by Lydia Millet
—Great, said Szilard.
—I’m riddled with cancer all over the place, said Lenny, turning to Oppenheimer and grinning affably.
—I see!
—You name the organ, I got tumors there. And more than half of them qualify for federal aid.
Under the presidential administration of George W. Bush steps were taken to begin research and development of so-called “usable nukes.” (Other nicknames included “bunker busters” and “mini-nukes.”) These weapons, it was argued, might be employed in the battlefield to take out hardened targets.
At the same time the White House and elements in Congress pressed to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in conflict. To ensure the military supremacy of the United States, proponents of nuclear weapons development at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories urged the U.S. to build nuclear weapons small enough not only to deter, but to use.
Because weapons left over from the Cold War were too big to be used against rogue states, the argument went, and therefore would not have a deterrent effect—since no one could possibly believe the U.S. would use such powerful weapons against weaker adversaries—the American military must have smaller weapons at its command, weapons whose use would not be unthinkable at all.
The construction of small nuclear weapons would therefore close the door on pure deterrence and open the door to practical, feasible, and convenient nuclear war.
The first night in Greenbelt the hotel room felt close and airless. Ann got up in the middle of the night and tottered toward the air-conditioner to turn it on, stubbing her big toe on the bottom of the metal bed frame. In the dark she could not see the knobs on the air-conditioner so she flicked on the lamp on the table. Then she thought she heard something outside, so she looked out the peephole in the door.
Nothing was visible on the catwalk, and she was still half-asleep. She forgot about the air-conditioner, turned off the light and went back to bed, where she dreamed that she and her mother were finding yellow fruits growing in clumps of long reeds. Then they were stealing them, and the reeds became the aisles of a supermarket.
Awake again, when the bedside clock read five in the morning, she tried but could not fall back to sleep. She wondered if the windows opened, and when she went to find out she pulled back the heavy drapes and saw a figure slumped in front of the window, on the concrete of the walkway.
—Shit, she said, —Ben? There’s someone here.
He turned and muttered something, waking up and raising himself on one arm.
She opened the room door and looked out. A balding man in a trench coat was sleeping against the wall beneath their window, curled up in the fetal position. She recognized the slope of his high forehead and was concerned.
—Are you OK? she whispered, and knelt beside him, reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder.
He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.
—Ben? It’s Enrico!
Then Ben was beside her and both of them were leaning over. Between them they lifted him up and helped him into the room, letting him sag onto the second double bed.
—I’m OK, he said. —I’m just tired. It was a long trip.
They took his shoes off for him and covered him up. Under his trench coat he wore only pajamas.
—I’m going back to sleep too, said Ben when they had tucked him beneath the covers and watched him pull the coverlet over his head. —If I can.
But she was not tired anymore. She dressed quietly in the bathroom and brushed her teeth quietly at the sink. Then she put on a sweater and left them both on the beds and went outside, to breathe in the chill and walk down the stairs from the concrete catwalk to the parking lot. There was frost on the grass and the bushes were coated in a thin wax of ice.
Nothing was open, she realized, there would be nothing for her to do but wander through the suburbs. It was still dark and the sun would not come up for almost two hours. She wanted to explore the hotel but the lobby door was locked, and the water in the pool was flat and unmoving.
When Ben woke up later and saw she was gone he was worried and called her on her cell phone. This woke Fermi, who sat up on the edge of his bed and stared at his feet, his face haggard. Ben hoped he was a new man, or at least his old self, but all he would say when they got up was that he had come because Leo had wanted him to, that for the march on Washington all three of them had to be together.
—After that, said Fermi, —I’m going home. Can I have a glass of water?
Ben went to the sink and poured him one.
—It’s going to taste like dust, he said as he handed it over. Fermi was still looking at his feet.
—I need slippers, he said, taking the glass with fingers so limp Ben was afraid he would drop it. —They are cold.
Ben was thinking how he had always had a daydream of hotels. He and Ann both had a dream of hotels, about a time in their lives when they would live in a succession of these hivelike buildings, small self-contained cities with grand lobbies and fountains and restaurants. They both had a dream of being eternal tourists, living in buildings with yellow walls and trellises of climbing vines, where responsibility lay with the authorities and the authorities were distant, kind fathers, seamless in their trustworthiness. Yet this trip had not resembled that dream despite the fact that they had stayed in many hotels. They had stayed in many hotels, some of them expensive and luxurious, but they had never found a hotel that resembled the hotel in the dream.
As she walked the sky lightened in the east and cars began to pass her on the street, first few and far between and then in a steady stream. Commuters freshly washed for morning sat at their steering wheels and drank coffee at stoplights as she passed.
She was encouraged by their neatness, by the way they faced the new day with their teeth brushed and their strong and pure coffee. Almost she envied them, the normal life she once had had, going to work and being busy, an arrow of purpose surrounded by leisure and other rewards. She recalled how the hours had been in their place and a place in the hours, nesting.
She had been asked, she remembered, what she was waiting for, what the point was of this long and ceaseless trip. Ben had asked her repeatedly until they agreed to leave it, and more recently she had begun asking herself. She thought of the fact that she was always waiting for something to happen, that she was here because of some unpredictable reversal, some new marvel that was always supposed to occur in the future.
