by Greg McGee
‘At the centre of the black hole, equations predict something so strange that Einstein’s equations spiral wildly out of control. At the centre of a black hole gravity is infinite. Infinity is just a number without limit to a mathematician, but to a physicist infinity is a monstrosity, because that is the point where physics breaks down. If gravity is infinite, it means that time stops, that space makes no sense, it means the collapse of everything we know about the physical universe.’
‘Okay,’ she said slowly, as if she understood. She might have been somewhere close but even if she hadn’t grasped everything, she didn’t want his voice to stop. Somehow it was lifting her again, above her own morass and into the heavens.
‘If you apply Einstein’s theory, at the bottom of the black hole all the mass is contained within an infinitely small point which takes up precisely no space at all. This is described as an impossible object of infinite density and infinite gravity and is called a singularity. Okay?’
‘A singularity.’
‘Now we get back to our misbehaving particles. There were two great encompassing theories that explained our universe. One was Einstein’s theory about gravity, which black holes have demonstrated is flawed. The other related to our misbehaving particles: quantum mechanics. Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s theory beautifully described the very large and the very fast and then we had quantum mechanics or quantum field theory, which was supposed to describe the very small. Most of the time, these theories could ignore each other — gravity wasn’t a problem in the quantum world because atoms were so light that the effect of gravity was irrelevant. But there is one place which is very small but where gravity is very large . . . I haven’t put that very well. But the singularity at the heart of a black hole is both astronomically heavy and infinitesimally small.’
‘A perfect place for the meeting of the two minds?’ She surprised herself.
‘Exactly, particularly given that we now believe that the beginning of the universe, the Big Bang, exploded from a singularity. The singularity, the impossible object found at the heart of every black hole, is the same impossible object found at the very beginning of time that caused the creation and expansion of the universe. If that’s true, we all came from a singularity. So if we could solve the problem of the singularity we might also solve the problem of how the universe began and where we came from. Except that when we try to combine the theories, we find a familiar difficulty. When you make the equation, at the end you get an infinite sequence of infinities. In other words they won’t talk to each other. Neither of them works completely, not gravity or quantum. The equations no longer make any sense and nobody knows exactly what we’re supposed to do about that.’ He threw his hands wide. ‘It may be the collapse of physics as we know it.’
‘What does that mean? You’re out of a job?’
‘No, no. It means we don’t know what we don’t know. It means nature is smarter than we are — nature has a particular way of operating and we humans don’t seem to be able to find that way. But what we do know is that the secret to discovering a unifying theorem to explain the universe and how it operates is at the bottom of the black hole. So, far from being the end of the road, the black hole, that hugely destructive force, is the catalyst for creation and contains the secret for enlightenment.’
‘So the moral of the story is that in the midst of misery, there is hope?’
‘I’m telling you what saved me.’
She’d broken the spell and didn’t know how to restore it. The vaulting mysteries of the heavens. That mesmerising voice. The dark infinity of his eyes. She wanted it back.
‘That was stupid,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I disappoint myself.’
‘I’m something less than I could have been,’ he said. ‘But I’m reconciled to what I’ve become. Is that a bad thing?’ There wasn’t a trace of self-pity.
‘No,’ she said, shamed.
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a difficult truth, but I prefer it.’
She was anxious for the conversation not to end on this note. ‘Your students are very lucky,’ she said, ‘and so am I.’
He shrugged. ‘None of this is original, I just teach it. And it may already be out of date due to what they’re discovering with the Hadron Collider.’
‘What does that mean for you?’ she asked.
‘Happiness,’ he said, and his eyes lit up again to prove it. ‘It’s the greatest time to be a lapsed physicist. Almost everything we thought we knew we now know we don’t know. The challenge in front of us is fantastic. Imagine finding that unifying theorem! Where it might lead us!’
‘Could that be you?’
‘As a theoretical physicist, I can calculate that likelihood as being extremely low. Infinitesimal.’
‘That’s not a no.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘You have a theory!’
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘but I do have an idea about an idea. A concept about a concept, you might call it. This is just between us.’
‘Believe me, Renzo, there is absolutely no one in the world I can share this with.’
‘Okay,’ he said, not laughing. ‘So, what everyone is looking for is a theory that unifies what we already know, quantum theory and gravity. String theory or Hawking’s theory of everything or supersymmetry might all be overarching possibilities for explaining how the universe works, but we already have a name for the resolution of this particular problem: the quantum gravity theory — even though we don’t know what quantum gravity is! We found both quantum mechanics and gravity theories through observation, but quantum gravity is so much more difficult because we can’t even see a black hole. So we’re stuck with pencil and paper, with theory, with calculations, equations. But what if the answer lies somewhere beyond both quantum and gravity?’
The waiter arrived with the bill, which Clare went to pick up but was intercepted by Renzo, even though he was in full flow and would not be diverted.
