Los Alamos (33 page)

But Oppenheimer was somewhere else now. Whenever he saw that Eisler, too sick to go on, needed medication, he would stop without complaint, almost relieved to go back to his real work. In the morning they would take up where they had left off, and Connolly would see Eisler’s eyes, strained and cloudy, clear for a minute in anticipation. It became a question of how long he could last. Connolly would watch for the signs—a few beads of sweat, the voice suddenly dry, the small movements of his hands on the sheets—and see him struggle with it, ignoring the pain just a few minutes longer to keep Oppenheimer there. Then, after a week, they were finished, and Oppenheimer stopped coming. Eisler would look at the door in the morning and then, resigned, turn his head toward the chair and smile weakly at Connolly, who was now all there was.

“Groves wants to come,” Oppenheimer told him one day, outside.

“Tell him to wait a few days. He’s dying. I’m still hoping he’ll talk to me.”

“How much longer, do you think?”

“I don’t know. A few days. It can’t go on much longer. He’s in pain all the time now.”

“Yes,” Oppenheimer said, and for a moment Connolly thought he saw something break in his eyes. Then he turned to go. “Why this way? There were a hundred easier ways to do it.”

“I don’t know. Fit the punishment to the crime. Maybe something like that.”

Oppenheimer looked at him, a question.

“No, not Karl,” Connolly said. “I think it’s about the bomb.”

But Oppenheimer didn’t want to hear it. “Nonsense.”

“He’s a scientist,” Connolly said. “Maybe for him it’s the elegant solution.”

Oppenheimer started at the words. “No,” he said wearily. “It’s an atonement. My God, what a waste. Does he think anybody’s watching?”

“He asks for you.”

Oppenheimer ignored him. “Groves wants to come,” he said again. Then he anticipated Connolly’s reaction. “I told him you were doing everything possible.”

“He doesn’t trust me?”

“He’ll have to. We’ll all have to, Mr. Connolly. Interesting how things work out, isn’t it? Do you think he’ll talk?”

“If he doesn’t, we’re at a dead end. Literally. It dies with him. Keep Groves away, will you? And no goons either.”

“I’ll do what I can. He has to come sometime, you know. We have to decide what to do.”

“Like what? There’s nothing to be done.”

“You don’t know G.G. There’s always something to be done. In fact, I suggest you start thinking about what— he’ll want ideas. I’d better go now. We’ve still got a gadget to build.”

“You don’t want to see Eisler?”

“I’ve seen him,” he said, and walked away.

So Eisler talked to Connolly. Some days he would lie staring at the ceiling, his eyes half-closed in a daze, and then there would be a rush of talk. Hamburg. A back garden. The damp rooms after the first war, when there was no coal. He talked pictures for Connolly, gabled roofs and tramlines and a summer lake. Then, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun in his mind, block-long factories and slate skies and his father, the hacking cough of damaged lungs. A last attempt, even now, at precision. Connolly didn’t interrupt, hoping instead for a revealing moment. Sometimes he drifted into German, a secret testimony that left Connolly helpless. He had long since stopped answering questions. If Connolly drew him back to the alley at San Isidro, he would grow quiet, then speak of something else. He no longer enjoyed the verbal fencing. There wasn’t time to go over it again. He was talking out his life. Now Berlin. Trude. A hiking trip in the mountains. Connolly sat in the dim room day after day, listening for clues.

He saw Emma only once, on a Saturday when they drove up to Taos Pueblo for an outing, past Hannah’s ranch and along the high mountain road where the villages reminded her of Spain. After days with Eisler, the sun was too bright, glaring off the whitewashed walls, and after a while Connolly wished he hadn’t come. What if Eisler said something and there was no one to hear? He missed the puzzle of the stories. Eisler had wanted him to understand, but all he had learned so far was that his life was inexplicable. It couldn’t end in the alleyway. He had to leave a name, a description.

