by Tim Lebbon
What magic it was. What a gift. In a world of blood-soaked soil and empty caskets and mushroom clouds, a man could strike a note that made others shout. Made them weep. Made them proud.
It was more than seven miles, Thomas thought as he played. He knew that the radius had been carefully measured, but the radius was wrong. Someone out there on the fringe of it would hear the notes and walk on, walk far out of earshot. He might hum a few of the notes later tonight, though, in a town miles away. A girl might be in bed with him when he did that. She might board a ship the next day, and remember the notes, herself. She might sing them, out there on the water. A child might hear them and smile. The child might remember, too.
Thomas did not believe in the everlasting peace they were celebrating, did not believe for a minute in this war to end all wars, in the greatness and glory of the bombs that had fallen on Japan. There would be more wars, and there would more boys like his son.
He supposed he did not need to believe in their peace to admire their hope, though.
He wished their hope well as he played. Take this song and carry it with you, he thought. As far as you can. To wherever my son rests.
Then take it farther still.
THE LETTER FROM ELSIE
MATT BECHTEL
HAROLD WAS SO PREOCCUPIED BY THE LETTER that he almost stepped into the path of a forklift.
‘Whoa, son!’ the driver shouted, his thick Southern accent cutting through the early morning mist on the docks. ‘Y’all right?’
‘Yes sir,’ Harold replied to the man, who was grimy and sweaty and looked like he’d already worked a full shift despite the early hour. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your way.’
The workman produced a red bandana from his pocket and wiped his brow and bald scalp. ‘Ya ain’t no bother,’ he said. ‘Come ta look at the boats?’
Ozarks, Harold thought. His city had attracted so many poor migrant workers from the South that he had come to be able to identify subtle differences in their dialects. Arkansas, probably?
‘I like to come watch the ships get built,’ Harold confessed. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Mind?’ The man laughed. ‘Ya know where those ships’re headed, son?’
Harold hated being called ‘son’ by a stranger, but he recognized it was just a regional peccadillo and the man meant no offense. Plus, he knew he had a baby face that made him look much younger than he was. With a smile, he pointed out towards the Pacific Ocean. ‘That-a-way,’ Harold said. ‘West.’
‘Nah, son,’ the worker beamed. ‘They’re goin’ ta save the world.’
Harold nodded and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, slightly crumpling the folded envelope within. He forced a smile before responding, ‘Thank you—thank all of you—for what you’re doing here.’
‘Jus’ doin’ our part. All any of us can do. We have to win this war.’
‘That’s true,’ Harold agreed. ‘We do have to win this war. You’re absolutely right about that.’
The man studied Harold for a moment as if he recognized that there was something being left unsaid. In the end, he decided to simply end their conversation with a wave and a smile. ‘Y’all enjoy the rest of your morning,’ he said, ‘and God bless!’
‘Thank you,’ Harold replied. ‘You too.’
The dockworker vanished amidst the din and movement of heavy machinery, and Harold returned his gaze to the harbor. He hadn’t lied—he did like watching the work at the shipyards, and he appreciated the navy that was birthed on the docks of his city. And it was true that they had to win the war in the Pacific. Still, something about that very phrase—the War in the Pacific—never failed to catch in Harold’s throat. Part of him simply couldn’t comprehend the irony of those two words in such close proximity. It was just one more equation that his mind couldn’t balance, no matter how hard he tried.
Which brought him back to the letter. It should have been so simple; after all, he’d been anticipating it for five years. Yet here he was, nearly eighteen hours after retrieving it from his on-campus P.O. box, just as petrified as when he’d opened it. The sleepless night that had followed the envelope’s arrival led him to call in sick to the lab and hop the K-Line downtown. It wasn’t the first time he’d played hooky in an attempt to clear his head, but not even his favorite city could quiet the question that screamed within his mind—
What am I going to tell Elsie?
Harold’s head throbbed, an affliction caused by lack of clarity, sleep, and caffeine. At least the third had an easy remedy.