‘I may have an advantage in that I come from the particle side of physics, the quantum mechanics side, the sub-atomic world, which is stranger than you can imagine. As you know from the misbehaving photons, in the quantum world the mere act of observing changes what you see. You can’t say where something is, only where it’s likely to be. And anything that is possible, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time. So all our notions about how things behave change. For example, objects have a known location: I’m sitting here, you’re sitting there, but in a quantum reality, objects can be in many different places at the same time. Yet strange as quantum mechanics is, physicists believe that the world it describes is the true nature of reality. It’s been more successful than any other idea in physics: it’s allowed us to make the best predictions we’ve ever made. So like it or not, quantum mechanics describes our world and just about everything in it: there’s no escaping it. Every object is a quantum mechanics object and is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics . . .’
‘Except the singularity.’
‘Except, of course, the singularity. But here’s the thing. Maybe the clue to the unifying theory is in nature, but we can’t see it because we are limited by what nature gave us. Nature gave us imagination but also gave us limits to what we could imagine. The equations all lead to infinity, an infinite sequence of infinities. So infinity is clearly not beyond calculation, but it is beyond our human imagination. Even if infinity was truly conceptually possible for a physicist, which I doubt, the practical ramifications are horrendous. How can there be no end to the universe? And if there is no end, there can be no beginning. Chaos. What happens then to the Big Bang? Does everything we know as physicists fly out the window if there is such a thing as infinity in nature? If so, maybe that’s the clue: to find a theorem that embraces the concept of infinity. It might not be physics any more, it might be closer to metaphysics, but it might be true.’
‘And it might take a lapsed physicist to find it.’
What could she say? She didn’t know enough to impose any sort of critique on what he’d told her: it might be half-baked theory dumbed down for her benefit, but it sounded like the truth, his truth, despite his self-deprecation at the end. She told him she felt privileged. She might not understand half of what she was hearing, she wasn’t sure she was intelligent enough to even know how much she wasn’t getting, but what she did grasp was giving her that feeling again, lifting her so far above the petty fornications and sick commerce of human beings that, for just a few moments, none of that mattered, and the pain that crippled her loosened its grip.
25
At the entrance to the Continental, he kissed her. Just that courteous European on-both-cheeks thing. She was floating above the sordid little circle of her own concerns, up among the stars, and if he’d just kissed her on the lips . . . He smelled right. She thought they would fit.
There was a different man in reception when she collected her room key, and she felt like a different woman when she let herself into her room. She had that same feeling of elevation and excitement she’d had after Renzo had dropped her off in Venice. She was thinking about the light in his eyes and how people used to say she had that. She didn’t used to be bitter and unhappy, but what had her happiness been? Perhaps she was happiest when she felt part of something larger than herself. Family would have given her that but now she had none. In the absence of family, being a tiny part of a majestic and mysterious and potentially chaotic universe seemed to be some sort of spiritual balm. Or was it just that she was attracted to Renzo and any attention from him made her happy?
He was a strange man, used to multiple realities, and a survivor of far worse tragedy than she’d had to cope with. Perhaps it was too soon for him, but if he was interested in her, and she thought he was, his chat-up lines must be the weirdest in the history of the world, or the universe, or what we know of it, which apparently isn’t nearly as much as we thought we knew. Weird but almost irresistible. She hoped that brain sex wasn’t all he wanted.
An unsettling thought came to her. How had he known she was at the police station? Clearly the hotel rang him, but how did the staff know who to contact? Had Renzo left his number with reception once he knew she was here, telling them if they had any trouble with that crazy woman in Room 302, ring him?
She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t look down at the burnt smudge on the concrete of the carpark as she pulled the shutters to, but upwards to the stars, peering through a lattice-work of clouds. She slept like a doll, on her back, unmoving, one hand between her breasts, the other on her belly, profoundly unconscious for the first time since she’d found her father crumpled on the floor of his room in Venice two days ago.
It wasn’t until she awoke next morning that she realised Renzo must know her secret.
Monfalcone 1943
26
As the train trundled east, Joe sat tight-lipped beside Harry. A youth had taken the seat opposite so neither of them could speak.
When Bepi had reported the strangulation of Don Claudio, Joe had been shocked but had rationalised it as an act of vengeance that probably fell within the ragged boundaries of war ethics. For some reason it was more disturbing to think that Harry had killed the priest to acquire a disguise, or even that he’d been sufficiently opportunistic to take the dead priest’s vestments after killing him in cold blood.
Joe gazed out at the wooded hills rising northwards to a grey sky. The trees were turning and Joe hoped that, wherever they were going, they’d get there before winter came down on them. He wanted to thank Harry for saving him and ask him how he’d escaped the dogs, but decided that, in the end, the details didn’t matter, and Harry would probably dismiss it all with a few laconic words. But what were the odds against his path crossing Harry’s? When the youth went to the toilet, Harry told him he, too, was heading for Monfalcone after being advised to do so by Carlo and the Udine cell of the CLN.
‘Who’s Carlo?’
