IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE WORK
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. Its walls are of glass, so strong that it is impossible to break them even with the hardest blows. Even bullets fired at them ricochet and return to their sender. It is lit by a dull red light that comes from no lamp, but from the walls themselves.
In the centre of the room is a bare wooden table and on it a game of chess is being played by two invisible hands.
You enter the room and watch the game in silence for a few minutes. The game is evenly matched and both sides are making skilful moves.
Then you notice a strange thing. One of the chessmen, a white pawn, is slowly and deliberately moving towards the edge of the board. It takes no notice of the other pieces and they make no attempt to stop it.
The pawn reaches the edge of the board and disappears.
As you stand there puzzling over the phenomenon, a voice speaks to you. It is the quiet, calm voice of a man, but you can see no one.
“Do you believe in God?” the voice asks.
“Of course,” you reply. “Everyone believes in God.”
“Not everyone,” says the voice. “Do you believe in God?”
“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I do.”
“That’s good,” says the voice. “I have a proposal to put to you. You will be rewarded for carrying it out.”
“What is it?” you ask.
“It is very simple,” says the voice. “There is a little island in the Indian Ocean where the lepers live. Go there and bring me back a stone from the island.”
“What kind of stone?” you ask.
“Any kind,” says the voice. “Any kind you like.”
“But why?” you ask.
“That doesn’t concern you,” says the voice. “You will be rewarded for your trouble.”
“But how do I get there?” you ask.
“You must take a ship from here to India,” says the voice. “Then take a train to the coast and a boat to the island. It is that simple.”
“All right,” you say. “I will do it.”
“That is good,” says the voice. “I knew I could rely on you.”
You go to the harbour and book a passage on a ship bound for India. You sail to the coast and take a train to the little town of Brahmapur, where the boat leaves for the island.
You are the only passenger. The captain, a tall thin man, asks you no questions and says nothing during the voyage. You stand on deck as the boat sails into the harbour of the island.
“This is the island,” says the captain.
You go ashore. The island is small and barren. You walk inland until you come to a village. It is a pitiful place. The houses are made of mud and reed. The people are all lepers. They crowd around you, staring at you with their red eyes.
“I am looking for a stone,” you say. “Any kind of stone.”
“I can show you some,” says one of the lepers.
He takes you to a cave at the far end of the village. The entrance is low and narrow. You bend down and go inside. At the back of the cave is a heap of stones.
You take one and put it in your pocket. Then you go back to the boat. The captain helps you aboard and the boat sails away.
You are back in the hexagonal room. The voice speaks to you again.
“Well done,” it says. “You have completed your task. I just need one more thing.”
“What is it?” you ask.
“There is a big war coming,” says the voice. “A terrible war. I can stop it, but I need your help.”
“How do I help?” you ask.
“There is a young man in Germany,” says the voice. “He is a genius. He will become a great scientist. He will make us build new and terrible weapons. We will develop explosives that are more powerful than any we have ever seen.”
“How do I stop him?” you ask.
“I want you to kill him,” says the voice.
“All right,” you say. “I will kill him.”
“You are a good man,” says the voice. “I knew I could rely on you.”
You go to a cinema in Berlin. You sit in the dark and watch a film. It is a love story. The heroine is a young girl, the daughter of a general. She is about to marry an old man, an industrialist. But she is in love with a young poet. He is poor and he has no prospects. She can’t marry him.
In the last scene of the film she and the poet meet in a wood. They talk. The poet knows he will never have her, but he wants her to remember him. He tells her that he has written a poem for her, a poem of love and death. He recites it to her. She listens and is moved by it. Then she kills herself with his pistol. The audience, who have been watching silently, applaud.
As you leave the cinema, you see a man walking toward you. He is a young man, dressed in a long black coat. He has a lean face and his eyes are burning with intelligence. He looks at you and smiles.
“Hello,” he says. “My name is Albert Einstein.”
“I am going to kill you,” you say.
“But why?” he asks.
“It is the only way to stop the war,” you say.
“I am a pacifist,” he says. “I believe that all men are brothers.”
“You will invent the most terrible weapons the world has ever seen.”