The noise around him gradually subsided as Harold wandered farther from the docks. He was halfway to his destination when a new question crashed his inner-interrogation—why had the letter taken so long to arrive? It was postmarked the fifteenth, yet hadn’t reached him until the twenty-fourth. Even crossing the country, letters from Jersey usually only took three or four days. Why the delay? Were they monitoring his mail? Had they read Elsie’s letter? If he sent a response from campus, would they read it?
No! the sensible part of his mind said. You’re being paranoid. You’re a scientist, goddammit. Where’s your evidence? Letters get delayed sometimes, especially cross-country. You have no reason to believe they’re spying on you. You’re just sleep deprived. Stop imagining things.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder.
A red light stopped him half a block from Sophie’s at the corner in front of Aoki’s Market. Harold used to buy fruit there all the time, as Mr. and Mrs. Aoki always had the freshest produce in all of Oakland. But the boarded-up store had been in stasis for two years, ever since its owners had been shipped five hours north to Lake Tule. Even the huge sign Mr. Aoki had hung over his market’s double doors proclaiming ‘I AM AN AMERICAN’ had grown stale.
The familiar door chime and the smell of coffee and hash browns welcomed Harold as he slipped through the front door of Sophie’s. Its namesake proprietor, who acted as the unofficial mayor and den-mother of the neighborhood, looked up from wiping the counter when she heard the delicate bell.
Her warm smile belied her greeting. ‘Not you again. Don’t tell me—another sleepless night, Harold?’
He smiled and slid onto a red vinyl stool two down from a young black man. ‘One bottomless cup of your finest coffee, Ms. Sophie.’
Sophie pointed at him with a wise finger. ‘You need something to eat, too.’
Harold shook his head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘That wasn’t a question, young man!’ she declared, bringing him a menu. ‘Order something, or you’ll eat what I bring you.’
He lowered his voice as Sophie filled his coffee mug. ‘I’m…I’ve got no appetite. Not sure I could stomach much of anything right now.’
‘That bad, huh?’
Harold nodded.
‘Wanna talk about it?’ she whispered.
‘I so, so do,’ he told her. ‘But you know I can’t.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘So have an omelet. Or a plate of hash.’
Harold shook his head. Sophie studied him.
‘Blueberry pancakes?’
His eyes fell. ‘Not until…’
‘I know,’ Sophie cut him off. ‘Just thought I’d try, ’cuz I know they were your favorite.’
‘Still are,’ Harold said. ‘And you know it’s nothing against your pancakes.’
‘Child, they were my neighbors for twenty-two years!’ Sophie said in a hushed voice that still somehow managed to sound like she was yelling. ‘And I admire your loyalty. But not eating fruit, or taking a best-seller off my menu, ain’t gonna bring them home any sooner.’
Harold nodded and eyed the large cake plate under a glass dome. He pointed and asked, ‘You bake those this morning?’
Sophie leaned across the counter and tousled his prematurely thinning sandy hair. ‘You been coming here six years and you actually gotta ask if my corn muffins are fresh?’
‘One please,’ he ordered. ‘With butter. And I’ll need
…’
‘Cream and sugar,’ she finished for him. ‘Probably enough to rot your teeth.’
He grinned. ‘Hey, you better know how I take my coffee after six years!’
Sophie slipped back to her kitchen to retrieve the cream and butter just as the doorbell chimed again. Four dockworkers, younger than the one Harold had spoken with earlier but all at least a decade older than himself, filed through the front door, continuing their conversation from the walk from the pier.
Alabama, Harold thought, just as their chattering voices stopped. Their sudden silence deadened the room like a dropped sledgehammer.
Harold craned his neck to see the dockworkers staring through him at the young man two stools down. And the young man had looked up from his scrambled eggs to return the favor.
‘Ain’t worth it,’ one of the workers finally said, slinking past the counter on his way towards a booth.
As his compatriots followed, the third in line paused in front of the stool between Harold and the young black man, glowering over them both. Then he eyed Sophie, who had returned from the kitchen and was gathering menus to bring them. He took one look at her complexion and declared, ‘God, shit like this makes me miss home!’
