In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  We set out on Saturday, August 21, and when we got there, it proved a horrid disappointment. The cabins were tiny and squalid, and worst of all they were set up on the hilltop that gave the lodge its name, while the dining room, the recreation hall, and the lake itself, of course, were down in the valley.

  We tried desperately to find some other place that would take us, and when that failed, it seemed to us we had no choice but to go home. We trudged desolately up to the cabin where our luggage had been deposited—and who should come bounding down the steps but Lester Weill.

  Lester Weill had been one of my fellow students in the graduate chemistry department at Columbia. He had not been one of my closest friends, perhaps, but he was certainly in the second rank. He was one of the ringleaders, for instance, among those involved in feeding me the pyridium pill in order to make me think I was urinating blood.

  We stopped and I introduced Gertrude, who cheered up at once, for Lester was tall, slim, dark, and good-looking. To me he looked rather like the English actor Michael Wilding, with a mustache.

  He talked to us cheerfully, told us what a great place Hilltop Lodge was, took us on a three-hour hike through the woods, played twenty questions with us, and after supper lured us into some folk dancing. We had a great day and, in fact, a great week.

  The next day, Gertrude rowed me across the lake, and I rowed her back. She then took the canoeing test and passed, so she took out a canoe by herself. (She could swim like a fish, but since I was a non-swimmer, the canoe was not for me.)

  The day after that, Gertrude and Lester went canoeing together, while I found a young man named Abe who could tell jokes. That meant we spent hours telling jokes to each other, with others clustered

  about to pitch in an occasional joke themselves but, for the most part, to serve as an appreciative audience.

  There was no question but that Lester Weill made the whole difference. Once he showed up, the cabins stopped being tiny and the climb stopped being steep. By the time we left on Saturday, August 28, it seemed to me I had had the best time in my life, and Gertrude was willing to agree to that. Thank you, Lester Weill, wherever you are.

  5

  The summer of 1943 began my experience with the Navy Yard cafeteria. Early in our marriage, Gertrude routinely made sandwiches for lunch for me. They were wonderful and I had a delightful time eating at my desk at my ease, in air-conditioned comfort, in reasonable privacy, and reading a book. It was absolutely the best part of the workday.

  When Gertrude had been in Canada, however, I ate at the Navy Yard cafeteria. The cafeteria was a half-mile away across a desolation that was a muggy Sahara in the summer, a dank Siberia in the winter, and a mudflat in spring and fall. Once you got to the cafeteria, you found it enormous (the purple haze of distance obscured the opposite wall) and crowded. Worst of all, the food was so horrible as to revolt even a person such as myself, who doesn't ask much of food except that it be there.

  After Gertrude returned from Canada, I tried to return to things as they had been before, but the catch was that when I did go to the cafeteria, I generally joined the Heinlein contingent, which included himself and his wife, Leslyn (small, dark, skinny, forty, and voluble), and a few staunch cronies. I helped keep the table lively, and Heinlein didn't want to give me up just because I wanted to be comfortable.

  Somehow, I couldn't resist Heinlein's pressure but went along with poor grace. The summers were really unbearable and the trek to the cafeteria required camels and an occasional oasis—and I really disliked the food.

  Leslyn Heinlein was a high-strung woman who ate very little and who chain-smoked over the food. She used her mostly filled plate as an ashtray. Somehow she always sat across from me, and I think that watching her plate become half garbage and half butts started the process that converted me from neutrality to ardent and fanatic hostility toward smoking and smokers.

  Oddly enough, it was Leslyn who found my eating habits repulsive. I am a quick eater and don't waste time. Once I had a salad that con-

  tained among the greens two halves of a hard-boiled egg. I like hard-boiled eggs, so I ate one of those halves. Now, I don't nibble around the edges of half a hard-boiled egg or approach the center in some uncertain and erratic fashion. I just stick my fork into the thing and transfer it to my mouth. Nor do I make a slow-motion procession of it. One moment the half egg is on my fork, the next it is gone, rather like a fly being speared by a chameleon.

