by Lydia Millet
—Can he see through that in the dark?
—It’s a night-vision scope. Infrared. He keeps it on Oppie even when there’s a tent in between them.
—Huh.
—Oh and hey, he called after her, —could you tell Szilard we got the sat phones in?
—Sat phones?
—Satellite phones.
By the time she made it past Big Glen and was heading up the steps men were howling and hooting around one of the pyres. She turned and saw them jumping and smashing something at their feet.
—They’re like baboons at the zoo, said Webster from his cross-legged stance, without opening his eyes.
—Yeah, said Big Glen. —Getting ready to hurl their own shit at tourists.
Inside Oppenheimer and Szilard were both typing on laptops, seated on folding camp chairs. Between them was Dory, sitting close to Oppenheimer on a stool and looking over his shoulder as she typed on her own laptop. Laptops were multiplying.
—So let me understand, said Ann, —you’re going to be giving a talk on world peace to these ORV guys?
—They’re just our studio audience, said Szilard. —Of course, the broadcast will reach a broader public. The primary purpose of this particular—
—So the answer is yes, she said impatiently, and then turned to Oppenheimer. —May I have one of your cigarettes, please?
—Certainly.
He moved the computer off his lap and stood up, his long legs awkward.
—You don’t smoke, Ann, said Szilard primly.
—Right now I do.
Outside the door there was a single floodlight hanging off a nearby tree. Webster’s candle had blown out in the breeze and Big Glen was holding the flashlight on the candle while he tried to relight it.
Oppenheimer extracted his cigarettes from a pocket as she poured them plastic cups of beer from a keg. Behind him she could see and hear too many people, speaking loudly, laughing with a grating raw edge and stamping their crushed cups into the ground. Leslie and Clint wandered over, grizzled heavyset men beside them.
—When’s the speeches starting? asked Clint with beer foam on his mustache.
—Ask Leo, said Oppenheimer. —He’s the master of ceremonies.
—Not till the TV cameras get here, said Ann. —You can bet on that.
—What we need is lighters, said Clint, nudging hard against Ann’s side as he leaned over her to talk to Oppenheimer. —For people to hold up, you know?
—Can I talk to you privately for a minute? Ann asked Oppenheimer, and pulled him away
—Thank you, said Oppenheimer, as they hunkered behind the food tent in darkness with Joshua trees framing them. —Wherever I go they’re all there.
—There isn’t room for us anymore, she said.
He lit her cigarette and then, as she inhaled, his own. She put it in her mouth, a cool and papery cylinder. She liked the feel of that, but when she breathed in it tasted bad.
—Have you considered, you know, asked Ann, exhaling through her nose. She remembered the plumes from high school, how they had made her feel like a dragon lady when she smoked to be cool. —Quitting?
—Never, said Oppenheimer.
—Not the cigarettes, the campaign.
—I promised Leo, said Oppenheimer.
—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, she said. —I mean should I help? Or am I—I mean do you even want me here?
—Of course we do, said Oppenheimer.
He took a deep drag and looked around, then leaned in.
—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but many of our followers are mentally—
—Hey Oppie!
Someone was intruding rudely around the edge of the food tent, a head sticking out at them. It was Larry, three sheets to the wind, his face redder and puffier than usual. It shone like a beacon.
Behind him was Dory, with her microphone raised. Oppenheimer smiled at her and Ann noticed how quickly she smiled back.
—The TV people are here!
Szilard and Oppenheimer disappeared into the swallow of crowds and buses and lights, people and news vans. Suddenly she could see no one she knew.
She had the half-drunk cup of beer in her hand and the stale taste of the cigarette in her mouth, but around her all the familiar people had been replaced with others who alarmed her. She saw a man with a shotgun and a man with a crossbow, and wondered where they had come from and what they planned to do with their weapons.
During the decades of bomb testing in Nevada, ranchers for hundreds of miles around watched their cows and sheep give birth to mewling creatures with the wrong number of limbs. In small Mormon towns downwind of the test site, pregnant women discovered they were carrying hearts that beat slowly in shapeless bundles of tissue; the children they did have died of leukemia far too often.
