Gedanken-experiment

Grobes shifted arthritically in his chair, a grimace gracing his gaunt and somewhat sallow features. The green book balanced in his delicate hands, his small eyes squinting as he examined its contents.

“One thing still eludes me,” he commented after a pause, then tapped an inside page vigorously. “How this man came to be.”

I laughed, uncertain, the key to the bookcase rolling over my knuckles. “My dear Grobes, I think that’s a conversation that should have occurred between you and your father a good many decades ago.”

The older gentlemen glared in faux displeasure. “You know what I mean.”

“Truly I don’t. Explain.” Before Grobes could, I added, unnecessarily, “He was a product of his times, you know.”

Grobes closed the book with one hand and tossed it over the desk to me. “Yes, we’re all. But look at the portrait on the frontpiece.”

I didn’t have to. I’d seen it many times before. It was not the portrait of a happy man. Nor content. Accomplished, yes, perhaps. Weary, certainly. The author had the look of one who coveted fame and, once attaining it, wished desperately he could escape.

“This man once was carefree. There was one summer – I think he was seventeen or eighteen – that he spent two months alone, hiking throughout the Alps.” Grobes drained his scotch and set the empty crystal on the side table where his unlit pipe sat. “I’ve read the diaries. The writing, the poetry, are things of pure beauty.”

“He was a genius. When he was young, I mean. Multilingual. Well-read. That sort of thing.” I paused, allowing my thoughts to wander. The green book lay on the desk before me. “When I say well-read, I mean more than just philosophy and religion. Or the arts. The man did his dissertation on the orbits of the planets, for God’s sake.”

Grobes picked up his pipe and studied it. “Well, not for God’s sake.” I silently agreed. The old man continued: “And well advanced for the times. Remember, this is right around the time Ceres was discovered. I believe the dissertation contained something about Bode’s law … you know, the one predicting the orbital radii of the planets.”

“There was some controversy over whether he predicted it or deduced it after Piazzi discovered Ceres.” I read all about it a while ago and it bored me. To change the subject I slapped the hard cover of the green book, a devilish grin on my face. “So, dear Grobes, does this or does this not belong in the Library?”

My companion gave in to temptation and lit his pipe. In short order delicately sweet-smelling vapors filled my little study. Rather than indulging myself, I rose and walked to the hutch and added ice to my drink.

Grobes was ordering his thoughts, I knew. I patiently waited, and was rewarded as soon as I sat back down.

“A little thought experiment, shall we?”

I nodded as I sipped scotch.

“Let’s assume Mr. Wells actually created that machine of his.”

“Machine?” Horrible images of tripods …

Grobes re-crossed his legs, thought better, then stood and paced. Uh-oh. A sure sign of a lecture. I grinned despite myself. The old man might be verbose but he was always entertaining.

“The time machine. Say we have it – ”

“We have it.”

I received a sour look but was otherwise ignored. “And say we go back, say, one hundred and thirty years to the mean streets of Berlin.”

“Gads! You intend to kidnap the man!”

“For this gedankenexperiment, I do.”

“For what purpose!”

Grobes smiled, baring teeth. “To show him this.” A quick spin and the old man produced my half-read folded copy of the Times, slapping it down on my desk atop the green book in triumph. “This!”

“A newspaper?”

“Yes. Well, perhaps not this particular newspaper, but a special newspaper.”

“A special newspaper?”

“Yes.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“Not about it, dear Edward, but about what our friend would think of it.”

“There were newspapers in 1821 Prussia, Grobie.”

He viciously shook his head. “You’re not understanding me, man! What would our friend think of – ” and he furiously rummaged through the Times on my desk. I had to lean back, and wondered for the safety of the green book buried somewhere below.

“Here!” He jabbed at an article. Nuremburg. Trials of Nazis. I saw what the old man was reaching for. Nazis. What would our friend think of the Nazis?

A turn of the page. “Here!” I followed the boney finger to some paragraphs on Stalin and Soviet Russia. “Here!” Directly below, a short paragraph on MacArthur in Korea. He flipped the paper over, searching, then finding, the business pages. “And here!” Charts of the stock market, various business activities, pie graphs. I was unsure what to look for, and telegraphed it with my eyes.

“Consumerism!” Grobes exclaimed. “After all, how free are we, really?”

I laughed, nodding. I understood. Would our man think himself personally responsible? …

Grobes seated himself, glancing about for his pipe, forgetting it was still in his hand. “Edward, what’s inscribed in the foundation stone at the Library?”

I knew the answer automatically. “Absorb. Understand. Explain.”

Grobes smiled.

I fished out the green book and put it back on the shelf, safe under lock and key.