Meanwhile he tightened his grip and pulled straight up. All three layers of tape came away in one fat strip, making a ripping sound as the box popped open.
“There you go,” he said, the coil of tape dangling from his hand like a just-killed snake. He turned to drop it in the wastebasket, then held that skinny but surprisingly strong hand out to me. “Charlie Fish.”
“Brenda Dubie,” I said, shaking hands. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Brenda.”
But neither of us let go, for a second there, neither one. Talk about a chord playing.
The little bell on our front door jingled again. I whirled to see Mr. Kulak striding into the store, taking off his hat. I rushed forward to meet him, not doing anything wrong, but feeling anyhow like I’d just been caught red-handed.
2.
The boys of the Metallurgic Lab at the University of Chicago worked at gray metal desks, with wooden chairs on wheels that creaked at the least movement; drawers that resisted, complained, and sometimes refused to open; flimsy in- and out-boxes on the desks’ front corners; and bare bulbs overhead. In winter, the room smelled of dry heat, iron from the rusty radiators. In summer, the scent was boys’ sweat.
All the desks were arrayed in a circle—so that no mathematician was ranked above another, and each received equal amounts of daylight from the wall that was all windows. The older workers did a geometric calculation, however, determined that desks to the south received 11 percent more light, and claimed those places for themselves. But some younger boys found the southern advantage to be seasonal, true only in summer, and they took proud possession of the northern desks. The debate over whose calculations were correct resurfaced whenever the workload was light, complete with competing formulas chalked across the big front blackboard.
There were two exceptions to the circle: one desk space open for the unit’s manager to enter and exit the circle, and a desk by itself near the door, which Cohen occupied. A recent Columbia graduate, he was disliked by everyone.
Charlie toiled in a middling desk, not caring to join either side in the location dispute, preferring to wrangle his assignments into order with what seemed, compared with his peers, to be of limited brilliance but limitless patience. He would work and work a problem, without complaint, however long it took to find a solution.
“That is why, you tiresome boy,” Cohen said on his way past, dropping a new assignment sheet atop Charlie’s overflowing in-basket, “you get to do arcs. And they want this one pronto.”
Arcs, meaning curves: how an object moves through space, where on a sphere to place electrical connections, what navigation path will help a vessel avoid a problem at sea. The other boys worked on concrete tasks: how much weight a ship could carry on deck before becoming top-heavy (which they guessed had to do with tank transport), what temperature a metal would reach during bursts of intense pressure (which everyone assumed meant the barrels of gunships), plus the raw number-crunching of supplying fuel, bullets, uniforms, tires, bandages, meals, coffins.
The primary difference in his work, Charlie gradually realized, was pi. No one else was reckoning with the irrational number. Because every arc problem involved pi, he could never arrive at a precise answer. It would always be approximate.
Charlie scanned Cohen’s latest assignment sheet. This time the object weighed 10,000 pounds, was released 11,000 feet in the air at a speed of 357 miles per hour. What would its arc be, how long would it fall, and how far away would it land?
Charlie took a pencil and began to draw on the assignment sheet. He liked to start every problem with a picture, to visualize what he needed to know. But halfway through the sketch, his hand went still. His mind had wandered to the young woman he’d met on Monday, Brenda, and the pleasantest thirty minutes in Chicago since August, when he’d arrived from Boston. Granted, she was a regular weathervane of moodiness. But she played the organ like an angel. And when he tore off that packing tape, her face had brightened like the sun coming out. Monday was his only day with a longer lunch break, though, which made getting back to that organ store feel further away than next spring.
Humming to himself, he drew the problem again: altitude of release, dotted line of the downward arc. To represent the target, he used a swastika.
“Does anyone think it is possible for Cohen to be a more inefficient jerk?”
