by Layton Green
Werner’s broad face tightened. “Surely you know about the fire?”
“But of course.”
The day before, an unknown arsonist had burned down the Reichstag, the German parliament building. The Nazis were blaming the Communists, stirring up populist fervor.
“Hitler has asked our weak-kneed president for an emergency order, and I’m sad to say he granted it. Most of our civil liberties have been suspended, Ettore. Overnight. It’s fascist.” He scowled into his beer. “It’s obvious to everyone what is happening, but Hindenburg is too afraid of Hitler to refuse him.”
“Why do people listen to him?” Ettore asked, feeling lost in the huge room. “He’s such an ugly little man.”
“Because men like to follow other men. Especially leaders who tell them they are special and better than everyone else.”
“What will it mean for the institute?”
“It depends on how things evolve. I’ll tell you one thing, though.” His scowl deepened. “I worry for our Jewish colleagues. The rhetoric against them grows worse by the day. I’ve heard calls for resignation. Philipp Lenard has gone so far as to denigrate relativity as ‘Jewish science.’ Can you believe that swill? And himself a Nobel laureate!”
“What do you think will happen?”
Werner lifted a palm. “Albert, of course, will be fine. Some of the others may have a harder time. I’ll talk with them privately, urge them to consider reassignment.”
Ettore gave an absent nod, unable to feel much in the abstract for people he did not know.
Werner noticed. “These days, it isn’t enough to focus on science and shut out the rest of the world. If quantum mechanics has taught us anything, it’s that we’re all connected in mysterious ways, ja?”
“But as you yourself proved, it also taught us that everything is uncertain. So why bother?”
He laughed. “Don’t obfuscate, Ettore. We live in the real world, not in the world of abstract physics.”
Ettore failed to understand the difference, since the “real world” was composed of protons and electrons and other particles. But he didn’t wish to debate the point and upset Werner. “Speaking of indeterminacy, have you and Albert corresponded recently?”
Werner belched. “Bah. He stands firm in his opposition. ‘God does not play dice,’ he says. Yet what does Albert know of either the casino or an omnipotent deity? He avoids them both like a bout of syphilis.”
“What if God does play dice,” Ettore said, thoughtful, “but knows all the outcomes beforehand?”
“That’s theology, not science.”
“Is it? What do we know of the mind of God, or the universe, or whatever one wishes to call it?”
“Good Christ, have you been following along? We know quite a bit!”
“Do we?” Ettore said quietly. “We once thought the Earth was the center of the universe, that light was a single uniform substance, that a stone dropped off the edge of the planet would fall forever. We think we’re enlightened, but how will humanity view our positions one hundred years from now? One thousand?”
Werner started to speak, then took a long drink. “I will grant you that, my friend. But it is my firm belief that humanity will one day understand the physical laws of the universe.”
“I don’t disagree. And I think you and Albert both have it right. There is great beauty in the chaos. Structure.”
“You agree with Albert then.”
“I agree that what we know right now—what we think we know—tells but a fraction of the story.”
“Bohr has spoken to that, as you surely know,” Werner said. “Our problem is merely one of observation. If we could see the quantum world from all the right angles, the chaos would disappear.”
“And what if more layers of reality lie beneath the quantum world?”
Werner laughed. “What a mind you have! What are these new layers of which you speak? I take it you’ve considered this already?”
Ettore gave a small smile and fell silent, not yet ready to discuss these thoughts in public.
Werner raised his glass in a toast. “Good man, Ettore. I appreciate discretion. That fellow Dirac cares not a whit for experimental truth, as long as his math works out.”
Ettore clinked his glass and fell silent. He had risked everything by publishing his paper in opposition to Dirac’s theory, and hoped with every fiber of his being that his own position would prove to be the correct one. In a rare display of pride, Ettore had even taken to trumpeting his theory in Leipzig, and casting aspersions on Dirac’s model.
Werner’s eyes had turned glassy from the alcohol. When he leaned closer to Ettore, bending so that their heads lightly brushed, the leathery musk of his cologne tickled Ettore’s nose.
“I have a confession,” Werner said. “I’ve been approached by the Nazis.”
Ettore swallowed and waited for him to continue.
“They wish for me to join them. Become their top scientist.”
“Surely you desisted?”
Werner looked amused. “Are you yourself not a member of your country’s Fascist Party?”
Ettore sniffed and waved a hand. “A formality. I didn’t even sign the papers myself.”
“Well, I fear it’s a little more serious over here.”
“So what will you do?”
After turning to scan the crowd, the German leaned even closer, draping his hand across Ettore’s narrow shoulders. “I put them off for now, but I fear for the future. I won’t abandon my country, you know. I’m a patriot. Yet I can’t align myself with that madman. I . . . don’t know what I will do.”
It was a rare moment of weakness for the charismatic man. Ettore disengaged and patted him awkwardly on the back, not knowing what to say or how to comfort him. In response, Werner gripped his hand, causing a tingle of warmth to spread through him.
Ettore walked home alone, his breath fogging the air. He passed through Leipzig’s handsome market square and then strode down lively Brühl Street, passing near to where the home of Wagner once stood.