Later, the Centers for Disease Control determined that cancer hot spots from fallout existed as far away as New England. But for years, indeed for the lifetimes of many of the victims, the government had denied any link. Also the people themselves, the Mormons and others who lived in the area, had so perfectly trusted their government that they had denied the effects of the mushrooms clouds and black rain on their dead children and mutant cows. It was God’s will, some said.
A quarter of a million soldiers, known subsequently as atomic veterans, had bombs tested on them. They would be lined up to watch such explosions as Shot Hood, which at seventy-four kilotons was the biggest atmospheric test ever conducted in Nevada. Hood was puny compared to the tests in the Pacific, but it was still about six times the size of Hiroshima. Just a few years after the tests they had witnessed many of the young soldiers came down with cancer, lost legs or were found to be sterile. The government denied any connection with the nuclear tests, and hunkered down for decades to wait out its victims.
People who lived near the test site and were exposed to fallout from it—often called downwinders—almost always described the clouds that rose on the horizon after a bomb went off and then passed over their houses and towns as “pink clouds.” Some said the clouds were evil, and they hated and feared the clouds. Others were not interested in the clouds and believed the leaflets handed out by the government, which said the clouds were harmless.
After all radiation itself cannot be felt, and it cannot be seen.
But most people who saw them said the pink clouds had a transcendent beauty they were at a loss to describe. The clouds moved like great crafts over the small dark towns huddled beneath them.
She was far back enough to hear a dull roar of noise but no words, and see Oppenheimer and Szilard climb up over the cab of a truck onto the top of the silver Airstream, above the crowds. Then they were spotlit. She had to go closer. A newsman with a camera on his shoulder skirted the crowd in front of her, and motorcycle engines revved out at the far edges of the throng.
The outside of the Airstream was plastered with Szilard’s posters, and she could make out Larry and Big Glen at the front of the bus, keeping the onlookers at bay. A skinny kid with a ponytail ran past her holding one of the posters, other kids on his heels. Music was thudding from a powerful speaker system, rap she thought but all she could hear of it was the bass, and on a folding chair beside a nearby pyre Loni was strumming on what appeared to be a sitar.
Oppenheimer said something inaudible and then someone handed up a megaphone and she caught the fragment speak to you of a unity before the megaphone fell to his feet and a sector of the crowd was chanting —Mic them! Mic them!
Szilard had the megaphone next, and held it too close to his mouth. His words were staticky.
—In the course of working to prove our identity we have filed a lawsuit—
—Ann! yelled a man a few inches from her ear. It was Adalbert the food activist, hoarse from trying to be heard over the clamor. —I finally found you! I saw Tamika but she was what do you call it? Tripping? Where are the rest?
—Up there somewhere, she yelled, and gestured in front of her.
A newsman was climbing onto the bus and handing Oppenheimer up a microphone.
—Thank you! said Oppenheimer, voice clearer but still too soft.
—Oppie! Oppie! Oppie!
Ann looked around her at the chanting men in their leather jackets and torn jeans, the sunworn faces of bikers and timeworn eyes of peacelovers, and at the guy in the bandanna with the crossbow, which was dangling casually at his side. It threatened no matter what he did with it.
Then there was Dory, with her microphone raised. Ann was relieved to see her. Standing close to her she looked down at the ground between them. Dory’s toes were filthy in her dusty Birkenstocks.
—Can you believe this?
—I’m amazed he got this kind of turnout, said Dory. —Plus the fact that there’s media coverage. It’s—frankly it’s surprising.
—Partly it’s the free beer, said Ann, and then regretted it.
—What?
To avoid explaining she leaned forward and listened intently. Oppenheimer was barely audible.
—colleague Leo Szilard here is circulating around a petition to the government—
Beneath the Airstream a fight was breaking out. She could see moving heads and shoulders, shoulders squared and bumping against each other, and then Big Glen and Clint and a hulking bearded man with a flag on his back were dragging someone out of the core of the crowd to the margins, dragging him toward a van parked nearby where the paved parking lot ended. She ran over after them, some of the others behind her.
