Winter of the World

14

1942 (III)

Greg Peshkov graduated from Harvard summa cum laude, the highest honour. He could have gone on effortlessly to take a doctorate in physics, his major, and thus have avoided military service. But he did not want to be a scientist. His ambition was to wield a different kind of power. And, after the war was over, a military record would be a huge plus for a rising young politician. So he joined the army.

On the other hand, he did not want actually to have to fight.

He followed the European war with heightened interest at the same time as he pressured everyone he knew in Washington – which was a lot of people – to get him a desk job at War Department headquarters.

The German summer offensive had started on 28 June, and they had swiftly pushed east, meeting relatively light opposition, until they reached the city of Stalingrad, formerly called Tsaritsyn, where they were halted by fierce Russian resistance. Now they were stalled, with overstretched supply lines, and it was looking more and more as if the Red Army had drawn them into a trap.

Greg had not long been in basic training when he was summoned to the colonel’s office. ‘The Army Corps of Engineers needs a bright young officer in Washington,’ the colonel said. ‘You’ve interned in Washington, but all the same you wouldn’t have been my first choice – you can’t even keep your goddamn uniform clean, look at you – but the job requires a knowledge of physics, and the field is kind of limited.’

Greg said: ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Try that kind of sarcasm on your new boss and you’ll regret it. You’re going to be an assistant to a Colonel Groves. I was at West Point with him. He’s the biggest son of a bitch I ever met, in the army or out. Good luck.’

Greg called Mike Penfold in the State Department press office and found out that until recently Leslie Groves had been chief of construction for the entire US Army, and had been responsible for the military’s new Washington headquarters, the vast five-sided building they were beginning to call the Pentagon. But he had been moved to a new project that no one knew much about. Some said he had offended his superiors so often that he had been effectively demoted; others that his new role was even more important but top secret. They all agreed he was egotistical, arrogant and ruthless.

‘Does everybody hate him?’ Greg asked.

‘Oh, no,’ Mike said. ‘Only those who have met him.’

Lieutenant Greg Peshkov was full of trepidation when he arrived at Groves’s office in the striking New War Department Building, a pale-tan art deco palace on 21st Street and Virginia Avenue. Right away he learned that he was part of a group called the Manhattan Engineer District. This deliberately uninformative name camouflaged a team who were trying to invent a new kind of bomb using uranium as an explosive.

Greg was intrigued. He knew there was incalculable energy locked up in uranium’s lighter isotope, U-235, and he had read several papers on the subject in scientific journals. But news of the research had dried up a couple of years ago, and now Greg knew why.

He learned that President Roosevelt felt the project was moving too slowly, and Groves had been appointed to crack the whip.

Greg arrived six days after Groves had been reassigned. His first task for Groves was to help him pin stars to the collar of his khaki shirt: he had just been promoted to brigadier-general. ‘It’s mainly to impress all these civilian scientists we have to work with,’ Groves growled. ‘I have a meeting in the Secretary of War’s office in ten minutes. You’d better come with me, it’ll serve you for a briefing.’

Groves was heavy. An inch under six feet tall, he had to weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe three hundred. He wore his uniform pants high, and his belly bulged under his webbing belt. He had chestnut-coloured hair that might have curled if it had been grown long enough. He had a narrow forehead, fat cheeks, and a jowly chin. His small moustache was all but invisible. He was an unattractive man in every way, and Greg was not looking forward to working for him.

Groves and his entourage, including Greg, left the building and walked down Virginia Avenue to the National Mall. On the way, Groves said to Greg: ‘When they gave me this job, they told me it could win the war. I don’t know if that’s true, but my plan is to act as if it is. You’d better do the same.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Greg.

The Secretary of War had not yet moved into the unfinished Pentagon, and War Department headquarters were still in the old Munitions Building, a long, low, out-of-date ‘temporary’ structure on Constitution Avenue.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson was a Republican, brought in by the President to keep that party from undermining the war effort by making trouble in Congress. At seventy-five, Stimson was an elder statesman, a dapper old man with a white moustache, but the light of intelligence still gleamed in his grey eyes.

The meeting was a full-dress performance, and the room was full of bigwigs including Army Chief of Staff George Marshall. Greg felt nervous, and he thought admiringly that Groves was remarkably calm for someone who had been a mere colonel yesterday.

Groves began by outlining how he intended to impose order on the hundreds of civilian scientists and dozens of physics laboratories involved in the Manhattan project. He made no attempt to defer to the high-ranking men who might well have thought they were in charge. He outlined his plans without troubling to use such mollifying phrases as ‘with your permission’ and ‘if you agree’. Greg wondered whether the man was trying to get himself fired.

Greg learned so much new information that he wanted to take notes, but no one else did, and he guessed it would not look right.

When Groves had done, one of the group said: ‘I believe supplies of uranium are crucial to the project. Do we have enough?’

Groves answered: ‘There are 1,250 tons of pitchblende – that’s the ore that contains uranium oxide – in a yard on Staten Island.’

‘Then we’d better acquire some of that,’ said the questioner.

‘I bought it all on Friday, sir.’

‘Friday? The day after you were appointed?’

‘Correct.’

The Secretary of War smothered a smile. Greg’s surprise at Groves’s arrogance began to turn to admiration of his nerve.

