Section F: Fairy Tales & Physicists

Chapter 35

"What do I have to say, agents? What do I have to say about the death of the one and only friend I have in this world? What is there to say? Nothing that will change that fact. Nothing that will alter the knowledge that I hold, that I hide, even from myself—especially from myself—deep inside, way down deep inside, where my wounded heart still beats; the knowledge that Dr Radovic wasn't really my friend. That he was merely a man who tolerated my company, for the benefits it would bring. That I was naive enough, lonely enough—desperate enough—to see that as friendship.

"I hoped if I could study enough, if I could theorise enough, achieve enough, discover enough, if only I could show my worth, then maybe, just maybe, I could turn that tolerance into something more. That I could turn my teacher, my mentor—my tormentor—into my friend. Perhaps eventually I may have succeeded; now I will never know.

"Loneliness is a blight, Agent Fields—a curse that has stalked me all my life. A curse I would not wish upon any soul. I tell you this not to excuse my actions, nor to justify them. Merely to perhaps make them a little more understandable.

"So, on the matters of friendship, of relationships, of...love? On those matters I have very little to say. Much I would have liked to learn, but sadly, little to say.

"I could speak of those few fields in which I do have some knowledge. The vanishingly small number of areas in which I have some actual experience. Science. Physics. The innumerable, incomprehensible wonders of the quantum world—incomprehensible to most, at least. But I fear, agents, in discussing those matters, I would be wasting my diminishing breath.

"Instead, I will speak to you of stories. Of fantasies. Fairy tales, if you will. Oh yes, well may you roll your eyes. I have seen that look before. That look—and all it signifies—is why I have worked alone, for most of my career. It is why my papers lack co-authors. It is why at conferences, my colleagues turn away. And it is why, despite the significance of my achievements, I am a largely a pariah in the scientific world.

"And it is why I treasured my relationship with Dr Radovic. Despite what you may think, I was not blind to his flaws. I knew he was ruthless, that he was ambitious, that he hungered for power. I knew he valued my knowledge rather than my friendship. I knew he was not a good man.

"These things I knew, as much as I may have denied the knowledge to myself. But in a sea of solitude, who can blame a drowning man for clutching at any straw? Dr Radovic listened to me. He encouraged me. Most of all, he spent time with me. Unless you have been truly lonely, agents, you cannot know what that means.

"For all that, even he did not grasp the true significance of stories. Try as I might, I could not convince him of their importance, could not make him see their value. To him, they were nothing more than fatuous nonsense, mere fripperies, childish distractions from what he considered more vital matters. He saw my fixation on fairy tales, my obsession with fables and fantasies, my fascination with myths and legends, as a hindrance to our work. He felt my time, my attention, my...my genius would be better spent elsewhere. For all his brilliance—and despite his flaws, he was brilliant—Dr Radovic could not see how wrong he was.

"I have always loved stories, agents. Always. My earliest memories are of my mother reading to me as a very small child. Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Arabian Nights, Hans Christian Andersen; it didn't matter which, I loved them all. A loner even then, I was always far happier in the pages of a book, lost in the forests of Narnia, falling down the rabbit-hole or peering through the looking-glass, rather than asthmatically running about on the playing fields of my youth. My reserved nature, my timid soul—they thrilled to the daring feats of heroes, the dastardly deeds of villains, and the travails of those caught between.