The pueblo itself was poor and dusty, filled with scratching chickens and occasional pickup trucks and quiet, resentful Indians selling blankets. The mud apartment blocks, windows outlined in bright blue, seemed like tenements, all clotheslines and old tin cans and rickety ladders leading to roofs. Maybe it had always been like this, he thought, the splendor of the Anasazi ruins no more than a leap of imagination. They sat near the fast, high stream that divided the two sides of the settlement, watching children crossing on the railless wooden bridge.

“Are you really all right?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“People are talking. They say you’ve got it too. That’s why you’re the only one allowed. They’re afraid to let anyone else in.”

“No. I’m fine. I just talk to him, that’s all.”

“You mean you’re questioning him. I thought he was dying.”

“He is.”

“What about? Karl? You think he killed Karl? I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I. But I think he knows who did.”

“Why would he?” she said, and then, when he didn’t answer, “Oh, I see. Don’t ask. Run along, Emma. Is it something terrible?”

“Yes.”

She shivered. “Then don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I like him.”

“I like him too.”

“Then why do this to him? What do you actually do, anyway? Give him shots to make him talk? Keep at him till he breaks down? Like the films? God, Michael. Sitting there like a vulture waiting for him to die. Everybody deserves a little peace.”

Connolly was quiet for a minute. “He doesn’t want peace. He wants to talk. We just—talk.”

“About what?”

“His life. Germany. Everything. He’s dying, Emma. He wants somebody to talk to.”

“And you volunteered.”

“It just worked out that way. I can’t explain it now. I don’t like it either, you know. It’s a lousy way to die. It’s not fun to watch.”

Emma stood, picking up a stone and throwing it at the water. “I hate what you do.”

“I didn’t ask to do it.”

“You didn’t say no, either. And now you’ll never give up. Sometimes I wonder how far you’d go. Would you do anything?”

“No.”

“What’s your limit, then? Do you know?” She came back from the stream.

“I’m not a cop.”

“No, something else. God, I wish he
would
tell you. Put an end to all this. We could just be ourselves. What’s the difference, anyway? We could go away somewhere together.”

Connolly stared ahead. A dog was barking on the bridge, herding the children across.

“Is that what we’re going to do?” he said.

“I don’t know. Is it?”

He got up and took her arm. “If that’s what you want, yes. We’ll do whatever you want.”

She looked up at him and nodded. “But not now.”

“No. When it’s finished.”

Eisler got worse that night. The morphine had made him itch, and, unconscious, he had scratched himself over and over, so that in the morning his arms were covered in jagged red lines. Connolly found him tethered to the bed with narrow strips of gauze, and when he reprimanded the nurse and gently untied the arms, thin as sticks, he felt Eisler look up at him, momentarily coherent and grateful. “Robert,” he said, his voice little more than a croak. “Is Robert coming?”

“Later,” Connolly said.

Eisler nodded. “He’s very busy,” he said, then drifted off again.

Later that afternoon they talked a little, but Eisler’s mind wandered. He no longer cared about his charts or his own disintegration. He lived now entirely in memory, sustained by an IV dripping into his arm. When Connolly asked once about Karl, he seemed to have forgotten who he was. He went back to Göttingen, a lecture about the instability of negative charges. Connolly fed him small pieces of ice, and when the ice began to melt it ran down his chin, his cracked lips too dry to absorb the moisture. The gold crown on one of his molars had become radioactive, causing the tongue to swell on one side. When they capped it with a piece of lead foil, a last tamper, his gums bled. Warm June air blew in through the window, but the smell, resistant, hung over everything. Connolly no longer noticed. He watched Eisler’s face, waiting. When Eisler gasped, involuntarily wincing in agony, Connolly knew it was time to ask for another injection, and then he would lose him again until the pain had soaked up the drug and brought him back.

“You’ve got to see him,” he said to Oppenheimer. “He asks for you.” And when Oppenheimer didn’t reply, “He won’t last the week. It would be a mercy.”

“A mercy,” Oppenheimer said, examining the word. “Have you learned anything?”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Then why do you stay?”

Connolly didn’t know what to answer. “It won’t be much longer,” he said.

Oppenheimer did come, in the morning, with the sun cutting through the slats in the blinds. He took off his hat and stood for a minute at the door, appalled, then forced himself to cross to the bed. Eisler’s eyes were closed, his face immobile, stretched taut as a death mask.

