Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

“Will you write to us?” Marie asked.

  Oh, God. She lied to Gertie. She told her she’d send her address as soon as she knew what it was. Gertie would get over it and forget about her. Adults recover from disappointment. But the children. Don’t ever lie to the children. What do you say to not lie to them without hurting them? I love you, but not enough to write. Not good enough. Let their hearts forget her gradually or break them right now? Which is it?

  The delay in her answer was getting too long – decision. Fish or cut bait she heard James say.

  “You bet I’ll write. Your mom gave me your address, so as soon as I get to where I’m going...” do what? Just leave it there. “Give me hugs and then let me be by myself before I start crying too.” One by one they hugged her. Their warmness, their gentleness, their tenderness, their fragileness – most of all their sadness – overwhelmed her...

  “I love you, Aunt Anne.”

  And Anne poured her tears upon the five-year-old and held her close. “We’ll meet again a long-long time from now,” Anne whispered into her ear. “Your father is talking about starting his own business making furniture for people. That business will someday be yours, so you pay close attention to how he manages it.”

  Heather nodded her head.

  “Remember the big roll-top desk in your mama’s sewing room?” Heather nodded again. “The day your business is forty years old I’ll come to you and purchase that desk.” She kissed the little girl on the cheek. “That’s when we’ll meet again.” She gave her a big hug and then turned to drip more tears and some grow-up-smart advice upon the eleven-year-old. Finally, she traded wet-face kisses with the young teenager nearly her own height. She pushed her to arms length. “What can I tell you? Stay smart – not only in books and school, but also in life. When you begin thinking you know more than your parents, just remember that they have many more years of experience on their side. Listen to their experience.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “I’m twenty-four years old and I wish, more than you would ever understand, that I had my mother and father to ask for advice. And don’t rush the babies. Go to college first.”

  She heard a vehicle on the road outside. It stopped. “That must be my visitors, and I look like a mess. You must go now.” She gave them each another hug and walked them to the door.

  As they slowly walked away, up the road toward their home, turning occasionally to look back, Anne greeted the three men getting out of the car. “You’re early, Admiral,” Anne said trying to pull in her composure. “My apologies for my appearance. We, the girls and I, were saying our good-byes – rather emotional. We’ve become very close.”

  “Good-byes, Mrs. Waring?”

  “Yes. I go home tonight.”

  “Well,” Admiral Harris cleared his throat. “We should be getting on with it, shouldn’t we then. Mrs. Waring, I would like you to meet Brigadier General Leslie Groves and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.”

  Anne stepped forward and extended her hand. “It’s a great honor to meet you both.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman,” Groves said.

  Oppenheimer nodded and shook her hand.

  “I certainly hope that isn’t all Admiral Harris promised you to get you to make this long trip.”

  “Certainly not, Mrs. Waring, but it’s a pleasant surprise.”

  “Wonderful for you, General. Tonight, 7:00 sharp – and I can’t be late – I’m departing to join my husband. It’s a one-way journey and I dare not miss it. I expect to be completed with our business and once again alone by 6:30. That gives us just three hours, a half hour more than I expected, seeing as you are early, so I think we should dispense with the flirtatious chitchat and sexual innuendos and get down to business.”

  Groves looked at James with a ‘what have you gotten me into?’ expression.

  “What did you tell them, Admiral?”

  “Exactly what we discussed. No more,” Admiral Harris said. He turned to the General. “I promised you that you would not regret this and I’m 100% certain Mrs. Waring will not disappoint me.”

  “Very well, Wilson.” The General’s face was red.

  “Please, come in,” Anne said, “and call me Anne.” After everyone was inside and seated, she continued. “First of all, gentlemen, I must apologize right off. Because you’re early, I have not had the chance to feed my baby and would like to take advantage of every minute we have. If I don’t feed her now, she’ll interrupt us within forty-five minutes anyway.”

  The three men looked at each other.

