Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Lydia Millet [top romance novels .txt] 📗

—So when’s the march?

—Friday, said Szilard. —So many people are coming, there’s all this coordination. But we don’t have to worry till the day before. Bradley’s people are handling it.

—That doesn’t seem wise, Leo, said Oppenheimer, slipping into the booth. —You want them calling the shots?

—They’re not doing the message, said Szilard. —Just the logistics.

—You mean they’re organizing the march, said Ben.

—Not the speakers, said Szilard. —Glen lined up the speakers for me weeks ago. There are peace advocates from all over the world flying in. We have several Nobels.

—You’ve been hijacked, Leo, said Ben. —Why are you kidding yourself?

—Don’t be ridiculous. We’re letting them do the legwork. It’s called delegating authority, said Szilard haughtily.

In a suburb of Washington called Greenbelt the scientists received a heroes’ welcome. When they pulled into the hotel parking lot veterans stood on the wide lawn next to the hotel, saluting them in full uniform. Oppenheimer got out first and moved along the line slowly, shaking hands and bowing his head. Szilard and Ann followed after him and heard the testimony of a man wounded by shrapnel, whose head was misshapen as a result.

—I’m Lenny Wren, I’m an A-bomb veteran too, I head the group out of Baltimore, said the wounded man, holding onto Oppenheimer’s hand for too long. Ann was standing right beside him and could see Lenny’s own thin hand had bitten-down nails and a tattoo that read LAKOTA. —We got about three thousand A-bomb veterans coming in for the march, overall. Including your widows and your kids. You know, the next of kin.

—Great, said Szilard.

—I’m riddled with cancer all over the place, said Lenny, turning to Oppenheimer and grinning affably.

—I see!

—You name the organ, I got tumors there. And more than half of them qualify for federal aid.

Under the presidential administration of George W. Bush steps were taken to begin research and development of so-called “usable nukes.” (Other nicknames included “bunker busters” and “mini-nukes.”) These weapons, it was argued, might be employed in the battlefield to take out hardened targets.

At the same time the White House and elements in Congress pressed to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in conflict. To ensure the military supremacy of the United States, proponents of nuclear weapons development at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories urged the U.S. to build nuclear weapons small enough not only to deter, but to use.

Because weapons left over from the Cold War were too big to be used against rogue states, the argument went, and therefore would not have a deterrent effect—since no one could possibly believe the U.S. would use such powerful weapons against weaker adversaries—the American military must have smaller weapons at its command, weapons whose use would not be unthinkable at all.

The construction of small nuclear weapons would therefore close the door on pure deterrence and open the door to practical, feasible, and convenient nuclear war.

The first night in Greenbelt the hotel room felt close and airless. Ann got up in the middle of the night and tottered toward the air-conditioner to turn it on, stubbing her big toe on the bottom of the metal bed frame. In the dark she could not see the knobs on the air-conditioner so she flicked on the lamp on the table. Then she thought she heard something outside, so she looked out the peephole in the door.

Nothing was visible on the catwalk, and she was still half-asleep. She forgot about the air-conditioner, turned off the light and went back to bed, where she dreamed that she and her mother were finding yellow fruits growing in clumps of long reeds. Then they were stealing them, and the reeds became the aisles of a supermarket.

Awake again, when the bedside clock read five in the morning, she tried but could not fall back to sleep. She wondered if the windows opened, and when she went to find out she pulled back the heavy drapes and saw a figure slumped in front of the window, on the concrete of the walkway.

—Shit, she said, —Ben? There’s someone here.

He turned and muttered something, waking up and raising himself on one arm.

She opened the room door and looked out. A balding man in a trench coat was sleeping against the wall beneath their window, curled up in the fetal position. She recognized the slope of his high forehead and was concerned.

—Are you OK? she whispered, and knelt beside him, reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder.

He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.

—Ben? It’s Enrico!

Then Ben was beside her and both of them were leaning over. Between them they lifted him up and helped him into the room, letting him sag onto the second double bed.

—I’m OK, he said. —I’m just tired. It was a long trip.

They took his shoes off for him and covered him up. Under his trench coat he wore only pajamas.

—I’m going back to sleep too, said Ben when they had tucked him beneath the covers and watched him pull the coverlet over his head. —If I can.

But she was not tired anymore. She dressed quietly in the bathroom and brushed her teeth quietly at the sink. Then she put on a sweater and left them both on the beds and went outside, to breathe in the chill and walk down the stairs from the concrete catwalk to the parking lot. There was frost on the grass and the bushes were coated in a thin wax of ice.

Nothing was open, she realized, there would be nothing for her to do but wander through the suburbs. It was still dark and the sun would not come up for almost two hours. She wanted to explore the hotel but the lobby door was locked, and the water in the pool was flat and unmoving.

When Ben woke up later and saw she was gone he was worried and called her on her cell phone. This woke Fermi, who sat up on the edge of his bed and stared at his feet,