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

there be? There was no profit to be had by believing in ghosts and as far as the health of the ghosts themselves went, Oppenheimer, Szilard and arguably Fermi all needed to be seen and acknowledged by more people than her, alone she was not sufficient, alone she was a crazy woman, in fact she should be grateful to Larry for making her look sane. Sleeping with his mouth open he was an overgrown child with childish enthusiasms, and she should be fond of him, as she was fond of them all.

He could not be behind the warning. No: it was simple.

All the way from New Mexico they had been followed.

She went back to bed then, Ben murmuring in his sleep and rolling over toward her.

Far away, as though it had never happened, was his past before this, unchanging, a silver place. It gleamed like pavement after rain.

He had been dreaming again of his everyday life.

When she got up in the morning, mouth and eyes dry, it was because there was a haze of pot smoke in the air. She came out of her room to see Larry fishing around in a drawer and then handing a wad of bills to Szilard. Tamika sat up naked on the futon, sheets bunched around her waist, apparently unaware of the resulting discomfort. Oppenheimer stood near the door, behind Szilard, consciously turning his glance away from her breasts, and Ann thought of Keiko doing the same when Ben came out of the bathroom, of the aversion of eyes everywhere. Between people ran lines of eagerness and furtiveness that were clear and strong and sprung with tension.

Only Szilard didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. He never seemed to pay attention to nudity. Szilard seemed completely asexual, as though he actually possessed no sexual urges. Szilard was like a prepubescent boy who never reached reproductive maturity. It was impossible to envision him in sexual ecstasy. No wonder he had warned a girlfriend once that he was not breeding stock. She remembered it clearly from his biography. “I am a worker bee, not a drone.”

—What are you up to? she asked Oppenheimer, as Ben came into the room behind her in boxer shorts, rubbing his eyes.

—We’re just in and out, we came to get funding for breakfast, he said. —We’re trying to decide what comes next.

—Engaged in high-level talks, said Szilard, and shoved Larry’s money into his pocket.

The term referred to any talks involving him.

—Just tell me, before you go out, I mean should I be making train reservations again? Do you still want to go to Nagasaki?

—Nagasaki? said Szilard distractedly. —No need for that. Right Oppie?

—No need for Nagasaki, no, said Oppenheimer, and smiled at Ann, almost in apology. —Hiroshima was enough.

—So —what? Are we going to fly home, then?

—We’re discussing it, said Szilard brusquely. —We’ll get back to you soon.

After he shut the door behind them, Larry rolled a joint. Tamika yawned widely and Ben put his arms around Ann and whispered into her ear, —Leo’s got a new attitude, doesn’t he.

She heard Szilard’s patronizing tone for seconds after he had left the room, and felt like an unpaid servant.

—But to say that pain is what produces us isn’t to dismiss joy, contentment, or pleasure, I don’t think, she said to Oppenheimer that night, when the two of them were alone in the living room. They had been talking about the museum, and Oppenheimer’s guilt. He claimed it would never end.

—No, he said. —All of those are the products of suffering.

—They’re what comes after it. They’re either relief from it or a reward for it. Don’t you think?

He nodded absently.

—What’s wrong with happiness is that people think it’s a guarantee. They hold it up like it’s a promise of joy forever. You know, like you can have it down—as though once you have it it’s yours forever. Like it’s a house or a car.

—It was not like that when I was alive, said Oppenheimer slowly. —Since then the sense of entitlement has been growing. Entitlement is in the air.

A girl who was eight years old when Hiroshima was bombed later said: “I escaped from the city by walking over many dead bodies. There were people with severe burns or people grabbing my legs asking for water, and I escaped by deserting these people just because I wanted to live. I ran away from those people who were held under some objects and were asking for my assistance but I deserted them without giving even a lift to help them out. My life has been miserable since then. I have been ill and unable to succeed in anything I try.”

You won’t believe what day it is today, said Larry.

—It’s someone’s special day, said Tamika coyly.

—Let us in on it, said Ben. —Please, I’m begging you.

His resentment was making him bitter. The bitter skin alone, he knew, the sour rind of his impatience could reduce him before his wife, but he could not help it. It had snuck up on him. Before this kindness had come easily to him and now he tried and failed to be generous, and even external generosity, that is the appearance of generosity, was hard to pull off sometimes, more and more often.

He did not want to be outside her belief, her fundamental opinion, but he could not help it and at the same time he could not stand to be excluded. He wanted to be in the believers’ club, a member in good standing. He wished her credulousness was open to him, that he did not think, finally, that this was all just a load of bullshit.

—Guess! urged Tamika.

—No thanks, said Ben, struggling to be gentle. —Just tell me, OK?

—Oppie! she squealed. —It’s his birthday!

—April 22nd, said Larry solemnly. —1904.

—So that would make him, what, a century old if he’s a day, said Ben. —And he looks so young!

—I don’t know that he actually celebrates his birthday, said Ann to Larry. —It’s not really his style.

—Especially since