by Lydia Millet
—A glorious future! murmured Tamika’s bald friend, and fell sideways into Larry, who caught her.
Ben was still staring at the contortionist, who had started walking around bent over backward on all fours.
—Go Oppie! shouted someone unseen, and clapping started at the back of the crowd and moved forward.
—Blow out the candles, man, said Larry when the noise subsided, and Oppenheimer, holding his cigarette away from the cake, leaned forward and obliged.
—So we propose, said Oppenheimer, slightly breathless behind the delicate drifts of candle smoke, —world government. We propose a unity, not of corporations across the globe, not the exploitative union of the World Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—
—Tariffs? asked the wifebeater. —What the hell is he talking about?
—or the so-called North American Free Trade Agreement, but of people, of people and their directly elected representatives, a democratic global union that controls the spread of weapons and the distribution of wealth with the goal of establishing—eventually, that is, for the struggle will be long—
—Long! I can dig it, said the camo man.
—This a party or not? asked the wifebeater.
—the goal of establishing—at long last—universal world peace.
—Peace, man, peace! crowed Larry, making the two-fingered sign to a terminal spatter of applause.
—Thank you, said Oppenheimer weakly. He took a gulp from his glass and stepped down onto the tatami, where he was instantly engulfed.
Five percent of people killed in wars at the end of the nineteenth century were civilians. In World War One this percentage rose to fifteen, and by World War Two it was sixty-five.
This was nothing compared to the wars of the 1990s. By that time the percentage would grow to ninety.
When she emerged from the bathroom Ben took her arm and Larry and Tamika converged on them, camouflage man in tow. He smelled like an armpit.
—Hey, guys. You meet Clint? asked Larry.
—Pleasure, said Ann, but Ben was impatient.
—What is this all about? he asked Larry. —You’re telling me you really believe these guys are risen from the dead?
—I’m with Larry, said Tamika. —I definitely think it was reincarnation.
—They came back, nodded Larry. —In a reborn form. I think they, like, grew up this way, you know? Like somehow the souls died at that moment, right? When the first bomb went off the souls of these guys died. How I see it is, they died that very second and like migrated through the air. If I close my eyes I can literally see these souls, like, flying over the desert in New Mexico. Invisible.
—They migrated through the air?
—Transmigration of souls, heard of it? Not risen from the dead like ghosts, risen from the dead like in the Hindu religion, you know? Like because they’d done bad things. Know what karma is, Ben?
—Yeah, Larry, said Ben. —I know what karma is.
—Karma, repeated Clint, head bobbing, and then turned to grab Larry’s arm. —Where’d you get the Humboldt, man? That stuff’s been scarce around here for months.
—It’s not Humboldt, said Larry, —it’s Mendocino.
—Get outta here, said Clint vaguely, and turned away, reaching for the hand of the bald woman in the tie-dye skirt, who was approaching at a rapid clip.
—My point though, said Ben, —is you actually think these people are physicists from World War Two?
—Shit yeah, said Larry.
—Don’t you? put in Tamika.
—I do, said Ann, —but Ben, you know, sometimes he can be a little suspicious of them. He’s just very protective. He doesn’t want me to be taken in.
—Negative energy, said the bald woman, and shook her head in warning.
—That’s me, said Ben.
—Hi, said the woman to Ann, —I’m Leslie. I’m a survivor.
—You’re kidding, said Szilard. —Hiroshima or Nagasaki? You don’t look a day over fifty.
—Cancer, said Leslie, frowning. —And I’m forty-two.
—I’m so sorry, said Ann.
She elbowed Szilard in the ribs. He squawked.
—Anyway Ben, said Larry, —my point is, these guys are totally real. You believe it too. You don’t fool me, buddy. It’s just your rational mind won’t let you buy into it. Your rational mind’s stopping you.
—That darn rational mind, said Ben.
—Just let yourself feel, said Tamika. —I know I do. I used to be so repressed? You’re not gonna believe this but I was brought up Orthodox.
—Greek? asked Szilard curiously.
