by Andrew Gross
“Gaseous diffusion.” Groves stopped too. “It’s a process. Separates uranium-238 from its lighter cousin, 235.”
Donovan shrugged. “I was never very good at chemistry, Leslie.”
“And if I knew I’d have this job I might have paid a bit more attention myself,” Groves chuckled back. “But to your question, yes, Bill, we do have other avenues being looked into. At Berkeley … and at the University of Minnesota. We’re making progress. But like I said, it’s a race. The Germans might have things going on as well.” They resumed their walk back toward the cars. “Why…?”
“I just wouldn’t want to raise any expectations…” the OSS man stopped and looked at the general again, “on the prospects of this mission. Like I said, there’s a man in the field, and his senior officer, Strauss—I think you met him once—he believes he’s a good one and that there’s a fighting chance of success. But to be frank, we never assigned much hope to seeing either of them sailing up the Potomac. If you know what I mean.”
“Yes, Bill.” The head of the Manhattan Project nodded soberly. “I understand perfectly what you mean.”
“A shame too, if you ask me…” Donovan opened the door to his car. “He seemed like a game young man when I met him.”
THIRTY-SIX
The block Blum had wormed his way into held around three hundred prisoners, two or three to a bunk.
After the outside head count he wandered inside next to weary prisoners returning from their days, emitting audible sighs and groans of exhaustion, tossing their emaciated bodies on the thin straw mattresses and nursing their blisters and sores. Blum figured there had to be some time until they could reconcile the head count with those who were newly dead.
The reek of body odor and human excrement made him hold his breath. There was every noise imaginable. Groaning, coughing, scratching, farting; others simply rambling to themselves in a kind of incoherent daze. Back in England, they’d inoculated him as best they could against the kinds of diseases that were rampant in here. Typhus. Dysentery. But the stench alone almost made him retch. And the thought of lice. He finally located a bunk with only a single person on it.
“This free?” he asked the man lying there.
“Zugangi?” The prisoner looked at Blum with bloodshot eyes. Blum thought his accent sounded Lithuanian or Estonian.
“Sorry?”
“Novy…?” the man above him clarified. Are you new?
“Yes,” Blum answered. “Today.”
“New arrivals in the back.” The man in the bunk pointed to the rear. “Near the shit hole.”
Holding his breath against the smell, Blum kept on going. He saw another bunk with only one in it.
“Up there.” Someone pointed from underneath a bunk, directing him.
Near the very back, two prisoners were stretched out on the top bunk. One was a giant, picking at the sores on his feet, which were open and oozing pus. The other was gaunt with a pinched-in face like a ferret, with flitting, suspicious eyes. Neither moved as much as an inch to let him up.
“We’ve been saving it just for you,” said a man in a lower bunk who had on a flat tweed cap and appeared to be a kind of leader within the block. “The previous occupant died of fever just the other day.”
“My good luck, then,” Blum replied.
“There’s a bowl.” The man in the cap pointed to one hanging from the bedpost. It was made of filthy and corroded tin, and who knew whose disease-inflicted hands had recently been on it. “If I were you I’d attach it to yourself. No bowl, no food. That’s the way it goes here.”
“I will. Thanks.” Blum pulled on the slats of the wooden bunk and hoisted himself up.
“Over there.” The large man grunted inhospitably, indicating the spot closest to the open latrine. Which was basically no more than a separated-off area with a shit hole and a stool.
“Where are you from?” someone called up to him.
“Gizycko. Near Lake Sniardwy,” Blum said.
“Masuria, huh? Pretty. How did you manage to hold out so long?”
“I’ve been hiding on a farm.” He was told to stay as vague as possible about his new identity, as someone might be from there or know someone who could expose him. “Damn postal deliverer gave us away.”
“Postman? You can’t even trust the mail these days. So what can you tell us? From the outside.”
“Not so much.” Blum didn’t want to attract attention or to make himself so well known. Still … “Only that the war in the East is going badly. The Russians are now in Ukraine.”
