by Lydia Millet
—Nice to see you too, Leo, said Oppenheimer, with a raised eyebrow. —So tomorrow’s when the trial begins?
Larry got up to make the call on his cell phone, wandering away from the table.
—We need to make it to Albuquerque by ten in the morning. We have a press conference.
—If you’d like to hear about our legal strategy, said Ted to Oppenheimer, —I can brief you.
—If I must, said Oppenheimer.
Ted flipped through documents across the booth from them.
—Here’s the deal, he said. —What we’re doing is we’re arguing the No Records response the Army gave us is false. They haven’t been too smart about this. What they should have done is just denied us the documents, which is fully legal. Instead they just flat-out lied and said No Records. Plus the letter was signed by someone way high up, not the FOIA coordinator, which means the peons are covering their asses. They know there’s bullshit going on and they don’t want to put their careers on the line.
—Uh huh.
Ann studied the way Oppenheimer’s cigarette smoke curled toward the vent above them, and how Ted’s ears shone pink and scrubby under tendrils of hair. She could smell onion rings.
—So we’re going to ask the judge for something called Discovery and Document Production. We’ve already submitted the request in writing, and then the Army challenged it. The judge asked for a hearing.
—I see, said Oppenheimer, but his eyes were beyond Ted, on an electronic billboard advertising Kino, with angry red digital letters that moved too fast.
Fermi slept in his clothes, tie loosened and suit jacket hung in the open closet behind him, stretched out on top of the sheet on his bed. A sharp rap on the room door woke Ben from a dream of suffocation, and he watched Fermi sleep until the knock came again and then dragged himself off his bed.
Answering the door blearily he came face to face with two large men. They were beefy and small-eyed and wore uniforms that made them look as though they wished to be important.
—What can I do for you?
—We’re Dr. Fermi’s security detail.
—He’s taking a nap.
—We will need to make sure that the room is secure. Then he can continue sleeping.
The Wackenhut force had its own vans. One drove ahead of the bus and the other followed, flanked by motorcycles, and a lone Wackenhut man was posted inside the bus with them, wearing a brown uniform. He did most of the driving, taking breaks every two hours during which he drank diet soda in the corner with his radio squawking intermittently. Ann noticed that sometimes he seemed to be caressing his handgun in its holster. There was a longer gun propped beside him.
—It’s a pump-action shotgun, Clint said when he saw her staring at it. —A Remington 870.
On television they watched a videotape of the demonstration, McDonalds food spread out in front of them. Szilard was fond of it. A contingent of vegans had attempted to boycott the lunch stop but had been overruled. Behind them knelt Dory, with her camcorder resting on her shoulder, filming both the television and the three of them watching it. Her left hand, on the back of the couch, brushed against Oppenheimer’s shoulder. Ann watched his face to see if he noticed, but could detect nothing.
She moved closer to Ben, who was reading.
—I’m sorry for before, she told him. —I don’t mean to be selfish. This is like an addiction.
—Thank you for saying that. I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.
But he said it evenly with a dutiful tone, and without looking up from his book.
—I can’t stop until it’s over, she said.
—And when will you know when it’s over? Is there going to be a sign that pops up on the road and says THE END?
She glanced past him and out the window just as they passed a billboard for a brothel, well-lit in the dark. Over its yellow background was a woman’s disinterested face, with a stiffly shaped helmet of hair and glistening lips.
The convoy was even longer now, Ann realized, the lights of all their vehicles stretching far ahead into the dark of the desert and trailing off into the distance behind them.
She was struck by the endless shimmer of the procession. It had happened overnight: they were legion.
—Leo, she said to Szilard, who had gotten up to get something out of the refrigerator, —I hear Enrico isn’t happy about your plan to exhume his body.
—Sacrifices must be made, said Szilard, leaning down and scrutinizing the refrigerator’s contents. He pulled out a chocolate milk.
—What if the body’s not even there? I mean, how could it be? He’s here!
—Don’t worry about the logic, said Szilard. —It is complicated.
He trundled back to the couch with his chocolate milk carton open.
—He still treats you like a servant, said Ben, looking up from his book quickly and then returning to it. —Doesn’t he.
It was a book about mystical lights. The jewelry maker from Santa Barbara had lent it to him eagerly, with a heartfelt recommendation. It told of mysterious floating lights, lights over ancient burial mounds and modern cemeteries, lights over swamps and fields. It described a ball of light that had been photographed in a zoological garden near the beginning of the twentieth century and a mysterious fireball sighted in a French barn in 1845.
There were moving lights that chased truck drivers and balls of lightning that attacked young girls as they sat at the dinner table and then escaped up the chimney. There were corpse lights that hovered over places where people were soon going to die in accidents, a light for each victim.
Ann left while he read and went to sit beside the scientists, watching TV. Ben raised his head and looked at her across the room, and then out the window hopefully. What if there was a ghost light out there in the dark?
All he saw was a dipping and rising power line.
