The Einstein Papers (2 page)

It was 7:12 A.M. The pair would reach their destination, a marina on the New Jersey coast, in just over an hour.

Einstein was a man tied to his work. He had few hobbies, but he truly loved to sail. He would often struggle mentally with his formulas while at sea, claiming that he could think more clearly in the salt air. Today’s voyage, however, was to be strictly recreational; the Unified Field Theory was left locked in a far part of his mind, the solution a secret he was not ready to share. He had yet to tell a soul that the theory was now complete. There was time enough for that.

Einstein treasured his sailboat as he did few physical possessions. The vessel allowed him the opportunity and freedom of being truly alone. Away from the closed classrooms and laboratories where he had spent most of his life. Alone with the deep thoughts that clouded his every waking moment.

Ernest Hartley, the owner of the marina where Einstein moored his boat, kept the physicists twenty-seven-foot-long mahogany sloop perfectly maintained. He understood that his genius friend was not always comfortable with simple mechanics and was easily puzzled by things others might consider commonplace.

At eleven minutes before eight, the car carrying Einstein was still fifteen miles from the marina. Although Einstein was not due for another half-hour, his sailboat’s heavily varnished wood was already gleaming in the morning sun, awaiting its owners arrival. Hartley finished hosing the vessel off with fresh water and rubbed the last of the brightwork to a dull glow. Hoisting the sails, he gave them a quick visual inspection, then checked the sailboat’s lines for frayed ends. He tested the rudder and found it moving smoothly. Hartley wiped his hands on a towel and walked back inside to await Einstein’s imminent arrival.

Rolling down the tree-lined road leading to Hartley’s Marina, Einstein folded the newspaper in half and placed it on the leather-covered seat next to him. Nowadays the newspaper only depressed him. The news was only of death and dying, of a long war he hoped would soon end. Instead, he listened to the mechanical sounds coming from the Packard as he stared out the window at the farmers’ fields just inside the border of trees. Cranking down the window he listened as the flock of Bob Whites in the bushes near the trees chirped the song that gave them their name.

With World War II sapping most of the industrial production of Detroit, it was very difficult, even for prestigious Princeton University, to purchase any new automobiles. That was fine with Einstein. The dark gray Packard had long been his favorite, and the man who ran the motor pool was well aware of that fact. When Einstein requested a car, it was usually the Packard that arrived.

Elegant yet understated, the Packard-designed coachwork was finished in a lacquer color the factory called mourning dove gray. The entire length of the body sported a pair of thin red accent lines that ended on the front fenders in a rolling wave. The hood was long and hinged in the middle, with a chrome strip down the center. To each side of the hood sat fenders, the passenger side featuring a rounded hump where the sidemount spare tire was stored. Huge round headlights, mounted inside the flowing sheet metal of the fenders, pointed the way forward. The vehicle was powered by an eight-cylinder engine that operated so quietly it was nearly impossible to tell when the engine was running. Its power was channeled though a hydrostatic transmission that required no shifting of the gears. The seats were finished in red leather, the headliner was made of gray mohair, and the thick felt carpets muffled any road noise. Set inside the massive dashboard of the Packard was a radio that sent the sound to a speaker in the driver’s area as well as to a single chrome-covered speaker mounted on the dividing wall to the rear compartment and facing to the rear. On the radio an orchestra performing works by Beethoven was playing lightly as Scaramelli slowed, then turned off the pavement and started down the dirt road to the marina.

Braking the Packard sedan to a stop on the gravel parking lot of the marina, Scaramelli scurried to open the rear door, then waited as Einstein climbed slowly from the leather-trimmed rear compartment. On the gravel next to the Packard, the physicist stood and breathed deeply of the salt air for a few moments.

“What a glorious day,” he noted, his words still thick with his native German accent.

Scaramelli nodded silently. The student was still in awe of the great man and found ordinary conversation with him difficult. He walked respectfully behind as Einstein entered the marina building.

Hartley looked up from the fishing magazine he was reading on the counter as the door swung open. He smiled, folded the magazine closed, and greeted Einstein warmly. “Good to see you, Doctor. Your boat is all ready to sail.”