A man in admiral’s uniform said: ‘What about the priority rating of this project? You need to clear the decks with the War Production Board.’

‘I saw Donald Nelson on Saturday, sir,’ said Groves. Nelson was the civilian head of the board. ‘I asked him to raise our rating.’

‘What did he say?

‘He said no.’

‘That’s a problem.’

‘Not any longer. I told him I would have to recommend to the President that the Manhattan project be abandoned because the War Production Board was unwilling to co-operate. Then he gave us a triple-A.’

‘Good,’ said the Secretary of War.

Greg was impressed again. Groves was a real pistol.

Stimson said: ‘Now, you’ll be supervised by a committee that will report to me. Nine members have been suggested—’

‘Hell, no,’ said Groves.

The Secretary of War said: ‘What did you say?’

Surely, Greg thought, Groves has gone too far this time.

Groves said: ‘I can’t report to a committee of nine, Mr Secretary. I’ll never get ’em off my back.’

Stimson grinned. He was too old a hand to get offended by this kind of talk, it seemed. He said mildly: ‘What number would you suggest, General?’

Greg could see that Groves wanted to say ‘None,’ but what came out was: ‘Three would be perfect.’

‘All right,’ said the Secretary of War, to Greg’s amazement. ‘Anything else?’

‘We’re going to need a large site, something like sixty thousand acres, for a uranium enrichment plant and associated facilities. There’s a suitable area in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It’s a ridge valley, so that if there should be an accident the explosion will be contained.’

‘An accident?’ said the admiral. ‘Is that likely?’

Groves did not hide his feeling that this was a dumb question. ‘We’re making an experimental bomb, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘A bomb so powerful that it promises to flatten a medium-size city with one detonation. We’d be pretty goddamn dumb if we ignored the possibility of accidents.’

The admiral looked as if he wanted to protest, but Stimson intervened, saying: ‘Carry on, General.’

‘Land is cheap in Tennessee,’ Groves said. ‘So is electricity – and our plant will use huge quantities of power.’

‘So you’re proposing to buy this land.’

‘I’m proposing to view it today.’ Groves looked at his watch. ‘In fact, I need to leave now to catch my train to Knoxville.’ He stood up. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I don’t want to lose any time.’

The other men in the room were flabbergasted. Even Stimson looked startled. No one in Washington dreamed of leaving a Secretary’s office before he indicated he was through. It was a major breach of etiquette. But Groves seemed not to care.

And he got away with it. ‘Very well,’ said Stimson. ‘Don’t let us hold you up.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Groves, and he left the room.

Greg hurried out after him.

(ii)

The most attractive civilian secretary in the New War Office Building was Margaret Cowdry. She had big dark eyes and a wide, sensual mouth. When you saw her sitting behind her typewriter, and she glanced up at you and smiled, you felt as if you were already making love to her.

Her father had turned baking into a mass-production industry: ‘Cowdry’s Cookies crumble just like Ma’s!’ She had no need to work, but she was doing her bit for the war effort. Before inviting her to lunch, Greg made sure she knew that he, too, was the child of a millionaire. An heiress usually preferred to date a rich boy: she could feel confident he was not after her money.

It was October and cold. Margaret wore a stylish navy-blue coat with padded shoulders and a nipped-in waist. Her matching beret had a military look.

They went to the Ritz-Carlton, but when they got to the dining room Greg saw his father having lunch with Gladys Angelus. He did not want to make it a foursome. When he explained this to Margaret, she said: ‘No problem. We’ll have lunch at the University Women’s Club around the corner. I’m a member there.’

Greg had never been there, but he had a feeling he knew something about it. For a moment he chased the thought around his memory, but it eluded him, so he put it out of his mind.

At the club Margaret removed her coat to reveal a royal-blue cashmere dress that clung to her alluringly. She kept on her hat and gloves, as all respectable women did when eating out.

As always, Greg loved the sensation of walking into a place with a beautiful woman on his arm. In the dining room of the University Women’s Club there were only a handful of men, but they all envied him. Although he might not admit it to anyone else, he enjoyed this as much as sleeping with women.

He ordered a bottle of wine. Margaret mixed hers with mineral water, French style, saying: ‘I don’t want to spend the afternoon correcting my typing mistakes.’

He told her about General Groves. ‘He’s a real go-getter. In some ways he’s a badly dressed version of my father.’

‘Everyone hates him,’ Margaret said.

Greg nodded. ‘He rubs people up the wrong way.’

‘Is your father like that?’

‘Sometimes, but mostly he uses charm.’

‘Mine’s the same! Maybe all successful men are that way.’

The meal went quickly. Service in Washington restaurants had speeded up. The nation was at war and men had urgent work to do.

A waitress brought them the dessert menu. Greg glanced at her and was startled to recognize Jacky Jakes. ‘Hello, Jacky!’ he said.

‘Hi, Greg,’ she replied, familiarity overlaying nervousness. ‘How have you been?’

Greg recalled the detective telling him that she worked at the University Women’s Club. That was the memory that had eluded him before. ‘I’m just fine,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

‘Real good.’

‘Everything going on just the same?’ He was wondering if his father was still paying her an allowance.

‘Pretty much.’

Greg guessed that some lawyer was paying out the money and Lev had forgotten all about it. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

Jacky remembered her job. ‘Can I offer you some dessert today?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

Margaret asked for fruit salad and Greg had ice cream.