The young man bristled and Sophie’s eyes grew wide and nervous. Before they could do or say anything, Harold rose from his stool. He removed his eyeglasses, wiped them on his shirttails, and returned them to the bridge of his nose as he reached for his wallet.
‘Gentlemen,’ he announced before the Southerners had sat down, ‘let me buy your breakfast.’
The four dockworkers stopped in their tracks. ‘Pardon?’ one asked.
‘Let me buy your breakfast this morning,’ Harold repeated. ‘Call it a thank you for the work you’re doing building ships for the Navy.’ He produced a five dollar bill and their jaws dropped in unison. ‘This should more than cover it, and you guys can split the change between yourselves.’
The workers looked to each other, a mixture of happy and confused and surprised. ‘Well!’ the oldest declared as he reached for the money, ‘This is…’
Harold snapped back his arm and held the bill towards the door. ‘Elsewhere,’ he said. ‘There’s another diner a block and a half down across the street. If you reach the movie theater, you’ve gone two doors too far. Take the money and leave.’
‘Now wait just a goddamn minute!’ the loudest one tried to protest.
But Harold would have none of it. ‘That woman behind the counter? That’s her name on the door. And the young man you seem to have such a problem with? He’ll be sailing one of the ships you’re building soon enough to go fight the war you’re not fighting. But most of all, I haven’t slept, my head is killing me, and I just wanna drink my coffee in peace. So like I said—take the money and leave. Go have a free breakfast. Just have it down the street.’
The bill flopped in Harold’s fingers like a limp exit sign. Slowly and with dagger eyes, the oldest of the group took a step towards Harold and snatched the money from his hand.
‘C’mon boys,’ he said.
The other three followed his lead, glaring at Harold as they headed for the door.
Sophie was waiting across the counter from his stool by the time Harold sat back down. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
‘That was more for me than it was for you,’ Harold said, slurping his now luke-warm coffee. ‘I wasn’t lying—I’m in no mood this morning.’
‘What if they’d…?’
‘They’re just not used to things here,’ he said. ‘Can’t blame ’em for following the work out west and experiencing a little culture shock, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with their Jim Crow attitude.’ He jutted his head towards the young man, who was unabashedly staring at him. ‘I’ll pick up his tab, too’ he told Sophie. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
The young man shook his head. ‘How did you know?’
Harold grinned slightly as Sophie freshened his mug. ‘I’ve seen you in your uniform around Barrington Hall,’ he told him. ‘You’re V-12, right?’
‘You’re at Berkeley?’ he asked.
Harold nodded.
‘I’ve never seen you on campus.’
‘I don’t get out much.’
‘You stay buried in the library?’
Harold chuckled.
‘Hey man, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ the man said, a twinge of anger rising in his voice. ‘You study hard and get a good job and stay home, while we get fast tracked to the Pacific. I get it!’
‘Look,’ Harold told him with a sigh, ‘I was in no mood to fight with them and I’m in no mood to fight with you. Besides, I’m not an undergrad; I’m an associate professor working towards my Ph.D.’
‘Oh really? Is that so?’ the young man teased. ‘Same difference! Tell me, what do you teach, Professor?’
‘Physics,’ Harold said. ‘But I haven’t taught a class yet.’
‘Even better!’ he declared. ‘What kinda professor gets to stay home and safe and doesn’t even teach?’
‘He’s a researcher,’ Sophie interrupted. ‘He works at the Rad Lab.’
Her words sucked the air out of the diner.
‘Oh,’ was all the young man could manage.
Harold shrugged.
‘I’m…’ he stammered, ‘I’m sorry, I…’
Harold waved him off as he tipped the sugar over his mug, watching the white crystals pour into his coffee like a sweet waterfall.
‘I’m Shawn,’ the young man said, reaching out his hand.
Harold shook it. ‘Harold.’
‘You…you don’t have to buy my breakfast.’
Harold smiled. ‘I don’t have to, I want to. Thank you for not causing a scene with those guys. It would’ve been more trouble than it was worth for Sophie, and I just couldn’t have dealt with it right now.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ Shawn slid over one stool. ‘We…some of us in V-12…we’ve heard rumors. About what you’re working on at the Rad Lab.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ Harold said with half a smile.
