by Lydia Millet
Fermi was confused. —A hummingbird is not a seedeater.
—People are very crude when they want to sell things, said Oppenheimer. —But the government is as evasive as the Japs.
—Japanese! said Szilard. —You racist.
—I’m sorry. The Japanese. I bear them no ill will. Old habits die hard, you know that. Not everyone picks up the jargon as quickly as you do, Leo. My point is, the government talks in words that make horror trivial. But the people talk in words that make the trivial horrible.
—Well, said Ann. —Here comes the government now.
Government turned out to be a friendly woman with a nametag that said Hi I’m Keri. She took a quick look at their fake IDs and ushered them into her U.S. Army minivan, where, with the looming tour bus following them, a debonair swish of orange along its massive body, they set out south on the long dirt road to the Trinity Site.
Plains of sagebrush and dirt stretched out on both sides, interrupted only by spiky clumps of yucca. The scientists sat at the back of the minivan while Ann sat near the front and talked to Keri. Keri’s perky assistant, in the passenger seat, was wearing strong perfume that smelled like a chemical version of peaches. It brought tears to Ann’s eyes.
—You ladies in the Army? Szilard called up to Peaches curiously.
—Civilian employees.
A herd of black and white animals with extravagant horns ran across the road in front of them, kicking up clouds of dust as they disappeared into the scrub.
—They’re from Africa, explained Peaches, pleased to inform. —They’re African oryx! Way back in the ’50s they shipped them here across the ocean for the hunters to shoot. You know, the ones that come in from L.A. and Santa Fe on the weekends? They just let ’em loose! They done real good. You know, breeding.
—They compete with the native pronghorn for forage, said Fermi stiffly. It was a rare moment of speech.
Fermi was developing an interest in endangered species.
—Oh goodness, said Peaches. —There’s plenty to go around. I can tell you we don’t allow cows on the Missile Range anymore. They’re bad for nature. Right, Keri?
—There was a study done, said Keri. —Cows do more damage to vegetation than the A-bomb did. Course they’re not quite as speedy.
—But we still do lots of ordnance testing, said Peaches. —See over there, in the distance? That building is just for blowing up.
—The pilots swoop in all the time in their planes and blow it up, said Keri. —Then later they rebuild it.
—Taxpayer dollars, said Szilard.
Keri and Peaches drove them first to the cabin where, in the weeks before the Trinity test, the gadget had been assembled. Peaches slid back the minivan door and Szilard jumped out eagerly. Standing beside Ann he gazed up at the tour bus as it rumbled and screeched to a stop across the dirt road. Behind him Peaches waited politely for Oppenheimer and Fermi to disembark.
But they stayed where they were, staring out the window toward the cabin, ignoring the open door.
Over the van’s silver roof Ann could see what looked like the skeleton of an ancient wooden windmill. She glanced at the cabin beyond it and then back at the scientists, anxious. Fermi sat looking at his lap, scrutinizing his fingernails as Oppenheimer gazed steadily through the tinted glass at the cabin, his face impossible to read.
Finally Szilard, impatient, barked up at them —What are you waiting for?
When the two of them stepped tentatively onto the ground, Szilard, trotting behind Keri toward the cabin, turned to Ann and whispered: —I think they were hoping it would change everything to come back.
But there they were in the flat light of the cloudless desert sky, in the flat light that turned the landscape gray and indistinct and at the same time dazed the eyes like a slap. Still behind them was the shining bulk of the minivan, and still with them were all the people they should never have known had they remained in the real life, where they were supposed to be.
Shoulders slumping, Oppenheimer and Fermi picked their way slowly between the creosote bushes, eyes on the ground. Their tailored suits were starkly out of place against the crowd of civil servants descending from the bus behind them, who seemed to be wearing Western vacation garb. The civil servants were all dressed for leisure in newly minted cowboy hats and stiff pointy-toed cowboy boots.
—You know, said Peaches to Ann, catching up, —you want to know what just occurred to me? One of the researchers in your group here looks exactly like Dr. Oppenheimer, who was in charge of the program to build the bomb back in the 1940s!
