In War Times (32 page)

“So what’s the military significance of Hiroshima?” asked Wink.

“As I understand it, none. It’s filled with Japanese civilians.”

“What?” asked Wink.

“I’ve heard that this bomb is so powerful that we just want the Japanese to see what it can do.”

“Oh,” said Wink.

“Excuse us,” said Sam, feeling sick.

They went to their stashed gear. Wink cleared his throat. “Time to get it out, you think?”

“From what I understand about Hadntz, I think this is what we came to do. They have a plan, she has a plan.”

“Do we even have to get it out?”

“Might as well.” Sam looked around the plane. “Looks like an empty window over there. We can just…hold it up.”

Sam opened his duffel bag and found the spare shaving kit where he’d stashed the newest manifestation of Hadntz’s plan. “I don’t think it’s good for us to be here. There’s going to be a lot of radiation.”

“Maybe that’s the point. Us aside, I mean. Maybe this is the kind of force it takes to activate this stuff. Subatomic particles flying everywhere, if I recall some of those lectures correctly.”

The Hadntz Device was still a solid, smooth oblong piece of material. Sam held it in his lap as they fast approached, over a dawn-tinted azure sea, what looked like several large islands. He could see the
Enola Gay
out front, and then below saw the T-shaped bridge that Jake had said was the target.

He caught his breath as a huge bomb fell from the
Enola Gay
. As he watched it fall, it exploded in midair.

Even wearing his goggles, Sam was blinded for an instant. When he could see again, the world looked unbelievably sharp and intense in a light more powerful than humans had ever before seen. Illuminated below was destruction on a grander, more lethal scale than he could have imagined.

This was what she had been talking about. The light of a million suns.

His vision was now darkened by dancing flash-shaped shadows wherever he looked. As he held the device to the window with both hands, it warmed to considerably more than his body temperature, but was not too hot to touch. He imagined that it stirred within his hands, and he saw it become transparent, for an instant, shot through with twisted, glowing threads of light that looked as though they extended into infinity. Through the device, he saw a monstrous, towering cloud, taller than the planes, dwarfing them, as the plane shot forward and pitched wildly, caught in the shock wave of the atomic explosion.

For a moment, Sam saw time as a foam, clear curved surfaces that shared each side with a different reality, his own consciousness sliding across one of myriad bubbles, held by a surface tension more intense than gravity: many worlds, infinitely multiplied, forever existing, holding their stories to them with a force that was being shaken, below him, with newly released particles whose bonds had previously been impossible to shatter. He—whatever he could be said to be—was simply packets of information, loosely related, the bonds of which could break, be rearranged, and relink without apparent dissonance. It all happened as smoothly as getting off the plane with the now wildly celebratory crew, he and Wink handing back their cyanide pills, and getting on the plane that would ship them out.

“So that’s what Hadntz was talking about,” said Sam, when they were next alone. They were in the fuselage of a Curtiss C-46, amid a shipment of crates, lying down with their heads propped against their duffel bags, flying east over empty ocean. “That’s what her colleagues were doing; that’s what she rejected.”

“And she claims that her device, which I suppose we have baptized, in a way, will be a much better alternative,” said Wink. “Everything’s changed now. We used to live in Before. Now we’re living in After. I’m not sure what happened down there, but it must have been horrific. Japan will surrender now.” He sighed. “At least the war is finally over. The whole war.”

Sam couldn’t stop thinking about all of the death he had witnessed, not only while flying over Hiroshima, but over Berlin, in France, in Bergen-Belsen, in Ravensbrück. He thought of all the children of war, so many of them now without any living relatives, having to make their way through life alone. Lise and Karl were only two of hundreds of thousands in Europe alone. And the war had raged in Asia with just as much destruction.

If he’d ever wished for revenge against Japan for Keenan’s death, he realized, he’d had it.

“Let’s look at it again.” Sam sat up and got the metal box containing the device out of his duffel. Unlocking the box, he took out the device and set it on a crate.

