Los Alamos

by Joseph Kanon

  “Very much.”

  “You play?” he asked eagerly.

  “No.”

  “No, that would be too much luck. Our group lost a member last year,” he explained, “and I keep trying to find a new one, but no. People keep coming, but no one plays. But you like to listen? We meet on Thursdays. My wife likes the visitors. You would be most welcome.”

  “Thank you. I’d like that very much.”

  “Well, we’ll see. How is the saying, don’t count the chicken before the hatching? We are amateurs only. But sometimes it’s good.”

  “Oh, there’s Oppie,” Mills said, clearly looking for an excuse to begin pulling Connolly away. “I have to introduce Mike,” he said to Weber. “You know how Oppie likes to greet the newcomers.”

  Weber smiled and moved his hand in a churning benediction. “Circulate, circulate.”

  Oppenheimer was standing with his back to them, talking animatedly to a colleague, but when he turned to be introduced, he looked at them with his full attention, as if the entire evening had been arranged for this meeting. Connolly had seen photographs, but he was unprepared for the focus of Oppenheimer’s gaze, eyes that took him in so quickly that he was enveloped in an intimacy even before he spoke. Oppenheimer was thin, even frail, so that the hollow face offered no distraction from the eyes. Oddly, Connolly thought of Bruner, but those eyes had simply been intense; these were quick and curious. Behind them was a tiredness so profound that their shine seemed almost feverish. He had a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, so he had to bow his head in greeting, which he managed with an ironic oriental grace. His voice was low but as quick as his eyes.

  “Sorry I couldn’t see you earlier—there was a meeting I couldn’t get out of. I hear you saw the general?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did you find G.G.?”

  “Colorful.”

  Oppenheimer laughed. “Did he mention his bark and his bite?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Connolly said, surprised.

  “Good, then you must have given him a bit of trouble,” he said, drawing on his cigarette. Connolly felt the words come at him like the fast balls of a Ping-Pong match, and he saw that Oppenheimer enjoyed conversation as a form of recreational sport.

  “And is it worse? His bite?”

  “Oh yes, very much so. The general never lies. I don’t think he knows how, actually. The most honest man I’ve ever met. Not an ounce of guile. How he copes with the Washington maze I don’t know, but he just plunges in, full steam ahead, and before you know it, the thing’s done.”

  Oppenheimer, with his almost feline elegance, might have been describing his opposite, and Connolly wondered again about their odd friendship. With Oppenheimer, everything must be charm and coercion and subtle juggling—it couldn’t get done otherwise. Maybe his was the admiration of the master politician for the effective battering ram.

  “Maybe they’re so used to looking for tricks that he takes them by surprise.”

  Oppenheimer enjoyed the return and smiled. “Maybe so. No doubt you’ve experienced a good deal of that yourself in Washington. How they love intrigue. Poisonous place.”

  Connolly laughed. “Well, the air’s better here, but offices are pretty much the same wherever you go.”

  Oppenheimer looked up at him, an appreciative glance. “Think you can find mine in the morning? Say, seven-thirty?”

  Connolly raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, don’t let this fool you,” Oppenheimer said, raising his glass. “We start early here. Officially at eight, and I’m afraid I’ve got a meeting scheduled first thing, so we’ll have to make it earlier. I do apologize—not very civilized, is it? But Janice will get you a good cup of coffee—the commissary stuff is swill—and besides, it’s really the best part of the day here. Wonderful for riding. Do you ride?”

  “No. Just the subways.” The phrase was involuntary, a casual signaling of the distance between his New York and the Riverside Drive where Oppenheimer had grown up, busy with lessons and parties and privilege. But Oppenheimer seemed not to notice.

  “That’s a shame. We’ve still got a few horses left from the ranch school, and there’s nothing like it in the mornings. Wonderful trails up the mountains, all the way to the caldera. Well, maybe someone will give you a few lessons—there’s nothing to staying on.”

  “I doubt I’ll have the time.”

