Hapgood: A Play

by Tom Stoppard

  (He now produces WATES's diagram on pink paper.) When I looked at Wates's diagram I saw that Euler had already done the proof. It was the bridges of Konigsberg, only simpler.

  HAPGOOD: What did Euler prove?

  KERNER: It can't be done, you need two walkers. (Pause.)

  HAPGOOD: Good old Euler.

  KERNER: You like it?

  HAPGOOD: (Nods) It makes sense of those twin Russians trailing their coats around the pool. Last year the Swedes got themselves a KGB defector and the famous twins turned up in his debriefing with a solid London connection. If two Ridleys are for real they must have felt the draught. Those two jokers at the meet were brought in as decoys. Reflectors. I never believed in the twins till then. I know about reflectors.

  KERNER: Has this place been dusted?

  HAPGOOD: Dusted?

  KERNER: We can talk?

  HAPGOOD: (Amused) Oh, yes. We can talk.

  (She regards him steadily.) Now he's careful.

  KERNER: The photograph? I'm ashamed.

  HAPGOOD: (Sudden force) No, I am. Oh, fiddle!

  KERNER: I mean, 'an amateur job'.

  HAPGOOD: Oh, Joseph.

  KERNER: Yes, I'm one of your Joes. How is the little one?

  HAPGOOD: He's all right. He's fine. Stop sending him chocolates, they're bad for his teeth and not good for his hamster. Dusted is fingerprints, you know. Microphones is swept. Where do you pick up these things?

  KERNER: Spy stories. I like them. Well, they're different, you know. Not from each other naturally. I read in hope but they all surprise in the same way. Ridley is not very nice: he'll turn out to be all right. Blair will be the traitor: the one you liked. This is how the author says, 'You see! Life is not like books, alas!' They're all like that. I don't mind. I love the language.

  HAPGOOD: (The language lover) I'm awfully glad.

  KERNER: Safe house, sleeper, cover, joe... I love it. When I have learned the language I will write my own book. The traitor will be the one you don't like very much, it will be a scandal. Also I will reveal him at the beginning. I don't understand this mania for surprises. If the author knows, it's rude not to tell. In science this is understood: what is interesting is to know what is happening. When I write an experiment I do not wish you to be surprised, it is not a joke. This is why a science paper is a beautiful thing: first, here is what we will find; now here is how we find it; here is the first puzzle, here is the answer, now we can move on. This is polite. We don't save up all the puzzles to make a triumph for the author.

  HAPGOOD: (Insisting) Joseph - twins. Who's in charge and is he sane?

  KERNER: His name was Konstantine Belov, and, yes, he was sane, though in my opinion absurd.

  HAPGOOD: More.

  KERNER: He is not in charge now. The twins are his legacy.

  HAPGOOD: You knew him?

  KERNER: Sure. His training was particle physics, before he got into State Security. One day Konstantin Belov jumped out of his bathtub and shouted 'Eureka!' Maybe he was asleep in the bath. The particle world is the dream world of the intelligence officer. An electron can be here or there at the same moment. You can choose. It can go from here to there without going in between; it can pass through two doors at the same time, or from one door to another by a path which is there for all to see until someone looks, and then the act of looking has made it take a different path. Its movements cannot be anticipated because it has no reasons. It defeats surveillance because when you know what it's doing you can't be certain where it is, and when you know where it is you can't be certain what it's doing: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle; and this is not because you're not looking carefully enough, it is because there is no such thing as an electron with a definite position and a definite momentum; you fix one, you lose the other, and it's all done without tricks, it's the real world, it is awake.

  HAPGOOD: Joseph, please explain to me about the twins.

  KERNER: I just did but you missed it.

  (Pause.)

  HAPGOOD: It's crazy.