When Jacky had gone, Margaret said: ‘She’s very pretty,’ then looked expectant.

‘I guess,’ he said.

‘No wedding ring.’

Greg sighed. Women were so perceptive. ‘You’re wondering how come I’m friendly with a pretty black waitress who isn’t married,’ he said. ‘I might as well tell you the truth. I had an affair with her when I was fifteen. I hope you’re not shocked.’

‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘I’m morally outraged.’ She was neither serious nor joking, but something in between. She was not really scandalized, he felt sure, but perhaps she did not want to give him the impression that she was easygoing about sex – not on their first lunch date, anyway.

Jacky brought the desserts and asked if they wanted coffee. They did not have time – the army did not believe in long lunch breaks – and Margaret asked for the bill. ‘Guests aren’t allowed to pay here,’ she explained.

When Jacky had gone, Margaret said: ‘What’s nice is that you’re so fond of her.’

‘Am I?’ Greg was surprised. ‘I have fond memories, I guess. I wouldn’t mind being fifteen again.’

‘And yet she’s scared of you.’

‘She is not!’

‘Terrified.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Take my word. Men are blind, but a woman sees these things.’

Greg looked hard at Jacky when she brought the bill, and he realized that Margaret was right. Jacky was still scared. Every time she saw Greg she was reminded of Joe Brekhunov and his straight razor.

It made Greg angry. The girl had a right to live in peace.

He was going to have to do something about this.

Margaret, who was as sharp as a tack, said: ‘I think you know why she’s scared.’

‘My father frightened her off. He was worried I might marry her.’

‘Is your father scary?’

‘He does like to get his own way.’

‘My father’s the same,’ she said. ‘Sweet as cherry pie, until you cross him. Then he turns mean.’

‘I’m so glad you understand.’

They returned to work. Greg felt angry all afternoon. Somehow his father’s curse still lay like a blight over Jacky’s life. But what could he do?

What would his father do? That was a good way to look at it. Lev would be completely single-minded about getting his way, and would not care who he hurt in the process. General Groves would be similar. I can be like that, Greg thought; I’m my father’s son.

The beginning of a plan began to form in his mind.

He spent the afternoon reading and summarizing an interim report from the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory. The scientists there included Leo Szilard, the man who first conceived of the nuclear chain reaction. Szilard was a Hungarian Jew who had studied at the University of Berlin – until the fatal year of 1933. The research team in Chicago was led by Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist. Fermi, whose wife was Jewish, had left Italy when Mussolini published his Manifesto of Race.

Greg wondered whether the Fascists realized that their racism had brought such a windfall of brilliant scientists to their enemies.

He understood the physics perfectly well. The theory of Fermi and Szilard was that when a neutron struck a uranium atom, the collision could produce two neutrons. Those two neutrons could then collide with further uranium atoms to make four, then eight, and so on. Szilard had called this a chain reaction – a brilliant insight.

That way, a ton of uranium could produce as much energy as three million tons of coal – in theory.

In practice, it had never been done.

Fermi and his team were building a pile of uranium at Stagg Field, a disused football stadium belonging to the University of Chicago. To prevent the stuff exploding spontaneously, they buried the uranium in graphite, which absorbed the neutrons and killed the chain reaction. Their aim was to bring the radioactivity up, very gradually, to the level at which more was being created than absorbed – which would prove that a chain reaction was a reality – then close it down, fast, before it blew up the pile, the stadium, the campus of the university, and quite possibly the city of Chicago.

So far they had not succeeded.

Greg wrote a favourable précis of the report, asked Margaret Cowdry to type it right away, then took it in to Groves.

The general read the first paragraph and said: ‘Will it work?’

‘Well, sir—’

‘You’re the goddamn scientist. Will it work?’

‘Yes, sir, it will work,’ Greg said.

‘Good,’ said Groves, and threw the summary in his waste-paper bin.

Greg returned to his desk and sat for a while, staring at the representation of the Periodic Table of the Elements on the wall opposite his desk. He was pretty sure the nuclear pile would work. He was more worried about how to force his father to withdraw the threat to Jacky.

Earlier, he had thought about handling the problem as Lev would have done. Now he began to think about practical details. He needed to take a dramatic stand.

His plan began to take shape.

But did he have the guts to confront his father?

At five he left for the day.

On the way home he stopped at a barbershop and bought a straight razor, the folding kind where the blade slid into the handle. The barber said: ‘You’ll find it better than a safety razor, with your beard.’

Greg was not going to shave with it.

His home was his father’s permanent suite at the Ritz-Carlton. When Greg arrived, Lev and Gladys were having cocktails.

He remembered meeting Gladys for the first time in this room seven years ago, sitting on the same yellow silk couch. She was an even bigger star now. Lev had put her in a series of shamelessly gung-ho war movies in which she defied sneering Nazis, outwitted sadistic Japanese, and nursed square-jawed American pilots back to health. She was not quite as beautiful as she had been at twenty, Greg observed. The skin of her face did not have the same perfect smoothness; her hair did not seem so luxuriant; and she was wearing a brassiere, which she would undoubtedly have scorned before. But she still had dark-blue eyes that seemed to issue an irresistible invitation.

Greg accepted a martini and sat down. Was he really going to defy his father? He had not done it in the seven years since he had first shaken Gladys’s hand. Perhaps it was time.

