Los Alamos (29 page)

If it was true. Connolly picked up a small rock, threw it into the pond, and watched the water rearrange itself, like thoughts. He thought of Emma at the memorial service, coolly walking out on Daniel’s arm; saw her at Fuller Lodge, her back to him, laughing. Maybe everything was a performance, the practiced story. But he had made her do that—it had all been for him, hadn’t it? He had made her lie and now he distrusted the lie. He started back toward the dormitory, looking down at the ground as he walked. Maybe Karl hadn’t been sure either, waiting for something more. He only had her word for it. What did Karl really think? He thought he was beginning to know him, but Karl didn’t exist. He could only imagine him.

The dormitory was quiet, even the Ping-Pong table empty, and Connolly went straight to his room. He sat in the chair by the window with Karl’s file, staring at the picture that would somehow make him real. Dark, intelligent eyes. Had he trusted her? But Karl didn’t trust anyone. Goblins everywhere. He came to the right place for it. Maybe he hadn’t felt like an outsider at all; maybe he had liked it, his files and his private suspicions and the adrenaline thrill of a hunt. Maybe he’d felt at home. He knew how to live here, what he was expected to do. But what did he have for it? A car, some money just in case, and now the secret of his own death. Half the people up there are crazy.

Connolly stared at the room and realized with a shock that it looked exactly the way it had on his first night. Did he live here? A shaving kit on the washbasin, a bag in the closet, a book. Otherwise, the same. Neat. Empty. He hadn’t expected to stay. But the room in Washington was no different. Temporary until the war was over. He was living in other people’s stories. For how long? Then the war would be over and he would be back in his own, where nothing would happen. Unless it already had. He felt a panic so intense that it swept over him like a kind of nausea. If he sat back in the chair now he would disappear into Karl’s room, waiting to be sure.

He threw the folder on the floor and got up, standing so quickly that his head felt dizzy. When he hurried out of the building, blinking at the sun, his head was still light, but he felt his body coming back, filling up again. There was room now for everything—the insubstantial buildings, the clotheslines flapping white, the smell of gasoline. When he reached her building he almost laughed, remembering that other time, turning left, turning right, the neighbor with the coffee. This time he knocked without hesitation, loudly, so that when she opened the door she pushed against it as if he were a gust of wind. He looked at her face, the details of it, his own story.

“What do you want?” she said, still holding the door.

“I’m in love with you.”

“Oh,” she said, a sound, not a word, a reflexive whimper. Her body went soft, exhaling, shoulders easing as her eyes filled. The door seemed to open by itself, pushed by the same wind, and he was inside. For a minute they just looked, her eyes fixed on him, moist with relief but not crying, moving with his, alive with conversation. “You came back,” she said.

“I’m in love with you,” he said again.

She put her hands to the sides of his face and brought him down to kiss her, short drinking kisses, like gulps.

“Yes,” she said into his cheek.

“Do you know what that means?”

“No. Tell me.” Smiling now, teasing him. Then she kissed him again. “No, don’t. So much talking. Don’t say anything else.”

“I don’t care about the rest. I can’t lose you.”

“No,” she said, her head back, shaking it happily. “No. You can’t. Tell me again.”

“Come to bed.”

And this time, she took his hand and led him into the other room.

12

T
HE DROUGHT HAD
brought summer early and with it one of the electrical storms that usually waited for July. Outside Weber’s house, Connolly could see the giant dark anvil of a thunderhead rolling toward the mesa, the sky crackling with branches of lightning that shot through the air like X-rays, leaving an inverted image on the eye. Inside, an Indian maid was refilling the coffee urn, edging her way through the crowded living room. Despite the absentees down at the test site, the room was full, the low thunder outside barely audible over the noise of the party voices. Nothing seemed to have changed. Kitty Oppenheimer was again curled up in a corner of the sofa, while Johanna Weber scurried about, playing her hostess memory trick. The air was close, warm with bodies, and Connolly, bored and beginning to sweat, had been there only a few minutes before he began planning an escape. Weber came to his rescue, asking him to fetch Eisler from his lab.

