Читать книгу In Search of Klingsor - Jorge Volpi - Страница 12

By the time he had settled into his life in the United States, toward the end of 1933, Einstein was already something of an international genius, his mere image capable of inspiring even those unable to comprehend the slightest bit of physics. Having achieved this mythic status, the author of relativity amused himself by responding to his admirers’ innocent questions with riddles and paradoxes, brief as Buddhist parables. With his long, tangled mane of graying hair and his eyes, encircled by a frame of wrinkles, he was a hermit delivered to save the modern world, so desperately in need of his help. Journalists flocked to his home on Mercer Street seeking his opinion on every topic under the sun. A modern-day cross between Socrates and Confucius, Einstein obliged them with the serene benevolence of a teacher addressing the timid ignorance of his pupils. Stories of these press conferences quickly began to circulate from one end of the country to the other, as if every one of his answers were some kind of Zen koan, a Sufi poem, or a Talmudic aphorism. On one occasion, a reporter asked Einstein the following question:

“Is there such a thing as a formula for success in life?”

“Yes, there is.”

“What is it?” asked the reporter, impatient.

“If a represents success, I would say that the formula is a=x+y+z, in which x is work and y is luck,” explained Einstein.

“What is z, then?” questioned the reporter.

Einstein smiled, and then answered: “Keeping your mouth shut.”

These stories, brief and concise, only served to enhance his prestige, but at the same time, they fueled the ire of his enemies. In those days, the world was divided into two camps: those who adored Einstein and those who, like the Nazis, would have done anything to see him dead.

In 1931, when Einstein was in Pasadena to deliver a lecture at the California Institute of Technology, Abraham Flexner first approached him to join the Institute for Advanced Study, which was soon to be inaugurated at Princeton University. Flexner would make the same proposal to Einstein once again, when the two men found themselves at Oxford University in 1932.

“Professor Einstein,” he said as they walked through the gardens of Christ Church College, “it is not my intention to dare to offer you a position at our institute, but if you think about it and feel that it might meet your needs, we would be more than disposed to accommodate whatever requirements you might have.” Einstein replied that he would think about it, and in early 1933 the political climate in Germany forced him to accept the offer.

By the early 1930s, members of Hitler’s party were winning more and more seats in the Reichstag. In the 1932 elections, for example, more than two hundred Nazi deputies joined the ranks of the Reichstag, which was now under the control of the artful, cagey Hermann Goering. Around that time, Einstein and his second wife, Elsa, realized that sooner or later they would have to flee Germany. A third telephone call from Abraham Flexner, this time to Einstein’s home in Caputh, in the outskirts of Berlin, convinced the couple to cross the Atlantic. Taking advantage of the new season of conferences and lectures in the United States, Einstein promised Flexner that he would pay a visit to the institute, which would allow him to finally make a decision regarding the offer. Upon leaving their home, Einstein looked at his wife’s careworn face and in the admonishing tone he reserved for truly tragic moments, he said to her: “Dreh’ dich um. Du sieht’s nie wieder.” That is, “Don’t turn around. You’ll never see it again.” In January of 1933, Einstein was at the conference in Pasadena when Hitler was named chancellor of the Reich by President Von Hindenburg. In one interview, Einstein confirmed the prediction he had recently made to his wife: “I won’t be going home.”

Taking care not to go anywhere near Germany, Albert and Elsa returned to Europe, where Einstein still had several academic commitments to fulfill. Goering, in the meantime, wasted no time in denouncing the communist conspiracy behind “Jewish science” during one of his incendiary speeches in the Reichstag, disavowing Albert Einstein as well as his life’s work. Several Nazi assault units broke into the physicist’s home in Caputh, in search of the armaments that they were certain the communists had stored there.

Einstein then paid a brief visit to the Belgian coast, and upon ensuring that Flexner was indeed prepared to agree to his conditions—an annual salary of $15,000 and a position for one of his assistants—he accepted the appointment at Princeton. On the seventeenth of October 1933, he disembarked from the steamship Westmoreland on Quarantine Island, New York, and from there he took a motorboat that whisked him away, incognito, to the New Jersey shore and then straight to the Peacock Inn, in the town of Princeton.

The new institute seemed to have been created exclusively for Einstein. In Flexner’s own words, it was a haven that would allow scholars and scientists to work “without being carried off in the maelstrom of the immediate.” Contrary to the current trend at universities all over the world, the study of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study was to be purely theoretical; no classes at all would be offered. At the institute, Einstein would have no other obligation than to think. A new koan would come to epitomize his life in the United States. The same—or maybe it was another—reporter asked the wise man:

“Professor, you have developed theories that have changed the way we see the world, a giant step forward for science. So tell us, where is your laboratory?”