I’ll do it just the way he would, Greg thought.

He sipped his drink and set it down on a side table with spidery legs. Speaking conversationally, he said to Gladys: ‘When I was fifteen, my father introduced me to an actress called Jacky Jakes.’

Lev’s eyes widened.

‘I don’t think I know her,’ said Gladys.

Greg took the razor from his pocket, but did not open it. He held it in his hand as if feeling its weight. ‘I fell in love with her.’

Lev said: ‘Why are you dragging this ancient history up now?’

Gladys sensed the tension and looked anxious.

Greg went on: ‘Father was afraid I might want to marry her.’

Lev laughed mockingly. ‘That cheap tart?’

‘Was she a cheap tart?’ Greg said. ‘I thought she was an actress.’ He looked at Gladys.

Gladys flushed at the implied insult.

Greg said: ‘Father paid her a visit, and took with him a colleague, Joe Brekhunov. Have you met him, Gladys?’

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘Lucky you. Joe has a razor like this.’ Greg snapped the razor open, showing the gleaming sharp blade.

Gladys gasped.

Lev said: ‘I don’t know what game you think you’re playing—’

‘Just a minute,’ Greg said. ‘Gladys wants to hear the rest of the story.’ He smiled at her. She looked terrified. He said: ‘My father told Jacky that if she ever saw me again, Joe would cut her face with his razor.’

He jerked the knife, just a little, and Gladys gave a small scream.

‘The hell with this,’ Lev said, and took a step towards Greg. Greg raised the hand holding the razor. Lev stopped.

Greg did not know whether he would be able to cut his father. But Lev did not know either.

‘Jacky lives right here in Washington,’ Greg said.

His father said crudely: ‘Are you fucking her again?’

‘No. I’m not fucking anyone, though I have plans for Margaret Cowdry.’

‘The cookie heiress?’

‘Why, do you want Joe to threaten her too?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Jacky is a waitress now – she never got the movie part she was hoping for. I run into her on the street sometimes. Today she served me in a restaurant. Every time she sees my face, she thinks Joe is going to come after her.’

‘She’s out of her mind,’ Lev said. ‘I’d forgotten all about her until five minutes ago.’

‘Can I tell her that?’ Greg said. ‘I think by now she’s entitled to her peace of mind.’

‘Tell her whatever the hell you like. For me she doesn’t exist.’

‘That’s great,’ said Greg. ‘She’ll be pleased to hear it.’

‘Now put that damn blade away.’

‘One more thing. A warning.’

Lev looked angry. ‘You’re warning me?’

‘If anything bad happens to Jacky – anything at all . . .’ Greg moved the razor side to side, just a little.

Lev said scornfully: ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to cut Joe Brekhunov.’

‘No.’

Lev showed a hint of fear. ‘You’d cut me?’

Greg shook his head.

Angrily, Lev said: ‘What, then, for Christ’s sake?’

Greg looked at Gladys.

She took a second to catch his drift. Then she jerked back in her silk-upholstered chair, put both hands on her cheeks as if to protect them, and gave another little scream, louder this time.

Lev said to Greg: ‘You little asshole.’

Greg folded the razor and stood up. ‘It’s how you would have handled it, Father,’ he said.

Then he went out.

He slammed the door and leaned against the wall, breathing as hard as if he had been running. He had never felt so scared in his life. Yet he also felt triumphant. He had stood up to the old man, used his own tactics back on him, even scared him a little.

He walked to the elevator, pocketing the razor. His breathing eased. He looked back along the hotel corridor, half expecting his father to come running after him. But the door of the suite remained closed, and Greg boarded the elevator and went down to the lobby.

He entered the hotel bar and ordered a dry martini.

(iii)

On Sunday Greg decided to visit Jacky.

He wanted to tell her the good news. He remembered the address – the only piece of information he had ever paid a private detective for. Unless she had moved, she lived just the other side of Union Station. He had promised her he would not go there, but now he could explain to her that such caution was no longer necessary.

He went by cab. Crossing town, he told himself he would be glad to draw a line at last under his affair with Jacky. He had a soft spot for his first lover, but he did not want to be involved in her life in any way. It would be a relief to get her off his conscience. Then, next time he ran into her, she would not look scared to death. They could say hello, chat for a while, and walk on.

The cab took him to a poor neighbourhood of one-storey homes with low chain-link fences around small yards. He wondered how Jacky lived these days. What did she do during those evenings she was so keen to have to herself? No doubt she saw movies with her girlfriends. Did she go to Washington Redskins football games, or follow the Nats baseball team? When he had asked her about boyfriends, she had been enigmatic. Perhaps she was married and could not afford a ring. By his calculation she was twenty-four. If she was looking for Mr Right she should have found him by now. But she had never mentioned a husband, nor had the detective.

He paid off the taxi outside a small, neat house with flower pots in a concrete front yard – more domesticated than he had expected. As soon as he opened the gate he heard a dog bark. That made sense: a woman living alone might feel safer with a dog. He stepped on to the porch and rang the doorbell. The barking got louder. It sounded like a big dog, but that could be deceptive, Greg knew.

No one came to the door.

When the dog paused for breath, Greg heard the distinctive silence of an empty house.