Joe realised someone had stopped at Harry’s shoulder, a compact, powerfully built balding Italian in his late twenties, and whispered something. Joe thought he might be asking for a blessing and waited anxiously for Harry’s response. Instead, the man walked on to the end of the carriage, and Harry whispered, ‘Dunny stop. Follow me.’
He rose and moved towards the end of the carriage. Joe had no idea what was going on but after a decent interval stood up too and made his way past the German soldiers and through the doors. Harry was standing as if waiting to use the toilet, which was occupato. Presently, the toilet door opened to reveal the Italian who had approached Harry.
‘Joe Lamont, Charlie Farinelli from Chicago,’ said Harry.
‘Hi Joe,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t shake hands,’ said Harry, as Joe held his hand out. ‘What’s the story, Carlo?’
‘There’s a couple of Republicans coming up through the carriages asking for papers.’
‘How far away?’
‘They’ll be in my carriage now, one back from yours.’
Harry said nothing. Joe knew that disguises and speech impediments would count for nothing if they were asked for identification. ‘Let’s buy some time,’ said Harry. ‘Work our way forward, keep a bit of separation.’
Without another word Charlie took off into the next carriage. Harry pulled out some Italian cigarettes and lit up as if he had all the time in the world. He took a deep drag, then gave Joe the nod.
Joe worked his way through the next carriage, trying to move slowly, not daring to look right or left. He couldn’t see Charlie until he entered the second carriage and found him happily chatting to some Italian women in uniform. Joe kept moving, straight past him, but heard enough to know that Charlie was as fluent as a native. When he reached the end of the third carriage he realised there were no more. The steel join plates outside led to the steam and the fury of the engine. Joe waited until Charlie joined him. ‘The end of the line,’ said Joe.
They waited a couple of minutes that seemed a lot longer, until Harry appeared.
‘Sia lodato, Don Enrico,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t push it, Carlo,’ said Harry.
‘I’m saying we’re gonna need divine inspiration.’
They were trapped. To break the silence, Joe asked Harry how he’d decided on his new name. Harry told him Charlie had christened him.
‘Harry is Henry,’ said Charlie. ‘Henry is Enrico.’
They rocked forward as the train slowed for another small village, then stopped.
‘Looks like you’ve delivered, Father,’ said Charlie.
Don Enrico opened the door and peered out at a narrow platform thronged with people, civilians. ‘Andiamo via.’ Through copious blessings, he walked across the platform towards the exit, followed at a distance by Charlie and Joe. Then he stood and looked back at the stationary train. ‘Where are they?’ he whispered to Charlie.
Charlie walked back towards the train through the confusion of embarking and disembarking passengers and began working his way down the windows, looking inside as if searching for a relative. He didn’t have to go far. One carriage down from where they’d disembarked, he turned back to catch Don Enrico’s eye and nodded. The Republican soldiers had been right behind them when the train pulled into the station.
Harry was already onto their next move. ‘Follow me but keep your distance,’ he said and headed down the platform towards the other end of the train. Charlie was ahead of him, looking into the carriages. The second to last carriage seemed to pass muster and Charlie climbed the steps and disappeared inside, followed shortly afterwards by Don Enrico, then by Joe. They found wooden slatted seats facing each other and spread themselves across both sides.
‘That’s them,’ said Charlie, pointing to three Republican soldiers who�
�d now left the train up by the engine and were trading cigarettes as they waited for the next train to take them back the way they’d come.
‘We should be killing the bastards,’ said Don Enrico, ‘not dodging them.’
‘Sia lodato,’ said Charlie.
27
The Monfalcone railway station wasn’t as imposing as Gemona’s but still a beautiful double-storey square-fronted building at the north-eastern edge of the town.
Their Italian contact and guide, Arturo, turned out to be Arch Scott, looking singularly Italian among a group of eight other prisoners whom he’d collected from around the Livenza and Piave. Joe recognised some of them from PG 107/7 and there were hushed greetings, as if keeping their voices down would save them from standing out like the proverbial. Joe couldn’t put his finger on exactly why they seemed foreign, even though, like him, they’d been dressed by their Italian families. Maybe it was just a different way of walking, or even of standing or holding themselves, that gave them away as aliens who were accustomed to keeping their balance on the other side of the globe.
Arch gave Joe a friendly nod, then caught sight of Don Enrico. ‘Well, bugger me,’ said Arch, shaking his head.
‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways,’ acknowledged Harry.
The only uniform in sight belonged to the stationmaster, who was regarding them with interest. Arch looked across the tracks to where the gravel gave way to a scrub-covered hill. ‘The only way is up,’ he said. As the bedraggled group followed Arch across the tracks and into the scrub, Joe turned to see the stationmaster making a beeline for his office.
Arch led them straight up the slope through light scrub until they reached a ridge running parallel to the tracks below them. Arch turned left, to the west, and they made their way along the ridge back the way they’d come. The going wasn’t too difficult. There were long expanses of smooth, bare rock poking like bald patches through the shoulder-high scrub.