“Here,” replied Einstein, pointing to the fountain pen that peeked out from his jacket pocket.

Einstein had a method, a practice he resorted to frequently which enabled him to contemplate certain scientific issues that otherwise would have been impossible to envision. This technique was known as Gedankenexperiment, or “mental experiment,” and despite its contradictory-sounding name, it was common practice in the days of ancient Greece. All modern science, especially physics, was based upon the use of practical experiments to prove hypotheses. A theory was considered valid if and only if reality did not betray it, if its predictions could be fulfilled rigorously and without exception. Nevertheless, since the close of the previous century, very few pure physicists were amused by the idea of locking themselves in laboratories to battle against increasingly sophisticated machinery that, in the end, only proved things they already knew. The gulf between the theorists and the experimental physicists grew wider and wider, fiercer even than the rift between mathematicians and engineers. Due to this mutual animosity, the two camps only made contact when the circumstances absolutely required it. Though they were, in fact, mutually dependent, they did all they could to avoid one another, inventing the most far-fetched excuses to get out of attending one another’s seminars and conferences.

One of the most important—and controversial—of Einstein’s mental experiments was the EPR Paradox of 1935, which took its name from the initials of the three scientists who worked together on the experiment: Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen. Based entirely on a mental experiment (since the instruments to prove it didn’t exist), the EPR Paradox was an attempt to refute, once again, the quantum physics that so irked Einstein—the same quantum physics he himself had helped bring about. As defended by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr in the so-called Copenhagen Interpretation, quantum mechanics posited, among other things, the notion that chance was no accident at all, but rather a perfectly integral feature of the laws of physics. Einstein, of course, could not accept this idea. “God does not play dice with the universe,” he said to the physicist Max Born, and the EPR Paradox was a way of demonstrating certain aspects of quantum mechanics that he felt were scientifically unacceptable. Bohr and his followers, in turn, insinuated that Einstein had lost his mind.

Bacon belonged, as did Einstein, to the theoretical camp. Ever since the awakening of his youthful passion for theoretical mathematics, he had done everything possible to distance himself from concrete problems, focusing instead on formulas and equations that were increasingly more abstract, and in most cases exceedingly difficult to explain in real-world terms. Rather than struggle with particle accelerators and spectroscopic methods, Bacon chose instead to hide himself away in the far more pleasant realm of the imagination. There, he never ran the risk of dirtying his hands with things like radioactive waste, or exposing himself to dangerous X rays. To carry out his research, all that was required of him were perseverance and ingenuity. It was an approach to physics that, in a way, was a lot like chess.

Princeton, despite being one of the country’s great centers of academia, was an insipid place: too small, too American, too clean-cut, and too hypocritical. And contrary to the supposed “university tradition,” or perhaps because of it, a kind of stiff formality, a sameness, an uncomfortable kind of morality seemed to infect all the relationships one might cultivate there. The university itself was known for having a history of racism and anti-Semitism. To make matters worse, people felt even less able to express any kind of natural, day-to-day happiness, what with the war raging in Europe.

In order to escape these inconveniences, Bacon convinced himself very early on that the one area in which the theoretical world was useless and perhaps even perverse was sex. Theory, when you came down to it, was just fantasy. The tragedy was that almost nobody in the town of Princeton seemed able or willing to accept this basic idea—not the dean, the ministers, the mayor, the professors’ wives, the policemen, the doctors, not even the students themselves. No, they all insisted on performing endless mental experiments on the topic, and in the most unthinkable of places: in church, in lecture halls, in the eating clubs, at family gatherings, while taking their children to nursery school, as they walked their little dogs at sunset. And just like the men at the Institute for Advanced Study, the opaline community of Princeton limited itself to thinking about the pleasures no one dared consummate. For this very reason, Bacon detested his neighbors; they were insincere, provincial, and prudish. In this matter, Bacon could not be pacified with abstraction and fantasy: no intellect—not even that of Einstein—could come close to revealing the abundant diversity of life that was the female gender. Rational thought was fine for articulating laws and theories, for formulating hypotheses and corollaries, but it could never capture the infinite array of aromas, sensations, and pure intoxication swept together in a moment of passion. In other words: Because he was utterly incapable of relating to women of his own social class, Bacon had decided to invest his money in the world’s oldest profession.

In a moment of weakness, he met Vivien. He rarely spoke with her. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her life or what she had to say—there were lots of women he cared little about yet tolerated long conversations with them. He just wanted to hold on to the idea that there was something mysterious and terrible about this woman. Her eyes, framed by a little halo that shone like a moon in eclipse, had to be hiding some kind of ancient secret, or maybe an accident or a crime, that could explain her evasive nature. Perhaps it wasn’t that at all—he never dared to ask—but he liked holding on to that illusion of living with a difficult soul; he treasured the trepidation he felt whenever he was in her presence. He envisioned Vivien, and with her he felt he could lose himself in a new, unknown land.