  It might have been rude, but Oppenheimer caught it and chose to ignore it.

  “No, none of us have that, do we? Less and less. But we must have some of this,” he said, gesturing with his cigarette to the dancing, “or we’d all get very dull. I expect you’ll be especially busy.” He looked directly at Connolly. “But we’ll discuss all that tomorrow. Have another drink?” He turned toward the table to find his colleague still standing there, waiting to continue the interrupted conversation. “Friedrich, I am so sorry. Let me introduce Mr. Connolly. Professor Eisler.”

  Connolly looked up at the tall, graying man with soft, almost liquid eyes, but after a shy nod, Eisler ignored him. “We were discussing Planck’s lectures,” Oppenheimer said politely. “Hardly anybody reads them anymore, which is a pity.” But Eisler now had all his attention again, and Connolly saw how much of Oppenheimer’s charm lay in exclusion—you were so interesting there wasn’t room for anyone else. What could be more flattering than attention? Connolly wondered if the scientists fought for it like students, all of them eager for their private time with him. Even he had felt his spirit dim slightly when the light passed to someone else. And it was all done gently, with flawless courtesy. He had not been dismissed but released to drift.

  He wandered slowly around the room, thinking he’d have one more drink before heading for bed. The altitude and his sudden letdown had made him lightheaded, and he worried that he had passed the point of making sense of what he saw. The whole party seemed improbable. The ordinary people stumbling out of time to country music had won Nobel prizes. The young American kid in cowboy boots might be an expert in quantum mechanics. The man in the boxy suit holding a brownie might be—what? A chemist, a metallurgist, a mathematician? The two nattily dressed gentlemen, refugees from a gossipy afternoon tea party, might be discussing critical-mass geometry or, for that matter, the real secrets of the universe. Nothing was farfetched here. People lived in air as rarefied as the altitude. And it must be just as exhilarating for them. Their ideas could leap from one mind to another, racing with the excitement of meeting none of the usual resistance of the ordinary world. The army had strung wires around them to keep the rest out, and it had worked. With all the bad water and dirt roads and inconvenience, they lived in a state of excitement. Everybody was intelligent; everything was possible. Something as ordinary as a murder victim seemed almost vulgar, an unfair intrusion.

  The band played a few foxtrots and even one faltering lindy, but they were lining up another square dance when Connolly got his drink. Warm from the liquor, he stood against the wall not far from the punch bowl, trying to catch a breeze from the open doors at the end of the room. The vanished Mills had reappeared on the dance floor, linking arms with an attractive young girl and dancing with surprising ease. She was looking up at him as if, his prediction right, she wanted to marry him. Next to her a formally dressed, swarthy man with luxuriant eyebrows scowled in concentration. Connolly became fixated on the eyebrows; they arched over the man’s eyes like dormers, tufts spilling out on top and then running off in unexpected corkscrews on the side. His partner, a pleasant-looking woman in a print dress and sensible shoes, never looked at him but stared straight ahead, a smile fixed on her face. Connolly began making up stories for them. Given another drink, he could do this all night.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” she said. “Norman bloody Rockwell.”

  The scorn in the voice seemed so strong it must have been designed to provoke. If she had been a man, he would have heard the scrappy challenge of someone looking to pick a fight, but she was looking straig
ht ahead, not really talking to him at all. Her voice was English, throaty and full-bodied with drink. She was dressed in riding boots and jodhpurs topped with a white blouse, and he thought she was the first woman he’d ever seen who looked right in them. The trousers seemed to bend and follow the lines of her slim hips, not expand them. Her clothes were dusty, as if she had really come in from riding, not dressed up in costume for the party. Her hair was piled up on her head like a factory worker’s, minus the kerchief. She wore glasses and, as far as he could tell, no makeup at all, but her carelessness, her indifference to what anyone thought, had the effect of drawing him to the features that mattered—her luxurious skin, the tight lines of her body. And there was the voice. As he looked at her, she swayed slightly, and he guessed the sharp insolence had come from too much drink. But the voice, he sensed, would never slur. It would never flutter or pipe or somehow go wrong. It would get more and more controlled, not belligerent but impatient, as if things had become so clear she couldn’t understand why they weren’t clear to everyone else.

