by Lydia Millet
When she told the scientists why she had run they had looked at her as though they were sorry for her, nodding and smiling but condescending. She could tell that behind their kind words they were sure she had acted irrationally. Szilard’s mouth said Don’t worry, don’t worry, but his face said hysterical woman. Even Oppenheimer remarked gently that he doubted the young businessman had intended to hurt her physically.
She herself did not regret running. She regretted falling—her agitation and the blur of her vision as she rushed against the wind—but she did not regret running. There had been something in the young businessman, something in his perfect tan and perfect calm and the soft leather and the quiet purr of the BMW’s engine, that made her cold. In the company of the young businessman, she realized, sitting on the buttery seat, she had felt an insidious lull, a laxness spreading through all her limbs, as though all her will and desire was draining out through her skin.
Oppenheimer’s pity for her was rare evidence to him that he could still bend from his detachment. Something in the haste and odd triviality of the episode made her seem more fearful and attention-seeking than she would have seemed as the victim of a grosser infraction. Yet he knew these were unworthy associations and he was sorry. He had rarely felt protective since he came to the new life from the old one, and he was not exactly protective now—more sorry than anything, pulled toward her by a sense of paternal longing that he could not distinguish from remorse.
She would be laid up for at least forty-eight hours, and even after that she would walk for a while with crutches.
At the end of the evening the others were talking softly around her, plumping their pillows and settling onto their blankets and sleeping pads. Safe, harbored by solid walls and warm lights and people she knew, she lay on her back on top of her own sleeping bag, raised her leg slowly and squinted at her awkward bound ankle in the low brown light. The blood rushed to her head and she had to lower the leg again, wavering as it fell. Cautiously she tried to bend her ankle, which resisted bending, and sucked in her breath at the sharp pain.
This could be where she stayed for a while, she thought, after all. Ben was with her and she had no job at home anymore. It was not time to go home yet, she realized. A few days earlier the bus had been sterile and ugly but now she felt a sad compassion for it: it had not been protected. Even the mustard-colored vinyl floor tiles in the kitchenette, stamped with horns of plenty, looked like orphans.
It was more hers because she had failed to keep it from the harm of itself. What you hurt is more yours, she thought, when you have hurt yourself. What is hurt becomes you.
In the bathroom Ben considered taking a sleeping pill, but had none. Brushing his teeth with Szilard’s toothpaste, which featured suspended glitter for the delight of children, he asked himself if sleeping pills prevented dreaming and did not know the answer. Lately his dreams had turned sour and vivid and he woke up from them in a shaken and inexplicable fear. In the worst dreams family members long dead died again. His sick mother stared at him frowning and melting before he could haul his eyes open, struggling to rise away from her by forcing himself awake. His uncle lay in a ditch beside a grove of tall trees, many-clawed bulldozers moving stiffly behind him. He himself stood on narrow ledges looking at telephone wires stretched below and then he sat with both his parents on metal chairs, piles of wet leaves in front of them, remembering a small baby brother. He had never had a brother and in the dream the brother was a soft and injured infant, his face imploring.
Elbowing his way out of the closet-sized bathroom he glanced over Ann, lying down on the sleeping mat with her foot in the awkward bandage, to Larry and Tamika who were meditating cross-legged on their tatamis to a song that went The first time I saw you, I loved you, I loved you. He wished he could have their ease in the world, their cheerful unconcern.
He had failed his wife by forgetting to notice her. She had sunk into the background while he ground his teeth in resentment. It had been a close call and both of them were lucky, true; but despite their narrow escape guilt nagged at him.
While they all fell asleep together inside the bus sympathy was in the air like warmth, bringing a humility that Ann did not remember from the rest of her life. People were sorry for her not because of her injury, which was minor, but because they suspected her of needing. She needed, they felt, to draw the scientists’ attention, and her tactics were desperate.
