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

Ben exhaled gently into the darkness, rolling his eyes, wondering if the exasperation traveled through the air.

—He’s a guy with a lot of drive, he said. —He’s very energetic. But you don’t have to be quite so—and as she turned her face up to him he chose a new word, —gracious. He can be overbearing, don’t you think?

—Oh, said Ann. —I guess so. I mean, I don’t think he means it.

When he finally fell asleep he dreamed he was standing in a box with a crowd of hot dog-bananas. It was not clear which they were, hot dogs or bananas: although yellow they were also tubes of gristle and intestine. They were ungainly and had gigantic feet. They smelled like barbecue and were hemming him in, jostling like so many broad-shouldered businessmen in an elevator.

But in the morning, when he awoke disoriented and warm to find a stripe of sun over his eyes, Ann was already awake and was climbing softly on top. She whispered, —I didn’t tell you before, I stopped taking the pill.

He remembered how the wide scope of the world could be jogged out of view by the smooth bend of an elbow. He remembered how, for an animal like him, all things could be forgotten for the sake of one.

Ann was distracted. Her mind was not in the bed but above it, in the mosquito net that hung there as she gazed at it, knotted white gauze and nothingness. It reminded her of something she had once longed for and lost.

—Is that good? whispered Ben. —Do you like that?

—Yes, she whispered back, though it felt like an interruption and she barely heard what he was asking.

Fermi had come over for a cocktail but was not interested in drinking. He did not want to be alone. Oppenheimer could tell. Eventually he dozed on one of the hotel room’s double beds.

There have always been alarmists, mused Oppenheimer with his library books spread out in front of him on the hotel room table, those Chicken Littles who believe the end times are upon us, the apocalypse is nigh, the world is coming to an end.

But that does not mean that it won’t.

Still people believe in this superstition, which says awareness of a possible disaster serves to avert it. Just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s out to get him.

Because they fear without reason, the superstition goes, there is no reason to fear.

—But the reassurance people offer that life will always go on hangs on a condescension, he said to Fermi, who had stirred and turned over on his bed. —It implies that those who call attention to what is in fact the constant emergency of life are merely seeking to dramatize their own parts in the action.

—Can you turn off the light? asked Fermi, blinking in disgruntlement.

—The insult of being an alarmist is dealt by those who wish not to be alarmed, he went on as he stood up to reach the light switch. —And these people are most people. Most people do not wish to be alarmed because, understandably, they would rather exist in denial than in horror.

—Thank you, said Fermi, and turned away from him again, plumping his pillow.

So the quick reassurance of most people, he thought, effectively silences the others, those who have glimpsed in a flash the terrible instability at the root of being.

When she got out of bed and went to the bathroom, and then into the kitchen, she found Szilard on the phone berating a civil servant. —It’s Health and Human Services, he said grumpily when she asked, but did not elaborate.

Over breakfast he announced he would be conducting personal business for the remainder of the day, and would Ann bring back a book on DNA testing from the library, please. Also, he added as an afterthought, scrawling a list of names on the back of a receipt, all books by these authors—many of them his late lamented colleagues!—plus a dozen donuts, including plain glazed and double chocolate.

Still in bed after she was gone, Ben stretched out his limbs under the sheets and thought he felt young. But a few seconds later he curled up again and tiredness covered him, and he felt old again.

Such people are remarkable, thought Oppenheimer, turning on the hotel coffeemaker, not because of this glimpse, which in fact almost everyone has, but because they are willing to live trembling in the memory of the sight. They’re strong enough to be afraid.

In affluent countries and families, he thought, reassurance is the dominant form of censorship.

Ben took Szilard aside before he left for work.

—Listen, he said. —We’ve welcomed you into our home but I’d really appreciate it if you stopped making so many demands on my wife. She’s not your personal servant.

—You realize, said Szilard, —she offered to be my guide. It was an offer. No one forced her, you know.

—I know, said Ben. —I know she offered, and she has good intentions. So what I’m saying is don’t take advantage of her. She thinks you’re a burning bush, but I think you’re a guy off the street who wanted somewhere to flop and can talk a good game. And if anything happens that makes me uncomfortable I won’t hesitate to ask you to leave.

—I assure you, said Szilard earnestly, —I am not a confidence man.

—We don’t really say “confidence man” these days, said Ben, relenting slightly as he pulled on his boots. —Just “con man” works.

—People don’t like syllables anymore, mused Szilard.

—See you later.

He made his way down the steps.

—Wait! called Szilard. —I know how to drive!

—Congratulations, said Ben.

—Chance of using your truck today?

—You’ve got to be kidding, said Ben.

—No, I really need it. I’m an excellent driver, said Szilard. —Though I normally prefer to walk. A brisk constitutional is good for my digestive system.

—I’m supposed to let you drive my truck around? A man who believes he invented the atom bomb and on top of that has been dead for more