|
|
(The following excerpts are from the first six chapters, consisting of 32 pages out of this 440 page novel. Find out why Leah falls 200 feet from the Eiffel Tower and lives.) A Note for the reader: This is a story infused with a moral dimension.
Meaning does not lie exposed on the surface but submerged. It waits for the reader who has ears to hear the message, which may or may not come.
If it does, an insight will reveal itself to stir up the unconscious morality denoting the sanctity and essence of human life. Order direct, or amazon.com
The Originators — a novel
by Charles Schwartz
Part I
Prologue
Paris, 1884
Three darkly clad figures stood around an empty field next to the river on the Champ de Mars. The cold was bracing, although the wind had died down since dawn. They paced the field, looking for something that would tell them that this was the right spot.
The tall one looked up at the sky, noting the cumulus clouds that floated past and bumped into each other. He bent down and picked up a handful of dirt, then poured it into a small glass case. He lifted the case full of dirt up over his head into the air. Ten seconds later, a fork of lightning streaked down through the sky and struck the box. The impact made the tall one stumble backward. The glass case glowed a metallic blue, the dirt having been blasted out by the electricity. The other two figures, who had been watching this scene, briefly nodded to each other as the third regained his footing.
A little to the east, German and Austrian engineers tinkered with their gasoline-powered carriages. A little to the west, Americans and recent American immigrants tinkered with their understanding of electricity.
_________
Chapter 1 New York, 1889 Hyim Hopewell never knew his father to be a meticulous man. Ezra Hopewell’s drawing room was usually cluttered with papers, opened and unopened packages from all corners of the globe, and all manner of new-fangled gadgets. Ezra’s first love, his late wife Harriet, had introduced him to his second love, the new and sometimes unbelievable world of electrodynamics.
A diamond merchant by trade, the elder Hopewell kept track of new developments in electrical phenomena by way of various scientific journals, published in French, Swedish, and Hungarian. Although he could read French and Swedish, Hungarian was still a mystery, so his subscription to Mathematikai és Természettudományi Értesítő was a source of private amusement to the son, who didn’t tell his father that this journal had little to do with electrical experiments.
Hyim sat at the other side of his father’s desk, eyes fixed on a small gadget that sat on top of a stack of papers. Aside from the danger of such a device that spontaneously produced a spark every now and then being among paper and wood, Hyim had little desire to disturb it, but merely watched for its effect like a cat watching a moth flitting around a gaslamp.
Already an accomplished physicist, having received what he called his “first” advanced degree from Harvard by the age of 20, Hyim was the first Hopewell in the sparsely documented 3,000 year history of the family to get an advanced degree from a university.
“Harvard, at that,” his father would say proudly. “A Jew at Harvard! Hah!”
Ezra was fond of saying things like that, about being a “proud Jew” and his son being a “brilliant Jew.” But Hyim knew better. His father was not a religious man—their family had not been what anyone would call devout since great great great grandfather Hiram L. Kovacs fought on the American side in the War of Independence. This history had been told to him from early on.
“Son...” the elder Hopewell began. This made Hyim even more bemused than he already was.
“Son, you’re getting married tomorrow,” he continued, “and there are a few things you should know about being married. Now... this is difficult for me to say. You know that I approve of Leah. She is proper wife material...”
“Dad...”
“Nevertheless, there are a few things you should know about women...”
As his father went on, Hyim found his attention slowly turning toward that small sparking gadget sitting on a pile of papers. It was an enclosed, oblong piece of glass with dark metal squares at either end, probably magnets. There was no source of power, as far as he could see, but it managed a spark all the same. The first time he saw it, it startled him.
“... when your mother and I were married. She was from a good family, you know. They were Sephardic Jews from Portugal by way of Brazil and the Netherlands...”
After the spark, some kind of gas inside the glass oblong slowly changed from a blue color, the color of the spark, to completely transparent, at which point it would spark again, filling the oblong once again with a bluish haze.
“... the marriage bed, I can tell you. That got me in trouble the first time. It’s just not polite, apparently.”
In his reverie over the gadget, Hyim became aware of a palpable silence.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Of course.”
“That young Leah of yours. Are there any illnesses that run in her family?”
“Come on now.”
“I’m just concerned for the grandchildren. It’s not every day that my only son ties himself to a woman. The family, they aren’t from money, are they?”
Hyim exhaled audibly. He loved his father, but there was always something about the father that was too practical and analytic, almost cold. “Not as such,” the son said. “You’ve met them; they’re nice people.”
“Oh, yes. The Sterns.” The father said their name with emphasis, not quite derisively, but with just enough of an effect to give the son something to think about. “He’s, what, a grocer?”
“He sells lamps,” Hyim laughed. “Oil and kerosene.”
“Yes, the lamp peddler,” the father said sarcastically. “I suppose his family went to the CC’s?”
“It’s not old money. They’re not wealthy perhaps by your standards...”
The father put his hand up. “But this is not a conversation about money. I really don’t care where this girl comes from. All I want to ask you is if you are happy.”
Spark.
“I am.”
“I see. Well, she’s a capital girl. A nice, proper girl. Treat her well, and... and, uh... well, you’ll be happy, I suppose.”
“All right, Dad,” the son said, still bemused. He often wondered what his mother and father’s relationship was like, what their lives had been like before he was born and shortly afterward. Many families he knew had six or seven children or more. Leah herself had two sisters and four brothers. Why did his parents decide to have only one son? Or did his siblings all die at a young age? It was something that he had always wanted to ask, but it seemed to be a sore point, so he never pressed it. The father never seemed to have gotten over the death of the mother, always having a wistful expression whenever she was mentioned.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Ezra said suddenly. “Why France? Why not San Francisco or Siam?”
“I want to see this tower they’ve put up along the Seine. It’s supposed to be very impressive and very controversial, a real feat of engineering. I want to see it up close. And, of course, I’ve managed to convince Leah. She wouldn’t mind visiting, either.”
“Capital! Capital!” the father said, a little dismissively. Then he paused and sighed, choosing his words carefully. “You must be cautious in Europe. They’re not as tolerant of us over there as they are over here. There’s a lot of... hatred in the world. We’re blamed for a lot of the world’s problems. You don’t know what it means yet.”
“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry so much.”
“Just be careful. Make a promise to an old man.”
“If it will make you feel better. But I’m not sure what I’m promising.”
The father smiled. “Oh, and one other thing. I got you a present. I wasn’t going to tell you this until later, but I might as well tell you now. When you get back, you’ll have a house to come back to, fully furnished, fully paid for. I spent months looking for a place that had enough room for a laboratory.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Somebody, one of our American presidents, once said, ‘I study war so that my son can study architecture so that his son can study poetry.’ Well, I’m almost done with my studies. And I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. I don’t want you to have a vocation, Hyim. You’re too smart for that. You’re smarter now than your father ever was. But we live in a fine country. The finest in the world, in my opinion. All I want is for you to make this country better. So I’m giving you access to my personal accounts. Your name will be right under mine.”
“That’s awfully generous of you, Dad. But I thought I was going to make my own way in the world.”
“If you like. But I wanted to give you the comfort of not having to work in order to live. And you need the trappings of... of comfort. I’m recommending that you take Li-Yan’s son into your employment.”
“Li-Don? What do I need with a manservant?”
Spark.
“You would be surprised how often one comes in handy. Besides, you can afford it now. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate having a butler like Li-Yan. You’ll understand it one day. For now, I would like to encourage you to employ Li-Yan’s son as a favor to me.”
Li Yan’s son, Li-Don, was Hyim’s same age. They grew up together and knew each other well. Although they were expected to have—and had—different circles of friends, they were always great friends at the house. Li-Yan was always very protectively secret about his family to the outside world. But his wife, Mei-Gao had been like a second mother to Hyim after his own mother died. He and Li-Don were very much like brothers.
It would be very strange to order around a family friend like his father ordered around Li-Yan.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” Hyim said.
“Don’t dismiss having a traveling companion.”
“I’m going to be with my wife!”
“Now, now. Don’t take this too seriously. Li-Don is a very intelligent young man and can do things that... you don’t—let’s say—have an interest in.”
Having a third party along wherever he went made Hyim nervous, although if it had to be someone, Li-Don would be pleasant enough to have around.