Charlie knew who’d said it without raising his head. Richard Mather, Andover grad, snatched from Yale for a place on this team, winter home in Manhattan and summer place on Long Island, an unapologetic snob and an expert at baiting all of them into debates. On his desk Mather kept a framed photo of his sister, a smiling, tomboyish blonde holding a tennis racquet, which he would wave periodically before the noses of the other mathematicians. “Look all you like, suckers, because you will never get close.”
“Shut up, Mather.” That was Santangelo, a kid from Milwaukee whose hair was all tight coils. As a result Cohen called him Steel Wool, purely for the pleasure of annoying him. Santangelo was a mad-dash genius at arithmetic. If you walked up to him out of the blue and said, “Three hundred and fifty-seven times six hundred and twenty-four,” Santangelo would shrug and answer, “Two hundred and twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight.” “Divided by sixteen?” He’d blink twice and say, “Thirteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty-three.” Then he’d bend back over the lab notebook he was filling with calculations as fast as he could scribble them.
Now Mather had his hands on his hips. “Because you know I’m right, Santangelo?”
“Because you are such an itch.”
Mather swaggered away from his desk. Charlie knew: argument was this guy’s favorite way of procrastinating. “Let’s review the facts.”
A groan went up from the room.
“First, look at how he delivers new assignments, fifteen minutes after the workday starts. Every one of us has already begun something, has prioritized our tasks—”
“Which in your case includes lots of talking.”
“Second, Steel Wool, consider how he distributes our chores willy-nilly, this desk to that, when half a minute spent organizing his sheets beforehand would enable him to deliver them in one pass through all the desks, saving time and reducing distraction.”
“Mather, will you please shut up?” Charlie rarely contributed to the parleys, but he was sick of trying to solve arcs while a brighter kid gabbed the morning away.
“Ah, Fish takes the bait.” Mather sidled around the circle of boys. “You answer me, then. What do you think of our wonderful boss?”
Charlie put his pencil down. He hated Cohen. The guy had two ways of speaking: commands and criticism. Incapable of telling a story or carrying on a conversation, either he was telling you what to do, or he was belittling what you had done.
“Suddenly he’s shy,” Mather crowed. “Isn’t that cute?” He snatched Charlie’s pencil away, holding it like a microphone. “No comment on the scandal, Mayor Fish?”
“All right,” Charlie said. “He’s annoying. And bossy.”
“There.” Mather flourished the pencil overhead like a conductor’s baton at the end of a symphony. “The definitive response.”
“Also smarter than you,” Charlie added, and the room erupted in jeers.
“Well said, Fish,” Santangelo cried, as Mather dropped the pencil and played at hangdog while shuffling back to his desk.
The hall door swung open and Cohen returned, Professor John Simmons following two steps behind. All the math boys stood.
“At ease, fellas,” Simmons chortled. “As you were.”
John Simmons was the least pretentious man in the building. He greeted people in the hallway, did not close his office door even for secure calls, and took the time to learn the boys’ names. But no mistake, he was also second in command, head of the physics department in Denver, acolyte of the Nobel Prize–winning genius Arthur Compton. He also happened to be Charlie’s uncle, which was how the boy ended up on
the math team. His mother had asked her brother to keep a fragile fellow out of battle.
Simmons walked through the room shaking hands, introducing himself to the new arrivals, then taking his place in the circle’s one-desk gap. He told the boys to be seated.
“Fellas, I don’t mind you clowning around in here a little bit,” Simmons said, with a half-suppressed grin. “But there is a war on, you know. There are rooms exactly like this—in Munich, Berlin, perhaps Tokyo—where bright young boys like you are working day and night on calculations to help them hurt us. And hurt our country.”
With the group properly sobered, he began slowly pacing. “I’m here this morning to tell you that our project has been given additional status and urgency. Last night I was informed that all of you are now ineligible for the draft.”
A restrained cheer went through the room.
“Not so fast.” Simmons stopped in place. “You now answer to the United States military. Starting in January your paychecks will come from Uncle Sam. I imagine at some point someone in a uniform will come in here and give each of you a rank. You will receive orders, and you will obey them.”
