Invisible Things

by Jenny Davidson

  Sophie looked at him with surprise.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “At least, I assumed I would ask you to come and that you would say yes, but why make such a pronouncement of it? Do you think Arne would prefer you not to come?”

  “No, not exactly,” Mikael said, “but I am afraid he thinks you might be more biddable if he gets you on your own.”

  “Biddable?”

  “Well, you are not always the best at standing up for yourself,” Mikael pointed out.

  Sophie couldn’t explain why these words upset her so much—was it because they were true?—but she felt the tears well up in her eyes. She contemplated some savage retort, but swallowed her angry words, feeling a little sick to her stomach. Sometimes she felt almost as though Mikael wanted to cocoon her in protective silk wadding; as much as one might like the idea of being cared for by someone else, it was a surprisingly unpleasant sensation.

  She sprang up out of her seat.

  “Come on,” she said, “let’s go and see if there is anything good to eat in the lunchroom.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Mikael said appraisingly. “This is the time of day when people sometimes bring cake, and there will certainly be biscuits, at the very least.”

  They let themselves out the front door of the flat and wandered down the hall to the lunchroom. Sophie’s thought had indeed been happily timed, for the table held a huge box from Grandjean’s Patisserie, and inside was still left at least a third of a delicious-looking and absolutely huge chocolate cake covered with heaps of whipped cream and cherries and lightly dusted with shaved curls of chocolate.

  Sitting around the table were Bohr and Hevesy and the English theorist and refugee Paul Dirac and a rotund Austrian named Wolfgang Pauli, whom Sophie suspected of having bought the cake; he was known for his excessive love of all sorts of good things, including what Bohr euphemistically referred to as “wine, women, and song.” They welcomed the young people and urged them to help themselves to cake and join the conversation, which hinged on a question Sophie had spent a great deal of time contemplating during the summer: whether there was really any such thing as a parapsychological sense.

  “The very existence of wireless telegraphy and of radio,” Bohr was saying, “must surely invalidate any notion that the human brain is capable of performing feats of telepathy. If I were wired for such things, why would I need to build an apparatus? I would simply tune my attention in to the sea of waves transmitted by other minds, as one might opt in or out of the conversation others are carrying on in another part of the room, and be able to hear their thoughts—or indeed to receive the same programs I might obtain on a radiogram. . . .”

  “The evidence for telepathic communication is very strong,” said Dirac, who was eating his cake in neat, appreciative forkfuls, each one containing a balanced proportion of cake and filling. “We have every reason to believe that a significant percentage of those who claim to have communicated with the dead are neither deluded nor fraudulent. I myself was once present at a séance in Cambridge at which the ethereal manifestations of James Clerk Maxwell and Isaac Newton were both present, and I detected nothing in either spirit’s communications that would have led me to discredit his authenticity.”

  Bohr’s thought train was shunted by this remark into another direction.

  Sophie was meanwhile skulking very low down in her seat and hoping Mikael wouldn’t look in her direction: she hoped to have put speaking with the dead resolutely behind her, along with much else of life in Scotland.

  “Have you ever thought of what it is that makes a ghost sinister?” Bohr asked, leaning forward with his eyes intent upon his interlocutor. “What is sinister, with a ghost, is precisely that one does not believe in it. If we believed in the ghost in some straightforward way, as we believe in the real physical existence of a burglar or a wild animal, it would be only dangerous. The fact that we do not believe in it—that is what changes it from dangerous to sinister. Thus the highly real phenomenon of eeriness. . . .”

  Dirac was not ready to let the former matter drop.

  “That is muddled thinking,” he said. “You are twisting the meaning of the word belief beyond what it will bear. I believe in the atom, even though I will never see it with my own eyes. The atom is not sinister, but it is certainly dangerous. . . .”

  “If it is possible to receive the thoughts of the dead,” Bohr said irritably, “then it should also be possible to detect the thoughts of the living! Why, then, does someone not retain the services of a medium to read the thoughts of the European emperor, or perhaps the czar of Russia? It would be far more useful to know whether Europe is contemplating invading Denmark than whether Great-aunt Bertha, as it were, continues to enjoy the celestial bridge games in the ely-sian fields. . . .”