“Ukraine!” someone exclaimed joyfully.
“And in England the Allies are set to invade.”
“Invade? Where?” Another sat up.
“The French coast. Calais. Normandy. No one knows, of course. But soon, the BBC says. They say it’s the biggest army the world’s ever seen.”
“Not soon enough for us,” someone sighed from the next bed. “Let’s face it, the Germans will kill every one of us before they’ll let anyone see what is going on here. And if they don’t, the Russians surely will. Trust me, I’ve seen what a pogrom looks like there.”
“We’re told the trains are all full of Hungarians now,” another spoke up. “We hear them, thousands arriving every day and night. But, poof, they don’t even bring them into the camp anymore. They just go up in smoke.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” Blum shrugged. Even though he knew well what Strauss had said, and from Vrba and Wetzler, that it was true. “Listen, maybe one of you can help me. I am trying to locate someone. I’m told my uncle is here. His name is Mendl. Alfred. He was a professor. In Lvov. Anyone know of him?”
“Mendl…? Don’t think so,” the man in the tweed cap said. “But no one knows names in here, just faces.”
“I knew a Petr Mendl,” another spoke up. “But he was from Prague. A fishmonger, not exactly a professor. Anyway, he went up the chimney a long time ago.”
“Up the chimney?” Blum said.
He could hear a few chuckles.
“That stench outside, you didn’t think that was from the chocolate factory, did you?”
More laughter.
“Or the kitchens…” someone said. “But you’ll soon see, it surely tastes that way.”
“I have a photograph.” Blum removed a small, dog-eared picture of Mendl from his waistband. “Pass it around. Maybe one of you will recognize him.”
The photo traveled from bunk to bunk. One or two shook their heads, then passed it on. Another just shrugged blankly.
“Looks familiar. But not lately, anyway,” one said, handing it to the next.
“Sorry.” That one passed the photo to the bunk above him. “There’s not many from Lvov here. I try not to look at faces anyway.”
“There are thousands and thousands here.” The man in the tweed cap shook his head solmenly. “And sadly the cast changes daily.”
“I have an important message for him,” Blum said. “If anyone knows him.”
“We all have important messages,” someone laughed. “Unfortunately, none of them get delivered.”
“Philosopher.” The man in the tweed cap rolled his eyes.
“If I were you I’d forget your uncle,” someone advised him. “He’s probably dead anyway.”
“We all have uncles,” another chimed in. “You clearly are new here to even care.”
“Shut the fuck up,” another hissed from down the aisle. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Sorry.” The picture came back up to Blum.
He slid it back into the pocket inside his shirt. The giant next to him was already snoring. Blum leaned back against the slats. It was foolish to even think it would happen like that. At the snap of a finger. There were thousands in here, hundreds of thousands, and as the man said, the cast changed every day. A needle in a haystack, Blum reflected. That’s what it always was. In a hundred haystacks. A hundred haystacks with a lit match thrown onto them, as the clock was ticking down and there was only a short amount
of time. Day One was already gone. Just two more. No, of course it wouldn’t happen just like that, he admonished himself.
Blum closed his eyes, weariness finally overcoming him.
“You and your uncle must be very close.” His other bunkmate, the one with the ferret-like face, remarked. “To carry around a photograph of him.” His eyes seemed to carry a flutter of suspicion in them. A distrusting smile.
“Yes,” Blum replied. The same smile. But inwardly, he realized he’d already been careless in his haste. “He was actually more like a father to me.”
“A father … I see,” the man remarked, shifting his eyes. “So it’s Lvov, then,” he added after a pause. “I thought you said you were from Masuria?”
A tremor of nerves ran down Blum’s spine. There were informers everywhere, he’d been warned. And if it wasn’t already enough to have to dodge the Germans for another two days, he now had others to worry about who were even closer at hand.
Yes, very careless.
The man rested his head against the mattress and closed his eyes.
In the distance, Blum heard the sound of music playing, an orchestra. He sat up. “I hear music.”