Einstein returned the smile and nodded slowly. “Thank you, Ernie,” he said simply, his eyes squinting slightly from the dim light inside the building.

With Hartley leading the way, Einstein and Scaramelli walked through the marina building. The shelves lining the marinas walls were crammed floor to ceiling with dusty chandlery. Boxes of oil were piled next to wooden crates containing bottles of soda. Spools containing the material to sew new sails sat alongside shelves stacked with fresh-cut hardwoods that tinted the air with their scents as they aged. A polished brass antique binnacle with round balancing weights sat off to one side.

Einstein paused to peer at the compass inside. “That is what started me in science,” he said to no one in particular.

Hartley smiled at the physicist, having heard the story before.

“I wondered why the needle always pointed north,” Einstein said quietly as the men exited through the door leading to the dock.

Walking along a weathered wooden ramp, the trio stopped at Einstein’s boat, which rocked gently in the waves lapping at the dock. The floating dock where the sailboat was moored was nearly level with the ramp. The water was at high tide.

“You should catch the outgoing tide nicely,” Hartley said, studying the water.

“Ah, an ebb tide,” Einstein said as he climbed aboard the vessel whose bow was already pointing seaward. “Excellent.”

Checking the boat absentmindedly, he raised one of the sails of the sloop, then settled behind the helm. His hands upon the highly polished wheel, he nodded toward Hartley, who started untying the lines but then stopped.

“I forgot something, Doctor,” Hartley said. “I’ll just be a second.”

Running inside, he quickly returned with a paper sack, its top folded over and fastened with a wooden clothespin. “My wife made you lunch, in case you get hungry.”

Einstein, always somewhat embarrassed by the attention he generated, thanked the man humbly. “You’re too good to me, Ernie,” he said slowly. “Please be sure to thank Katherine for me.”

“What time should we expect you back?” Hartley asked as he handed the sack to Einstein.

“Time is but a concept, my good friend,” Einstein said. “But since you asked, the latest should be an hour or two before sundown.”

With a motion from Hartley, Scaramelli cast off the last of the lines holding the sloop in place. The boat was now free of the dock and Hartley carefully shoved the bow from the dock with his foot. The wind began to carry the vessel to sea. With a slight wave of his hand, Einstein steered toward the open water, a single sail raised to the wind.

Hartley reached in his pocket and removed a pack of Lucky Strikes. He lit one and puffed. Then he and Scaramelli stood watching from the dock until the small boat was safely past the breakwaters and in open water. When only a small white speck of sail remained silhouetted against the horizon the two men walked back inside.

Three-fourths of a mile east and three miles south of Hartley’s Marina the dark green water of the Atlantic Ocean relentlessly surged toward land. On the tops of the waves a thin curl of white broke into foam as the seawater slid from its peak and rushed toward land. The troughs between the waves were wide and even spaced. The smell of salt and seaweed hung thickly in the air, as if the winds were being misted by a natural perfume. The sun this morning was bright yellow and radiating heat. It hung above the horizon at one-third of its daily arc. Thin clouds overhead moved on the breeze, racing seaward away from land.

Einstein reveled in a silence broken only by the noise of the wind whipping against the fabric of the sails. The salt spray blown back from the bow as it dipped into the troughs between the waves quickly buffeted his flowing hair until it was a tangled white mess. Breathing deeply of the salty air, Einstein allowed himself a small chuckle of delight. He hooked a rope to the wheel, then tied it to a cleat on the gunwale to make a crude autopilot so that he could go forward to raise another sail. Back at the helm, he unhooked the rope, then steered farther south along the coast of New Jersey, keeping the sailboat just in sight of land.

It wasn’t that Einstein was afraid of the deeper water, he wasn’t. It was just that the seabirds stayed closer to shore. He loved to watch the birds as they swooped and dived at the sea, in a spontaneous ballet of water and air. He stared off the port bow as a hawk dived to the water, retreating with a small fish in its beak.

Standing at the wheel, he waved his hand at the bird as if to signal hello.

Throughout his life, Einstein had always been a deeply religious man. In a magazine interview, he was quoted as saying that he believed all his best ideas came from God. His religious side also made him cherish the natural world surrounding him. Perhaps more than others he understood the complicated powers at work on the planet. Certainly he appreciated them more than most.