“You wouldn’t be trying to spy on me, would you?”
“Come on now. I may have a rich son, but I’m not worried about how he spends his money. Speaking of which... Have you made any, um... work commitments?”
The son relaxed. “No. Nothing yet. I understand Princeton is looking for young people like myself, physics professors for the tenure track. But I haven’t even made inquiries.”
“Princeton, eh?” Ezra smiled. “That’s in New Jersey, as I understand it. Oh, well, I guess you can’t live your children’s lives for them.” The father held his hand out for the son. “I’m a lonely old man, Hyim,” he said. “Don’t tarry too long overseas.”
Hyim was feeling a bit sorry for his father. He had made untold millions of dollars working as a diamond broker; he had more money than he knew what to do with. But he was truly alone. Of course, there was Li-Yan and his wife, Mei-Gao. But they were more like family friends. Ezra never remarried after his wife died, for reasons that Hyim could only guess.
Hyim’s mother died years ago, when he was only five. Hyim remembered her like she was etched in glass. First standing in front of him with a cup of hot cocoa, then lying down, in bed with a sallow fever on her face. Then, nothing. Her death didn’t mean that much to him when it happened. To a young child, she had only left the house. She had left hundreds of times before that—to the store, to her sister’s house in Rochester, to many different places.
But when Hyim turned six, he was still waiting for her to come back, still waiting for his cup of hot cocoa. The memory was so real, and he could see her even now, could smell the kitchen and the faint scent of burnt sauces on the stove.
Spark.
“What is that little thing?” Hyim said, pointing to the glass oblong.
Ezra picked up the glass oblong, surreptitiously wiping a tear from just under his eye. “I haven’t the faintest idea. A colleague of mine sent it to me a few weeks ago. He said he found it in Budapest. I don’t know who made it or even how it works. But every five minutes and 38 seconds, it makes a little tiny electrochemical pulse. Fascinating little object. You can have it if you want it.”
Hyim picked it up, expecting it to be heavy. But it was lighter than a fountain pen, despite being many times larger. The gas slowly changed from the thick blue smoke inside the glass to transparent. While he was mesmerized by the process, the father handed him a sealed envelope.
“Are you going to Amsterdam?” the father asked.
“I hadn’t planned on it. We were just going to stay in Paris for a while.”
“Well, if you would, I would like you to make a special trip to deliver this message for me to a colleague. It’s important that you deliver it in person. It involves some crucial business.”
“Why don’t you just use the telegraph? It would be there in hours, not weeks.”
“This is much too important to let it be seen by anyone else. Anyone else. Do you understand? Now, the man’s name is Brightferry. Sylwyn Brightferry. It’s very important that you deliver it to him by yourself.”
“By myself? Well, what’s all this? Why all the intrigue?”
“There’s no intrigue here. Well, not much anyway. But my competitors would love to get hold of my information. It’s very new and speculative. They would gladly bribe the telegraph operators to get what I have here. I hate to involve you in my business, you know that. But you’re going anyway.”
“All right. If it’s that important.”
“And Hyim,” the father said with a sudden seriousness. “Take care of yourself. Promise me.”
“Yes, father.”
___________
Leah Stern was a bright, attractive Radcliffe girl. Passing her on the street, however, one might not guess she was the most intelligent person within shouting distance. She had a prim and prudent air about the way she conducted herself, and her choice of fashion might give the impression of upper-class snobbery and closed-mindedness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Her family came from the distressed Polish farmers who had fled one of the waves of anti-Semitism that swept over Europe. She was part of the first generation of Poles born in New York, and her father was fortunate enough to have invested in a small and modestly successful metalworks, though he still sold lamps and lanterns on the street because he loved working with people. All of Leah’s siblings had graduated from the free CCNY system, but she insisted on going to Radcliffe. It was something that a father could not deny his youngest daughter.
She was a paradox to Hyim. She was a very proud woman, yet her humility was endearing. She was a tenacious debater when it came to politics, yet she was gracious in social situations around people who—in his opinion—did not deserve such treatment. She studied French without a real desire to go France. They met at one of the various cotillions between their two colleges, and continued to meet in gradually more and more informal settings. Leah liked to say he would have been expected to wait for her in her father’s sitting room, discussing the wholesale lamp oil trade, had they not been away from home together.
She stood at the railing of the Rotterdam II with her new husband (Hyim liked hearing that word, husband, more than he thought he would), looking out over the calm North Atlantic, the hair underneath her hat blowing every which way in the wind. The frantic wedding was behind them, their families had finished exchanging stilted and uncomfortable conversation, and everyone was now back at home, safe from each other until there was another reason to get together.
“It’s strange for me,” she said. “When I was a girl, all I heard was how terrible it was in Europe, how awful the people were.”
“We won’t go all the way to Warsaw.”
“It’s not just that. It’s Europe. It’s the Old World. The people there don’t care if you think you’re a person, they only care if you’re the right sort of person. Your family has been in America for generations; you don’t know.”
“I read the newspapers.”
“Typical American response.”
She had no trace of a Polish accent. As her parents explained to Hyim, she had started affecting a “theater-style” American accent after seeing H.M.S. Pinafore at the Odeon when she was 12. It had affected her deeply in ways she couldn’t quite explain. What she did understand, however, was that the American language spoken on stage was nothing like the American spoken in her neighborhood in lower Manhattan.
“She walked around like little Miss Pinafore,” her father said. “Showing how much she could speak like those spoiled little shiksas uptown. No offense.”
Her family spoke Yiddish to each other, often loudly. Hyim knew some of the vocabulary, but their conversations were a mystery. They were very polite to him, but they didn’t care for his father, who seemed a little too much like the off-putting nobility who forced them out of Poland.
But though Leah’s father liked Hyim, no one was more shocked when he showed interest in her. Hyim could see it on the old man’s face and the way he shook hands a little too vigorously and a little too long. Leah was the youngest of seven children, the rest having been married off long before. She was the precious baby, arriving unexpectedly after her siblings were already grown and were contributing to the workforce.
Hyim was struck by her independence and fiery spirit, qualities lacking in other girls who had given him attention. He first noticed her at a mixer while she was just outside the front door of a church hall, giving a small lecture to a group of girls about how to behave around “those Harvard boys”—so that they wouldn’t be an embarrassment to the female gender. She didn’t see him smiling at her juxtaposition of classical rhetoric and modern behavior.
He was a fresh graduate with his Bachelor’s degree in his back pocket. Literally. He had been carrying the sheet of paper around for weeks. He had come with some of his school friends, taking a good ribbing because he didn’t participate in their drinking games—although alcohol was not allowed at the event, that didn’t stop them—a seventeen-year-old among men in their 20s.
When she dismissed her classmates after her Stern lecture on males, she stayed outside, alone, breathing deeply.
“Excuse me, Miss,” he said, coming out from behind a column.
“Yes? Oh, I didn’t see you there. You shouldn’t be sneaking around a place like this; people will think you have dishonorable intentions.”
“Not... not at all, Miss. My name is Hopewell. I wasn’t sneaking around. I just heard your speech. I thought it was very well contrived.”
“Well, Mr. Hopewell, I would thank you if I didn’t know you were spending your time eavesdropping on innocent girls.”
Little did Leah know she would fall helplessly in love with him because of his inquisitive nature and his appreciation for intellect. And, much as she wouldn’t like to admit it to him, the cut of his figure—fit from years of competitive crew and fencing—and to his bright smile made her legs feel weak.
Here it was, three years later, and she was with him, next to him, being his wife. “I can’t believe we’re actually here,” she said. “Sometimes you plan for something and it seems so far off that you start to make the planning a part of your life. And when you reach the goal it’s just so... unreal.”
Hyim knew that they were on their way to the part of the world that had essentially thrown her family away. He felt this apprehension in her. His father’s admonition about the way Jews were treated had affected him more than he realized. Before this, never thought of himself as a Jew unless someone else pointed it out to him, and now he was sure that they would.
They watched New York fade into the morning mists of the Atlantic, then spent a few more hours on deck watching the sea until they couldn’t resist each other anymore. Decorum dictated that they do little more than hold hands in public, but the night before, in a hotel room in New York, they had each discovered new worlds with each other. A normally impatient woman, Leah kept still while Hyim’s hands trembled unlacing the back of her honeymoon gown, she let them fumble and slip—stopping and starting—with the patience of a mirror, reflecting his own love back at him.