“Is he awake?” he said in a low voice to Connolly.

“Try,” Connolly said.

Oppenheimer took Eisler’s hand. “Friedrich.” He held it, waiting, while Eisler’s eyes opened.

“Yes,” Eisler said, a whisper.

“Friedrich, I’ve come.”

Eisler looked at him, his eyes confused. “Yes. Who is it, please?”

Oppenheimer’s face twitched in surprise. Then, slowly, he let the hand go and stood up. “Yes?” Eisler said again vaguely, but his eyes had closed, and Oppenheimer turned away. He faced Connolly, about to speak, but instead his eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t go,” Connolly said.

“He doesn’t know me,” Oppenheimer said dully, and turned toward the door.

Connolly went over to the bed to wake Eisler, but when he looked back again Oppenheimer had gone, so he dropped his hand to his side.

“Yes?” Eisler said faintly, returning.

“It was Robert,” Connolly said, but Eisler seemed not to have heard.

“Robert,” Eisler said, as if the word meant nothing. Then his eyes widened a little and he felt for Connolly’s hand. “Yes, Robert,” he said, holding him.

There were two more days, as bad as before, and now no one else came at all. Connolly sat for hours by the bed, listening for breathing. Once Eisler came back, his voice clearer and his eyes steady, not moving as they usually did to avoid the pain.

“What is troubling you, Robert?” Eisler said, for Connolly was always Robert now.

“Nothing. Get some sleep.”

“No more questions? What happened to the questions? Ask me.”

“It’s all right.”

“Ask me. Can’t I help you?”

“You remember Karl?”

“Yes,” he said vaguely. “The boy.”

“The man you met—he was wearing workboots.”

“Workboots? I don’t understand.”

“Workboots. On the Hill. It doesn’t fit.”

“I don’t understand, Robert. Why are you asking me these things? What about the test? Trinity. Be careful of the weather. The wind—the particles. The wind will spread everything—”

“We’ll be careful,” Connolly said.

“Good,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Good.”

In a minute Connolly tried again. “Friedrich,” he said. “Please. Tell me. Who was driving the car?”

Eisler lay quietly, his eyes fluttering. “They stopped at the river, Robert,” he said, opening them. He looked at Connolly, troubled and confused, and Connolly leaned forward to hear him. But it was another river. “The Russians. They stopped at the river. Until the fighting was over. They wouldn’t cross. They waited till everyone was dead.”

Connolly knew then that the Hill had slipped away for good. He had lost. “In Warsaw,” he said, giving in.

“In Warsaw, yes. They waited. Till everybody was dead.”

Connolly watched his eyes fill with tears, a spontaneous sorrow. He wondered if everyone ended this way, overwhelmed with regret.

“Can you imagine such a thing?” he said. “The Russians.” Then, his eyes moving irrationally, he grabbed Connolly’s hand. “Don’t tell Trude.”

Connolly patted him soothingly. “No. I won’t.”

Eisler lay back, his eyes closed again, but he kept Connolly’s hand. Connolly, helpless to remove it, sat there feeling Eisler’s fingers pulse faintly, then clutch and relax, as if he were touching what was left of his life. Of all the strange things that had happened to him since he had come to Los Alamos, this seemed to him the strangest. The sour room. The swollen hand holding on to someone else he thought was there. The unexpected intimacy of death, confiding in an imposter. When Eisler clutched him tightly toward the end and said, “Was it so terrible what I did? Was it so terrible?” he knew he meant not this last betrayal but the ruined faith of a lifetime.

“No, not so terrible,” he lied, giving comfort to the enemy.

14

G
ROVES USED THE
funeral service as the excuse for his trip. The entire Hill closed down for the afternoon, eerie in the sudden stillness, like a forest in the absence of birds. Connolly had never realized before how noisy the place usually was, voices and motors and the clangs of the metallurgy unit vibrating in a constant hum. Now you could actually hear the wind blow across the mesa, a character in the creation myth. It was even quiet in the crowded theater, only a few whispers and scraping chairs until Professor Weber’s quartet filled the room with some mournful Bach. Afterward, Oppenheimer and Groves sat on the stage with the speakers, Groves in his tight, bullying uniform and Oppenheimer almost languid, the dark cloth of his suit hanging in folds over his gaunt frame. He had refused to speak, ceding his place to Weber as a gesture to the émigré community, and only Connolly was aware that it was a deft evasion, the maneuver of one practiced in compromise.