  “That means I’ll be nursing her while we talk. We are all adults and I’m sure you’ve witnessed your own wives doing the same. I’ll be discrete.” Not giving them a chance to argue, she picked Elizabeth Anne from her crib, pulled a cover blanket over her and proceeded to open her dress and guide Elizabeth to a nipple. Despite the cover the men averted their eyes.

  “What you’re going to need to know right off is my qualifications. That’s going to be difficult, as I’ve no documentation with me to attest to my educational level and experience in the field of nuclear science, more precisely, in your case, atomic weapons. Let me instead tell you of the project you’re working on, that which you are officer-in-charge of, General and of which Robert is scientific director – the Manhattan Project – the development of the atomic bomb.”

  General Groves’ back came up straight. “Sounds to me, Ma’am, like you have access to some highly classified information.”

  “I’m Anne, General, please. I remind you of the promise Wilson made to you. I will not disappoint him. I will not disappoint any of you. I’m here to help you, but my time is running short, and we can’t waste a lot of it if you’re going to fight me while I try to convince you I’m real.

  “So, where do I begin? I could start in 1896 with Antonine Henri Becqueral’s discovery of radioactivity in uranium, or 1902 with Marie and Pierre Curie’s work in radium, or how about Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1905, which was basically transformation of mass into energy. Of course all that’s rather elementary, physics 101.”

  Oppenheimer met her eyes and then looked away again.

  Am I embarrassing him, or boring him? “I’ll skip all that, go past Fermi’s achievement of Nuclear Fission in 1934 and Hahn and Fritz’s accomplishment of the same in Germany in 1928, splitting a uranium atom. It’s work by Juliot, Fermi and Szilard in 1939 that prompts Einstein, with Szilard’s assistance, or you might say insistence, to draft a letter to President Roosevelt urging him to begin a nuclear program, and give him warning that research and development of an atom bomb was going on in Germany. Unfortunately, not enough people were impressed at that time and it was Frisch and Peierls in Britain who presented a report to their government. Things started rolling. Britain formed the MAUD committee to study uranium enrichment and the feasibility of building atomic bombs. It’s still the end of 1941 before we, the U.S., begin our own official project, code named S-1 and then later becoming the Manhattan Project. And that, gentlemen, is what I’m here for. You have a problem – a very serious problem.”

  “Why would you think that, Mrs. Waring?” Oppenheimer asked.

  “Because three days ago the two of you went to see the president. Your purpose was to recommend the scrapping of the Manhattan Project.”

  Oppenheimer and Groves looked at each other.

  “Whatever you told him must be extremely serious because he issued the order.”

  Groves stormed to his feet. “How in the hell does a lactating mother in the backwoods of South Carolina know anything about anything?”

  Admiral Harris jumped up and put his hand out. “She knows, Leslie. She knows.”

  “I think you’re being made a fool of, Wilson.”

  “Just take my word for it. I’ll be willing to lay down my next paycheck next to yours that she could match knowledge, word for word with Robert here. As a matter of fact I’ll bet she could walk all over him.”

  “It’s a big j
oke.”

  Anne calmly stood and laid Elizabeth in her crib. “We don’t have the luxury of time to have a contest of mind.” She turned to Dr. Oppenheimer. “Robert, what brought you all the way across country? I know you’re buried in gun assembly design. Am I right that you’ve given up the uranium and plutonium bullet ideas for a more radical theory presented by Robert Serber some seven months ago, that of detonating a high explosive around a hollow sphere thus crushing it down to critical mass? Thanks to Seth Neddermeyer, it was discovered that such a method was much more efficient than a gun. Implosion charges. That’s what you’re working with now, isn’t that right?”

  Anne could see out of the corner of her eye that General Groves was still not settled, still not accepting her, but he wasn’t interrupting. She did however, seem to have Oppenheimer’s attention.

  “Yes, Mrs. Waring, that’s where we are,” he said.

  “But you’re having a hard time diagnosing the efforts. You’ve developed methods to do so... ah...” she started naming things off her fingers, “photographic, x-ray, betatron electron accelerator, electric pins... ah... what have I missed?”

  “Magnetic fields.”

