She was halfway through her senior year, at Radcliffe, when the bottom fell out of the stock market, and the panic that gripped the nation seemed to ripple across campus for days and days. When things finally settled down, Claire, like most people in the country, finally realized just how terrible conditions had become across the land, from the so-called "dust bowl" all the way out to California, but in Boston, as well as New York, conditions in the nation's financial centers carried on with much less effort than was popularly imagined. Wealthy people continued getting wealthy, in other words, and as a result the Wilkinson family suffered not at all. Indeed, as Charles would soon point out, the family's fortunes had increased significantly, thanks to some timely advice he received prior to the crash.
Yet Claire was not at all interested in those wheelings and dealings. She had, during her second semester as a 'Cliffie, become interested in the world beyond music. She had her first opportunity to study advanced mathematics at Cambridge, which led her deeper into physics and chemistry, and when the country began to convulse as stock markets crashed she found herself immersed in the study of high energy physics – until news of that other world intruded.
Then she read about the effects of the crash spreading not only across the country, but around the world. She listened in history class as her professor talked about the implications of reparations imposed in Germany after the war in Europe, and about how cycles of reinvestment, between American and German banks, would soon grind to a halt. The ruinous inflation that had visited the Weimar Republic in the early twenties would return, her professor warned, and when that happened there would be trouble. Real trouble.
Because there were violent opposition parties in Germany now, most problematically the National Socialists – who were anything but socialist. He made mention of Mussolini's National Fascist Party, which had taken power in 1921 by forming a tight alliance between fascists and existing corporate power structures in the Italian state, and he cautioned that German industrial might – if incorporated into a fascist regime – would prove ruinous to the aims of the League of Nations. If liquidity in the financial markets dried up, as it surely would in a crisis of this magnitude, there would be war in Europe again, and soon. Within ten years, he promised.
And Claire thought about this professor's claims as she walked from class that afternoon.
What would war mean – to her, and to the future?
For the next few weeks she thought of little else, and when she went home for Thanksgiving she sat one evening with Charles and they talked about what she'd learned in class. They sat alone, in the library, and she talked for an hour or so – while her brother listened.
"The things your professor talked about, the collapse of reinvestment markets, is already happening. Inflation is already a concern."
"So, hyper-inflation, rise of a populist, people's party? You think that's inevitable, too?"
Charles sighed, shook his head. "No, not inevitable, but probable. I'm just a junior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but we're getting the same briefings Hoover gets, and the specter of inflation has the President spooked. He's practically begging the French and the British to relax terms of the treaty, but as their banks begin to lose liquidity they're actually talking about accelerating German reparations payments. It's insane but Mussolini is eating it up, pumping money into the National Socialist Party in Munich. If Hoover can't reverse this trend, I'd say your professor is dead on."
"Actions have consequences."
"You're damn right they do!"
"What do you think I should do now?" she asked.
"Regarding?"
"After graduation."
"What are your options?"
"Get married, or go to graduate school."
"In physics? Do they even let women in those programs?"
She looked away, shrugged. "It's not impossible. My advisor wants me to, and he told me there'd be no problem getting into Harvard, but he thinks Princeton is where the action's at."
"What kind of action?"
"The physics of high temperature reactions."
"And...what are you not telling me?"
"Theoretically, there are weapons applications. There's a physicist over there, in Germany. Heisenberg, who is a leader in the field."
"What kind of weapons?"
"Possibly – bombs. It's a long way off, and even the physics may prove questionable."
"And you're studying this stuff?"
"No, not really; it's more like I'm learning the theory behind what's taking shape. The real work, if it gets that far, will be happening at places like Princeton, Chicago and Berkeley."
"Why don't you go to California? Weather's nice, and that would give me an excuse to visit you out there. And...you'll be far away from this mess in Europe."
"That's kind of what I've been thinking."
"Well, let me know when you get in. We'll go out together and get you settled."
"What happened to that Cartwright girl? Not rich enough for you?"
Charles turned red. "Oh, her family is wealthy enough, but her old man is a staunch Hoover supporter. He'd murder Stephanie if she married a Democrat."
"Father would murder you for running as a Democrat."
Charles laughed, a little, as the thought played out across his face. "Yup, he would've. Do you ever miss him? I mean, I know he wasn't really..."
"Oh, I miss him. And yes, he was. I was seven years old when that ship went down; I can barely remember my father now."
"Do you remember that dream? The one...?"
"Yes."
