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

to Oppenheimer, who in his large, straight-backed chair presided regally over all of them. Ben waited for Oppenheimer to say something, make a self-deprecating gesture, a witty, light dismissal in his usual style. But Oppenheimer was distracted, smoking and gazing past them, paying little attention to anyone but Szilard, who chose that moment to yell angrily into the innocent cell phone —Damn it! I want the body exhumed!

—Leo, said Oppenheimer, when Szilard had stabbed at the END CALL button several times and handed the cell phone back to Larry, —we need to discuss your manners.

The guest bedrooms in Larry’s father’s apartment were well-appointed. Each had its own bathroom and jacuzzi with electronic controls, and Ann and Ben sat in one of these, water jetting around them, before they went to bed. On the wall hung a print of a painted scroll depicting a fat, angry demon with bulging eyes.

—So Larry’s a fan, I guess, said Ben.

—He is, said Ann, and she sounded distracted and confused, almost puzzled by the evidence that people other than she could be convinced of the scientists’ legitimacy.

Ben thought: She’s lost her monopoly.

—Almost an acolyte, you might say, said Ben, pressing home his advantage.

—I don’t know how deep it goes, though, said Ann uncertainly. —I mean I like him and he’s been good to us, he’s a really nice guy, but I wonder if he’s—I think maybe the scientists are just his Movie of the Week, you know?

—You mean because he’s a stoner he doesn’t really have opinions, said Ben, smiling.

—Of course I didn’t mean that, said Ann, and lapsed into silence, staring at the foaming water.

Ben put his hand on her knee, worried he had been callous, staring at the damp hair clinging to her wet cheeks, the flush of heat in the skin beneath her eyes.

—You may be right, he said, —this may be just entertainment for him. He probably doesn’t take it as seriously as you do. I mean who does, right?

Faint smile at that but he was still feeling she needed more, reassurance or comfort, he wasn’t sure which.

—Tomorrow we’ll ask them if they still want to go to Nagasaki, he said, since planning could sometimes distract her from current events.

—OK, she said, but she was still baffled.

—Listen, he said softly, —it’s going to be OK. It’ll be fine. We can always use a friend. Right?

—Of course, she said, and let him squeeze her hand. —But how about the men who threatened Fermi?

—I don’t know, he said.

He had been thinking about this and had come up with nothing.

—What if they really do something?

—What I’m hoping, he said, wiping a soap sud gently from the curve of her ear, —is that they were people Szilard pissed off just by being himself.

—Here in Japan?

—Szilard can piss people off anywhere.

She was not mollified by this, staring straight past him and nodding distantly.

—Who knows what he’s been doing while our backs were turned? You know Leo. He’s annoying.

She kept nodding, but he knew she was not listening to him.

She got up when it was still dark and early enough to feel like night and crept through the apartment to knock on Oppenheimer’s door.

Larry had put him in the master bedroom, where he usually slept himself, which featured a four-poster canopy bed, a gilt-edged mirror, and a massive wood cabinet containing a big-screen television. The door was cracked a few inches and after she knocked lightly and got no answer she went in. She found the sheets and blanket rumpled on the bed, the shallow depression left by Oppenheimer’s long, thin body, and the room empty of all but the new suit Larry had bought him, hanging in the open closet. On the floor of the closet were his old shoes, and picking one up, hooking a finger on the worn leather where it had blistered his heel, she remembered a time before she knew him, in her own bedroom, looking at shoes, looking at clotheshangers: what was it? Ben in the next room, shaving, and the world about to turn liquid.

It was before she and Fermi had met Oppenheimer, before she talked to him, but after she saw him in the bar and heard them speak, faces reflected in the warped mirror where she stared at them, the air almost lit around her, before she knew.

The days after Eugene shot himself had been delicate with perception of minute things. Details had been gilded, brought out from their backgrounds, each of them like an adoration of the whole thing. She had forgotten but even walking down the street those mornings, walking in a straight line, she had stopped and hesitated, waiting, infused with sensation and willingness. The parts of the world had been arresting. Something had stopped her and made her look at them.

She left the room, stepping carefully, not to wake the others, not to be heard by Ben, through the living room where Larry and Tamika slept on a wafer-thin futon on the floor, Larry snoring with his arms flung wide, Tamika nestled into his side in the fetal position. Her multicolored hair trailed onto the tatami. There was a silk sheet pulled over both of them, which Larry held up to his chin, and beside the futon their clothes were crumpled, an orange and black sarong covered in primitive shapes of fish, olive-green army pants with multiple pockets.

Ann thought how young they looked as they slept, how despite the fact that Larry was probably pushing forty he had the aspect of a man in his twenties, not because he surfed and smoked pot but because he was innocent, there was something innocent about him, guileless, as though he was trying to impress no one.

She felt old by comparison just because she was more reserved. Reservation was an element of adulthood, embarrassment with forethought.

Larry had offered up all four of his private bedrooms to his guests and volunteered to sleep on the floor. She couldn’t suspect him of having an ulterior motive: what motive could