That first night they were both filled with nervous energy, but despite the conscientious efforts of their parents and friends to educate them about intercourse, they discovered that they knew next to nothing about the mechanics of how it worked. They sat apart on the bed, looking at each others’ naked bodies, expecting something to happen. Leah was a strange land of beauty, with a beguiling topography that Hyim didn’t quite understand. They touched each other hesitantly and offered their own theories about what might be the best course of action. But then something did happen; it was organic and smooth—all too quickly and with very little fanfare, but it happened nonetheless. And then they understood.
Hyim was a little queasy at the sight of blood and was unable to speak, but Leah comforted him. “I’ve been told my whole life that being with a man is illicit,” Leah told him. “That I should guard my chastity with my life. But now I see what this marriage business is all about. We’ve been sanctioned to satisfy each other’s lusts. Encouraged, even. This is how society can manage its civil exterior. This is how we give in to our desires without fear of retribution or shame. It’s a monde á deux. We are free to be ourselves behind our doors, regardless of what society expects in front of them.”
“Our animal selves,” Hyim said, finally.
“This is the secret of the subjugation of women,” she said. “Not out there, but in here, where men actually start to believe in their superiority.”
“Or inferiority.”
Regardless of how much his wife tried to make sex political, Hyim couldn’t restrain himself around her.
___________________
On the eve of their voyage to Europe, Hyim’s recurring nightmare appeared. He is alone, standing in the middle of a forest in an lightning storm. Trees are struck by the lightning and fall around him as he tries to run away. But the storm follows him, striking down parts of the forest. The noise is deafening, but he can still hear the crunching of his running footsteps on the forest floor. That’s the sound he remembered vividly, the leaves underneath his feet. He couldn’t remember how old he was when it started or why. The dream haunted him his entire life and he woke up sweating and exhausted many times.
“What is it?” Leah asked, waking up next to him in the middle of the night.
He was sitting up, his palms sweating and clasped together behind his head. He was in an unfamiliar place and the room was moving slightly, the walls making tiny creaking noises. He realized he was aboard a ship... headed for Europe. It was the beginning of their married life. And though they had known each other for years, there were still many things they didn’t know about each other. He looked around. The darkened room, with a tiny bit of light from the stars coming through the porthole, was altogether unfamiliar, though he knew what it looked like and could picture how it looked during the day. Then the figure of Leah, holding his shoulder with a look of genuine concern on her face.
“It’s just a dream,” he said. “A childish nightmare. There’s no need to worry.”
“I’ll worry when I want to, Hy.”
“It’s nothing.”
“I watched you sleep. It’s not nothing. You’re not alone anymore, so there’s no reason to dismiss me like that.”
“Listen. I have a certain dream from time to time. It’s very childish, really. Just myself alone in the forest in a lightning storm. It’s just something that happens.”
“All right. As long as you’re all right, that’s all I care about.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “This living arrangement is going to take some getting used to,” he said. Then he smiled and they both went back to sleep.
___________________
Though Hyim and Li-Don were the same age, Li-Don seemed younger to people who saw them together. Maybe because it was difficult for people to gauge the age of someone of a different race—but it was probably because he was only five feet tall. Hyim attributed a quiet dignity to his friend that he might or might not have had.
Li-Don had been on the boxing team at Harvard. It took a while before the other members on the team warmed up to the idea of a Chinaman in their midst. Li-Don, however, was the only one who could qualify at featherweight, and this alone made him quickly popular with the team. The strings that Ezra Hopewell pulled for his son he also pulled for his butler’s son—and everyone seemed to know this, which kept Li-Don from demonstratively celebrating his wild success in the ring.
Many of the undergraduates in Li-Don’s class refused to talk to him or even associate with him. He once confided in Hyim that he did not know if it was because he was a Chinaman or because his ticket had been punched.
But regardless of anything else that might have distracted him, he gained his bachelor’s degree in world history. And even though the provost refused to shake hands with him during the graduation ceremony, Li-Don Wei proudly received his diploma, which he carried with him wherever he went.
Hyim thought it was not only odd to be telling Li-Don what to do on the trip—carry luggage, make reservations, keep the accounts in order, etc.—but it was also odd that his manservant held such a distinguished degree. His childhood friend, who now knew more about classical civilizations than anyone he knew, was now his secretary.
In truth, Li-Don liked just being around Hyim because of their philosophical discussions. They were both outsiders in society, in a way, and it was comforting for each of them having someone else who knew what that was like.
________________
Standing on the railing with his bride gave Hyim some comfort on the second day out, but the thick clouds overhead reminded him of his recurring nightmare.
The seating for breakfast was almost over. They had awakened up early but couldn’t make it out of the room without reminding themselves why they were on a honeymoon. Hyim’s nightshirt sustained a rip up one of the seams.
They quickly made themselves presentable and headed for the dining room. On the way, they met Li-Don, who was coming back. He gave them a small smile. Li-Don had been giving them knowing looks since Hyim had asked him to accompany them to Paris.
“Come join us for breakfast,” Hyim said cheerfully.
Li-Don chuckled as he passed them by. “I’ve already been and gone. You had best hurry, Mr. Hopewell. They will be closing the kitchen in a few minutes.” He headed back for his room, next to theirs.
Leah had been wary of Li-Don, at first. She had never seen someone whose family was from the Far East, and his angular face that held rounded eyes and nose made her feel uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t explain. Later, she met his family, and as they got to know each other, they became friends also—although in a more formal sense.
“You must join us sometime for a meal,” she said to him.
He touched the bill of an invisible cap and politely walked on.
The Hopewells made it in time for breakfast and were one of the few people left. Leah was out of breath. A waiter was pouring their coffee when Hyim felt a slap on his shoulder.
“Well, if it isn’t Pliny the younger,” said a familiar voice. Hyim turned around to see Jimmy Primerhaven, one of his Physics colleagues from Harvard Arts & Sciences. His hair was a little longer than before, and he was dressed better, but otherwise he looked exactly the same—an inquisitive pointed face. He, like Hyim, kept no facial hair, which made him look younger than he actually was.
“You old dog,” Jimmy said. “Or should I say, young dog. But, lo! What is this beauty braving the seas with this old dog? James Harrison Primerhaven of the Middlebury Primerhavens, m’lady.” He affected a false aristocratic air as he took Leah’s hand.
“Imagine us meeting on the same ship,” Hyim said. “I’d like you to meet my wife. Leah, this is Jimmy, a fellow student.”
“Please,” Jimmy said. “Fellow student hardly covers it. Mrs. Hopewell, this man is a genius. Your husband is practically a legend. I can only hope to grasp the things his mind has already put together.”
“What takes you across the Atlantic, Mr. Primerhaven?” Leah asked.
“I’m going to Germany to see if they’ll take me at the Heidelburg Institute.”
“Jimmy here wants to be the next Isaac Newton,” Hyim said.
“Yes, you know, the seventh one, the one after Faraday.” He sat down at their table, grabbing a biscuit from Hyim’s plate. “This man,” he started, pointing at Hyim, “this young man, this boy, is the reason that I graduated.”
“Is that a fact?” Leah said.
“I figured that if a strapping young man such as this can slog through the horrendous swamp that is the Harvard Physics program, then certainly I can do it. You see, I was inspired by example. Do you know what your husband’s doctoral thesis was on?”
“I must say I have no idea,” Leah said. “Nor would I understand it if you told me.”
“It’s not incomprehensible at all, my dear. The laws of thermodynamics are readily absorbed by a ready populace.”
“Please,” Hyim said. “No thermodynamics before breakfast.”
“Do not worry, Mrs. Hopewell, five out of six graduate faculty couldn’t understand it either.”
“Fortunately for my doctorate, the sixth faculty member was my graduate advisor,” Hyim said. “He was more open-minded.”
“Consider your cup of coffee my dear,” James went on, grabbing another biscuit from Hyim’s plate. “Thermodynamics says that there is no chance of keeping it hot indefinitely without doing something to it, like getting more hot coffee or putting a flame under it. But imagine if we could build a coffee cup that has no opening, but contains this very same coffee, and is airtight and perfectly insulated. Then we can keep it hot indefinitely.”