But it was not as bad as she had thought it would be living in a well of pity. In fact it had a bracing quality. They felt sorry for her because they too needed, and they too could be desperate. She always dismissed the urge toward pity because it seemed condescending: but now she saw it for what it was, the most immediate and close of contacts.
The touch of it almost hurt.
As the convoy traveled east unruly crowds pressed in; whenever the bus had to stop for gas or groceries the scientists stepped out the door and were swamped. People pushed in close to them, demanding responses and proclaiming their loyalty. They wanted to give or receive: they wanted to be involved. But there were hundreds of them.
Szilard was less disturbed by the crowds than Oppenheimer and Fermi because he cut off questions that did not interest him. Many of his followers could not pronounce his last name and merely called him “Dr. Leo.” When they followed him around, badgering him with questions, he merely flapped a hand over his shoulder impatiently to dismiss them. He did not seem to feel any adverse effects from the pressure but Oppenheimer and Fermi resorted to evasive tactics. When Oppenheimer stepped out to smoke a cigarette Dory walked two steps in front of him and brandished her camcorder, barking out —Please respect Dr. Oppenheimer’s personal space!
No one paid attention and people were all over Oppenheimer, clamoring.
Fermi told Ben that when the mob crushed in he felt he could not breathe, that panic was raising his heart rate and he was a candidate for a cardiac event. He took to locking the bus as soon as they pulled over to camp for the night, and at regular intervals he would feel for his pulse on his wrist, timing it.
But Fermi was gaining in popularity, surpassing Szilard through sheer mystique. The crowds seemed to understand that he did not like to converse and his silence became the object of fetishists. —Dr. Fermi! Dr. Fermi! Can I just get my picture taken with you for my web site? Dr. Fermi. Can you just autograph my shirt here?
His silence gave him added value.
Ann saw how men approached Oppenheimer, their bodies braced and receptive at once. They seemed to admire him even more than women did, the command and modesty of his presence. She watched them seek his approval with a needy and often misplaced pride, both the old and the young. —Oppie, this is my girlfriend Jojo? She’s got a mushroom cloud tattoo on her butt.
Ann felt the urgency of the crowds and the trespass of them when they pressed too close. She felt the chaos of their nearness, how it panicked Fermi. People were coming to her all the time to petition for time with the scientists, pumping her for information and handing over messages for Oppenheimer or Szilard or items of clothing and pieces of paper for Fermi’s signature. Fermi made it clear that he did not give autographs but hope seemed to linger that he would reverse his policy.
The followers allowed no space and submitted to no rules. Near a town called Vaughn a bespectacled girl in a wet T-shirt flung herself at Fermi while he was drinking his espresso, saying she wanted to “feel his magic.” Fermi was horrified at the sight of her large, soaking breasts through the cream-colored cotton emblazoned with NO NUKES NOW. She was only fourteen, he told Ben.
Later Ben told it to Ann, how he had watched the girl throw her arms around Fermi, eyes squeezed shut, smiling. He wondered if she was retarded, her childish face was so blissful and free of worry. She had been swimming in a motel pool near where they were parked and had come running across the street when she recognized them. He had seen her thin arms encircle and clutch and her breasts balloon and squash against Fermi’s shirtfront, soaking the fabric.
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It made him feel paternal, Fermi had told him, but also deeply embarrassed.
—Hey Ben? I really need to talk to you, said Leslie one night at a campsite outside Roswell.
Larry had insisted on making a side trip. Beyond their own camp sprawled other camps, teeming with people captivated by aliens. Ann had walked away with Oppenheimer to visit a vanload of Tibetan Buddhists.
—Oh? said Ben. He was sitting on a white plastic chair, reading a day-old newspaper under a hanging halogen lantern.
—Can I sit down?
—Sure.
He folded his paper with reluctance and leaned over to pull off the lid of the styrofoam cooler. When he looked up he saw that Leslie was wearing a purple scarf around her head and a pair of bone earrings, which he recognized as Ashlee’s work, dangled from her ears.