“New arrivals,” someone sighed, like it was nothing new.
“The ovens are heating up.” Another rolled over. “Someone say a prayer.”
A prayer … Day One was gone. Fifty hours … That was all he had left. There’s a prayer. Blum glanced over at the ferret, who now seemed asleep. Fifty hours to pull off a miracle.
If, he finally shut his eyes, Mendl was even still alive.
THIRTY-SEVEN
On his way back from chess with Frau Ackermann after she’d returned that week, Leo left Rottenführer Langer at the gate and went into Block 36.
He found the old man on his bunk.
“How are you doing today?” Leo sat down across from him.
“Better.” Alfred sat up, forcing a weak smile. “A little more each day.”
“Here, I’ve brought you something. I think you’ll be happy.” He pulled off a cloth napkin and brought out a steaming mug.
“Tea?” Alfred’s face lit up. “This must be a dream. From where?”
“From where do you think?” Leo said. “Of course, Langer was poking at me the whole way back in the hope that I would drop it. But he didn’t dare do it. Still, I’m afraid it’s not as hot as it was when I left.”
“No matter.” Alfred took a sip and inhaled the perfume-like aroma. “Ah, clove … This is heaven.”
“I told you she would watch out for us,” Leo said proudly. “And for you as well.” There was something kind of sorrowful and almost resigned in the boy’s eyes that Alfred detected but couldn’t read.
“Yes. You were right on that one, my boy.”
She did watch over him.
He hadn’t died.
Indeed, it had been typhus after all, but only a glancing blow. Though Alfred remained in the infirmary for a full week while he regained his strength. Now, that was a miracle! Two days in a sweat-filled daze until the fever broke. In his delirium, images of Marte, calling for him; his work and formulas parading before his eyes.
And then this other dream, so very strange, something he couldn’t fully make out until he finally regained lucidity: A young woman. Pretty, blonde, by his bed, caring for him. Overseeing the doctors. Instructing them to make sure he got well. “At any cost,” she insisted.
At any cost.
Why?
Later he found out they had injected him with the vaccine normally reserved only for the Germans. They gave him antibiotics, transfusions.
Leo grinned. “See, she was an angel for you too.”
“Indeed, she was.” Alfred nodded. “I give you all thanks. If thanks is what I should feel to find myself back here.”
He’d been back for a week now. Allowed to regain his strength, instead of being sent to the gas or being thrown back into the toil, like the rest. Though he was still a bit weakened. A nurse even came once to look in on him. Unprecedented. The most surprised people in the camp were his block mates when he came back after being away. “We almost gave away your bunk.” Lazarus, they now called him. Back after a brief respite from the dead. No one had ever done that before.
Leo checked on him every day.
And every day they found a little time to work. Alfred saw that there was still so much to teach him. And now so little time. He took out his chalk and scratched his formulas on his slate tray each day. He put down his tea. “That was wonderful. Now let’s get going.”
“Alfred, there’s no more point in it. We’ve been through it all.”
“No. We haven’t covered the dispersal pattern. You know that all atoms in the diffusion process are presumed to be moving at speed (v), but the fundamental problem is—”
“The fundamental problem is to compute the number of atoms that escape through a hole or even a million holes over an elapsed time.” Leo picked up Alfred’s thought. “Expressed as delta (t). Am I correct?”
“Well, yes, you are,” Alfred admitted.
“And then given that the number of atoms contained would be the product of the volume of the diffusion cylinder times the density of atoms p small (n) plus large N over large V where N is the number of atoms in the cylinder and V, of course … just give me a second … is the volume of the cylinder.”
“Yes, all right, go on…”
“My pleasure. The number of atoms equals the density of those atoms times the surface area of the cylinder … then times the velocity the atoms are traveling times the slant length of the tilt angle.” Leo took a breath. “The entire equation expressed as…” he took the chalk and tin,
Ncyl = ρNS〈ν〉 (Δt) cosθ.
“So how was that?” His eyes twinkled with a ray of pride.