  Leslyn said, irritably, "Don't do that. You turn my stomach."

  I looked behind me to see whom she was talking to. Then I said, "Are you talking to me, Leslyn?"

  "Yes!"

  "But what did I do?" I said in honest astonishment, and disposed of the other half egg.

  "You did it again," she screamed.

  Another incident that remains in my memory was the time we were seated at one end of the cafeteria when, from the other end, approximately 2Y3 miles away, there came a long, shrill feminine scream, something along the lines of what you would expect of a woman sawn in two.

  A profound hush fell on the entire cafeteria for the first time in its existence, and in that eerie quiet my voice rang out loud and clear. "Funny!" I said, "I'm over here."

  Everyone within earshot laughed and we never found out what the screaming was about, though I myself suggested searching the premises for two halves of a woman.

  What irritated me most, however, was (a) the food and (b) Heinlein's patriotic refusal to recognize that anything prepared for noble war workers could possibly be inedible.

  When, annoyed by memories of the sandwiches I had left in limbo, I spoke eloquently of cardboard potatoes and wilted lettuce and middle-aged roast beef, Heinlein passed a ukase to the effect that from then on anyone who complained about the food would have to put a nickel into the kitty. (When enough had accumulated, I think he was going to buy a war bond.)

  I objected bitterly, for I knew it was aimed at me. I said, "Well, then, suppose I figure out a way of complaining about the food that isn't complaining. Will you call it off?"

  "Yes," he said.

  After that, I had a mission in luncheon life that took my mind off the food, at least. I was going to find a way of complaining that couldn't be objected to. My best solo attempt, I think, was one time

  when I pretended to be sawing away ineffectually at a dead slab of haddock and asked with an innocent air of curiosity, ''Is there such a thing as tough fish?"

  "That will be five cents, Isaac," said Heinlein.

  "It's only a point of information, Bob."

  "That will be five cents, Isaac. The implication is clear."

  Since Bob was judge, jury, and executioner, that was that.

  But then someone new joined the table who did not know the game that was going on. He took one mouthful of some ham that had been pickled in formaldehyde and said, "Boy, this food is awful."

  Whereupon I rose to my feet, lifted one arm dramatically, and said, "Gentlemen, I disagree with every word my friend here has said, but I will defend with my life his right to say it."

  And the game of fine came to an end.

  On September 17, I sent "Catch That Rabbit" to Campbell, and on September 24, I received my check for $9375 (7,500 words at $.0125 a word).

  Something that was more abstractly pleasant took place on September 25, 1943, when the Soviets announced that they had recaptured Smolensk and Roslavl, and on September 27, when among the many places recorded in the Soviet war communique as having been recaptured was Petrovichi—or at least the ground on which Petrovichi had stood—after it had remained twenty-six months in German hands.

  Bob Heinlein shook my hand and solemnly congratulated me.

  7

  The High Holidays produced no crises in 1943. Apparently the upward turn in the war made it look as though we might not be instantly defeated if a few Jewish employees took off a day or two. At any rate, I had accumulated a few days' additional vacation leave, and I took them for Rosh Hashonah and for
Yom Kippur and, no, I didn't go to temple either time.

  In fact, we called Abe, the young man with whom I had so pleasantly swapped jokes at Hilltop Lodge, and suggested he meet in the city with us and with Anne (a girl whom we had also met at Hilltop Lodge) on the evening of October 8. The idea was to have a pleasant reunion, but Abe told us, quite coldly, however, that it was Yom Kippur Eve and he would be at his devotions.

  I cleared my throat in embarrassment and suggested October 9—after sunset. He agreed.

  We met on October 9 (after sunset) and sat down for a small snack. Gertrude and I had eaten that day, of course, but Abe had not, and we felt it only right that we make sure he broke his fast.