  “For all we know,” said Dirac, his manner as dry as ever (to Sophie he seemed enviably free of emotion, she still not having weaned herself altogether from the notion that the true perfection of human nature would be a calm, impassive rationality of the kind associated with the disembodied brain in a science-fiction novel), “there are a dozen mediums doing precisely that. You must allow, Bohr, that the causes of certain things are hidden from us, and may remain so.”

  “That, I do not dispute,” said Bohr. “But as soon as we allow there to be such a thing as, say, a sixth sense, we beg the question of what constitutes that sense! I believe that the salmon, for instance, has a wonderful and deeply mysterious ability to trace a path back to the place where it was spawned. The fish is born in a mountain lake. It swims down brooks and rivers”—he took the sugar bowl and used it to weave a path around the obstacles on the table—“to the ocean. But when the time comes for the fish to reproduce, it finds its way home to the exact same pool it was born in. Does this fill me with a deep wonder as to the amazing ways of nature? Yes. Need I invoke a sixth sense? What would be the physical basis for the function of such a sense? Where is it located, and how does it work?”

  Hevesy had been following the exchange with his usual look of detached, slightly ironic interest. At this juncture he leaned forward.

  “The fish finds its way home,” he said softly, “because the fish does not know enough to ask questions. Future investigations will likely reveal the physiological mechanism underlying the salmon’s path-finding ability—but the salmon cannot apply that ability to finding, say, the best over-land route—or even a route by water!—from København to Elsinore. The fish has only one task to perform—he does not choose among alternatives; he exists under the weight of a single imperative. We human beings, on the other hand, have divided the world up into choices.”

  Later that afternoon, Sophie lay on her bed reading a book and pleasantly digesting a large portion of cake when Fru Petersen leaned her head around the door.

  “Sophie,” she said in considerable agitation; Sophie had never seen her so ruffled. “Oh, Sophie! I don’t suppose you especially heard the bell ringing just now—but it was the boy from the telegraph company. He has brought something truly terrible!”

  “What is it?” Sophie asked stupidly, though as she looked at the yellow envelope in Fru Petersen’s hand she suddenly guessed what it might be.

  Fru Petersen simply gave Sophie the telegram, which was from Sophie’s great-aunt Tabitha’s solicitor.

  Regret announce sudden death Miss Tabitha Hunter. Details to follow—condolences to Miss Sophie Hunter—burial arrangements do not— repeat DO NOT—require younger Miss Hunter’s return to Scotland, as per deceased’s instructions.

  Fru Petersen laid a hand on Sophie’s shoulder, but Sophie shrugged it off. The older woman sat beside her for some minutes, but Sophie wouldn’t even look at her. She lay facing in the other direction, stiff and unresponsive, until Fru Petersen finally brushed her hand lightly over Sophie’s hair and stood up and went away.

  The sound of the door closing was Sophie’s cue to throw herself on the bed and begin crying. After a bout of hard, gulping sobs, she felt Trismegistu
s install himself along her side. She grasped him with both hands and pressed him to her chest. For once, he made no demur, resting quietly beside her as she wept, then sitting up and beginning the process (surprisingly dainty for such a thuggish-looking cat) of paw cleaning and grooming as Sophie far less elegantly blew her nose and drank a long swallow of water from the nighttime tumbler on her bedside table.

  Sophie hated feeling emotions of any sort. She had a strange kind of shame at how strongly affected she was by the news of Great-aunt Tabitha’s death. If only she could remain coolly unaffected by bad news, pain, and loss—if she could choose, she thought she would go and live on a desert island so as never to have to suffer the pain of losing somebody ever again! But of course it was not possible.

  Her eyes felt swollen and sore, and she wished she could stay in this little room without having to talk to anyone ever again, but it was cowardly not to make herself go out and face the others. She felt unpleasantly grumpy and sad as she pushed Trismegistus off the bed and rolled her legs over onto the floor.