He was a simple man bound to complex thoughts.

Continuing along the coastline, he daydreamed back to a time several years ago. On a day of sailing much like this, a huge blue whale had breached off his sailboat’s starboard bow. Running forward to drop the sails, he had waited patiently until the whale breached again, directly alongside his vessel. To this day he could still recall the intense feelings that had washed over him as he gazed into the huge whale’s eyes. Einstein clearly remembered that he had seen in the eyes of the whale a great intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge. The experience had filled him with deep emotion.

Warmed by the sun and tickled by a pleasant breeze, the physicist studied the sea carefully as he sailed south. All around his sailboat he witnessed life. Atlantic porpoise slid to the surface like graceful dancers in an underwater tango, while schools of small fish boiled to the surface to be fed upon by dive-bombing gulls and pelicans.

Continuing twenty nautical miles south along the coast, content just to be sailing, he at last grew weary and stopped in a small protected cove he had found on a previous voyage. He dropped the anchor off the bow, then glanced the short distance to land. The shoreline, carpeted by a thick forest of trees leading down to the waters edge, would provide him with a quiet spot to spend his afternoon. From the trees the chirping of birds rolled across the water and brought him peace. A pair of bullfrogs croaked out their calls while a butterfly flitted from shore and landed on the main mast.

Einstein walked back to the stern of the boat, stretched his aching back, then settled on the deck near a coiled pile of rope. Though he usually paid little attention to food, sometimes literally forgetting he needed to eat, he had a robust appetite this afternoon. He took out one of the liverwurst sandwiches Katherine Hartley had packed for him. Unfolding the waxed paper he took a huge bite. A dab of hot German mustard dotted his chin and he wiped it away with a fingertip. Deeper in the brown paper bag he found a tin foil package. Removing a deviled egg, the top dusted with orange paprika, he consumed it with childish delight. For dessert he ate from a paper container of fresh cranberries. He washed it all down with a bottle of tepid homemade beer. Carefully placing the refuse back in the paper sack, he stowed it in a side compartment, then sat on the stern of the boat contented. His stomach was full but his mind, for once, was strangely empty. Slowly he fell into a deep slumber.

Ten thousand miles and ten time zones to the west of New Jersey on an ancient rocky island, an artificial sun was about to burn with all the intensity of a hell come to earth. Sun glinted off the silver fuselage of a lone B-29 as it flew high above the water. On the wings, on either side of the fuselage, the four Wright Cyclone engines that powered huge four-bladed propellers droned in a monotonous beat as the bomber was guided north.

Colonel Paul Tibbet, Jr., was the commander of the bomber Enola Gay, the plane assigned to unleash the unnatural sun. Tibbet, operating under a thick cloak of secrecy, had explained the purpose of the mission to his crew only a few hours before.

The crew of the Enola Gay was a tight group, honed to perfection through the long hours they had spent training and retraining these last few months. They were as close as men could be, each trusting the other completely. Even so, no one aboard kidded around as usual on the flight north toward Japan. The crew was lost in their own thoughts. They were the chosen warriors for a new age, and they were justifying to themselves the devastation they knew they were about to inflict.

Tibbet signaled the crew they had arrived at the ten-minutes-to-target point. The crew shed their doubts and began to prepare for the bomb run. Trained almost to the point of brainwashing, they were robotic in their movements. The crew would perform their mission exactly as they were trained. They would deliver the payload to the target area.

That was their job.

When the Enola Gay crossed above the city of Hiroshima at an altitude of 31,000 feet, the navigator reversed his cap and stared for the hundredth time at his charts. Checking, then rechecking his course settings, he shouted to the bombardier that they were approaching the targeted building.

The bombardier concentrated completely. Ignoring the sweat that dotted his forehead, he sat peering into the Norden bombsight, his breath coming in shallow waves. Positive they were above the same building he had been shown on the aerial photographs earlier that morning, he activated the release mechanism that freed the weapon they had nicknamed “Little Boy.” Staring down through the open bomb bay the loadmaster watched as “little Boy” dropped from the belly of the plane. It twitched to the left and right, then steadied itself.