The door next to the office, however, was open, fluorescent light pouring out into the corridor. There was no one inside. Instinctively he reached in to snap out the light, then stopped. It had been years since he had been in a classroom, and he stood there for a minute taking in the familiar smell of chalk and dust and dry radiator heat. The room was small-a desk in one corner piled with books, a conference table with chairs, a blackboard, and two narrow windows that faced Ashley Pond. The blackboard had the chalk smears of a hasty eraser, and Connolly went over to it, automatically picking up the eraser to finish. He took off his coat and looked at the blackboard. In school, it had helped to map things out, make the problem visual. He remembered writing formulas on the board, so clear when you could see them that the answer followed at the end. He took a piece of chalk and, almost without thinking, began to draw.
Near the bottom he drew the outline of an adobe church, two squat towers and a cross, with a side patch of alley with an X in it. A line followed the Cerrillos Road up the board, crossing the chalk arc of bridge and intersecting with the Alameda. The lines came quickly, a squiggle of river, a generic puff of bush, another X. Then some of the city streets, the rectangle of the plaza, and off in the far left corner, forty miles away, the wavy ridge of canyons, another X, the chalky portico symbols of gates.
When he stepped back, he saw everything he knew about the logistics of the case, an algebra formula disguised as a child’s map. He held the chalk in one hand, resting his elbow in the other, as if he were staring at a painting in a museum. How to connect the Xes? He was at the church. He had come to meet someone. Karl arrived. Three cars? Faintly he heard the clunky government-issue clock ticking over the board. How many to the final X? But there’d been no signs of another car in the box canyon.
The building was still, saved from eeriness by a background murmur of voices down the hall. Working late. He stared at the map. He could see Karl’s car moving up the Cerrillos Road. What about the others? How many at the second X? He stared until even the background sounds faded away. Rain. Headlights. There must be a way to see.
The gasp from behind startled him. He turned around to see Friedrich Eisler put a hand to his heart, a European gesture of surprise.
“I am so sorry,” he said, flustered. “I didn’t mean-for a moment I thought-you looked so like Robert.”
“Robert?”
“Yes. Of course, you are much bigger. But the way you stood there, with the chalk. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He turned to go.
“No, please, come in. I shouldn’t be here anyway. I was just doodling.”
Eisler smiled, “Yes, doodling.” He pronounced it as an exotic word. “It was very like. Of course, this was many years ago. Gottingen. He would stand there for hours, you know, just looking at the board. Thinking. But what kind of thinking? That I could never discover. Once I saw him in the morning and I came back later and he was still there. And then later. All day. Just holding the chalk, looking.”
“Did he find the answer?”
Eisler shrugged and smiled. “That I don’t remember.”
“He was your student?”
“A colleague. I am not so old, you know.”
“What was he like?”
Eisler smiled again. “So. You too. Everyone wants to know Robert. What was he like? The same. Of course, not so busy. In those days, there was more time. For thinking. Like you, with the chalk.”
Connolly had moved away from the board, and Eisler looked at it, puzzled. “This is not, I take it, a mathematical formula.”
“No.” Connolly laughed, embarrassed. “Just a map. I was trying to figure something out. I suppose I’d better clean up,” he said, taking the eraser.
But Eisler was looking thoughtfully at the map, his eyes darting from one X to the others.
“No, don’t bother,” he said absently. “No one comes here. Perhaps you’ll find your answer, like Robert.” He turned wearily from the board to face Connolly. “Then you must tell me how you did it. The process. I always wondered.”
“The Oppenheimer Principle,” Connolly said lightly.
“Yes. Well, I leave you to your problem.”
But Connolly was reluctant to see him go. “I was thinking about something you said to me.”
“Really? What is that?”
“About the Nazis giving us permission. To do what we do.”
“Yes.”
“Today I thought, they’re gone. Who’s going to give us permission now?”
Eisler looked at him, his gentle eyes suddenly approving, a teacher pleased with his pupil. “My friend, I don’t know. My war is finished. That is for you to decide.” He stretched his arm back toward the blackboard. “You must use the Oppenheimer Principle.”
“With me, it’s guesswork.”
“Only the answers. The questions are real. Keep asking the questions.”
“Maybe you have to be him to make it work.”
Eisler sighed. “It will work for you too, I think.”
“I’m not like him.”