The speakers said the expected. Eisler’s contribution to science. His contribution to the project. His concern for humanity and the arts. His generosity. His ethical standards. Connolly looked around the room at the hundreds of people in varying stages of grief; Eisler had betrayed all of them. What if they knew? Weber broke down in the middle of his speech, weakened by genuine sentiment, and some people in the audience cried. Eisler was science at its best, the pure inquiry, the search for truth. He even—here Connolly, restless, almost rose to leave—died for it. Connolly thought that the hypocrisy of eulogies was a final mercy to the survivors. If people knew the truth, would there ever be kings? Tyrants were always praised for their love of the people, politicians for their vision, artists for their selflessness. Now Los Alamos had its own martyr, the one they needed, and he did them more honor than most. He had died for science. But Oppenheimer sat on the stage, his legs crossed, and did not speak.

Afterward Connolly walked with Oppenheimer and Groves out toward S Site, an inspection team of three.

“A little hot for a walk, isn’t it?” Groves said, wiping the back of his neck, his uniform already showing splotches of dampness.

“Connolly tells me people listen in my office. Bugs. I know you’d never allow that,” Oppenheimer said, mischievous, “but you know what the intelligence unit is like. Better to indulge them. Interfere with a delusional and they go stark raving. Or so I’m told. Why don’t you take off your jacket?”

Groves, choosing comfort over dignity, flung it over his shoulder and held it with his forefinger. Without the camouflage of the jacket, his stomach strained at his shirt buttons, spilling over his belt.

“You pick one heck of a time to make jokes. We’ve got a real mess on our hands here. I always said this would happen.”

“Yes, you did,” Oppenheimer replied.

“Foreigners and—”

“Would you feel any better if he came from Ohio?”

“All right,” Groves said. “Make your point.”

“These pesky foreigners are making your gadget, so don’t let’s start down that road again. It could have been anybody.”

“Well, you would think that,” he said, backing off but not mollified. “How’s the timetable? Still on track?”

Oppenheimer nodded. “Just. Five minutes’ leeway, give or take a minute. We can’t afford any time off,” he said, directly to Groves.

“That’s why I’m here,” Groves said. “So let’s get started. First, assess the damage. How bad is it? What do they know? Can they make a bomb?”

“No,” said Oppenheimer thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Eisler was a theoretical physicist. He knew the plans for the implosion bomb. That’s a plus for them. But he can’t build their reactor for them. He didn’t know the purity requirements. He couldn’t alloy plutonium. It’s a complicated metallurgy—five different phases and five different densities. He had nothing to do with that. So, yes, they know, but they don’t know how. They will, though, you know. Sometime.”

“Not on my watch,” Groves said. “How about all those coffee klatches you like to have? Wouldn’t he hear about the alloy requirements there?”

“Yes.” Oppenheimer sighed. “I didn’t say he didn’t know about them. He just wouldn’t know in any meaningful detail.”

“He wouldn’t have to know if he just passed them plans.”

“No. He only had access to theoretical. His own papers.”

“He could steal them.”

“He didn’t. He told me. Yes,” he said, responding to Groves’s questioning look, “I believe him. He was a traitor, but he wasn’t a thief.”

“That’s some difference.”

“At any rate, he didn’t give them that. I don’t mean to minimize what’s happened here. He passed valuable information. We don’t know how valuable because we don’t know where they were starting from. But they need more than what Eisler gave them to actually make a bomb. It’s almost a certainty they don’t have one yet. Of course, the point is they know
we
do.”

“Wonderful,” Groves said.

“Yes, it’s awkward. Politically.”

“Awkward,” Groves said, almost snorting.

“Not telling them. Of course, if that’s the main concern, we could simply tell them now.”