—What is it?
—David, said Clint.
—What did he do?
Big Glen followed Clint into the van and closed the door carefully in her face. She pressed her nose against the tinted glass but could see nothing within.
—Hey! We need First Aid here! said a staggering teenager in a faded vintage MegaDeth T-shirt, falling against her with a pale drunk girl at his side. Her short blond hair was singed black on one side of her head. —She got hit with one of them Roman Candle things. Where’s the First Aid tent?
—There is no First Aid tent, said Ann.
—What the fuck? And no bathrooms either? Isn’t that like against the law? We could totally sue!
—This isn’t an amusement park, said Ann, leaning in close to look at the girl’s burnt hair. —We’re not running a business. OK?
—Bitch at all?
—Tamika is a registered nurse, said Adalbert. —Isn’t she?
—I think she did some acid, said Clint, stumbling out of the van with a bleeding cut above his right eye. —She’s majorly tripping.
In the dark interior of the van Ann could hear David praying. —For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders!
She turned to Clint slowly. Signs and wonders. On the end of his eyebrow hovered a small bead of watery blood.
—What are you doing? she asked him, but even to her voice sounded hollow and fluid, as though she had not spoken.
—What happened to your face, Clint? asked Adalbert, more loudly.
—Couple minutes ago, this Chinese guy had a numchuk? No wait. Japanese guy. One of the grandsons of that old A-bomb survivor that gave us the buckwheat pancake mix, were you there for that?
Megadeath snorted contemptuously. —You don’t know the difference between Asians? What a total racist!
—A numchuk? asked Ann. She was still stunned, her voice small. She felt ignored, and yet coasting.
—I mean he wasn’t trying to hit me, he was showing us this kinda martial arts move?—
Ann tried to lean past him to see into the van, where the prayer mumbled on. —Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth! Behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not!
But Clint closed the door again before Ann could catch a glimpse. His body odor was overwhelming. She felt queasy and stepped back.
—Can I please at least get some Vicodan? whined the drunk girl with the burnt hair.
—I thought Glen took a vow not to be violent, said Ann urgently as the van began to rock.
—Right, said Clint. —He will never, ever lift a hand in anger.
—But—
—Come with me, kids, said Clint heartily to the teen. —Get you high in no time.
The three of them moved off and a rocket pierced the sky, streaking white lines. Soon the van stopped rocking and Big Glen came out of the door and squeezed past her squirting water into his mouth and onto his forehead from a bottle.
—Did you hurt him? she called as he headed back toward the Airsteam. But he was already far away and when Adalbert tried to open the van door it was locked. On top of the Airstream Oppenheimer was saying something about the power of belief.
—I like the hotels with the small bear on the sign, said Fermi. —I’ll settle for the first one we see, said Ben. —I’m exhausted. I just need some sleep.
They were outside Flagstaff, where a forest fire was burning south of town. From the motel parking lot they could see the glow on the horizon, and a pear-shaped, sad woman in tight black stirrup pants who sat smoking a long cigarette on the back of her truck and staring at the flames.
—On this site, in the 1950s and 1960s, said Szilard into the microphone, —a program of involuntary human experimentation was carried out on the citizens of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona—in fact, even on the citizens of New York and Maine, for that is where the radioactive fallout clouds were carried by the wind. The same people who brought you the war against Hitler and his genocide, these people treated and continue to treat the human race as their personal guinea pigs.
As he handed the microphone to Oppenheimer Ann ducked under a makeshift laundry line that had been converted to a display hanger for posters and emerged on the backside of the trailer, looking up at the scientists’ backs. Szilard was wearing a suit for once, apparently modeled on Oppenheimer’s.
