing quantities of alcohol turned out to be a losing battle since every time he sobered up, be it only for a brief moment, it was there again, biting away at him and crushing his world over and over again. Nevertheless, he tried persistently to create the feeling of numbness that alcohol invariably supplied, struggling with the Norwegian licensing laws to ensure that he never ran out of supplies.

The head of the mathematics department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Helge Karlsen, had shown Bergman tremendous sympathy and compassion. Amongst the department’s 2,700 students, it was soon common knowledge that Bergman began to skip lectures. Having a well earned reputation of being overly conscientious, his first failure to appear for a lecture was attributed to some potential illness. But rumors started as soon as he missed his second and third lecture in a week. Karlsen phoned Bergman when he learned of Bergman’s absence, and when Bergman failed to answer his calls, he visited Bergman’s home.

It took some time to absorb what he found. The front door unlocked, he entered the hallway, barely avoiding several empty vodka bottles littering the floor. In the living room, Bergman was partially prostrated across the sofa, head on the carpet, one arm and one leg angled over the sofa’s low back, his heavy snoring being the only sign of life. The room had the pungent smell of a brewery, mixed with stale air and vomit.

Karlsen, like most other faculty members, had attended Christina’s funeral four weeks earlier. At the time, Bergman appeared to be struggling with the loss of his wife, but coping. What presented itself to Karlsen now was rather different.

Having known Bergman for most of his life, Karlsen did what friends do when they see someone slipping: he extended a helping hand. Sitting down with Bergman after a sobering up period involving large quantities of piping hot coffee, Karlsen reassigned his classes, and created a light lecture schedule for Bergman that was designed to challenge him just enough to keep him off the vodka. It was worth a try.

Surely, there had been the occasional relapse, but in essence, Bergman understood that he was given a chance to get his life back together.

Nearly to the day, it had been a year since the fateful day when Karlsen found him on the sofa, and Bergman knew that he had never struggled so hard in his entire life to keep his head above water. Karlsen had proved to be a friend in need, and Bergman accepted gladly the debt he owed him.

Chapter 3

The kitchen was remarkably clean. Christina had always ensured that the house was spotless, refusing any offer made by her husband to hire someone to come in once or twice per week to do the worst chores.

Having slowly accepted that normality now consisted of Christina not being present any longer, Bergman made a concerted effort to keep things as they were, and a tidy kitchen was an integral part of the routine that Bergman had established. Rather than let dirty dishes pile up in the sink before transferring them into the dishwasher, Bergman found that it was less work to stack everything into the dishwasher immediately after use. He dedicated Sundays to general housework, and after a short while, he even got the hang of using a vacuum and duster.

All domestic work completed for the day, Bergman brewed himself a cup of Orange Pekoe, enjoying the flavor whilst sitting in front of the TV and flicking through the channels to see if there was anything of interest. Alas, on Sunday afternoons, it was mostly children’s programs or old black-and-white movies, and Bergman felt that he needed something fresher and more stimulating. Browsing through his DVD collection, nothing grabbed him either.

Whilst still pondering what to do with himself for the remainder of the day, his thoughts were interrupted by the dull chirping of the phone. Having refused to part with a now nearly classic phone model from the late 60s, he was far away from anything cordless.

Yes, Soren Bergman speaking. He liked to identify himself even if he was not the caller. He found it irritating when people just answered with ‘yes’ or ‘hello".

Hi Soren, it’s Karen. I am so sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I just wanted to ask you something if I may.

Sure, Bergman replied, I’m not up to much at the moment anyway. Fire away.

Bergman was rather pleased with the interruption. Karen van Dellmann was a fellow professor at Bergen University, specializing in algebraic topology, and a very pleasant person. Too pleasant, Christina had observed on many occasions, immediately sensing the presence of a potential rival.

Great. Here it goes: you know that I am doing this course on motivic homotopy theories for the Nordfjordeid Summer School. I’ve got most of the course papers ready, but I’m not sure if I should finish with the chapter on model categories or the chapter on motivic spaces and spectra. Logically, the model categories should come first. What do you think?

Bergman did not hesitate. You are quite right – the model categories have to come first. Without defining the categories, the students will not understand how you get to the spaces and spectra, especially since you have to review the axioms, starting off with Quillen and so forth.

That’s what I thought, but you know how it is – sometimes, there’s just a nagging thought that you might be putting the cart before the horse. Talking about carts and horses: what are you doing tonight? Have you had dinner yet?