“He’s always forgetful, Friedrich. But it’s the Beethoven. Without him, we can’t—”

The music was outside, deep cello moans of thunder under the viola staccato of the moving clouds. For once there was no dust; even the earth was holding its breath. Eisler’s lab was near the edge of the plateau, not far from X Building, where the cyclotron was, and the rain began before Connolly could reach it, so that he sprinted the last few yards. Now the noise was everywhere, and when the wind banged the door behind him it was lost in a crack of thunder. The hallways brightened for a minute with lightning, and Connolly expected the dim of a power surge, but the overhead lights were steady. When he opened the lab door and stepped in, the sounds were hidden by more thunder, so that Eisler was unaware of his coming. He was about to call out but instead stood for a moment watching, afraid to interrupt.

Eisler was bending over a table in front of a blackboard, stacking small plum-colored metal cubes in a surrounding well of what looked like soft aluminum blocks. Critical assemblies. His body was tense, his long fingers barely moving with slow precision. In the noise of the storm he seemed to stand in his own vacuum, oblivious to anything beyond the table. Connolly watched as he tentatively lowered his right hand, dropping the metal a fraction, then held it still to listen for the increased clicking sound, his whole frame rigid with concentration. So this is what it was like, this awful attention, tickling the dragon’s tail. Then he straightened for a minute, staring ahead at the blackboard as if it were a mirror, and took a deep breath. When he bent over again his movements were fluid, no longer hesitant, and Connolly watched, fascinated, as he lowered another cube in a steady, deliberate push.

Suddenly the clicking erupted and a blue light flashed in the room, some terrible new lightning, and Connolly gasped. Eisler whirled around, seeing him for the first time, then swept his arm across the pile of blocks, knocking them over to the floor with a crash. Connolly instinctively froze. The blue light and the frantic clicking noise stopped. For a moment they held their positions, Connolly listening to his own ragged breath, Eisler looking at him in anguish. When Connolly moved, Eisler held his hand up in warning.

“Please stay where you are,” he said calmly. “You’ve been exposed.” Then slowly, with the inevitable movements of a dream, he went over to the blackboard. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Connolly,” he said distantly, absorbed. “How many meters would you say? Ten?” The blocks lay scattered at his feet, now just harmless metal. He picked up a piece of chalk and quickly sketched an outline of the room, like one of Connolly’s maps, then began to fill the space to its side with the numbers and signs of a formula. Connolly stood trembling, watching him move his chalk across the board, methodical as a madman.

“What are you doing?” he said finally, his voice hoarse, scraped by shallow breathing.

“The effect of the radiation,” Eisler said, his back still to him. “It can’t have been more than two or three seconds. That’s something. But it’s the distance that matters. It’s good you stopped where you are. You have good manners, Mr. Connolly,” he said dispassionately, as if it were no more than another factor to compute. “Not to walk in. They may have saved your life.”

“You did,” Connolly said, shaking involuntarily.

Eisler turned to face him. “Unless I have taken it.” He paused. “We will have to do some tests.” Then, sensing Connolly’s shock, “I think you will be all right. It was a very small exposure.”

“But what happened? Was that a chain reaction?”

“Oh yes.” Eisler came away from the board, his shoulders drooping. “I am so very sorry, Mr. Connolly. I didn’t know—”

“But what—what should I do?” Connolly said, his voice still urgent and unsteady.

“Do? There’s nothing to do.” Eisler looked at him, then moved over to the table. “We must go to the infirmary. But first, you will permit me? One note.”

Connolly watched, hypnotized, as Eisler wrote on a sheet of paper. So fast, a simple flash. What if he died? Radiation poisoning was a grisly, painful death. Everyone knew that. But nobody knew anything. Minutes ago he had been hurrying through the rain. Just a flash, like a bullet in combat. Here, as far away from the war as anyone could get.

“May I ask,” Eisler said, “why you came here?”

“Weber sent me. To remind you. The Beethoven.”

“Ah, the Beethoven,” he said wistfully. “He will have to wait, I’m afraid. We must get you to a doctor. Right now.” As he moved forward, Connolly involuntarily stepped back. “No, don’t worry, it’s not contagious. I am not myself radioactive. It doesn’t work that way.”

