Duchamp Versus Einstein Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  CHRISTOPHER HINZ

  BINARY STORM

  ‘This is a fast-paced future thriller that delivers on the promise of its high-concept premise.’

  The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

  “You’ll want to hang in there for the entirety of the ride.”

  Strange Alliances

  LIEGE KILLER

  “It’s a genuine page-turner, beautifully written and exciting from start to finish... Hinz presents this material with the assurance of classic sf and the vividness of the new masters... Don’t miss it.”

  Locus

  “Liege-Killer moves along at a brisk clip, providing one action-filled scene after another. Hinz writes with skill and verve. His world is logical and alive, and he peoples it with credible and compelling characters.”

  San Francisco Chronicle

  BY THE SAME AUTHORS

  Etan Ilfeld

  Beyond Contemporary Art

  Christopher Hinz

  Liege-Killer

  Binary Storm

  Ash Ock

  The Paratwa

  Anachronisms

  Spartan X

  Liege-Killer: The Graphic Novel

  Starship Alchemon

  ANGRY ROBOT

  An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

  Unit 11, Shepperton House

  89 Shepperton Road

  London N1 3DF

  UK

  angryrobotbooks.com

  twitter.com/angryrobotbooks

  Mind blowing chess

  An Angry Robot paperback original, 2019

  Copyright © Christopher Hinz & Etan Ilfeld 2019

  Cover by Francesca Corsini

  Set in Adobe Garamond

  All rights reserved. Christopher Hinz and Etan Ilfeld assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

  Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.

  ISBN 978 0 85766 834 9

  Ebook ISBN 978 0 85766 835 6

  Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  DUCHAMP

  28 July 1887

  Duchamp born in Blainville-Crevon, France

  1912

  Duchamp paints Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2

  1913

  Armory Show (Art Show in NYC)

  First exhibition of modern art in America

  1917

  Duchamp Submits Urinal to an exhibition (Fountain)

  1918

  Duchamp arrives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and stays for nine months

  1927

  Duchamp marries Lydie Sarazin-Lavassor; however, they divorce six months later

  1932

  Duchamp publishes a chess book, Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled

  1954

  Duchamp marries Alexina "Teeny" Sattler

  1955

  Duchamp becomes a US Citizen

  2 October 1968

  Duchamp dies in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

  WORLD EVENTS

  28 June 1914

  Archduke Karl Ludwig

  of Austria is assasinated

  28 July 1914

  World War I begins

  15 August 1914

  Panama Canal complete

  11 Nov 1918

  World War I ends

  1 Sep 1939

  World War II begins

  16 July 1945

  First Atomic Bomb test

  (aka Trinity)

  2 Sep 1945

  World War II ends

  EINSTEIN

  14 March 1879

  Einstein born in Ulm, Germany

  1896

  Einstein renounces German citizenship to avoid military service and is stateless

  1901

  Einstein acquires Swiss citizenship

  1902

  Joins the Swiss Patent office

  1903

  Marries Mileva Maric

  1905

  Publishes three seminal papers: Theory of Special Relativity; Photoelectric effect, Brownian Motion

  1911

  Becomes an Austrian citizen (which gradually changes into German citizenship as Austria joins Germany in the following decades)

  1919

  Einstein divorces Mileva Maric

  1919

  Einstein marries his cousin Elsa Lowenthal

  1921

  Wins Nobel Prize in Physics

  1933

  Renounces German citizenship and flees Germany

  1936

  Wife Elsa dies

  1939

  Einstein sends letter to President Roosevelt about the potential of atomic weapons

  1940

  Becomes an American citizen

  19 April 1955

  Einstein dies in Plainsboro, New Jersey, USA

  Contents

  Praise for Christopher Hinz

  By the Same Authors

  Manhattan, 1917

  Manhattan, 1917

  Manhattan, 1917

  Bern, 1905

  Manhattan, 1917

  Long Island, 1939

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Chapter 1

  About the Authors

  MANHATTAN, 1917

  The newborn baby girl was more luminous and colorful than an Edison street lamp, more mysterious than the fragility of a winter’s dawn. It materialized in front of Marcel Duchamp as he stood atop the Washington Square Arch, assuming form at the moment a swirling gust forced him to lean against the parapet for stability. The infant’s multi-hued glow was reminiscent of a fiery sunrise – scarlets, magentas and raging ambers – with the illumination somehow emanating from deep within its tiny naked body.

  Marcel’s senses were momentarily numbed. The combination of icy January winds and surreal apparition floating in space just beyond the retaining wall stopped him from calling out in surprise to his fellow conspirators.

  The hardened ground lay a good seventy-five feet beneath their perch atop the arch. In a rush of instinctive concern for the infant’s safety, Marcel overcame his hesitation and reached out to grab it.