—You’re kidding, said Ann. —Really?
—At least from the pictures I’ve seen. Is he related?
—Beats me, said Ann.
—I used to archive photos sometimes so I went through a bunch of them. He really is, he’s a dead ringer! And he seems so sweet too. So Old World.
—OK, folks, said Keri, stopping in front of the cabin. —This is a self-guided tour, you’re welcome to go through at your own pace. I’ll just give you a real short intro.
The cabin had been renovated, she told them, cleaned up and repaired for Army use, but then it was designated a so-called National Historic Landmark. So in the interest of authenticity, and at some expense, the Army promptly undid the renovations, returning the cabin to its original state of disrepair. They even repainted the old graffiti onto the walls and door frames.
Leaving the lecture behind her, droning, Ann went through a green door painted, on which was painted, in white, PLEASE WIPE FEET and PLEASE USE OTHER DOORS—KEEP THIS ROOM CLEAN.
Down the door jamb was painted, in a more panicked tone, the words No!!! No.
This, she heard Keri tell the crowd outside, was the door to the room where the Trinity device had been assembled. —In those days, said Keri, —the protocol on handling radioactive materials was kind of, uh, relaxed.
—You were barbarians, Ann whispered to Oppenheimer.
—And we paid for it, said Szilard. —Didn’t we.
In the dusty interior, shabby black-and-white photos of the scientists and workers of the Manhattan Project were propped carelessly along the floor, along with snapshots of the bomb before it was dropped, being hauled to the top of the tower. The display had an amateur feel, as though a six-year-old was charging grownups a dime to look at a pile of favorite junk in his bedroom.
Oppenheimer was captivated. Except for the soldiers he knew everyone in the pictures, and to look at their faces again on the ancient photographic paper, now yellowed and brittle, was to see them through a long lens of time. It brought tears to his eyes and often he would stand in front of a photograph for many minutes, not speaking to his companions, to allow the tears to be quietly reabsorbed.
Civil servants milled through the dim wooden rooms behind him in an apparent trance of disinterest.
—Look, there’s you, whispered Ann once, close beside him. She pointed to a discolored photo of him with Groves. —That’s a famous one. It’s in all the history books.
—I have seen it there, he said slowly, nodding.
—So for you that was taken just, what? Five, six weeks ago now?
—You’re telling me this is where we made history? asked Fermi, on her other side. He was incredulous. — This is what they call a National Historic Landmark? This is a monument?
—The Army doesn’t have a huge curatorial staff, if I remember correctly, said Oppenheimer drily.
—In Italy we know how to do monuments, said Fermi.
—And dictators, said Szilard.
When they finally emerged from the dark into the bright blankness of the desert Oppenheimer could see the gray-striped Oscura mountains low on the horizon, beyond a low stone wall and a huddle of derelict stone buildings. A civil servant beside them on the porch, wearing a nametag that said DARYL and eating a chocolate bar, cocked an eyebrow at him.
He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, clearly bucking the trend toward cowboy attire.
—Don’t see a n
ametag, he said to Oppenheimer out of the side of his mouth. You with the group?
—No, said Oppenheimer. —We came independently.
—He looks just like Robert Oppenheimer! Don’t you think? squeaked Peaches, emerging from the cabin behind them.
—Huh, said the civil servant, squinting at him and then turning to her with a grin. —Really? I dunno. I wasn’t really paying attention to the history lesson. Sorry, teach.
This was said in a flirtatious and puerile jeer that Oppenheimer found highly repulsive. Peaches giggled.
On his other side another civil servant confided in a colleague: —The DOD has already approved the use of tactical nukes in the War on Terrorism. You hear that?
—Excuse me? said Szilard, moving in close.
—Sorry, have we met? asked the civil servant.
—No. Did you say “approved the use of tactical nukes”? urged Szilard.
—Oh, just a formality, he said.
—You see? whispered Szilard insistently into Oppenheimer’s ear. —You see? From the horse’s mouth. Am I crying wolf now?
—OK gang! said Keri brightly, and clapped her hands. —We’re off to see the original Ground Zero!