“But we can’t construct something like that, can we?” Leah asked, playfully.
“No. Sadly. There’s no such thing as perfect insulation. But imagine if there is some way that we can build it. Now imagine that the coffee grounds that invariably occur at the bottom of your cup are arranged in a certain way, let’s say in the shape of the letter ‘W’. Thermodynamics says that those coffee grounds will likely be in every other conceivable combination between ‘W’ and randomness—except ‘W’—before coming to an ideal state. But, hold up now, not so fast. Our hero here says that in a perfectly insulated environment, there is no such thing as an ideal state. Instead, the randomness will cause the ‘W’ to appear again and again. In fact, entire alphabets will appear from time to time, even recurring with numbers and symbols and other patterns.”
“But, like you say, there is no such thing.”
“Well, sure. But that’s neither here nor there. Now imagine that we are inside your open-mouthed coffee cup again. We put the cup on top of a flame to keep it hot. That is, as heat escapes into the air, we replace it with the exact same amount of heat from the burner.”
“That makes sense.”
“Of course it does. It takes a genius such as myself to explain this. Now, this heat escapes in a random way—out the top of the cup, or through the porcelain—into the air. But we are replacing the heat in a very controlled manner. Our hero here argues that we can not only simulate the conditions of our previously mentioned perfectly insulated cup—allowing the grounds to change their positions into the various letters—but we can also influence which letters the grounds make. We can even control how the heat escapes, making the air itself create those same letters for us.”
“You just lost me, Mr. Primerhaven.”
“This is where we lose our faculty also, as it were.”
“Besides,” Hyim said, “the whole thing is finished anyway. I understand Poincaré is going to publish his own volume about recurrence, which will trump mine when it comes out in the fall.”
“Bad luck, old boy. But at least it validates your point. This can only make you more popular.”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. It’s all so theoretical. Mathematics. Vectors. Molecules. Atoms. Every time I think about my studies I come back to how much I really want to do experiments.”
“You can’t mean chemistry! My God, man! Chemistry is more art than science. You want to see pretty colors and strong smells, you go to a chemist.” Jimmy couldn’t help laughing at his own joke.
“I was thinking more of electromagnetism.”
“Once again, your head’s in the clouds, old boy.” Once again, Jimmy unsuccessfully forced back a laugh.
“Don’t you have a lady waiting?” Hyim said, feigning exasperation.
“Don’t be rude, Hy,” Leah said with a smirk. “Mr. Primerhaven is just enamored with his own voice.”
“Much like a foxhound,” Jimmy said. “You’ve got a live one here, uh... Hy. All right. I’ll leave you two to too much honeymooning all on your own. But I’ll check back with you later. Where are you staying in Paris? I can give you the good or the bad news from Heidelberg.”
“At the Hôtel Bourdonnais. We look forward to hearing from you.”
Jimmy made his graceful exit, doffing his hat and bowing.
“He’s quite a character,” Leah said as breakfast arrived.
“He’s one of a kind all right. Or, we can only hope.”
As they ate breakfast and remarked on the other passengers, Hyim slipped his hand into his jacket pocket absentmindedly, and his finger found a small slip of paper. He didn’t remember it being there before, nor had he recalled anyone giving it to him. He unfolded it with a deft movement of his fingers and glanced at it under the table. On it was a series of numbers and letters on three lines.
He recognized it immediately as FC Code. And the only one who could have given such a note to him in that code was Jimmy.
While graduate students, they were a part of a semi-secret society called The Freecobblers. It was largely a joke—supposedly founded after Catholics were banned from Freemason membership by the pope in 1738—and its only goal seemed to be perpetuating itself. More than one rumor had both John Adamses as members. But, having little in the way of written records, its true past was lost in the clouds of time.
The FC Code was developed who knows how long ago. It was based on a 36-letter alphabet (26 letters and 10 numerals) that shifted positions based on different numbers depending on who was sending the message. Glancing for a few seconds, the message was too complicated for him to work out entirely in his head, although he did recognize the first two words, “Meet me,” the words “the”, “on”, and “are” and a time of day. Jimmy almost always gave messages that started with “Meet me”.
“Is something wrong?” Leah asked.
“No. Just good old Jimmy being peculiar.” He smiled and slipped the paper back into his pocket, out of view. They finished breakfast and went for a walk. The air was crisp, and the banners and flags flapped loudly above them. Their full stomachs gave them a short respite from their physical longing for one another.
“You know, Leah,” Hyim began hesitantly, “you don’t have to apologize for not knowing what it is that I study.”
“Pardon?”
“Your remark about not understanding the concept. You don’t have to be politely demure about things like that. Especially around my friends.”
“Oh come on, now. I wasn’t being demure. It’s just small talk. Your friend seems harmless enough.”
“It’s just that I want people to know that you’re an intelligent person.”
“You’re making too much of this. Your friend was just trying to be charming.”
“I didn’t marry a demure girl, Leah. I could have, you know. There were many girls who were after my father’s money and would have happily been shrinking violets if they could have had their own new wardrobe every year. I married a girl with her own mind, Leah. You’re very smart—it’s one of the things that I married you for. I know I don’t take the time to talk about my work with you, but it’s not because I don’t think you won’t understand it.”
“Well, isn’t that very nice of you to say. If we weren’t already married, I could slap you silly, you old fool.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Come now, Mr. Hopewell. You don’t have to be demure with me. Just because I don’t explain it to you doesn’t mean I don’t think you’ll understand it.”
Hyim smiled sheepishly. He knew when he was beaten. “All right, I give up. You can do what you want. All I meant was that I didn’t want you to think you had to be... well, you know... the female in the discussion.”
“I won’t take that personally, either.”
“I can’t win with you, Mrs. Hopewell, can I?”
“I don’t know why you bother trying.”
It was useless to argue with Leah. She invariably won all arguments. It was endearing, in a way. He found himself wondering if he should even bring up the cryptogram that Jimmy had slipped him. It’s possible she would have something to say on the subject. On the other hand, it was a secret society—in theory—so would divulging any information about it be a betrayal of that?
Of course, the entire subject of the argument was silly. But Hyim took this step in their relationship very seriously. He could have kept it a secret or told her with an equally clear conscience. He decided that because he fell in love with her for her mind—one reason, if not the only reason, mind you—that he should share as much as he could with her. And not just to share it with someone who was his chosen life companion, but because she might have something useful to say on the subject.
After he showed her the code and explained what it was all about, he was surprised to find her more excited about it than he was.
“Well, crack it, Hy,” she said. “Don’t just carry it around like a pebble in your shoe.”
“It could take a while.”
“Longer than it took him to come up with it? We’ve got nine more days on this trip, how long could it take?”
It took all of 10 minutes. His first attempt didn’t make any sense. It took him a second try after he figured out that Jimmy was using James as his first name.
meet me on the aft deck at eleven tonight
there are enemies on board
bring beer — j
“What does he mean by ‘enemies’?” Leah asked.
“It could be anything. It could be his debtors. It could be Cornell graduates. You never know with Jimmy.”
Jimmy was one of those characters who was always leaving without telling people where he was going. Then he would turn up somewhere as if he had never left. Wild rumors floated around about him, which he did nothing to discourage. Hyim was never too curious about his schedule, though, which Jimmy seemed to appreciate.
“Well,” Leah said, “how am I going to get through the day knowing that there is some secret meeting tonight?”
__________________
Possibly against her better judgment, Leah was very excited by all the intrigue. Secret societies, strange codes, enemies—and all on board a ship. “It’s like being in the middle of a Stevenson novel,” she said.
“It’s just Jimmy,” Hyim kept saying, to no avail.
They discussed whether Leah would accompany him, but finally decided against it. Jimmy would be more apt to speak freely without a lady present. So Leah stayed behind with a book, her travel journal, and Li-Don.
“The course of world history has been changed by such meetings,” Li-Don warned facetiously.
Hyim went out into the chilly air with no expectations.