This was the closest he had ever come to love. Despite the passion he felt for her, however, Bacon took great pains to ensure that nobody ever caught sight of him walking through the streets of Princeton with Vivien. He always insisted on seeing her at his house, where she arrived with a ritual precision, as if offering up some kind of weekly sacrifice to the gods. Bacon, with the childish pleasure of committing a sin, of breaking an ironclad law, found himself in an emotional state the likes of which he had never known. He threw himself into proving this theory on Vivien between the sheets of his bed, with the tenacity that is the pride of the experimental physicist. Vivien, on the other hand, allowed herself to be manipulated with a serenity bordering on indolence; she had worked at a newsstand for a long time and, given all the alarming news she read daily, nothing could shock her. Vivien’s lovemaking was languorous and sweaty, like dancing to the blues. Her temperament reminded Bacon of that of a quiet little guinea pig or those calm, lazy caterpillars nestled in their moth-eaten leaves, indifferent to their predators lurking above.

As soon as she was finished undressing, Bacon would place Vivien facedown on the bed on the crisp, white sheets and turn on all the lights so he could study that optical antithesis, unbothered, for several minutes. When he was done, he would rest his body on top of hers and cover her with kisses. Every step of the way his lips tested the perfection of those beautiful little spherical equations that he knew he could never resolve. When he was through, he would turn her over as if she were a rag doll, and only then did he undress. Carefully he would separate Vivien’s thighs, and he would then nestle his face in the warm, welcoming space between her legs. This prelude was a kind of axiom from which several theorems emerged each time they came together, and this was where his analytic prowess was evident: this prelude, or groundwork, occasionally led him to Vivien’s tiny feet and, other times, to her nipples, her eyelashes, her belly button. It was more than mere lust: Bacon was studying sex in all its different incarnations, and was observing his own pleasure as it grew and evolved. In the end, the orgasm was just the logical, necessary consequence of the calculations he had mapped out earlier.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” he said to her, once he had recovered.

Maybe he did truly love her, but he just couldn’t stand the idea of her staying in his bed for very long, or having to kiss her when it was all over. By then, the heat they had created and the droplets of sweat that dotted her skin like translucent eyes made him sick—a repulsion as strong as the ecstasy he had just experienced. Suddenly, inevitably, he would become acutely aware of the animal quality of it all, and he couldn’t help imagining them as a couple of pigs rolling around in their own filth. His theory proven, he allowed Vivien just enough time to put herself back together and then he would simply ask her to leave. With the same indifference that, in some way, he sensed in her as well, he would watch her gather up her clothes and dress in silence as if watching an inanimate object or a doll. Once he was finally alone, Bacon felt nothing but sadness, quod erat demonstrandum, and usually fell into a dreamless slumber.

Despite having been raised with the proper manners of a New Jersey society boy, Bacon had made little contact with girls of his own age. The girls he always felt attracted to were, inevitably, the ones who ignored him: carefully coiffed, religious and austere, unattainably beautiful. At first, Bacon tried to act as though it didn’t bother him. To fend off potential rejection, he would tell himself, a priori, that they were all so stupid they probably thought a square root was some kind of orchid bulb. After many fruitless efforts at maintaining a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes, Bacon gave up on them, frustrated and depressed. He felt that he would never find someone who could understand, much less love him. This was the kind of thinking that led him, for the first time, to one of the non sanctos establishments that one of his loudmouth classmates had suggested he try. There he would never have to make small talk or feign interest in the weather, parties, or fancy designer dresses. According to his friend, at these places everything was reduced to a silent, discreet procedure, a release of pleasure that implied absolutely no obligations of any sort. The first time he tried it, Bacon was terrified: He tried to concentrate on mathematical formulas in an effort to hide his discomfort and to allow his body to respond the way he wanted it to. He selected a thin, timid girl—it made him feel better to think that she was even more nervous than he—who turned into an emotionless machine when she got into bed. She took her clothing off all at once, displaying a microscopic pair of nipples that seemed to protrude directly out of her chest, and which she allowed Bacon to lick briefly before she took over. When it was over, he felt no remorse, and no emptiness, either. In fact, he had rather enjoyed it. He had really enjoyed it. In fact, it had been even better than his fast-talking classmate had said it would be. This was the perfect thing for chasing away the demons of lust, for it allowed him to concentrate harder on more important things, like quantum physics. Whenever this bodily urge arose, all he had to do was lay out a few dollars. And like a true scientist—they all have a bit of the entomologist in them—he certainly appreciated the diversity. He was constantly surprised at the unbelievable variety he found from woman to woman. The smallest details became an inexhaustible source of arousal for him: a new beauty mark, a curve he had never seen before, a slightly misshapen belly button. They all filled him with a pleasure that, until now, he had only ever felt before when solving algebra problems. He explored those specimens with the eagle eye of the collector, and somehow this always prevented him from ever coming close to anything like tenderness.

