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Volodya was thrilled and startled. "Two different designs?"
Frunze nodded. "For Hiroshima they used a uranium device with a gun ignition. We called it Little Boy. For Nagasaki, Fat Man, a plutonium bomb with an implosion trigger."
Volodya could hardly breathe. This was red-hot data. "Which is better?"
"They both worked, obviously, but Fat Man is easier to make."
"Why?"
"It takes years to produce enough U-235 for a bomb. Plutonium is quicker, once you have a nuclear pile."
"So the USSR should copy Fat Man."
"Definitely."
"There is one more thing you could do to help save Russia from destruction," Volodya said.
"What?"
Volodya looked him in the eye. "Get me the design drawings," he said.
Willi paled. "I'm an American citizen," he said. "You're asking me to commit treason. The penalty is death. I could go to the electric chair."
So could your wife, Volodya thought; she's complicit. Thank God you haven't thought of that.
He said: "I've asked a lot of people to put their lives at risk in the last few years. People like yourselves, Germans who hated the Nazis, men and women who took terrible risks to send us information that helped us win the war. And I have to say to you what I said to them: a lot more people will be killed if you don't do it." He fell silent. That was his best shot. He had nothing more to offer.
Frunze looked at his wife.
Alice said: "You made the bomb, Willi."
Frunze said to Volodya: "I'll think about it."
iii
Two days later he handed over the plans.
Volodya took them to Moscow.
Zoya was released from jail. She was not as angry about her imprisonment as he was. "They did it to protect the revolution," she said. "And I wasn't hurt. It was like staying in a really bad hotel."
On her first day at home, after they made love, he said: "I have something to show you, something I brought back from America." He rolled off the bed, opened a drawer, and took out a book. "It's called the Sears Roebuck Catalogue," he said. H
e sat beside her on the bed and opened the book. "Look at this."
The catalogue fell open at a page of women's dresses. The models were impossibly slender, but the fabrics were bright and cheerful, stripes and checks and solid colors, some with ruffles, pleats, and belts. "That's attractive," Zoya said, putting her finger on one. "Is two dollars ninety-eight a lot of money?"
"Not really," Volodya said. "The average wage is about fifty dollars a week, rent is about a third of that."
"Really?" Zoya was amazed. "So most people could easily afford these dresses?"
"That's right. Maybe not peasants. On the other hand, these catalogues were invented for farmers who lived a hundred miles from the nearest store."
"How does it work?"
"You pick what you want from the book and send them the money, then a couple of weeks later the mailman brings you whatever you ordered."
"It must be like being a tsar." Zoya took the book from him and turned the page. "Oh! Here are some more." The next page showed jacket-and-skirt combinations for four dollars and ninety-eight cents. "These are elegant too," she said.