The ship was different at night. The noise of the ship’s engines seemed quieter, yet closer at the same time. Strictly speaking, passengers were discouraged from being up on deck after nine, but no one paid attention to that. He walked past people looking up at the stars, holding each other close in the cold night air, some with glowing pipes or cigars, the orange glow moving around with their gestures. Jimmy stood, alone, leaning on the railing on the aft deck, gazing out over the ship’s wake. Hyim handed him a bottle of beer and then they shook hands.
“I have to congratulate you on your choice of mate,” Jimmy said. “She’s quite pretty.”
“Thank you. I wish I could take credit for that.”
“Oh, but you can. She was beautiful all by herself, but you’re the one who chose to marry her. She’s much too good for you.”
“Her family’s from Poland.”
“Well,” Jimmy said. He started to say something, but then stopped. “I bet your father had something to say about that.”
“Repeatedly.”
They stood for a while, Hyim waiting for Jimmy to speak. But his former classmate was still watching the wake of the ship. “I’ll bet there’s an equation to describe the way a ship cleaves the ocean,” he said finally.
“I’m sure there is. Probably some lost Archimedes script.”
Jimmy smiled. Then he got serious, looking back up at Hyim. “The world is changing, Hyim.”
Jimmy almost always used the English pronunciation of his name, with a soft “H”. But this time he used the guttural, aspirated sound. It was startling, to say the least. It was like Jimmy had suddenly decided to become a polyglot.
“The world used to be full of science,” Jimmy continued. “But now it’s all about engineering. Technological developments are all well and good, but how can we use it, how can we make it serve us? Pure science is on the wane, my friend.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Look at this ship. First it was paddlewheels, then it was screw drives, now it’s propellers. Who knows what they’ll have in another twenty years.”
“First of all, sir, this ship is a screw drive. Only the newest ships have propellers. Second of all, what harm does that kind of innovation do? Faster ships mean less time between points. That’s progress. That’s mankind moving forward.”
“Progress, yes. But for whom? Sure people move across the ocean faster. But guess what? Now they’re expected to move across the ocean faster. It used to be that a transatlantic voyage took three months. If the winds are right, you get there early or you get there late. Now it takes just ten days. Ten days. Leave 9:00 AM New York, get to Boulogne at 6:00 PM. We’re becoming as mechanized as our machines.”
“That’s an awful lot of pessimism, isn’t it? I mean, look what we’re doing. Instead of leaving in early December the previous year, we’re leaving in March to get to Paris by that same March. We’ve gained those three months before we leave to spend as we wish. Not only that, but we’re not subjected to shipboard life for nearly as long.”
“Yes, but look why you’re doing it. You’re going to see a monument. A building! Would you have gone had the trip taken three months? Would you have paid the ferryman just to see a building?”
“The tallest building.”
“I’m trying to tell you something, and you’re completely missing the point. Progress doesn’t mean scientific inquiry anymore. Progress means innovation. It means getting people places faster so they can spend more money on either side. That innovation on this ship was made under the auspices of the shipping company. That magnate is making the money for the innovation.”
“Why shouldn’t he? He’s providing a service, not just for the people on his ships, but for the engineers who have a viable idea but no means to carry it out. He gives them the means.”
Jimmy scowled and looked directly into Hyim’s eyes, but he couldn’t keep that look for long without breaking up. “I give up, Hy,” Jimmy said, laughing. “We are at an impasse.”
But Hyim wasn’t ready to stop. “Why didn’t you say to me that this is a false dichotomy? A business magnate doesn’t just give the means to engineers, he demands the results.”
“Do I even need to be here to argue my side?”
“Jimmy, you bring me out here to debate technological progress, then you give up? What’s going on? Who are these enemies?”
“Look, Hy, there’s a lot here that I can’t explain to you right now. I don’t even think I could explain it if I wanted to. Some of it I don’t understand myself.” Jimmy looked genuinely shaken. He paused to collect his thoughts. “Something happened to me about a month ago. I was in Ontario, riding in the country. It was just coming to twilight and I was heading back to my uncle’s farm from a half-day’s ride. Now, I’ve seen the northern lights a few times in my life, so I can tell you that what I saw was not the northern lights. It wasn’t an electrical storm, nor was it lightning bugs. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I was suddenly in a... a beam of a strange light. It didn’t seem to come from anywhere. I looked around me, and I appeared to be surrounded by this light—or maybe it was a group of lights. I believe that my horse was in it also. I could see her head and ears, but nothing past her. It was so bright. I remember I could smell something like—you’re going to think I’m crazy—like metallic eggs. I’m afraid can’t describe it any better than that. ”
“Maybe you were too close to Tesla’s laboratory.”
“Laugh at your own peril, my friend. I felt the... light, the electricity pass right through me. It hit every sense in my body. For a moment, it felt like nothing and all I could see was a strange light. I could hear the light, I could taste it, it was palpable like a... cage of fire. No, not fire. The way electricity passes from one wire to another, like I was the gap, the conduit, the commutator.”
“You know that all this sounds crazy.”
“I’ve thought that. What if I’ve gone around the bend? But I don’t seem to have any ill effects from it. To the contrary, in fact. Ever since then, I’ve felt better than I have in my entire life.”
“All twenty-three years of it.”
“Scoff if you will, but something happened to me. My uncle wrote to me later and asked what I fed his horse, because she seemed to have buckets and buckets of energy after I left.”
He took a big swig of his beer. “I’m not really going to Heidelberg,” he said ruefully. “I’m just leaving New York. Maybe I’ll end up in Heidelberg. But I just needed to get out of the country. Tell no one this... I’m a stowaway on board this ship. Well, not really. I paid, but I’m not on the manifest. You see, I’m being followed.”
Hyim suddenly realized why Jimmy had asked him out there in the middle of the night on the aft of the ship where their voices would carry out to sea under the din of the engines and the wake. Jimmy was telling him he feared for his life, but for all his bizarre honesty, he couldn’t bring himself to say those words out loud.
“There is someone or something that is just on the edge of my perception. I can feel it... him... it watching me. I can sense something out there. I don’t think it’s on the ship with us...”His voice was quavering with paranoia and the beer shook in his hands.
Hyim put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.
“I brought you out here,” Jimmy said, “to tell you this and also to tell you to watch out for yourself.”
“Myself? What have you got me mixed up in?”
“It’s not my doing.”
Just then, Hyim remembered his father’s message and his almost dismissive attitude about his “competitors.” Could it be that it wasn’t Jimmy that was being followed, but himself?
“Do you believe in God?” Jimmy asked, incongruously.
“I don’t know,” Hyim answered, a little bewildered.
It was a stock answer to that question, which he had been asked many times. The truth was that he didn’t want to think about it. If he started thinking about God, he assumed that he gave up a little bit of himself as a scientist.
“I never did, myself,” Jimmy said. “Until that moment. It wasn’t just that I saw a ‘bright light’ and all that rubbish. It was this thing that happened to me. Me. James H. Primerhaven. Do you know what that does to someone? I was singled out for an effect. And for what reason?”
“It could have been anything, you know. It sounds like you might have been struck by lightning. Maybe ball lightning was involved.”
“And maybe I was caught up in the electromagnetic polar effect. Yes, I’ve thought about these things. But I can’t explain how it all relates to me. Why did it happen to me?”
“Come on, you were there when the effect happened.”
“Just like that? It was coincidence that there was this effect that struck right as I was going by?”
“You probably saved some poor tortoise on the ground from the experience by intervening.”
Jimmy fell silent. Hyim realized that he had been questioning and perhaps making light of his friend’s perceived religious experience. There was so much that Science didn’t know and was just beginning to find out. It would be all too easy to explain unexplained effects by a supernatural occurrence. But it happens. People want to believe in these kinds of things to make sense of them.
They parted amicably. They were cordial through the rest of the journey, but Jimmy was not nearly as friendly as before. When Hyim told Leah what had happened, she thought Jimmy needed to be alone for a while. “He knows how you feel,” she said. “And he’ll come to you when he’s ready.”
But now Hyim could not shake the sense that someone was lurking in the shadows, watching him and his movements. There were a few people on board the ship who could have fit the description of a spy. One was a tall, craggy man in perhaps his forties who sported a gray riding cap and could be seen above deck with a silver muffler. Another was a young man who was suspiciously unremarkable except for his thick dark-brown mustache and darting eyes. Still another was a boyish man who features were so soft and rounded that it appeared as if he might have been a woman in disguise.