  At school on Monday morning, the teacher must have said something to the class while Sophie was receiving condolences from the headmistress, for two very snooty girls who had hitherto hardly given Sophie the time of day invited her to sit with them at lunch, and a rather grubby but pleasant Russian boy—a diplomat’s son—offered her half his bar of chocolate.

  Riding the tram home after school, Sophie was so thoroughly lost in thought that she almost failed to get off at Blegdamsvej. Only the driver’s friendly reminder prevented her from riding all the way to the terminus.

  She understood why it would be impossible to go to Great-aunt Tabitha’s funeral. Sophie had barely gotten out of Scotland once—it would be tempting fate to hope to do so a second time. But the person Sophie would have given anything to see just now—the person who would be terribly pained by Sophie’s absence from the funeral, since she loved the proprieties almost as much as she loved Sophie—was Tabitha’s housekeeper, Peggy, who had raised Sophie from when she was very young. She must write Peggy a letter at once, Sophie resolved, and get a stamp from Fru Petersen to post it.

  It was difficult to concentrate on even the easiest bits of homework. Sophie’s attention kept drifting, and she felt sick to her stomach when she thought of that last brief conversation she had had with her great-aunt at Ardeer. Great-aunt Tabitha had told Sophie she must go, but Sophie still felt guilty about leaving.

  After an hour and a half, Sophie had written a grand total of zero pages of her history essay, and she laid down her pen and went to the kitchen to ask Fru Petersen about postage.

  The kitchen was empty, but Sophie heard voices in the sitting room. It couldn’t be Mikael and his mother talking, though, could it? He had football practice after school four days a week and rarely got home until just before supper.

  Fru Petersen jumped up from her seat as Sophie came into the room. Her companion, Sophie was startled to see, was Niels Bohr himself. He had never visited the flat during Sophie’s stay, and she felt curious or even a little worried as to why he’d broken the unwritten law that kept him from the Petersens’ apartment.

  “Sophie, Professor Bohr would like a word with you,” said Fru Petersen in some agitation, leaving Sophie alone with the physicist, who slouched in an armchair with his feet up on the coffee table, a large brown envelope in his hand.

  “I would have been happy to come downstairs,” Sophie protested, feeling distinctly unworthy of Bohr’s visit.

  “I thought we’d have more privacy up here than downstairs,” Bohr said, sounding almost as unhappy as Sophie felt, “and Fru Petersen was kind enough to suggest we borrow her sitting room.”

  Sophie took a chair opposite him; Trismegistus had followed her into the room and now leaped up in several stages onto the high bookshelf perch he seemed to prefer.

  “Sophie, I’m afraid I’m not here simply to offer my condolences in person,” said Bohr, “though I hope you will believe me when I say that I am most heartily sorry for your loss. I met Miss Hunter several times—we were both on the program at the ISPPS conference in Estonia several summers ago, and I liked her very much—or perhaps I will say I appreciated her. She was far too tough a customer to merit something as ordinary as mere liking!”

  Sophie muttered something, and was appalled to realize that the tears had come to her eyes again. It would be too, too awful to cry in front of Niels Bohr! She leaned down and fiddled a bit with the buckles of her school shoes to cover her confusion.

  “I got a telephone call this morning from Miss Hunter’s solicitor,” Bohr continued. He seemed oddly reluctant to proceed, the words coming very slowly from his usually precipitous tongue.

  “What did he say?” Sophie asked.

  Bohr resettled himself in his chair and gave Sophie a mournful look.

  “Frankly, I found it hard to believe myself,” he said slowly.

  “Believe what?”

  “I’d have sworn she’d never—but then, my thoughts don’t come into the matter. Last night, when Fru Petersen telephoned to tell me of Miss Hunter’s death, I assumed it must have been a heart attack or a stroke—something of that sort.”

  “Was it not, then?” Sophie asked, aware that she had made exactly the same assumption as Bohr.

  “I am very sorry to have to tell you this, Sophie, but Tabitha Hunter took her own life.”