Connolly flushed. “Sorry.” And then, embarrassed that it had not occurred to him before, “But what about you? Are you all right?”

Eisler shook his head gravely, but his voice had the tone of a wry smile. “No, Mr. Connolly, for me it’s fatal. It’s in the numbers, you see,” he said, pointing to the board. “The numbers don’t lie.”

They lay side by side on the small infirmary examination tables as nurses drew blood samples and the doctor ran tests that, incongruously, reminded him of an annual physical.

“Is there anything wrong with me?” Connolly said. “I don’t feel anything.”

“We’ll just keep you overnight to be sure,” the doctor said. Then, to Eisler, “How long did you say he was exposed?”

“A second. Two. Three. It was not significant. There have been worse cases,” Eisler replied, but he was looking at Connolly, reassuring him. “They don’t know, you see,” he said gently. “They put you under observation, but what can they observe? So now we are to be roommates.”

“Just for the night,” the doctor said. “Just to be sure.” But he meant Connolly. The questions, the light reassurances, were directed to him. Eisler, lying quietly in his hospital smock, would not be expected to leave. He was dying.

Connolly knew it when Oppenheimer arrived. Eisler had busied himself sending apologies to Weber, politely teasing the doctor, making small jokes to Connolly about the makeshift hospital, so that it all seemed no more unpleasant than an interrupted seminar. Then Oppenheimer came into the room, his porkpie hat dripping with rain, and Connolly saw his pale face, the bright, quick eyes for once still and afraid.

“Robert,” Eisler said softly.

Oppenheimer looked at him, a silent exchange, then took off his hat.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he said, his eyes never leaving Eisler.

“I’m sorry, Robert.”

“Friedrich.” He came over and took Eisler’s hand. The gesture surprised Connolly. It was something new in Oppenheimer. He had seen frustration, even a kind of haunted wisdom. He’d never seen simple affection. “We’ll have you moved to Albuquerque,” Oppenheimer said, falling back on authority.

Eisler smiled. “Albuquerque? And leave the project? What could they do in Albuquerque? Here is fine. I’ll have it all to myself. Mr. Connolly here will be leaving tomorrow—he’s quite all right.”

Oppenheimer took him in for the first time. “What the devil were you doing there?” he said quickly, and it occurred to Connolly that it might have been his fault, the interruption.

“Robert, Robert,” Eisler said soothingly. “You blame the messenger. It was nothing to do with him. An accident. Stupid. My own stupidity.”

“Are you all right?” Oppenheimer said to Connolly, an apology.

Connolly nodded. “I guess so.”

“How did it happen?” He turned back to Eisler.

“The dragon. It went critical. You can see the notes.”

“I told you—”

“Yes, yes, a thousand times.”

“How long was the exposure?”

“Long enough.”

“My God, Friedrich.” Oppenheimer took his hand again, disconcerted, and Connolly felt the impulse to turn away, his face to the wall.

“It’s a risk, Robert, that’s all. You don’t take risks? Every day? How else can we go forward?”

“It was foolish.”

“Perhaps. But now there’s much to be done. We have the moment now. We need to calculate—”

But Oppenheimer had got up and was nervously lighting a cigarette, glancing toward the open door.

“Robert, a hospital—”

“It’s my hospital,” Oppenheimer snapped, drawing some smoke. He turned back. “It’s over, Friedrich,” he said quietly. “I can’t allow it.”

“Allow? I’m not dead. The effects aren’t immediate, you know. There will be a week. Maybe two. I can still—”

“I’m asking you to stay here. Or Albuquerque.”

Eisler looked up at him to protest, then, seeing his face, settled back on his pillow. “Under observation.”

“Yes,” Oppenheimer said reluctantly, “under observation.”

Eisler was quiet for a minute. “So I am to be the guinea pig.”

“Friedrich—”

“No. Of course you are right. I myself should have thought of this. Each day we observe and then, in the end, we go a little forward. But you will allow me to help organize it, the experiment?”

“Friedrich.”