He took out a beer bottle and twisted off the cap. —One for you?
—No thank you. Alcohol is a carcinogen.
—Oh, I didn’t know that.
It was already up to his lips so he took a quick swallow.
—I just wanted to say, because I believe in being honest and getting it out in the open will help me conquer it I think?—it’s just, I have feelings.
—Feelings?
—For you.
He held the beer in a long gulp.
—Sorry. Are you pulling my leg?
Her lips pursed.
—It’s just, he said quickly, —I didn’t think you even liked me. When we were on the airplane coming back from Tokyo you called me a cynic with a bad attitude. You said I didn’t have respect for the, uh, healing process.
—I think I felt your attraction to me and I was trying to repel you.
—My attraction?
—Don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything.
—Uh, OK then.
—I know how you feel. You don’t want to be attracted to me but you are.
—Huh.
—I wanted us to clear the air. I figure once we admit it we can move forward, you know? I realize you’re married.
He almost still thought she was joking. Maybe she was wearing a wire, taping his responses to play back to a mocking crowd. He realized he was sitting in shadow and was glad it was her face, not his, that was illuminated.
—Yes I am.
—And I have a lot of respect for the institution of marriage even if it has completely exploited women.
He wondered if it would be insensitive for him to take another swig from his bottle.
—Well. Thanks for your, uh …
—Marriage actually shortens women’s lives, did you know that? But guess what, it makes men’s lives longer. Surprise surprise, right?
—Figures.
—Anyway. I just, I think you have this incredible sex appeal.
He drank and waited, afraid that anything he said could make her come nearer.
—Well. Thank you.
—OK. I guess I should be going.
She got up slowly and then swooped scarily close. He almost jerked back in his chair, but stopped himself.
—So goodnight, Ben.
She said his name with a sensuous slowness. It was not good. He thought of an aunt he barely remembered, who knitted and wore green pantsuits.
—See you, Leslie.
When she stood back up and moved away he exhaled at length.
Outside a huge weapons-building complex called Pantex in Amarillo, Texas, the scientists held another press conference. Ann was shocked at how many reporters attended, the black forest of cameras and microphones. Ben shook his head along with her, staring.
—It must be a slow news week.
Newspapers and magazines began to use the term A-bomb pretenders, but not without fondness. Oppenheimer had been featured in an apocalyptic Christian newsletter, which called him “a soldier for the Rapture”; Szilard was spurned by Christian publications because of his insistence on political screeds and his relentless promotion of the United Nations. The mainstream media used terms like mad scientists. When that quotation was read aloud to him Szilard shrugged and said that all publicity was good publicity.
But the Amarillo police were not happy to have the circus in town. They did not like protesters. Protesters represented the rabble, the underclass, while the police were advocates for Pantex. In their view citizens like Pantex were the kind they wanted more of in Texas.
So when the cavalcade rolled out the next morning it had a police escort. Many of the followers waved their flags as the motorcycle cops rode beside them and some had spray-painted their car windows with slogans. Oppenheimer spotted one that read FUCK THE POLICE and became distressed.
—Leo, he said gravely, —can’t you control them? The obscenities!
Fermi, still miserable from his encounter with the buxom girl in the wet T-shirt, informed Larry and Szilard with quiet resolve that he was leaving right away unless they instituted a crowd control policy.
—I’m sorry, he said, —but I can’t stand it.
—I’ll take care of it, man, said Larry. —No problem. Scout’s honor.
The next day Big Glen established a strict hierarchy of access. Ann and Ben, Larry and Tamika, Dory and Big Glen traveled with the scientists in the first bus, guarded by a surly Wackenhut named Kurt. Kurt communicated by cell phone with the other Huts in their vans. He used codes and jargon and was always gruff and businesslike, which Ann liked to ridicule silently. Kurt felt that he was authorized to take charge; Kurt felt it was only right and fitting that authority had been conferred upon him.