For some reason, Vivien was not like the other girls. It had been several months since Bacon had first laid eyes on her brave, sad face. Later he would try to remember the exact date of their first encounter, to identify the precise starting point of their relationship, but for some reason he never managed to mentally retrieve the information. He couldn’t even remember if it had been summer or fall, or if it had been before or after his twentieth birthday. All he could remember was the distant sound of his voice when he finally spoke to that young woman who seemed little more than a girl. That day, instead of grabbing the New York Times from the pile and leaving the coins on top of some women’s fashion magazine, as he usually did, Bacon looked straight at Vivien and asked her for the paper himself. As she handed it to him, Bacon noted a stifled expression of pain in her eyes. The exchange may have lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough time for her somber, delicate face, like a pin stuck into a piece of cloth, to pierce his imagination and remain imbedded in his mind. This woman possessed a certain kind of beauty that he had never appreciated until just then. From that day onward, he would go to the newsstand every Sunday hoping to find her there and, perhaps, learn a bit more about her.

The way the young woman looked at him made him feel both uncomfortable and intrigued. One day he tried striking up a conversation with her, commenting on some aspect of current events—the war was always a good pretext—but she didn’t take the bait. All she did was smile wanly, without even opening her lips, and then returned to whatever she had been thinking about.

“Cat got your tongue?” asked Bacon in a playful tone that he immediately regretted. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Seventeen,” she responded. Her voice was low and deep.

Bacon paid for the paper and slowly walked away, as if he was waiting for her to call out to him at the last minute. She, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to have noticed the anonymous face that had just asked her age. The next day, Bacon returned. His legs trembling, he somehow managed to speak in a neutral, firm tone of voice.

“Would you like to go to the movies with me?” he asked her.

For the first time, she looked up at Bacon, displaying a set of teeth that made the newsprint in front of her look yellow and old. She watched him with imploring eyes. Was this some kind of joke?

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No.”

This scene would be repeated over and over again during the months that followed. Bacon would stop by, pay for his New York Times, and tell her about the various movies playing at the nearby theaters, in the hopes of finally eliciting a yes from her. But she always just shook her head violently from side to side, as if trying to scare away a bothersome fly. Bacon refused to be discouraged, however; from his perspective, the situation was slowly evolving into a weekly routine. He was genuinely surprised, then, when one morning, she finally granted his request. At the end of the day, he met her in front of the box office of one of the local movie theaters, a highly undesirable place, it was said. The movie was (how could he forget?) Gone With the Wind, which had just recently opened, and was the first film Bacon had ever seen in color. Later on he would remember little of the plot, having been far more interested in sneaking covert glimpses of his companion’s profile, silvery blue in the light reflecting off the movie screen. He did, however, manage to memorize both the name and the gestures of the film’s starring actress, Vivien Leigh. And that was the name with which he chose to baptize his new lady friend. Later on, she told him her real name, but he stated quite plainly that he preferred calling her Vivien. By doing this, he had invented a new creature, blessed with the qualities and characteristics that he saw fit to imbue her with.

The following Sunday they repeated the scene from the previous week, even seeing Gone With the Wind again, as if testing the full range of laws of inertia. Again, they spoke very little. It was as if they had signed a tacit agreement to spend time together, nothing else. Their first kiss took place on the way to the movies. Just like almost everything Bacon ever did, this kiss was inspired by a curiosity that was more scientific than romantic. After a few weeks, they added a twist to their incipient tradition: the small cottage in the country that was the one thing Bacons father had left him when he died. Even there, they never spoke more than they absolutely had to. But he would have liked to know, for example, if she felt the same pleasure he did, or if she was subjecting herself to this intimate physical activity just to make him happy. He really had no idea of the emotions that they felt for one another; to speak frankly and openly about their relationship, prohibited and precarious as it was, would have been an unnecessary provocation. And as the days stretched on, he slowly accepted that his relationship with Vivien could exist only by observing this vow of silence.