There was a wooden bench on the stoop. He sat and waited a few minutes. No one came, and no helpful neighbour appeared to tell him whether Jacky was away for a few minutes, all day, or two weeks.

He walked a few blocks, bought the Sunday edition of the Washington Post, and returned to the bench to read it. The dog continued to bark intermittently, knowing he was still there. It was the first of November, and he was glad he had worn his olive-green uniform greatcoat and cap: the weather was wintry. Mid-term elections would be held on Tuesday, and the Post was predicting that the Democrats would take a beating because of Pearl Harbor. That incident had transformed America, and it came as a surprise to Greg to realize that it had happened less than a year ago. Now American men of his own age were dying on an island no one had ever heard of called Guadalcanal.

He heard the gate click, and looked up.

At first Jacky did not notice him, and he had a moment to study her. She looked dowdily respectable in a dark coat and a plain felt hat, and she carried a book with a black cover. If he had not known her better, Greg would have thought she was coming home from church.

With her was a little boy. He wore a tweed coat and a cap, and he was holding her hand.

The boy saw Greg first, and said: ‘Look, Mommy, there’s a soldier!’

Jacky looked at Greg, and her hand flew to her mouth.

Greg stood up as they mounted the steps to the stoop. A child! She had kept that secret. It explained why she needed to be home in the evenings. He had never thought of it.

‘I told you never to come here,’ she said as she put the key in the lock.

‘I wanted to tell you that you need not be afraid of my father any more. I didn’t know you had a son.’

She and the boy stepped into the house. Greg stood expectantly at the door. A German shepherd growled at him then looked up at Jacky for guidance. Jacky glared at Greg, evidently thinking about slamming the door in his face; but after a moment she gave an exasperated sigh and turned away, leaving it open.

Greg walked in and offered his left fist to the dog. It sniffed warily and gave him provisional approval. He followed Jacky into a small kitchen.

‘It’s All Saints’ Day,’ Greg said. He was not religious, but at his boarding school he had been forced to learn all the Christian festivals. ‘Is that why you went to church?’

‘We go every Sunday,’ she replied.

‘This is a day of surprises,’ Greg murmured.

She took off the boy’s coat, sat him at the table, and gave him a cup of orange juice. Greg sat opposite and said: ‘What’s your name?’

‘Georgy.’ He said it quietly, but with confidence: he was not shy. Greg studied him. He was as pretty as his mother, with the same bow-shaped mouth, but his skin was lighter than hers, more like coffee with cream, and he had green eyes, unusual in a Negro face. He reminded Greg a little of his half-sister, Daisy. Meanwhile Georgy looked at Greg with an intense gaze that was almost intimidating.

Greg said: ‘How old are you, Georgy?’

He looked at his mother for help. She gave Greg a strange look and said: ‘He’s six.’

‘Six!’ said Greg. ‘You’re quite a big boy, aren’t you? Why . . .’

A bizarre thought crossed his mind, and he fell silent. Georgy had been born six years ago. Greg and Jacky had been lovers seven years ago. His heart seemed to falter.

He stared at Jacky. ‘Surely not,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘He was born in 1936,’ said Greg.

‘May,’ she said. ‘Eight and a half months after I left that apartment in Buffalo.’

‘Does my father know?’

‘Heck, no. That would have given him even more power over me.’

Her hostility had vanished, and now she just looked vulnerable. In her eyes he saw a plea, though he was not sure what she was pleading for.

He looked at Georgy with new eyes: the light skin, the green eyes, the odd resemblance to Daisy. Are you mine? he thought. Can it be true?

But he knew it was.

His heart filled with a strange emotion. Suddenly Georgy seemed terribly vulnerable, a helpless infant in a cruel world, and Greg needed to take care of him, make sure he came to no harm. He had an impulse to take the boy in his arms, but he realized that might scare him, so he held back.

Georgy put down his orange juice. He got off his chair and came around the table to stand close to Greg. With a remarkably direct look, he said: ‘Who are you?’

Trust a kid to ask the toughest question of all, Greg thought. What the hell was he going to say? The truth was too much for a six-year-old to take. I’m just a former friend of your mother’s, he thought; I was just passing the door, thought I’d say hello. Nobody special. May see you again, most likely not.

He looked at Jacky, and saw that pleading expression intensified. He realized what was on her mind: she was desperately afraid he was going to reject Georgy.

‘I tell you what,’ Greg said, and he lifted Georgy on to his knees. ‘Why don’t you call me Uncle Greg?’

(iv)

Greg stood shivering in the spectators’ gallery of an unheated squash court. Here, under the west stand of the disused stadium on the edge of the University of Chicago campus, Fermi and Szilard had built their atomic pile. Greg was impressed and scared.

The pile was a cube of grey bricks reaching the ceiling of the court, standing just shy of the end wall which still bore the polka-dot marks of hundreds of squash balls. The pile had cost a million dollars, and it could blow up the entire city.

Graphite was the material of which pencil leads were made, and it gave off a filthy dust that covered the floor and walls. Everyone who had been in the room a while was as black-faced as a coal miner. No one had a clean lab coat.

Graphite was not the explosive material – on the contrary, it was there to suppress radioactivity. But some of the bricks in the stack were drilled with narrow holes stuffed with uranium oxide, and this was the material that radiated the neutrons. Running through the pile were ten channels for control rods. These were thirteen-foot strips of cadmium, a metal that absorbed neutrons even more hungrily than graphite. Right now the rods were keeping everything calm. When they were withdrawn from the pile, the fun would start.