Giving that idea time to sink in, he recommenced pacing. “Our project’s security level has been heightened, too, from classified to top secret. From here on, it will be a court-martial offense if you tell anyone what you are doing here—not your buddies, not your girlfriend, not your family. Who your boss is, what you do all day, how many pencils you go through, every single thing here is now confidential military business. Loose lips on your part will be treated by my superiors as an error on my part, which would make me . . .” He paused to glare at them. “Unpleasant. Any questions?”
There were none. For once even Mather had nothing to say.
“Our work will intensify. Your tasks may seem odd, but I assure you, they are essential to the war effort. You’ll learn more about that soon. When you do, you may wish for the days when you were in the dark.”
Simmons stood to his full height. “Get to work, boys. And remember: there are other rooms, exactly like this.”
The professor strode off—with one curt nod and one word, “Charlie,” his only recognition of his nephew.
Cohen came to the front. “Everything on your plate, clear it by Friday.”
The math team groaned.
“Quit whining, babies. Every job in your box must be done, documented, and on my desk before you leave for the weekend. Monday morning is a whole new ball game.” He strutted out the door, his walk a stiff imitation of Simmons’s.
Charlie frowned at the problem on his desk. Pi, that numerical elbow, made everything difficult. He took up his pencil, saw that Mather had broken the point, and found a fresh one. He was stalling, though, because he could not answer a basic question: What crazy giant gun would it take to shoot a bullet that weighed ten thousand pounds?
3.
Charlie Fish came to the store every Monday. We’d chat, we’d flirt, one time we split a sandwich—egg salad he’d brought from a deli. He told me about growing up in Boston: singing with various choirs, being the youngest in his college class, how his mother loved to stroll on Saturday mornings beside the Charles River, the crew boats darting up the river like giant water bugs. Eventually I put him to work in the back room and he made no complaints. Soon, though, he’d ask me to play. And why not? In another month he’d be a draftee. What harm could there be in giving him something to hum when he was far away? Often he sang along, a fine tenor, steadier than I’d expected.
One way I’ve been lucky: I never had to live without music. My mother started piano lessons when my outstretched fingers only spanned three keys. Those years I was hoping to attend the conservatory helped me develop a discipline. Even now, though my hands are wrinkled and weak, I manage to touch the ivories for a few minutes every day.
Sometimes afterward I linger on the bench, and imagine all those soldiers far from home, with bad food and foreign landscapes, their clothes stained with the scent of fear. I bet they whistled and hummed and sang to themselves all the time. Something calm when you’re afraid. Something busy when you’re bored. Something sad when you’re missing home or your girl.
Performing for Charlie, those afternoons in 1943, felt like living in a snow globe. The world’s brutality made our haven of innocence all the sweeter.
While I could have impressed him with classical pieces, at work I preferred playing trendy stuff: “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” “Paper Doll,” “That Old Black Magic.” My favorite that fall was “Oklahoma” because the Hammond could make the wind come sweeping down the plain on one set of keys, while on the other set the last syllable aaahh of Oklahoma was still in the air. These days I can still play those tunes from memory, but I don’t do it often. They sound insubstantial as cotton candy.
Charlie liked sadder songs. Whenever I asked him what next, he’d suggest “As Times Goes By,” or “You’ll Never Know,” or a classical piece like “Moonlight Sonata.” While I played, he would stand close beside me, maybe humming the melody, always watching closely. Funny thing, though. These days I play the ones he liked all the time, and they don’t sound fluffy. They still touch the heart.
“Why do you like those blue tunes, anyhow?” I teased him one Monday.
“Maybe it’s what playing them does to the organist.”
“Go on.” I waved him off. “What’s the real reason?”
“How the organ sounds,” he said. “How notes continue, and how they fade.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“It’s physics—what the wind does to make a note. That’s no accident.” He smiled. “Science makes the air sound beautiful.”
