Oh Pure and Radiant Heart - Lydia Millet (ebook reader online TXT) 📗

She had paced an arc around the side of the building, leaving a wide berth, waiting. And finally they came out, and she walked behind them, keeping her distance.

Behind them as they moved along the sidewalk, Oppenheimer lighting up as usual, tossing a burnt match into a jojoba bush, Fermi shaking his head, she skulked at a fair distance, too far to hear them, too close to lose sight. There was an aimlessness to their walk, it was brisk but going nowhere, somehow, and she was drifting too.

Then in the turn of an instant Oppenheimer leapt off the curb into the street to flag a passing taxi. Of course there was no other taxi near. She noted the name on the door and squinted to make out the number as they stepped in and the car pulled away; then she raised her cell phone to her ear and dialed 411.

But the dispatcher would not tell her where the cab was going and she watched as the car crested a hill and disappeared.

She had lost them, but at least she had talked to Oppenheimer and the salient details had been established. If he was a pretender he was immaculate in the pretense, down to the yellowed fingertips and the frail, pompous gentility. And she had been neat and quiet behind them, unassuming and respectful.

Leo Szilard, it turned out, was none of these things.

It was two days later that Investigative Services delivered the goods. He had not been difficult to locate. He was urgently attempting to transact business all over northern New Mexico. He had spoken without success to several newspaper reporters, an assistant at KUNM who would not let him past the front desk and whom he accused of being narrow-minded, and finally, apparently desperate, a reviewer of modern dance from Taos, who was very open-minded indeed.

He was checked into a cheap motel on Cerrillos Road, and was taking most of his meals, which exceeded three per day, in nearby ice-cream and pizza joints.

Ann drove to the motel during her lunch hour and knocked on his room door. When he answered Szilard was wearing a white terrycloth robe. Drops of water stood out on his pink face and the bathtub gurgled and sucked behind him, draining. A talk show droned along at low volume on the television.

—Sorry for the intrusion, but—are you Leo Szilard?

—Yes! said Szilard, and smiled. —Yes I am!

—I read your book, said Ann, — The Voice of the Dolphins.

—Indeed! beamed Szilard. —I have not yet had the pleasure! I did read a synopsis, however. On the Internet.

He opened the door, stepped back and padded across the indoor-outdoor carpeting in his bare feet, to root around in a suitcase and pull out a pair of balled socks. She stepped in and stood beside the veneer-top table, littered with papers marked PRESS RELEASE in large letters and stapled lists of addresses.

—I work at the library, said Ann. —You were there the other day and I heard about it. And I—I saw Robert Oppenheimer. I talked to him.

Szilard, sitting on the edge of his bed and pulling on a sock, looked up quickly.

—He’s here too?

—And Fermi.

—Enrico!

—I should say, men claiming to be Oppenheimer and Fermi, and now you, claiming to be Szilard.

—Claiming correctly, said Szilard. —I am Szilard. This is good! I was expecting them, I knew they would come. I had no concrete indication, however. Until now.

—But you—Szilard is dead.

—You shouldn’t presume, said Szilard, struggling with the second sock. —It’s irrational. We know next to nothing about death. It is an undiscovered country.

—Where did you come from then?

—Anyway I can prove it. They would have to pull my files, this is the problem. Somewhere the armed forces may have my fingerprints. Could be the Army, the Air Force, the Department of Defense—they definitely had Oppie’s and Fermi’s, everyone who worked on the project. It was under military jurisdiction, as you may know. If you know about us. Do you know?

—I’ve been doing homework. But that was a long time ago.

—Don’t be fooled. The military has a long institutional memory. So where is Oppenheimer? And where’s Enrico?

—I don’t know, said Ann, —do you mind? and pulled out one of the chairs to sit down. —I’ve tried to follow them but I always lose them. They haven’t been, uh, making public appearances like you. So I can’t trace them as easily.

—Call expensive hotels, said Szilard. —Guarantee you, that’s where Oppenheimer will be. Only the finer things for that guy. He’s a snob. I need to talk to them. There’s a directory in the nightstand there, see?

It was in a black plastic binder dangling a broken chain, clearly stolen from a payphone.

—You’re asking me to call?

—Yes please, said Szilard. —I’ll go get dressed. You call please.

He plucked pants and a shirt off a rack and trundled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. She heard something crash, a rattle as it fell, and then the toilet flushing.

She had called in sick to work and made it through seven hotels when he emerged, unkempt-looking, his hair toweled into a short frizz, his shirt wrinkled and buttoned wrong and too tight around the midsection.

—Nothing yet, she told him. —Could he be registered under another name?

—I don’t think so, no need, said Szilard. —He has nothing to hide. Hand it over, I’ll do a few.

They met Oppenheimer in the lobby of the La Posada. —Step outside, shall we? he said, tapping a cigarette out of his pack. —They don’t allow smoking in the lobby. In other respects I’m quite satisfied here.

—Nice place, nodded Szilard.

—Also, they claim to have a ghost, a female ghost who wears a hood. I myself have not, uh, seen her, needless to say. Probably only comes out for the tourists. In any case, I enjoy the courtyard, and the casitas are nice.

He paused to light the cigarette.

—Where’s my old friend Fermi? asked Szilard eagerly.

—Just around the corner, at La Fonda, said Oppenheimer, and exhaled a plume of