Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

front of them, remembering a small baby brother. He had never had a brother and in the dream the brother was a soft and injured infant, his face imploring.

Elbowing his way out of the closet-sized bathroom he glanced over Ann, lying down on the sleeping mat with her foot in the awkward bandage, to Larry and Tamika who were meditating cross-legged on their tatamis to a song that went The first time I saw you, I loved you, I loved you. He wished he could have their ease in the world, their cheerful unconcern.

He had failed his wife by forgetting to notice her. She had sunk into the background while he ground his teeth in resentment. It had been a close call and both of them were lucky, true; but despite their narrow escape guilt nagged at him.

While they all fell asleep together inside the bus sympathy was in the air like warmth, bringing a humility that Ann did not remember from the rest of her life. People were sorry for her not because of her injury, which was minor, but because they suspected her of needing. She needed, they felt, to draw the scientists’ attention, and her tactics were desperate.

But it was not as bad as she had thought it would be living in a well of pity. In fact it had a bracing quality. They felt sorry for her because they too needed, and they too could be desperate. She always dismissed the urge toward pity because it seemed condescending: but now she saw it for what it was, the most immediate and close of contacts.

The touch of it almost hurt.

As the convoy traveled east unruly crowds pressed in; whenever the bus had to stop for gas or groceries the scientists stepped out the door and were swamped. People pushed in close to them, demanding responses and proclaiming their loyalty. They wanted to give or receive: they wanted to be involved. But there were hundreds of them.

Szilard was less disturbed by the crowds than Oppenheimer and Fermi because he cut off questions that did not interest him. Many of his followers could not pronounce his last name and merely called him “Dr. Leo.” When they followed him around, badgering him with questions, he merely flapped a hand over his shoulder impatiently to dismiss them. He did not seem to feel any adverse effects from the pressure but Oppenheimer and Fermi resorted to evasive tactics. When Oppenheimer stepped out to smoke a cigarette Dory walked two steps in front of him and brandished her camcorder, barking out —Please respect Dr. Oppenheimer’s personal space!

No one paid attention and people were all over Oppenheimer, clamoring.

Fermi told Ben that when the mob crushed in he felt he could not breathe, that panic was raising his heart rate and he was a candidate for a cardiac event. He took to locking the bus as soon as they pulled over to camp for the night, and at regular intervals he would feel for his pulse on his wrist, timing it.

But Fermi was gaining in popularity, surpassing Szilard through sheer mystique. The crowds seemed to understand that he did not like to converse and his silence became the object of fetishists. —Dr. Fermi! Dr. Fermi! Can I just get my picture taken with you for my web site? Dr. Fermi. Can you just autograph my shirt here?

His silence gave him added value.

Ann saw how men approached Oppenheimer, their bodies braced and receptive at once. They seemed to admire him even more than women did, the command and modesty of his presence. She watched them seek his approval with a needy and often misplaced pride, both the old and the young. —Oppie, this is my girlfriend Jojo? She’s got a mushroom cloud tattoo on her butt.

Ann felt the urgency of the crowds and the trespass of them when they pressed too close. She felt the chaos of their nearness, how it panicked Fermi. People were coming to her all the time to petition for time with the scientists, pumping her for information and handing over messages for Oppenheimer or Szilard or items of clothing and pieces of paper for Fermi’s signature. Fermi made it clear that he did not give autographs but hope seemed to linger that he would reverse his policy.

The followers allowed no space and submitted to no rules. Near a town called Vaughn a bespectacled girl in a wet T-shirt flung herself at Fermi while he was drinking his espresso, saying she wanted to “feel his magic.” Fermi was horrified at the sight of her large, soaking breasts through the cream-colored cotton emblazoned with NO NUKES NOW. She was only fourteen, he told Ben.

Later Ben told it to Ann, how he had watched the girl throw her arms around Fermi, eyes squeezed shut, smiling. He wondered if she was retarded, her childish face was so blissful and free of worry. She had been swimming in a motel pool near where they were parked and had come running across the street when she recognized them. He had seen her thin arms encircle and clutch and her breasts balloon and squash against Fermi’s shirtfront, soaking the fabric.

It made him feel paternal, Fermi had told him, but also deeply embarrassed.

—Hey Ben? I really need to talk to you, said Leslie one night at a campsite outside Roswell.

Larry had insisted on making a side trip. Beyond their own camp sprawled other camps, teeming with people captivated by aliens. Ann had walked away with Oppenheimer to visit a vanload of Tibetan Buddhists.

—Oh? said Ben. He was sitting on a white plastic chair, reading a day-old newspaper under a hanging halogen lantern.

—Can I sit down?

—Sure.

He folded his paper with reluctance and leaned over to pull off the lid of the styrofoam cooler. When he looked up he saw that Leslie was wearing a purple scarf around her head and a pair of bone earrings, which he recognized as Ashlee’s work, dangled from her ears.

He took out a beer bottle