The original Ground Zero was nothing but a low, level field on which grasses and wildflowers grew. Once the Trinity bomb had been dropped there from its hundred-foot tower and exploded. But now nothing remained of the tower or the bomb, only dirt and weeds.
There were no yucca plants and this alone distinguished Trinity from the fields nearby, the fields beyond the so-called crater and its chain-link fence. In the center of the field towered a plain, dark obelisk with a date printed on it and the phrase TRINITY SITE: WHERE THE WORLD’S FIRST NUCLEAR DEVICE WAS EXPLODED. Around its base flowers sprouted, the pale orange bells of globe mallow and some small yellow and purple blooms, common but so nondescript that Ann had never bothered to learn their names. Ben would know.
The dent of the crater the bomb had made was barely perceptible. It was less a crater than the outline of a circle, so faint it bordered on the imaginary.
—After all, you have to remember, said Keri. —This bomb was really just a baby at twenty kilotons.
Peaches was carrying a handheld Geiger counter and showing the civil servants how little radiation remained as the counter clicked above dry clumps of grass.
Oppenheimer peered over her shoulder, intrigued.
—Follow me, said Keri to the group, —if you’d like to see the Trinitite.
Under an odd, padlocked shelter at the end of the fenced-in field there was soil, and in the soil—which Keri showed them by unlocking and opening a hatch—there were clumps of Trinitite, the fused, greenish substance the bomb’s explosion had left crusting the ground. She picked it up and held it in the palm of her hand, crumbling it with her thumb. Most of the Trinitite had been cleaned up decades before when it was still radioactive, trucked out by the Army and deposited in what Keri told them was an unknown location.
—Look at the field of the blast, said Fermi a little sadly, as they were shepherded past the chain-link fence toward the dirt parking lot again. —It’s hardly changed a bit.
We say we’re looking for happiness but in fact we’re just waiting to be found by it, thought Ann as they walked away, found by chance as the blast found the field. She wondered if she was a kid hiding behind a tree exhilarated, preparing to leap out with an expression of glee, who never realizes no one is looking for her.
Driving back toward Stallion Gate Keri popped a tape into the minivan’s stereo and Kenny Rogers sang “Ruby, don’t take your love to town.”
—And before you leave the area, said Peaches, —you should stop in the diner right up the road and sample their green chili burgers. I mean those things are amazing.
—We saw the sign for them on our way in, said Ann.
—You won’t get a better green chili burger anywhere in the world, said Keri. —That’s a promise.
She dropped them off at the entrance, where they stretched their legs, waited for Oppenheimer to smoke a cigarette and then got into the Toyota and drove north. Oppenheimer and Fermi lapsed into silence again while Szilard talked, and turning out onto the main road again Ann did not see the black Hum-V draw in behind them till it rammed into their rear bumper.
—Dio! said Fermi, as the car jolted.
—What the hell! said Szilard.
Ann flicked on her turn signal and began to pull onto the shoulder, but as she slowed down the Hum-V rammed them again.
—He’s doing it on purpose! cried Szilard. —Speed up! Speed up!
Ann veered off the shoulder again, heat rushing to her face, her hands shaking on the wheel.
—Can you see who it is? she asked.
—The windows are too dark, said Szilard. —Drive fast!
—Here, she said, and rummaged in her purse as she floored the gas. —Call 911!
—Give it to me! said Szilard, and grabbed the phone from the purse just as the Hum-V rammed them a third time and stayed with them, pushing their car in front of it. Ann smelled burning rubber and screamed, and as she lost control of the steering vaguely heard the hoarse sound of the others screaming too. They were veering, pushed, veering off the road again, the right half of the car in a ditch, undercarriage grating against the road, more burning, and the car was up on its right wheels, up, up, and they came off the ground and flipped sideways, rolling.
Kneeling to fix a spigot on the irrigation system Ben knew suddenly that he could not let Ann to go to Japan without him. They had never been apart for more than three days, and the scientists, unpredictable as any unknown quantities, could not be entrusted with her welfare. Also, there was enough new distance between them already.