Was there a difference between waiting for enlightenment and waiting to be entertained?
Ben called Oppenheimer’s room and invited him to have breakfast. He did not mention Fermi.
But then a few minutes later he led Fermi into the restaurant, and the hostess pointed them to a leatherette booth at the back where Oppenheimer was waiting. They passed Kurt the Hut and another bodyguard two tables away, no weapons visible on them, sitting rigidly and watching the few restaurant patrons with gimlet eyes as though each one could be suspect.
Oppenheimer rose as they approached, smiling with his arms raised, and Ben was surprised to see the depth of affection in his face when he stooped to clasp both of Fermi’s hands in his own.
—You’re with us again! he said shakily, and Fermi nodded awkwardly, his head bowed.
—He joined us for the march on Washington tomorrow, said Ben, and they slid into the booth. —He’s planning on going back after that.
—I understand, Enrico, said Oppenheimer quickly. —You still need your R&R. But it’s so good to see you.
The morning air had a sharp, clear quality that made her think she could answer questions. For once she had a chance of knowing why she was walking down the street in Greenbelt, Maryland in the fall, thousands of miles from her home, why she had left her job and everything she knew and why her husband was in a hotel with brown shag carpets eating breakfast with a balding and delusional Italian.
For the chance of finding out she kept walking. There was nothing to see but the wide suburban interse
ctions and the residential streets with their rows of neat lawns, fake-Tudor bungalows and Victorian facades climbing up to her left and her right, and the commuters, whom she stared at in their cars with growing longing.
People needed the comfort of routine and she was one of them. That was all.
She had been waiting for something to happen for months now, yet nothing ever did, nothing on a grandiose scale. Events were swiftly part of the past, receding, and the wait was thankless. But more than that it was misguided, she had come to suspect. You could wait for an event all your life but once it came it would only slip into history and be gone. Oppenheimer and the others had come from the past, she thought, and yet she stayed with them because of what she believed was the future: but they were not the future. They were something that had already happened. They were the past bleeding into the present and further, all three tenses collapsed into one.
There was nothing to touch in the future but the past, and so there was nothing to be waiting for. It was not what was going to happen, she saw in a shiver, but what already had.
She knew what she knew, now, she thought, walking back to the hotel. She hoped she could remember the way.
—Enrico! Are you better? crowed Szilard, finding them at a table beside the pool.
Oppenheimer and Ben were both smoking and Fermi sipped gingerly at his coffee. Beside them the pool was covered in plastic, dead leaves and brown water collected in the slack.
—He came because you wanted him to, said Ben quietly. —But he’s going back after the event tomorrow.
—Well, said Szilard, and coughed into his hand. —Thank you, Enrico. Would the two of you like to come with us to see the floats for the march? They’re in a warehouse about twenty miles into town.
—They’ve been building them for months but we’ve never seen them, said Larry, coming up behind Szilard dangling his car keys. —I’ve spent tens of thousands of bucks on these things. Dr. Fermi! Hey!
—Tomorrow is soon enough for me, said Oppenheimer, and sipped from his own coffee. —Anyway, I have a TV interview this afternoon. Glen is driving me to the studio.
—Soon enough for me too, said Fermi, and nodded sagely.
Bradley’s army did exercises that night, first marching around the block, then turning and moving in elaborate formations in the vacant lot behind the hotel while a drill sergeant barked out orders. Ann watched them from the balcony at the back of the room while Ben ordered room service from a menu of deep-fried foods and Fermi sat at the table near the window, poring over a book. It was a large book depicting birds of all kinds and Fermi turned the pages slowly, scrutinizing each bird as though it was a long-lost relative.
She counted the neat rows and calculated there were about four hundred soldiers, all in camouflage, all with rifles, all stone-faced and rigid as though facing the enemy. From the balcony she could look down on them and pretend their ranks were hers to command.
—You shoulda come with us, man, said Larry, and she heard the door close as Ben let him into the room. —That shit was awesome. These things are fucking huge and they look totally real.
—What looks totally real? she asked, pushing the sliding door open.
—The floats, man!
—Look, an ibis, said Fermi, and held up his open book to a large photograph of a bird with a thin curved bill. —A straw-necked ibis. Threskiornis spinicollis.
—The zucchini sticks and a Caesar salad, no chicken, said Ben on the phone, and hung up.
—This is a roseate spoonbill, said Fermi, and pointed to a graceful bird with pink feathers.
Larry raised an eyebrow. —That thing looks like a freak.
It was still dark when they rose, following Szilard’s schedule. The schedule read 5:00 a.m. Meet in parking lot. Granola bars, water bottles, and hot coffee will be provided. Attire: comfortable jogging shoes or cross-trainers. (Oppenheimer/Fermi: suits, ties, and hats. NB: ORIGINAL @ 1945! Better for the cameras. Makeup artists will be provided on our approach to Washington but BE CLEAN-SHAVEN.) 5:20: Leave for first meeting point in six vans including security.