—And we are here now, said Oppenheimer, —to gather all of you up in our quest—
The trailer jerked and both of them staggered, losing their footing. Oppenheimer fell down on his knees. Ann could see people surging around the trailer’s other side, either fighting or slam-dancing, she couldn’t tell. She heard shouts and looked up at Oppenheimer, who was on all fours and scrabbling nervously at the curved silver surface, trying to hold his ground as it rocked back and forth. He met her eyes for a second but then the angle of the spotlight light changed and through the glare she could not see his face.
She was taken back to her dream then, the first dream, in which he had knelt in the sand in the desert, alone. She felt dizzy and leaned forward with a hand against the shivering Airstream to steady herself. There was a shot and a roar, and she looked up at the top of the trailer again and saw Szilard falling down.
—I want a garden of my own, said Fermi as Ben reached to turn out the bedside lamp, plumping his pillow beneath his head and pulling up the coverlet. —When it’s over can you just make sure that they give me one? That’s all I need. It can be very small. Even just a few square feet.
—A garden?
—A garden.
—Szilard was lifted struggling off the ground beside the trailer and carried by Clint and Big Glen and others she didn’t know, on his back like an overturned beetle, legs and arms peddling and flailing slowly. She rushed along beside them, leaning over to see the damage. One of his arms was hurt, there was blood on his white shirt and he was sweating profusely, eyes partly closed. She couldn’t tell whether the arm was all that had been injured.
—Leo? Where did it get you?
—Take him to the bus! Leslie! Go get Tamika.
—What’s she gonna do? She’s on E!
—Call for an ambulance then!
—No! protested Szilard weakly. —No police!
He was like a battering ram they held up to charge through the crowd. But they were too fast, and there were too many of them. Ann’s ankle twisted on a rock and she stumbled and fell behind and then had to run to catch up, hobbling. She looked back at t
he top of the Airstream. Oppenheimer had stepped down.
The bus was packed. Ann craned her neck to see past the crowd to Szilard as they laid him on the unmade bed and stripped him of his jacket, exposing a flower of blood beneath.
—It’s in his arm!
—Just the arm!
—He fell on it when he fell!
The blood had spread to his chest but the bullet hole was in the flabby side of his upper left arm. Behind him were grimy plastic Venetian blinds. She saw Eugene on the library floor, and collapsed.
Each atmospheric test in Nevada, of which there were one hundred and twenty-six, released more radiation than Chernobyl.
—I’m going back to my post, said Big Glen. —You all take care of him. I got Oppenheimer.
He swept past where she was lying and the door of the bus crashed flimsily behind him. She blinked and looked at their backs bent over Szilard.
—You OK, sweet sorrow lady? asked Tamika, who stood beside her chewing on a swollen lower lip. Her eyes were glassy in a face decorated with gold harlequin facepaint. Long, clownish gold eyelashes dripped down her cheeks.
—An assassination attempt, croaked Szilard, his face white.
—I dunno, man, said Clint. —These ORV guys are trigger-happy. Plus it turns out they got a portable meth lab set up back over there. Probably just some asshole on crank. Tweaking.
—But it was right near my heart! Is that a coincidence?
—Oh man. I think his arm is broken.
—Get the reporters, said Szilard. —They should document this!
—Always thinking of the cause, aren’t you Leo, said Tamika fondly, and stroked Szilard’s good right hand, swaying back and forth from the waist. —Sweet sorrow man.
Szilard pulled his wrist away and flicked it irritably.
—Now they’ll have to run the story, said Szilard, and gritted his teeth as his sleeve was peeled down. —Ann! Are you awake over there? You do it! Get the reporters for me!
Through the crowds, pushing against shoulders though she was still heavy-headed and drowsy from fainting, she found a man with a camera on his shoulder trying to talk to Oppenheimer. The two of them were standing under the food tent facing each other, both of them jostled and crowded by fans, Oppenheimer trying to smoke a cigarette and drink beer and talk simultaneously. His arm was repeatedly jogged, the beer flying up the side of the cup and slopping over the lip onto his tie. She concentrated on the arm to keep herself focused as she pushed her way through to him. The fires were smoking and cinders floated up and past them and clung in people’s hair.