If Jimmy’s paranoia were founded, there was no lacking for people who would fill the role of antagonist. If unfounded, there was certainly enough evidence to give him the benefit of the doubt. As Hyim walked back to his cabin, his father’s message audibly crinkled in his inside jacket pocket. He found himself wondering if he had been followed because of that message. He thought he saw the soft-faced man hurriedly look away as he walked past. Whatever reason Jimmy had for making Hyim aware of a possible antagonist, it was done. Hyim walked faster.
Leah didn’t know what to make of Jimmy’s story. They agreed that Jimmy was peculiar.
_________________
The faces aboard ship appeared more suspicious than ever. Hyim was beside himself with distrust of his fellow passengers.
The rest of the voyage was pleasant enough. Li-Don was given very little to do, and he often stayed below deck, reading. Jimmy’s unofficial suspects seemed no longer suspicious during the cold light of day (and besides, a true spy would not even appear suspicious). Hyim and Leah spent most of their time either in their stateroom or out on deck, often taking meals in their room. They explored each other further both physically and emotionally, gaining new knowledge every day.
But there was still that lurking doubt in the corner of Hyim’s eye; the doubt and suspicion that there was some malevolent force just behind him, ready to strike at any time.
The ship made a short stop in Portsmouth on the last day. It was not on the itinerary, and they lost a few hours because of it. Leah had spent the better part of the trip trying to calm her husband down and ease his fears. When they were back out at sea, in the English Channel, Hyim and Leah went above deck to watch the sunset.
“The first thing I’m going to do when we get to Paris,” Leah said, “is buy a hat. One of those fashionable ones you see in magazines. I’ve never had a fashionable hat.”
“You’ve never needed one,” Hyim said. “There shouldn’t be anything to hide that lovely face and head of hair you have.”
“I always knew you were attracted to me because of my hair. What if I should lose it or sell it? I wouldn’t think your friend Jimmy would approve.”
“I don’t know that he has a valid opinion on this. I don’t care what your hair looks like.”
“How very romantic, my dear.”
Hyim brought a hand to his eyes. Beaten again.
All at once, they heard a scream. It was very nearby. Hyim ran around a corner and down a corridor to find a woman lying on the ground, her maid’s clothing torn, her breathing heavy. Standing over her was a man of medium height in a non-descript white sailing shirt and tan pantaloons. In the dimness of the ship’s electric lights, Hyim couldn’t quite tell what was going on. But he knew it was malevolent.
He started toward the other man. The woman on the ground looked up at him, which caught the other man’s attention. He turned his head to see that Hyim was coming toward him, then spun his whole body around to face him.
“Mind your own business!” he growled. The accent was English.
Hyim turned to the woman. “Is this man harassing you?”
She nodded with wide eyes.
Hyim suddenly realized he was unable to muster the necessary strength to do anything. It wasn’t that he lacked energy or strength, per se, but he found that he was unable to comprehend what he was supposed to do in this situation. Some kind of instinct told him that he should intervene in this situation—find out if the woman was OK, stop the man from doing anything harmful, etc.—but this same instinct had nothing to say when it came to actually how he was supposed to accomplish anything.
“This is none of your concern,” the man said. He shifted something in his right hand, it was something light and metallic that flashed in the meager light. Hyim realized it was a knife.
“There’s no reason to threaten me,” Hyim said calmly. “Me or anyone else. We’re all civilized adults, here. Surely we can hash out a...”
t“Stuff it!” the man said. Clearly, he was a threat. Though no taller or larger, and less physically imposing than Hyim, the other man would win a fight. If for no other reason than he might have known more about it than Hyim did. Now, if they had had swords, Hyim could have taken care of him. Maybe. Being a fencing champion with epées was different from actually fencing with the genuine articles.
The man took the front of Hyim’s shirt in his fist. “You bloody Yank! Sticking your nose in business where it doesn’t belong. This tart and I had a deal. Now she’s going back on it. As civilized adults.”
What happened next had to be explained to Hyim later. After the other man released Hyim’s shirt from his grip, he stumbled back and only managed to avoid hitting the floor by spinning and breaking his fall with his hands. Other noises behind him suggested a struggle.
In the intervening instant when Hyim had been released and had fallen to the floor, Li-Don had come charging in, silently, and had caught the other man with his hand exposed. Li-Don dispatched the knife with one kick, and it went flying harmlessly to the far wall and the floor. The surprise gave Li-Don the advantage in the fight, and he punched and swatted at the other man until he went down. It was over by the time Hyim got to his feet.
“Oh God! Oh God!” the woman said. She was still on the ground and had seen the whole fight.
Li-Don stood with his foot on the other man’s neck. “Are you all right, Mr. Hopewell?” he asked.
Hyim, amazed at the sight of this small man victorious over a larger opponent, nodded. Li-Don had always been physically gifted, but this was more than he’d ever seen out of his friend.
The woman got to her feet. “Oh, Eddie!” she said. “What have you done?”
Five minutes later, a couple of the ship’s crew bound the other man’s hands and dragged him off.
The woman could not be consoled, despite Leah’s best efforts. Hyim got the impression that the woman and the man had known each other, but something had gone wrong.
It did not escape his attention, however, that this man with the knife, this Eddie, could have been the enemy that Jimmy was talking about. Obviously a disagreeable, if not outright violent man, Eddie fit the role of a suspicious character right away.
“He looked familiar,” Leah said. “I only got a glimpse as they led him away, but there’s something about him that I recognize.”
“Of course you recognize him,” the woman said. “He’s the bloomin’ Prince of...” she stopped in mid-sentence, then brought her hands up to her lips as if she had said too much. Then she ran out of the passage.
When they finally arrived in Boulogne, Li-Don once again seemed more comfortable with his role as personal secretary—which is what Hyim began calling him, manservant being so bourgeois, for lack of a better term. They said good-bye, good luck, to Jimmy.
Three gendarmes came up to them just as they were boarding a carriage. “Pardon, monsieur,” one of them said to Hyim.
“Yes?”
“We wish to extend our thanks for capturing this criminal.”
“All the thank go to my personal secretary.”
“Yes, quite. Monsieur, there is a delicate matter of secrecy we wish to impose upon you. We ask that you do not reveal this incident. It is for the sake of international relations.”
“Say,” Hyim said. “Who was that gentleman?”
The gendarmes looked at each other. “We believe he is a notorious criminal. This is all we are prepared to say au moment. Please forget the entire incident.”
They bid their farewells and left Hyim, Leah, and Li-Don to continue boarding the carriage.
“My goodness,” Leah said.
They took the carriage to a railway station and by the middle of the next day, they were in Paris.
__________________
The city was alive with a buzz about the tower. It was crowded beyond anything Hyim had ever seen in New York or Boston. The sidewalks were packed with people chatting and smoking and laughing and drinking. Everyone wanted to not only see Mr. Eiffel’s tower, but also talk about it. And there was no missing it, even from a distance. Although it was not due to be opened for another three days, it was unapologetically in full view from the steps of the Hôtel Bourdonnais as well as from almost everywhere in western Paris. There were several other buildings around its feet, but there was nothing quite as spectacular as its topmost spire.
Hyim remembered what Jimmy said about engineers. Mr. Eiffel was an engineer by trade. He had been a structural designer, mostly, having completed rail bridges and other mundane buildings. He designed the structural support for the remarkable lady who enlightened the world in the New York Harbor, but the design of the statue itself was done by another French gentleman. And there was that business with the Panama Canal company bankruptcy.
“It takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” Leah said as they climbed out of the hansom. They could hear the noise of the workers preparing the exhibition site.
“This is what the inside of a real building is supposed to look like,” Hyim said. “Look at that latticework. That’s a supporting structure. But there’s no skin. It’s an amazing example of utility—function dictating form. It’s skeletal nature allows wind to pass right through it. You couldn’t do that with a real building.”
“For God’s sake, Hy. Must you analyze everything?” Leah said playfully.
The Hopewells were met by an overly solicitous hotel staff. Li-Don looked pleased that the bellboys were deferring to him. He was all too happy to direct them when they took the bags up the stairway. Leah spoke to the staff.