—I do not wear makeup, grumbled Fermi as Ann tied his tie for him, standing in front of their open hotel room door.
—It’ll just be pancake makeup, I’m sure, said Ann. —You know, like the TV reporters and the newscasters wear.
—They wear makeup? The men?
Outside the door Bradley’s soldiers were posted along the catwalk. He had insisted that the Wackenhut bodyguards come under his jurisdiction for the day and shunted them into menial jobs where they would be invisible. Szilard’s instructions on this point read For the day of the march the Wackenhut guards will be under the command of the Righteous Army. A special corps of Bradley’s men will be assigned to guard S, O and F. O/F: Go to them for any of your security needs and once we exit the vehicles at Meeting Point 1 always keep at least four (4) per physicist within a ten-foot radius. NB You will be able to recognize the special detachment by their yellow armbands. Each of them has sniper training and martial-arts expertise.
Bradley did not approve of the Huts and called them rent-a-cops. In turn they hated him and were humiliated by their demotion.
Ann and Ben and Fermi went down to the parking lot and stood waiting in the dark beside the van, drinking coffee from a thermos. When Szilard rushed over laden with clipboard and portable computer and at least two cell phones he was wearing a baseball cap squashed flat on his head and a T-shirt with his own picture on it.
—I thought your dress code was suit and tie, Leo, said Ben.
—I will be changing en route, said Leo. —Teller died.
—Edward? asked Fermi blankly. —I didn’t know he was still alive.
—Alive and ancient, said Szilard. —My old friend. But as you may know from your reading, Enrico, he became a militarist after the war. After we knew him. Incidentally, he turned Oppie over to the McCarthyites. Biggest hawk physics has ever known.
—Poor Edward, murmured Fermi, and looked over Szilard’s shoulder, unfocused. —Where is Robert?
—The president gave him a Medal of Honor, mostly for loving the bomb.
—Robert?
—Teller.
—I want to see Robert, said Fermi.
—Anyway, he died a few days ago, said Szilard. —Now I regret I didn’t pay him a visit. Anyone want donuts?
The vans pulled into a downtown parking lot as dawn was breaking, beside an array of trucks with their rear doors open. Floats were being assembled under tall floodlights behind a blue nylon barrier erected to block the view.
It was a poor downtown block with winos sleeping in doorways, stains on the sidewalk and litter collecting in the gutters. Piano wire was strung up along the walls of the parking lot.
Fermi was shocked by this and declined to get out of the van.
Beside a folding table, pouring coffee into styrofoam cups and piling donuts on a paper plate, Ann watched Oppenheimer stand under a floodlight in front of the blue screen talking to reporters. Around him paced Bradley’s special corps in their yellow armbands, wires trailing down their necks from their Secret Service earpieces and weapons bulging under their flak jackets.
—Can they do that? she whispered to Ben, leaning back into the van. She handed Fermi his donuts and stepped out again, and Ben clambered down to join her. Back in the van Fermi chewed and stared out the window. —Just have guns in the street in D.C.?
—They all have concealed weapons permits, said Szilard, who was having his makeup done nearby by a makeup artist with long kinky hair.
—How did they swing that? asked Ben.
—I think he looks kind of orange, Darcy, said Larry, edging up to the side of the van with a camera in hand and snapping a picture of Szilard. —You don’t think he looks kind of too orange?
—Trust me, said the makeup artist.
The crowd from Tokyo pulled up in its own vans and Clint and Leslie walked past Szilard’s makeup station toward the nylon wall that hid the floats
from public view.
—Sorry, no entry, said a guard, and Clint swore loudly.
—Lar! Larry! he bellowed, and Larry rolled his eyes and walked away from them toward the blue wall. Tamika put her hands on Szilard’s shoulders and stared into the mirror in front of him.
—You look so cute! she said. —You’re like a teddy bear!
Fermi emerged from the van carefully, looking both ways before he stepped down onto the pavement.
—What are they doing? he asked Ben, and pointed to a group of Righteous Army soldiers clustered along the fence.
—Praying, said Ben. —They say prayers several times a day.
—I will go there, said Fermi, and walked over to the circle of praying soldiers, his own guards trailing him.
Ben watched as he stood on the outskirts of the circle gazing in.
In 2003 North Korea, named by President Bush as one of the three “axis of evil” powers inimical to the U.S., revived its nuclear weapons production program and planned the production of five or six weapons.
Also, reported the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, between thirty-five and forty countries beyond those who already possessed nuclear arms had become capable of producing them. Should any of these countries choose to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, they could have a weapon ready in months.
In 1998 India and Pakistan exploded their first nuclear weapons, with the exception of a so-called “peaceful” bomb India had tested a quarter-century before. Pakistan declared itself willing to sign the nonproliferation treaty if India did, but India declined.
The physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who headed Pakistan’s atomic weapons development program for years, was lauded as a national hero in Pakistan, where he was often called the father of the atom bomb.
Most of the reporters did not have difficult questions, rather their questions were repetitive and superficial and required nothing but rote responses. Because of this Oppenheimer found himself distracted as he talked to them. He gazed beyond them, his eyes skimming over the people he did not know until they rested on someone he recognized.