  KERNER: (Unmoved) Oh, yes... but compared to the electron it is banal... Yelizaveta, when things get very small they get truly crazy, and you don't know how small things can be, you think you know but you don't know. I could put an atom into your hand for every second since the world began and you would have to squint to see the dot of atoms in your palm. So now make a fist, and if your fist is as big as the nucleus of one atom then the atom is as big as St Paul's, and if it happens to be a hydrogen atom then it has a single electron flitting about like a moth in the empty cathedral, now by the dome, now by the altar... Every atom is a cathedral. I cannot stand the pictures of atoms they put in schoolbooks, like a little solar system: Bohr's atom. Forget it. You can't make a picture of what Bohr proposed, an electron does not go round like a planet, it is like a moth which was there a moment ago, it gains or loses a quantum of energy and it jumps, and at the moment of quantum jump it is like two moths, one to be here and one to stop being there; an electron is like twins, each one unique, a unique twin.

  HAPGOOD: Its own alibi.

  KERNER: It upset Einstein very much, you know, all that damned uncertainty, it spoiled his idea of God, which I tell you frankly is the only idea of Einstein's I never understood. He couldn't believe in a God who threw dice. He should have come to me, I would have told him, 'Listen, Albert, He threw you - look around, He never stops.' What is a hamster, by the way? No, tell me in a minute, I want to tell you something first. There is a straight ladder from the atom to the grain of sand, and the only real mystery in physics is the missing rung. Below it, particle physics; above it, classical physics; but in between, metaphysics. All the mystery in life turns out to be this same mystery, the join between things which are distinct and yet continuous, body and mind, free will and causality, living cells and life itself; the moment before the foetus. Who needed God when everything worked like billiard balls? What were you going to say?

  HAPGOOD: It's like a fat rabbit with no ears.

  KERNER: Oh yes. You mean a khomyak.

  HAPGOOD: Yes, a khomyak called Roger. (Pause.) Joseph, after this thing with Ridley you're blown, you know, your career will be over.

  KERNER: Except as a scientist, you mean.

  HAPGOOD: Yes, that's what I mean, I won't need you any more, I mean I'll need you again - oh, sugar! - you know what I mean - do you want to marry me? I think I'd like to be married. Well, don't look like that.

  KERNER: What is this? - because of a photograph in my wallet? It is not even necessary, I never look at it.

  HAPGOOD: Won't you want to meet him now?

  KERNER: Oh, yes. 'This is Joe.' 'Hello, young man.'

  HAPGOOD: (Defiantly) Well, I'm going to tell him, whether you marry me or not.

  KERNER: I'm not charmed by this. If I loved you it was so long ago I had to tell you in Russian and you kept the tape running. It was not a safe house for love. The spy was falling in love with the case-officer, you could hear it on the playback. One day you switched off the hidden microphone and got pregnant.

  HAPGOOD: That's uncalled for. I loved you.

  KERNER: You interrogated me. Weeks, months, every day. I was your thought, your objective... If love was like that it would not even be healthy.

  HAPGOOD: (Stubbornly) I loved you, Joseph.

  KERNER: You fell into your own honeypot-

  HAPGOOD: (Flares) That's a damned lie! You unspeakable cad!

  KERNER: - and now you think you'd like to be married, and tell Joe he has a father after all, not dead after all, only a secret, we are all in the secret service! - no, I don't think so. And suppose I decided to return.

  (That brings her up short.)

  HAPGOOD: Where? Why would you do that?

  KERNER: Toska po rodine.

  HAPGOOD: You mustn't say that to me, Joseph. Please don't say it.

  KERNER: You would not tell.

  HAPGOOD: I might. Take it back.

  (KERNER comforts her.)

  KERNER: Milaya
moya, rodnaya moya... it's all right. I am your Joe.

  (She suffers his embrace, then softens into it.)

  Cad is good. I like cad.

  HAPGOOD: Honeypot...

  KERNER: Is that wrong?

  HAPGOOD: Honeytrap. And anyway that's something else. You and your books.

  KERNER: I thought you would marry Paul.

  (Wrong. HAPGOOD stiffens, separates herself.)