  “Right. Unfortunately, what you’re finding out is that the compression shockwave is being disrupted by the detonation waves from the high-explosive segments and by instabilities arising as the tamper material is pushed into the nuclear core.”

  Robert leaned forward in his chair. “That’s correct.”

  “You haven’t solved that yet.”

  “No.”

  She picked a notebook off a nearby chair and set it on the table. Two pencils were inside. She sat in the chair next to Oppenheimer, handed him one pencil and began sketching with the other. “You’re considering backing off of this approach because your tests so far have told you that a perfectly symmetric implosion with no interfering shockwave and instability is not possible.”

  “I’ve got the best minds on it and yes, that’s the conclusion.”

  “But why haven’t you brought James Tuck in on it yet?”

  Robert looked to his boss and back at Anne.

  “Because he’s British and you still hold some anger that they got the jump on you?”

  “Of course not,” Groves answered for Robert. “This is all bullshit, if you excuse my expression Mrs. Waring.”

  “Maybe that was out of line,” Anne said ignoring General Groves. “My apologies. Of course you have many nationalities, including German. Many Germans as a matter of fact. After all, Robert, that’s where you obtained your Ph.D. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here but whatever the reason for keeping him out – forget it. Bring Tuck in. He has your answer.” She began sketching again. “You need focus and to achieve that you need to construct an explosive lens. I think you’ll find Tuck has some ideas on this. He has played with this concept before. Your second problem on this will be coming up with a simultaneously symmetrical implosion.” Anne finished drawing a sphere and was surrounding it with arrows. “Call on Lois Alverez of U of Cal and MIT to accomplish this.”

  “But Kistiakowsky...”

  Anne put her hand on his arm. “Robert, listen to me. Kistiakowsky is good, but he is a naysayer. Use him to build the facility for Tuck. Once done, get him off the front line. He carries negativity. This project requires full bore ahead.”

  General Groves stood again, having reined in his composure. “I think we have heard enough. Keep your paycheck Wilson. I’ve no doubt she could win you mine but I think it’s nothing more than fast talk and slight of hand. You said you could put us up for the night. I look forward to a good home cooked dinner by Mrs. Harris and a good night’s rest. Travel by train is not the most comfortable.”

  “No! No!” Anne came to her feet. “I’m not through, General.”

  “You’re a very interesting woman, Mrs. Waring, but I’m afraid you have nothing new to offer us except who should be doing what and we have better minds than yours working those decisions. I’d be interested to learn how you’ve come about your information. Whatever it is you should check your source. I did not bring Dr. Oppenheimer to Washington to convince the president to shut down the project. On the contrary, it was just the opposite. I needed Robert to help present my case for increased funding.”

  Anne stood with her mouth hanging open.

  “Admiral, I believe we’re ready to depart. Leave Mrs. Waring here to feed her baby.” He then walked out the door. Admiral Harris went after him.

  “No... no,” Anne said to herself. “That’s not the way it was written.” Pages started flipping through her mind, from the book in which she found the statement that Roosevelt gave the stand-down order. Were there other things in the book that were inaccurate? Was the author even credible? From where did he obtain his information?

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s not the way it was written?’” Oppenheimer said.

  Anne didn’t hear him. She was searching page by page, looking for the paragraph.

  “Mrs. Waring.”

  There it is. Just as I recall it. Down, down, to the bottom of the page, to a footnote.

  Data from uncollaborated source. Author highly suspect of accuracy considering a large funding increase soon followed.

  “Holy shit! I have it wrong.” She closed the book and shoved it back into the dark recesses of her brain and then looked at Oppenheimer. “Why am I here, then?”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Waring?”

  “I had it all wrong. Why did you fly to Washington when the General specifically told you not to fly?”

  Oppenheimer’s puzzled look left Anne holding her breath.

  “I did not fly. I arrived in Washington in the same manner I arrived here – by train.”

  “History is all screwed up. What else do I have wrong?”

  “History?”