The hotel itself was an impressive building if not a picturesque one. It might have made more of an impression had it not been a neighbor to such a grand tower. Even the typical opulence of the lobby was overshadowed by the newness of the form.
There was a message waiting at the front desk.
Mr. Hopewell,
Please allow me to extend my hospitality to you and your wife on Saturday evening. i will send a coach round for you once you arrive by train.
Lord Sylwyn Brightferry,
Amsterdam
_________________
“Lord Brightferry,” Hyim said aloud. His father never mentioned anything about nobility.
When they were situated in a suite on the third floor, and the hotel staff had gone, Li-Don felt free to speak to Hyim..
“You speak of the tower with the mind of a scientist. I ask you to consider the political implications of the tower.”
“Political?” Hyim said. “It’s a structure. It’s an edifice.”
“Yes, but what is its use? Buildings ought to be useful in addition to being visually appealing.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s an amazing feat of engineering, as you say. But why build it? Will there be offices? Residences? Will it be a watchtower for the army?”
Leah looked uncomfortable with this abrupt philosophical exchange, but Hyim was all too pleased to have someone challenge him intellectually.
“It’s for the Universal Exposition. It’s an observation tower. You could see all Paris from up there. It’s a showpiece.”
“Ah, yes. It is a commemoration of 100 years passing since the French Revolution. But also consider that it is an assertion by the French body politic that France is still a great country in the world.”
“You mean, the tallest building in the world is somehow tied into the national consciousness. This is just an example of engineering, not just French engineering.”
“I have to say that perhaps France is feeling a little nostalgic for its days as an Empire. It is no longer an Empire. It has been many decades since all of Europe quaked with fear over a Frenchman. This tower brings them that kind of prominence.”
“But that’s the people who commissioned the tower. I was speaking of the tower as a work of technology.”
“With all due respect, you cannot separate the two. It is not only a symbol of prominence in the world, it is also a symbol of exactly what it is, a feat of engineering. French engineering.”
“Quite true, I must admit.”
“My father, Li-Yan, has said to me before: Things are built because there is a need.”
“Li-Yan is a wise man.”
Leah stood up. “Myself, I thought the tower was a clever visual pun. It’s a giant letter ‘A’, isn’t it? In French, it means, ‘at’. Very thought-provoking.”
________________
It was almost impossible to leave the hotel on the morning of the Exposition Universelle opening. The Boulevard de Bourdonnais was packed with pedestrians, and there was general confusion as horses and carriages were trying to navigate around and through the crowd. Hyim, Leah, and Li-Don made their way through the crowd and across the Champ de Mars to the tower
Leah had brought a dress especially for the occasion, green and pink. She bought her hat the day before, however, from a milliner who was nearly out of stock. Hyim thought she looked more elegant than he could ever remember, but he didn’t say so.
Banners that had been hung from each railing flapped and fluttered wildly. It was spring, but the air had a cold bite to it, and the wind was incredible and unpredictable. Hats flew off of heads and longer beards shifted over some shoulders. Above them, an observation balloon floated by.
They toured the grounds around the tower, visiting the garish, bronze-colored Dôme Centrale and several of the participating nations’ pavilions. Li-Don spent some time looking at the Javanese, Siam, and Cochinchine pavilions. He had never been outside of the United States before, and though there was not a Chinese display, he sought out nearby parts of the world.
They passed a number of acrobats, jugglers, and impromptu performances by musicians of all sorts, including young women who seemed to do little except bare their legs as they paced back and forth.
Hyim and Leah continued on until they reached the Galerie des Machines. Hyim was awestruck. As impressive as the Eiffel Tower was, the Galerie was truly astonishing. It was like a market of mechanical devices, enclosed by a row of archways on either side and a massive sloping glass and ironwork roof; more remarkable, it covered 15 acres and did not appear to have any supporting columns. The entire structure was supported using a system of bows and arches that left the interior open. To Hyim it did not look real.
At the front was a passenger elevator, similar to the ones in the Eiffel Tower, except this one was electric instead of steam powered. Inside the gallery were hundreds of mechanical exhibits, including a moving walkway that ran the length of the building. Leah seemed amused by Hyim’s interest in this great hall of metalworking. Hyim had to admit he was fascinated by it. He spent a great deal of time at the Thomas Edison display.
They lunched on pickle and lamb salami sandwiches in a less crowded street café.
“Dad would have loved it here,” Hyim said. “Except for all of the rabble, I mean. I don’t know why he didn’t want to come here himself.”
“He has enough to do,” Li-Don said. “Your father has a complex business.”
“You’re certainly enamored with all the mechanization,” Leah said to her husband. “Perhaps you haven’t realized how much those machines are taking the place of actual workers.”
“Those machines are creating more positions for workers. Construction, maintenance, design, selling.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with Mrs. Hopewell on this,” Li-Don said. “For every maintenance position created by these machines, as many as ten laborers are displaced.”
“Ten!” Hyim almost shouted.
“Sewing machines are faster than manual sewing. You only need to employ ten people who will do the work of a hundred in the same amount of time.”
“And what about the phonograph?” Leah said. “Instead of attending a concert, you can play the roll over and over again. If enough people did that, the musicians wouldn’t have people to play to.”
“All right, all right, you two! I admit that progress isn’t perfect. But doesn’t the inner workings of such things fascinate you?”
Leah and Li-Don looked at each other, “Not really,” they said in unison.
They could still hear the commotion of the Exposition Universelle from across the street, even from inside the hotel. The sun was going down, and the Tower was in the process of being lit up with tiny electric lights. It was something to behold. The gaslamps in the street were outshone entirely by the giant sloping triangle of light that pointed to the sky. Or, rather, to the many threatening clouds that obstructed the sky.
They decided not to attend the official “unveiling” because Hyim was feeling nervous with all of those people moving swiftly around him. He did not like so many people or things moving around him—he liked calmness. Slow, deliberate movements. He was not above running, himself, if the situation called for it, but he did not like being in fast-moving crowds. Li-Don did attend the opening, by himself.
The couple sipped champagne in the lobby. Leah had perhaps a half-glass too many and started to giggle at the slightest provocation.
“Hy,” she said, throwing her arms around him. “You are a funny man. The man who likes machinery but not people. I don’t know why I love you, I really don’t. But of course I do. Like a partridge on a fencepost, I love you.”
“What in the world does that mean?” Hyim asked, laughing.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m in love with the least romantic person on the Earth. It’s a burden I must bear, mustn’t I?” she fell into a short fit of hysterical laughter.
“I think I’ll take you upstairs before one of us gets arrested.”
They made their way up the stairs. Hyim helped Leah get her footing.
“I never knew you were such a drinker,” Hyim said.
“It’s a special occasion. Besides, I believe in suffrage, not temperance.”
“I must admit, I feel a little clipped, myself.”
“Oh, yes, we’re learning quite a bit about each other, aren’t we?”
They reached their room, which, unfortunately, did not have a view of the Champ de Mars. Instead it had a view in the opposite direction, a partial view of the Palais Archépiscopal, and the rest of northwest Paris. They made love jubilantly under the window, then retired as the sky turned dark blue, feeding each other small blocks of cheese.
They were sober now, and something was bothering Hyim. Leah had called him the least romantic person on the face of the Earth. As much as she was teasing him, it wasn’t altogether untrue. He had very little experience with what other people might call romance. It was one of the things that Leah said she found refreshing in him. That he didn’t pursue her with the formal and complicated manners required of a Victorian courtship. He was awkward and made too many honest remarks for that. But she found his lack of charm very charming, especially for one so handsome.
Still, he could think of a dozen times when she had made a similar remark.
Around ten, Li-Don popped into their room—knocking first—to tell them how amazing and frantic it all was. “Mr. Eiffel is quite a showman,” he said. “And for some ungodly reason the Prince of Wales was there to do the honors. Imagine Britain and France being so friendly!”
The noise never really died down until midnight. Leah fell asleep quickly, as she always did, but Hyim couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the excitement of the day, maybe it was her comment, and maybe it was the sounds of thunder rolling in the distance, but he couldn’t put the Tower out of his mind. It was both structurally impressive and terribly romantic. He sat for hours, staring at his sleeping wife, and thinking.
