“Mike,” Mills said, interrupting him. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“But you’re not going to tell me. Look, if you don’t think you can trust me, you should—”
“I trust you,” he said, stopping him. “I just don’t trust myself. Not yet.”
Mills shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going to get some air.” He headed toward the door. “One thing.” Connolly looked up. “Karl liked to work alone too.”
When he was gone, Connolly didn’t turn back to the file but looked at the wall instead. Karl did like to work alone. Nobody planned to kill him. A snake would attack if surprised. But the meeting was planned, and he was there. Connolly pictured the road down from the mesa. The alley. The car in the box canyon. All the lines were there, waiting to be connected. You just turned down the wrong street, that’s all it took.
He didn’t notice it was beginning to get dark, and when Mills came back and flipped on the light, it startled him. He got up without a word and started for the infirmary. Lights had gone on everywhere; the hive still busy. The thin air, as always, carried gasoline fumes and coal smoke, but he was oblivious, his mind still on the blackboard. When he got to the room, he found Eisler dressed, sitting up to read. He looked over the top of his glasses when he saw Connolly standing in the door, holding the guidebook. His eyes moved from the book to Connolly’s face and stayed there, calm and bold. For a minute neither of them said a word. Then, gravely, he sighed and slowly took off the glasses.
“Mr. Connolly,” he said.
“I’ve finished my map.”
13
“Have you ever killed a man, Mr. Connolly? So quick. And then the responsibility, that goes on forever.” Eisler paused. “Well, as long as life. Not very long.”
The room was dim, the dark shadows broken only by the small reading lamp near his chair. Outside, the nurse was quiet, so that Connolly felt they wre lying side by side again, talking into the night. Eisler was rambling, as if in a fitful sleep, and Connolly let him lead, not knowing where to begin, afraid he would stop. “Have you come to arrest me?” he had said before, and Connolly hadn’t known how to answer. Now that he’d got what he wanted, he was dismayed. He’d imagined the scene so many times, his list of questions as orderly as a deposition, and now suddenly he felt powerless. What threat could possibly matter? He would hear what Eisler wanted to tell him, and that gentle voice came out of a depression so profound that each statement seemed a favor, one last tentative offering before it would stop altogether and stay silent. What punishment was left? So Connolly sat in the opposite chair, waiting, afraid to interrupt, as Eisler moved from Karl to Gottingen and back again, randomly stepping between remorse and cool reflection.
“I knew when I saw you at the board,” he was saying. “It was a relief. Do you understand that? But I thought I would have time-before you knew.”
“How much did you get out about the bomb?” Connolly said, trying to steer the conversation back.
Eisler paused, and for a moment Connolly thought he had lost him. Then he sighed. “Yes, the bomb. That’s the important thing, isn’t it? Not Karl, not even now. How did you know?”
“You said there was nothing to steal on the Hill. But there was always one thing to steal here.”
“Is that how you see it? Stealing?”
“Don’t you?”
“Prometheus stole the fire,” Eisler said quietly, “but not for himself. Scientific knowledge-do you think that belongs only to you?”
“It does for now. How much did you tell them?”
“I am familiar with all the principles involved in our work here,” he said formally. “Surely you already know that.”
“And now the Russians know them too.”
“My friend,” Eisler said, gentle again, “the Russians have known them for some time. These are not secrets. The mechanics, yes, but that is simply a matter of time. They will know them.”
“And now they’ll know just a little bit sooner.”
“Yes. Mr. Connolly, do you expect me to apologize for sharing this knowledge? About Karl—” He hesitated. “That was a great wrong. I accept the guilt. But the fire belongs to everybody. The bomb is only the beginning, you know. All this money—” He swept his hand to indicate the entire mesa. “It took the bomb to get this money. And since America is rich, it can afford to pay. But what we will have here, when we’re finished, is something new. Energy. Not just for bombs. Such a thing cannot be owned. Would you keep electricity to yourself? It’s not possible, even if it were right.”
“The fact remains, it wasn’t yours to give. The fact is, you took classified information and passed it on. That’s treason.”
“So many facts. I came with the Tube Alloys group. Was it treason to work with the English?”
“We’re not at war with England.”
“My friend, we are not at war with Russia either. Germany is at war with Russia. More than you can know. The real war. America is a factory and she is getting rich. England—” He waved his hand. “England is a dream. The war is Russia and Germany. It has always been. That is the great struggle. To the death. And what have you done to help? The second front? That had to wait. Tube Alloys committees for Russia? No, not for that ally. For them, the great secret. Not my knowledge to give? To defeat the Nazis, I would give anything.”
Connolly listened to his voice gathering speed, feeling the rhythm of a lecture, and looked at him in fascination: the kind face, the austere ideology. But why answer? The debate was old, and the war was over. He looked away.
“So you have,” he said quietly. “The Nazis. And who will give you permission now?”
Eisler’s cheek moved in a small tic, as if he’d been struck. “A good pupil, Mr. Connolly. You listen well.”
“Not that well. I didn’t know you were a Communist.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
“But Karl knew. Did you give the same speech at the meetings?”
“Meetings?”
“Where Karl saw you.”
Eisler smiled slightly. “What makes you think that?”
“Karl had a good memory. He recognized someone else from the meetings in Berlin. He recognized you too.”
“You interest me. I wonder whom he saw.” Connolly didn’t answer. “But for once your method has failed you. I never attended meetings. I was in a secret chapter. From the start.”
“Then where did you meet Karl?”
“He was a messenger. Just once, but he remembered.”
“A messenger? For you?”
“Yes, he did some work for us. A good Communist. He must have been sent to meetings to-well, to observe.”
Connolly looked at him in surprise. So Karl had had his secret too. “Karl was a Communist? I thought the Nazis had made a mistake.”
“The Nazis rarely made that kind of mistake, Mr. Connolly. I told you, it was always a war between us. That’s why many of us had to work in secret. Otherwise, they always knew. A mistake-is that what he told your people?” He seemed almost amused.
“But later, in Russia—”
“Yes, that was unfortunate,” Eisler said seriously. “A terrible time. He was foolish to go.”
“As a good Communist?”
“As a Jew. Do you think it was only the Germans—” He stopped, his eyes moving away to the past. “The revolution doesn’t always move in a straight line. It moves and then there are dark times. It was madness then. Shootings. Thousands of people, maybe more. Friends. People informed on their own friends. Yes. You’re surprised I would tell you this?”
“Yet you did all this for them.”
“The idea is right. The country is sometimes flawed. Do you not feel this about your own country?”
“You’re not Russian.”
“The idea lives there now. It doesn’t matter where.”
“So you want them to have the bomb.”
“Don’t you? Have you thought what it will mean to be the only one? Do you trust yourself that much?” He paused. “But, I admit, that is in the future. A philosophical point. I was thinking of this war, nothing more.”