  HAPGOOD: I'll see you tonight. And let Paul do the talking. Keep your end of it as simple as you can.

  KERNER: Worry about yourself. I will be magnificent.

  ACT TWO

  SCENE I

  HAPGOOD's office evening. BLAIR sits in Hapgood's place. HAPGOOD sits to one side. RIDLEY sits to the other side. They are waiting. When RIDLEY gets bored with this he opens his mouth to say something.

  BLAIR: (Mildly) Shut up, Ridley.

  (The door opens and MAGGS comes in with a potted plant, with card attached, and delivers it to HAPGOOD. She opens the little envelope and looks at the florist's card, replaces the card and puts the envelope back where it started on the potted plant. Meanwhile MAGGS receives a nod from BLAIR and leaves the room, returning immediately to let KERNER into the room. MAGGS retires again closing the door.)

  (Greeting KERNER) Joseph!

  KERNER: Hello, Paul.

  BLAIR: Sit here, won't you?

  KERNER: (Turns to HAPGOOD) So. Something special.

  (HAPGOOD ignores his glance. After a slight pause, KERNER takes the chair down-table opposite BLAIR.)

  BLAIR: This is a friendly interview. That's a technical term. It means it is not a hostile interview, which is also a technical term. I'll define them if you wish.

  (Pause.) Well, I won't protract this.

  (From a dossier he produces about half a dozen five-by-eight black and white photographs; pages from a typewritten document.)

  Have a look at these, would you?

  (He pushes them down the table to KERNER who spreads them face up in front of him.)

  I'm afraid they're not very good - photographs of photographs - but you can probably see what they are.

  KERNER: Of course.

  BLAIR: One of your regular reports on the anti-matter programme you're running with the Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva, April/May; copies to the main contractors, the Livermore Research Laboratory in California, through the SDI office in the Pentagon, travelling by embassy courier from Grosvenor Square; and copies to the Defence Liaison Committee, also by hand; both lots under the control of this office, where indeed the copies are made; a very limited circulation, fifteen copies in all, nine American and six British. In fact, however, these photographs are of a British copy. The white patches are the erasure of the circulation number printed on to each page ab origine. Washington adds an American circulation prefix, missing from these pages but not erased. All clear so far?

  KERNER: Where did the photos come from?

  BLAIR: Moscow. They were received in Washington two days ago from an American agent in place, not an American, of course; 'in place' means -

  KERNER: Please, I am not illiterate.

  BLAIR: The six British copies have a read-and-return distribution of eleven. That includes the Minister, the Liaison Committee and the Prime Minister's box. It doesn't include your lab, or this office where our copy is kept on file with the turnkeys.

  KERNER: May I ask a question?

  BLAIR: Yes, do.

  KERNER: Why are you sitting in Mrs Hapgood's chair?

  BLAIR: That is a very fair question. The answer is that Mrs

  Hapgood isn't here. Mr Ridley isn't here either. They are on paid leave, which is why they can't be with us this evening, and which is why this is a friendly interview.

  KERNER: (Laughs) Oh, Paul, have you broken the rules at last? -turned by a pair of pretty eyelashes?

  HAPGOOD: Behave yourself, damn you!

  BLAIR: (Intervenes calmingly) Please... As you know, there is a regular traffic of monitored information going to the Soviets from this office, organized and prepared by Mrs Hapgood and Mr Ridley, and delivered to you for delivery to your Russian control. In other words a channel already exists. As a precautionary measure, Mrs Hapgood and Mr Ridley have been relieved of their duties. In the same spirit of caution rather than insinuation, your research programme will have to be interrupted for a while, in the national interest. Notice of your own suspension will reach you by messenger at eight o'clock in the morning.

  KERNER: Paul, listen - you don't know how many people get their hands on this ... my lab - the Whitehall secretariat, the turnkeys, the Minister's wife, his mistress - who knows? - also it could be an American Embassy copy before it receives the Washington prefix. There's probably fifty, sixty people, the channel means nothing.

