“Who are you,” Erwin Schrödinger asked, “and what sort of idiot did you come here with, that would leave you alone?”
Winnie took a step back but tried to keep the revulsion from showing on her face. He could be useful to her investigation. The way that Hawthorn had smugly called Schrödinger “Erwin,” like the world-renowned physicist was an antique pocket watch he could pull out, polish, and show off, made Winnie think it likely that he would have told Schrödinger all about Project Nightingale in an attempt to impress him. She would need to be careful how she went about things, but Schrödinger seemed like he might be a promising person to ask about Nightingale.
“Nice to meet you, Herr Schrödinger,” Winnie said, offering him her hand. Formality seemed the best tack to take with such a man. She didn’t want to encourage him too much. “My name is Winifred Schulde.”
His hand went limp in her own, and his smarmy grin was replaced by an expression of shock. After an awkward moment, he said, “I’m sorry—Winifred Schulde?”
Winnie nodded, and tried to think of what she’d done to make him so instantly and intensely uncomfortable.
“And your mother—her name is Astrid Keller?”
Winnie frowned. “How do you know my mother?”
Schrödinger’s eyes scanned her face intently, but although his focus on her was intense, the sexual charge was now gone.
“Oh, ah, from the University of Zurich,” he said. “I was her professor there, for a time.”
“Then you must know my father too. He’s a professor at Columbia, although he isn’t here tonight,” Winnie said, hoping this detail would ensure that he wouldn’t make a pass at her again. Surely the man wouldn’t try to seduce a colleague’s daughter.
“Heinrich Schulde?” she prompted.
Schrödinger was quiet for a long time, and Winnie assumed he was having trouble remembering her father—although he’d remembered her mother easily enough, based on Father’s last name.
“Well, yes, of course,” he finally said.
Schrödinger continued studying her face. He must have picked up on how uncomfortable this made her, because he suddenly said, “I’m sorry—it’s just that you don’t look much like her.”
Winnie doubted that he meant any offense, but it hit on an old hurt. She’d spent years unsuccessfully trying to find a trace of her mother’s beautiful face in her own.
“But I must,” Winnie said, “because I look nothing like my father.”
Schrödinger smiled faintly. “No, you do. I see the resemblance.”
Winnie felt a growing unease with this discussion of her mother, which surprised her. The day before, she’d been poring over her mother’s old school notes, famished for any bit of information. Now, she was face-to-face with someone who’d actually known her mother—aside from Father, the only person in the entire country who had! And unlike Father, he seemed willing to discuss her. But more than anything, Winnie wanted to change the subject. Luckily, she had a more useful line of conversation in mind: Project Nightingale.
Winnie was no expert at charming men, but she’d been watching Dora do it for years. That had to be worth something.
Winnie tried to channel Dora as she put on what she hoped was her winningest smile. “Say, could you help me solve a mystery?” she asked.
Schrödinger blinked quickly and adjusted his glasses. “Perhaps.”
To her surprise, he seemed to be on guard. Winnie was constantly underestimated. It would be just her luck if the one time she actually wanted someone to think she was nothing but a silly girl, they took her seriously! She tried to mimic the look Dora used when she wanted something from a boy, tilting her chin and trying to keep her expression harmlessly eager.
“Hawthorn mentioned this government project he’s working on, but wouldn’t say what they’re doing. My”—Winnie considered referring to Scott as her boyfriend, but that felt like overstepping, even in service of this investigation—“friend is hoping to work for him. Do you have any idea what this Project Nightingale is all about? It will be easier for him to impress Hawthorn if he knows which topics to mention.”
Schrödinger looked relieved. What had he been afraid she might ask?
“Well, I can tell you,” Schrödinger said, laughing and shaking his head, “but I don’t know if you’ll believe it. Are you familiar with multiverse theory—the idea that this world is one of many parallel realities?”
Dread twisted her stomach. If Hawthorn was interested in multiverse theory, he would be very interested in her, and he didn’t seem like a safe man to interest. But that would be an issue only if he found out about her ability. Father certainly wouldn’t give up that information, and neither would she.
Winnie nodded her head and tried to keep her expression neutral. “I’ve heard of it,” she said, “but isn’t that pretty fringe?”
“Oh, it is! But if nothing else, wartime does encourage innovation.”