The uranium was already throwing off its deadly radiation, but the graphite and the cadmium were soaking it up. Radiation was measured by counters that clicked menacingly and a cylindrical pen recorder that was mercifully silent. The array of controls and meters near Greg in the gallery gave off the only heat in the place.

Greg visited on Wednesday 2 December, a bitterly cold, windy day in Chicago. Today for the first time the pile was supposed to go critical. Greg was there to observe the experiment on behalf of his boss, General Groves. He hinted jovially to anyone who asked that Groves feared an explosion and had deputed Greg to take the risk for him. In fact Greg had a more sinister mission. He was making an initial assessment of the scientists with a view to deciding who might be a security risk.

Security on the Manhattan Project was a nightmare. The top scientists were foreigners. Most of the rest were left-wingers, either Communists themselves or liberals who had Communist friends. If everyone suspicious was fired there would be hardly any scientists left. So Greg was trying to figure out which ones were the worst risks.

Enrico Fermi was about forty. A small, balding man with a long nose, he smiled engagingly while supervising this terrifying experiment. He was smartly dressed in a suit with a waistcoat. It was mid-morning when he ordered the trial to begin.

He instructed a technician to withdraw all but one of the control rods from the pile. Greg said: ‘What, all at once?’ It seemed frighteningly precipitate.

The scientist standing next to him, Barney McHugh, said: ‘We took it this far last night. It worked fine.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Greg.

McHugh, bearded and podgy, was low down on Greg’s list of suspects. He was American, with no interest in politics. The only black mark against him was a foreign wife: she was British – never a good sign, but not in itself evidence of treachery.

Greg had assumed there would be some sophisticated mechanism for moving the rods in and out, but it was simpler than that. The technician just put a ladder up against the pile, climbed halfway up it, and pulled out the rods by hand.

Speaking conversationally, McHugh said: ‘We were originally going to do this in the Argonne Forest.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Twenty miles south-west of Chicago. Pretty isolated. Fewer casualties.’

Greg shivered. ‘So why did you change your minds and decide to do it right here on Fifty-seventh Street?’

‘The builders we hired went on strike, so we had to build the damn thing ourselves, and we couldn’t be that far away from the laboratories.’

‘So you took the risk of killing everyone in Chicago.’

‘We don’t think that will happen.’

Greg had not thought so, either, but he did not feel so sure now, standing a few feet away from the pile.

Fermi was checking his monitors against a forecast he had prepared of radiation levels at every stage of the experiment. Apparently the initial stage went according to plan, for he now ordered the last rod to be pulled halfway out.

There were some safety measures. A weighted rod hung poised to be dropped into the pile automatically if the radiation rose too high. In case that did not work, a similar rod was tied to the gallery railing with a rope, and a young physicist, looking as if he felt a bit silly, stood holding an axe, ready to cut the rope in an emergency. Finally three more scientists called the suicide squad were positioned near the ceiling, standing on the platform of the elevator used during construction, holding large jugs of cadmium sulphate solution, which they would throw on to the pile, as if dousing a bonfire.

Greg knew that neutron generation multiplied in thousandths of a second. However, Fermi argued that some neutrons took longer, perhaps several seconds. If Fermi was right, there would be no problem. But if he was wrong, the squad with the jugs and the physicist with the axe would be vaporized before they could blink.

Greg heard the clicking become more rapid. He looked anxiously at Fermi, who was doing calculations with a slide-rule. Fermi looked pleased. Anyway, Greg thought, if things go wrong it will probably happen so fast that we’ll never know anything about it.

The rate of clicking levelled off. Fermi smiled and gave the order for the rod to be pulled out another six inches.

More scientists were arriving, climbing the stairs to the gallery in their heavyweight Chicago-winter clothing, coats and hats and scarves and gloves. Greg was appalled at the lack of security. No one was checking credentials: any one of these men could have been a spy for the Japanese.

Among them Greg recognized the great Szilard, tall and heavy, with a round face and thick curly hair. Leo Szilard was an idealist who had imagined nuclear power liberating the human race from toil. It was with a heavy heart that he had joined the team designing the atom bomb.

Another six inches, another increase in the pace of the clicking.

Greg looked at his watch. It was eleven-thirty.

Suddenly there was a loud crash. Everyone jumped. McHugh said: ‘Fuck.’

Greg said: ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, I see,’ said McHugh. ‘The radiation level activated the safety mechanism and released the emergency control rod, that’s all.’

Fermi announced: ‘I’m hungry. Let’s go to lunch.’ In his Italian accent it came out: ‘I’m hungary. Les go to luncha.’

How could they think about food? But no one argued. ‘You never know how long an experiment is going to take,’ said McHugh. ‘Could be all day. Best to eat when you can.’ Greg could have screamed.

All the control rods were re-inserted into the pile and locked into position, and everyone left.