  BLAIR: The pages were photographed on some kind of table-top, I expect a little hurriedly as is often the way in these affairs. The last page - photograph number six - is not well framed. You can see how it happens: the pages were pinned together at top left and turned over one by one, and the five turned pages have twisted the sixth page a little askew. The frame has caught the edge of a further document lying underneath.

  (He reaches into his dossier again and produces another photograph which he slides down the table.)

  This is the enlargement. It is in fact a set of angular distributions of neutron production on a uranium target in a cyclotron, whatever that may be and I don't want you to tell me. The important point is that taking the two documents together, we are talking about something which has a circulation of three, which is why I thought I'd bring you together for a chat, just between ourselves for a moment.

  (He includes HAPGOOD and RIDLEY who stay expressionless.)

  I'm sorry it's awkward for you and Mrs Hapgood but these things have to be faced.

  KERNER: (Indicating RIDLEY) What about him? Isn't it awkward for him?

  BLAIR: Yes, but not in isolation. For reasons I can go into if you wish. Ridley - Mr Ridley - and Mrs Hapgood are tied together on this one, for better or worse. (Pause.) Well, I'll explain, then.

  KERNER: No, it is not necessary.

  (He pushes the photographs back towards BLAIR.)

  Not hurried, only careless.

  HAPGOOD: (Just conversation) Joseph, don't do this. I don't need it. Tell the truth.

  KERNER: The truth is what Paul knows it is.

  HAPGOOD: (To BLAIR) He's lying to you because he thinks it's me.

  (BLAIR waits. HAPGOOD starts to lose control of her tone.)

  Oh, wake up, Paul! Why would he?

  (To KERNER) Why would you? Why would you give away your work?

  KERNER: Because it's mine to give. Whose did you think it was? Yours? Who are you? You and Blair? Dog-catchers. And now you think I am your dog - be careful the dog didn't catch you.

  HAPGOOD: Don't give me that!

  (To BLAIR) He's straight, you know damn well he's straight-he's my joe!

  KERNER: (Laughs, not kindly) Pride. And your certainty is also amusing - you think you have seen to the bottom of things, but there is no bottom. I cannot see it, and you think you are cleverer than me?

  HAPGOOD: (Heatedly) He's a physics freak and a maverick, the Russians picked him for this because he had a good defector profile and he didn't fool us, he fooled them, he despises the Soviets, he'd never play ball and he has no reason to. He has no reason - give me his reason.

  KERNER: They found out about Joe.

  (Pause. HAPGOOD poleaxed, as it were. BLAIR stays level.)

  Sorry.

  BLAIR: How?

  KERNER: I don't know.

  BLAIR: When?

  KERNER: More than a year. They came to me and said, 'Well, so you have a child with your British case-officer. OK - congratulations, we were stupid, but now it is tune to mend the damage. For the sake of the boy.'

  BLAIR: What did they mean by that?

  KERNER: What do you think, Paul? I didn't ask.

  (To HAPGOOD) I had to, Lilya. />
  HAPGOOD: Joseph. All you had to do was tell me.

  KERNER: That is naive.

  (To BLAIR) Not just the normal reports. You should know this.

  BLAIR: What else?

  KERNER: My programme.

  BLAIR: This trap business?

  KERNER: They had the trap, they had the laser optics for handling the particles. They couldn't put it together -nobody could put it together because when you cool it to near-absolute zero -

  BLAIR: Joseph - get to it.

  KERNER: Everything was halted, it was like needing two trains to arrive together on the same line without destroying each other.

  BLAIR: So it couldn't be done?

  KERNER: Oh, yes. Like many things which are very difficult it turned out to be not so difficult if you have the right thought. These things are not, after all, trains, they travel at nearly the speed of light, and they are very small, so they can do things which are truly crazy. I was fortunate to have the right thought, and now it was possible to make an experiment with my thought. I worked out the programme for this.