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

device at Lop Nur, that number dropped to a mere thirty thousand and continued to descend until it reached about ten thousand stockpiled weapons in 2003.

The Soviet Union’s stockpile did not peak until 1986, when it reached over forty thousand.

In Philadelphia they made camp beside the river in the sprawling parking lots of empty warehouses, the towering and rusted ghosts of refineries hulking over them. Ann thought silence must have reigned there before the followers started pulling in, filling the lots with the noise of their engines and brakes and radios and voices.

Sheila had called on the cell phone and requested an audience with the scientists, so they parked the car beside the bus, inside the perimeter fence, in a space that had been left clear for them. Ann went in to talk to Szilard with Ben trailing her.

He was sitting hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, brow furrowed, glasses perched on the end of his nose.

—What do you think about all the religious slogans? asked Ben.

—I have more important things to think about, said Szilard, and spun the laptop to face them. A news headline ran Dead A-Bomb Physicists to Appear on Leno.

—You’re going on Leno? asked Ben in amazement.

—Oppenheimer’s agent booked it for him.

—Oppenheimer has an agent? asked Ann. —First I’ve heard about that. Where is he?

—New York, of course, said Szilard. —But with an L.A. office.

—No, I mean Robert.

—Check with Glen.

They found Big Glen in a tent behind the bus, talking to Bradley. The prosthetic arm had been removed and sat on a folding table between them.

—Glen, quick question—

—I’ll talk to you in a minute, said Glen severely, and turned back to Bradley.

When Bradley finally picked up his arm and left Glen watched him go and shook his head.

—What do they want now? asked Ann.

—They want a press conference.

Oppenheimer had become more and more passive. He was not distressed but content.

—I have a feeling these days of being carried, he said to Ann as they walked by the river. —I’m lying on my back being carried along.

Szilard was waiting impatiently near the reflecting pool in Rittenhouse Square when they got there. He grabbed Oppenheimer by the shirtsleeve and pulled him aside. Ann could hear his stage-whisper as they retreated: —They insisted. They had the nerve to claim that while we are “still management,” they are the leadership.

She did not want to be part of the press conference so she took Ben’s hand and guided him to a nearby fountain where they could sit down. The followers had not been alerted to the occasion except for the Christian leaders, who huddled together with notes and cordless microphones.

Then the network news vans arrived and before Szilard could speak Bradley had called the press to attention and with the other leaders arrayed behind him had begun to pace back and forth talking about the Second Coming. Feedback crackled.

Ann and Ben were sitting too far away to hear every word, but beside her Ben shook his head. She had a feeling of detachment from everything, of something lost and dispersed and replaced by the strange.

But they were shaded and comfortable where they sat, and the trees were tall and broad and old.

—What are these? she asked him idly.

—There’s maples, of course, and oaks, and those are locusts. That one there is a plane tree, said Ben, pointing.

Bradley launched into a passage from the Book of Revelation and Ann looked at the reporters, expecting them to turn away. Instead they watched him with unchanging faces, their cameras rolling. Behind Bradley the three scientists stood in their Sunday best, proper in suits and ties, Oppenheimer cutting his usual old-fashioned and dignified figure in the porkpie hat. Their hands were clasped in front of them, except for Szilard who was rifling through a sheaf of papers.

The other two waited with patient expressions, as though they were not consciously present but dreaming where they stood.

Paper snagged on her leg. Sheets of it were fluttering across the square, caught by the breeze. Szilard had passed out press packets full of documents and reporters had dropped them.

—… What we say, said Bradley, —what Scripture says, that now is the time for the armies of light, for the lifting up to the final days. We will build this army greater and greater. All Christians everywhere should join us, and the unsaved too. This is a call to arms: join our quest for peace and salvation in the risen Jesus Christ Our Lord!

—Amen, chorused the Christian leaders behind him, nodding.

Ann saw a reporter near her mouth the word Amen silently, as though it was a reflex.

Bradley relinquished the microphone to Szilard, who snatched it from him with a flick of his wrist.

—We welcome volunteers and advocates of all kinds, he said through gritted teeth. —All that you have to believe in is peace. And now to the substance of this press conference. You have in your hands the proof that Dr. Enrico Fermi, standing here to my right, is who he claims to be and none other. This has been rigorously verified and attested to by a panoply of DNA experts and neutral third-party observers who monitored the testing process, including the chain of custody of all DNA samples during transportation and laboratory guardianship …

The reporters looked bored, moving their feet restlessly and making adjustments to their cameras and microphones.

—Look at Fermi, whispered Ben, and she stood up and leaned around the shoulder of a reporter for a better view.

Beside Szilard Fermi was turning round and round where he stood, his eyes wide, his arms raised slightly from his sides.

—… at that time, said Szilard, —we will press for recognition of our special status by the president and Congress—

—What the hell? whispered Ben.

Reporters were craning their necks too, squinting to try to see what Fermi was doing. When Oppenheimer noticed Fermi’s movement he leaned behind Szilard to whisper something to Fermi, but Fermi shook his head and kept turning.

—Something’s wrong with him, said Ben. —Something is wrong.