It glowed, almost as if it might ignite on the instant. Yet it retained its same neutral temperature, not cold, as it was in the unheated fuselage of the plane, but not hot, either.

Sam held it between his hands and stared into it, shook his head, handed it to Wink.

Wink turned it every which way. “Something’s happened to it.”

Sam said, “As I recall from my Chicago lectures, an atomic explosion releases all kinds of particles. The bonds of the atom are broken, and all of the energies that have held them in place—”

“Stunningly powerful energies—”

“Unimaginably powerful energies—are released. The existence of a lot of these particles have only been theorized, of course, but they must have reacted with the device to produce this change.”

“But what does the change do?” asked Wink. “What does it mean?”

“According to Hadntz’s paper, it means that…I’m not sure…the genetic material of those within range of this device—whatever that is, but it’s a limited distance—changes. Hadntz posits a structure kind of like a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder split apart during transmission of genetic material and link to another open-ended ladder, which then resolves into a new ladder.”

“Therefore, something in us has changed. I felt something pretty amazing back there, when the bomb went off.”

“Yeah.” Wink nodded. “I felt…I don’t know. I didn’t even feel like a single person for a few instants. It was as if I was witnessing it for countless other people, people who needed to know what was happening. I was overwhelmed.”

Sam nodded. “Just being in the vicinity of an atomic explosion couldn’t have been good for us. I wonder what happened to the device.”

“Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe it was all just a pipe dream of hers. To end war forever.”

Sam recalled the promise he had made her: to follow this path wherever it might lead.

But what if the path had just…ended?

They went over “The Hump”—the Himalayas—saw the Ganges, surveyed the Middle East from twenty-six thousand feet, and landed in a world that had just crossed a cusp of change from which it could never return. After that, there were many short hops in airplanes, made in both daylight and darkness.

“Around the world,” remarked Wink at one point. “At least I can say I’ve circumnavigated the globe.”

T
HEY WERE RETURNED
to Company C at Camp Lucky Strike in the midst of a great victory-in-the-Pacific celebration. The Japanese had agreed to an unconditional surrender. The soldiers were wild with relief.

The enterprising men of Company C had set up a makeshift canteen. The line extended down one of the streets of Camp Lucky Strike as far as the eye could see. All over the camp there were similar lines as beer was distributed to enhance the celebratory atmosphere.

They were all there—Earl T., Jake, Kocab, Keller, The Mess, Grease.

When Earl T. saw them approaching down the road carrying their duffel bags, he shouted, “Hey! The conquering heroes are back!”

“Where’d they send you?” asked Jake, as they dropped their packs, wiped their foreheads, and accepted bottles of beer.

“Just more scut work,” said Wink.

“Naaah,” said Earl T. “Bet you guys dropped those bombs, eh?”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Sam. “We won the war singlehandedly.”

“Great job. Glad you’re back. We’ve got to get rid of all this booze.”

“Always ready to do my part,” said Wink.

“What about that bomb, anyway?” said Earl T. “It’s something, isn’t it? Truman said it’s harnessing—now, what did he call it? ‘The basic power of the universe.’”

“Here’s the
Stars and Stripes
,” said Howie, taking a folded copy from under his arm. “I’m getting all the issues I can. I suggest you guys do the same. Truman says, ‘The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the east.’”

“They say the Germans were working on an atom bomb,” said Jake.

“I guess it was a closer thing than we thought. Damn. If they’d had one of those—”

“But why didn’t we use this earlier?”

“Probably wasn’t ready,” said Howie. “It says, ‘The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.”

“Amen,” said Sam. “Let’s drink to the battles of the laboratories.”

They drank to that, and then to a great many other things.

They partied for two entire days, around the clock, passing wine bottles back and forth, singing, and even urging Wink and Sam to play, much to their surprise. Once they began, the other members of the Perham Downs got out their instruments and performed some appropriate tunes, gathering a large audience of beer-swigging soldiers. “We’ll Meet Again.” “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer,” “It’s Been a Long, Long Time,” and finally—their masterpiece—“Jazznocracy.”