  Abe, however, caught up in the righteousness of having cleared himself of all sin for the past year, saw fit to lecture us on our apostasy, which was so enormous in scope that we did not, apparently, even know when Yom Kippur was, let alone observe it. He was quite eloquent about the matter, and we sat silent, not knowing how to answer appropriately.

  Then Abe noticed the waiter hovering nearby and said, briskly, "Waiter! Let me have a ham on rye, please."

  Whereupon I made a few pleasant remarks to the effect that in my opinion God might forgive an outright atheist who made no bones about his beliefs, yet fail to forgive a hypocrite who felt himself better than other men because he beat his chest in temple and then could hardly wait to get out in order to fall ravenously upon the flesh of swine.

  We spent the evening together in a civilized enough manner, but it was the end of a beautiful friendship.

  8

  I visited Campbell earlier that Friday and he gave me a copy of the November 1943 Astounding, the very first in the new digest size. It had "Death Sentence" 2 in it and it was the only magazine with a 1943 date that contained a story of mine.

  On October 11, I finally began "The Big and the Little," my third Foundation story.

  9

  I didn't get to vote in 1942, because I hadn't had the necessary qualifications for residency. On November 2, 1943, however, I could vote. It was an off-year election, but the mayoralty in Philadelphia was at stake. I voted against the Republican incumbent, whom I believed to be corrupt, but he was re-elected handsomely just the same.

  Better news that came that day was that John Blugerman was back on furlough. We quickly arranged to go back to New York the next

  2 See The Early Asimov.

  day. He was there in uniform, looking great. Apparently induction made an American citizen out of him and he didn't have to go back to Canada for re-entry or go through any other forms.

  He had been accepted in Columbia Dental School and would start the following October and would be discharged from the Army for the purpose of attending (provided he served as a dental officer thereafter).

  And so the year came to an end with my writing having resulted in the sale of three stories in 1943 and a total literary income in my sixth year as a professional writer of $33375. It was over twice what I had made in 1942, but only a third of my earnings in my top year of 1941, but then I didn't really believe I'd ever have another 1941.

  Besides, my earnings at the Navy Yard for 1943 were $3,050, so that my total income was over $3,300, and I had no complaints about that.

  On the whole, 1943 had been far more quiet than 1942. It lacked any momentous upset for either good or evil. We had spent the entire year in one apartment, living a life of routine, by and large. I didn't mind. My final remark in my 1943 diary was, "I ask nothing better of 1944," and I celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday on January 2, 1944, quietly, but with considerable satisfaction.

  10

  On January 12, 1944, I got a letter from Campbell telling me that his pay rate was now $.015 per word. That was good news.

  "The Big and the Little" was going along slowly, but very well— and very wordily, too. By the time I was done on January 17, it turned out to be 22,500 words long, the longest story I had ever written. I mailed it to Campbell the next day and on January 26 received a check for no less than $400—not only $.015 a word, but an additional $.0025 a word as bonus. It was an unbelievable check, more than twice as large as any other I had gotten from my writing. That one check equaled 1V2 months of my Navy Yard income, though of course, the story had taken one and a half months to write.

  Meanwhile, on January 21, the February 1944 Astounding had come out, containing "Catch That Rabbit." 3 The year had gotten off to a good start. 4

  a See I, Robot.

  4 In the Soviet Union, the siege of Leningrad was lifted that January. My Uncle Boris had survived the nine-hundred-day ordeal and was among those who were taken eastward for recovery and rehabilitation. He sent letters to my parents, who responded with packages containing food and other useful items.

  Navy Yard Matters

  It wasn't till February 21, 1944, when I had been working at the Navy Yard for nearly two years, that I was lifted from the task of chemical testing to something more responsible. I was given a project to head up —one on seam-sealing compounds.

  These were compounds that sealed seams on aircraft (what else with that name?). They had to resist heat and cold, and not be gummy under heat, or stiff and cracking under cold. They had to be impervious to water and sunlight and various chemicals—and so on.