At three-thirty in the morning, he shook Leah awake.
“I have an idea,” he said. “A crazy idea.”
“What? What on Earth...?”
“Let’s go to the Tower.”
“All right. All right. We’ll go,” she yawned. “Right after breakfast.”
“What? No! Now. Right now. Get dressed. Put on a coat or something.”
“My God, Hy. What time is it?”
“Who cares? It’s time I took you on an adventure.”
“Couldn’t we have an adventure in the daytime?”
“Too many people, Leah. Come on, let’s go!”
Leah looked at her husband like he was a madman, but she did what she was asked. She refused to wear her good dress, however, putting her heavy coat on over a more conservative blue frock. Outside, the lightning crackled.
A quiet knock at the door was followed by a whisper. “Is everything all right in there?”
“Yes. Yes, Li-Don, we’re fine. My husband has just gone insane is all.”
Hyim opened the door.
“We’re going to the tower, Li-Don. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, no. This is supposed to be romantic.”
“Forgive me, but it’s not safe after dark. The Ripper has been quiet of late and he might have got across the channel by now. I’m going with you.”
“Fine thing to say!” Leah said. “You think he would mistake me for a common harlot!”
“I mean no disrespect.”
Leah composed herself. “Oh... don’t mind me. I haven’t had enough sleep yet.”
“Very well.”
The three of them snuck out of the hotel. It was easy enough because the staff went home before eleven. But it was an old house and creaked in many places that they hadn’t noticed before.
Once they were outside, the cool, electric air felt good on their faces. The darkness and stillness of the city was eerie, but it felt liberating to be outdoors with no one around.
They came to the stairwell at the base of the Tower. There were chains across it, but they were not impassable. They were designed mostly to discourage people. Hyim and Li-Don helped Leah up and over the chains to the stairwell. They stepped carefully because the noise seemed the echo up through the tower. Li-Don had heard rumors that Mr. Eiffel was currently using the top level as a second residence, and they wouldn’t want to disturb him.
The Tower was no longer lit with its tiny lights. The swiftly-moving clouds passed over and around the almost-full moon, brightening the sky, then darkening it again. There was more than enough light for them to see their way upwards while it shone. The stairway kept on going.
Hyim’s heart beat heavy in his chest. Not because of the climb—although that was enough, and adding to his heart rate—but because he was trying to impress Leah with his impetuousness. He felt giddy with his nervousness, like he was a schoolboy trying to impress a girl; like Tom Sawyer.
The lightning was a small worry, but not really. The conductive metal was dampened by its attachment to a natural grounding. It was startling more than anything else, briefly strobing them and everything around them.
They reached the first level, breathing heavily, but it was worth the extra effort. The view was incredible. Individual lamps across western Paris looked like fireflies. The moonlight gave a shadowed outline to the buildings and streets.
“I can only imagine what Paris looks like from the top level,” Li-Don said. “You would be able to see the roads and circles like it was a map.”
They could not see the entire first level because of the darkness and because it was so huge. They walked around it, Leah taking Hyim’s hand. She was smiling, though she looked tired, too. They came to a corner and watched the moonlight dance along the Seine. They kissed.
“You’re mad,” she said. “Completely mad. You are no longer the least romantic person on Earth.”
“Not even if the police find us and put us in jail?”
“As long as it’s the same cell.”
They kissed again, then resumed walking around the platform. The wind produced a harmonic tone in the girders that was just barely audible. Their footfalls echoed back down to them from the floor of the second level. They seemed to get louder. And then they seemed to echo from different places around them. Leah’s hand rested on a section of the guard fence that surrounded the first level, which rattled just a little bit. Sudden light shows all around them of forked lightning gave them brief shocks, but soon they expected it.
Suddenly, Hyim felt what can only be described as a presence behind him. He was used to such feelings. He was unusually aware of the people around him. At first he thought it was Li-Don. But Li-Don was up ahead of them, trying to see an exhibit of French writers in the moonlight.
As Hyim turned around, he somehow knew that he should lean out and down. It was almost an unconscious action, like his body knew what to do before he did. As he fell and his head swung around behind him, he saw the figure coming at them quickly and silently. What followed took only a few seconds, but it seemed to Hyim like it was drawn out over several minutes, in slow motion. The large, dark figure was amorphous at first, then he could make out a hand, a head, feet, a hat. The figure grabbed his shoulder, but because Hyim was falling to the ground, the figure tripped over him and fell into Leah, who was up against the railing. She was completely helpless and breathless, tipping over the railing, her face dark, but her hands flailing. She did not scream. Why didn’t she scream?
The figure, who could now be clearly seen as a man dressed in black clothes and coat, briefly looked into Hyim’s eyes. The moonlight was just right for Hyim to make out a face and empty, dark eyes. That face... that face. No, it couldn’t be. That face was on the ship. Yes, it was. He was sure of it. That face had been walking around as he and his wife were walking around. It wasn’t any of the three faces he thought of before. It was a different one, one that had been with a lady friend, lighting her cigarette with a phosphorous match that lit the first time it was struck. The two men’s eyes locked in that moment up on the dark tower, each recognizing the other without the time to analyze the implications of their meeting. Then, the other man leaped up, and was gone without making a sound. It all happened too fast for Hyim to do anything.
Hyim held out his hand for Leah, but it was too late and he was too far away from her. He could do nothing as she went over the edge.
“NO!” Hyim shouted. Instinctively, and in the same motion of holding his hand out for her, he jumped to the edge of the fence and saw his wife falling, her arms out, her legs kicking, and then...
..and then...
Hyim couldn’t quite believe his eyes. It appeared as though a bolt of lightning shot from the ground and hit Leah as she was in mid-air. She was now engulfed, brilliantly illuminated in a pool of bluish light and Hyim could see her face contorted in a soundless scream, her eyes wide.
Hyim shielded his eyes from the light and then saw another figure on the ground, where the beam of light was coming from. She stopped falling and hovered gently over the ground until she was on the ground, completely unhurt, but crying silently with terror.
Then the bright glow stopped. She was lying on the ground almost completely in shadow, but he could see her moving. He shouted her name. She had fallen over two hundred feet down. His eyes adjusted quickly back to the darkness. He thought he saw... yes! he did see another figure on the ground fleeing, running under the Tower. This figure was not all black but had what appeared to be a blue suit and vest underneath a straw boater. It left Leah behind. quickly as she touched her own face, like she as trying to make sure it was still there..
Over his shoulder, Hyim heard a commotion. He quickly ran towards it and found Li-Don facing off with the man in black. Li-Don had just landed a blow to the man’s midsection, but the man seemed unfazed and shot a fist to Li-Don’s head, which sent him reeling. Then the man raced for the stairway. Hyim wanted to follow him, but couldn’t find the will within him. What would he do when he caught him? Fight? Hyim had never thrown a punch in his life. That man had just tried to murder his wife, had just assaulted his best friend, and he could do... nothing? He didn’t accept that. He raced down the steps as fast as he could, but the man was gone. Disappeared. He had hesitated too long. He went to his wife, who was completely unhurt. He checked her head first, feeling the back of it for any sign of injury or blood. There was none. He then checked her arms and legs, but they were fine, too.
The figure on the ground had also disappeared. It had all happened so fast. Think, Hyim, think!
Hyim wrapped his arms around her, thrilled that she was alive yet confused that she wasn’t dead. His mind raced. What could possibly be going on? The noise of Li-Don’s steps on the stairway were funneled down to them.
Leah slowly sat up and pointed toward the center of the tower base. She tried to speak, but did not have the air. The face of the Man on the Tower was burned into Hyim’s memory, and he could see it even as he helped his wife to her feet. But the man below in the blue suit and incongruous straw hat had not shown his face.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
She nodded.
They headed for the ground beneath the center of the tower. There was a metal door in the cement that led underneath the tower. Hyim pulled it open noisily and stepped down into the darkness.
But the steps led only to a small room with controls for the elevator, no other exits besides the door. And no one was in there. Hyim stepped back up and came back to his wife.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What happened here? Why aren’t you dead?”
End of excerpt
ABOUT THESE 32 PAGES: No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. Copyright © 2005 by charles schwartz
See tab for "ordering" directly, |
|