“I will never invent anything to hurt anyone.”
“I have to kill you,” you say.
“No,” he says. “You mustn’t kill me.”
“I have to.”
“No,” he says. “You mustn’t.”
You reach into your pocket and take out the stone.
“This is from an island of lepers,” you say. “I found it there.”
“I am a pacifist,” he says. “I will never make a weapon.”
“It is a black stone,” you say. “I found it in a cave.”
You hit him with the stone. You hit him very hard.
“I found it in a cave,” you say again. “It is a black stone and I brought it here to kill you with it.”
“No,” he cries. “You mustn’t kill me with the stone.”
He runs away from you down the street. You chase after him. He turns into a doorway and you follow him inside.
“I am sorry,” he says. “But I cannot let you kill me with the stone.”
He hits you on the head with a steel bar.
You fall to the ground and your world goes black. You wake up in a hospital bed. A doctor is standing beside you, smiling kindly at you through his spectacles.
“It is a miracle,” he says. “You are the only person in the world who has ever survived being hit on the head with a steel bar.”
The doctor tells you that the man who hit you was Albert Einstein. He was arrested and put in prison for attacking you. But he was released a short time later when it was discovered that he was a genius.
You get out of bed and go to Einstein’s house. You find him sitting at his desk, writing equations on a piece of paper with a pencil. He looks up when he sees you come into the room.
“I am sorry I hit you,” he says sadly. “But you were going to kill me.”
You take the stone out of your pocket and put it on his desk. He looks at it carefully, then he puts it in a box that is resting beside him. The box is full of stones like yours. It is the strangest collection you have ever seen — all different shapes, but all with a smooth surface as if they have been polished by water over thousands of years, and all completely black.
Einstein takes off his glasses, rubbing them gently against the sleeve of his shirt.
“I think I will call these ‘Einstein Stones’,” he says. “It sounds very nice when you say it: ‘Einstein Stones’.”
He puts his glasses back on and returns to his work. He doesn't look up again for the rest of the day. You stand beside him for a long time, watching him write equations on pieces of paper in a quiet room under an open window. Then you leave and go home.
“What happened?” the voice asks. “Did you kill him?”
“Sorry,” you say. “But he was very clever. He didn’t let me.”
“But you had a weapon — the black stone. What was wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “It seemed to work at first, but then it stopped.”
“You are not very good at this,” says the voice.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “But I don’t think I can kill him. He’s a nice man.”
“You are a fool,” says the voice.
“I’m sorry,” you say again.
“I should have known better than to trust you,” says the voice. “You have let me down.”
“I am sorry.”
“It is no good being sorry,” says the voice. “We are going to have to try something else.”
“All right,” you say. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to make sure that he does not do any more research,” says the voice. “If he does not do any more research, then we will never have to worry about the things he invents.”
“I can do that,” you say.
“I knew I could rely on you,” says the voice.
You go to Einstein’s house in Berlin. You tell him that you have come to work for him as his assistant. He is very pleased because he has just been made Professor of Physics at the University and he needs someone to help him with his work.
He offers you a glass of wine, then he shows you the papers on which he has been working. They are full of complicated mathematics and you can’t understand a word of them. But Einstein explains them to you carefully and makes sure that you understand everything he is doing before he asks you to help him.
You go to his house every day for a week and he teaches you everything he knows about mathematics and physics. Then he tells you that he is working on a new idea and that you will have to help him with it. He does not tell you what the idea is — only that it is very important for the future of science.
“I will call this equation ‘Einstein’s Equation’,” he says. “It is my favourite equation of all the ones I have ever made.”
“All right,” you say.
“The world will one day be very different because of this equation,” he says. “You mustn’t tell anyone about it yet. It is my secret. My secret work.”
He writes the equation on a piece of paper and hands it to you.
“It is all in there,” he says. “Everything I know about the way the universe works.”
“It looks wrong,” you say.
“It looks wrong?” he asks. “What do you mean, it looks wrong?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “It’s just that there is something wrong with it.”
