by Lydia Millet
—And then there’s the publicity, said Szilard. —Are we going to issue a statement?
—Absolutely not, said Oppenheimer.
Szilard gave a distracted nod.
—I know this one place a friend of mine got sent to, said Larry. —It’s in New Jersey. It’s like a five-star hotel with hot and cold running shrinks. Swear to God, it’s not a bad place to be. Plus they’re totally discreet. No one will ever find out he’s there.
—Does it have gardens? asked Ben.
—With roses and these long paths. It’s got this kind of imitation of that French castle, what’s it called? The one with the king that got his head chopped off. And his wife with the blond curly hair piled up high on the top of her head. She wore those big-ass skirts.
—He would want more than anything to have his mental faculties restored to him, said Szilard. —We should put him where the treatment is highest rated and most aggressive.
—The shrinks at this place are cool, said Larry, nodding reassuringly.
—Why don’t you ask him? said Tamika, from a chair in the corner where she was painting her toenails.
They looked around at each other.
—If we can get through to him, said Larry.
—It should be either you or Ben, said Ann to Oppenheimer. —He trusts the two of you.
Oppenheimer and Ben went out of the room together, leaving the others with the faint sound of the television blaring and the pungent smells of nail polish and marijuana.
He would not say much so they asked a series of questions, trying to narrow down the options.
—You don’t want to stay here, in the hotel, do you? asked Oppenheimer.
—It’s OK, said Fermi eventually.
—But you’d probably rather be somewhere else, said Ben. —Somewhere with a garden.
Fermi said nothing to this, writing steadily.
—Would you like a garden? asked Ben.
—Garden, said Fermi, in a tone of neutrality.
—We’re thinking of taking you to a clinic with a garden, said Oppenheimer, —where there would also be doctors. Would that be all right with you?
Fermi shrugged and turned over his piece of paper.
—Doctors, said Ben, —but we could try to get you gardening privileges, if you wanted.
—Do they have the birds there? asked Fermi.
Ben and Oppenheimer looked at each other.
—There are some birds, said Ben slowly, —but it might be mostly sparrows and doves and pigeons. I can find out for you if you want to know.
—See if they have the birds with the long legs, said Fermi enigmatically. —Then ask me.
—Ben? Would you go call about the birds, please? said Oppenheimer. —I’ll stay here.
Ben went out the door, past Kurt the Hut who was swigging soda and into Larry’s room again, where they all looked up at him. It was only Ann’s face he noticed. She looked sad.
—He wants to know if there are birds at the facility.
—Birds? asked Larry. —Like pet birds? Canaries and shit?
—Wild birds is what he meant. What he said to me before was flamingos or storks or something, waterbirds with long legs, is how he described them.
—I don’t know, said Larry. —Glen, get me information.
While Big Glen dialed Ben sat down beside Ann on the couch. She put one hand on his leg, resting it, and with the other traced the outlines of flowers on the sofa arm.
—How did he seem? she asked softly.
—The same.
—Hey, I’m interested in bringing a patient there, said Larry. —But he needs to know if you got birds. Wild birds. Yeah.
Back in the room with Fermi Ben told Fermi he would have to see for himself what birds there were.
—There are loons though, he added, —I know that. Sometimes you can hear them calling in the morning and at night.
—What do you think, Enrico? asked Oppenheimer. —It’s up to you. Are you willing to give it a shot?
Fermi said nothing for a while, but finally collected his papers and stacked them, tapping the sides for perfect alignment.
—Get me the case, he said in a businesslike tone. —Get me the big suitcase.
—You don’t have a big suitcase, said Ben. —How about a regular suitcase?
—I am ready, said Fermi, and clasped his hands in his lap, waiting stiffly in an upright and regal stance.
The place was like a warm tomb, all silence and marble.
—You wanna know why it’s so quiet? said Larry, as they walked down a shining hall. —Because no one can afford it.
Fermi’s room was spacious, with a tile floor and vast windows that gave him a view over a lake. Oppenheimer waited in the corridor, smoking. Ben put Fermi’s bags down on the floor, Larry checked the bathroom and Ann gazed out the window at clumps of rushes growing at the edge of the water. Salt-smelling wind blew over his face, as though the lake was briny. Behind the black pool of it she could make out a row of low hills, hazy blue with distance.
—Are you going to be OK here? asked Ben, leaning over Fermi where he sat on the side of the bed staring.
—See you later, said Fermi carefully.
With Enrico gone he was more alone. But where we take refuge, thought Oppenheimer, pacing the slick hall, tapping his ash onto the shine at his feet, after all, where we take refuge is where our home is. Fermi had a new home now, in long scrawls on hotel stationery and a distracted absence.
I hope he’s happy there, he thought.
He did not want to resent his friend: he wanted only to be concerned for him. But Fermi had left him abruptly, with no warning—an offense for which, in this late, cold world, there could be forgiving but no forgetting. And Szilard was no real company because he had no weakness save gluttony. He was only marginally human. He had the capacity to reason but not to weep. At least, this was what Oppenheimer suspected. It was all Szilard had shown him.
