by Lydia Millet
It was almost right, it was almost the same, he thought, but finally it was not the same. Something was wrong with it. He tried to forget the feeling, this unfamiliar difference, he tried to reject it, and going away from it, thinking of other times, he was able to come.
At 4 a.m. a week after the scientists had left, the telephone rang. She leaned over Ben, who was waking up in irritation, to pick up the receiver.
She heard static, and brief surges of voice.
—Robert? Is that you? she asked after a few seconds, and Ben sat up and turned the nightstand light on beside her.
—… tried to … ould be … ocked … appened—
—I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up, she said loudly, deliberately. —Can you call me back? Or give me your number?
—… ropical—orm … arning …
—I can’t hear you, she repeated. —Robert? You need to call me back, OK?
There was only static.
She hung up reluctantly.
A minute later Ben had just settled back into his pillows when the telephone rang again.
—Where are you? she asked when she picked up. —Why don’t you give me your number? I’ll call back.
—We’re on Majuro, said Oppenheimer. —It’s near—
—Just the number, she said. —Before we get interference again.
—There’s a storm coming in. We haven’t been—
—Robert, give me the number first.
—I think you dial—Leo! Is it 011?
—Just the local number, she said. —I can track down the rest.
—8—4. … sk for—bin number—
—I can’t hear you! The static’s back! Robert?
—… yphoon—lanes fly—n or out. There may be … lay—
—Try me again when the storm’s passed, will you?
—ant … ou—
—Try me in the morning, I can’t understand you, she said, enunciating clearly, and hung up for the second time. —They’re on an island called Majuro now, she told Ben. —Szilard told me about it when I picked them up for the airport. I think it’s near Kwajalein. Where the government still tests ICBMs.
—So how’s the surfing, he said groggily, and flicked the lamp off again.
Oppenheimer was interested in the islands from an anthropological standpoint, but Szilard was not. He had no time for anything that might distract from the mission.
While Oppenheimer enjoyed a cocktail on a hotel balcony, overlooking the shimmering ocean, Szilard was often downstairs in the hotel office, huddled over a fax machine. While Oppenheimer heard about the history of violence in the islands, the traders and whalers who had come there in the nineteenth century and the massacres that had occurred in retaliation for the kidnapping of island women, how first the Germans and then the Japanese colonized the islands, exporting coconut and copra, Szilard was scheduling a series of conference calls with New York.
In 1956, to make up for the disruption of their lives and the radioactivity of their ancestral seat, the U.S. gave Bikini and Enewetak Islanders the kingly sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.
Curiously, the money was handed over in one-dollar bills.
Congress set up trust funds in larger amounts later on to compensate the natives, making ex gratia—that is, admitting no guilt—payments for high radiation exposures.
In the 1980s, a class-action lawsuit by the Bikini Islanders would be dismissed, but at the same time the U.S. government would quietly set up a seventy-five-million-dollar trust fund for them. In 2001, a body called the Nuclear Claims Tribunal would award the Marshall Islanders five hundred and sixty-three million, but lack any funds to pay out on the judgment.
In the meantime, from the 1940s to the 1950s the U.S. would conduct sixty-seven aboveground nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands—the largest explosions the world had ever seen.
Fermi had planted squash, chili, tomatoes, peas, and various lettuces. In the morning after Ben left for work he was watering these with a watering can, bending over each plant to inspect the undersides of the leaves, when Ann shuffled out onto the patio with her coffee. She had barely slept.
He looked like someone’s country uncle, she thought, a humble and stooped old man tending his garden.
—Hey, she said, —Robert called last night.
—Yes?
—We’re supposed to meet them in Las Vegas in a week, right?
—You have the information, said Fermi. —I don’t.
—But I’m worried there’s something wrong. The call didn’t work. There was too much static.
—I’m sure they’re fine, said Fermi, and went on watering. —And if they’re dead, good for them.
It was not what she wanted to hear. She swallowed her tepid coffee and went inside again.
On the Internet she searched for Marshall Islands, weather, and watched as a satellite picture loaded: the eye of a storm. Upgraded to hurricane warning.
—How’s your little wife doing? asked Lynn, coming up behind him while he was burying a light fixture.
—Little?
He waited for her to rephrase. It took a long time.
—You know, uh, she’s so delicate!
—She’s fine, thank you.
—I went to the library the other day for a book-on-tape, you know? To drive to Taos for my weekly regression. I just thought I’d say hi to her? But the guy at the desk told me she doesn’t work there anymore.
—No, said Ben. —She’s taking some time off.
—Probably traumatized. I mean that schizo shot himself right in front of her, right? I heard there was actually brain matter on the bookshelf. The crime scene unit missed it or whatever and a TV camera caught it? And they even aired it before they noticed. So people actually ended up seeing a shot of the dead guy’s actual brain.
—Really.
—A friend of mine plays softball with one of the cops that was there. He said it looked kind of like wet oatmeal. And it was stuck on a copy of Moby Dick. I mean why did he do it at the library? That is so selfish. To blow your head open right in front of someone.