‘Are they…’ he tried, but fear choked his voice. ‘Is it true?’
Harold knew there was only one way he could respond. ‘I’m sorry, Ensign,’ he said, ‘but that’s above your pay grade.’ Then he raised his coffee mug, so Shawn slid back down a seat to retrieve his and clinked.
Harold hadn’t even noticed that Sophie had slipped back to the kitchen until she returned. He quickly produced a few singles from his wallet and asked her, ‘Does this cover both of our tabs?’
‘Child!’ she teased, pushing the money back towards him across the counter, ‘You know that’s way too much!’
Harold relented and stuffed half of the bills back into his pocket. ‘Hey, where’s the nearest post office?’ he asked.
Sophie looked at him with utter disbelief and just a hint of disappointment. ‘You’ve been comin’ here six years and you don’t know where the P.O. is?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve never needed it before,’ he explained. ‘I’ve always done my mailing from campus.’
‘So what can’t wait until you get back there?’
Harold swallowed hard and presented his upturned palms, and Sophie immediately understood that her last question would go unanswered. ‘Go back to Aoki’s and take a left,’ she instructed. ‘Four blocks down, take a right. At the second light, take another left. You’ll find it at the next corner.’
Harold popped the last bite of corn muffin into his mouth and chased it with a slurp of coffee. ‘Thank you, Sophie,’ he said, rising from his stool as soon as his mouth wasn’t full. ‘As always.’
She smiled at him. ‘I’ll see you in the morning after the next night you can’t sleep.’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘Yeah, you will.’ Then he turned to the young sailor. ‘Take care, Shawn. I hope to see you around campus.’
‘I hope so, too,’ the young man replied. ‘And thank you again for breakfast!’
&
nbsp; Harold smiled and exited Sophie’s with the same familiar chime. He could have stayed for hours, chatting with Sophie as she endlessly refilled his coffee mug. He had spent the better part of a day perched on one of her stools many times before. But he knew he couldn’t do that today, because the envelope had been burning a hole in his pocket the entire time he was at the diner.
Three blocks down after the left at Aoki’s, Harold was relieved to find a small park. It certainly wasn’t much—more or less just a local garden, a few plots of flowerbeds at an intersection lined with benches—but the peaceful setting felt like a godsend. Harold took a seat and let the paltry foot traffic pass him without notice as he struggled with the same question that had consumed him for nearly a day—
What am I going to tell Elsie?
When no answer came, he yanked the envelope from his pocket and read her letter yet again.
2/15/44
To: Dr. Harold Drexel, Ph.D.
From: Elsie Drexel
Re: Undergraduate Internship
Dear Dr. Drexel,
Please consider this letter my official application to join your research team as an undergraduate intern next semester.
Sincerely,
—Your sister Elsie
And she’d written it on the back of her acceptance letter to Berkeley.
Harold loved the fact that she’d addressed the letter to ‘Dr. Drexel’ even though he hadn’t received his Ph.D. yet. To her, it was just a loving term of endearment and encouragement, her unwavering belief that, someday, her big brother would get his thesis published. What she didn’t know was that Harold could have written numerous papers to earn his doctorate—on his role in the discovery of plutonium, or on any of their research with the new element since—except that all of his work had been embargoed by the government. He’d be allowed to publish it someday, but certainly not when it could tip their hand to their enemies.
Or, perhaps worse, to one of their allies.
But again, what could he tell his little sister? That she shouldn’t come to the best university in America that would have her? He’d been the smartest student in every class, and he recognized that she was at least three times smarter than he was. Princeton and Columbia were barely an hour from their house, but they and most of the Ivy League weren’t coed. Their father was renowned as the best high school physics teacher in the state, yet her only path into the family business led west, a path she’d been desperate to take ever since visiting his sophomore year. Hell, even Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Seaborg had recognized her precocious mind and sent letters of recommendation to the admissions office. This had literally been years in the making; how on earth could he pull the rug out from under her now?