  The infant disappeared – his hands encircled emptiness. He whirled in surprise to the conspirator nearest him along the parapet.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I see all, and thus am consumed by all misery,” proclaimed drunken Gertrude Drick, spokeswoman for tonight’s revolutionary act, as unyielding as a statue amid the fierce winds. A budding poet and self-proclaimed woman of anguish, Gertrude once distributed cards imprinted with the word Woe just so she could brag to friends and strangers that Woe is me.

  Marcel, Gertrude and the other four conspirators had been up here for nearly an hour, insulating themselves against the cold of these wee morning hours with sandwiches and wine, and convivial appreciation for how much less illuminated the world would be without red Chinese lanterns, which they’d hung from the parapets to symbolize joy and good fortune.

  “It’s time,” painter John Sloan announced. He waved to elicit the attention of the dozens of admirers gathered in the shadowy park at the foot of Fifth Aven
ue below, then signaled Gertrude with a nod. She positioned herself along the arch facing the gathering and slit the envelope. With a flourish, she withdrew the decree and commenced reading, her booming voice cleaving through the darkness like the foghorn of an East River freighter.

  As Gertrude began the proclamation with a string of officious whereases, Marcel couldn’t stop thinking about the glowing infant. Strange dream-like incidents had periodically touched him throughout his twenty-nine years. Yet until this moment, he’d never experienced what clearly must have been a mirage.

  Was he drunk? Or during the beverage’s fermentation, could some chemical have been unwittingly introduced that caused hallucinations? Nothing in the demeanor of the others indicated they were affected, although with Gertrude normally operating from a state of phantasmagoric zeal, evidence might be scant.

  Marcel’s attention returned to the “woman of woe” as she reached the heart of the matter, her vocal instrument rising to blustery heights as she announced that henceforth, Greenwich Village would be a free and independent republic.

  Basking in the cheers of the crowd, the others fired cap pistols and released balloons to celebrate the liberation, and quaffed from pale bottles of purplish wine to give equal praise to libation. Marcel joined the merriment but halfheartedly, unable to remove his gaze from the spot where the infant had appeared and just as quickly dematerialized. Had what he’d witnessed been symbolic? A construct of his subconscious mind, an outpouring in the manner that Sigmund Freud had become famous for postulating?

  “The time has come for our retreat,” Gertrude proclaimed, lifting the trap door and leading them down the spiral staircase. “These heights will soon attract the repressive forces of the social order.”

  Marcel was glad to leave. The noises of freedom, particularly at such a late hour, likely would alert the police and result in prison. Hangovers would be more challenging to endure should they awaken to daylight in some dank Manhattan jail.

  The movement provided an added bonus, relieving him, at least temporarily, of further thoughts of the infant. He followed the others through the access door at the base through which they had made their clandestine entrance. Admirers from the crowd surrounded them, generous with praise their slurred speech and swaying indicative of the frightfully drunk. Gertrude, John and the others, still consumed by radical fervor, took advantage of the alcohol-fueled admiration by plunging into rapid-fire conversation. Marcel’s command of the American idiom remained imperfect in the two years since he’d come here from France, but he understood enough to grasp the main thread: Bohemian tirades against bourgeois sensibilities.

  Declining an invitation to join the others at a nearby Irish tavern that never closed except on Christmas Eve and March 18, the day after the Feast of Saint Patrick, Marcel bade them goodnight and began the long walk home. Escape failed to dispel his ongoing thoughts of the infant and what it might mean…

  * * * * *

  The following series of letters by Marcel Duchamp, translated from the artist’s native French, were discovered hidden in the compartment of an early twentieth century desk in AD 2061. The desk was found within the sealed basement of a former New York City skyscraper, the site covered in five meters of atomic slag from the Manhattan Detonations. Noted World War III apocalyptic historian Trinita Rodriguez, the granddaughter of a woman born in Socorro, New Mexico, within minutes of the world’s first atomic detonation – and a mere forty miles from ground zero – made the discovery. The original letters are on display at the W.M.D. wing of the Global Apocalypse Museum, Americana Colony, Luna.

  Paris,

  1st of August, 1914

  Walter Arensberg

  33 West 67th Street

  New York City, NY, USA

  My dear Walter,

  Thank you for your recent letter and for the wonderful news and wishes. The atmosphere in Paris is as silly as ever. Since the Archduke’s assassination, the French leaders are amplifying the public’s sense of panic, nationalism and xenophobia.

  Political affairs aside, I must share with you the odd event that unfolded this week, which you might find amusing.

  Despite a jubilant bash on Monday evening in celebration of my 27th birthday, I found it difficult to fall asleep that night. During the morning hours I was in a strange state, upon which I tried to ascertain if I was still dreaming or awake.

  I keep an upside-down bicycle wheel mounted on a wooden stool at my studio and I gave the wheel a persuasive spin. As I waited for it to slowly grind to a halt, I noticed that it was maintaining its speed and momentum. At that moment my suspicions leaned toward the notion that I must be caught up in a dream.