The groups from Tokyo and Peace Camp traveled in the second bus and pitched tents outside at night. They had to make appointments if they wanted to see the scientists privately.
—I mean what makes Glen so special that he gets to be a right-hand guy? asked Clint bitterly. —I been around longer than he has. I mean Vegas? Hell, I been with you since Tokyo!
—It’s not like that, OK? said Larry. —The scientists just need some time for themselves. The cutoff is arbitrary, man. It’s just the way it has to be. It’s a numbers game. Leo’s call.
The followers traveled in the chartered buses and trailers and their own cars and trucks, and between the buses and their vehicles was the contingent of Huts in their vans. When Big Glen was put in charge of conducting a census of the convoy he came back with a figure around two thousand.
After eleven at night there was a noise rule. This is not a party, read Szilard’s first edict, which was handed down in on pieces of green paper passed out by volunteers, one to each vehicle, outside a McDonald’s west of Oklahoma City. This is a mission. Those unwilling to submit to the discipline of a curfew and other limitations (see below) are encouraged to work for peace and nuclear nonproliferation on a separate and wholly independent basis.
Pantex was once the end point for assembly of most of the nuclear weapons manufactured in the U.S. It was later largely stripped of this function and became a weapons repository.
During the heyday of Pantex the majority of the workers who staffed the plant were Born Again Christians. For the most part these Christian Pantex employees were not disturbed by any moral contradictions in their work building bombs, because there were none. Their convictions told them they were doing God’s work, for building nuclear weapons was a noble task that would serve to bring the glorious Rapture closer.
The simple return of his marriage released him from other worries. Ann was nearer than she had been for months and between them was a sure bond of relief, a comfort that flowed over everything. At times when he caught sight of her ankle he felt shamed; but then he looked at the rest of her and the warmth swallowed them both again. During the day when the bus was moving he stacked cushions beneath her foot and brought her drinks and books to read, and she thanked him and gazed at him with eyes that absorbed, as though nothing had ever been wrong after all.
One night in Oklahoma he pitched a two-man tent for them in a copse of beeches and dogwood.
—People, said Oppen
heimer to Ann one evening, when Dory and Ben had both gone to bed early inside the bus and the two of them were sitting outside with a campfire in front of them, smoking and drinking decaffeinated tea. They were near the Ozark National Forest. —The more of them there are, the worse it is.
Even then, in a moment of tranquility, there were Huts on the perimeter, patrolling at a forty-foot radius around the campfire, outside the rent-a-fence they always erected when the bus pulled in for the night. Ann wished they were invisible. She did not trust them and it was hard to forget they were there. Sometimes she watched them and wondered what sordid punishments they had endured to become who they were. Or maybe, she thought, she was wrong and the Huts were not violent: maybe they were just doing their job.
But she did not believe this. They gave the impression of always waiting for violence, not out of vigilance but anticipation.
Camp was quiet: even the followers had gone to sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be her first day without crutches. She would still have a bandage and wear homely sandals, but the ankle could bear weight, slowly, tentatively growing strong again.
—Did you hear about the gospel group? asked Oppenheimer. —They’re from a church in Alabama. They joined the convoy yesterday. Their specialty is songs about the Apocalypse.
—Zealots and deluded people are the only ones who believe in you, aren’t they, she said.
—And you.
She cuffed his arm. There was nothing untrue.
—They asked Glen if they could give a public concert to raise money for the campaign. Leo made him turn down the request, of course. He doesn’t want that kind of attention. He doesn’t want us connected to Armageddon as though we’re celebrating it.
—No kidding.
—He says we’ll leave that up to the president.
They gazed out past the rent-a-fence. A group of teenagers were drinking and smoking and staring at them, leaning against their cars. Some of them, Big Glen had told her the day before, smoked Dunhills to emulate Oppenheimer. They would save up to buy Dunhills instead of their usual brand. They would accept no substitutes.