Groves stared at him as if he had missed the point of a joke. “That’s the kind of thing you say that keeps me up at night.” Then he dropped it and kept walking, forcing them to flank him in a kind of brooding convoy. “What gets me is how easy it all was,” he said finally. “This place is like a sieve. A man walks out, hands over some papers, and that’s it. We wouldn’t even know about it now if they hadn’t killed someone. It shouldn’t be that easy. At least we can plug up a few holes. I want you to cancel all leaves. Nobody goes out anymore.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that? The horse is already out of the barn.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Connolly said.

Oppenheimer looked at him in surprise. “You do?” he said, displeased.

“What’s on your mind?” Groves said. They both stopped and turned to him.

“It doesn’t end with him.”

“Go on,” Groves said.

“Eisler only had a piece. But what if he wasn’t the only one? What if there are others? The Russians must want all this pretty badly. Why stop at Eisler?”

“How many of us do you suspect?” Oppenheimer said. “Ten? All?”

Groves, who had paled even in the sun, shook his head. “He’s right. The Reds could have people planted all over the Hill. All over.”

“But we don’t know,” Connolly said. “And we’re not going to. Not this way. There’s no point looking on the Hill. We have to find out who Eisler met.”

“You said there was one here,” Groves said.

“Well, I think there is. It still doesn’t make sense, but somebody drove Karl’s car up here. Eisler’s contact? No. Why meet off the Hill in the first place? There
has
to be an outside guy. But somebody drove the car and then walked in through the west gate. Which means—”

“There were two,” Oppenheimer said quietly.

“Exactly. I don’t know how or why, but it’s the only way the logistics work.”

“Then find them,” Groves said.

“That’s not so easy. The trail really did die with Eisler. We’ve got to find the outside guy. If there’s someone else on the Hill, he’s the key.”

Oppenheimer stopped to light a cigarette. “What makes you say that?” he said thoughtfully, as if he were looking at a math problem. “Why would he know anyone else? If everyone was working in isolation?”

“I’m guessing,” Connolly said, “but the odds are good that the outside contact was the only mailman. The more people you have running around on the outside, the more chances you have of someone getting caught. Why spread the risk? He’s not essential, like the scientists. He’s just collecting the rent. You lose him, you replace him. But you don’t lose him, because he’s the pro. The tricky part is getting the stuff to him—you’ve got to rely on, well, people like Eisler. You don’t know what they’re going to do if they get excited. So you keep it simple and you keep them in the dark. But once you’ve got the information, you want someone who really knows what he’s doing.”

“And he’s not the one on the Hill?” Groves said.

“No, he couldn’t be. My guess is he’s nowhere near the Hill. Maybe Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but you’re always taking a chance with somebody in place. More likely he breezes into town—a businessman or a tourist, he met Eisler as a tourist—collects the rent, and then clears out till the next time.”

“All the way to Moscow,” Groves said.

Connolly shrugged. “Somewhere.”

“Well, that’s just fine,” Groves said. “Now what are we supposed to do?”

“Cancel the leaves,” Connolly said to Oppenheimer. “Make it difficult for him. You’ve got the test coming up—it’s a legitimate excuse. According to Eisler, there was no procedure for a missed meeting, they just rescheduled somehow. If other meetings are planned, at least we can make him sweat for them. Put a few people on the tourist spots,” he said to Groves, “if we can manage some surveillance without being obvious. I could get some of the local boys to help—Holliday’s a good guy and won’t ask any questions. See who turns up and whether they come back. It’s a long shot, but you never know. Somebody was waiting for Eisler at San Isidro. Maybe he’ll be waiting somewhere else now. The locals aren’t great, but they’re all we’ve got. We can’t use anyone from up here.”

“Why not?” Groves said.

“Why did you bring me here in the first place? Because we can’t trust anyone here.”

“I never said that.”

“You thought it. Karl was security, and you didn’t know whether that meant anything or not, but you sure as hell weren’t going to take the chance. Now we know we can’t. And we can’t let anyone know we suspect. Business as usual. They’ll wonder about Eisler. They’ll look for anything suspicious. But nobody bothered him. I was with him in the lab, so it made sense for me to be in the hospital too. You might want to spread the word that you’re still worried about my health,” he said to Oppenheimer.

