Stranger Fiction - The Men Who Designed... Part 2

2.
Back in the guest house the group took tea with lemon shorties in a secluded lounge, where they felt sheltered from undesired attention. Oppenheimer, in particular, was jittery.

As a young student his supervisors had been wary of his mental condition, habitually advising colleagues and institutes for which his unquestionable talent was recommended to keep an eye out for him, but this paternal concern and the special attention it gave rise to only served to further undermine his ease about being around other people.

Now, after his contributions to ending the war, and coinciding with a significant public esteem, the social stigma that haunted his younger years seemed to have returned in the shape of a wider paranoia, with the twist that his paranoia could now be said to be somewhat justified by facts. McCarthy’s henchmen had him under surveillance and freuqently called in for repetitive and exhausting interrogations.

In the case of Oppenheimer the treatment was especially insidious, as if his psychological constitution – as well as, perhaps, his famous quotation from the Bhagavad-Gita upon the detonation of the first nuclear bomb and the ambiguity of it – had made the authorities view him as unstable matter of a new kind.

But in the current presence Oppenheimer appeared to feel quite comfortable, even able to jest a bit, displaying some of that charming American boyish charm that had contributed to make him such a charismatic figure. The other scientists greeted him with warmth, and treated him without the reserve that he was accustomed to, and the authors – Tolkien and CS Lewis – both held him in high regard for his extensive work with translating the Mahabharata into English.

In his old age Oppenheimer had developed some strangely Oriental features, making him look less like a maverick physician and more like a yogi or an avatar. Tolkien was instinctively drawn to converse with the sad recluse – a man whose fate had been to construct a weapon of such daunting destructive power that his own mind nearly failed to grasp the implications. During most of the day Tolkien seated himself next to Oppenheimer, whether it was a patronizing gesture, fascination with a character as unlikely as one of the mythological beings in his own celebrated novels, or just simply facilitated by overlapping academic interests.

To begin with they engaged mostly in small talk about linguistics. Oppenheimer, in his patient and humble way, readily accounted for the numerous difficulties, errors and shortcomings with regard to translating central phrases and concepts in Hindu mythology, but also took some simple pride in describing particularly clever ways he had managed to bridge the cultural gap, avoiding most of all to superimpose traditional Christian values on the material.

“This, to me, is the crux of the problem, whether you deal with the Vedic scriptures or I Ching and Tao Te Ching”, said Oppenheimer. “As a Westerner you are always tempted to interject Biblical symbolism where it does not belong, or to pass moral judgements based on Protestant philosophy. It goes without saying that something as simplistic as Biblical theology cannot be applied to something as sophisticated as the Indian pantheon without battering the subject.”

Clive Lewis sat on the other side of the table, between Einstein and Bohr, but he was more inclined towards the legend of the great war between the Pandava and Kurava than the intrinsic conflicts between the theory of relativity and quantum physics – of which he only understood that in order to grasp the next revolution in science one had to accept an underlying uncertainty about everything.

It struck him that again there was a strange synchronicity between the spontaneously erupting conversations around the table, and leaning towards Bertrand Russell who was noticeably attentive to the physics argument, Lewis whispered:

“It seems that epistomology will be affected, and begin to move backwards in time just like those strange particles some physicists predict.”

Bertrand Russell giggled at the joke, pleased just to be in the company of men who were capable of casually conversing about topics that only a fraction of the population of the world could ever hope to comprehend.

“The question is if that backwards motion will end up meaning we don’t know what we know, or if it means we know what we don’t”.

For a moment the awkwardness between them – rooted in the dichotomy between Lewis’ persistent Christian apologetics and Russell’s equally energetic atheism – subsided.

Most of the men, besides Bohr who was never oblivious to his role as a chairman for the unusual convention, relished the same sentiment.

“Your physics aim to make me a curiousity who is mainly known because he doesn't wear socks”, Einstein sighed in a moment of ironic despair, falling back in the armchair unable to curb or contain the enthusiastic argumentation of his younger colleague.

That was the cue for the proverbial angel, which manifested in the shape of a lovely young waitress asking them if they were content, and if they needed anything else.

Unfamiliar with the faces of most of the men, but without a doubt recognizing their importance – and conspicuously awed by the presence of Albert Einstein – she paused for a while among them as if just standing there for a little longer than courtesy required would make the memory of the moment more poignant.

“There you see. She likes you”, Bohr said when she had left the room, in the surprisingly permissive manner characteristic of Danes.

Einstein frowned at the undue familiarity, but in a slightly exaggerated, comical fashion indicating that he was in a large-minded mood and secretly amused.

“These young people”, Einstein said. “They believe that if you have been on the cover of a magazine you are a film star. She will probably tell people she met John Wayne.”
Niels Bohr padded Einstein very gently on the shoulder – almost as lightly as if brushing off a feather or a loose thread – as he sat up straight, looked around at each man seated by the table and initiated the more formal part of the meeting with the words:

“We are here to determine if there is such a thing as humanity, and to what extent the individual conscience is accountable to it.”

Part 3