Eventually, his thoughts turned to his friend, as they often did these days. Ettore did not know how to categorize his feelings for Werner. He did not think it was a sexual response, though he did not really know. Were love and friendship and sexual relations inextricably intertwined? Ettore’s knowledge of math and physics was in inverse proportion to his knowledge of the human heart. He knew only that he had never enjoyed anyone’s company as much as he did Werner Heisenberg’s.
Yet Ettore was fiercely independent, and terrified of removing his armor of isolation. It made him want to pull away from Werner. Intimacy was too dangerous a thing.
After crossing a footbridge with a decorative iron railing, he entered a quieter, more residential part of the city. The glow of the street lanterns faded as Ettore passed alongside the cemetery that marked the start of his neighborhood. There was a shortcut through the somber stone tombs, though after nightfall he preferred to keep to the street. Thieves were not unknown in Leipzig. And while Ettore was not a superstitious man, he could admit to an atavistic fear of the dark. Unlike most of his colleagues, he did not scoff at this. Recent discoveries had proved the universe strange beyond all imagining. Early man was afraid of the spirits haunting the night sky, and who was to say they were wrong? Ettore did not believe in spirits in the traditional sense, but matter and energy were interchangeable and always conserved. What happened to human consciousness after death? And this mysterious field of corporeal energy that so fascinated Tesla—what if ghosts were real, just not yet understood by science?
What if they were a product of science?
As usual, Ettore’s speculations distracted him from his surroundings. When he looked up, a gang of unkempt youths in dark coats were slipping out of the darkness of the cemetery like oiled eels. They hopped the low wall and approached the street, boots crunching on dried leaves.
Walking right toward Ettore.
There were half a dozen of them brandi
shing knives and clubs, their confident grins splitting tobacco-stained teeth.
Ettore shrank back as the largest of them stepped forward. Perhaps twenty, he was a hulking young man with bright-red hair and a high-necked coat an inch short in the sleeves.
“Guten Abend,” he said.
“Good evening,” Ettore tried to reply, but his voice cracked too much.
“It’s past curfew, you know.”
Ettore, whose German was far from perfect, thought he had misheard him. “Curfew?”
“That’s right,” he said, smacking his cudgel into the palm of his hand, over and over. “Because of the Reichstag fire.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“Maybe you should pay attention to the local news, Ausländer.”
Ausländer meant “foreigner.” Ettore shuffled his feet and looked down.
“There’s a fine, you know.”
“A fine?” Ettore whispered. “But I’m a scientist.”
“The fine is all of your money paid to me. Right now.”
“I don’t have—”
The thug lunged forward, grabbing Ettore by his collar and jerking him up on his toes.
“You’re in my territory is what you are.”
Ettore struggled to speak. His own collar was choking him. “I—I have very little. I’m only here on a grant—”
“Give it.”
Ettore fumbled to reach the coins in his pockets, but his hands were shaking too much. He gasped and tried to explain, but the street thug tripped him to the ground, sticking the cudgel painfully into his chest. He snarled and said, “Take off your watch.”
A warm trickle of urine escaped Ettore’s bladder. He couldn’t seem to make his muscles obey. His neurons had scrambled, overcome by fear, no longer his to command.
His failure to respond enraged the brute. As the others jeered, he kicked Ettore in the ribs, then reached down and jerked the watch that Ettore’s favorite uncle had given him off his wrist.
“Take his clothes, Dirk!” one of the others crowed.
“And his shoes!”
“Look at his dark skin! He’s probably a pathetic little Jew!”
As Ettore trembled, wondering if they were going to kill him, a loud crack rang out, causing his assailant to jerk away.
“Stand back!” a voice commanded from the street behind Ettore.
He risked turning his head and saw a tall man with a lean, craggy face and cropped blond hair walking toward them with a raised pistol. A woolen peacoat fell to the top of his boots, accompanied by gray gloves and a matching scarf.
When the thug standing over Ettore hesitated, the man fired his pistol in the air again, above his head. “Was I unclear? Now!”
Dirk backed away. He and his friends started to slink off into the night, but the newcomer called out again.
“Stop moving.”
It was not a shout, yet something in his voice, an assumed tone of command of which the most experienced field general would be proud, caused the gang to stand still and face him.
“Return the watch.”
Dirk muttered something under his breath but tossed the watch to Ettore. He fumbled the catch, and the watch fell to the street. Thankfully the face didn’t crack.
“You’re lucky,” the new man said to the youths, “that I have other business tonight. Else I would drag you all to jail by your collars. As it stands, if I ever catch you approaching this man or any other on the street, the penalty will be harsh and swift. Am I clear?”
“But look at him!” one of them said, pointing at Ettore. “He doesn’t belong here! He’s not a German!”
“Look at you,” the man replied. “A pack of dirty thieves who are.”
The gang members looked away or down at their feet, their weapons having disappeared into their coats.
The newcomer fired right at Dirk’s feet, causing him to leap back. “Am I clear?”
“Yes,” Dirk said, his voice shaky. “Clear.”
“Clear, Sergeant Major,” the man corrected, tapping the gun against a red-and-white heraldic eagle on his sleeve.
