Striking the Balance

“Yes. Truth. We could crush you at any time. But to do this, we would have to divert resources, and resources are scarce. So. We have tolerated you as nuisances-is this the word I want? But no more. Soon we move males and machines again through Lodz. If you are interfering. If you are nuisances, you will pay. This is the warning. Do you understand it?”

“Oh, yes, I understand it,” Anielewicz said. “Do you understand how much trouble you will have all through Poland, from Jews and Poles both. If you try to suppress us? Do you want nuisances, as you call them, all over the country?”

“We shall take this risk. You are dismissed,” Bunim said. One eye turret swiveled to look out the window, the other toward the sheets of paper that had emerged from the silent printing machine.

“You come,” the Lizard guard said in his bad Polish. Anielewicz came. When they got outside the building from which the Lizards administered Lodz, the guard returned his rifle.

Anielewicz went, thoughtfully. By the time he got back to the fire station on Lutomierska Street, he was smiling. The Lizards were not good at reading humans’ expressions. Had they been, they would not have liked his.

Max Kagan spoke in rapid-fire English. Vyacheslav Molotov had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded hot. Then Igor Kurchatov translated: “The American physicist is upset with the ways we have chosen to extract plutonium from the improved atomic pile he helped us design.”

Kurchatov’s tone was dry. Molotov got the idea he enjoyed delivering the American’s complaints. Translating for Kagan let him be insubordinate while avoiding responsibility for that insubordination. At the moment, Kagan and Kurchatov were both necessary-indeed, indispensable-to the war effort. Molotov had a long memory, though. One day-

Not today. He said, “If there is a quicker way to get the plutonium out of the rods than to use prisoners in that extraction process, let him acquaint me with it, and we shall use it. If not, not.”

Kurchatov spoke in English. So did Kagan, again volubly. Kurchatov turned to Molotov. “He says he never would have designed it that way had he known we would be using prisoners to remove the rods so we could reprocess them for plutonium. He accuses you of several bloodthirsty practices I shall not bother to translate.”

You enjoy hearing of them, though.Kurchatov was not as good as he should have been at concealing what he thought. “Have him answer my question,” Molotov said. “Is there a quicker way?”

After more back-and-forth between the two physicists, Kurchatov said, “He says the United States uses machines and remote-control arms for these processes.”

“Remind him we have no machines or remote-control arms.”

Kurchatov spoke. Kagan replied. Kurchatov translated: “He says to remind you the prisoners are dying from the radiation in which they work.”

“Nichevo,”Molotov answered indifferently. “We have plenty to replace them as needed. The project will not run short, of that I assure him.”

By the way Kagan’s swarthy face grew darker yet, that was not the assurance he’d wanted. “He demands to know why the prisoners are not at least provided with clothing to help protect them from the radiation,” Kurchatov said.

“We have little of such clothing, as you know perfectly well, Igor Ivanovich,” Molotov said. “We have no time to produce it in the quantities we need. We have no time for anything save manufacturing this bomb. For that, the Great Stalin would throw half the state into the fire-though you need not tell Kagan as much. How long now till we have enough of this plutonium for the bomb?”

“Three weeks, Comrade Foreign Commissar, perhaps four,” Kurchatov said. “Thanks to the American’s expertise, results have improved dramatically.”

A good thing, too,Molotov thought. Aloud, he said, “Make it three; less time if you can. And results are what counts here, not method. If Kagan cannot grasp this, he is a fool.”

When Kurchatov had translated that for Kagan, the American sprang to attention, clicked his heels, and stuck out his right arm in a salute Hitler would have been proud to get. “Comrade Foreign Commissar, I do not think he is convinced,” Kurchatov said dryly.

“Whether he is convinced or not I do not care,” Molotov answered. Inside, though, where it didn’t show, he added an entry to the list he was compiling against Kagan. Maybe, when the war was over, the sardonic physicist would not find it so easy to go home again. But that was for later contemplation. For now, Molotov said, “What matters is that he continue to cooperate. Do you see any risk his squeamishness will imperil his usefulness?”

“No, Comrade Foreign Commissar. He is outspoken”-Kurchatov coughed behind his hand; Kagan was a lot more, a lot worse, than outspoken-“but he is also dedicated. He will continue to work with us.”