SNOW CAME, JUST a sprinkling at first, but accompanied by a blasting icy cold. The temperature sank. There was a thermometer bolted to the outside of the Kimbark living-room window and when it hit minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside, its strip of mercury stopped moving and wouldn’t budge. That night four inches of snow fell, then another three on the following day. Winter had begun.
With the training of a Wisconsin childhood to fall back on, Nessheim put on thick woollen socks, long johns and an extra T-shirt for warmth. His boots were ridged and didn’t slip on the snow. Stacey laughed at the get-up, but she wore heavy boots as well, though characteristically they were fur-lined with the same soft beaver pelt stitched inside her leather gloves.
At the Lab the foreigners suffered the most, especially the Southern Europeans. Szilard waddled around with a homburg on his head and an oversized black coat that made him look like a snowman crossed with a penguin. He wore two woollen scarves wrapped around his throat, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise; once safely inside, it took him almost a minute to free himself from their snake-like embrace, and for the first time Nessheim saw the lugubrious Nadelhoffer laugh. Their leader, Fermi, had purchased a pair of oversized gloves, a cotton face mask, and black rubber boots with buckles he struggled to undo, since their web-like clips filled with snow during his short walk to work.
At Stagg Field braziers had been brought in for the guards at the entrance, who got up every few minutes to stand by the coals and rub sensation back into their hands. They were cold even in the racoon-fur coats they had purloined from the abandoned lockers. In the racquets courts, heating was primitive and draughty, the wind whistling through the old concrete stands above, but the pace of the physical work going on meant nobody was truly cold. Knuth, working his saws and lathes, was actually sweating on the morning Nessheim came by.
He was looking for Fermi, and found him alone with the battery of neutron counters on the balcony ten feet above the court where the Pile was being erected. He was reading a book. When Nessheim looked closer at it, he saw to his surprise that it was Winnie-the-Pooh. Fermi turned his head and met his quizzical look. ‘It helps me improve my English,’ he said with a smile. ‘I call some of the instruments here by names of characters from the stories. This one here,’ he said, pointing to the nearest contraption, ‘is Tigger.’
Work was progressing fast: even a week before, the wall of graphite brick could have been hurdled by Nessheim; now it was above his head. A small elevator had been brought in, at Groves’s insistence, since on his recent visit (one he had not told Nessheim about), he’d been furious to discover the leading physicists of their generation risking life and limb on wobbly scaffolding used to help build up the graphite Pile.
‘How are you, Mr Nessheim?’ said Fermi, shaking hands. ‘Va bene?’
‘Si.’
Fermi smiled. ‘We will make an Italian of you yet. Tell me, how is your friend Miss Madison?’
‘Very well. I believe she is having lunch soon with your wife.’ Talking with Fermi, Nessheim found his speech becoming a kind of formal hybrid, like the hero talking to his Spanish girlfriend in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Fermi stared down at the men working below. Despite his friendly welcome, there was something impenetrably moody about his gaze, though outwardly he exuded calm. On the floor next to him sat a suitcase, and Fermi was dressed in a smart double-breasted suit with wide lapels and a tie the colour of old blood. Below, several men, dressed in blackening grey overalls, were hard at work heaving the heavy graphite blocks into place. The Pile now was taller than a man, and shaped like a vast honeycomb, made of latticed layers of graphite, braced by a wooden frame of pine boards; Knuth’s handiwork. Nessheim asked, ‘Are you going somewhere, Professor?’
Fermi nodded. ‘To Washington on the train this afternoon. Meetings tomorrow and Friday, and then back. I do not wish to be away longer than is necessary.’
‘But tomorrow is Thanksgiving.’
Fermi shrugged. ‘Unfortunate, I know. But General Groves does not believe in vacations in wartime.’
Lucky Mrs Groves, thought Nessheim. ‘It must be important.’
Fermi said, ‘Everything is important to the General. I am there to report on progress here.’
‘Are you happy with things?’
Fermi nodded. ‘Do not hold me to the promise, but I believe we may arrive soon at the conclusion. Perhaps as soon as next week. Originally, I had predicted we would succeed by New Year, so this is very pleasing. Even General Groves may be satisfied.’ He grimaced at the improbability of this, and Nessheim laughed.
Fermi said, ‘Professor Lawrence in Berkeley bet Compton that it could not be done this year. He will lose his bet, I am sure.’
‘What good news. But I need to ask you something, Professor.’ Fermi looked at him, curious. ‘We understand you interviewed a scientist and offered him a place on your team. Back when you were at Columbia. But he didn’t come, and we were wondering why.’
‘Who was that?’ His tone was matter-of-fact, but he had picked up his slide rule and was fiddling with it, so his eyes didn’t meet Nessheim’s.