They ate breakfast early in a cafeteria-style Mexican place near the university, famous for its chili. Szilard’s student volunteers had come to meet them, and four Wackenhut men sat rigidly in booths on either side. They wore headsets and consulted their watches periodically as though they were the Secret Service.
Dory was along at Oppenheimer’s request.
—She’s documenting this for a paper she’s writing, he said by way of explanation, but then he smiled at Dory with a tenderness Ann had rarely seen.
One of the students, a thin Pakistani man, had brought along a copy of his script for the press conference. Szilard marked it up generously with a red pen, his large cast resting on the table beside him, as the student ate his refried beans delicately and talked to Oppenheimer.
—I saw a very interesting film about you! he told him joyously. Ann wanted to listen to his flowing accent but Dory was talking near her ear about the convenience of digital video. —When I was quite small! Of course you looked a good deal older then.
—Are you a Pakistani?
—Yes sir.
—We didn’t have them back in my day. Pakistanis that is. There was only India and you were all Indians. And Mr. Gandhi. I liked his creed. I embraced it myself: Ahimsa. Nonviolence.
—Yes sir.
—A very good man, Mr. Gandhi.
—Yes sir.
—They shot him to death, didn’t they.
She watched sidelong as he and Oppenheimer faced forward beside each other and forked up their eggs.
Outside the courthouse there were news vans parked at hasty angles and crowds flocked on the steps.
Approaching along the sidewalk with the Wackenhuts flanking them Ann felt a stab of fear in her stomach. What if there was someone there with a gun again, and this time they shot something more important than the fat part of an arm?
But she was pushed back from Oppenheimer and Szilard and Fermi as they started up the steps and the crowd closed in. Ben was up ahead and she could barely see him.
—Wait! she called, but a tall man was in front of her and a boom hit the side of her head.
What surprised Oppenheimer about his kidnapping was the fact that he had not been able to bestir himself to anything more than a gentle amusement at his captors’ precociousness. He had every reason to hold them in contempt, but he could not summon it. He had been irritated, certainly, when they took away his cigarettes, but part of him had been content to watch their antics.
He wondered after the fact whether it was because he missed his own son, whom he had not seen grow up. But on reflection he did not think this explained his strange tranquility. Rather he was fond of them for the eagerness of their absurdity, how even as they tried to be criminals they were still infants. They used foul language and were clearly infatuated with their play violence, but even so he had a feeling of overwhelming benevolence toward them, as though if they turned on him and killed him savagely he would still be unable to stop smiling.
—Are you OK?
It was a young, clean-shaven man in an expensive beige suit and red tie, a cell phone in his hand.
She rubbed her head where the boom had bruised it, watching the last of the crowd swallowed up by the courthouse.
—Fine, thanks, she said.
—Ann. Isn’t it?
She stared at him.
—Do I know you?
—Jonathan Lynne, he said, and reached out smoothly to shake her hand. She had no time to hold back. —I represent a group of Fortune 500 companies. I’m here on their behalf.
He took a card from his wallet and handed it to her, and glancing down she saw he worked in public relations.
—What for?
—Listen. Can we discuss this over a coffee?
—First tell me what this is about.
—My clients are interested in your friends the physicists.
—Interested?
—They’re considering investments and what they need is someone to consult with on the subject. Someone with firsthand experience of what these guys have to offer.
—I don’t get it.
—They’d like to hire you as a consultant.
She stared at him but could detect nothing in his steady gaze and reasonable tone.
—Basically as they make a decision on whether to invest, they’d like the best information available. And there’s nowhere to go for that but the source.
For a minute she did nothing but look away from him, at the street stretching away from the courthouse and the dusty haze of the sky over the far mountains.
—You want me to spy on my friends?
—Of course not! What my clients are looking for is just a firsthand testimonial to these guys’ aptitudes, scientific interests, and future plans where any creative work is concerned. They know Dr. Szilard, in particular, is a great innovator. And believe me, he and the other two could come out of this very, very well if my clients give this investment the green light. I mean your guys could be set for life.
His phone rang in his hand but he ignored it, looking at her earnestly. He was trying hard and his proposal was well-rehearsed but she still knew him for a liar. His tan was too smooth, his words too fluid, and she would never be a candidate for industrial espionage. She was a librarian.
—What would be in it for me? she asked, hoping she sounded as though she meant it. —And what exactly would I be doing for these clients?
—Can we go get that coffee? said the young businessman. —Please, I’m jonesing. My car’s right around the corner.
She wondered fleetingly if he was dangerous and then dismissed it. He was here to get something.
For the first time, filing into the courtroom beside Fermi, Ben felt he was in a solid position, among purposeful agents. At the base of the courthouse steps he had seen a delegation from Nagasaki. They stood solemnly watching and waiting, dressed in gray and black suits. Behind them were the people who had flown in from the Marshall Islands, also wearing suits but with brighter ties. Oppenheimer had pointed them out to him from the bus the night before, looking out his own window into the windows of their chartered bus. They had waved at him, smiling, and their faces had stricken him.