—He had some problems, said Ben evenly, projecting what he hoped was polite neutrality.
—This friend of mine in New York was married to a bipolar guy once? He used to have delusions and think parts of her body were planning to attack him. Like just a single finger or her elbow? And one time a breast. The left one. She’d just gotten implants.
—Uh huh?
—Finally he attacked her savagely with a pair of scissors.
—Huh, murmured Ben.
—But they were nose hair scissors.
—Nose hair—?
—So they weren’t sharp on the end. They were curved, you know? So they didn’t hurt her.
He smiled into his chin, face hidden from her as he tightened a screw.
—I can give you the name of my therapist if she wants to see him, she went on. —He’s amazing. He’s an MD from Harvard? But he also does past-life regressions.
—You’ve been regressed? asked Ben, raising an eyebrow as he grabbed a second fixture and sank it. —I never would have guessed.
—When we lived back East I never would have done something like that, said Lynn. —It was just work work work in those days. But now I try to know myself a little better. Metaphysics has really helped me.
—Does Roger do past-life regressions too?
—Are you kidding? He won’t even see an analyst. He wouldn’t even see a therapist back when we lived in Tribeca. His idea of therapy is slamming a ball against a wall until he’s bored into a stupor and then throwing back a stiff drink. Or six.
—He swears by his squash, said Ben, wishing she would leave so that he could dig his holes in peace.
—He gets back tomorrow, said Lynn wistfully.
—Well, said Ben, rising, —it looks like we’re almost done here. Another few days. Are you happy with it?
—Actually I was going to talk to you and Yoshi about that, said Lynn, and
lifted a foot to inspect the bottom of her shoe, upon which she found a thumbtack. —Oh my God! Do you see this? It almost went right into my foot! I could have caught tetanus!
—Close call.
—Which reminds me! Did you get that mouse shit cleaned up? In the shed? Because someone could catch the Hanta virus! And like sue us.
—Yes, I did. You were saying about the design of the garden?
—There’s this one part of the yard where I have a completely new vision.
—Oh, said Ben, and nodded.
—Here it is, said Lynn. —Can we get a big rock?
—A rock?
—Like, a boulder.
—How big?
—I don’t know, maybe about as tall as you are?
—You’ll need to talk to Yoshi.
—It’s not your fault, said Lynn. —I’ve been reading this book? And I think how it is now isn’t good feng shui. I mean Yoshi should have known. He’s Japanese, isn’t he?
Later he was sitting in the foyer putting on his street shoes when Lynn, passing him on her way upstairs, trailed her fingers suggestively along his upper arm.
He did not like her, he did not find her attractive, in fact he found her unattractive, in fact he disliked her actively, truth be told. At the same time he felt faintly reassured, almost pleased. He saw her for a second as a type moving past at high speed, fake and bronze and pampered, but a type that wanted him.
When he registered this he disgusted himself.
She could find no specific bulletins on the passage of the hurricane through the Marshall Islands, but once it was gone the weather in the islands returned to sunshine.
Sometimes it all seemed subdued to her, feeling. She watched television news and read a lot while Oppenheimer and Szilard were away, and it was clear to her once or twice that what was missing was vast, what was missing from public life was anguish. None of it was expressed.
If there were only something that rose out of crowds, more than a compulsion, more than a roar, if people would only cry or something, she thought lying in bed with cramps one day while Ben was at work, the television in front of her playing Oprah with the mute button on. If they could even speak honestly, forget the sentiment, about anything more grandiose than themselves; if they could be brought together for some purpose beyond sport or personal gain. There would have to be unity about it but no victims, not the fever of dominion but some will that went through time instead of trying to be a shield against it, some will that knew it stood for the passing and the small.
But then all unity and resolve seemed to come for vengeance: seizing and getting. For the cause of others it was weak and piddling, never massive, never a well-oiled machine. People only built big machines to speak up for the self.
It was not until 1963 that Marshall Islanders exposed to Shot Bravo began to develop thyroid tumors.
The night before she left for Las Vegas Ben told her she would have to go without him, —If, he said, —you’re still insisting on going.
His clients were unwilling to let him leave again.
—Lynn has this feud going with Yoshi and I have to run interference, he said. —She feels she’s an expert on feng shui. But will you be OK without me?
—I’ll be OK, she said. —It’s only a couple of days I’ll be gone. I’ll miss you.
—Will you? asked Ben, and she tried to put his doubt to rest.
Fermi did not want to go either.
—They didn’t call, did they? he asked her.
—No, but the tour’s already set up. If they don’t make it, it could be months till they can get on another one. So I’m hoping they’ll show. I called the people in the Alameda house, but they haven’t heard either.
—I’ll pass.
At first she was reluctant to go by herself but later, on the way down the long hill toward Albuquerque, she rolled down the car windows and the air whipped in.
2
The storm had passed. Oppenheimer sat with Szilard at an open-air restaurant on a thin spit of beach, brown palm fronds and long mounds of dead seaweed littering the sand. He drank beer and poked at a slab of greasy fish with disinterest as Szilard pushed away his plate and complained about the service.