  “You don’t like square dancing,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

  She looked at him for the first time. “Do you?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well, then, have a drink and let’s start again. Not much of a line, was it? Square dancing. You might as well have Morris dancers bouncing up and down with their bloody bells.”

  “You’re English,” he said.

  “Christ, that’s not much better,” she said and laughed. “Of course I’m English. So what? And yes, I come here often. Too often, really. No, we haven’t met before. And yes, I like the pictures but I’m not sure I want to go sometime. And—well, what else? What else do you say to break the ice? I like to hear all the lines.”

  “Is that what I’m doing? Breaking the ice?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps you’re not,” she said, drinking. “Sorry. I get confused. So you’re not. Would you like to?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, but better not. I’m a happily married woman.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing. And I was just getting to know you.”

  “Better not do that either. I’m mad, bad, and the other thing—what was it? Ask anybody. You’re new. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Michael Connolly,” he said, offering his hand. “And not dangerous to know.” He caught her expression. “The other thing,” he explained.

  “Oh. Says you. Everybody’s dangerous, once you get to know them.” She looked at her glass, as if what she had said had just slipped out and she needed a minute to think it over.

  “Not here,” he said, nodding to the dance. “Looks pretty wholesome to me.”

  She laughed and stared at the dancers. “Yes, isn’t it just? Your typical all-American city. We ought to be in the bloody Saturday Evening Post. We’ve got everything you could possibly want. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, chess club, baseball, Little Theater group—quite a little treat they are, by the way—and the victory garden ladies, and—” She stopped. “Sorry. I’m ranting again, aren’t I? I’m supposed to watch myself. Anyway, we’re a hive of activity here. Something for everyone, to help pass the time. Well, for the ladies, that is.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “You mean when I’m not running up quilts and making jam and not asking any questions? Not much. They encourage the wives to do some sort of job. Afraid we’ll go starkers, probably. A lot of us work in the admin offices or teach, but I’m not allowed to do that—no aliens, please. Americans only in the school.”

  “But so many of the children must be—”

  “Foreign. Yes, funny, isn’t it? I suppose it’s our values or something. Such as they are. Awfully corrupting, I don’t doubt. And so the days fly by. Actually, I don’t mind. I don’t want to teach in their bloody school anyway. What I do want, though, is another drink,” she said, pouring one from the punch bowl. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not a lush. I’d hold it better if I were. You needn’t look like that, I know I’m tight. I’m not a bit proud of it, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “I don’t care. It’s your head in the morning.”

  “It’s my head now, if you want to know the truth. God, I hate getting tight. I knew I would, too. These little town hall meetings always bring out the worst.”

  “You’re doing all right.”

  “Oh, we’re all doing all right. Considering what we’re doing here. What do you do, anyway? Or am I not supposed to ask? My husband works with Bethe—I shouldn’t even say that, should I?—and that’s all I bloody know. You can imagine what it does for dinner conversation.”

  “I’m with the security office.”

  She looked up at him as if someone had shaken her by the shoulders. “Oh.” She put down her drink. “You might have told me. You’ll think I’m always like this.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not on duty.”

  “There’s no such thing. The enemy never sleeps. Or so they say.” But her voice had lost its bite.

  “That’s just something we put around to keep you on your toes. Your secret’s safe with me. I don’t know Bethe and I can’t stand Little Theater either. I don’t even know your name. You keep not telling it to me, remember?”

  “Oh God, he’s going to be nice. Please don’t do that. I particularly wanted not to be nice tonight. Emma Pawlowski.” She noted his surprise. “Née Harris, as they say in the Tatler.”

  “Why particularly tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Bad day or something. Let’s just leave it at that. Oh, the hell with it,” she said, picking up the drink and tossing it back.