  I would have to write to various firms that produced materials supposed to do the job we wanted done. Each would send samples of their products along with the specifications they used to describe its properties, together with the performance tests they used to check those properties.

  Each product would then have to be checked by all the performance tests, and an overall specification would have to be written—a specification that was as rigorous as possible and still allow at least one product to meet it.

  The chief problem for me, I knew, would be the actual writing of the report. Writing was not a simple procedure in the Navy Yard, even for an illiterate—let alone someone like myself who was an expert at writing and would therefore violate all official illiteracy rules.

  Early in my Navy Yard career, I had been asked to write a letter and it was promptly brought back to me. It was not written in Navy style.

  "What is Navy style?" I asked, blankly.

  They took me to a large filing cabinet containing all kinds of letters written in a formal, convoluted fashion. There had to be a heading of a certain kind, and then an "in re" with a coded letter-number entry. Each paragraph had to be numbered. Every sentence had to be in the passive.

  The safest thing, they said, would be to find some paragraph in some previous letter that was approximately what I wanted to say and then make use of it with minimum changes.

  I could see the purpose of that. Clear, literate writers could be trusted to use their ingenuity—but what of the average employee? By using fixed paragraphs, no idiot (however deeply immersed in idiocy) could go far wrong. It was like painting with numbers. It was a little hard on the few literates in the place, but that is a small price to pay for the privilege of avoiding rapid and total collapse, so I learned how to write Navy style.

  Specifications had to be written Navy style also. Every paragraph had to be numbered; so did every subparagraph and every subsub-paragraph.

  The main paragraphs were listed as I, II, III, and so on. If anything under a particular paragraph had to be enumerated it was A, B, C. ... If A included enumerated items it was 1, 2, 3. . . . Under any of these was a, b, c . . . , and under these (1), (2), (3) . . . , and so on.

  Furthermore, if in any one sentence you have to refer to another sentence, you located the referred sentence in its position in the specification, as, for instance, II, C, 3, a, (1).

  Generally, there weren't too many indentations, or too many references back and forth, and the specifications, while rather tortuous, could be understood—given several hours of close study.

  When it finally came my time to prepare the specification of the seam-sealing compounds, a certain Puckishness overtook me. Writing with absolute c
larity, I nevertheless managed to break everything down into enumerations, getting all the way down to [(1)] and even [(a)]. I further managed in almost every sentence to refer to some other sentence for which I duly listed a complete identification.

  The result was that no one on Earth could have plunged into it and come out unscathed. Brain coagulation would have set in by page 2.

  Solemnly, I handed in the specification. I had done nothing wrong, so I could not be scolded or disciplined. All they could do would be to come back with some embarrassment and ask for simplification—and, of course, the joke would be over and I would simplify. I just hoped that none of my supervisors would require hospitalization. I didn't really intend things to go that far.

  But the joke was on me. My supervisors were wreathed in smiles at this product of the satirist's art. They took it straight and swallowed it whole, and on March 7, 1945, Hardecker himself warmly complimented me on the excellence of the specification.

  Years later, I was told that that specification was still preserved (under nitrogen, do you suppose?) and handed out to new employees as an example of how specifications ought to be written.

  I worried, sometimes, in looking back on it, just how much, in my eagerness to play a harmless little joke, I had set back the war effort.

  On February 3, 1944, I received a letter from Campbell that rather plaintively asked for stories, especially additional Foundation stories. (How our roles had changed!) He particularly suggested a short story dealing with the Traders, whom I had introduced in "The Big and the Little."

  I therefore spent the first half of 1944 writing "The Wedge" and "Dead Hand/' the fourth and fifth stories of the Foundation series. The former was the short story that Campbell requested. It was only seven thousand words long and was the shortest of the series. The latter was twenty-five thousand words and was the longest so far.