Karen, it’s just barely 4 PM. I’m still digesting my lunch.

So what? Does that preclude you from thinking about dinner? There’s this great place called ‘Two Chefs’ on Bryggen – I really fancy something exquisite tonight.

Are you inviting me or am I supposed to take you out? Bergman asked jokingly. It had been a long time that he had dinner with a female friend – or was this moving in the direction of a date?

Oh come on, of course we go Dutch.

That’s fine with me, I think. This aside, how did you move from carts and horses to dinner?

I could eat like a horse – was that not obvious?

Well, now that you mention it. Fine then, let’s have dinner. 7 PM too early for you, or too late?

Make it 6:30 or I’ll die of starvation.

To avoid a discussion on whether he should pick her up, Bergman concluded the conversation by saying, Perfect. Meet you there then, at 6:30 sharp. Take care.

Replacing the receiver, he felt slightly strange. He had the occasional Hamburger with Karen during the week when they were both on their lunch breaks, but never before did they have dinner.

Finishing off his tea, Bergman could not conceal a degree of amusement at the rather flimsy pretext she had used. Karen van Dellmann was an ace in her field, and had done similar Summer school courses for the last five or six years. At best, she was reworking one of her previous scripts so that the question whether the specific should follow the general or vice versa was as illogical as it was transparent.

The lightness Bergman had felt for a moment gave way to a more somber thought. What would Christina say to all this? He going out, on a Sunday night, with a fellow professor, having dinner, and all this being based on a very flimsy pretext. Did Karen just want to cheer him up, provide some company to prevent the loneliness from dominating his weekend? Was she up to something, something more? He began to feel uneasy.

The question had come up some while ago in one of the many conversations he had had with Helge Karlsen. Pragmatic, as ever, Karlsen had placed his hands on his hips, raised his head high, and proclaimed: Soren, we all loved Christina. I know that you loved her more, and differently from us. But here’s some news: Christina is gone. It is tragic and sad, but she is gone forever. On the other hand, you are still here, and life goes on. You should, and must, keep her in your thoughts, but never allow this to escalate to the point where she begins to dominate your future. She would not have wanted this. There is nothing shameful about moving on and at the same time, treasuring the moments you had with her. It’s like falling off a horse: the moment you fall, you must get back on it or you will be afraid for the rest of your life.

Admittedly, the metaphor was far from appropriate, but Bergman got the message. Of course, Karlsen was right. That did not change the fact that Christina was still on his mind, if not in his mind. He could not just wipe out the memories. It provided no consolation to know that virtually every widow and every widower probably went through the same process.

Placing his tea cup and saucer into the half-empty dishwasher, Bergman resolved that a long shower would get matters back into perspective, and so he went upstairs.

Chapter 4

To many, Bryggen Wharf is merely a tourist attraction. To the locals, it is part of Bergen’s history, built some 900 years ago when it became a thriving center of international trade following the establishment of the German Kontor by the Hanseatic League. Since 1980 on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the parallel rows of old wooden houses all have seaward-facing gables and are typical of the then prevailing building tradition.

Located near Bergen’s fish market, Bryggen has maintained its old-world charm despite the inevitable influx of souvenir shops, and does not happen to be the home of the rather exclusive ‘Two Cooks’ (or ‘To Kokker’ to use its actual name) restaurant for nothing. Located at Enhjørninggården 3 in a building reputedly dating back to 1703, the restaurant regularly hosts both local and international celebrities, apparently including Prince Andrew of the House of Windsor and a string of French starlets. The actual dining room, one slightly slanted floor above street level, impresses with scarlet-colored walls featuring crooked moldings as well as a host of old paintings, but barely distracts from the menu that usually features delicacies such as lobster soup; whitebait roe with chopped onions, sour cream, and fresh-baked bread; reindeer with loganberry sauce; and filet of lamb with mustard sauce and pommes Provençals.

When Bergman arrived at the reception desk, he found that a reservation had been made in his name, and he was immediately ushered to the table where Karen van Hellmann was already waiting. The half empty glass of white wine suggested that she had arrived quite a few moments before him.

Hi Karen, sorry I’m a little late. Had some trouble parking the car, he apologized politely even though it was not even 6:30PM yet. Taking his seat and unfolding the decoratively assembled pink linen napkin, he tried to avoid any particular greeting ceremony that Karen might have intended. Better to be neutral and see how things developed.

Don’t apologize. I was here a little early, and decided to treat myself to a little drink. I did not yet order anything for you. She did not address the question