Soviet first to celebrate. We can now raise the dead.’
3
‘Come and have tea,’ Stevens told Marion Blackwell on the telephone. ‘Any time after four. We can talk then.’
Geoffrey Stevens was a legend to the undergraduate population, a professor of nuclear physics who, a couple ofyears after the war ended, had lost faith in the atomic bomb he had been helping to build. In an act of madness or courage, depending on your viewpoint, he had gone to Moscow to try to convince the Russians to outlaw nuclear weapons. He’d failed, of course. The Soviets had humiliated him, effectively ending his public career. On his return from Moscow, Stevens had resigned from all his government appointments. He had retreated to Cambridge, where he was ostracised by a number of senior members of the university, who condemned what he had done. Some of his most vocal opponents were in his own college. They had been outraged by his flight to Moscow, which they considered an act of treachery. His subsequent adoption of the anti-nuclear cause confirmed – as they saw it – the rightness of their verdict. If Stevens was hurt by the rejection of his colleagues, he never showed it. He remained an icon to those he taught and to many others who shared his convictions, and a formidable opponent to those who advocated the building and use of weapons of indiscriminate destruction.
‘Marion.’ She took his outstretched hand. ‘Come in.’ He ushered her into the kitchen, where tea was laid. She saw one of Celia’s cakes on the table, dark with raisins and dried fruit.
‘I need your help, Geoffrey.’ Stevens had little capacity for small talk. It was best to get to the point quickly.
‘Shouldn’t you be asking someone else?’ He demurred out of habit, but she knew he was delighted to be approached for advice. She suspected he had the opportunity all too infrequently. ‘I’m hardly classed as respectable these days.’
‘I’m on the Blake-Thomas committee,’ she said, ignoring his objection. ‘We selected this year’s speaker months ago but very inconveniently he recently died on us. We’ve had to find a replacement. That’s what all the fuss has been about.’
When she’d come up with the idea of proposing the Russian historian Andrei Berlin, she told him, she had never imagined she would run into such fierce opposition. After some fearful wrangling, the issue had been decided byProfessor Eastman’s casting vote, which didn’t make her at all popular with her opponents on the committee.
‘In the end I won, after a split vote.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘The trouble is, I’ve been having sleepless nights ever since.’
‘If you’re asking me to support your candidate, Marion, I’m not sure your chairman would approve. Eastman and I haven’t spoken for over a decade.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. I want you to tell me if what I’ve done is mad.’
‘Mad isn’t the epithet I’d choose,’ Stevens said. ‘Brave, yes. But then that’s what I’d expect of you.’
‘I don’t want flattery, Geoffrey. This is too important. I want to know what you really think.’
Stevens took out his pipe and began to fill it from a yellow oilcloth wallet. ‘Berlin’s reputation is growing. I’ve not read him but that’s what I hear from those who know about these things. One can only gain from trying to understand how one’s opponent’s mind works, however discomforting the process might be. Berlin would give the Blake-Thomas a good shake-up, which is just what it needs.’
‘I should stick to my guns and stop worrying?’
‘Do you have an alternative?’
‘Michael Scott keeps muttering about Professor Astruc.’
‘Astruc starts hares running and then drops out of the hunt – never finishes anything,’ Stevens said dismissively. ‘I’m surprised Michael doesn’t agree. He ought to know better.’
‘I began to think I was wrong and everyone else was right.’ She smiled at him. ‘I feel relieved.
3
‘Come and have tea,’ Stevens told Marion Blackwell on the telephone. ‘Any time after four. We can talk then.’
Geoffrey Stevens was a legend to the undergraduate population, a professor of nuclear physics who, a couple ofyears after the war ended, had lost faith in the atomic bomb he had been helping to build. In an act of madness or courage, depending on your viewpoint, he had gone to Moscow to try to convince the Russians to outlaw nuclear weapons. He’d failed, of course. The Soviets had humiliated him, effectively ending his public career. On his return from Moscow, Stevens had resigned from all his government appointments. He had retreated to Cambridge, where he was ostracised by a number of senior members of the university, who condemned what he had done. Some of his most vocal opponents were in his own college. They had been outraged by his flight to Moscow, which they considered an act of treachery. His subsequent adoption of the anti-nuclear cause confirmed – as they saw it – the rightness of their verdict. If Stevens was hurt by the rejection of his colleagues, he never showed it. He remained an icon to those he taught and to many others who shared his convictions, and a formidable opponent to those who advocated the building and use of weapons of indiscriminate destruction.
‘Marion.’ She took his outstretched hand. ‘Come in.’ He ushered her into the kitchen, where tea was laid. She saw one of Celia’s cakes on the table, dark with raisins and dried fruit.
‘I need your help, Geoffrey.’ Stevens had little capacity for small talk. It was best to get to the point quickly.
‘Shouldn’t you be asking someone else?’ He demurred out of habit, but she knew he was delighted to be approached for advice. She suspected he had the opportunity all too infrequently. ‘I’m hardly classed as respectable these days.’
‘I’m on the Blake-Thomas committee,’ she said, ignoring his objection. ‘We selected this year’s speaker months ago but very inconveniently he recently died on us. We’ve had to find a replacement. That’s what all the fuss has been about.’
When she’d come up with the idea of proposing the Russian historian Andrei Berlin, she told him, she had never imagined she would run into such fierce opposition. After some fearful wrangling, the issue had been decided byProfessor Eastman’s casting vote, which didn’t make her at all popular with her opponents on the committee.
‘In the end I won, after a split vote.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘The trouble is, I’ve been having sleepless nights ever since.’
‘If you’re asking me to support your candidate, Marion, I’m not sure your chairman would approve. Eastman and I haven’t spoken for over a decade.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. I want you to tell me if what I’ve done is mad.’
‘Mad isn’t the epithet I’d choose,’ Stevens said. ‘Brave, yes. But then that’s what I’d expect of you.’
‘I don’t want flattery, Geoffrey. This is too important. I want to know what you really think.’
Stevens took out his pipe and began to fill it from a yellow oilcloth wallet. ‘Berlin’s reputation is growing. I’ve not read him but that’s what I hear from those who know about these things. One can only gain from trying to understand how one’s opponent’s mind works, however discomforting the process might be. Berlin would give the Blake-Thomas a good shake-up, which is just what it needs.’
‘I should stick to my guns and stop worrying?’
‘Do you have an alternative?’
‘Michael Scott keeps muttering about Professor Astruc.’
‘Astruc starts hares running and then drops out of the hunt – never finishes anything,’ Stevens said dismissively. ‘I’m surprised Michael doesn’t agree. He ought to know better.’
‘I began to think I was wrong and everyone else was right.’ She smiled at him. ‘I feel relieved.
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