—Jew.
—She used to be totally repressed, nodded Larry.
—But not anymore.
A Grateful Dead song was playing, Ann didn’t know the Grateful Dead from a hole in the wall but people in the room were twirling and dancing. There comes a redeemer and he, too, fades away.
She felt exhausted, seeing Tamika lean on Larry’s arm and smile, watching Szilard, bored and restless, looking around the room for someone new to talk to, Fermi slumped against the wall, paging through a book. She was tired enough to disengage from Ben’s hand on her waist and walk away from them all, wishing herself away, wishing herself into another place, where she had been before, before Eugene fired the shot that bounced off the wall, before she found any of them, before this had happened, when things were easy. She thought of the leisure she used to have, the nice slow movement from one hour to the next, the space around her then, around her arms, her own house and its peacefulness, the comfort of passiveness that now, later, she relished.
—I’m over it, but the memories, right? Like I was sitting on Phil’s side, this was Berkeley I think? said a man who stood over the punch bowl talking to Clint as Ann made her way past them to the kitchen. —And this space invader chick with this frizzy red hair sits down and asks me if she can score a dose. And that redheaded chick was the woman I married.
—I know he’s dead, but I don’t feel like he’s gone. I mean, do you think Jerry’s God? asked a blond woman on the other side of the punchbowl.
—Course she left me six weeks after the ceremony.
—Believe me, said Oppenheimer, coming in from the kitchen and forced up against her by the crowd behind him, —I didn’t want to be up there. They grabbed me and pulled me up. You think I don’t know how simplistic it sounds? I wasn’t ready to make a public statement. But Szilard says I have to practice.
—I think there is a God, said Clint, nodding slowly as they passed him on their way out. —But I don’t think it’s Jerry.
—I’m tired, she said.
—I am too.
They pushed their way through the guests, standing lining the walls, sitting cross-legged on the floor and on the furniture, conversing in tightly packed groups. Two women in a row lunged for Oppenheimer but he and Ann brushed by them, past a half-naked contortionist sitting on the carpet with his feet behind his ears, past a woman spinning in circles with her hands in a prayer position, into the narrow corridor that led to the bedrooms. They passed the open door to the master suite, where she saw people lying on Oppenheimer’s bed, making out and smoking, soccer playing on television. They passed hippies standing in the hall, drinking and nodding, one of them studiously tearing up a sheet of acid.
They came finally to Ann and Ben’s modest room adjoining the linen closet at the end of the hall: the servants’ quarters, it occurred to Ann for the first time, was where she and Ben had been housed. Inside the room it was dim and quiet. She closed the door behind them and, hearing a flick of laughter near the door, exhausted further by that and resentful of everything that intruded, locked it. They were left in the dark and she flicked on the bedside lamp.
Oppenheimer lay down on the double bed first and she lay down behind him, careful not to jog the mattress, remembering having been careful before not to move the bed. That was always with Ben, she thought, and the recognition alarmed her. T
hen came the reassurance: this was Oppenheimer. He was skeletal, a ghoul with nicotine-stained fingers. He was barely flesh.
Fully dressed they pulled the pillows out from under the coverlet, on top of which they lay, and each separately arranged the swells and valleys of the pillows to comfort their heads. When the pillows were arranged and both their right shoulders and hands were nestled at angles that satisfied them they closed their eyes to the wall they were facing.
None of the points of their bodies were touching but they lay beside each other curving like echoes and fell asleep.
Ben decided to dedicate the night to drinking and smoking pot. He had his fill of both and circled the rooms in the apartment listening to conversations, suspending judgment because for once he could. It was a relief. As he had become bitter lately he had also become more judgmental, had noticed himself in the transition, meaner than he had ever been before, sharp-toothed. He regretted this but there were bands of steel around him, squeezing.
He hadn’t smoked so much pot since high school. Multiple bong hits, several brownies eaten, a joint offered by the gathering’s lone black man, kind and gray-bearded, a jazz trombonist lately of New York but now making his home in Nagoya. Comfort eased him, the bands loosened, and he became predictably less anxious. Maybe this was the answer, he thought, maybe it’s as simple and clichéd as this. Just stay stoned.
