The One Man (26 page)

“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,

N
cyl
=
ρ
N
S
〈
ν
〉 (Δ
t
) cos
θ
.

“
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. Now 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.

“Well, here's to hope then,” Leo said. He lifted the teacup and handed it back to Alfred.

“And here's to more to learn.” He raised the cup and took a last sip of tea. “Where our true hope lies. Are we agreed?”

“Why don't we just leave it at hope, shall we?” Leo replied.

 

THIRTY-EIGHT

WEDNESDAY.

At dawn, the Daimler personnel car with the swastika under the war eagle on its door sped through the Polish countryside, its headlights flashing through the fog.

Colonel Martin Franke sat in the back.

His still-wet-behind-the-ears driver wore the Abwehr insignia on his collar but was just months out of whatever they were putting the new call-ups through these days as training and clearly didn't know his way behind a wheel. It was over three hundred kilometers from Warsaw to Oswiecim, four hours in good weather along the rutted S8, longer in this soup.

“Please, faster, Corporal,” Franke said impatiently. “Go around that truck.” A supply truck had slowed in front of them.

“Yes, Colonel,” the corporal answered, hitting the gas.

Franke had persuaded his superior, General Graebner, to authorize him to go to the camp. The call had gone to Berlin, where the camp commander, SS Colonel Hoss, was in conference with Reichsführer Himmler and Reinhart Heydrich he was told. A Major Ackermann had been left in charge. So Franke knew he had better be right on this; the showdown between Canaris and Himmler for the Führer's favor was not a secret. To embarrass either of them would mean nothing but the Eastern Front for him.

But Franke felt certain, more so each time he went through it, that his instincts were correct. That the camp there had to be the target of whatever was being planned. The cable “
the truffle hunter is en route.
” The local report of the sighting of a plane. The parachuter who'd been spotted. The birchwood forest. The region was thinly populated and there were no known troop activities or items of any strategic interest that would point to anything else.