Winnie didn’t want to seem overly curious, but she’d already come this far—she had to know the specifics. Was Hawthorn trying to build a splinter device too, or something else? Should she tell Father about it? She didn’t think he would take the news well.
“What, exactly, is Hawthorn trying to do?” Winnie asked.
He cocked his head at her, looking rather like some type of sharp-eyed bird of prey behind his spectacles. Did she seem too eager?
“Hawthorn is trying to develop a method of transportation between realities,” he answered finally. “An interdimensional travel machine.”
Talk about outlandish! Trying to travel between realities was a bold—and in Winnie’s opinion, likely impossible—goal, and stupidly dangerous. If the machine weren’t manned, how could you ever know where it had gone, or get it back? And if a person were to make the trip, who could anticipate the impact it would have on the human body—not to mention the impact it might have on the world you entered?
Of course, what did Hawthorn care for the danger, if he wasn’t the one making the trip. She imagined that was where an eager lab assistant came in handy.
Poor James! Winnie could tolerate being an occasional specimen—barely—but only because it was Father’s experiment. Had James gotten involved of his own free will, or was it possible that he was locked in a lab at that very moment, being experimented on, poked and prodded? It was an awful scenario to imagine, and Winnie could imagine it all too well.
Or . . .
. . . What if Hawthorn had completed his machine already? What if James was missing because he was trapped in some other world?
But that was crazy. This was a government project. Surely there must be oversight. If James was involved, even as a subject, it was much more likely that he was out of communication with Scott because he had to keep his work classified, not because he was being kept prisoner or had—beyond all odds—crossed the barrier between realities.
“You know,” Schrödinger said, “it was your mother who first led me to believe there might be something to all this talk of alternate realities.”
This revelation startled Winnie away from her worries about James.
“Really? Why?”
“She had quite”—he paused as if to think—“unique ideas on the topic. That’s what first attracted her to the field of physics, in fact—odd study, for a girl. I wonder if that’s something she’s shared with you? Those . . . ideas?”
If he was implying what Winnie thought he was implying—
No.
She couldn’t think about that now.
The last thing she wanted was for Hawthorn to find out that she was a girl with any “ideas” about multiverse theory.
“We didn’t talk about things like that,” Winnie said firmly, which was true. Hopefully that would make it sound more convincing. “I was only seven when she died.”
Apparently, it was Schrödinger’s turn to be surprised.
“Astrid is dead?”
Winnie nodded. “She died in a car accident, back in Germany.”
Schrödinger stood there blinking at her for a moment, like he couldn’t quite absorb what she’d said.
Why was he so upset? Winnie’s mother had been his student, but that was a lifetime ago, and they must not have kept in touch after she left school, or he would have known about her death before now.
“But if your mother’s dead, who’s been taking care of you?”
Winnie was confused by the question. “Well—my father, of course.”
Schrödinger frowned. Could he could tell that although Winnie hadn’t lied, it wasn’t the full truth either?
Sure, her needs were met, but no one cared for her like Mama had.
“I knew Astrid was pregnant when she left Zurich,” Schrödinger said suddenly, “but I wasn’t sure a baby came of it until tonight.”
What else would come of a pregnancy but a baby, Winnie wondered? Then she felt stupid. She was far from worldly, but even she knew that not all pregnancies came to term—some due to the mother’s intervention.
Why had Schrödinger thought Mama might not want to keep her? She had been married, and in love. Unless . . .
Wait.
Mama had gone to school in Switzerland, then she and Father had moved to Germany and married after his graduation. If Schrödinger was right, and Mama was already pregnant when she left Switzerland . . .
Winnie tried to make sense of it all.
She had always assumed Mama didn’t finish her degree because she wanted to get married, and Father was done with school. But no. She’d had to leave because she got pregnant.
Winnie felt a twinge of shame in her chest, which she immediately tried to stamp out. So, she had been conceived out of wedlock. So what? Her parents had married before she was born. It was no business of hers, really, and certainly no business of Schrödinger’s, nor anyone else’s.
“If I’d known,” Schrödinger said, “when Astrid passed, I would have . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Well, I don’t actually know what I would have done.” He gave her a searching look. “Heinrich—he does take good care of you, though?”
Winnie nodded mutely. She felt her breathing pick up speed. She stared at Schrödinger for a minute more, trying to process everything, the meaning behind his words.