Discussions of the Dead, the old and new Dead, the Dead without Jerry who were therefore not the Dead, and the death of Jerry took place alongside discussions of the reincarnation of Oppenheimer. This naturally led to discussions of the possible reincarnation of Jerry.
—The thing is, said a tall blond woman, —If Robert Oppenheimer can be reincarnated, and that guy Fermi and the fat one too, then why can’t Jerry?
—But like they were a negative force, know what I mean? And Jerry was a positive force, said a middle-aged man who spat when he talked. — It’s a whole different thing. Maybe they were brought back to atone for their sins or whatever. That’s what Leslie was saying. But what did Jerry ever do that was negative?
—That’s true, said the blonde. —He was totally positive, basically.
She turned to Ben.
—You’re the guy who’s friends with the scientists, right? What was your name again?
—Ben, good to meet you, he said.
—Hey! We rhyme! The name’s Ken, said the man who spat, holding out a hand for Ben to shake. —But my friends call me … Ken.
He paused.
—Get it? Remember Silver Streak? Richard Pryor?
—Yeah, said Ben, nodding. —Right.
—I was just saying to Ken how, if these guys who invented nuclear bombs can be reincarnated, then definitely Jerry can too, right? Am I right, Ben?
—But Jerry’s life was so full, said the blond woman.
—Exactly, said Ken. —He was totally self-expressed. What would Jerry want with this place?
Making the rounds Ben interrupted Szilard in an earnest conversation about Osama Bin Laden with a peacenik in the John Lennon mold, complete with round glasses, lank brown hair and a spurious English accent. The conversation was audited but not joined by a broad-faced, ruddy Australian rugby player named Frank and a jewelry maker from Santa Barbara hung liberally with her own wares. She liked to show them off and tell the history of each one.
Szilard, talking to the peacenik, tried to make a point about reactor byproducts and treaty verification protocols but was repeatedly frustrated by the peacenik’s single-minded obsession with a pyramid scheme to spread world peace, while beside him the jewelry maker showed Ben her pièce-de-resistance, a necklace-and-earring set made out of a goat femur.
What could it harm? he thought, as she told him the femur had healing properties. It was charged with positive ions, she said, which caused healing.
All of this, he thought, everything he had first ridiculed was benign.
Sunk deep into a leather sofa he also listened, swayed into empathy by the pot and a piece of chocolate cake, to a dialogue about crop circles and cattle mutilations between Clint, Larry, and a Belgian food activist whose claim to fame was that he had once helped burn down a McDonalds in France.
When he found Oppenheimer and Ann in his bed, chaste and fraternal as a priest and a nun, he left them alone and made his way to the master bedroom, where he unceremoniously rolled a passed-out drunk off the bed. There was no sound as he toppled onto the floor. His elbows on the mattress, Ben leaned over the edge to check the fallen man’s health: he had landed on a stray sofa cushion, and when asked if he was OK grunted in the affirmative.
Settling himself underneath the duvet Ben thought fleetingly back to Ann and Oppenheimer, facing the same way on the bed, each neatly bent with their knees up, at rest and in peace. Still, it might be an illusion of innocence: they might have faced each other earlier. There might be more.
Then he thought no, and dismissed it. He knew he was right, despite the appearance of them, together and alone.
He tried to count sheep, but was troubled by the resistance of his mind to sleep, how it dwelled on a hazy vision of the young Szilard trotting into an Old West town with pistols on his hips, holding a rose and riding on a rat.
—Fermi’s family won’t let me dig up his body for a DNA test, announced Szilard petulantly at dinner.
A cleanup crew had come and gone and Larry and Tamika had taken Fermi out to see an Italian art-house movie. He had resisted until they wore him down with their enthusiasm. The movie was billed as the story of a gay, sunlit family picnic in Sardinia with powerful emotional undercurrents, and promised to feature coquettish yet earthy women in peasant skirts.