Of course he himself was human in form only these days so he should not fault it in Szilard. Even he could tell he had become reduced to a symbol of himself, because while he still felt, he still shivered in the chill of morning, he also saw himself as others did. Increasingly his impulses were defined by what he sensed they should be, and his movements were guided by a view of himself from over his own shoulder.
Ben wanted to stay with Fermi but there was nothing to do. He got into the bus reluctantly, with the letter and an Italian-English dictionary. When they left Pennsylvania they were heading for Rhode Island, bypassing New York since it was not on the schedule yet.
—It’s beside the sea, yes? said Oppenheimer, as they sped along I-80.
—Why? Do you want to go to the seaside? asked Ann.
Ben was staring out the window at sprawling industry.
—I would like to see dunes, said Oppenheimer pensively. —With dune grass growing on them.
—We can go for a walk on the beach, said Ben.
He also needed a book of Italian verbs, he realized, with conjugations. There were too many words he could not find in the dictionary. When they stopped in Providence for dinner before they made camp, he drove to a bookstore and bought one.
His translation of the first paragraph was awkward and he had to change the order of the words so that they read more fluently. The crane that makes the noise of a trumpet has a graceful white body, a head that is red and black and long wings with black ends. Once it lived on the lands of grass in the West but when all the people went there the crane disappeared. Now there are almost none left.
—How’s it coming?
—OK, he said.
His was the only light in the bus. While the others slept he sat at the counter on a tall stool and translated.
—Go back to sleep, why don’t you, he went on softly.
—What did he write about?
—Birds.
The great cranes nest in marshes among rushes and cattails. They eat insects, fish, mollusks, frogs, and small rodents. In the
winter they perform their dances of courtship, and after that they mate for life.
—I can’t sleep with that light on, she whispered from a few feet away, where she lay in her sleeping bag.
The great birds have been killed by the draining of the wet places where they nest. These places have been made into fields. The birds have been shot by hunters. They have been electrocuted by power lines. They have died of lead poisoning, cholera, and tuberculosis. In 1941 a last flock of fifteen flew north for the summer. They were all that was left of their kind. They followed the paths of their ancestors.
—It’s been half an hour, she whispered.
—OK! OK! he muttered, and tucked away the originals in a manila folder.
He lay down in the dark beside her but could not fall asleep.
—Are you feeling bad you couldn’t do more for him?
—I’m still trying, he said.
Falling asleep he thought of the crane in Fermi’s letter, a letter that had been addressed to no one. He thought of the black and red face and the long slender body. Crane that makes a noise like a trumpet, he thought. Must be a whooping crane. They were highly endangered, if he recalled correctly.
He would ask Oppenheimer if Fermi had ever said anything before about whooping cranes.
Early in the morning Ann and Oppenheimer were leaving to walk on the beach, their coffee mugs in hand, when Szilard bustled out of the bathroom in his striped pajamas and insisted on going along.
—Wait! I have to talk to you about our message! he called to Oppenheimer, so loudly that others began to stir and turn over in their bedding.
On the wet sand two Huts walked behind them, though one of them had wanted to walk ahead. But Oppenheimer refused to have him ruin the view.
Ann took her shoes off and hooked them over her fingers. The others kept their shoes on.
—My research indicates, said Szilard, —that almost half of all Americans call themselves either Evangelicals or Born-Agains.
—You’re kidding, said Oppenheimer.
—Approximately forty-four percent of two-hundred and eighty million. We’re talking about a hundred and twenty-five million.
—Where do you get your information?
—I can show you the citations, said Szilard impatiently. —I do have a source that reports Protestant Evangelicals as low as 23 percent but that’s a different accounting system. To be conservative, we can estimate a quarter of our countrymen at the low end to almost half at the high end.
—I know it didn’t used to be that way, said Oppenheimer. —In our day. People were Christian, of course. But not fanatical.
—Seventy-seven percent of Americans claim to be Christians, said Szilard. —But the Born-Agains and the Evangelicals are the ones in our following.
—What are we talking about here? asked Ann.
—Belief in the literal truth of the Bible, said Szilard. —Some Born-Agains do not hold themselves to such strict standards, but most tend to insist.
He was fatter than when she first met him. His stomach was almost bursting the lowest button on his shirt. But his face was bronzed and healthy, despite the jowls. It struck her for the first time that he looked like a working man.
—For the dogmatic, he went on, —requirements include a belief in the physical and bodily return of Jesus at the End Time, a belief that Satan is an actual being of flesh and blood, and the conviction that good works have nothing to do with salvation. Oh!
He stepped over a jellyfish, dying on the sand. Ann leaned in close to see if it was still breathing. The tentacles appeared to be gone: it was only a mass.
—Ann told me some of the followers believe we’re the Holy Trinity, said Oppenheimer.
—A certain contingent holds that view, said Szilard, nodding. —But I have recently learned that most of them are not interested in the tripartite nature of God and therefore do not have a religious interest in Fermi or me. They believe chiefly that you are the risen messiah.
—Robert. Could I have one of your cigarettes? asked Ann.