“You can’t just say that it looks wrong,” he says. “It has to be wrong in some way. What do you mean, wrong?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “It just doesn’t seem to make sense.”
“There is nothing wrong with it,” he says. “It is the way the universe works.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” you say. “Nobody knows how the universe works. It’s too complicated.”
“I know,” he says. “I am trying to work out how it works. That is what this equation is for.”
“But it’s wrong,” you say. “You should throw it away and start again.”
“No!” he shouts. “I will not throw it away. It is my favourite equation of all the ones I have ever made.”
“Then I can’t help you with it,” you say. “I can’t help you if you won’t listen to me.”
“Don’t walk out on me!” he shouts angrily. “Get back here and help me finish my work!”
You leave his house and go home. A little while later, you hear a rumour that Einstein has become ill and that he is not going to be able to do any more research at the university. He will have to go back to his old job as a patent clerk.
“It’s a pity,” people say. “He was a very clever man.”
You go to Einstein’s house to see him. He is lying in bed with his eyes closed. He is pale and his hair has turned grey overnight. His wife tells you that he has not been well for several days. The doctors say that they don’t know why he has become ill. He was a healthy man before.
“It must be the work he was doing,” his wife says. “He was working too hard.”
“Yes,” you say. “It must have been the work.”
“Did he show you his new equation?” she asks.
“Yes. He showed it to me.”
“What did you think of it?”
“I didn’t like it,” you say. “It wasn’t right.”
“Oh,” she says. “What was wrong with it?”
“I don’t know. It just wasn’t right.”
You stay with Einstein for a few days until he is well enough to leave his bed. He is not pleased to see you, but he doesn’t send you away. He has his own ideas about why he became ill, but he will not talk about them with you.
In the hexagonal room, the voice laughs.
“That is very good,” it says. “You have made Einstein ill.”
“You mentioned a reward.”
“Did I?” asks the voice. “I don’t remember that.”
“You said that if I did as you asked, you would give me something.”
“Oh yes,” says the voice. “Yes, I remember. Very well, then. I will give you something.”
“What is it?” you ask.
“It is a new language,” says the voice. “I will give you a language that will allow you to speak to everyone in the world. Everyone will understand you. No one will be able to refuse to listen to you.”
“That sounds very useful,” you say.
“Yes,” says the voice. “It is very useful.”
You go to Einstein’s house and knock on the door. He lets you in. He is still pale and thin, but he seems better than he was before. He has started work again at the university and he shows you his papers and talks to you about his new ideas. You listen carefully, then you ask him a question.
“Einstein,” you say. “Do you remember the equation you wrote down on that piece of paper?”
“Yes,” he says. “I remember it.”
“I have been thinking about it,” you say. “I think I understand why it is wrong.”
“Oh?” he says. “Why is it wrong?”
“It’s too simple,” you say. “It doesn’t take into account the way the universe really works.”
“And how does the universe really work?” he asks.
You tell him. You explain to him what you have learned from the voice. You speak to him in your new language. He listens to everything you say, then he asks you to leave his house.
“I don’t want to talk to you any more,” he says. “I don’t want to see you again.”
He shuts the door in your face.
You decide to walk to the cinema. On the way, you see a group of boys playing football in the street. You stop to watch them for a while. One of the boys kicks the ball too hard and it comes towards you. You catch it and throw it back to him. He thanks you and the game continues.
You reach the cinema and buy a ticket. You go into the theater and find a seat. The lights go down and the film begins. The picture on the screen is very clear and very bright. You watch it carefully, but you don’t really understand it. The language of the film is different from the language that you have learned.
You come out of the cinema into the street. The streetlamps are shining brightly and there are people all around you. You see a woman standing on the other side of the road. She is wearing a long red dress and her hair is tied up in a bun. You want to talk to her.
“Come here,” you say, but she doesn’t understand you.
You try again, but she still doesn’t understand you. You walk across the road towards her, but she moves away from you. You follow her down a dark alleyway and she stops at a door and knocks on it three times. It opens and she goes inside. When she is gone, you stand outside in the darkness for a long time, wondering what has happened to her. Then it begins to rain and you go home without having spoken to anyone all night.