I thought maybe Charlie was showing off. But there I was, playing for him as fancy as you please. That morning I’d styled my hair to look nice in back too. Which he would see while I was on the bench. Maybe we were playing the same game.
I remember one spring when I was still in my sixties, I saw a movie about the courtship rituals of birds. The grebes did a kind of ballet, it was that elegant, with one bird mirroring the long-necked moves of the other, until they both went running away across the surface of the water. The birds of paradise swept their wings out, puffed their chests, and danced around on tree branches. And the whooping cranes? They leaped and spread their wings and went crazy wild for each other. Oh, that movie made me ache to be young again. It also reminded me that my courtship with Charlie was painfully reserved. More than a month after that first handshake, we had not touched again.
The other thing I noticed was that each Monday Charlie showed up a little later. It made me nervous, for one simple reason. My mother.
The war wives’ group had the use of the function room only till one o’clock, when the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce board met. Then it was a two-block walk back to the store. You could set your watch by when my mother would come striding in—1:05 and never a second later, taking charge and wanting a full update on every littlest thing that happened in the sixty-five minutes she’d been gone.
Each week Charlie arrived later past noon. I began to feel squeezed, and would have to hurry him out the door. He was always nice as peaches, and let me shoo him off without a complaint. He’d stand on the sidewalk and gawk through the big window, wave or do jazz hands, something to make me smile before shuffling back to his math office—wherever it was. If I asked what street, he’d go cute and change the subject.
One week he didn’t arrive till almost quarter to one. I was triple disappointed. First, there’d be no time for helping with chores. Second, I’d only have time to play about two songs, and I’d spent the week learning five that together sent a little flirty message. Third, we’d barely have any time to visit before I’d have to send him along.
But Charlie seemed in the opposite mood. He was gabby and casual, humming to himself while he wandered around the store. The clock above the register read twelve minutes till one. He opened the covers of several pianos, playing that old standby G-ma
jor chord in various octaves. When he lifted the hood of the Chickering baby grand, trilling tunelessly up and down the black keys, I couldn’t take another second.
“Did you come to buy a piano today?” I said. “Or to kill time?”
Charlie stopped fiddling and smiled at me. “You look especially good today, Brenda. That knot there, up so high, I have never seen that before.”
“It’s called a chignon.” I slid onto the bench. “It took me three tries.”
“Well, it was worth it.”
“Thanks,” I said offhandedly, but was secretly pleased down to my toes. That chignon had cost me an hour, and Charlie’s compliment repaid every second. I switched on the spinet model, playing test chords so I could start the new tunes as soon as it warmed up.
“Please don’t hurry,” Charlie said. “We’ve barely had a chance to talk.”
“Oh, I just have the music all through my veins this afternoon,” I insisted, pulling out sheets for the songs I’d practiced.
“Did you do up your nails too?” He pointed, and I stared at my fingers like they belonged to someone else. “What’s the occasion?”
“Just a Monday.” I shrugged. “Plain old Monday.”
I noticed the clock by the register read eight to one, and immediately started in on “Moonlight Becomes You,” which I figured he would love because it is full of diminished chords that sound sad but also like they’re leaning toward something. I had barely finished the intro when Charlie came over and switched off the organ.
“Hey,” I said, sharper than I’d intended. “What’s gotten into you, anyhow?”
“That’s the question I have for you, Brenda. Do you only want an audience? Do you not want to talk to me anymore?”
“Oh, Charlie, it’s the flat opposite of that,” I confessed. “I’m always glad when you’re here. I wait all week for the next Monday to come along.”
Just like that, I started spilling the whole pot of beans. While half of my brain was bossing me to shut my yap, the other half was telling and declaring, as if this boy were headed off to the front the next morning. How smart he was, how nice and polite. I was giving away my entire reserve. “Also I have to get back to work by one, and on the days when you get here later than usual—”
Universe of Two Page 2