They had been there an hour with only the cook for company, waiting for a small plane to land on a nearby airstrip and pick them up, when a man in an officer’s uniform appeared out of the straggly grove of palms beside the café, walked over to the building at a leisurely pace and sat down at the next table. He was tall and gray-haired, and if his insignia were authentic—and Oppenheimer had no reason to suspect otherwise—he was an Air Force Major General. Oppenheimer recognized the double star and the Air Force Cross.
He spoke softly.
—It would be a good idea for you to drop your lawsuit, Dr. Szilard.
It took Szilard only a few seconds to recover.
—Who are you? Are you one of the ones that questioned Enrico?
The major general raised a hand to the cook, hovering nearby in his smeared apron, and gave a curt nod. It was not clear to whom.
The cook bowed.
—Why do the armed forces care, asked Oppenheimer, —about our activities? Assuming the armed forces is who you represent.
—I’m afraid I did not come here to have a conversation, said the major general.
—What impact could our activities possibly have on the Air Force? asked Oppenheimer, and pointed at his empty beer bottle as the cook waited politely. —Another, please.
—It would be very embarrassing for you, said the major general, and smiled with an air of apology, —wouldn’t it? If the prints didn’t match.
—But they will, said Szilard. —They do.
—Really, said the major general, as the cook brought him a bottle of mineral water and broke the seal.
—If we’re such a threat to you, said Szilard, —why haven’t you already shut us up?
—You are still marginal, said the major general, and smiled again. —You have done nothing. We have time.
Oppenheimer looked at his face closely. He was a handsome man, with a straight nose and thick, arched eyebrows. A small scar, like a checkmark, bisected his earlobe. There was something of the patrician in his bearing.
But as he was gazing at the man’s face he heard the sound of the Cessna approaching and looked up. It was bearing down from the east, a red and white plane emerging from a low bank of clouds over the rolling surf.
—Excuse me, said the major general, and slipped a worn bill smoothly onto the tabletop as he rose. Then he turned and smiled at them and waved a hand over the waves curling onto the beach. —Both of you have worked hard in your lives. Why don’t you retire? The surf is lovely.
And he rounded the corner of the restaurant and vanished.
—He didn’t even touch his water, said Szilard.
He reached for the bottle and drank.
The Pacific Proving Grounds were selected as the preferred location for explosions so massive they could not be conducted on the American mainland due to the risk to life and property.
But for the many smaller tests that were desired, the U.S. military felt it needed a site closer to home—somewhere near enough to put troops and equipment cheaply, but far enough from human settlement that it would not attract undue negative attention.
For this purpose they selected the Nevada Test Site.
Chosen for its “remote” location in the desert, the test site is about sixty-five miles from the city of Las Vegas.
Before the worldwide ban on aboveground tests was imposed in 1963, one hundred and twenty-six aboveground tests were conducted in Nevada.
They were slated to stay at the Luxor, which Ann had never seen. Oppenheimer had professed a fondness for things ancient-Egyptian, including hieroglyphs, mummies, and pyramids. It was with great interest, he had told her before he left for the Pacific Proving Grounds, that he had once, in days long past, perused The Book of the Dead.
The airport shuttle
left her at a side entrance and she wandered along a sidewalk to the front, passing weeping willows and clean, plastic-looking palm trees. Over the main entrance a massive sphinx guarded the door, and stretching up behind the sphinx’s haunches was the vast black pyramid of the hotel, its peak shooting a vertical white beam into the sky.
She walked past the taxi stands and twin black statues of what looked like dogs lying down. Anubis, she thought suddenly, remembering a book she had located up for Mr. Hofstadt in the old days, when he still came into the library. Jackal god. God of the deceased.
In the cavernous lobby there were pools of blue water lit from beneath. She wished she could wade in them. Kneeling rams presided over the pools, and above the rams, on either side of the tall doorway that led to the casino, massive female-looking figures with jugs on their heads were standing guard.
When she walked through them she found herself facing a maze of slot machines.
—Do you have some guests staying here under the name Szilard?
—Can you spell that for me, please?
—S-Z-I—
—Nothing, I’m sorry. Is there another name it might be under?
—Oppenheimer? Or Larry. Uh, Pickering.
—I do have a reservation under Pickering. Those guests have not checked in yet.
—I’m the first in that party, said Ann, relieved.
—The credit card that was used for the reservation, please?
—Oh! I don’t have it, it was a friend’s.
—I’m afraid we can’t let you into the suite until we have the credit card that was used to make the reservation, said the clerk. Ann gazed at his mouth as though it was a foreign object that had settled on his face. —Hotel policy.
Finally she rented a room of her own and took the elevator up. Signs referred to it as an “inclinator” because it traveled at a forty-degree angle up to the top of the pyramid. When she got out on the fifteenth floor she stumbled sideways.
One of the soldiers who witnessed Shot Hood, a seventy-four kiloton test in Nevada in 1957, told a story at the hospital where he was taken for radiation sickness. After the test, he told his doctor, he had seen the burnt corpses not only of animals in cages but of men shackled to a chain link fence.