To these people Szilard was not trivial. It was possible there was a truth in his bustle somewhere, and where was truth elsewhere, anyway? Almost everything was a circus. The circus turned and flashed around him and around them all.
He turned and looked at Fermi, who seemed prematurely aged, and then at the survivors from injured places, crowding into the courthouse seats. He was sorry for them and distracted by his own recognition. He was not aloof anymore; he was giving up and giving in. He had been wrong. Who knew what was fact? And more than fact was the faces of the sad people, and no one should treat them callously.
He wanted to find Ann to apologize, but he could not see her. This is the world, he thought. I have to let it rest on me.
The young businessman drove a black BMW. She had to admit to herself that she liked the soft black leather of the seat; she sat with her palms flat against it as the businessman drove.
But there was nothing in his car to help her discern his real purpose in approaching her. It was like new, factory-clean and unmarred by telltale hints of personality.
— … so what we’re talking is probably the figure I gave you up front plus say two percent of whatever contract my clients finally offer your guys. Which believe me is a generous offer.
—And these reports I would have to make, she said, —what kind of information would they need from me? I mean I’m not a scientist. And Leo barely even talks politics to me.
—Your husband can help you there, said the businessman without pausing. Clearly he was already familiar with Szilard’s habits. —He can work together with you. Remember, down the road this will all be in your friends’ best interests.
Annoyed at how stupid he must think she was she stared hard out the window, watching as they passed a seemingly unending row of American flags outside a Ford dealership.
—My clients would ask for a report on every other day, delivered by telephone, he said.
She looked at him sidelong as he drove, pretending interest as she ran her fingers over the stereo controls, and for the first time she noticed a heavy gold ring on his finger, bearing some kind of illegible emblem. Probably from his fraternity, she thought, and then noticed his heavy gold wristwatch. The dark bronze of his skin was so even it had to have been sprayed on.
—Let’s just go to that café, she said abruptly, and pointed. Suddenly she was sickened at her position, sickened by him. —I need air.
He pulled over right away and this might have given her confidence in him, she reflected later—confidence at least that he was not threatening bodily harm, that his pretense of respectability was seamless. But instead it brought an almost hysterical note to her throat as she threw herself out of the car.
While he was in line awaiting his cappuccino she went to the bathroom and then out the back into a parking lot. Abruptly, when she stepped out the door, she took a deep breath and then ran full-out, away, her arms flailing.
A few minutes later, winded, she was scrambling over a fence when she stepped wrong and twisted her ankle, hearing the knuckled pop as it turned. Her head hit a concrete piling as she fell.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to stop nuclear testing was signed in 1996. To date, sixty-three states across the globe have ratified the Treaty.
The United States is not among them.
—Who found me? she asked him blearily. Her tongue was thick in her head. There were good drugs now, which made her feel as though everything was the way it should be. But she was confused beneath the light feeling.
—It was some kid from the neighborhood. What were you doing back there?
He leaned over holding her hand. Then someone grabbed her gurney and pushed, and he was walking alongside.
She was not interested in questions. —This is what heaven is like.
—What, honey?
—Nothing is bad anymore.
—What do you mean?
—When they let me go, I want
more of these. The drugs they gave me. The city of God on earth.
He smiled and leaned down close, smoothing her hair. —You’re a little delirious, he said. —Or it might be the pain meds. You asked for them. Remember?
—But I mean it! Drugs are the city of God on earth.
—OK, sweetie.
He was still smiling when she felt herself drifting again. Buoyancy was with her, and the absence of care. Choice could be taken away, she saw, and then you became an object: but far from being dangerous that moment when choice disappeared was when danger also vanished, and there was nothing you could do but submit. She felt the slow draw of contentment over her, and the relief of a great submission.
For after all it was not ego or a conviction of your own importance that made life worth living but whether you could see how perfect the world had always been without you. It was not to despair at this thought, not to run, not to fear, not to fight; it was if, instead of running or fighting, out of the overwhelming nearness of the world, you could finally make something that could be glimpsed from afar.
IV
A VAST INFANT
1
As the caravan pulled out of Albuquerque she only wanted to go home. She wanted to be alone in her house, on its calm earthen floors; she wanted to feel once again the deliberate coolness of walking across the clay tiles on bare feet.
She thought of the windows wide open and in her longing leaned through them to the slope of the hill beside the garden, leaned to the already-gone feeling of the last slow minutes of a day of wind and rain and the smells of juniper and piñon.
She considered ways she could leave, by a sudden hailed taxi or spontaneous flight, but sat without moving.
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons were proliferating most rapidly, Americans were treated to many educational film strips on Civil Defense. One of these, released in the early 1960s, was called You and the Atom. It offered very straightforward advice, namely: “The Atomic Energy Commission says the best defense against an atom bomb is to BE SOMEWHERE ELSE when it bursts.”