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

and brittle, was to see them through a long lens of time. It brought tears to his eyes and often he would stand in front of a photograph for many minutes, not speaking to his companions, to allow the tears to be quietly reabsorbed.

Civil servants milled through the dim wooden rooms behind him in an apparent trance of disinterest.

—Look, there’s you, whispered Ann once, close beside him. She pointed to a discolored photo of him with Groves. —That’s a famous one. It’s in all the history books.

—I have seen it there, he said slowly, nodding.

—So for you that was taken just, what? Five, six weeks ago now?

—You’re telling me this is where we made history? asked Fermi, on her other side. He was incredulous. — This is what they call a National Historic Landmark? This is a monument?

—The Army doesn’t have a huge curatorial staff, if I remember correctly, said Oppenheimer drily.

—In Italy we know how to do monuments, said Fermi.

—And dictators, said Szilard.

When they finally emerged from the dark into the bright blankness of the desert Oppenheimer could see the gray-striped Oscura mountains low on the horizon, beyond a low stone wall and a huddle of derelict stone buildings. A civil servant beside them on the porch, wearing a nametag that said DARYL and eating a chocolate bar, cocked an eyebrow at him.

He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, clearly bucking the trend toward cowboy attire.

—Don’t see a nametag, he said to Oppenheimer out of the side of his mouth. You with the group?

—No, said Oppenheimer. —We came independently.

—He looks just like Robert Oppenheimer! Don’t you think? squeaked Peaches, emerging from the cabin behind them.

—Huh, said the civil servant, squinting at him and then turning to her with a grin. —Really? I dunno. I wasn’t really paying attention to the history lesson. Sorry, teach.

This was said in a flirtatious and puerile jeer that Oppenheimer found highly repulsive. Peaches giggled.

On his other side another civil servant confided in a colleague: —The DOD has already approved the use of tactical nukes in the War on Terrorism. You hear that?

—Excuse me? said Szilard, moving in close.

—Sorry, have we met? asked the civil servant.

—No. Did you say “approved the use of tactical nukes”? urged Szilard.

—Oh, just a formality, he said.

—You see? whispered Szilard insistently into Oppenheimer’s ear. —You see? From the horse’s mouth. Am I crying wolf now?

—OK gang! said Keri brightly, and clapped her hands. —We’re off to see the original Ground Zero!

The original Ground Zero was nothing but a low, level field on which grasses and wildflowers grew. Once the Trinity bomb had been dropped there from its hundred-foot tower and exploded. But now nothing remained of the tower or the bomb, only dirt and weeds.

There were no yucca plants and this alone distinguished Trinity from the fields nearby, the fields beyond the so-called crater and its chain-link fence. In the center of the field towered a plain, dark obelisk with a date printed on it and the phrase TRINITY SITE: WHERE THE WORLD’S FIRST NUCLEAR DEVICE WAS EXPLODED. Around its base flowers sprouted, the pale orange bells of globe mallow and some small yellow and purple blooms, common but so nondescript that Ann had never bothered to learn their names. Ben would know.

The dent of the crater the bomb had made was barely perceptible. It was less a crater than the outline of a circle, so faint it bordered on the imaginary.

—After all, you have to remember, said Keri. —This bomb was really just a baby at twenty kilotons.

Peaches was carrying a handheld Geiger counter and showing the civil servants how little radiation remained as the counter clicked above dry clumps of grass.

Oppenheimer peered over her shoulder, intrigued.

—Follow me, said Keri to the group, —if you’d like to see the Trinitite.

Under an odd, padlocked shelter at the end of the fenced-in field there was soil, and in the soil—which Keri showed them by unlocking and opening a hatch—there were clumps of Trinitite, the fused, greenish substance the bomb’s explosion had left crusting the ground. She picked it up and held it in the palm of her hand, crumbling it with her thumb. Most of the Trinitite had been cleaned up decades before when it was still radioactive, trucked out by the Army and deposited in what Keri told them was an unknown location.

—Look at the field of the blast, said Fermi a little sadly, as they were shepherded past the chain-link fence toward the dirt parking lot again. —It’s hardly changed a bit.

We say we’re looking for happiness but in fact we’re just waiting to be found by it, thought Ann as they walked away, found by chance as the blast found the field. She wondered if she was a kid hiding behind a tree exhilarated, preparing to leap out with an expression of glee, who never realizes no one is looking for her.

Driving back toward Stallion Gate Keri popped a tape into the minivan’s stereo and Kenny Rogers sang “Ruby, don’t take your love to town.”

—And before you leave the area, said Peaches, —you should stop in the diner right up the road and sample their green chili burgers. I mean those things are amazing.

—We saw the sign for them on our way in, said Ann.

—You won’t get a better green chili burger anywhere in the world, said Keri. —That’s a promise.

She dropped them off at the entrance, where they stretched their legs, waited for Oppenheimer to smoke a cigarette and then got into the Toyota and drove north. Oppenheimer and Fermi lapsed into silence again while Szilard talked, and turning out onto the main road again Ann did not see the black Hum-V draw in behind them till it rammed into their rear bumper.

—Dio! said Fermi, as the car jolted.

—What the hell! said Szilard.

Ann flicked on her turn signal and began to pull onto the shoulder, but as she slowed down the Hum-V rammed them again.

—He’s doing it on purpose! cried Szilard. —Speed up! Speed up!

Ann veered off the