  It was the last thing Sophie had expected him to say.

  “You mean to say she committed suicide?”

  It was just about possible to imagine someone else killing Great-aunt Tabitha—she had always taken pride in her willingness to stand up for unpopular causes, and many powerful people must have felt the sharp edge of her tongue over the years. But what on earth could have driven that old battle-ax to kill herself?

  “I’m afraid so,” Bohr said. “As I mentioned, I could hardly believe it myself, but I’ve got some supplementary evidence here that, though circumstantial, tells a story that makes some kind of sense, however grim. The solicitor assembled this packet for you—I was able to call in a favor and have it sent in the diplomatic pouch. It includes an article from the Scotsman—that’s the only thing I’ve looked at, as the other materials are sealed and marked as confidential, for your eyes only. Apparently Miss Hunter read a proof copy of the article before publication and then took an overdose of a sleeping draft her doctor had prescribed for her a few months earlier. She was dead not long after midnight as Friday night led into Saturday morning, or so the coroner guesses. They’ll do a full postmortem later this week.”

  A postmortem . . . But Sophie put aside the thought of her great-aunt’s body being dissected. She took the packet that Bohr was holding out to her.

  “I’ll leave you to examine the contents in peace,” he said. “I’ll be in the office downstairs for several more hours this evening, if you’d like to talk about anything afterward, and of course you’re welcome to stop by later this week.

  “I’ve spoken with the newsagent,” he added, “and we’ll have the Scottish papers delivered every day until further notice—I fear we may see additional revelations in coming days, and it will be better for us to know what’s going on than to depend on your family’s solicitor for updates.”

  Sophie could only stare at him.

  The word family grated on her ears. Sophie was the only Hunter remaining.

  What on earth could be in the envelope?

  Her fingers itched to slide under the flap. It seemed impolite to open it while Bohr was still present, but as soon as he had gone, she impatiently slit the fold.

  When she shook the contents out onto the table, she found—in addition to the wad of newspaper that had been clipped to the outside of the envelope, presumably the article to which Bohr had alluded—two photographs, an official document sealed in Switzerland, and a fat letter in another smaller envelope, this one addressed to Miss Sophie Hunter in Great-aunt Tabitha’s familiar, slightly crabbed handwriting.

  She
set the letter and the sealed document beside the newspaper clipping and examined the pictures first.

  A young woman, not pretty but with an appealingly lively expression and thick, dark hair coiled up onto her head—it was Great-aunt Tabitha, Sophie realized with amazement, having never before seen such an attractive photograph of her great-aunt as a girl. Tabitha was wearing a well-cut and slightly masculine blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows; her waist was slim, and her long, dark skirt flared out around her ankles. Clasping her arm was an older gentleman, quite dapper in his dress and wearing a straw boater. They stood on a seaside boardwalk or something of the sort—a black-and-gold stamp at the bottom of the photograph said San Remo, 1895. San Remo was in Italy, Sophie knew, which had not yet at that time been incorporated into the European Federation.

  Though the man in the picture was surely old enough to be Tabitha’s father, it was quite clear that he was no such thing—Sophie had rarely seen a picture of two people more clearly in love with each other.

  Tabitha—in love?

  She turned over the picture to see if anything was written on the back. Just three words: Tabitha and Alfred.

  Sophie suddenly felt quite sick. She turned the picture over and took a closer look at the man’s face, surprised that she had not recognized it at once. Now it was unmistakable. Sophie had seen tens or even hundreds of pictures of him over the years, including the likeness on the Scottish five-shilling note.

  Tabitha had been in love with Alfred Nobel!

  The other picture was of somewhat more recent vintage. The overriding sensation it gave Sophie was rage at her great-aunt for never having shown it to Sophie before, for it was a lovely snapshot of Sophie’s parents in what must have been the very early days of their marriage. They were with another woman, sprawled out on lounge chairs of the garden-furniture variety in a forest grove—the two women had tall glasses of what might have been lemonade and wore light-colored summer dresses, while Sophie’s father held a bottle of beer.