‘His name is Grant. He’s at Princeton.’
Fermi’s expression changed to a philosophical one, though his eyes remained firmly focused on the slide rule. ‘Professor Perkins and I were both impressed by him. He grasped the potential of graphite as a moderator right away.’
‘So you offered him a job?’
‘I did. This was after Professor Perkins died. Grant would have been perfect to help set up our prototypes.’
‘But he didn’t join.’
Fermi sighed. ‘I was ordered to withdraw the offer.’
‘By whom?’
Now Fermi was looking unhappily at Nessheim. ‘The military. This was before General Groves was involved. He can be difficult, we all know that, but there is always a reason for his decisions. In this case I could see no such reason. An officer came to see me in New York. He explained that Grant had some … how shall I say it? Unfortunate associates, opposed to America.’
‘The enemy?’ It seemed incredible.
‘No,’ Fermi said knowingly. ‘Not the enemy, if you mean the Nazis or the Japanese.’
‘The Russians?’
‘Closer. It was the native variety of Communists, apparently.’ He said this in almost sing-song fashion, like an advertising jingle. ‘Grant had friends who were members of the Party many years ago. I am sure it was a juvenile mistake. We all do dumb things when we are young, you know.’
‘Sure,’ said Nessheim reflexively. ‘So what happened?’
Fermi shrugged. ‘I had the privilege of writing to this man to say his participation would not be required after all. It was absurd, of course. I did not feel he had strong views about politics at all. And anyway, the Russian Communists are our allies now. Is that not true?’
‘In theory,’ said Nessheim, deadpan. From their conversation at the Quadrangle Club, he knew Fermi was no fan of the Russians, but equally he didn’t seem to consider them capable of spying on their allies. Szilard had remarked on Fermi’s political naivety and Nessheim saw why.
Fermi smiled at Nessheim’s remark. ‘ “In theory” – I like that.’
‘Was Grant upset?’
‘He must have been. If I felt bad writing the news, he would have felt much worse receiving it. I was not happy about it at all. It did not seem just. But this was soon after Professor Perkins was killed in an accident. Horrible.’ He shook his head at the memory.
‘But you still needed someone, didn’t you? If Grant didn’t join your team, who did?’
‘Professor Kalvin. He had only just arrived from Portugal. Szilard likes to say he was the last Jew to get out. Certainly he must have been the last scientist.’
‘Is he around?’ asked Nessheim.
‘No, he’s in New Mexico.’
‘New Mexico? What’s he doing there?’
‘He and Oppenheimer are –’ Fermi suddenly stopped, looking guilty for his indiscretion.
Nessheim knew not to press. He said instead, ‘How did you recruit Kalvin?
Fermi seemed to relax. Then his chest began to shake like jelly, and Nessheim realised he was trying to keep from laughing.
‘What’s so funny, Professor?’ he asked, bewildered.
Fermi tried to recover his composure. He said, ‘I should not be telling you this, but I think you will appreciate it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Because Kalvin had only just arrived in America, we did not know the man himself – only his work from the journals. It is very good – no question. We asked him if there was someone in this country who could speak on his behalf, someone who could supply a …’ He hesitated and looked to Nessheim for help.
‘A reference. To recommend him.’
‘Exactly. And it happened there was such a man, a physicist of high reputation. The letter he wrote came and the reference was outstanding. It praised Kalvin up to the clouds.’ He lifted a hand above his head with a dramatic flourish. ‘I told the military idiot about it and he was pleased. Kalvin was let through.’
‘And?’
‘I felt much better about the earlier injustice. You see, the letter came from Princeton University. It was written by Professor Grant.’
Nessheim hurried back to the Kimbark apartment to phone Guttman but when he reached the office in D.C. Marie answered. She explained that Guttman had left early.
‘Can I get him at home, Marie?’
‘You could try. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, you know.’
‘They have it out here too, Marie,’ he said, and she laughed. ‘Where’s he spending it, anyway?’
‘Beats me, Jim. Maybe with some neighbours in Arlington.’ Annie, thought Nessheim, and realised that the thought of her no longer stirred him. Marie added, ‘I don’t think he’s going to his mother’s in New York. I’m not sure she even recognises him any more.’
Guttman had a mother? Nessheim was taken aback. Someone had once said Guttman’s wife had been an orphan, and without thinking much about it Nessheim had always assumed Guttman had been one too. He’d figured that he and Isabel had found each other in some unspecified institution, a connection that had proved to be Guttman’s lifeline to the human race. To Nessheim, Guttman was a self-creation, one refined by the ministrations of his wife over the years, but always an independent agent uninfluenced by his past. Nessheim decided Marie must have got it wrong about the mother.