  I was determined to exert some sort of control over this apparent dream state. At first I jumped as high as I could, desiring to remain afloat, but disappointingly found that my body dropped back down to the floor as regularly as an apple would fall from a tree. Next, I walked over to the kitchen table, which still had yesterday’s newspaper.

  “Panama Canal Soon To Be Completed.”

  I shook the newspaper vigorously and discovered to my surprise that most of the letters of the headline became jumbled and rearranged into nonsensical gibberish. However, each time there would appear at least one legible word, including “sewer,” “network” and several others that I cannot now recall. After a few more shuffles of the newspaper, I tired of this association game. For reasons that now elude me, I walked to my desk and wrote down a question addressed to what I assume was my subconscious:

  “In a world that seems on the verge of great turmoil, what do I fear the most?”

  I picked up the note, folded it in two and entered the bathroom. I dropped the note into the toilet bowl and yanked the chain to flush. After a few moments of swirling liquid, the paper disappeared into the subterranean depths, and at that moment I felt incredibly silly, as if my subconscious could be located in such a watery realm. But just as I was about to turn away, the note reappeared, gently bobbing on the surface of the freshly filled bowl. I retrieved the note and unfolded the paper, and was surprised to see that the drenching had caused the ink to spell out a new message:

  “The masses, incest, the toxic smell of oil paint, determinism.”

  The retort, more than a bit cryptic, challenged my sensibilities. Still operating under the assumption that I was in a dream state, I jotted down a second query on another piece of paper:

  “Who or what am I? What do I desire?”

  I folded the note and flushed it, and was not terribly surprised to see it reappear. Fishing it from the toilet, I read it aloud.

  “The energy of the night, imaginary stimuli, the chance to express myself, pleasure that can only be derived from bodily orifices.”

  Caught up in the throes of what was happening to me, I eagerly scrawled a third and final note. This time, I asked my subconscious, or whatever mystifying force was responding to my queries, something more specific:

  “Should I travel to the Americas?”

  In light of the unsettled events in Europe, and of a growing popularity of my work there, the question seemed appropriate.

  The reply, by the same means already described, soon appeared.

  “Go to New York City.”

  Before I could even consider further questions, my alarm clock began to ring. I found myself waking up in bed in a feverish sweat from what surely must have been a dream. Yet I had doubts about that. Was it instead an altered reality, a godlike transcendence? Does such a question even have an answer?

  Most sincerely, and with regards to your dearest Louise,

  Marcel Duchamp

  23 St Hippolyte

  Paris, France

  MANHATTAN, 1917

  Marcel’s home was a modest bachelor’s pad on 67th Street, on the west side of Central Park. To reach it from the Washington Square Arch, a three-and-a-half- mile walk up Fifth Avenue and Broadway was required. He certainly wasn’t going to pay the exorbitant fare for one of those gasoline-powered taxis,
whose drivers charged up to fifty cents a mile. Besides, he didn’t mind long strolls through this easily navigable city at night. And a body in motion helped combat the cold.

  He tightened the collar of his overcoat against the wind and pushed forward against a smattering of white flurries. The pavements were largely deserted, the cobblestone streets silent. Near 42nd Street, he saw and heard the quivering grunts and backfires of a milk truck that likely was causing its driver to curse all things mechanical and long for the serenity of horse-drawn vehicles. Despite the distraction, his thoughts kept circling back to the mysterious infant.

  “How do you maintain your balance?”

  The woman’s voice surprised him. It seemed to ooze from a narrow alley, with a rectangular opening just high enough for someone of Marcel’s stature to stand upright in. The shadowy alley was pinched between the grandiose staircases of two imposing brownstone residences.

  He paused in his trek, unsure whether the words were directed at him. Perhaps the woman was speaking to a companion in the depths of the alley’s impenetrable gloom, with reverberation producing an echo onto the street.

  Hearing nothing further, Marcel continued on. But after only a few steps, the woman spoke again.

  “Is it your custom to ignore an invitation to converse?”

  His interest piqued, Marcel moved to the edge of the staircases flanking the alley. Possibilities flittered through his mind. The voice’s owner could be a prostitute who had not yet earned her nightly keep and sought a final customer. Or perhaps she was a lady of higher social calling who, nonetheless, had drunk wine or liquor to the point of reduced inhibitions. A more ominous possibility was that the voice belonged to a siren in thrall to ruffians seeking to draw the unwary into the alley for robbery, or worse.

  The nearest street lamp lacked enough illumination to penetrate the alley’s mouth. Even standing this close, Marcel could make out nothing but a nest of shadows.

  “Who are you?” he challenged. “What do you want?”

  There was no response. Marcel decided the prudent choice was to ignore the disembodied voice. Once again, he turned away to continue his northward trek. Once again, her words brought him to a halt.

  “You may call me… Stella. I witnessed your artistry at the Armory Show. Four years ago, was it not?”