One day, Bacon was just returning home from a statistics class when he received an unexpected visitor: his mother, who now called herself Rachel Smith. After her husband’s death, she had become a wealthy, haughty woman. She dressed like a New Yorker: tailored black dresses, an anachronistic gamine haircut, and a grayish animal wrapped around her neck, his dead eyes a pitiable sight. Though born into middle-class America, she had managed to find her place among the local aristocracy, thanks to her second marriage. She considered herself an equal to the women around her, and she carefully noted and copied all their habits and idiosyncrasies. For a long time Bacon didn’t even notice this new attitude, until one day when she happened to unleash her venom on the city sanitation workers.

“How can you humiliate me this way?” she implored as she burst through Bacon’s front door, on the verge of tears, as her turquoise-colored purse fell upon his desk. Her tone was timid, almost inaudible, despite her worldly appearance. “I had to learn from one of my friends that instead of studying, my son uses the money he inherited from his father to go out on dates with a whore. Is this true?”

“She’s not a prostitute, Mother.”

“Don’t be coy with me, Frank.”

They argued for several minutes until, worn down by his mother’s histrionics, Bacon swore that he would stop seeing Vivien for good. Of course, he didn’t really intend to keep the promise, at least not fully. The next time he saw Vivien, he simply told her that he would rather not see her out of doors. Vivien’s eyes filled with tears when she heard this, but just as he had imagined, she said nothing. Not one single reproach or protest, just the same sadness. Nor did Vivien say anything when Bacon refused to go to the movies with her the following week. From that day on, they never went out together again. Bacon didn’t even have to explain why: Vivien knew the reason all too well, and the last thing she needed was the additional humiliation of being lied to. Finally, when Bacon mentioned something about a job in a newsstand being beneath the dignity of a girl like her, Vivien began working in a cafeteria.

It didn’t take Bacon long to realize that when you despise the woman you love, the love becomes a cruel, solitary vice. He trusted her, but he was also aware of the hatred that was slowly building up behind the wall of her submissiveness. Vivien, however, acted as though she had no idea of what was going on in her lover’s head, behaving as if nothing at all had changed between them. She continued visiting his house, twice a week at least, with the apathy of a rabbit who allows himself to be fattened up, knowing full well that the day will soon come when he will have to take his place on his master’s dining room table.

One day, at one of the little social gatherings she loved to organize, Bacon’s mother introduced her son to a perky, freckled young woman from “one of the best families in Philadelphia,” as Bacon’s mother noted with great pride. When the girl actually seemed interested in what he had to say, young Frank decided it wouldn’t be so terrible to dance with her, or tell her that he was currently unattached. Vivien didn’t even cross his mind; she had evolved into something of a sexual phantom that appeared at his bedside like a figure from one of his erotic dreams. Vivien, in fact, did materialize at Bacon’s apartment several times over the next few weeks, but she never found him there; he had failed to mention that he had made a number of dinner dates with the parents of his spectacular new girlfriend.

“Don’t leave me” Vivien said to him the next time they were together, in a quiet, firm, determined voice.

“This was going to have to end sooner or later, Vivien. I’m sorry, really I am.”

“Why?”

“There’s no other way.”

“I promise not to tell anyone about us.”

The more Vivien talked, the more Bacon despised her—and loved her, in some odd, inexplicable way.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he added, looking away. “I’m engaged.” His voice trailed off. “It couldn’t be any other way, you have to understand.”

Of course she could understand. Bacon knew she would—he could predict her reactions by now, otherwise he wouldn’t have told her, or at least not so abruptly. Perhaps Vivien would surprise him and actually get angry, and leave him for good. But Bacon suspected that she would do none of those things; he was betting that she would come back to him, and that once again they would love one another wordlessly, reverting to the same wretched habits they had maintained for so long.

“All right, Vivien. Whatever you wish.”

The Institute for Advanced Study was a moldy, dismal place. It had neither laboratories nor noisy, impertinent students, and the professional tools of its occupants were reduced to the bare minimum: a few blackboards, chalk, paper. If mental experiments were what you wanted, this was the place to perform them. There, safely tucked away behind the thick walls of Fuld Hall, some of the greatest minds in the world were at work: professors Veblen, Gödel, Alexander, Von Neumann, plus a handful of celebrated thinkers who made regular pilgrimages to the institute as a stop on the university lecture circuit. This, of course, was to say nothing of the institute’s most famous occupant, the patron saint of theoretical physics, Albert Einstein himself. Nevertheless, Bacon was bored.