He got up, brushed the dirt off his knees and went to find Lynn, who was stretching on a mat in the living room in a purple leotard.
But Lynn was not used to breaches of contract.
—No fucking way! she said. —I mean we have a timeline here. We’re having the Fourth of July party and what if it’s not finished by then? You can’t just go away for two weeks. It’s ridiculous. I mean Yoshi can’t tell the workers what to do, the guy doesn’t even know how to speak English! Are you fucking kidding me?
—I realize his English is still improving, said Ben quietly. —He’s not up to speed yet. So I thought I’d hire a temporary foreman for you. He’s very reliable. I’ll bring him in tomorrow and if you don’t like him for any reason I have a great second alternate. They both have excellent credentials.
—I didn’t hire them, I hired you!
—I know, said Ben. —Of course I understand your position, and these weeks will represent a financial loss for me. But you’d actually be getting someone who’s out of my league professionally, who’s a lot better known than I am, Joe Kessler, his work has been in magazines, Connoisseur maybe? Or Architectural Digest? I can have him send over a portfolio. He’s actually taking a two-week break from working on a place in Malibu. Joni Mitchell, I think he said. I mean this is a guy we’d be lucky to—
—Joni Mitchell?
She woke to the car door being jerked open. She was upside down and they were pulling her out. Her head was heavy, throbbing with blood.
—Incredibly lucky, said the emergency worker, and led her over to the ambulance, where she sat down on a stretcher as they moved around her, touching her hair and temples, dabbing her with something wet, asking questions as they prodded at her torso. The scientists stood nearby, apparently unhurt. Oppenheimer was smoking in rapid puffs as he met her eyes, Fermi sat on the hood of a police car with his head in his hands, and Szilard paced on the dead grass jabbering into her cell phone. —All of you.
When they got home Ben was beyond relief to have her back whole and safe. Szilard had called and thrown him into a panic.
It never occurred to him that the crash had been anything more significant than a road rage incident.
Oppenheimer read steadily, informing himself through the books Ann b
rought him from the library.
In his memoirs, Truman had described the factors that influenced his decision to drop the bomb and his emotions at the time. He wrote: “Let there be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt it should be used.”
When the bomb fell on Hiroshima, Truman was aboard ship. Said a reporter of his expression as he announced the attack to crewmen: “He was not actually laughing, but there was a broad smile on his face.”
Without reading the mind of Truman or his military advisors, however, it is nonetheless possible to make some stipulations, reflected Oppenheimer as he read. First, though the line taken officially was different, some commentators suggested that the bomb was dropped not primarily to defeat the Japanese but to demonstrate American military superiority over the Soviet Union, erstwhile ally, and thus indemnify American hegemony against the burgeoning power and imperialist designs of Stalin, whatever those might be.
Second, it was a fact that the Japanese were definitively losing the war in August 1945, and despite their militaristic and nationalistic will to victory they had already begun to make attempts to surrender, via these same Soviet allies. But the U.S. chose to discredit their overtures and insist that it would accept only unconditional surrender. Under the terms of such a surrender the emperor could be compelled to forfeit his throne, and perhaps more importantly the Japanese would not be permitted to save face. This was the public rationale for dropping the bomb.
Since unconditional surrender would be required, the fight must continue until the Japanese were forced to their knees. And given that the fight was to continue there was, to be sure, a need to minimize the loss of American and yes, suddenly, even Japanese lives. The bomb would save lives by taking them; by killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians instantly the bomb would save the lives of American soldiers.
The elegance of this argument, he felt, was that its validity could never be determined. Certainly many lives would also have been lost if, in order to effect the all-important unconditional surrender, conventional warfare continued.
In the early summer of 1945 U.S. military planners estimated a ground invasion of Japan would cost twenty to sixty thousand American lives; George Marshall set the figure at forty-six thousand. Yet curiously, after the war, Truman would make claims ranging from a quarter-million to more than a million American lives—a claim that was still being upheld almost fifty years later by best-selling Truman biographers and news sources such as Nightline and USA Today.