Most of them went to a campus canteen. Greg got a grilled-cheese sandwich and sat next to a solemn physicist called Wilhelm Frunze. Most scientists were badly dressed but Frunze was notably so, in a green suit with tan suede trimmings: buttonholes, collar lining, elbow patches, pocket flaps. This guy was high on Greg’s suspect list. He was German, though he had left in the mid-1930s and gone to London. He was an anti-Nazi but not a Communist: his politics were social-democrat. He was married to an American girl, an artist. Talking to him over lunch, Greg found no reason for suspicion: he seemed to love living in America and to be interested in little but his work. But with foreigners you could never be quite sure where their ultimate loyalty lay.

After lunch he stood in the derelict stadium, looking at thousands of empty stands, and thought about Georgy. He had told no one he had a son – not even Margaret Cowdry, with whom he was now enjoying delightfully carnal relations – but he longed to tell his mother. He felt proud, for no reason – he had made no contribution to bringing Georgy into the world apart from making love to Jacky, probably about the easiest thing he had ever done. Most of all he felt excited. He was at the beginning of some kind of adventure. Georgy was going to grow, and learn, and change, and one day become a man; and Greg would be there, watching and marvelling.

The scientists reassembled at two o’clock. Now there were about forty people crowded into the gallery with the monitoring equipment. The experiment was carefully reset in the position at which they had left off, Fermi checking his instruments constantly.

Then he said: ‘This time, withdraw the rod twelve inches.’

The clicks became rapid. Greg waited for the increase to level off, as it had before, but it did not. Instead the clicking became faster and faster until it was continuous roar.

The radiation level was above the maximum of the counters, Greg realized when he noticed that everyone’s attention had switched to the pen recorder. Its scale was adjustable. As the level rose the scale was changed, then changed again, and again.

Fermi raised a hand. They all went silent. ‘The pile has gone critical,’ he said. He smiled – and did nothing.

Greg wanted to scream: So turn the fucker off! But Fermi remained silent and still, watching the pen, and such was his authority that no one challenged him. The chain reaction was happening, but it was under control. He let it run for a minute, then another.

McHugh muttered: ‘Jesus Christ.’

Greg did not want to die. He wanted to be a senator. He wanted to sleep with Margaret Cowdry again. He wanted to see Georgy go to college. I haven’t had half a life yet, he thought.

At last Fermi ordered the control rods to be pushed in.

The noise of the counters reverted to a clicking that gradually slowed and stopped.

Greg breathed normally.

McHugh was jubilant. ‘We proved it!’ he said. ‘The chain reaction is real!’

‘And it’s controllable, more importantly,’ said Greg.’

‘Yes, I suppose that is more important, from the practical point of view.’

Greg smiled. Scientists were like this, he knew from Harvard: for them theory was reality, and the world a rather inaccurate model.

Someone produced a bottle of Italian wine in a straw basket and some paper cups. The scientists all drank a tiny share. This was another reason Greg was not a scientist: they had no idea how to party.

Someone asked Fermi to sign the basket. He did so, then all the others signed it.

The technicians shut down the monitors. Everyone began to drift away. Greg stayed, observing. After a while he found himself alone in the gallery with Fermi and Szilard. He watched as the two intellectual giants shook hands. Szilard was a big, round-faced man; Fermi was elfin; and for a moment Greg was inappropriately reminded of Laurel and Hardy.

Then he heard Szilard speak. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘I think this will go down as a black day in the history of mankind.’

Greg thought: Now what the hell did he mean by that?

(v)

Greg wanted his parents to accept Georgy.

It would not be easy. No doubt it would be unnerving for them to be told they had a grandson who had been concealed from them for six years. They might be angry. On top of that, they might look down on Jacky. They had no right to take a moralistic attitude, he thought wryly: they themselves had an illegitimate child – himself. But people were not rational.

He was not sure how much difference it would make that Georgy was black. Greg’s parents were laid back about race, and never talked viciously about niggers or kikes as some people of their generation did; but they might change when they learned there was a Negro in the family.

His father would be the more difficult one, he guessed; so he spoke to his mother first.

He got a few days leave at Christmas and went home to her place in Buffalo. Marga had a large apartment in the best building in town. She lived mostly alone, but she had a cook, two maids and a chauffeur. She had a safe full of jewellery and a dress closet the size of a two-car garage. But she did not have a husband.

Lev was in town, but traditionally he took Olga out on Christmas Eve. He was still married to her, technically, though he had not spent a night at her house for years. As far as Greg knew, Olga and Lev hated one another; but for some reason they met once a year.

That evening, Greg and his mother had dinner together in the apartment. He put on a tuxedo to please her. ‘I love to see my men dressed up,’ she often said. They had fish soup, roast chicken, and Greg’s boyhood favourite, peach pie.

‘I have some news for you, Mother,’ he said nervously as the maid poured coffee. He feared she would be angry. He was not frightened for himself, but for Georgy, and he wondered if this was what parenthood was about – worrying about someone else more than you worried about yourself.

‘Good news?’ she said.

She had become heavier in recent years, but she was still glamorous at forty-six. If there was any grey in her dark hair it had been carefully camouflaged by her hairdresser. Tonight she wore a simple black dress and a diamond choker.

‘Very good news, but I guess a little surprising, so please don’t fly off the handle.’

She raised a black eyebrow but said nothing.

He reached inside his dinner jacket and took out a photograph. It showed Georgy on a red bicycle with a ribbon around the handlebars. The rear wheel of the bike had a pair of stabilizing wheels so that it would not fall over. The expression on the boy’s face was ecstatic. Greg was kneeling beside him, looking proud.

