I took dutiful notes.
And all the while, my mind sought the delicate balance of heat and pressure so as to extract, from the rush of highly charged molecules of air in this room, a fertilizing clue or two about Stockman’s full intentions.
Haber wrapped up his lecture and folded his arms, in satisfaction, upon his chest. “Those are the basics,” he said. “Perhaps you have some questions, knowing better than I what it is that Americans have failed to grasp.”
“Thank you, Doctor Haber,” I said. “What you’ve said is very clear to me and very compelling. Please understand that Americans in general have not even had the chance to grasp any of this. The failure has been among a very small group of Americans. The journalists.”
Haber nodded his head at the validity of my point. To his credit.
“And journalists,” I said, “need a catalyst. They are — on their own — simple iron. May I seek now, for a few minutes, the aluminum, the potassium, the calcium oxides to mix with them?”
Haber smiled and nodded as I appropriated the terms of his mini-lecture for my request, as if he were a teacher and gave a damn about his teaching and a student from the back of the lecture hall had raised his hand and made a smart comment.
I had a fleeting sense of him. Not so much what he was as what he wasn’t. Or didn’t seem to be. In mourning. He was nothing like a man whose wife blew her brains out with his own pistol a couple of months ago. He seemed animated without mitigation. He gave off energy and focus and devotion.
Either this was one hard son of a bitch or his anguish was so strong he’d dug a hole for it and threw it in and all this energy was him shoveling dirt. I hoped for the latter. That would make him even more eager to talk about what was presently preoccupying him.
It was time now to suppress my scoop-seeking reporter’s gag reflex. Which I did. And instead I recited my already twice-refined Stockman Doctrine, my fawning assurance to this guy that he could say anything that was on his mind and if it was the last thing in the world he’d want to tell a newspaper reporter, it was okay because I was there to protect him against himself.
In the midst of this, Haber had glanced once at Stockman, with a little flex around the eyes that appealed for reassurance. I’d kept my own eyes on Haber, and it was clear from the abrupt relaxation in his face that Stockman had come through for me.
When I finished, Haber said, “You may seek.”
“Thank you,” I said. “First, I’d like to return to a phrase you used — and naturally so — a few moments ago. ‘Your country,’ you said to me, referring to the United States of America. You are, strictly speaking, correct. But now I ask that you grant me the same assurance I have given you. I will tell you a thing meant only for the three of us. My country is Germany. It was the country of my father, and of my father’s father.”
I paused.
I did not need to say Just like your father and your father’s father. I could read his face. The ever so slight firming of his mouth. The minute nod.
“That is perhaps the aluminum oxide,” I said. “The American reporters who came to hear about your discovery lacked the. .” I hesitated very briefly to find just the right word.
Haber intervened. “Promoter,” he said.
I cocked my head at him, and he elaborated.
“These compounds are called promoters of the catalysis.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Yes. These journalists lacked the promoter of an existing connection to our country. I come to this story able to energize it for my readers by my pride in Germany.”
Now it was time for a little catalytic self-deprecation, with an embedded appeal for him to spill his own beans. “I confess I’m intimidated interviewing such a great thinker as you, Doctor Haber. But at this moment in history, great thinkers need to step forward. I hope I’m saying all of this precisely. Am I making sense?”
“Perfect sense,” he said. “During peace time a scientist belongs to the world. But during war time he belongs to his country.”
I took a sudden, deep, seemingly admiring breath. “May I write that down?”
“Of course.”
I did.
“Your discovery will help feed our country,” I said. “Particularly in the face of this barbaric blockade of food by the British.”
“It will help,” he said.
“‘Barbaric,’ of course, is our private word.”
“An appropriate word for our private use,” Haber said.
“Are you continuing to refine the Haber Process for agricultural uses?”
“It is no longer a matter of science,” Haber said. “It is a practical matter, for industry. They are the ones who seek refinements, mostly to do with increasing output. You should speak to the people at BASF in Oppau.”
“The war must be making very heavy demands on them,” I said, walking a high wire now with Stockman next to me, trying to lead Haber by rhetorical indirections.
“Carl Bosch, for instance,” Haber said. “At BASF.”
“Excellent idea,” I said.
“Very heavy demands,” Haber said.
He was circling back.
“It frightens me, in retrospect,” I said. “If it were not for your process, our dear Fatherland could be running out of all that it needs.”
I was referring to explosives, of course, not food. Ammunition. Bombs. I kept it vague, to keep Stockman quiet for as long as possible. But Haber instantly knew what I meant.
“We would have run out six months ago,” Haber said.
Stockman jumped in. “We are all frightened of that in retrospect,” he said. “But we have come through. And the subject of explosives falls outside of the story we wish to do.”
He was staying vigilant.
“Sorry, Baron,” I said. “These are emotional issues.”
“I am well aware of that,” he said.
I turned back to Haber.
I was glad to be in my reporter’s frame of mind. I knew if you couldn’t get something out of the guy you wanted to expose, you might at least get him to rail at his enemies. Whose names you made careful note of.
I’d even had a whiff of collegial conflict from that earlier quotable proclamation.
I figured it would take Stockman a little time to assess this line of questioning. And that he wouldn’t hold it permanently against me. It was worth the risk.
“Doctor Haber,” I said, “your fine observation still sings in my head. The responsibility of a scientist during war. Do all of your colleagues feel the same way?”
“Some. Most.”
I could see him stiffening. Not against me. Against somebody in his head.
“I’m sure you of all people could persuade anyone who would waver.”
“Not always.” His face was turning red. Catalysis.
“If they are German,” I said.
“German? Yes, German.”
“And loyal.”
Haber turned to Stockman, put his hand onto the tabletop in his direction. “I’ve spoken to you of this man,” he said.
I could feel Stockman stirring.
This was a touchy issue between them as well.
Haber’s face swung back to me. “Albert Einstein,” he said.
37
This was another scientist whose name I did not know, but from the tone of Haber’s voice I was expected to.
“I myself brought him from exile to the Institute,” Haber said. “I overlooked his personality for the brilliance of his mind.”
Fritz was going red in the face again.
I had to assume Stockman was about to intervene. Haber was in the grip of a powerful desire to talk.
“That exile was self-imposed,” Haber said. “Though he was born in Germany, as was his father and his father’s father.”