  “No. Just the one book had it wrong. What am I here to fix? Actually you’re doing fine. Maybe I’m not here to fix anything. Maybe I’m just here by accident and everything is a coincidence.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, my God! You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be on your way back to Los Alamos.” She jerked around toward the door and then back to Robert. “What in the hell have I done? You’ve got to go!” She grabbed Oppenheimer’s arm, thinner than her own, and said, “I shouldn’t have asked you to come here. The General’s right.” She opened the door and slung them both out together. “Admiral. I was wrong. I didn’t see it until now – the footnote – the goddamn footnote.”

  General Groves and Admiral Harris both turned and stared at Anne’s flailing statements and Oppenheimer stumbling out with her.

  “Damn it, Wilson. Don’t just stand there. Get them out of here. Don’t you get it? I’m not supposed to be here. I’m changing history.”

  Both Groves and Oppenheimer froze in their tracks. Admiral Harris opened the back door to his car. “Just start it up, Matthews. I’ll get the doors.”

  “What are you talking about?” General Groves demanded. “Changing history? What in God’s name do you mean by that?”

  “There’s no time General. Just get in the car and leave. Don’t let Robert out of your sight until he gets on the train in the morning. And you get yourself back to Washington. That’s where you are suppose to be.”

  “Leslie, let’s go,” Wilson ordered.

  Groves walked over and got into the car.

  “Doctor?” Admiral Harris said, still holding the door open.

  “Kistiakowsky is laying out the plans for the facility right now,” Oppenheimer said to Anne. “But I never had more than a passing thought about Tuck.”

  Anne took his hand. “You need to go.”

  “He’s the trump card, isn’t he?”

  “Only one of many, and you’re playing them all well.” Anne noticed his eyes drop, and then focus on their hands. She looked down to where her fingers were holding his. They were long and thin. But that wasn’t where he was looking. She follow
ed his eyes to her wrist, to where her long sleeve dress had pulled up to reveal her Casio Sports Digital watch. She started to pull her arm away, but he held it firmly, pulling it up closer to his face. He looked at her, back to the watch and then at her again and smiled.

  “I’ve been here much too long, and so have you.”

  “Tell me this, Anne Waring. Will we be successful and will it be worth it?”

  “Yes to the first question. The second will forever be debated.”

  “In your opinion.”

  Anne thought about that a very long time. The alternative was only conjecture. “Yes. Now get out of here.”

  “Thank you,” he said and got in beside Groves.

  Admiral Harris closed the door and Anne caught his arm. “I was wrong about Roosevelt shutting things down but maybe, just maybe I wasn’t wrong about them coming here. I think Dr. Oppenheimer needed assurance, confirmation that he is doing the right thing.”

  “You think he got that?”

  “I know he did. He just saw the inside of me and knows. I saw it on his face when he figured it out. Take them away now. As I stand here and think about it, I’m more and more sure their visit was good. Unfortunately there’s a bad feeling growing inside me that says they need to go.” Anne dropped her hand and backed up. “Good bye, Admiral Harris.”

  Admiral Harris looked at her for a brief second and then got in. The car backed onto the road and pulled away. From the back seat, Oppenheimer turned and looked at her. She raised her hand in greeting but when it wasn’t returned, she dropped it. The car turned out of sight.

  Inside she found Elizabeth blowing bubbles and giggling. “That didn’t go quite as I had planned, but maybe we still saved the world. Will your daddy believe me?” She picked her up and held her high. “What do you think sweet thing?” She blew against her belly and Elizabeth giggled. “My thoughts exactly. And you need your diaper changed.” She pulled out a fresh diaper and lay Elizabeth on the couch. “Oh, my God! You stinky. Did you even digest your lunch? Nasty! Nasty! Nasty!”

  When she was done, Anne picked up the dirty diaper. She would have to wash it because she didn’t want to leave a mess for Gertie to take care of. The stove was cold so there was no hot water. She dropped some lye soap into a bucket and then went to the door. The well pump was along side the house. Although the sun was dropped below the trees, the temperature was still holding up so she thought she would wash and rinse the diaper outside. She glanced at Elizabeth Anne who was on her stomach in the makeshift playpen seeming to occupy herself. “Be right back, Sweetie.”