“No, no, please. We are not sentimentalists. It’s important to know. We can observe the elements break down—how the body reacts.”

Oppenheimer walked over to the sink and doused his cigarette under the faucet. “I’m not asking you to—”

“No, not you. I volunteer. It’s my idea. My wish. For the project.” Eisler’s voice was clear, eager. “It seems fair it should be me.”

Connolly looked over at him, puzzled, but there seemed no irony in his voice. He was back at the blackboard, going about his business, getting ready to keep the chart on his own death.

Oppenheimer turned away from the sink, and Connolly saw that his eyes were moist. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

Eisler thought for a minute. “You have morphine? For later? I’ll need that, I think. I’m a coward when it comes to that. And there’s nothing to learn then. Just the pain.”

“Of course,” Oppenheimer said, almost a whisper.

“Nothing to learn,” Eisler repeated.

The nurse drew a screen between them at night, white cotton stretched on a wheeled frame, but Connolly couldn’t sleep. He had never been in a hospital before and it unnerved him—the constant light in the hall, the discreet sound of rubber soles in the corridor, even, once, the faint smell of night-shift coffee. But Eisler was quiet behind his screen, so Connolly was forced to lie still as well, listening to occasional bursts of rain on the asphalt shingles of the roof. He would drift into a kind of half-sleep, then find himself peering at the shadows on the ceiling, his mind moving from one to the other, making pictures, until he no longer knew when he was awake.

He saw Eisler bending over the lab table, then Emma biting her bottom lip, then, oddly, his friend Lenny Keazer, who had been killed in New Guinea. Shot down. Connolly wondered whether he’d seen anything more than a flash before the plane tipped. He had never imagined dying before. Now he saw that it was being nothing. And everything else just went on. Lenny didn’t know whether they’d won or—But what was the point? It wouldn’t matter if you weren’t there. Karl found his secret and then it didn’t matter. And Eisler, who’d said his war was over. Then Connolly was back on his street in Washington, home that afternoon, with the bay window of the little room open to the spring air. Magnolia trees. And he leaned out to see the brown army car move slowly down the street, looking for house numbers. Was anyone else looking out, holding a crack open in the curtains? A soldier got out across the street, carrying an envelope, and walked up the steps to the house, and the next thing Connolly heard was a scream, a long wail that tore the air. A sound from the ancients, a lamentation. He watched the soldier get back in the car and drive away. Then a truck drove down the street, the paper boy on his rounds, another car, and everything went on. That had been the afternoon he thought he had seen the war, the brown car going down one street after another. It would be worth anything to end that. A quick flash and it would stop, the Japanese, finally, startled out of their mad reverie. A hundred to save a thousand. A new kind of mathematics. Did Oppenheimer think of it that way?

The rain woke him, a little spurt of gunfire, and he heard Eisler breathing. The fancies of the night. The ceiling was dark, like the blackboard, and he filled it with chalk marks. So many minutes, so many meters. Eisler had saved his life, then calmly gone about his business. Connolly had been the surprise. He closed his eyes, looking at the lab again, the steady hand on the cube, the cool dispassion of science. He watched Eisler bend over, carefully inching the metal down, and suddenly he knew what was bothering him, all this fitful dreaming. There hadn’t been any accident. He had been the accident, quickly corrected. The cube had been deliberate. It had done just what Eisler had wanted it to do. Not an accident. He heard him tell Oppenheimer, an easy lie. He wanted to be nothing.

Connolly turned toward the screen, his whole body awake now, and listened. The breathing was light, barely audible, not the heavy patterned rhythm of sleep.

“Professor Eisler,” he said quietly.

“Mr. Connolly?” Eisler’s voice was alert, politely surprised.

“When you said before that it was fair it was you, what did you mean?”

Eisler did not answer right away. When he did, his tone was interested, as if the phrase intrigued him. “Did I say that? I don’t remember. You must have—what is the sound equivalent of a photographic memory?” The question, disembodied, seemed to rise in the dark. Connolly stared at the ceiling, waiting for it to float over the screen. He said nothing. “I suppose I meant that one of us should feel—what? The effect of what we’re doing here. Yes, you might put it that way.”