They stopped and stood still as a wave broke and rose almost to her feet. She stepped out of the way of the skirt of water and watched as he shook a cigarette out of his case for her and then lit it. When she cupped a hand over the lighter flame she noticed how Szilard’s eyes moved quickly beyond her and Oppenheimer to the Huts behind them and, far down the shore, smokestacks trailing black smoke.
—Is that a pelican? asked Oppenheimer, and pointed to a white bird flying slow along the crest of the waves.
—It is! said Ann, and they watched it plummet in a steep dive and then rise again, a small fish in its long bill. —They have herons here too, at least on Block Island. We should look for them.
—My point, said Szilard, —is that in terms of winning the hearts of Americans it may not be a mistake to allow the followers to identify us a religious movement.
—That seems a little cynical to me, Leo, said Oppenheimer, inhaling.
—Not at all, said Szilard stoutly. —We are not claiming to be believers ourselves. We have a task before us. We have a message. That is all. People are free to interpret our work as they choose. That is both their right and their privilege.
They started walking again, Ann feeling her feet to be almost equally solid as they sank into the wet sand, the weak foot forgiven. The sand could not tell the difference.
She wondered if she could live entirely in sand.
—Keep in mind, Robert, that science is an idea to these people but religion is a belief. I learned the hard way. It has taken me a long time to realize, because initially I had assumed this country was civilized.
—You won’t make that mistake again, said Ann.
Szilard ignored her.
—But in fact it only has a thin veneer of civilization. It is a country of ignorant cultists. They are grossly illiterate. Most of them cannot pinpoint New York or Los Angeles on a map. They still believe Iraq bombed the World Trade Center. Why? Because they believe anything the powerful tell them.
The tide had left a mustard-colored foam at the waterline, bladders of kelp and plastic tangled in the froth.
—In short their lack of education makes them easy pickings. These people are savages, manipulated by demagogues.
He glanced down at his watch.
—Wait! I have to get Kurt to make a call to the Boston Globe, he said, and backtracked.
Oppenheimer was looking at the tideline too as he walked slowly beside her, both of their faces turned down. Then he stopped, stricken.
—That this will all be gone, he said, stifled. —The tides will keep rolling in, but there will be no life in them. When the tide goes out nothing will be left here but old bones.
She held his arm and leaned against his side, her eyes watering. A wind came up and she closed them.
Now and then she thought she dreamed his dreams, that his dreams had been entrusted to her. Why else had she seen him before she even knew him, kneeling in the sand? Before she had even met him, when she had barely heard of him, she believed, she had been infused with his sentiment, as though it had bled from him. And here they were on the sand again, the ocean instead of the desert, on the sand with dry mouths and wet eyes, yearning.
A wave came in and wet his leather shoes, soaking a dark line across the toe.
Ben left early the next morning to visit Fermi. It was chill and quiet before the others at camp had begun to get up and Ann liked it then. There was the smell of smoke from fires the night before, dew on the tree limbs and the clean sharp cold.
—I don’t know, he said to Ann as he hunkered over the engine checking fluid levels, —I still feel it’s dangerous, leaving you with these people again.
—I’ll be fine, she said, and smiled.
She watched him sling the duffel bag over his shoulder and dumped into the passenger seat and the Toyota was pulling away. She waved at the back window and made her way back to the bus, where Larry and Tamika sat at a picnic table eating granola ba
rs and drinking orange juice.
—Don’t even get near Leo, said Larry. —He’s pissed.
She sat down and poured cereal out of a jumbo box as Big Glen set down a carton of soy milk.
—How come?
—The Christians are having this tent revival at a fairground tonight, said Tamika. —They advertised it real big and Leo just found out about it this morning. He read a fax that came in yesterday from some sheriff’s department.
—What’s the problem? asked Ann.
—He’s pissed because they didn’t ask his permission.
—Where is he?
—He and Oppie went to meet Bradley to talk about it.
After she finished her cereal she wandered out of the bus enclosure toward the pavilion where Bradley had set up his office. Two Huts stood outside guarding it, but beside them were other men in camouflage gear, each holding a rifle across his chest.
—Who are you guys? she asked curiously.
When they said nothing a Hut leaned in close to her.
—They won’t talk to anyone but Bradley.
—Are you kidding?
—They’re not professionals, said the Hut, while the men in camouflage stared straight ahead of them pretending to ignore the conversation. —They’re volunteers. Let’s just say they’re enthusiastic.
She looked closely at the nearest rifleman, whose pale skin was tinged red with acne. His hair was cut short and military and he wore a black belt stuffed with gear over the green uniform.
—So can I go in? Tell them it’s Ann.
The rifleman lifted a cell phone and speed-dialed. Ann heard a faint answering ring on the inside of the tent.
—Are you kidding? You’re calling someone who’s ten feet away?
—Got an Ann here wants entry, he said into the phone. —Caucasian female, light brown—yes sir.
He pocketed his phone and nodded sharply at her and she went between the two of them into the shade of the tent, where the scientists and Bradley and two other men were clustered at the end of the long table.
—But how will we handle all of them? asked Szilard.
—Hello, Ann, said Oppenheimer.
—What’s with the guys with the guns? she asked Bradley. She sounded belligerent and she liked it.