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

he wore a black belt stuffed with gear over the green uniform.

—So can I go in? Tell them it’s Ann.

The rifleman lifted a cell phone and speed-dialed. Ann heard a faint answering ring on the inside of the tent.

—Are you kidding? You’re calling someone who’s ten feet away?

—Got an Ann here wants entry, he said into the phone. —Caucasian female, light brown—yes sir.

He pocketed his phone and nodded sharply at her and she went between the two of them into the shade of the tent, where the scientists and Bradley and two other men were clustered at the end of the long table.

—But how will we handle all of them? asked Szilard.

—Hello, Ann, said Oppenheimer.

—What’s with the guys with the guns? she asked Bradley. She sounded belligerent and she liked it.

—We have been forced to call in some recruits. For protection.

—They don’t want to be at the mercy of the government, said Szilard, and looked at Bradley. —Right?

—Not exactly. Parts of the government are friendly. We have friends there. But in the broader establishment we have powerful enemies.

—Like who? asked Szilard. —The Jews?

—Come sit by me, said Oppenheimer to Ann, and patted a folding chair beside him.

She moved over toward him and stood. She was reluctant to sit.

—Whatever, went on Szilard impatiently. —We’re not happy that you’re playing with guns. But the matter at hand is this potential influx of new bodies.

—Believe me, we know how to handle it, said Bradley. —I assure you.

—The Baptist Collective is highly organized, said a thin man wearing thick-rimmed glasses. —We’re used to dealing in volume.

—Now if you’ll excuse me, said Bradley, —I have to make this call now, and he lifted his cell phone with his good hand. —I got organizing to do.

Fermi was in art therapy.

—Would you like to go visit him?

—Yes I would, said Ben.

—Follow me.

They walked quickly along the sleek halls hung with muted landscapes and medieval pastures. All he could hear was her heels clicking and somewhere a piano.

—Is there anyone who can tell me if there’s a diagnosis?

—You’ll have to speak to his doctor when he gets in tomorrow, said the nurse, —since you’re not family. But I think what you’ll hear is, it’s too early for anything definitive. He’s only had two full sessions.

The art therapy room was vast and flooded with gray daylight, with one whole wall a window. In the distant sky clouds were massing, silver and heavy over a land of trees and far-off office buildings. It was going to rain.

He could see no one. Easels and chairs were grouped around a platform but there were no painters behind the easels and no models on the platform. It smelled of turpentine.

—Where is he?

—He stays in the darkroom mostly. It’s the door at the end, you can’t miss it. Two doors in a row.

He knocked on the inner door so that Fermi would not be startled. Inside was red and black and his eyes adjusted slowly.

—Enrico?

The darkroom was simple and old-fashioned, with enlargers hunkered down on a counter against a wall and three shallow plastic basins of chemicals on a waist-high plywood table. Fermi stood at one of these, dunking a print in the liquid with a pair of tongs.

—Enrico, it’s Ben. You can probably see me better than I can see you.

Fermi said nothing, only lifted the print out of the chemical bath and clipped it onto a line.

—You’ve already had time to take pictures?

He moved closer to look at it, but the paper was blank.

—It’s blank, he said flatly.

—So, said Fermi, and moved to the first basin. Ben leaned over it too, and was relieved to see an image forming.

—Is it the lake outside your window?

—It’s them, said Fermi. —But they’re small.

Ben watched the reeds by the lake grow into contrast, their fine, sharp lines darker and darker. The picture was black-and-white and the lake itself grew black against the light sky.

—I don’t see them, said Ben slowly. —Can you show them to me?

Fermi ignored him at first so he repeated the request.

—Here, said Fermi, jabbing with a forefinger. —And there and there and there.

He seemed to be identifying invisible points above the lake, where there was nothing.

—I’m trying to see, said Ben, leaning in close. He could detect no marks on the paper’s porous surface, no texture but whiteness.

—They’re flying south for the winter, said Fermi.

—Oh! Is it—the whooping cranes?

Fermi stepped back suddenly, as though slapped.

—You know them?

—You wrote it down, said Ben. —Remember?

Fermi looked at him for a long time and then stooped down to pick the print out of the developer with his tongs.

—So are you liking it here?

—I can show you the pond.

They left the darkroom and walked through the studio. Fermi led Ben down the hall to a stairwell but once they were going down the stairs he changed his mind and turned around, and they were going upstairs again. Ben followed without questioning until they came to a door marked FIRE EXIT EMERGENCY ONLY.

—But we can’t go out this exit, Enrico.

—Don’t worry, said Fermi, and pushed on the bar. The door opened easily and no alarm sounded.

The roof was a garden, planters of herbs and flowers in individual plots with names on them.

—Do they let you have your own garden? he asked, pleased.

—They will if I ask them, said Fermi, and shrugged.

He walked through the tables of basil and rosemary toward the edge of the roof. This made Ben nervous so he stayed close.

—That’s where we are going, said Fermi, and pointed down at the lake. On the surface large white birds sat and appeared to drift.

—It’s beautiful up here, he said gently.

Fermi was standing with his arms crossed on his chest, scanning the sky. Ben looked up also and saw the clouds were low.

—We should probably go now if we’re going, he said. —Before the rain begins.

The tent was like a white city, swooping up to a pinnacle. All of them stood beside their parked car on the shoulder of the highway staring at it.

—I don’t