What he was telling her, she didn’t want to know. But she couldn’t un-hear what he was saying, and she could no longer ignore his eyes. Winnie had finally realized where she recognized Schrödinger from—and it wasn’t just the odd magazine photo here and there.
Winnie saw bits and pieces of him every time she looked in the mirror.
“Does he know?” Winnie said, her voice sounding strangled in her own ears.
Schrödinger looked at her thoughtfully. He must be trying to decide which was better, the truth or a lie.
What criteria could he possibly use? Was it better if Father had no idea, and now she had to keep this secret, or if he’d known the whole time and never told her? It was awful, either way.
“Yes, he knows,” Schrödinger said finally, laughing humorlessly. “Heinrich had words with me about it.”
“And he married her anyway?”
Schrödinger gave her a gentle look. “I imagine he married her because of it.”
“Because you wouldn’t,” Winnie said, practically spitting the words.
“Well, I couldn’t. I was married already, and besides—Astrid had no interest in me.”
Winnie just stood there, eyebrows raised. No interest in him! How could he say that while she stood right there, eloquent evidence to the contrary?
“I don’t know how to explain this,” Schrödinger said with a sigh. “Winifred, my dear, you’re very young.”
Each moment that passed, this shocking new knowledge sunk in a little deeper, becoming worse and worse. Winnie took a shaky breath, trying to calm herself. It didn’t work.
“I’m nearly the age she was when—when you knew each other. I’m old enough!”
“Well, then maybe you can understand that there are things young women do sometimes not out of love, but . . .”
Here he trailed off, but he gestured around the room.
Winnie couldn’t believe his gall. “You’re saying it was for her career.”
Schrödinger shrugged. “Look at me, then look at Heinrich. I think I would be flattering myself to say otherwise.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Perhaps. But that’s the world.”
If that was the world, she wanted no part of it.
Winnie looked at the others in the room. What was the point of all this? For Hawthorn to show off his fancy house? For underlings to laugh too loudly at their superiors’ jokes? If Schrödinger was to be believed, Mama had made a terrible trade, trying to be part of this world—only to end up leaving the university with a pregnancy instead of a degree.
It all repulsed her. Was that how Father felt about it too? Was that why he stayed away from events like this? Perhaps she was his daughter in that, if nothing else.
This interaction with Schrödinger—this revelation—was this why Father wouldn’t let her come? He’d wanted to protect her. Either from Schrödinger, or from men like him.
She had been conceived by the sort of man young women needed to be kept away from.
She felt like she was about to be sick.
Schrödinger took an elegant silver card holder out of his pocket and clicked it open. “Here,” he said, handing her a business card. “The world is hard on idealists like you and Heinrich. Even harder during wartime. If you need something, ask. I’m not a wealthy man, but I’m comfortable. I’ll do what I can.”
Winnie accepted the card. Embossed letters on heavy paper stock. She tucked it into her evening bag mechanically. She imagined the card itself was more substantial than the offer. The way he said it—what did he think she might need? A new dress? A trip to Europe?
The things she needed weren’t the sort of things that could be bought.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t want his help anyway. She never wanted to see him again.
Schrödinger grabbed Winnie’s hand and tried to look into her eyes, but she refused to meet his gaze. He put a finger to one of her earlobes. “I gave these pearls to your mother, you know,” he said.
He took a breath as if he were preparing to say more, but Winnie didn’t wait. She pulled her hand away and walked off without another word.
Had Schrödinger thought about Mama at all over the years? Had he thought about their child even once?
What did it mean to be the daughter of such a man?
. . . and what did it mean to be her mother’s daughter?
She thought about what he’d said about Mama’s “ideas” about multiverse theory.
How very little Winnie knew about what she might or might not have inherited.
And Father. Was she still his daughter too?
He had his flaws, but at least he had integrity. He paid Scott, not in extra credit or favoritism or vague assurances that he was part of important work—in money. Father would never use one of his students like Schrödinger had used Mama.
Thinking about Father now made her feel sick. She didn’t know how she was supposed to face him.
Winnie had often wondered how he could treat his daughter the way he did, and now she knew. It was simple. She wasn’t his daughter.
She’d solved a mystery that evening after all.
And she’d never felt worse.