“That was good, son. All right, it was excellent, I have to admit. But have I gone over”—Alfred started to write—“that not all these atoms will be moving in the correct direction to achieve maximum escape? And that will create the dispersion. So to account for it…”
“So to account for it we have to multiply the above formula by the probability of an atom having its velocity so directed. Yes, you went over all of that with me, Alfred. I promise.” Leo tapped his forehead. “It’s all in here.”
“Oh.” Alfred nodded, his memory a bit strained. “I remember now. But did I—”
“Did you tell me that by extending this logic out, we can take our two gases for enrichment, U-235 and U-238, despite the difference in atomic weights, and quantify the extent of the enrichment, which is calculated as … let me think … %(235) = 100 {x/x+1), where x is the number of atoms of 235 over the number of atoms of 238? Yes, you went over that with me as well.” Leo put his hand on Alfred’s arm. “I promise you, it’s all safe. I have it all.”
“Then bravo.” Alfred said. He smiled with satisfaction. “We did it.”
Leo nodded. “To what end, I still don’t know, but yes, I believe we did.”
“So now you’re the world’s reigning expert on the gaseous diffusion process … I offer my congratulations!”
“Second greatest expert,” Leo said.
“Well, I fear soon you’ll have that distinction all to yourself. And I told you, there are people who, once they know that…”
“Yes, Professor, you did. There are people who will need to know this. I will await them all.” Leo’s smile faded and he returned to the kind of look he had when he came in that Alfred couldn’t read.
“Something is troubling you, boy?”
“Not to worry. If everything’s okay with you, I’m fine. Drink up…”
“All right.” Alfred took another sip of tea and closed his eyes dreamily. “I never thought I would ever have this pleasure again. Thank you, son. Now, don’t forget the displacement theory.”
“How could I possibly? It’s as engrained in me as is pawn to king four.”
“Then I’ve done my job. You’ll probably want to be rid of me now. No
w that there’s nothing left to learn.”
“You’re telling me there’s nothing of value left to share in that vast mind of yours, Professor…?”
“You’re right, there must be something,” Alfred said. “There’s thermal diffusion … Much harder process and far more difficult to achieve the required enrichment levels.” He looked at Leo, who shook his head crossly. “Anyway…”
Leo put away the chalk and tin. “We’ll work up to that then, shall we?”
“Yes. But something is wrong. I see it. Don’t pretend, boy. You and I are friends.”
Leo finally nodded. “She gave me another gift today, along with the tea.” He dug into his pants, came out with something, and opened his hand.
It was a chess piece. A fine one, Alfred noted. A rook. Of beautiful white alabaster. Carved with great detail.
Leo set it in Alfred’s hand. “I think it means our games have come to an end.”
“Yes.” Alfred nodded and put his hand on Leo’s knee. “That’s what it would seem.”
“Which then means, of course…” Leo smiled, but it was more of a resigned one, with an edge of sadness.
“Which then means you’re lucky you know all this stuff I’ve been teaching you…” Alfred bolstered him and winked. “At least, you won’t go out with an empty mind.”
Leo chuckled. “I don’t think either Lubinksy or Markov or whoever else I’ve trounced at chess would exactly attest that my mind was empty.”
“And what have Lubinsky or Markov ever done to expand the body of knowledge, pray tell…?”
“I took this as well,” Leo said. He brought out a creased photo. It was of Frau Ackermann in a rowboat. She wore a white nautical cap, the front rim raised, showing her bright smile and happy eyes. “I saw it amid a stack of photos. When she left for a moment I put it in my tunic. She looks so happy.”
Alfred saw it was the very woman who had overseen his care at the hospital. “Yes, she does.”
“She won’t let me go.” Leo looked at him. “Or you. Not so easily. You watch.”
“I suggest we do not get ahead of ourselves, Leo. Perhaps it was no more than just her husband putting his foot down. You knew he was no fan of your games. We must continue to have hope. Where there is hope, there is life. And where there is life … there is more to learn, isn’t that right?” Alfred smiled.