Szilard and Oppenheimer had politely declined.
—You actually called up one of Enrico Fermi’s descendants and asked him if you could dig up the poor guy’s body? asked Ben, astonished.
—Several, said Szilard.
—You’re so obnoxious, said Ben.
—I didn’t tell them who I was, of course, said Szilard. —I said I was a researcher at U. Chicago doing a longitudinal study of rates of cancer death among nuclear industry professionals.
—You’re kidding me. And they believed you had to dig up their grandfather’s body for that, said Ben flatly.
—They certainly appeared to, said Szilard.
—I have to insist, Leo, said Oppenheimer. —You should steer clear of relatives even under a pretense. I thought we decided that.
—This was important, said Szilard. —I made an exception. Anyway the effort failed. Since you and I were both cremated there is literally no other way to establish our identity through forensic pathology.
—That’s rough, said Ben.
—Unless, of course, we break the law, said Szilard. —We could dig up the body ourselves. I found out where it is.
—You kill me, said Ben.
—If the point is to establish credibility, Leo, said Oppenheimer, —we can’t do it by grave-robbing, can we.
—I have it all worked it, said Szilard. —We can establish our legal authority post facto, through the court system if necessary. After all, no one has a clearer right to dispose of a corpse than the dead man himself. When we prove Fermi is the dead man, we’ll also prove he had the right to perform his own exhumation.
—Not much of a lawyer, are you, said Ben.
—That’s far-fetched, said Oppenheimer. —As far as my own involvement goes, at this time, Leo, I’d have to give you a firm no.
Szilard, irritated, scooped a second helping of scalloped potatoes out of the serving bowl.
—I’ll put it on the back burner for now, he said grudgingly, —but I think you’ll want to reconsider in time.
—No doubt, said Oppenheimer.
—Anyway, said Szilard to Ann a few minutes later, trapping her as she made her way into the bathroom for a jacuzzi, clad only in a towel, —I forgot to tell you: we talked about it and we’re ready to go back. We have several appointments in the United States. I have to
meet with my attorneys.
—Your attorneys?
—Your attorneys? echoed Ben, pulling up as he passed them in the hallway. —What, has the government decided to prosecute you on that B&E charge?
—The government is not suing me, said Szilard haughtily. —I’m suing them.
—You’re what?
—If they refuse to release our records under the Freedom of Information Act.
—Your records? asked Ann.
—Our personnel files and fingerprints. They will establish our identities.
—You’re telling me you hired a lawyer to get your fingerprints? asked Ben.
—Initially I hired him to file a Freedom of Information Act request. The DOD had a deadline. But it’s coming up. If they fail to meet it, that’s when we’ll sue. I say we because Oppie and Fermi are now working with me.
—I see, said Ann.
—Once we have the prints, of course, we will be able to go public.
—Go public? asked Ann.
—With the campaign, said Szilard impatiently, and turned around to head toward his room.
—What campaign?
—Global disarmament.
They stared at his retreating back.
—Excuse me, Leo, said Ben. —Where’d you get the money for a lawyer?
—At first I wrote a bad check, confessed Szilard over his shoulder. —Before we left, when I originally hired him. His retainer. But just when it bounced and he was going to quit I was able to get money from Larry. We wired it. No problem.
—No problem, huh, repeated Ben.
—Here I thought you were flat broke this whole time! said Ann. —I didn’t know you even had a checkbook!
—Strictly speaking, of course, I don’t have one per se.
He opened the door to his bedroom.
—Then whose, uh—checkbook—?
—We’ll talk later! called Szilard, with a hasty, furtive glance at Ben, and closed his bedroom door.
—I’m going to kill him.
—This is what they were talking about, said Ann. —The men who tried to interrogate Fermi. Doesn’t he care?
—Are you joking? Szilard loved being stalked. It made him feel important.
Ben changed their ticket dates in a hurry, eager to put them on the first flight out. They took the Narita Express early in the morning. Larry had left them a note on the table: See you later!