In Search of Klingsor. Jorge Volpi
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just like all the other professors there. The mathematician gladly accepted the offer; this way, he would be forever free from the bothersome plague of busybody coeds who couldn’t even tell Mozart from Beethoven.
“I have to go now. A meeting with the inner sanctum, if you know what I mean. Tea and cookies and all those illustrious names. Well, not quite as illustrious as yours, but prominent enough that I shouldn’t be late, you know?” He stopped for a second. He was stocky, even slightly chubby, with a greasy double chin hiding beneath his rounded beard. His accent was truly impossible to place. “What are we going to do with you, Bacon? I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, I didn’t expect … Well, you tell me what to do.” Bacon tried in vain to say something. The way Von Neumann carried on a conversation reminded him of the caterpillar’s erratic, long-winded pronouncements in Alice in Wonderland. “All right, all right, that’s a fine idea, Bacon. Listen, tomorrow I’m throwing a little party, you know. I try to do that every so often; this place can be so boring sometimes. I’m always telling my wife that we should open a bar here, like the kind in Budapest, but she never listens to me. All right, I have to go now. I’ll expect you then, at my house tomorrow. Five o’clock, before the other guests arrive … One of those receptions, you know? To keep us from dying of boredom. I suppose you’ve heard about them. All right, I have to go. I’m sorry. Five o’clock, then. Don’t forget.”
“But, Professor …” Bacon tried interrupting him.
“I told you already, we’ll discuss your problem later on. At length, I promise. Now, if you’ll be so kind …”
After several minutes battling with an obtuse secretary to obtain the professor’s home address, Bacon finally arrived at Von Neumann’s house, at 26 Westcott Road, punctual as always. A pair of waiters were busy unloading trays of sandwiches from a catering truck parked in front of the main door to the house, carrying them methodically to the kitchen, like a team of laborers preparing to feed an ant farm. Bacon would never have admitted it, but of course he had heard about Von Neumann’s receptions. His guest list was like a Who’s Who of the Princeton intellectual scene; even Einstein was rumored to have dropped in on occasion. During this particular time, an atmosphere of war hovered over everything—after all, in less than a year Pearl Harbor would be bombed. But here, people seemed intent upon acting as if the world were the same as ever. Or perhaps people simply wanted to enjoy the last moments of calm before the storm hit.
Bacon rang the doorbell and waited a few seconds, but nobody answered. Emboldened, he entered the house along with one of the waiters and began timidly whispering, “Professor? Professor Von Neumann?” in a voice so low that nobody would have heard, even if standing three feet away. After a few minutes, a maid finally noticed him and went upstairs to announce his arrival to Von Neumann. Then the professor appeared, half dressed, with his jacket on and a tie slung over his arm.
“Bacon!”
“Yes, Professor.”
“You, you again!” He sat down in one of the living room chairs and signaled for Bacon to do the same. He began buttoning his shirt with his little fingers, fat as grapes. “Your persistence doesn’t bother me at all, no, not at all, but have some manners. I’m about to throw a party, you know? Wouldn’t you agree that this isn’t exactly the best moment to have a discussion about physics?”
“But you asked me to come, Professor.”
“Nonsense, nonsense, Bacon.” Now he was struggling with his tie. “Well, now that you’re here, it wouldn’t be right for you to leave empty-handed, would it? Manners, my friend, that’s what’s wrong with the Americans. Now, that’s nothing personal, I assure you, but it is beginning to bother me.” Von Neumann studied him, like a pathologist performing an autopsy. “I suppose that I am to decide whether you will be accepted at the institute, is that correct? Your future, sitting here in my hands. It’s a terrible responsibility, my friend, just terrible. How should I know whether you’re a genius or a fool?”
“I sent you my CV, Professor.”
“You’re a physicist, is that right?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Have you ever heard of such foolishness?” Von Neumann muttered. “Just because I wrote that tiny little book on quantum theory, why should that mean I have to review the file of every silly fool who decides to take up physics, right? Don’t look at me like that, my friend, I’m not talking about you, of course not. Well, I’m afraid that those imbeciles have sent me nothing.” Von Neumann got up from his chair in search of a mushroom vol-au-vent. When he located the tray, he picked it up and took it with him; he offered one to Bacon, who declined. “Can you believe it? Nothing. And the worst of all is that I bet it’s time for me to present my evaluation of you to the committee, Bacon. What can I do about it?”
“I don’t know, Professor.”
“I’ve got it!” he shouted, excited by his sudden revelation. “You are aware, are you not, that we are about to enter a war?”
Bacon didn’t seem to understand Von Neumann’s quick change of subject.
“Yes,” he said, just to say something.
“Mark my words, Bacon, we are going to war with Adolf and the Japs.”
“So many people oppose the idea of a war—”
“Are you afraid, is that what you’re trying to say? That you don’t want to save the world from the clutches of that monster?”
Bacon didn’t understand exactly where Von Neumann was headed; it almost seemed as though he was making fun of him, and so Bacon just tried to keep his answers noncommittal.
“Tell me, Bacon, what is a war?”
“I don’t know, a confrontation between two or more enemies?”
“But what else than that?” Von Neumann was getting agitated. “Why do they fight, Bacon, why?”
“Because they have contradictory interests,” Bacon spat out.
“For God’s sake, no; it’s precisely the opposite!”
“Because they have common interests?”
“Of course! They have the same objective, the same goal, but it is only available to one of them. That is why they go to war.”
Bacon was confused. Von Neumann, meanwhile, was trying to calm himself down with more mushroom sandwiches.
“Let me give you a simple example. Let’s take the Nazis and the British: What is their common objective? The same pie, Bacon: the Europe pie. Ever since Hitler took control of Germany in 1933, all he’s done is ask for pieces. First he wanted Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, Belgium, Holland, France, Norway. Now he wants the whole pie. At first, the British tolerated his expansion, like they did at that abominable conference in Munich, but then they realized that Germany had too much. You see?”
“I follow you, Professor. War is like a game.”
“Have you read my little article on the topic, the one published in 1928?” Von Neumann inquired, narrowing his eyes.
“‘On the Theory of Games of Strategy,’” replied Bacon. “I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t read it yet.”
“Right,” the professor mused. “All right. Suppose, then, that the war between Churchill and Hitler is a game. I will add one other condition—something that in the real case isn’t necessarily true at all, but in any event—the players that intervene in the game do so rationally.”
“I think I understand,” ventured Bacon. “They will do whatever it takes to obtain the result they desire: victory.”
“Very good.” Von Neumann finally smiled. “I’m working on a theory right now together with my friend, the economist Oskar Morgenstein. The theory states that all rational games must possess a