“The thing you have to understand is that I really don’t understand people.”

Gil sat on a squashy old sofa, legs akimbo, forearms on thighs. He was wearing a dark-green polo shirt with a small red turtle in the place where a more fashionable polo shirt sports a crocodile. It had the trusting incomprehension of a presidential dog.

“I mean for instance. Peter Dijkstra. There are these people, they totally say Dude, Peter Dijkstra, I love Peter Dijkstra, what a genius, but then they say Oh, but he’s impossible, we met him for drinks in Amsterdam and he spent…