After Dirk meekly repeated the words, he and the others hurried down the street, swallowed by the night.
“Thank you,” Ettore croaked, brushing the dust of the street off his jacket.
“You’re welcome.”
“I was fortunate you were nearby. If not—”
“It was more than fortune, Ettore Majorana.”
Ettore started, his heart still pounding from the encounter. “How do you know my name?”
“Because I’ve been watching you. This route isn’t safe after dark, you know. You should choose another.”
“Watching me? But why? Who are you?”
In the ensuing pause, Ettore glanced down, relieved the urine stain on his thigh was not visible beneath his double-breasted coat.
“Shall we walk?” the man said. “I’ll accompany you home. I’m sure the experience was a traumatic one.”
“Thank you. Yes. I’ve . . . never been robbed before.”
“You have my utmost apology that this ugliness occurred in my country.” As they continued past the cemetery, he said, “My name is Stefan Kraus. I’m a sergeant major in the German army, as well as a senior leader in the Schutzstaffel.”
Ettore twitched at the mention of the Schutzstaffel, which everyone referred to as the SS.
Stefan flashed a rueful smile. “At times, a man is forced to adopt a mantle he does not truly wear, ja? I am not acting on official business tonight. Or at least not that official business.”
Ettore was so grateful to him for saving his life that he did not really care about his other motives.
“I represent a very special organization, Ettore. One that is very aware of—and impressed by—your work.”
“Are you with one of the prize organizations?”
The man laughed. “No, I’m afraid not. Though you deserve that and more. Still, those types of awards are not really important to you, are they?”
“I suppose not,” Ettore agreed.
“Why is it that you almost never publish your research?”
“But how do you know that?”
“Please answer.”
The command was softly given, almost a suggestion, yet Ettore felt as if he had no choice but to obey. “Because I don’t find it important,” he said finally.
“Yet your recent paper on particle theory is different, ja? You believe strongly in this one.”
“You’ve read it?” Ettore said, incredulous.
“Of course.”
“And understood it?”
The corners of Stefan’s lips turned up. “Not only that, we believe in it. And in your potential for even greater things.”
“We? Who are you?” he asked again.
Instead of answering, Stefan launched into a spirited discussion of the latest theories circulating among the elite theoretical physicists of the day. He was even fluent in quantum electrodynamics, Ettore’s favorite subfield.
“Surely you are a working scientist,” Ettore said in amazement after they had talked for some time on the street in front of his lodging.
“I once was, yes. Among other things. Now I serve a higher calling.”
Ettore sniffed, failing to hide his disdain. “You mean your political party?”
“No, Ettore. The group I mentioned earlier.” Stefan reached into his coat and opened his palm to reveal a large black coin etched with an elaborate series of numbers and symbols in silver ink around the edges.
Ettore could make no sense of the inscription. In the center of the coin, three prominent capital letters, inscribed in silver, demanded attention.
LYS
Ettore looked at him blankly. “I don’t recognize any of this. Is it supposed to be a theorem of some sort?”
“Not a theorem. A cipher.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor should you. Not yet.”
“Is the coin made of stone?”
“It’s an alloy.”
Ettore frowned. “Of what type?”
Stefan returned the coin to the pocket of his coat. “We’d like you to join us, Ettore. We extend an invitation to an extremely few number of people, but I believe you would be an excellent addition.”
“An addition to what? What does ‘LYS’ mean?”
Stefan regarded him in silence for a moment. “Do you wish to probe the outer limits of science, Ettore? Reach to the stars and beyond? Unlock the potential of mankind?”
“I’m a theoretical physicist. Of course I do.”
Another small smile. “Of course.”
“Surely you know I work at the physics institute,” Ettore said, growing annoyed. “Some of the best work in the world is undertaken there.”
“Yet you are limited by certain boundaries, are you not? The extent of your grant, the resources of your institution or government, the aptitude of your colleagues?”
“I work directly with Werner Heisenberg,” Ettore said stiffly. “One of the greatest living scientists. Why have you not asked him?”
“Haven’t we?”
As Ettore stuttered, Stefan laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Werner is undeniably brilliant, yet he adores the lights of the stage far too much.”
“There are plenty of other physicists.”
“No, Ettore.” Stefan shook his head. “There are not. How many others at the institute does the great Werner Heisenberg address as an equal? We have attended the conferences, heard the talks. Does Heisenberg not sometimes start his sentences on nuclear theory with ‘According to Majorana’ and ‘As Majorana has stressed’?”
Ettore could not deny it. In fact, it embarrassed him very much.
“I understand your reticence. We have just met, and my claims are bold. Yet I know you sense that mankind is on the cusp of discovering even greater knowledge.” He took a step closer, palms upturned. “Do you really think the discoveries in the headlines tell the whole story? That the world’s bloated governments and profit-hungry corporations are the only players in the game? That your scientific institutions alone work to wrest the truth out of Mother Nature? There are more things in heaven and earth, my dear Ettore, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
As he repurposed the words of Shakespeare, the German officer’s stare bored into Ettore, pulling in the physicist’s gaze like a pendulum dangled by a master mesmerist. “Meet with us. See who we are.”