Played out and getting thirsty, the Perham Downs granted Sam and Wink a final chorus. “Go ahead,” said Zee. “Play some of that Chinese music.”

“‘Epistrophe,’” said Wink.

The excitement and joy that the others felt did not fully touch Sam. He threw in minor notes, modulated into a mournful riff.

Wink pulled him relentlessly back. He jumped an octave and came down on the tritone.

Modern. New. Sam smiled inwardly, followed, and invented with renewed enthusiasm.

They finished up with “Salt Peanuts,” just to even things out.

When they were lined up to get on the boat at Le Havre the following day waiting to board the
Robin Sherwood
, they waited in line for two hours, and were becoming restive.

“Just let us on this goddamned tub,” shouted Zee. His sentiments were echoed by several other soldiers.

“Look,” said Earl T. “Isn’t that Sunny? Down there at the end of the boat. Who’s he with?”

“That’s the harbormaster,” said Jake. “Wonder what they’re up to.”

Sunny pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, began to peel them off.

“What the hell is going on?” said The Mess.

“He’s paying him off, that’s what,” said Kocab.

Finally, the two men shook hands. Sunny turned and shouted, “All aboooaaard,” with a huge wave of his arm.

It was discovered that the harbormaster had had orders to keep them in Europe so that they could return to Germany for an undetermined amount of time as part of the occupation. Sunny, who was independently wealthy, had persuaded him to let the 610th be the last group of soldiers out of Europe, although he denied it in the strongest manner possible. He was their hero.

The return trip was a continuation of the party, nothing like the trip over. The summertime Atlantic was flat. There was no need to hide among icebergs. There were no speed rolls. The freighter, having been used as a munitions transport, was gutted already, and filled with hammocks, which they accepted without grumbling. There was nothing but music, smoking, card games, and a nice, rolling sea.

They were free. They had done their job. They were going home.

Sam was leaving Europe, where he’d met Bette. He had taken to reading her book of Chinese poems, which were often about mountains and rivers, but just as often about parted lovers. He wondered if he ever would see her again. It seemed that few of the lovers in the poems did, but the form their longing took was exquisite.

Wink and Sam said good-bye to one another as the boat docked. The Army was loading GI’s onto several trains, depending on their final destination. Sam was on a train to Ohio; Wink was headed for upstate New York. They were still in the Army; no one knew when they would be discharged.

They had each other’s contact information—the addresses of their parents’ homes—and made an agreement to meet in New York the following spring, on Easter eve at Minton’s, figuring that this would be a time when both would be guaranteed to be free for at least a few days.

Sam had the device in his duffel. “It’s your baby,” Wink had said. “And the war’s over. Maybe it worked. After the bomb, do you think anyone would be insane enough to start another one?”

Sam’s group was called. “Easter,” he yelled to Wink, as he hoisted his duffel bag and headed away from the war.

He thought.

Yet I never weary of watching for you on the road.

—
W
ANG
C
HIEN
A.D. 830, “On Hearing That His Friend
Was Coming Back from the War”
Translated by Arthur Waley, 1919

Right after Sam returned from overseas in late August, while on leave at his parent’s house, his father called him to the breezeway door. Two men wearing black suits greeted him.

Sam accompanied them past the baskets of apples, corn, and cucumbers his mother had placed out for sale and steered them to the orchard. In relative privacy there, he turned down their job offer without much thought and got rid of them, which was harder. He still had no notice of discharge, but they seemed to think it would come soon, which was a cheering thought. Even though the OSS seemed convinced that the device did not “function,” whatever that might mean, they did not believe he had lost it. He knew that they coveted it and were irritated that they did not have it and that was the long and short of his job offer—unless they were also after the photos Bette had left him in Germany. After they were gone he sat in the breezeway with his dad the rest of the afternoon, chatting and drinking beer.