Bacon had been working with Von Neumann for only three months, but he was already bothered that he hadn’t found anything that really excited him. It wasn’t that he disliked his work with the Hungarian mathematician—it was rather effortless, and after all, there was no better place to continue his education. But in his heart, he had discovered that something was pulling him away from the field of pure theory, or at least from the wordless science that was practiced at the institute. A few times, he had tried approaching the professors who gathered together for tea and cookies at three in the afternoon every day, but his attempts at striking up conversations were always frustrated by their utter lack of interest in him. Worn-out from being alone with their thoughts, they talked among themselves about such pressing scientific topics as baseball scores, the best way to acquire European wines, or the greasy quality of North American cuisine. The serious questions Bacon was trying to pose always dissolved amid a flurry of nervous titters and sudden, distracted gestures. Although he respected Bacon, Veblen limited their interactions to a condescending nod before moving away as quickly as possible. Von Neumann managed to tolerate him, as Bacon had suspected he would, but all the other scientists, the ones he scarcely knew, didn’t even acknowledge his existence.

Bacon, who was accustomed to excelling at all his academic endeavors, felt himself plummeting into a state of despondence at this lack of attention, a sensation that felt a lot like the depressions he had suffered while living with his family. In these moments, he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off somewhere else, Caltech, maybe, where at least he would have been working on more pressing issues. Despite the fact that Von Neumann had published one of the most important documents of modern physics, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, in 1932, it was all too clear that he was now primarily concerned with his game theories and, even worse, the programming of mechanical calculators. Neither of these subjects compelled Bacon in the least; his mentor’s ingenious formulations were occasionally entertaining, but they weren’t enough to sustain Bacon’s interest.

In addition to all this, Bacon’s relationship with Elizabeth was growing more and more serious with each passing day, and the prospect of a formal engagement caused him nothing less than total panic. At first, he had treated their relationship as a test—after all, this was the first time a woman from his social class had ever declared her love for him. But he never imagined that it would all happen so fast. On the other hand, there was no way he could publicly formalize his relationship with Vivien: The ensuing scandal would alienate him from everyone, even in the academic world. The brilliant future that he had laid out by joining the institute suddenly seemed like a trap, and he saw no way out. But he couldn’t give up on it, either; he had to hold out for at least a year before he could even think of going to Caltech.

“What’s wrong with you, Bacon?” Von Neumann asked him one day, blunt and direct as always. “Is something the matter? Oh, I think I know what it is. Women, right? Men are forever in torment at the hands of women. That is the quintessential problem of the age we live in, Bacon. If we took one quarter of the time we spend resolving romantic problems and applied it instead to physics or mathematics, why, scientific progress would advance in geometric proportions. But it is one of life’s great pleasures, isn’t it?”

“Pleasure and pain, Professor,” mumbled Bacon.

“Of course, of course! That’s what makes it so very fascinating! I have to confess, I also spend hours thinking about this subject. I’m a married man, you understand. You even met my wife, Klara, at the party the other day. But I’m still young. I have a right to wonder if I will ever know another woman’s body, wouldn’t you agree?” Von Neumann’s cheeks grew pink, livened by the topic of conversation. “Why don’t we have a little drink at the end of the day, to talk more? Yes, let’s do it, Bacon. In the meantime, let’s get to work.”

As the afternoon wore on, the sun transformed the red-brick exterior of the institute into a wall of fiery rose and violet, breaking through the somber cloud cover that normally settled in above the building. Once again, Von Neumann told Bacon to meet him at his home. Klara had gone out to play bridge with one of their neighbors, so they had the house to themselves and could talk freely. Bacon was beginning to feel more and more at home in that drawing room.

“When they first told me that alcohol was forbidden in the United States, I thought it was a joke,” said Von Neumann as he removed two glasses from the bar. “You can imagine how horrified I was when I found out it was true. Truly insane, those Americans. I tell you, I only accepted the position of visiting professor at the university under the condition that I could return to Europe each summer and replenish this drought.” He took out a bottle of bourbon and expertly poured the honey-colored liquid into two tall glasses. “Thank God they realized their mistake. Water? I take mine neat. All right, here you are … So, tell me, Bacon, what’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know,” Frank lied. “I guess it would be different if …” He tried to correct himself: “It’s not that I’m unhappy at the institute, Professor, it’s just that I’m afraid that it might not be the right place for me right now.”

“Well, where else would you want to be?”

“That’s my problem. On one hand, I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be. Everyone is here. But for that reason, I get the feeling that my own work will never be very important at the institute.”

The professor shook his head, as if he was sincerely distressed. “I’ve always said that one’s mathematic capacity begins to decline after age twenty-six, so let’s see, you have how many years left?”

“Four.”

“Four! It’s terrible, isn’t it? Well, anyway, I am thirty-eight, though I think I hide it rather well.” He took a few sips from his glass, then wiped his lips with a linen napkin. “Nevertheless, I get the sense that the institute isn’t the only thing on your mind. You’ve got a problem with the girls, don’t you?”

Bacon was grateful for his tutor’s advice, but he wasn’t altogether convinced that he wanted to discuss his private life with him. The truth was, he didn’t like discussing his private life with anyone.