He handed the picture to his mother.

She studied it thoughtfully. After a minute she said: ‘I’m assuming you gave this little boy a bicycle for Christmas.’

‘That’s right.’

She looked up. ‘Are you telling me you have a child?’

Greg nodded. ‘His name is Georgy.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

She threw down the photo. ‘For God’s sake!’ she said angrily. ‘What is the matter with you Peshkov men!’

Greg was dismayed. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

‘Another illegitimate child! Another woman bringing him up alone!’

He realized that she saw Jacky as a younger version of herself. ‘Mother, I was fifteen . . .’

‘Why can’t you be normal?’ she stormed. ‘For the love of Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with having a regular family?’

Greg looked down. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’

He felt ashamed. Until this moment he had seen himself as a passive player in this drama, even a victim. Everything that had happened had been done to him by his father and Jacky. But his mother did not view it that way, and now he saw that she was right. He had not thought twice about sleeping with Jacky; he had not questioned her when she had said airily that there was no need to worry about contraception; and he had not confronted his father when Jacky left. He had been very young, yes; but if he was old enough to fuck her, he was old enough to take responsibility for the consequences.

His mother was still raging. ‘Don’t you remember how you used to carry on? “Where is my Daddy? Why doesn’t he sleep here? Why can’t we go with him to Daisy’s house?” And then later, the fights you had at school when the boys called you a bastard. And you were so angry to be refused membership of that goddamned yacht club.’

‘Of course I remember.’

She banged a beringed fist on the table, causing crystal glasses to shake. ‘Then how can you put another little boy through the same torture?’

‘I didn’t know he existed until two months ago. Father scared the mother away.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Her name is Jacky Jakes. She’s a waitress.’ He took out another photo.

His mother sighed. ‘A pretty Negress.’ She was calming down.

‘She was hoping to be an actress, but I guess she gave that up when Georgy came along.’

Marga nodded. ‘A baby will ruin your career faster than a dose of the clap.’

Mother assumed that an actress had to sleep with the right people to progress, Greg noted. How the hell would she know? But then she had been a nightclub singer when his father met her . . .

He did not want to go down that road.

She said: ‘What did you give her for Christmas?’

‘Medical insurance.’

‘Good choice. Better than a fluffy bear.’

Greg heard a step in the hall. His father was home. Hastily, he said: ‘Mother, will you meet Jacky? Will you accept Georgy as your grandson?’

Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God, I’m a grandmother.’ She did not know whether to be shocked or pleased.

Greg leaned forward. ‘I don’t want Father to reject him. Please!’

Before she could reply, Lev came into the room.

Marga said: ‘Hello, darling, how was your evening?’

He sat at the table looking grumpy. ‘Well, I’ve had my shortcomings explained to me in full detail, so I guess I had a great time.’

‘You poor thing. Did you get enough to eat? I can make you an omelette in a minute.’

‘The food was fine.’

The photographs were on the table, but Lev had not noticed them yet.

The maid came in and said: ‘Would you like coffee, Mr Peshkov?’

‘No, thank you.’

Marga said: ‘Bring the vodka, in case Mr Peshkov would like a drink later.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Greg noticed how solicitous Marga was about Lev’s comfort and pleasure. He guessed that was why Lev was here, not at Olga’s, for the night.

The maid brought a bottle and three small glasses on a silver tray. Lev still drank vodka the Russian way, warm and neat.

Greg said: ‘Father, you know Jacky Jakes—’

‘Her again?’ Lev said irritably.

‘Yes, because there’s something you don’t know about her.’

That got his attention. He hated to think other people knew things he did not. ‘What?’

‘She has a child.’ He pushed the photographs across the polished table.

‘It it yours?’

‘He’s six years old. What do you think?’

‘She kept this pretty damned quiet.’

‘She was scared of you.’

‘What did she think I might do, cook the baby and eat it?’

‘I don’t know, Father – you’re the expert at scaring people.’

Lev gave him a hard look. ‘You’re learning, though.’

He was talking about the scene with the razor. Maybe I am learning to scare people, Greg thought.

Lev said: ‘Why are you showing me these photos?’

‘I thought you might like to know that you have a grandson.’

‘By a goddamn two-bit actress who was hoping to snag herself a rich man!’

Marga said: ‘Darling! Please remember that I was a two-bit nightclub singer hoping to snag myself a rich man.’

He looked furious. For a moment he glared at Marga. Then his expression changed. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘You’re right. Who am I to judge Jacky Jakes?’

Greg and Marga stared at him, astonished at this sudden humility.

He said: ‘I’m just like her. I was a two-kopek hoodlum from the slums of St Petersburg until I married Olga Vyalov, my boss’s daughter.’

Greg caught his mother’s eye, and she gave an almost imperceptible shrug that simply said: You never can tell.

Lev looked again at the photo. ‘Apart from the colour, this kid looks like my brother, Grigori. There’s a surprise. Until now I thought all these piccaninnies looked the same.’

Greg could hardly breathe. ‘Will you see him, father? Will you come with me and meet your grandson?’

‘Hell, yes.’ Lev uncorked the bottle, poured vodka into three glasses, and passed them round. ‘What’s the boy’s name, anyway?’

‘Georgy.’

Lev raised his glass. ‘So here’s to Georgy.’

They all drank.