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

said Hi I’m Keri. She took a quick look at their fake IDs and ushered them into her U.S. Army minivan, where, with the looming tour bus following them, a debonair swish of orange along its massive body, they set out south on the long dirt road to the Trinity Site.

Plains of sagebrush and dirt stretched out on both sides, interrupted only by spiky clumps of yucca. The scientists sat at the back of the minivan while Ann sat near the front and talked to Keri. Keri’s perky assistant, in the passenger seat, was wearing strong perfume that smelled like a chemical version of peaches. It brought tears to Ann’s eyes.

—You ladies in the Army? Szilard called up to Peaches curiously.

—Civilian employees.

A herd of black and white animals with extravagant horns ran across the road in front of them, kicking up clouds of dust as they disappeared into the scrub.

—They’re from Africa, explained Peaches, pleased to inform. —They’re African oryx! Way back in the ’50s they shipped them here across the ocean for the hunters to shoot. You know, the ones that come in from L.A. and Santa Fe on the weekends? They just let ’em loose! They done real good. You know, breeding.

—They compete with the native pronghorn for forage, said Fermi stiffly. It was a rare moment of speech.

Fermi was developing an interest in endangered species.

—Oh goodness, said Peaches. —There’s plenty to go around. I can tell you we don’t allow cows on the Missile Range anymore. They’re bad for nature. Right, Keri?

—There was a study done, said Keri. —Cows do more damage to vegetation than the A-bomb did. Course they’re not quite as speedy.

—But we still do lots of ordnance testing, said Peaches. —See over there, in the distance? That building is just for blowing up.

—The pilots swoop in all the time in their planes and blow it up, said Keri. —Then later they rebuild it.

—Taxpayer dollars, said Szilard.

Keri and Peaches drove them first to the cabin where, in the weeks before the Trinity test, the gadget had been assembled. Peaches slid back the minivan door and Szilard jumped out eagerly. Standing beside Ann he gazed up at the tour bus as it rumbled and screeched to a stop across the dirt road. Behind him Peaches waited politely for Oppenheimer and Fermi to disembark.

But they stayed where they were, staring out the window toward the cabin, ignoring the open door.

Over the van’s silver roof Ann could see what looked like the skeleton of an ancient wooden windmill. She glanced at the cabin beyond it and then back at the scientists, anxious. Fermi sat looking at his lap, scrutinizing his fingernails as Oppenheimer gazed steadily through the tinted glass at the cabin, his face impossible to read.

Finally Szilard, impatient, barked up at them —What are you waiting for?

When the two of them stepped tentatively onto the ground, Szilard, trotting behind Keri toward the cabin, turned to Ann and whispered: —I think they were hoping it would change everything to come back.

But there they were in the flat light of the cloudless desert sky, in the flat light that turned the landscape gray and indistinct and at the same time dazed the eyes like a slap. Still behind them was the shining bulk of the minivan, and still with them were all the people they should never have known had they remained in the real life, where they were supposed to be.

Shoulders slumping, Oppenheimer and Fermi picked their way slowly between the creosote bushes, eyes on the ground. Their tailored suits were starkly out of place against the crowd of civil servants descending from the bus behind them, who seemed to be wearing Western vacation garb. The civil servants were all dressed for leisure in newly minted cowboy hats and stiff pointy-toed cowboy boots.

—You know, said Peaches to Ann, catching up, —you want to know what just occurred to me? One of the researchers in your group here looks exactly like Dr. Oppenheimer, who was in charge of the program to build the bomb back in the 1940s!

—You’re kidding, said Ann. —Really?

—At least from the pictures I’ve seen. Is he related?

—Beats me, said Ann.

—I used to archive photos sometimes so I went through a bunch of them. He really is, he’s a dead ringer! And he seems so sweet too. So Old World.

—OK, folks, said Keri, stopping in front of the cabin. —This is a self-guided tour, you’re welcome to go through at your own pace. I’ll just give you a real short intro.

The cabin had been renovated, she told them, cleaned up and repaired for Army use, but then it was designated a so-called National Historic Landmark. So in the interest of authenticity, and at some expense, the Army promptly undid the renovations, returning the cabin to its original state of disrepair. They even repainted the old graffiti onto the walls and door frames.

Leaving the lecture behind her, droning, Ann went through a green door painted, on which was painted, in white, PLEASE WIPE FEET and PLEASE USE OTHER DOORS—KEEP THIS ROOM CLEAN.

Down the door jamb was painted, in a more panicked tone, the words No!!! No.

This, she heard Keri tell the crowd outside, was the door to the room where the Trinity device had been assembled. —In those days, said Keri, —the protocol on handling radioactive materials was kind of, uh, relaxed.

—You were barbarians, Ann whispered to Oppenheimer.

—And we paid for it, said Szilard. —Didn’t we.

In the dusty interior, shabby black-and-white photos of the scientists and workers of the Manhattan Project were propped carelessly along the floor, along with snapshots of the bomb before it was dropped, being hauled to the top of the tower. The display had an amateur feel, as though a six-year-old was charging grownups a dime to look at a pile of favorite junk in his bedroom.

Oppenheimer was captivated. Except for the soldiers he knew everyone in the pictures, and to look at their faces again on the ancient photographic paper, now yellowed