“So tell me, what’s the matter?”

“Well, it’s about two women….”

“I knew it! See what a good nose I’ve got, Bacon? People think that mathematicians are completely out of touch with the real world, but it’s just not true. Sometimes we are even better observers than regular people. We see things that others don’t.” He paused. “Do you love them both?”

“In a way, yes. I’m not sure. One of them is my fiancée. She’s a fine girl, very sweet.”

“But you don’t love her.”

“No.”

“So then marry the other one.”

“I can’t do that, either. I … I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you, Professor.” Bacon took a gulp of bourbon to fortify himself. “The other girl is very different. I don’t even know if I truly know her, much less love her. We barely even talk.”

“That’s a problem, that’s for sure … you’ve got a real problem on your hands,” Von Neumann mused. “Do you see how, once again, I was right? These are the issues that affect us all the time, even if we can’t admit it to ourselves. But don’t think that mathematics doesn’t come in handy at times like this.” The professor finished his drink and immediately poured himself another. Aside from his one sip, Bacon had barely touched his. “That’s why I’m so taken with game theory. Or did you just think it was some eccentricity of mine, passing the time with heads and tails and poker games? No, Bacon, what makes these games truly fascinating is that they mimic the behavior of men. And they serve, above all, to clarify the nature of three very similar issues: the economy, the war, and love. I’m not kidding. These three activities effectively represent all the battles we men wage against one another. In all three, there are always at least two wills in conflict. Each one attempts to take the greatest possible advantage of the other, at the least possible risk to himself.”

“Like in your war example.”

“Exactly, Bacon. Now, recently I have been more worried about the economic application of this theory, but your case would be a fine exercise to test. Let’s see. There are three players: you and your two girlfriends, whom we will call—in the interest of discretion—A and B. You will be C. Now you tell me what each person wants.”

Bacon’s hands grew clammy, as if he were preparing for confession. “The first one, the one you call A, is my fiancée. She wants us to get married. She’s always hinting at it and pressuring me—it’s all she thinks about. Girl B, on the other hand, only wants to be with me, but that, obviously, will be impossible if I agree to marry A.”

“Understood. And you, what do you want?”

“That’s the worst part of it. I don’t know. I think I’d like to keep things just as they are right now. I don’t want things to change.”

Von Neumann got up from his chair and began to pace around the room. He clapped his hands, as if he were applauding something, and then contemplated Bacon with a paternal, ever so slightly condescending look in his eyes.

“I’m afraid that you are trying to bet on inaction, perhaps the most dangerous thing you can do in a case like this. You can try, of course, but even the laws of physics would be against you on this one. In games, one always attempts to move ahead, to advance to new objectives, and slowly destroy the adversary. That’s how your two women are behaving. Both of them are trying to corner you, bit by bit, while you simply assume a defensive stance.” Von Neumann returned to his chair and rested his fat hand upon Bacon’s shoulder. “As your friend, I have to warn you that your strategy is doomed to fail. Sooner or later, one of them is going to wear you down. In fact, they don’t even realize it but they are actually competing with one another. You’re not a player in this, boy! You’re only the prize!”

“So what should I do, then?”

“Oh, dear Bacon. I’m only referring to game theory, not real life. Reason is one thing—as you so astutely observed in our last discussion—but human will is an entirely different animal. All I can say is that if I were in your shoes, there would only be one thing to do.”

“And are you going to tell me what that is, Professor?”

“I’m sorry, Bacon. I’m a mathematician, not a psychologist.” From somewhere deep beneath Von Neumann’s flushed countenance, an almost imperceptible, feline smile began to emerge across his lips.

Bacon knew that Einstein, ever since his Berlin days, loved to go on walks. Every day he would set out on the path between his house and the institute, and he particularly enjoyed chatting with a walking companion. The talks never lasted more than a few moments, but his companions treated them as if they were precious pearls of wisdom. Many illustrious physicists visited Princeton specifically to catch the professor on one of these walks, because it was during those moments that his mind was at its most relaxed and fertile.

One day Bacon decided to wait for Einstein outside of his office, cubicle 115 of Fuld Hall, hidden behind the staircase landing. He was scared, secretly embarrassed, like someone who chases after a movie star in the hopes of getting an autograph. That was the reason he was in Princeton, after all—to get to know men like Einstein, not to listen to Von Neumann’s eccentric psychology, and certainly not to put up with the indifference of his older colleagues.