  “Do you really dislike it here so much?”

  “Actually, I love it here. The place, I mean. I just hate all the Andy Hardy business,” she said, pointing to the party.

  “Why come, then?”

  “Daniel wouldn’t miss it. I can’t think why. Maybe he thinks it’s part of the citizenship course. Like the bloody Founding Fathers.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re feeling better again.”

  “Actually, I feel like hell.” And in fact she looked pale, her skin shining with sweat. “Let me have a cigarette, will you, and I’ll just toddle along home before I say anything indiscreet. We’ll save that for next time.”

  “I hope so,” he said, lighting her cigarette.

  She coughed a little as she blew the smoke out. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I mean, it’s been swell, but as far as I’m concerned, if we never—” She stopped, looking shaky.

  “You all right?”

  “Oh God,” she said, stubbing out the cigarette and searching the room for the door. “I hate to drink and run. Do give my apologies to the rest of the guests.” She moved unsteadily away from the table.

  “Are you all right?” he said, following her. But now she bolted for the door, and by the time he caught up with her, they were outside and she was doubled over by the side of the building, retching.

  “Don’t watch, for God’s sake,” she said sharply, choking. He looked away, up toward the wonderful night sky, not knowing what to do. It seemed wrong to stay and impolite to walk away. He took out a handkerchief as he heard her heave. Finally, when it was quiet again, he turned and held the handkerchief out to her. She took it without looking up.

  “God, how embarrassing,” she said, gulping now for air. “I’ve never been sick before. You didn’t have to stay.”

  “Sorry,” he said, moving away. “Sure you’re all right now?”

  “Of course I’m not all right. Oh,” she said, clutching her stomach.

  “It’s the altitude.”

  “It’s not the altitude. It’s the bloody drink.” She held up her head and took in a deep breath. “Well, this is awfully intimate, isn’t it?” she said, laughing at herself. “Or is it just part of the security service?”

 
“Do you want me to find your husband?”

  “No, let him dance. Wot larks. I’m perfectly capable of—” She started to move unsteadily, then stopped, swaying. “Christ. Look, as long as you’re here, do you have an arm that goes with that handkerchief? I’m just down that way.”

  He took her arm and felt her lean against him as they walked slowly down the dirt road. Her body was warm, and it trembled slightly, either from the chill or from the aftereffects of being sick. She said nothing, as if she had to use all her concentration just to walk, and in the quiet he felt more aware of her than he had before. But why was everything confused up here? As she leaned into him, holding on to his arm, they might have been a couple walking home from a dance, eager to touch each other, slightly tipsy from drink and the promise of sex. But they weren’t that. She was someone else’s wife, and in the morning, with her headache, she wouldn’t even remember who he was.

  “This is it. My Sundt palace. Thanks. I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be.”

  She smiled wryly. “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be even sorrier. Well. You’ve been a gentleman. Now if you’re really a gentleman, you’ll forget all about this. Mum’s the word, just like the loose-lips posters.” She was trying to rally, but her earlier high spirits had wilted with the evening. “Just forget you ever met me.”

  “No, I don’t want to do that.”

  She looked up at him. “Thanks. Do it, though, will you?”

  “Do you have your key?”

  “What?” she said, looking puzzled, then remembered the walking-home ritual. “Oh. No, it’s not locked. We never lock doors here.” She gestured around her to the isolated dark, implying the fences, the guards. “It’s the safest place in the world.”

  3

  OPPENHEIMER WAS AS alert as he’d promised, and the coffee just as good. His office was not much bigger than Groves’s, but it was filled with the nesting memorabilia of someone who had come to stay. Connolly glanced around the room, taking in the ashtrays, the piece of Indian pottery, the files piled everywhere. He wanted to linger over the photographs on the walls—colleagues from Berkeley? student days in Göttingen?—but it was impossible to look at anything else while Oppenheimer was in the room. He sat there smoking, so animated and intense that the rest receded to the flatness of a still life.