“I am,” Oppenheimer said dryly. “What makes you think they even know he’s dead?”

“If they don’t, they will. You don’t need newspapers up here—it’ll get out. We have to assume they know everything. Except that we know. Karl gets killed and they pull down his pants and what do you know? The army gets squeamish and falls for it,” he said, shooting a glance at Groves. “And somebody else comes along and takes the rap. You don’t get luckier than that. Then Eisler dies. An accident? Remorse about Karl? But he’d never talk. And he didn’t. Nothing happens. No security. No sudden visits from Washington. Things just go on. They’re still lucky. Except now they’re missing a source. Maybe their only source, maybe not. Either way, they’ll be hungry. Which is just what we want.”

“And that’s it?” Groves said. “Say nothing and have the police watch the churches? That’s your plan of action?”

But Oppenheimer was studying Connolly, his eyes following the sequence of his thought. “What do you mean, they’ll be hungry?” he said quietly. “What are you planning to do?”

“I want to offer some rent to collect.”

Groves stopped and looked at him, his face squinting in appraisal. “What do you mean by that?”

But Oppenheimer, lighting a fresh cigarette, was already there. “I think Mr. Connolly means he wants to go into the spying business,” he said, smiling.

“Forget it,” Groves said quickly.

“We’re already in it,” Connolly said, smiling back at Oppenheimer.

But Groves had drawn in his breath, swelling his chest, so that involuntarily Connolly thought of the storybook pig, huffing and puffing.

“Hold on. Both of you,” he said. “The last time I listened to you,” he said to Oppenheimer, “Connolly here was going to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Leave him alone, you said. Eisler’ll talk to him. Well, he didn’t. And now he’s dead, and so is our last chance of getting anything out of him. You’re not FBI,” he said to Connolly. “You’re not even Army Intelligence. So it’s my own fault, I guess. I don’t know what I was thinking about. But I know enough not to make the same mistake twice.”

“G.G.—” Oppenheimer began, but Connolly interrupted.

“General, I’ve just spent two weeks watching a man die. There’s nothing anybody could have done to him—he’d already done it to himself. Maybe that’s why he did it, who knows? You can’t torture a man who’s already in that kind of pain. It wasn’t going to get any better. He knew that. If he didn’t want to say anything, nothing on God’s earth was going to make him.”

“Who said anything about torture?” Groves said.

“That’s right, I forgot. Only the enemy does that. Maybe Eisler couldn’t see the difference.”

“Mister, that’s out of line.”

“Let’s everyone calm down, shall we?” Oppenheimer said. “General, we’re all disappointed about Eisler. It’s a great pity. But that’s all very spilt milk now. The question is—”

“I know what the question is. We’ve spent billions of dollars to create a strategic advantage to end this war. Now the whole project’s being undermined and Connolly here wants to play cops and robbers.”

“General,” Oppenheimer said soberly, “you’ve still got your strategic advantage, unless the war ends before we can use it. Nothing’s been undermined. What exactly is your concern?”

“And afterward?”

“Well, afterward. That’s a very interesting question. But it’s not the question before us right now. Not yet.”

“I suppose it doesn’t bother you that somebody’s selling us out to the Russians right under your nose. Maybe you’d like to tell the President we’ve been handing this stuff to the enemy. I know I’m not looking forward to it.”

“You’re wrong. I mind very much,” Oppenheimer said slowly, almost to himself. Then he turned to Groves. “I didn’t realize we thought Russia was the enemy. Or are we just planning ahead?”

“I don’t know about that. And don’t go putting words in my mouth. I’m just doing a job here, and so are you. You can think about policy on your own time. But I’ll tell you this: whoever has this thing won’t
have
any enemies.”

Oppenheimer looked up at him, smoking. “That’s a comforting thought.”

Connolly had watched this exchange as if it were the volley of a tennis match. Now, looking at each other, they seemed stuck, or at least reluctant to press an advantage.