Just like the journalists who had dedicated themselves to popularizing—or, rather, misinterpreting—Einstein’s theories, Bacon quickly learned the meaning of relativity. The seconds crawled by, agonizingly slowly; it was as if all the underground arteries connecting the universe were somehow, maddeningly, all blocked up. He had been waiting for about forty minutes now. Like a spy or a sentinel, or someone waiting for a miracle to happen, he maintained his vigil, waiting for the physicist to emerge from his office. Each time someone walked past him, Bacon waved hello timidly, and then raised his hand to his head as if to indicate that he had finally remembered the reason that had brought him there, and then walked in the opposite direction until he was certain the coast was clear. He felt like some kind of inept bodyguard, the anachronistic sentry of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Finally the door opened, and Einstein emerged, walking straight toward the exit. He wore a black suit and his hair, Bacon noticed, wasn’t nearly as white or as messy as it appeared in photographs. This was the moment he had been waiting for. But at the last minute Bacon faltered, and that one moment was all it took. Einstein scurried past him down the staircase. The great physicist hadn’t even noticed Bacon as he ran downstairs; he simply went on his way, indifferent to that dim shadow. By the time Bacon realized his mistake, it was too late. The professor was already out of the building. There was no way he could run and catch him by surprise; the idea was to make the encounter appear casual. If it seemed premeditated, Einstein would just get rid of him as quickly as possible. Bacon was furious at himself, but he was not about to give up so quickly. In an almost dreamlike state, Bacon began to follow Einstein—at a prudent distance, of course—digging deep into his coat pockets, leaving Fuld Hall behind.

Determined and giddy, Bacon was barely conscious of what he was doing, and of what an absurd endeavor it was. He was too focused on hiding behind the cars and ash trees that lined the streets to realize exactly what he was getting himself into. As Einstein advanced down the street, Bacon followed him. Finally, Einstein arrived at number 112 Mercer Street, where he lived with his secretary, Helen Dukas. Upon seeing Einstein disappear into his house, Bacon breathed a sigh of relief. Using his shirtsleeve, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead and headed back toward the institute.

The next day, Bacon was prepared to make up for his previous ineptitude. Today he would face Einstein for real, and if the circumstances allowed, he would confess his earlier conduct. It was said that the professor had a good sense of humor, and perhaps this would be the best way to break the ice with him. Just after noon, Bacon returned to his spot, like a soldier determined to fulfill his mission. Only moments after Bacon had reassumed his position at the stairwell, Einstein emerged from his office, once again at full speed. Bacon was unprepared for this surprise attack and, once again, the professor sped past him toward the exit, barely noticing Bacon.

His pursuit of the professor eventually evolved into yet another one of his daily routines, just like the calculations he executed for Professor Von Neumann, the phone calls he received from Elizabeth, and Vivien’s evening visits. Even if he were bold enough to confess it to anyone, who would believe him? That he was pursuing Einstein, like a spectrum, a wave that kept trying to move closer to the author of relativity? Out of the question. In the meantime, Bacon worked on his technique; as time went by he felt surer and surer of himself, certain that he was becoming nearly invisible…. Slowly, the walk toward 112 Mercer Street became as natural as afternoon tea, or the solution of a couple of matrices; he did it out of necessity, or like a bad habit. Einstein almost always walked home alone, although every so often someone would join him—old or young, famous or unknown, each occupied the spot that was supposed to belong to Bacon, the most devoted of his disciples.

Only once did Einstein notice him. A thick fog hung in the air that lay like a greasy film covering the faces of the passersby with an unbecoming, yellowish tint. The birds’ chirping rang through the air like a fire alarm signal sent out from one nest to the other. Suddenly, without any warning, Einstein turned on his heels and fixed his gaze squarely on Bacon, who was now frightened as a deer. It looked as though his sophomoric game was up. Bacon had lost.

“Do you work at the institute?” Einstein said upon recognizing him.

Perhaps this was the moment he had been waiting for, Bacon thought: the chance to initiate a friendship, albeit distant, with the man whose story he had followed more than any other, and to whom he felt connected by a profound, almost mysterious sense of awe and admiration.

“Yes, I do,” Bacon replied, breathlessly awaiting the professor’s next pronouncement, as if hanging on to the words of an oracle.

“It’s cold,” exclaimed Einstein, dazed.

That was all he said. Nothing more, no revelation, no prophecy. He didn’t even ask Bacon’s name. He bent his head slightly, as if to say good-bye, and continued on his way alone, absent, beneath the weak light whose structure intrigued him so. Now—finally!—Bacon could boast to the rest of the world that yes, he had received a dose of the genius’s wisdom, and he would treasure those marvelous words as if God himself had bellowed them: It’s cold. Bacon laughed to himself, still trembling, and waited for Einstein’s gray silhouette to recede, like the brilliant glow of the stars which he spoke of so eloquently. The next day, Bacon resumed his pursuit of the professor, but now with the serenity of a man who had completed his mission.